Today, the Avourienne crew found out about Archer's talent.

It started early in the morning, right after the bridge crew went out on the boats to patch up the ship. While everyone was lazing around in the sun, Silta dragged Tanner over to the beach for training. It was just them at first—him throwing weak punches and her correcting them. It took a mere hour for the rest of the crew to get bored and wander over to watch. Eventually, they'd taken over the training session, starting hand-to-hand matches with each other, Silta mediating and offering insults disguised as advice.

When Rusher challenged him, Archer didn't make some excuse or back down like Farley told him to. He accepted, got off his comfortable spot on the sand, and had the navigator beat in less than two minutes.

Nelson was next, then Jackson. On and on, one after the other. They were no match for him on any day, but today especially. Today, Silta was watching, pretty eyes encoding his every move, forming a profile. She was the only one who hadn't fought anyone yet, and that didn't seem right to him, considering her arrogance.

The clear morning bought sobriety and a sharp mind, but the only emotion it could conjure up was anger. Resentment of what Bardarian accused him of, anger about that pistol to his head, and frustration that he'd been roped into her Siren scheme like everyone else.

He didn't realize he'd held Denver on a choke a few seconds after he tapped. He let go immediately, and his friend rolled away, coughing. He looked over at Archer, getting to his knees.

There was clapping from the watching crew—another win for their minnow—but it wasn't just cheerful or respective, it was wary, too. They only liked the unknown and the unpredictable to a certain extent.

Archer wasn't necessarily better in all aspects; he had the advantage of Farley's knowledge. He knew their weaknesses before ever throwing a punch: Nelson was fast, but his vestibular sense was all off. Rusher was cocky and overconfident. Courtley was too big and too slow. The crew of the Avourienne excelled in mass fights, with weapons, not intimate matches. To win these, someone had to understand the body and its intricacies.

It bothered him greatly that he'd been trained first and foremost in hand-to-hand, for he knew exactly who he'd been primed to take on. Why waste his skill on these crew members when the real challenge was only a few paces away?

Helping Denver up, Archer glanced at Silta. "You next." He kept his face still, kept the frustration controlled and wrapped up.

She glanced up. "Anger looks good on you, love," she said, ever the observant woman. He'd previously assumed flirtation to be a natural part of her personality, but after last night, he wasn't sure if it was harmless or some kind of sick bait.

A few excited whispers made it clear that the crew wanted the fight. They'd only seen Archer win a few matches, but they were as desperate to see her take a loss as he was to win.

He kept calm as he spoke, voice unbothered, "You and me."

"Tell you what, love," she said, spinning a knife, "have a go at Britter. Beat him in two minutes, and you can have me."

Liam Britter, one year Silta's senior but with a whole life of combat under his belt. Farley's extensive profile classified him as either the second or third best on the Avourienne, depending on Bardarian's combat skill, which was widely unknown—why be the one to throw a punch if you had charisma and a champion lover to do it for you? In any case, the strategist was one of the best in the sea, wickedly fast and explosive. All Archer had to do was catch him in a break between those more powerful movements.

Britter laughed as he got to his feet. "Two minutes," he repeated. "Hell of a faith you've got in me."

"Humour me," Silta said.

Britter gave Archer a lopsided smile. Always friendly, always kind. As if the friendly boy hadn't lit living people on fire.

As the crew gathered for another fight, Lyra came over from the trees. He'd fought her earlier, and it'd been an easy win. As tactile as women could be, men were almost always stronger, which usually made for a win. Less hits, more force.

"Britter and Kingsley?" Lyra said. "This'll be close."

Silta tilted her head, and Archer realized from her amused expression that she didn't think it would be close at all. That was a mistake on her part; her confidence in him was all the encouragement he needed to know he could win this.

Silta started the match, and Archer waited for Britter to make his move. Stick to the plan.

The strategist burst forward just like Farley said he would, hitting him hard over the jaw. It was painful, but it was necessary. The moment Britter's arm was extended, Archer lunged forward quickly, turning into him and hooking his leg. That brought them both down, with Archer on top. Britter was pinned in less than forty seconds.

The crew blinked, glancing around. Archer was the best of them at this, and that made them uneasy. Still, they didn't seem to mind being cautious of the new guy if it meant Silta could be beaten.

Archer let go of Britter and spit the sand out of his mouth, tasteless and sharp. He met Silta's unbothered gaze. "You and me," he repeated.

She handed the knife in her hands to whoever was beside her. "You and me," she repeated. She rolled her neck once, flexed her fingers. "I'll give you five minutes to recover."

