I was not the song, but the echo that follows it—a hollow shape carved by a voice I could never claim, vibrating in the silence left behind.

— Excerpt from Anguish of the Heart, First Book of the Revelations from the Lost Soul

The morning mist in Lithrys did not taste of the open sea. It was a cloying, heavy thing, thick with the scent of damp stone and the suffocating perfume of the roses that climbed every white-marble archway of the city. To a man who lived by the clean bite of the wind, the air here felt like a curated lie, designed to mask the slow, briny rot of the harbor mud beneath the elegance of the spires.

Talathis Dawntreader stood in the cramped confines of his berth, the cold light of the morning bleeding through the small porthole to catch the edge of his shaving blade. He moved the steel with a heavy, deliberate pressure, shearing away the dense, salt-stiffened growth that covered his jaw.

He did not shave daily. He wore his beard as a calendar, letting it mark the duration of a voyage, a physical tally of the miles crossed and the watches stood. The hair falling into the basin now was the growth of the long, bitter run from Averos. It was the beard of his demotion. It held the salt of the failure that had cost him his rank as First Mate.

Sailing Master, his father had said. A title that meant he was useful enough to steer, but not worthy enough to command.

He rinsed the blade, watching the dark, curly hair swirl down the drain. He was scraping away the shadow of the last leg, stripping his face back to the skin to begin the new count. He was twenty-six years old, and without the beard, he looked younger—too young for the lines that had begun to etch themselves around his eyes.

I am a memory of a memory, a legacy of a love that could not be named.

The words of the old verse floated unbidden into his mind. He did not know where the rhyme had come from—perhaps from the old Bard of Reimes his mother spoke of in her letters—but the rhythm of it belonged to her.

He closed his eyes for a second, seeing the memory not as sound, but as motion. He saw his mother, Jayne, sitting in the gloom of their loft in Sjavarberg, before the Stornir chased them away. She was mute, her tongue taken by the war before he was born, but she had never been silent. He remembered her hands moving in the candlelight, her fingers dancing the shape of the verse, "singing" the rhythm of the lullaby in the air. Her hands had wept the song her voice could not scream.

Dangerous words, he thought, snapping his eyes open. Her words always were.

The air in the berth changed as he opened the porthole. The cloying floral scent of the city rushed in, but beneath it, the Sea Wolf spoke her own truth. Because of the specialized ammunition they carried in the magazine, the ship's interior smelled of seared air and vinegar—a sharp, electric tang that scoured the lungs and marked the vessel as a predator among the bobbing, white-winged ships of the Vesprian fleet.

He stepped out of his cabin, rubbing a hand over his raw, smooth jaw. His boots found the rhythmic thud of a ship preparing for the tide.

"And what fare may I expect on this voyage?"

Talathis suppressed a sigh and turned. Standing by the forward hatch was the Factor—a stocky, soft-handed man dressed in a velvet doublet that was already wilting in the damp. He looked at the Sea Wolf’s deck with the skepticism of a man used to plush carpets.

"I arrived on an ambassador’s ship," the Factor continued, patting his round stomach. "The hold had livestock. We ate fresh meat every day at sea. I assume a Duke's vessel offers similar comforts?"

Talathis forced a polite smile. It was the smile of the recruiter, the smile he wore when his father was inland playing Duke.

"The Sea Wolf is a working ship, sir. We are not a luxury packet." He gestured to the iron-banded crates being lowered into the hold—shot and alloy, not grain. "Most of our crew are marines. We tend to carry extra ammunition instead of livestock."

The Factor frowned. "No livestock?"

"We might have some fresh meat during the first week," Talathis said, keeping his voice even. "But it will not be long before the fare becomes hardtack and salted pork. Wolves do not sleep on featherbeds, sir."

The Factor grumbled something about "civilized travel" and peered into the small passenger cabin, shaking his head.

"Sea travel is always the worst part of the job," he muttered. He looked at Talathis again, his eyes narrowing slightly as he reassessed the vessel. "Yes, I did hear something about that. Your ship carries the heavy guns. I understand Therysia has more such ships?"

