Zay continued walking away as he heard the door open. He turned around to see who it was—and saw Renzo.
"You decided to come with?" Zay asked, somewhat surprised.
"Hell yeah I did."
"How about Lily?"
"She said she wanted to stay behind to watch over them after she wrote down about that Summer whatever place you mentioned. Maple wanted to come with me, but I told her it was safer at home than with either of us... and I decided to come because..." He stopped speaking for a moment before catching up to Zay. Rain poured across his face as he looked over at his brother.
"You're my brother. Even if they are our sisters, and our parents... I just feel like being with my brother is something I never really did—and I want to change that. To become a better person." He said hesitantly, before shaking the hesitation away and giving a smile and his classic thumbs-up.
Zay chuckled before raising his arm and placing it over Renzo's shoulder. "Well, my brother. We have quite a lot of things to do for the next... while, to say the least. Are you prepared to suffer along with me?"
Renzo laughed before raising his arm and placing it over Zay's shoulder. "It's better if we're suffering together than one suffering alone." He remarked sarcastically, before they let go of each other. Renzo followed Zay through the alleyways again until they saw the marketplace, but kept to the narrow paths until they found themselves at the port once more.
"Do you want to know where we're going?"
Renzo took a moment before turning to face Zay as they looked at True Wind in front of them.
"Hell nah. You said it's a secret until we get there... so keep it a secret."
Zay nodded before they walked forward, stepping onto the rain-slicked boards of the ship. The same guard from earlier nodded as he undid the chain around the pole, and Zay pulled it back onto the ship—this time with the help of Renzo. The boards lifted and snapped back into place, matching into the railing with a clean, practiced motion.
Zay walked under the darkened glass canopy on the deck before opening the steel door and heading inside the hallway of the ship. He sighed softly to himself.
'This... had to have been done now or later... besides, Silver should return in a few months from his adventures. If this is anything... no clue, actually, but he should be around Resonant rank in terms of strength. Though, he doesn't quite have aura—but knowing Lily, she'll teach him how to access it. Then he'll probably become similar to an Ascendant Core rank in terms of strength. Though, he'll be limited and behind us for a while since the trials are the main way to advance in Core ranks... not the only way, but by far the easiest and most straight-forward option. And he won't gain a Resonance name until he clears the first Sequence... so for now, we're still ahead by quite a good way due to us having aura, and also having cleared the first sequence already.'
Zay took a moment to look into a bedroom before closing the door and making his way to the control room. He opened the door, walked in, and pressed the power button. He infused his aura into his hand, which was absorbed by the wheel—his Aura Core dropping to only 5% reserves left.
The ship began moving out onto the open ocean of Akser, and he turned the wheel toward their next destination.
'I just hope Silver can protect them... longer than he did in the last reset.'
With that thought, Zay walked out of the control room, leaving the door wide open as he made his way into the room on his left—the one with the staircase. He headed down. At the bottom, he saw Renzo sitting at the stone table, engrossed in the sea of books surrounding him.
Zay walked over to a shelf before grabbing a book titled "Witches 101: How to Summon a Familiar."
Renzo looked up from an old tome and caught the glimpse of the title before going back to reading, not giving it a second thought.
Zay walked over to the table and sat down, opening the book to the first page. He read through half of it before getting up and placing it back on the shelf.
'That can be useful... later on, I guess.'
He scanned the shelves for several minutes before grabbing an all-white-covered book without a title and sitting back down. He looked at the front of the book in his hands for a long moment before placing it onto the stone table. Moving his hands to the sides of the book, he opened it and flipped through the pages until he landed on the first one.
"I think I found someone's journal," Zay said, eyeing the bottom of the page where two letters were written: A.D.
"It has A.D. as initials—or maybe just random letters? I'm not sure," he added, slowly sliding the book over to Renzo.
Renzo pulled it in front of him and looked over the first page, a flicker of interest crossing his face.
"Read it and let's see what we can find out. It's probably not a journal though—just the writer of it, is my guess," Renzo replied, shoving the book back to Zay.
Zay grabbed it again and began reading the first page.