Archer shook his head. "I don't need it."

"Let's play fair, love," she told him. "Makes for no excuses." She took up a spot on the sand, reaching out to touch the sand beyond her feet in a rather impressive display of flexibility.

Archer paused, trying to think carefully. Flexibility was a dangerous thing in close matches; it turned a simple fight into something out of a circus performance. He'd seen her with the contact in port; she'd had her leg on his shoulders—or when she was flipping from the roofs in Port Marcel. She had to be kept on the ground, where Archer was in control with strength.

"Before you fight somebody, you pick out their strengths and weakness. If you don't have time, you do it while you fight," Silta was telling them.

He knew all her instructions already. She'd taught them to Farley, and he'd taught them to Archer. Not wanting to draw any more attention to that, he played along.

"Strengths," he said, referring to her, "fast, flexible, experienced."

"Weaknesses?" she prompted.

Archer shrugged. He couldn't think of any. He hadn't exactly seen her fight all that much, and never in a controlled environment like this.

She smiled, then pointed to Archer, making a performance of her dissection. "Strengths." She looked him over, as though she hadn't picked these out the mere moment she'd met him. "Looks strong, maybe. Could be pretty agile. Weaknesses," she continued, "anger clouding judgment." She angled her chin towards him, lowering her voice, "Has a thing for my eyes, I think."

Archer resisted the urge to fidget with his fingers. She knew about that conversation last night, was using it to draw out his frustration again.

"It's a mental game, Kingsley," she said, catching his gaze. "I don't always win because I'm physically better, I win because I'm smarter." The tone of her voice was balancing on a tightrope between simple guidance and something deeper. "Clear your emotions, Minnow, if you'd like to learn something."

He knew that wasn't possible for him. He was an emotional person; he cared about the people he loved and felt anger toward the ones that hurt him. He was a human being, not a mindless soldier. He thought that made him better, that his anger was what gave him a chance.

The crew leaned forward as Britter started the match. They were silent, waiting.

She's fast, Kingsley, Farley told him. She's very fast, remember Kingsley, she's fast. It was told to him a thousand times, over and over, drilled into his head, and yet the moment the match was started, Silta had him tripped and his face to the sand before he could take one breath. Fast did not do her justice.

He pushed off the ground with all his strength, overestimating her weight and losing his footing, falling again.

She rolled effortlessly back to a standing position, precise and calculated like the dock spiders on the Avourienne. She circled him as he got to his feet, shaking the sand from her hands. She gave him a pretty smile.

Archer watched her, trying to focus. She always attacked first, so he decided to pull offence. She had to have a weakness. He darted forward, but she predicted the move and ducked out of the way, tripping his legs.

His head buzzed with anger so loud it deafened him. This was demoralizing and above all, embarrassing. Here he was, thinking he could hold up against her when he couldn't even make a move. He lunged toward her, and again she redirected him.

"So you're not that good, Kingsley," she said calmly. "Not as good as you thought. That's a hard hit to take." She took a step to the side. "You could be very good—if you hadn't been trained all wrong. And to be completely honest with you, Minnow, it gets a little boring up here with all my talent. Would you like to be trained right, love?"

Archer rolled his shoulders, his anger unparalleled. That condescending, unbothered tone came to her so easily.

"You're looking for weaknesses in my play, which is the right thing to do," she began, glancing at him as she circled. "The problem is that you're looking for mental weaknesses—a misjudged distance or a hasty decision. To put it simply, love, I'm smarter than you. You won't beat me that way.

"But if you look at the things I don't control with my mind, you might have more luck," she said, still watching him carefully. "My body is structured to thrive in a place with higher pressure—my muscle is denser, my bones are more resilient, my body is more efficient. Still, I'm not built to be an athlete on land, not like you."

Archer couldn't think of where she was going, and he honestly couldn't care less. He just wanted to hit something, make her pay.

"Look at me, Kingsley," she snapped, and that caught his attention. "Focus. I'm half Siren. I'm suited to life underwater. What's so different about the ocean? Think of the science, Kingsley."

Archer searched her gaze. His mind spun. "Gravity," he said. "Friction."

"Good. Life is slower underwater. Which means?"

Archer felt it come to him. "Reaction time," he said. "You have a slow reaction time."

She glanced back at him. "Yes. But I've perfected that weakness—found a way to eradicate it in a fight. So what makes you any different?"

Archer blinked. He didn't know.

She sighed. "Think of marbles, Kingsley. Foam balls and knives. Your reaction time is fast," she said. "Uniquely fast."