"The Sea Wolf was one of the first," Talathis said, his voice dropping. "She carries the specialized iron guns managed by our mountain gunners. She has teeth, Master Factor. You would do well to remember that if the winds turn foul."

The Factor took the hint, offering a curt nod before retreating into his cabin to mourn the loss of his fresh veal.

Talathis turned away, leaning against the mizzenmast. He watched the deckhands secure the last of the wine and water ballast. He was the man who ensured the beast could hunt. And yet, he was chained to it.

The memory of his mother hit him then, sharper this time. It was from a decade ago, in the attic loft she inhabited in Vagnithane. He had been sixteen, and he had been given a choice after four years as the ship’s Cabin Boy: stay on land or sign the ship's articles.

He could still see her standing in the doorway, the smell of stale ale drifting up from the tavern below. She had grabbed his shoulders, her eyes fierce and wet. Her hands had moved in a blur of frantic shapes, the silent language—the Silent Hand—she had taught him since he was old enough to watch her fingers.

He leaves us, Tally, she had signed, the gestures sharp and cutting. He goes back to his highborn wife and his stone tower. We stay here.

She had tried to anchor him to the land, to save him from the father who only wanted a legacy, not a son. She had pulled her hands away to sign the final, crushing truth.

If you go with him, you will just be another part of his ship. You will never be whole.

Talathis pushed off the mast, his jaw tight. She had been right. He was twenty-six winters old. He had seen more of the Five Seas than most lords at court. But to his father, he was still just a useful instrument. A secret to be kept offshore.

Night claimed the harbor before the tide turned. The purple of the twilight faded into a deep, bruised dark as the rain thickened, turning the deck slick and cold. The lamps along the quay sputtered in the damp, casting long, wavering reflections on the black water.

Talathis stood by the gangplank, the collar of his coat turned up against the drizzle. He watched the mist, his ears tuned to the rhythm of the city. He heard the bells of the Vesprian temple tolling the hour, a soft, chime-like sound that seemed to hang in the humidity.

Then, a sharper sound cut through the ambient noise—boots on wet stone. Not the shuffle of a porter, but the measured, heavy stride of armor.

"Captain's returning!" the watchman signaled from the rail.

Talathis straightened, wiping the rain from his eyes. He saw his father emerging from the mist, his heavy wool coat dark with moisture. Cedrik walked with the rolling gait of a man who found land to be an unstable surface, his hand resting instinctively on the hilt of his cutlass.

"More visitors?" Talathis called out as Cedrik stepped onto the lower platform of the gangplank.

Cedrik paused, looking back into the fog. He turned his face up to the deck, the lantern light catching the hard planes of his face. The mask of command was firmly in place, but his eyes held the weight of a hundred storms.

"Lady Krysaalis and the Sentinel Malyndriel," Cedrik announced, his voice a practiced boom of hospitality meant for any listening dock-master. "Welcome aboard the Sea Wolf."

Talathis looked past his father. Two figures materialized from the rain.

The first was encased in the navy and silver of a Vesprian Sentinel. It was not a towering figure, but a compact, dense shape of articulated plate. The heavy helm obscured the face, leaving a faceless construct of metal and shadow that moved with a lethal, coiled economy—like a spring wound too tight.

The second figure was slight, wrapped in a heavy traveling cloak that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it.

"Son," Cedrik’s voice cracked like a whip close to his ear as he reached the deck, the volume dropping to a growl. "Go help the ladies aboard. Get them settled. We leave on the turning tide. And don't get charming."

Talathis suppressed a retort and moved down the slick plank. He recognized the gait of the armored sentinel instantly. The heraldry was false, the armor was heavy, but the walk—that grounded, aggressive balance—was unmistakable.

As the Sentinel stepped onto the deck, she reached up and unlatched the heavy helm. A hiss of escaping breath mixed with the rain as she pulled the metal free, shaking out dark hair streaked with midnight blue.

