For a moment, the world was warm.
Not in the way the sun warms the skin after a long, dreary night, or the way a hearth fills a room with the promise of rest, but a warmth of memory. A warmth born of amber lanternlight, soft river mist, and the quiet clink of porcelain as tea was poured between two people pretending they had only met by coincidence.
Roc sat across from her.
Seleste.
Her sea-green eyes held the glow of the cabin lamps like precious gems laid beneath clear water, watching him with the same confidence she wore like a second skin. Her fingers rested near her cup, though she had not lifted it for some time. Instead, she watched him, watched the book he had refused to show her, watched the twine around his wrist, watched everything he thought he had kept safely away from the reach of her curiosity.
"You are more difficult than you look," she had said.
"Am I?"
"You know you are."
"Then perhaps I am not as difficult as I should be."
Her smile had sharpened at that, not cruelly, but with the delight of one who had found a door where she expected a wall.
Then the dream shifted.
The cabin's warmth became the violet-dark of the ferry's upper deck. The river had vanished, replaced by the silver spread of open water. The ferry had reached its final stop, and passengers were making their way down the gangplank with bags, cases, and the half-tired relief of those who had spent too long being carried somewhere by something beyond their control.
Seleste stood before him.
Not in her school uniform.
Not with the forceful command of Class 1C's captain.
But in the peach-colored summer dress he had seen in flashes of morning, touched by sea breeze and the opalescent shimmer of her scales.
"I suppose this is where our unlikely habit ends," she said.
Roc wanted to answer.
He could not.
The words caught somewhere inside him, trapped behind the same old restraint that had followed him since childhood. The same restraint that always made him speak too late, too little, or not at all.
Seleste began to step away.
Only then did he move.
His hand reached after her.
She turned, her own hand lifting toward his, fingers nearly brushing.
The space between them seemed so small that it might as well have been nothing.
And then she was gone.
Roc's eyes opened.
His hand was raised toward the ceiling of his cabin, fingers stretched toward empty air.
For a moment, he did not move.
The room around him was dim, rocked gently by the motion of the ferry. Morning light had begun to slip through the round window, turning the small cabin walls a pale blue. From beyond the door came the muffled tread of passengers and the livelier rhythm of deckhands preparing the ship for the day.
Slowly, Roc lowered his arm.
The opalescent spearhead dangled from his wrist, held by deep green twine. It swung faintly above his face, catching the newborn light with a soft shimmer, its surface flashing with colors that reminded him too easily of sea-green eyes and scales glistening beneath moonlight.
Roc stared at it.
Then turned his head aside with a quiet sigh.
"That is going to become troublesome."
Before his thoughts could sink any further, the voices outside rose with the morning.
Deckhands.
Their shanty spilled through the wooden belly of the ferry with a warmth that seemed determined to drag even the most unwilling soul into the day.
Raise her high for the Glass Sea, boys, the morning's turning gold,
And the wind has got a wicked tongue, but our bones were made to hold.
Past the Sword Isles, sharp and white, where the broken waters gleam,
We'll take the tide through Damocles and chase the sailor's dream.
Roc remained still for a breath longer.
Then, as though the song had finally found the right place to pull him from, he sat up.
The cabin was small, though not uncomfortable. A narrow bed, a fold-out desk, a washbasin fixed to the wall, and a trunk fitted beneath the mattress so that luggage would not go sliding about whenever the ferry rose or dropped through the canal locks.
Only, this morning, there was no lock.
The ship did not hold the stiff, measured motion of the Suanna Canal.
It rolled.
Softly, freely, and with a rhythm that belonged to something wider than river water.
Roc turned toward the window.
Beyond the glass, the world was brightening.
The ferry had reached the open sea.
The deckhands sang louder.
Haul away, my lads, haul away,
The sea may steal our names someday;
But home is a light on the water yet,
And a face no heart forgets.
The words were old, carrying the rhythm of men and women who had learned to laugh before the waters decided whether to bless or bury them. Roc had heard the song often enough in the Sapphire Coves, usually sung by dockhands after too much drink or fishermen who insisted every storm was weaker than the one before it.
But aboard the ferry, as it made its first breath into the Glass Sea, the song felt different.
Fresher.
Closer.
As though the morning itself had decided to sing along.
Roc washed, dressed, and tied the leather booklet closed with the same green twine that held the spearhead at his wrist. His hand hovered over the booklet for a moment.
Last night's silver etches waited inside.
The river.
The canal.
The lower deck.
The outline of a figure he had not meant to draw.
He took the booklet with him.