It clicked. All this time, Farley had been training Archer in the way Silta had trained herself. Archer had been trained to suppress a strength he never even had a chance to know he possessed.

"My strength is your weakness," Archer said finally.

She grinned. That was why she always attacked first, why she had to play the mind game before anything else—she planned a fight with her mind, always guessing her opponent's moves to avoid having to react to them.

"I'll give you another go, Kingsley," she said, shoulders rolling in preparation.

Archer took a step forward. He had to do something she didn't expect, something she couldn't predict and therefore would be forced to react to.

A fake. That's all he had to do. He had to fake a move. He just had to make it convincing—but how to deceive the undeceivable?

He moved forward again, faking a punch left but executing it right. She didn't fall for it. She spun around, wrapping her hand behind his neck and kneeing him in the face.

He wiped the blood from his nose and caught her under the knee, stumbling back. "Thought that would work," he mumbled, blinking.

"If you're thinking it, Kingsley, so am I," she said.

As she spoke, he whirled around her, hooking her neck into his elbow and pulling her into a headlock. The knee to the face had hurt, but his confused reaction to it was entirely performance. How to deceive the undeceivable? Lead them to believe they've already caught the trick.

"Guess not," he muttered.

Her hands caught his arm, surprised, but she wasn't as easy as the other crew members. She had reflexively tilted her chin down so his arm only tightened harmlessly over her jaw.

"That's good," she breathed, sharp nails biting into his arm. "Not much you can do with this, though, love."

She was right—they were caught in a useless stalemate. She took two steps back, attempting to set him off balance, but he had positioned his legs so that she couldn't.

He cupped her forehead and attempted to pull her chin up. He couldn't do it—she was using the force of his own arm against him. He was so close, so incredibly near to winning this if he could just force her chin up.

She arched her back a little, trying to push him back with her shoulder blades. He felt every lithe tendon and perfectly designed muscle, but it wasn't enough to push him away, and he couldn't pull her close enough to win.

A strand of her hair got caught in Archer's mouth, and for some reason, that irritated him more than anything, but it also gave him an idea.

The rules to the matches had been laid out that morning: no biting, no pulling hair and no purposely snapping any extremities. He thought it was odd at the time, considering they were merciless pirates, but he finally understood the point behind it: They wanted to be the best and to be it fairly. It was that simple.

Archer couldn't win this fairly; she was better. If not for any other reason, simply for experience.

He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled it towards his chest, forcing her head up. She resisted at first, but he didn't let go. He pulled until he was just about sure he'd come away with nothing but her detached locks, and she gave in.

Finally, he caught her neck, came down on her windpipe. He could feel her trachea dig into the soft skin on his arm. But the best part? He felt her panic as she lost her air.

Britter called the foul, but Silta waved him off. Sure, it wouldn't count as a real win, but it would put enough doubt in the minds of her crew that she was second to Archer. Yes, it was dirty, but he'd seen her play that way before.

Lyra stood, followed closely by Rusher, their faces astounded. Britter looked ready to call the match, even just to make sure Silta didn't choke to death before she gave up.

Archer pulled harder. He didn't want a win; he wanted her to tap. He wanted her to have to indicate that he'd won. To get on her knees like she'd made him on that first day, making him beg to kill Jeanne. He was madder than he'd ever been, seeing the world through a cherry-red lens.

He felt the desperate way that her fingernails dug into the skin of his arms. He felt pain stem from her fingers and knew he'd have marks from it. Just when he was sure she'd run out of air, she reached up and laced her fingers around the back of his neck. He'd seen this move, but he'd been so confident in his win that he'd dropped his defence—that was why she'd waited so long to fight back.

She brought a knee up and slammed it into his face, pulling his head down with the full weight of her body. It was enough to knock him off balance and send stars into his vision. He tried to keep hold of her, but he could feel himself falling, so he twisted her under him as they hit the sand.

She took the full weight of Archer as well as herself, arm bent in an unnatural way. She was in full defence now, attempting to break free once he pulled them both back standing; he didn't want to be on the ground with her. He could feel her winning the struggle, so he took the opportunity to give it extra force, tossing her to the sand. Then he stumbled back, touching his forehead where there was sure to be a mark starting.

She landed hard and rolled into the shallow water, both hands firm on the sand. There was a dry cough once she was able to breathe again. She got to one knee, taking ragged breaths. It was surreal to see her that way.

"I didn't think you played so dirty, Kingsley," she called to him, voice hoarse. She spit a mouthful of blood onto the sand as she got to her feet. The water made her hair even darker, bringing out those amber eyes.