Lirynel Torryaenen blinked against the sudden brightness of the ship’s lamps. She was petite, her head barely clearing the shoulder guard of her own disguise, but the look in her eyes—vibrant, watery green—held enough force to level a man twice her size.

"Liryn," Talathis said, his voice carrying a thread of genuine warmth. "I didn't know the Vesprian Guard was issuing new colors."

"Necessity demands many colors, Talathis," she replied, her Therysian sharp and fluent. She handed him the helm—heavy, wet steel—and reached out, gripping his forearm. It wasn't a courtly greeting; it was a warrior’s check, her small hand digging in with wiry, shocking strength to test the muscle beneath the wool. "And I see you're still guarding the gangplank. Good. I prefer a watchdog I know."

"Good to see you, Liryn," Talathis said, returning the grip. "Though usually, when you wear a disguise, things are already on fire."

"The night is young," she muttered, releasing him. She stepped aside, turning back to the gangplank.

Talathis looked past her, and the breath went out of him.

The second figure stepped onto the deck. She pushed back her cowl, and the orange glow of the deck lamps caught fire in her hair. It was a color he had never seen on a human woman—rosemilk, a pale, shimmering strawberry-blonde that seemed to hold its own light against the gloom.

But it wasn't the sight of her that stopped him; it was the sound of her.

To his "Dead Listening"—the acoustic sense that let him steer a ship by the vibration of its keel—she was loud. Most people were just static, background noise in the grand composition of the world. But this woman... she was a clear, resonant pressure. She felt like the drop in air pressure before a hurricane, a heaviness that made his teeth ache and his pulse steady.

She looked up, her eyes a startling, piercing blue that seemed to strip away the rain and the dark.

Talathis realized his mouth was slightly open. He was staring. He was standing in the rain, holding a wet helmet, gaping like a green deckhand who had never seen a woman before.

Lirynel moved. It was a subtle shift, a single step that placed her armored shoulder between Talathis and the radiant woman. It was a Guardian’s intercession.

"Talathis," Lirynel said, her voice dry and cutting. She offered a playful wink, hidden from the others, the gesture of the aunt chiding the nephew. "Attend to my companion. And try not to stare. It’s rude."

Talathis snapped his jaw shut, his face flushing hot beneath the cold rain. He swallowed hard, recovering his composure, and stepped forward to offer his hand.

"I trust you have met my father, Cedrik Dawntreader," he said, his voice raspier than he intended.

The woman took his hand. Her skin was warm, a shocking contrast to the chill of the mist.

"I am Talathis Dawntreader," he said, guiding her toward the shelter of the quarterdeck overhang. "Your belongings were taken aboard earlier."

She smiled. It was a radiant, terrifying thing—a sudden sunrise in the middle of a rainy night.

"I am Krysaalis a’Ciermanuinn," she said. Her voice was melodic, liquid, like honey-wine poured over crystal. "It is an honor to meet you." She looked past him, to where his father stood in the shadows by the wheel. "And to perceive you again, Captain."

Perceive?

The word hung in the air, heavy and archaic. It was the language of the Golden Age, spoken now only by scholars and exiles. Talathis felt a strange vibration at the base of his skull, a sympathetic resonance to the syllable.

"Titles are fluid things on the water," Cedrik replied, stepping into the light. He offered a stiff bow, the dampness of his coat doing nothing to dampen his dignity.

Krysaalis turned back to Talathis. She glanced up at the rigging, her eyes fixing on the heavy leather mutes wrapped around the copper-silk lines.

"Your ship..." she murmured, tilting her head as if listening to a distant song. "She is holding her breath."

Talathis blinked. Most passengers saw ropes and wood. She saw the tension. She heard the silence.

"We keep her silenced in port, My Lady," Talathis said, surprised into honesty. "The Vesprians... your people... do not like the noise of the wires. It disturbs the wards."

Krysaalis looked at him then, really looked at him, and he felt that pressure intensify.

"And you chose the quiet berth for the silence?" she asked.