When he stepped out from his cabin, the shanty followed him through the corridor.
There are women in the moonlit foam with coral in their hair,
Su'marii girls with laughing eyes who'll dare a man to stare.
They'll sing you down to silver halls where the blue-green lanterns sway,
But kiss the cup and bless their names, then sail at break of day.
Roc hummed along before he realized he was doing it.
By the time he reached the stairs and emerged onto the deck, the sun had begun its rise in earnest.
A bright blue sky overtook the darkened tones of violet and red receding at the edge of the world. The last remnants of dawn clung to the horizon in delicate ribbons, while the waters ahead spread in a vast sheet of gleaming silver, blue, and white.
The Glass Sea.
Roc took the stairs to the second-level deck, where a gathering crowd had already formed near the railings. Passengers watched as the ferry finally rode out from the mouth of the Suanna River and into the open waters, their cheers rising alongside the splash of white foam that broke against the hull.
A wave struck hard enough to send ocean spray over the railings, dousing several onlookers.
Children screamed.
Adults laughed.
Someone cursed loudly enough to earn louder laughter from the deckhands.
The ferry air came alive.
The deckhands continued their work with the sort of merriment no one would expect from men and women who had begun laboring before sunrise. Ropes were pulled, pulleys checked, cargo fastened, sails adjusted, and all of it was done beneath song.
Haul away, my lads, haul away,
The sea may steal our names someday;
Through Damocles, through storm and death,
We'll laugh with our last breath.
Home is the light on the water yet,
The hand no grave forgets;
So sing her loud till the heavens foam,
The finest port is home.
Without skipping a beat, another voice joined the final line.
Not rough like the deckhands.
Not loud.
But clear enough that it rose through the chorus and changed the shape of it.
The words danced on beauteous notes, carrying the familiar shanty into something older, gentler, and far more dangerous to Roc's composure.
His humming stopped.
"Seleste—"
His words paused when he felt the press of a gentle hand against his back.
Turning, he found her waiting behind him.
The light of morning caught in her eyes first, sea-green gems dancing with the sun until they seemed less like eyes and more like fragments of the ocean given thought. Roc held her gaze for a moment longer than he would have wished, and in that moment he saw not the class captain who barked orders in the halls of Trinity Cross, nor the girl who had lured him into a cabin with a song and a cup of tea.
He saw something else.
A girl of the Sword Isles standing in the first light of the Glass Sea.
Seleste wore a peach-colored summer dress detailed with white lilies, along with a soft white sweater that gave her an air so different from her usual poise that Roc nearly thought he had mistaken a stranger for her. Yet the shimmer of her scales made such a mistake impossible. They glistened with the same luster as her eyes, while her hair seemed touched by sea and stars, carrying their sparkle and hue wherever the breeze moved it.
Even standing two heads beneath his tall frame, her presence had a strange way of towering over him.
Roc let out a half-hearted laugh at himself.
She was quite something.
By her nature, she was rather peerless.
Seleste's brows lifted.
"Should I be flattered or insulted by your staring?"
"You would be too," Roc said, "if you were greeted with such a sight to behold."
For the first time that morning, Seleste's confidence missed a step.
Only slightly.
A blink. A paused breath. The faintest parting of her lips before she gathered herself again.
"You are unusually dangerous when you decide to speak."
"I do not decide often."
"A mercy, then."
The two began walking together toward the gallery, the shanty fading behind them as they descended from the deck.
After a few quiet steps, Roc glanced at her.
"How do you know the Glass Sea Haulaway?"
Seleste looked at him as if he had asked how she knew the taste of salt.
"You are a seafarer and you still ask me that?"
"I thought the Sword Isles were insular."
"They are," she said, moving ahead of him toward the buffet line. "That does not mean we cannot hear what cheerful fools are singing beyond our waters."
"Cheerful fools?"
"The generous kind." She took a plate and looked at him expectantly. "Hold this."
Roc accepted the tray.
Then another.
Seleste began selecting fruits, fish, spiced pastries, and a few bright sea-green sweets he was fairly certain had not been part of his breakfast plans.
"You are choosing for both of us?"
"You seem like the sort to spend so much time considering what to eat that breakfast would become lunch."
"I would have managed."
"Of course."
She placed another pastry on his plate.
Roc watched her.
Seleste gave him a sweet smile.
"You are welcome."
He decided, wisely, not to argue.
They found a seat near one of the gallery windows, where the morning light scattered across polished wood and painted the table with shifting patterns of blue and gold.
Breakfast passed in a rhythm neither of them acknowledged.
