"When a ship sails against the current,the river is not carrying wood — it is carrying a message."
—A Ferryman Saying
The Riverlands — The Silent Gift
The river had grown restless.
It no longer murmured — it breathed.
Each tide came heavier than the last, pushing silt and branches up against the posts of Branmeadow's dock as though the Nareth itself meant to crawl inland.
Korran Hale hadn't slept since the lights. He sat where he always sat, boots in the dark water, a lantern beside him burning low. The flame bent each time the wind changed, and tonight it changed often.
"Still watching ghosts?" Willem asked, stepping out from the guardhouse with a cloak about his shoulders. His voice tried for jest, but it came out hollow.
"Ghosts don't leave marks," Korran said. He pointed to the bank below — the mud was carved with deep grooves, as if something enormous had been dragged ashore and vanished into the reeds.
The boy crouched, tracing one with his fingers. "Could be driftwood."
"Could be the bones of a ship."
A gust swept the dock. The lantern flickered. Both men turned toward the river. Out on the black water, something bumped against the pilings — soft, slow, deliberate.
Willem leaned forward. "Gods, what is—"
The current rolled, and the lantern's light caught it for just a heartbeat. Not wood. Not rope. A hand, pale and swollen, turning slowly in the eddy before it sank again beneath the dark.
Neither man spoke. The sound of the river filled the silence, thick and wet and endless.
At last Willem whispered, "Do we tell the keep?"
Korran shook his head. "Tell them what? That the water's begun to bleed?"
The boy swallowed, staring into the dark. "Then what do we do?"
Korran reached out and pulled the lantern closer. The flame danced across his eyes — tired, knowing.
"We keep the ferry ready," he said quietly. "If the river's bringing the dead, it won't stop with one."
The wind rose again, carrying with it the faintest scent of salt.
And from far downstream — beyond sight, beyond reason — came a sound like oars striking water. Slow. Measured. Coming closer.
The lantern's flame trembled, then went out.
The world dimmed, listening.
Mist drifted low across the Nareth, curling around the dock piles like pale fingers. Somewhere upriver, the reeds sighed — slow, deep, almost human.
Willem clutched his pike tighter. "Korran," he whispered, "you hear that?"
The ferryman didn't answer. He'd already heard it — the slow, wet groan of timber moving where no current ran.
Out of the fog, something vast and shapeless took form. The first thing they saw was the prow, rising like a monument from the black water. Its hull brushed the pilings, the sound soft but wrong — a moan, a drag, as if the river itself resisted its passing.
The name was etched faintly on the side, letters rimmed in frost:
AELINTH.
Willem stepped back, shaking his head. "That's a sea ship… it can't be—"
"It shouldn't be here," Korran said.
The vessel drifted silent, sails slack and rimed with pale ice. Its masts were stiff as spears, its ropes frozen mid-sway. Through the fog they saw shapes on deck — still, upright, unmoving. The moon caught their faces just once before the mist folded over them again.
Korran swallowed. "They're standing," he murmured. "All of them."
The air turned sharp, biting. Frost crept up the dock posts, thin as breath. Somewhere inside the fog, a bell chimed once — low and hollow, as if rung from beneath the water.
Then the sound stopped.
The river went utterly still.
Even the frogs had fallen quiet.
Korran reached for his lantern, but his fingers were numb. The flame would not catch.
Willem was staring at the dark water below. "We have to tell the keep"
Korran's voice came barely above the whisper of wind.
"Tell them nothing," he said. "Let the river keep its own dead."
The fog swallowed the ship, carrying it further upstream. The men stood frozen on the dock long after it was gone, the scent of salt still clinging to the air.
And from somewhere far within the mist, faint and rhythmic, came the echo of oars — rowing where no hands lived to row.
The sound faded. The wind sighed once, carrying a final whisper across the water:
"Storms don't come from the sky no more… they come sailing."
The river stilled again, but the wind did not die.
It carried on — southward — bending the reeds, stirring the trees, whispering through miles of sleeping fields until it reached the sea.
And there, far beyond the Nareth's mouth, another wind rose to meet it — one not born of nature but of men, and thrones, and words sharpened like blades.
"Fear the vessels that do not call for harbor; the quiet ones come for souls, not trade."