CHAPTER 26: WHAT ARE YOU?
The battle died around us.
Word had spread—the curse was broken, Barbossa was dead, the surviving pirates were surrendering rather than fighting mortally for the first time in a decade. Naval marines secured prisoners. Someone was shouting orders about securing the Pearl.
None of it mattered to the woman standing three feet away, staring at me like I was a monster.
"Anamaria—"
"You DIED." Her voice rose, cracking. "I watched you die. The cannonball—there was nothing LEFT, Micke. I saw your chest explode. I saw you hit the ground in pieces."
"I know."
"And then the sea—" She gestured wildly toward the water. "You just—you APPEARED. Like something the tide washed up. Naked and gasping and alive."
"I know."
"HOW?"
The question demanded an answer. I could hear the fear underneath the anger—fear of me, fear of what I represented, fear of the supernatural intruding into a world she'd thought she understood.
I was still naked. Still shaking. Still tasting death on my tongue.
"I don't know," I said. "Not really."
"That's not good enough."
"It's the truth." I pushed myself to my knees, then slowly to my feet. My body felt wrong—rebuilt correctly but somehow unfamiliar, like wearing clothes that fit perfectly but belonged to someone else. "Three weeks ago, I drowned. Somewhere in the Caribbean—I don't even know exactly where. I woke up on a beach, alive. No explanation. No understanding."
"That's—"
"Since then, I've died twice." I held her gaze. "Stabbed in a tavern fight. And now this. Each time, the sea brings me back. I don't know why. I don't know how. I don't know if it will happen again."
Lies by omission, I thought. I know about the golden thread. I know my survival is tied to Jack. But I can't tell her that without explaining things I don't understand myself.
Anamaria's hands had stopped shaking. The fear in her eyes was hardening into something else—calculation, maybe. Wariness.
"Something claimed me," I continued. "The sea, maybe. Or a curse that won't let me rest. I genuinely don't understand it."
"That night on the ship." Her voice was steadier now. "When you taught me the stars. Were you already—"
"Already dead once and returned? Yes." I spread my hands. "I should have told you. I didn't know how."
She was quiet for a long moment. Behind her, I could see Gibbs organizing the surviving crew, carefully not looking in our direction. Cotton's parrot watched from his shoulder, silent for once.
"You're not human," Anamaria said finally. "Not entirely. Not anymore."
"I don't know what I am."
"That's not comforting."
"I know."
She closed her eyes. Took a breath. When she opened them again, something had shifted—not acceptance, exactly, but determination.
"The battle's over. We need to secure the ship, tend the wounded, figure out what comes next." She turned toward a fallen sailor nearby and began stripping his clothes. "Put these on. We don't have time for—"
She threw the garments at me without looking. Shirt, trousers, boots that wouldn't quite fit. I dressed quickly, hands still trembling.
The clothes hung wrong on my rebuilt body—too loose in the shoulders, too tight at the waist. I adjusted them as best I could while Anamaria watched with an expression I couldn't read.
"We finish this," she said. "Then we talk. Properly. With time."
"And until then?"
"Until then, you're crew. You saved my life—whatever you are, that counts for something." She picked up a fallen cutlass and handed it to me. "Can you fight?"
"I can fight."
"Then let's go."
We moved toward the cave together. Behind us, the sounds of battle had faded to the sounds of aftermath—groaning wounded, shouted orders, the creak of ships at anchor.
Ahead, golden light spilled from the treasure chamber where Jack Sparrow had just killed his oldest enemy.
Anamaria didn't look at me as we ran. Didn't reach for my hand like she might have done yesterday. The trust between us had cracked, and I didn't know if it could be repaired.
But she was still running beside me. Still fighting alongside me.
For now, that would have to be enough.
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