Seleste ate with a certainty that made even choosing fruit seem like an act of conquest. Roc, by contrast, finished quickly and quietly, his attention already pulled elsewhere.
Soon enough, his leather booklet lay open before him.
The opalescent spearhead moved between his fingers.
Seleste watched.
At first, she did so idly, one hand around her cup and her chin resting against the other as if she meant only to pass the time until he became interesting.
Then the silver lines began to form.
Thin, precise etches spread across the page where the spearhead touched it, not ink, not charcoal, but gleaming marks that seemed to reveal what already slept beneath the paper. The gallery window took shape first. Then the horizon beyond it. Then the soft curl of steam from Seleste's cup.
After that came her profile.
Not simply as she appeared.
Not exactly.
It was more like the impression of her voice as it joined the shanty, the way the morning had shifted around it, the way her presence seemed to gather and command even the light that touched her.
Seleste's fingers stilled.
Roc did not look up.
"You draw without looking."
"Not always."
"But now?"
"Now, yes."
"Why?"
His hand slowed.
Only for a moment.
"Because I remember what matters."
Seleste's gaze lifted from the page to his face.
There it was again.
That troublesome way he had of speaking plainly enough that one could not call it flattery, yet deeply enough that ignoring it became impossible.
Before she could decide whether to take offense, tease him, or ask what exactly he meant by that, the ferry was violently shaken.
The first impact came like thunder beneath the floor.
Wood screamed.
Glass shattered.
Cups and plates flew from tables, passengers cried out, and the entire gallery tilted hard enough that several people were thrown from their seats.
Roc caught the table with one hand and Seleste's arm with the other before she could strike the floor.
The second impact followed.
Heavier.
Closer.
This time, the sound of splintering wood tore through the ferry like the groan of a dying beast.
Screams erupted from above.
Roc released Seleste only once she steadied herself.
Her eyes were already sharp.
"What was that?"
He moved to the window.
Outside, another ship had crashed alongside the ferry.
Its jagged prow had bitten into the hull, while grappling hooks flew from its deck and caught against wood, rope, and railing. Figures moved across the invading vessel with brutal coordination, casting planks and chains between the two ships before the ferry's crew had time to organize themselves.
At first, the morning sun washed out the enemy's sails, turning them a dull brown beneath the glare.
Then the ship shifted.
The light struck fully.
And the true color bled into sight.
Red.
Not the white of standard sailors.
Not the blue of privateers.
Not the violet of knights, the purple of royalty, nor the black and gold of emissaries.
Red.
Blood sails.
"Pirates," Roc said.
The word had barely left him when the first boarders crossed.
They came fast, with hooked blades, pistols, short axes, and the practiced cruelty of those who had killed often enough to no longer waste motion doing it. The first deckhand to resist had his throat opened before he could finish shouting. A second tried to reach a flare-caster mounted near the stairs, only for a bolt to punch through his eye and drop him where he stood.
The captain of the ferry tried to call for order.
A pirate smashed the hilt of a sword into his mouth, breaking teeth and sending him down into the blood gathering along the planks.
Seleste's fingers tightened at her side.
Light gathered beneath her scales.
Roc's gaze shifted to her hand.
"No."
She looked at him sharply.
"Do not tell me what to do."
"Acting now will get passengers killed."
"Standing still may do the same."
"I know."
That answer stole the sharpest part of her retort.
The pirates shouted from above.
"All passengers to the main deck! Bring your belongings, keep your hands where we can see them, and maybe the sea will be kind enough to let you keep the rest!"
A child began crying nearby.
A mother pulled him close, trembling so hard she could barely stand.
Roc closed his booklet and slid it into his coat.
His fingers brushed the green twine at his wrist.
Seleste noticed.
"You are going to do something foolish."
"I have not decided yet."
"That is not reassuring."
"I know."
He turned toward the door.
Seleste stepped with him.
Together, they followed the crowd.
By the time they reached the main deck, the pirates had already taken the ferry.
Passengers were forced into rows, hands raised and eyes lowered. Personal belongings were thrown into piles. The deckhands who still lived had been bound near the mast, several bleeding from wounds that had not been dressed and would not be unless their captors decided blood loss was inconvenient.
Near the boarding bridge stood a woman with a leather eyepatch and a curved knife at her hip. She moved through the passengers slowly, inspecting them the way one might inspect animals at market.
When she pointed, pirates dragged the chosen toward the raider vessel.
A merchant with rings on every finger.
A young engineer whose toolcase caught too much attention.