"Liryn mentioned you... appreciate clarity," Talathis lied smoothly, falling back on his training. "And once we clear the wall, this ship doesn't stay quiet."

"I do not well know what Krysaalis is speaking," Lirynel interrupted, gripping Krysaalis’s elbow with a protective firmness. "The Vesprians don't like anything they cannot control. Come. The damp is setting in, and I would see us below before the tide turns."

Talathis chuckled, the tension breaking. "We intend to push away in the next hour, Liryn. The tide waits for no council."

Krysaalis turned back at the threshold of the hatch. The lamp-light framed her, turning her hair into a halo of fire and gold against the black rigging.

"You are most gracious, Master Dawntreader," she said.

Talathis bowed, more clumsily than he would have liked. As the hatch closed behind them, shutting away the warmth and the light, he felt the familiar, cold weight of the ship settle back onto his shoulders.

"Don't get ideas, son."

Cedrik stood in the shadow of the mainmast, watching the closed door.

"Those ladies are guests of the Council. They are as far beyond you as the stars are from the bilge. Get the gangplank secured."

Cedrik looked up at the rigging, at the leather mutes soaking in the rain. His eyes hardened.

"Then get the leather mutes off the main-lines. The river is fighting the tide. We need to thread the needle."

Talathis frowned, looking at the harbor walls looming in the mist. "Mutes off? Inside the threshold? The Port Authority will fine us. Or worse, the Wardens will shatter our keel."

"Let them try," Cedrik said, turning toward the helm. "The wind is shifting. The water is going to be hell tonight. We’ll need the lift, or the pressure might put too much strain on the hull. Strip the lines, Sailing Master. Let the Wolf wake up."

Talathis looked at the dark water of the harbor mouth. He understood. It was a calculated risk—break the law or break the ship.

"Aye, Captain," he said, pulling his knife. "I'll strip the lines."

The Sea Wolf was towed through the Gilded Threshold—the narrow gap in the massive seawall—like a prisoner being led to the gallows.

Talathis stood at the helm, his hands resting lightly on the cold, damp spokes of the wheel. Above him, the Vesprian guard towers loomed in the mist, silent sentinels of white stone that seemed to press down on the ship with a tangible weight. He could feel the acoustic wards of the city buzzing in the air, a static pressure that made the hair on his arms stand up.

Beside him stood Elara, the harbor pilot. She was a shin’misal—a half-blood with the sharp features of the Shandaryn and the weary, weathered skin of a human sailor. She watched the dark water ahead with a critical, nervous eye.

"The outflow is heavy tonight, Master Dawntreader," she said, her voice tight. "The Ra’maryna is draining hard from the rains. The collision of waters will be violent."

"We call it the Cross-Rip," Talathis said, keeping his eyes on the binnacle.

"Call it what you like," Elara snapped, pulling her heavy oilskin coat tighter. "The river is fresh and fast; the bay is salt and heavy. When they meet, the water does not know which way to flow. Keep her center, or the weight will snap your rudder."

Talathis didn't answer. He was listening.

They cleared the shadow of the wall. The tow-lines went slack as the longboats cast off, drifting back into the safety of the harbor. The Sea Wolf drifted into the channel, naked and heavy, her momentum dying in the opposing current.

"Full press!" Cedrik’s voice roared from the waist deck. "Strip the lines!"

The order was a blasphemy this close to the city, but the crew moved with the desperation of men who knew the alternative. They scrambled aloft, dark shapes against the darker sky, pulling the heavy leather mutes from the rigging.

As the leather fell away, exposing the copper-silk cables to the wet wind, the ship began to wake up.

It started as a buzz—a low-frequency itch in Talathis's teeth. The wind caught the canvas. The wires began to vibrate. The buzz deepened into a steady, resonant thrum that traveled down the mast, through the deck, and into the soles of Talathis’s boots.

It was not a sound; it was a heartbeat.

"Turbulence ahead!" the lookout shouted.

