The sea lay flat, waiting.
Mateo stood at the bow, coat pulled tight, eyes fixed on the horizon. The boat moved forward with quiet rhythm; oars dipped and vanished into ripples that disappeared as soon as they formed.
Silas adjusted the sail without haste.
After a long while, he spoke.
"Where did you grow up?"
Mateo didn't answer. The question carried weight, neither gentle nor casual. Silence stretched between them.
"Why does it matter?" Mateo finally said.
"It doesn't," Silas replied. "That's why I asked."
The water slapped softly against the hull.
"And you?" Mateo asked.
Silas paused, just a fraction, fingers curling around the rope, then let them fall back to work.
"Some questions give more than they take. That one takes."
The wind carried quiet between them.
Finally, Silas spoke again.
"Al-Qabar is rotting from the inside."
Mateo shifted his weight, barely perceptible. A line of tension ran through his jaw.
"Too many factions," Silas continued. "Too much politics. Everyone guarding positions instead of walls. When a kingdom argues long enough, it forgets what it's meant to protect."
"And that helps us how?" Mateo asked, voice even, too measured.
"There's something there we want. Men distracted by power rarely notice what's taken beneath them."
Mateo nodded. Too fast, almost a twitch. A thought flitted across his mind—fleeting, slippery—like a mirror cracking quietly, almost imperceptible even to him.
The palace rose from pale stone, reflecting the sun without mercy. Shadows could hide nothing.
King Jalil ibn Rassan sat beneath a high canopy, fingers resting lightly on the arms of his throne. His gaze moved constantly, scanning maps, faces, the silence between them. "The leaves turn early in the Red Keep, and everyone pretends not to notice the season."
At his right, Nasir al-Ashen stood—ash-haired, narrow-eyed, serene yet sharp. He didn't command the room; he steadied it. Every gesture suggested restraint, judgment, quiet authority. Yet in his mind, he traced the cracks beneath perfection, weighing loyalties, wondering if the king noticed. Perhaps he didn't. Perhaps betrayal could bloom here, unseen.
"The provinces are quiet," Nasir said. "Too quiet."
"Quiet is when men choose sides," the king replied, eyes lingering on the map.
He shifted his gaze to a general near the columns.
"General Qadir."
Qadir stepped forward.
"You will take one thousand five hundred men. Patrol the inner districts and the outer approaches."
"Is there a threat, my king?" Qadir asked.
"I smell one." Not accusation. Not proof. Only instinct.
Qadir inclined his head and left. Nasir's eyes followed him, calm, calculating—aware of fractures invisible to others. A deputy, a king, both sensing currents beneath the surface.
By late afternoon, Mateo and Silas reached Al-Qabar's outer waters.
The city had not appeared.
Something else had.
Mateo shaded his eyes. On the horizon, fifteen ships cut across the light, precise and deliberate.
Silas exhaled.
"So. They're early."
Mateo counted the masts, then let his gaze linger. A line of tension traced across his hand, fingers tightening subtly. He blinked once—and for a heartbeat, the horizon seemed unstable, tilting under him like a world shifting quietly. Something inside him stirred, tiny and fracturing, like a hairline crack in glass.
Far behind, on the flagship, Richard Fairfax stood beside Lieutenant Hawthorne, eyes on the same horizon.
"Summon General Malric," Fairfax said.
Hawthorne's throat tightened. "The old one?"
"Yes," Fairfax replied. "Wisdom travels slower—but it sees farther."
"And his orders?"
"Five hundred men. Inland reconnaissance."
A pause.
"And prepare territorial claims. Quietly."
Hawthorne swallowed. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the railing. Malric was cunning, yes—but old, slow in movement yet deadly in thought. The thought of him moving into Al-Qabar's volatile heart made Hawthorne uneasy. He felt the pull of something sharp—danger, strategy, inevitability—curling in his stomach.
"What… what if they detect us?" he muttered.
Fairfax didn't answer. He never did. Hawthorne exhaled slowly, trying to steady himself. Fear. Excitement. Tension. All coiled together. Human, unavoidable.
The sea carried them forward.
Two boats. Fifteen ships. One city, unknowingly divided.
Mateo lowered his hand from his eyes. For the first time since leaving port, a shadow of a smile flickered—faint, unreadable, unsettling. The currents of Al-Qabar moved. And Mateo felt them, subtle, insistent, whispering at the edges of his mind, pulling at fissures he didn't yet understand.