An elderly scholar carrying a sealed mapcase.
A pair of siblings, one of whom cried hard enough that a pirate struck him with the back of his hand.
Seleste trembled.
Not with fear.
With restraint.
Roc stood beside her, his gaze moving from one pirate to the next, counting blades, positions, movements, exits, and the distance between fear and slaughter.
Then one of the pirates saw Seleste.
He stopped.
His eyes dragged over the shimmer of her scales, the shape of her ears, the faint oceanic glow beneath her skin.
"Well now," he said.
Seleste's expression froze.
The pirate grinned wider.
"Rare catch."
Several others turned.
Roc's hand shifted.
The pirate reached toward her.
"Do not."
The words cut through the deck with a quietness that made them more startling than a shout.
The pirate paused.
Slowly, he turned.
Roc stood tall among the passengers, hands visible, expression unreadable, eyes locked on him with such calm that even the pirate seemed uncertain whether to laugh.
"What was that, boy?"
"I said do not."
The eye-patched woman's gaze moved toward them.
A few pirates chuckled.
The one before Seleste stepped closer to Roc.
"You know what happens to boys who speak out of turn?"
Roc lifted his left wrist.
The opalescent spearhead caught the morning light.
The laughter thinned.
One of the older pirates standing near the boarding bridge swore under his breath.
"Hold."
The pirate before Roc looked back.
The eye-patched woman's eye narrowed.
Roc turned his wrist, letting the spearhead and green twine show clearly.
A murmur passed through the raiders.
"Sapphire Coves," someone said.
Another spat over the side of the ferry.
Seleste looked from Roc to the pirates, taking in how quickly the air had changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Interest.
Greed.
The eyepatched woman stepped closer.
"You native?"
Roc did not answer immediately.
His gaze moved once to Seleste.
Only once.
Then he said, "The Coves are my home."
The pirate who had reached for Seleste drew his hand back as though the scales he had coveted had suddenly grown teeth.
The eyepatched woman smiled.
"Call the captain."
The man who came was not dressed like the others.
He crossed from the pirate vessel with a lazy confidence that made haste seem beneath him. His coat was dark, his collar open, his red sash knotted loosely at his waist. Scars crossed his bare chest beneath the fabric, some old, some newer, some worn with the pride of someone who wanted the world to know he had survived all manner of wounds and learned very little mercy from them.
His right hand was red.
Not painted.
Bloodied.
When pirates claimed a vessel, the captain marked it with their palm, the blood a mixture of their own and the blood of whatever soul had previously ruled the thing now taken. It was an old custom among the red-sailed bands, brutal and absolute. The marked hand established authority, and those beneath it obeyed without question.
This man had already marked the ferry.
Roc watched him approach.
The pirate captain looked at the spearhead.
Then at Roc's blue hair.
Then he smiled.
"Bluebat, is it?"
Roc's expression did not change.
"I did not give you my name."
"You did not need to." The captain stopped a few steps away. "Sapphire Coves birth blue hair and stubborn fools. Seems the waters remain generous."
Several pirates laughed.
Roc did not.
Seleste looked at him, then back at the captain.
There was something there.
Not familiarity.
Worse.
Memory.
"I am Loki," the pirate captain said.
"I did not ask."
The silence that followed was so abrupt that even the crying seemed to stop.
Loki stared.
Then laughed.
Not loudly. That would have been safer.
"You have a tongue on you."
"I have a request."
"Oh?"
"Release the passengers. Leave the ferry. Take what you have stolen and go."
This time the pirates roared.
Loki only smiled.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I challenge you."
The laughter died.
Seleste's eyes widened.
"Roc."
He did not look away from Loki.
"By bloodied hand, your authority is unquestioned among those who follow your mark. Then let that authority answer mine."
Loki tilted his head.
"You are either very brave or very stupid."
"I am from the Coves. We are often accused of both."
A few pirates muttered.
Loki's eyes narrowed, but amusement lingered.
"And what exactly are you offering, Bluebat?"
"If I win, the passengers are released and the ferry continues."
"And if you lose?"
Roc's jaw tightened.
"The passengers live."
"Not enough."
"I will give you the route to the Sapphire Coves."
The air changed.
This time even the passengers felt it.
Greed moved through the pirates like wind over dry grass.
The Sapphire Coves were small in the grand scale of the First World, barely more than a coastal stretch near the southern end of Whitewater Port. Yet what they lacked in territory, they made up for in worth. Beneath their warm waters and volcanic caves, N-Type ores surfaced through oceanic eruptions, depositing rare minerals along hidden shorelines and cavern walls. Gems formed there that could not be found by ordinary mining, carried in colors that seemed to hold pieces of the sea, storm, and flame.