Page One – The Nameless Record
"On the third day of the forgotten wind, the sky blinked once, and the Ninth Crow whispered the sun to sleep. We knew then—light is a liar, and shadow keeps the truth in feathered silence."
There were thirteen crows born under the bleached moon, though only nine danced in the waking dream. The others? Bound to the roots beneath the ocean floor, their beaks sealed with rust and salt. But even silence cracks if you listen long enough.
The Ninth wore a crown of ash and bore no name—names are shackles, and he had already flown beyond time's reach. He carried three truths in his left wing and four lies in his right, yet neither weighed more than the other. Balance, after all, is not peace. It is preparation.
The world cracked not when the gods fell, but when the first crow turned its head backwards and spoke in reverse. Only the dead understood, and they wept not for the world, but for themselves, remembering what they had forgotten before birth.
There is no map, only flight. There is no key, only memory. And when you find the Eighth Feather, do not touch it. Let it burn. Let it burn and remember this:
The sun is watching. The crows are not your enemies. The mirror is.
A.D.
Zay turned the page slowly. The ink here was darker, more jagged—as if etched in haste, or fear. The text began mid-thought, as if part of the page had burned away long ago…
Page Two -
"Seven eyes blink beneath a sky that never learned to open.""One for the truth, two for the silence, three for the name that shouldn't be remembered."
"He who walks with the bird whose wings drink light must never hum a tune near still water. For the echoes listen, and the echoes learn."
"The raven does not call, it remembers. It does not fly, it chooses. When it lands, your past rewrites itself—quietly, behind your ribs."
"Somewhere in the folds of forgotten stars, it was written that the crow with feathers matte as sorrow will land not on your shoulder, but in your thoughts. You will not feel it. You will not know. But the world around you will blink differently."
Zay looked up at Renzo. "The hell is this?"
Renzo furrowed his brow, clearly confused. "Ravens? Crows? Feathers? Wings? Truths and lies? The hell did you find, man..." he said, getting up and walking over to Zay. He glanced down at the book, scanning through the first two pages.
"Turn it—let's see what the next page says."
Zay nodded and slowly turned the page.
The parchment was stained with streaks of red and black ink, swirling together as if the words bled into each other. The handwriting itself was unstable—shifting sizes, broken curves, upside-down letters. Half the page had been torn violently, leaving jagged edges behind and a sickly scent of old ash.
What remained was barely readable, but Zay narrowed his eyes and tried to piece it together. He looked at the top but this page had no name.
"The Wing of truths from the crow's left shall choose the redeemer of which it is foretold... but only if the hourglass bleeds counterclockwise through frostbitten time... when the third eye of the moon blinks in shade...
Beware the seventh silence, for when the feather hums in the absence of sky, the veil is already cracked...
Those touched by the inkless mark shall forget the name of rain, and only th—"
The page ended abruptly. Torn clean.
Zay stared at it, his brow furrowed, heart thudding louder than before. Even though it was nonsense—something about it felt deliberate. Too deliberate.
"The wing from the crow's left... something truth, whatever else... who the hell wrote this?" Renzo muttered, squinting at the uneven handwriting.
"I'll be honest... I've never seen this book before," Zay said under his breath as he flipped to the next page, noticing more paper beneath the torn one. There wasn't much on it—just a single word.
Renzo leaned in, narrowing his eyes. "Is this a place?" he asked aloud as he read the name.
"Mervo. That's it? Who the hell is Mervo? Or... what the hell is Mervo?" Renzo questioned, staring at the name painted in a deep, almost dried-blood red.
Zay closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf.
"Let's head back up and just... see where we are so far?" Zay said, brushing off the strange contents of the book with a shrug before heading toward the iron staircase. Renzo followed behind him without a word.
As the two made their way back upstairs, they left the dim room and turned left instead of heading back to the control room. Zay stepped out of the narrow hallway and glanced up through the darkened glass.
A raven soared low enough where Zay saw it as its black eyes locked onto Zay—its wings slicing the air—before it abruptly turned mid-flight and disappeared into the distance.
'Mervo...' Zay thought to himself. 'It sounds familiar... but I can't recall that name.'