She shook her head, retracing her steps towards him, careful. "I'm trying to help you, love," she said slowly, voice breaking and neck beginning to bruise. She looked like she might bite, pull his hair and break all twenty of his extremities that instant.

"Bullshit," Archer snapped back. "You're not trying to make me better. You're trying to learn me so I'll never be a threat to you. You think I don't know why you started this whole training session? You're not trying to teach Tanner; you were looking for a reason to watch me fight before I challenged you."

"Look at you, Kingsley, calling out all my tricks." She brushed the sand from her hands.

Archer gritted his teeth. "This isn't about training. This is about you and the pistol to my head. You and your games."

"You're tired of my games? I'll bite. Let's give you honesty." She took a step forward. He should've acted then, while she was weak, but the desperation to hear what she had to say was overpowering.

"Here's honesty: You're not the man you think you are," she began. "You're not as moral or as controlled as you want to be. You find satisfaction in giving me pain. You're just as twisted as the rest of us, but you lie to yourself every minute to avoid realizing it."

She took another few steps then, but before Archer could lunge, she kicked him in the stomach as she advanced, putting all her weight behind it. He quickly rolled back up.

"Is that enough honesty for you, Kingsley?" she asked, giving him a slanted look. "I have more."

"Silta," came Britter's warning. It was some sort of cautionary attempt at calming her, like he knew she would tear Archer apart limb by limb and use his teeth as jewelry if she got riled up enough.

She ignored Britter entirely and continued over to Archer's corner. She ducked under a sloppy hit he threw and threaded her fingers behind his neck once again, pulling his head down and driving her knee upwards to meet the same spot on his face she'd hit before.

"I have more," she said again, holding tight to his neck. "I could explain to you exactly why what happened on the Forlorn pissed you off so much—it's not what you think."

Archer could feel blood running down his face. How ironic that he'd been metaphorically seeing red, and now he was literally blinking it from his eyes. Before she brought her leg down, he caught her knee above the ground with his arm and tried to flip her backward. She held fast to his neck and tripped his leg with her free one, bringing them falling to the ground again. Down to the sand, where she ruled the game.

"It's not because of loyalty, Kingsley," she said.

Archer was dazed and confused, utterly unsure of how he'd gotten in this position. She'd pinned one arm to the sand with her leg and the other with her elbow. She may not have been as strong, but her use of force settled that issue. His only free limb, his left leg, was caught over her shoulder.

She wanted him to tap, and he knew exactly how she'd do it. All that display of flexibility in the beginning, yet she'd never listed it as one of his weaknesses. It made him think she hadn't noticed at all.

She pushed his left leg towards the ground with all her body weight, forcing him to stretch it. He was agile, of course, flexible for the average man, but this was torture. He felt his muscles pulling, pulling, then tearing as she pushed closer to the ground.

"My pistol at your head bothers you for an entirely different reason, love," she said, face inches from his. "Under all that morality, you're just a man that falls for the same tricks they all do."

He clenched his teeth, baring the pain as she pushed. He wouldn't tap. He wouldn't. He shook his head at her, and she smiled.

"You want my validation, Kingsley?" she whispered. "You want my respect?"

Archer gritted his teeth and made one last futile attempt to push her off. How had all his years of heavy lifting, of strength training, how had it all taken a backseat to her brilliant angles?

"Do you want those things from me, Minnow?" she asked. "Or do you want more?"

Archer wanted to dissect the insinuation. He wanted to tear it apart and come up with all the reasons why she was wrong, but he was in too much agony.

"Bardarian read you right, love," she whispered.

It wasn't the haze of pain that made him finally tap the sand next to him; he just couldn't afford for her to say any more.

At his tap, she pushed off his leg and onto her feet. The pain finally released, settling back down to a dull ache of residual tearing.

He lay on the sand, catching his breath and trying to rid the stars in his vision. Britter didn't call the match for her; it was plenty clear who won without officially declaring it. There was no clapping or enthusiasm from the watching pirates like there had been for all the other matches. Scared into submission once again.

She stretched her arms out to them, blood pooling in her gums. She nodded to the crew. "Anybody else?"

They stayed silent, suddenly finding their shoes or the sky or the tree next to them awfully interesting. Archer sighed, laying his head back on the sand. Loss after loss. Maybe that was just his nature.

He glanced up at her as she looked down at him. The winner of the fight was supposed to help the loser up. It was a courtesy. Good manners. Instead, she spit a mouthful of blood on the sand next to his head.

Archer closed his eyes. Loss after loss.