The air in the cave grew thick with the smell of wet earth and ancient magic. As the echoes of Mother Gothel’s laughter bounced off the walls, a violent tremor shook the ground, sending a cascade of gold coins clattering like hailstones.

Dora—no, Mother Gothel—looked nothing like the girl they had traveled with. Her red dress seemed to pulse with a dark light, and her eyes held the predatory gleam of someone who had waited centuries for this moment.

“You thought this was about a captain?” Gothel sneered, twirling her wand. “This cave isn’t a treasury. It’s a tomb. And it requires a royal sacrifice to stay sealed.”

“Run!” Kylo roared, grabbing Karinne’s arm just as a massive stalactite shattered the ground where they had stood a second before.

As they sprinted deeper into the collapsing cavern, the piles of gold became obstacles, shifting like treacherous sand beneath their boots. Karinne’s mind was a whirlwind—not of greed anymore, but of the impossible truth Kylo had dropped.

“If Hook is my father,” Karinne screamed over the roar of falling rock, “why did he leave me with a mother who didn’t want me?”

“He didn’t leave you!” Kylo shouted back, parrying a burst of magical energy from Gothel with his steel blade. “He was banished! This whole realm is a cage, Karinne, and Gothel is the jailer!”

They reached a dead end where the cave wall was etched with a giant, glowing anchor. Behind them, Gothel raised her wand, her face contorting into a mask of age and fury.

“You aren’t leaving this realm, little princess!” she screamed, unleashing a wave of dark fire.

“Trust me!” Kylo yelled. He didn’t point his sword at Gothel; he slammed the hilt into the center of the glowing anchor.

For a heartbeat, time stopped. The gold at their feet liquified into a swirling vortex of blue light—a portal disguised as treasure.

“Jump!”

Karinne looked at the fire coming from behind and the void beneath her. She grabbed Kylo’s hand, realizing that for the first time in her life, she wasn’t alone. Together, they plunged into the light just as the cave ceiling finally gave way, burying Mother Gothel’s screams under a mountain of stone.

They didn’t hit rock. They hit salt water.

Karinne surfaced, gasping for air, to see a massive wooden hull towering over them. High above, a flag with a skull and crossbones fluttered against a blood-red sky.

A heavy rope ladder splashed into the water beside them. And from the deck, a voice like gravel and velvet called out:

“Kylo? Did you find her?”