Excerpts from the Journal
-
I’ve gone back through the records. Again. The names. The whispers. The broken charts no one dares hang on the walls anymore.
You can trace it all, if you know where to look. The course wasn’t drawn in a single night—but over years of salt, ink, and ambition.
I’ve tried to forget her. Gods, I’ve tried. But the tides don’t forget.
So here I am, piecing it together. These moments, these echoes—they don’t tell the whole tale. Just the currents she left behind.
Maybe I’m chasing ghosts. Maybe I’m warning someone.
Or maybe I just need to remember the sister I once knew—before everything changed.
—J.M.K.
-
She was always the clever one. Quick with words, quicker with plans. While I studied law and duty, she studied wind and coin—dreams charted in margins and whispered over ledgers.
We were never meant to be rivals. Not truly.
I believed, for a time, that I could keep her steady. That if I pushed her hard enough, she’d turn toward something proper. Something safe.
But she was never meant for safe. And maybe... I never understood her at all.
It started with a disagreement. A raised voice. A letter unsigned.
Looking back, that’s where the path forked.
But we were still family then. Still tethered.
—J.M.K.
-
She wanted more. Always. But this time... it was different.
The promise came wrapped in flattery and gold ink—treasure, untouched since the old wars. A secret lost to all but a single, whispering voice.
I told her it was madness. That men like him don’t deal in truth.
She smiled like I was the fool. Said I’d understand, one day.
And then she was gone. Just... gone. No fanfare. No goodbye. Only the echo of sails cutting into fog.
I stood on the dock long after the sun fell, waiting for a shadow to turn back.
But she didn’t.
And maybe that’s when I stopped believing she ever would.
—J.M.K.
-
After she sailed, I waited. Days, then weeks.
They called it foolish. A wild voyage. A map drawn from rumor and resentment.
I told myself she’d return. That failure would teach her humility. That some embers burn out quietly.
But time passed. And nothing came back to shore.
I sent letters. Ships. Quiet inquiries. I told no one why.
I convinced myself I was looking out of duty.
But I wasn’t searching for her. I was searching for the part of me that still believed she hadn’t chosen to leave.
And when nothing returned… I stopped asking.
—J.M.K.
-
Whispers began long before I believed them. A name, repeated in smoke and salt. A ship that moved like a ghost.
At first, I thought it was coincidence. A cruel echo. But the reports piled like driftwood—unmarked sails, unmatched cunning, a voice that could split a fleet with a single command.
I didn’t want it to be her.
But there were signs. Too many.
The way she moved. The targets she chose.
They spoke of a woman unshaken by storm or steel. They called her something else, something feared.
And I—I started to believe the truth. Not that she had been taken…
But that she had become something no one could take.
—J.M.K.
-
They say she took no throne—just a command deck carved into the bones of a captured warship.
Her title was never spoken aloud. Only implied, in the way others lowered their eyes when they spoke of her.
She didn’t reign through pageantry. Only presence.
Reports came in fragments. Pirate courts dissolved. The fleet reorganized. Order, where there had once been only appetite.
She wasn’t just feared—she was obeyed.
And though I never saw her, I felt the shape of her influence in every dispatch, every silence that followed her name.
Somewhere in all that... I stopped hoping she was alive.
And started fearing she was.
—J.M.K.
-
The reports grew strange. Precise. Ruthless. Obedience enforced not by gold or loyalty—but by fear.
Commanders she’d once elevated vanished without cause. Fleets redirected without warning. Territories scorched on suspicion alone.
I never saw her hand in it. Only the aftermath.
The tone shifted. From admiration to survival. From strategy to silence.
They stopped calling her brilliant.
They started calling her inevitable.
And in the margins—between coded lines and sudden disappearances—I began to see something I couldn’t unsee:
She wasn’t afraid of the world.
She was afraid of herself.
—J.M.K.
-
They placed me at her side like a piece of furniture. A quiet signal from the Crown. We hold the past. We hold the knife.
I hadn’t seen her in years. Not since the day she vanished into a lie.
She walked into that chamber like nothing had changed.
No apology. No explanation. Only terms. Clear. Cold. Brilliant.
I watched her speak circles around diplomats who had come to break her—and leave smiling, convinced they’d won.
But I knew that look in her eyes. That silence between her words.
She hadn’t surrendered.
She’d repositioned.
And I—I said nothing. Because I didn’t know whether I was supposed to feel pride… or fear.
—J.M.K.
-
I read the letter. It was plain—formal, cautious, yes, but no threat.
She read it once. Then again. And something shifted.
Her fingers curled around the page like it might bite.
She said it was a trap. That the Crown would take everything in a single move. That silence was no longer protection—it was an ambush.
I tried to speak. To reason. But she was already gone, lost behind those eyes that saw too much and trusted nothing.
The orders came swift. Quiet. Final.
I stood beside her as she signed the first declaration.
Her voice didn’t waver. Her hands didn’t shake.
And I knew—then—I wasn’t standing next to my sister.
I was standing next to history in the moment it stopped listening.
—J.M.K.
-
She didn’t speak much that night.
Just paced. Reviewed maps she’d already memorized. Lit a candle. Snuffed it out. Lit it again.
There was something behind her eyes—something I hadn’t seen in years. Not fear. Not doubt. Just… weight.
Like she knew what was coming, and had already accepted what it would cost.
She never asked what I thought. Never asked me to stay.
But she didn’t dismiss me either.
For a moment, I almost believed she wanted someone there. Not for counsel. Not for strategy.
Just so she wouldn’t be alone when the dawn arrived.
I didn’t sleep. I don’t think she did either.
—J.M.K.
-
She asked me if the fleet was ready. Again.
Not as a command. Not as a threat. Just… as if the war hadn’t already ended. As if she hadn’t won.
I tried to bring her back.
I offered her peace. Rest. A place to sleep without watching every shadow.
But she was already too far gone. Not by madness—but by years of holding too much, for too long.
And when I raised my voice—when I finally cracked—
I think it frightened her.
She moved. Reflex. Habit. I moved too.
I didn’t mean to.
But she fell anyway.
And when I caught her, it was the first time I’d held her in years.
Her mask broke before she did.
And in the moment she died, she was clear. Gentle. Forgiving.
I’ve written every page since trying to make sense of how someone so powerful could still die with grace.
I wanted to remember her as a tyrant. I thought it would make it easier.
But all I remember now… is how she whispered my name.
—J.M.K.
-
I’ve written more than I meant to.
And still, not the thing that matters.
I loved her. Not the legend. Not the mask.
The girl who held my hand when I couldn’t sleep. The sister who whispered shanties into the dark. The troublemaker who only wanted to sail away from her boredom.
And I never said it. Not when it would’ve meant something.
The world remembers the empire she carved from blood and tide.
I remember the silence she left behind.
And her voice—
asking if the fleet is ready.
Over and over.
Even now, it haunts my vigil. My nightmares.
I buried her myself. No name. No marker. Just stone, salt, and what was left of my heart.
One misstep. That’s all it took.
Let her sleep. Gods, just let her sleep.
If you’ve found this, burn it. Burn the story. Let the waves have the rest.
Don’t raise her higher than she stood.
She was enough.
—J.M.K.