Talathis saw it—a line of chaotic, white-capped chop where the black river water slammed into the grey bay tide. The Sea Wolf hit the Cross-Rip.

The hull groaned—a sickening sound of wood under torsion. The conflicting waters grabbed the keel. The dense salt water gripped the rudder like a vice, while the fast, fresh surface water pushed the hull sideways. The ship shuddered violently, trying to shear toward the jagged rocks of the breakwater.

"Hard to port!" Elara barked, reaching for the wheel. "Correct the drift! Fight the current!"

Talathis blocked her hand with his shoulder, his grip on the spokes turning to iron.

"No," he whispered. "If I turn, she breaks."

He could feel it. Beneath the thrum, a new sound was rising—a deep, grinding noise in the keel. The tension on the hull was too high. If he fought the current with the rudder, the force would shatter the Iron-Heart spine of the ship. He did not need to steer. He needed to balance.

"Prepare to lean!" Talathis shouted, his voice cutting through the wind.

He closed his eyes. He tuned out the pilot’s protest and the rattle of the spray. He engaged his "Dead Listening," focusing entirely on the vibration in the wheel. He felt the exact moment the wind hit the harmonic frequency of the starboard stays.

He spun the wheel hard to starboard—into the current.

"You'll ground us!" Elara screamed, her composure shattering. "You're turning into the fight!"

"Let her sing!" Talathis snapped.

He held the turn. The wind caught the sails at a sharp, impossible angle. The Sea Wolf heeled over, dipping her rail dangerously close to the foaming water.

The wire rigging screamed.

It was not a melody. It was a mechanical shriek, a high-pitched piercing whistle as the copper-silk vibrated at maximum tension. In the cabin below, Krysaalis would hear a song; on the deck, it sounded like a saw cutting through bone.

But the effect was instant.

As the vibration hit the keel, the ship projected her weight against the river's outflow. The drag vanished. The Sea Wolf stopped plowing through the water and began to plane.

The deck went weightless beneath Talathis’s feet. The grinding noise of the hull vanished, replaced by the pure, terrifying "Howl" of the Aeolian drive. Like a stone skipped across a pond, the heavy frigate skimmed over the turbulent mixing zone. She was not moving forward so much as she was sliding sideways—her bow pointed at the river bank, but her momentum carrying her safely down the center of the channel in a surreal, drifting grace.

For thirty seconds, the world was nothing but spray and the scream of the wires.

Then, the chop smoothed out. The water turned the deep, uniform black of the true ocean. The grinding noise faded, replaced by the steady, aggressive thrum of a ship running free.

Talathis opened his eyes. They were past the hazard. The lights of Lithrys were gone, swallowed by the mist. He exhaled, his hands trembling slightly on the wheel, not from fear, but from the resonance of the drive.

Elara stared at him, her face pale, her knuckles white where she gripped the rail. She smoothed her wet coat, regaining her dignity with visible effort.

"That," she said, her voice shaking, "was reckless, Master Dawntreader. Efficient. But reckless."

"It is how she likes to run," Talathis said, patting the wheel as one might pat the flank of a nervous horse. "She does not like to fight the water. She prefers to negotiate."

He looked over the side. The pilot’s cutter was bobbing in the dark water, its crew struggling to keep pace with the accelerating frigate.

"Your crew is ready for you," Talathis said, gesturing to the rope ladder. "Best hurry. The Wolf has no intention of slowing down."

The pilot gave him a final, assessing look—a mixture of respect and horror. She nodded once, then headed for the descent.

Talathis watched her go, then looked down at the main deck. Through the grate, he could see the faint lavender luminescence of Ghal'kor's stone-skin as the master gunner secured the heavy iron guns.

He looked at the binnacle, correcting the heading by a fraction of a degree—enough to catch the stronger winds of the outer channel.

I am a memory of a memory, he thought, the salt spray cooling his face. But tonight, the ship speaks a language my father cannot hear.

He turned his eyes to the invisible horizon. He longed for the dawn, but as the Sea Wolf charged into the black, Talathis embraced the twilight.