"Trust not a vessel that drifts against no current, for such ships are steered by hands unseen. Where breath has left, purpose linger and purpose hungers."
—The Scroll Of Tharn, Verse VI
Far across the realm, while music still rose from the meadows of Crest Keep and banners snapped beneath a newborn sun, another corner of the kingdom woke to a different song entirely — one made of fog, cold timber, and the slow whisper of a river that had forgotten how to rest.
Here, dawn did not rise.
It crept.
The fog had thinned, but the river still stank of salt and sleep.
For two nights, Korran Hale had watched the ship drift nowhere — neither sinking nor sailing, just waiting.
Now, before dawn's first color, he crossed the dock again, lantern in hand, boots creaking against the wet planks.
The AELINTH loomed out of the mist like a mausoleum, her timbers dark and heavy with dew.
She had not moved since the night she came. Not an inch. Not a ripple round her hull.
Behind him, Willem followed, clutching a pike too large for his shaking hands.
"You sure of this, Korran?" he whispered.
"No," the ferryman said, and kept walking.
The ship's hull groaned as they neared. A slow, hollow sound, like breath drawn through wood.
Korran placed a hand upon the rope ladder, slick with frost. It burned cold against his skin.
He hesitated, then climbed.
The deck was worse than his dreams.
Bodies lay where they had fallen — some sprawled, others kneeling, faces locked in expressions that weren't quite fear. The air reeked not of decay but of metal and salt, as if the blood had turned to brine.
Willem gagged behind him. "By the gods… what happened to them?"
"Not storm," Korran muttered. "Not plague either."
He crouched beside one of the corpses — a sailor, jaw clenched, eyes glazed over with thin sheets of ice.
When Korran brushed his fingers across the man's sleeve, it crumbled into dust. Beneath the cloth, the skin gleamed like smoked glass.
He drew back sharply.
The lanternlight caught the deck again — the same black veins he'd seen from shore. But now they'd spread, curling through the planks like roots, tracing up the mast, pulsing faintly.
Once.
Twice.
Then still.
Korran raised the light toward the forecastle. A banner hung there — the sigil of Iceese, pale and tattered, still rimmed with frost.
Beside it, nailed to the railing, was a small chest. Its lid hung open. Inside, shards of broken glass glimmered — all that remained of something once whole.
"Tribute gold, you think?" Willem asked hoarsely.
"No," Korran said. "Not gold. Something else."
The ferryman leaned closer, studying the chest. The air around it shimmered faintly — hot and cold at once. Then a sound rose from beneath the deck.
A thud.
Another.
Slow and deliberate, as if something moved within the ship's belly.
Willem stumbled back. "We should go—"
Korran's gaze stayed fixed on the deck, the pulsing veins, the faint hum that seemed to come from the wood itself.
Then, from the companionway, a breath escaped — wet, ragged, human.
Both men froze.
A shadow stirred below, and a hand — pale, glass-slick — reached for the steps, clutching the rail before going still again.
That broke Korran's silence.
"Go," he hissed. "Run to the others. We ride for the Keep at dawn."
Willem didn't argue. He dropped his pike and fled down the ladder.
Korran lingered a heartbeat longer, staring at the motionless hand in the stairwell. Then he turned and followed.
At the dock, the fog was rising again — thick, heavy, hiding the ship from view.
Korran stood there a long while, breathing hard.
He had seen plague. He had seen wreck. But never a thing that watched him back.
He turned to Willem, who waited with two other ferrymen by the shore.
"Tell the guard captain to ready five horses," he said. "We ride for Crest Keep before sunset. No sleep, no rest till we stand before the crown."
Willem nodded, pale and wide-eyed.
"What do I tell him we found?"
Korran glanced toward the fog-shrouded river, where the AELINTH lay hidden once more.
"Tell him the Iceese came bearing gifts," he said. "And the river sent them back."