Many had searched for the true heart of the Coves.
Few had returned with more than pretty stones and broken ships.
Loki's smile faded.
"The real route?"
Roc said nothing.
Loki stepped closer.
"You would trade your home for strangers?"
Roc's gaze darkened.
"For those who should not have been taken."
Seleste gripped his sleeve.
"Do not do this."
Roc turned slightly.
Her voice lowered, not with command this time, but something far more dangerous to his restraint.
"You cannot mean that."
He looked at her hand, then at her face.
"I will not let them take you."
Her expression sharpened.
"What makes you think I require saving?"
"I did not say that."
"Then what are you doing?"
Roc's eyes softened.
Not much.
Just enough.
"What I can."
Seleste fell silent.
There it was again.
The thing she had glimpsed the night before when authority, trickery, and even flirtation had failed to move him in any expected way. Not lust. Not pride. Not the hunger of a boy trying to impress a girl.
Affection.
Quiet, maddening affection.
The sort even he did not seem to know how to name.
Before she could say anything else, two pirates seized Roc by the arms and pulled him toward the boarding bridge.
He did not resist.
Seleste moved to follow, but the eyepatched woman stepped in front of her.
"Passengers stay where we can see them."
Sea-green light flared beneath Seleste's skin.
Roc looked back once.
"Miss Fairosee."
The name stilled her.
Formal. Careful. Infuriating.
"Please be patient."
Her fingers curled until her nails bit into her palms.
The pirates dragged him across.
The pit was built into the center of the pirate ship.
A lowered fighting ring rested beneath the main deck, reinforced by ironwood and dark metal braces. Sand covered the floor, pale in places and dark in others where old blood had sunk too deep to be hidden by fresh layers.
Passengers from the ferry were forced to watch from above, guarded by blades and pistols.
The pirates gathered around the pit with eager eyes, climbing railings, crates, rigging, and barrels to get a better view. Bets were already being made. Insults already thrown. Some laughed at Roc's height and coat. Others eyed the spearhead at his wrist.
Loki descended first.
One of his men offered him a blunt sword.
He took it.
Then looked at Roc and threw it aside.
"If the kid thinks he can fly," Loki said, removing his coat, "give him his wings."
His armoured gauntlets followed.
Then the chest plate.
By the time he stood bare-chested in the pit, arms wrapped in black cloth and scars crawling over his skin, the gathered pirates had already begun chanting.
Roc stepped down opposite him.
He did not remove his coat.
He did not draw a weapon.
Loki rolled his shoulders.
"Get past me. That is all."
Roc's fingers flexed.
Fine mist gathered at their tips.
Loki noticed.
He smiled.
"Quaint."
Then he moved.
The sand beneath Loki's first step exploded into the air.
Roc barely raised his hands before Loki's kick crashed into his chest.
The impact buried him into the dirt.
For a moment, there was no sound.
Then came the choking.
The slight tingle in his mouth.
The pressure.
Roc's body curled as a torrent of fluids splashed from his lips into the sand before him, drawing jeers, retches, and delighted disgust from the watching pirates.
"Holy shit, he dropped him with one hit!"
"What did you expect? Mouth off to the captain and get folded."
"Isn't that a bit too intense?"
"Look, look. He's getting back up."
One hand steadied Roc against the sand.
Then the other.
His body trembled.
He tried to breathe.
Failed.
Tried again.
The first breath that entered him came with a sound so strained that Seleste's own chest tightened in response.
A coughing fit followed, violent enough to shake his entire frame.
Loki stood where he had landed, arms crossed, expression unchanged.
Roc's shoulders shook.
Then a sound escaped him.
A laugh.
Low.
Sickening.
Wrong enough that the pirates closest to the pit stopped cheering.
"Hah…"
His head lifted.
"Hah…ha…"
Seleste's fingers tightened around the railing.
Roc lurched upward like a figure remembering the shape of a living body.
"I saw it," he whispered.
Loki's brow creased.
"What are you on about?"
Roc's silver eyes rose to him.
"I am sure I almost died…"
Mist began to gather around his hands.
"…because I finally saw it."
Loki's expression soured.
"Speak sense."
Roc forced himself to his feet.
The air around him shimmered.
"I saw," he said.
The mist around his fingers thinned into threads, visible only where the morning light touched them.
"But I will show you."
Roc vanished from where he stood.
No.
Not vanished.
Moved.
His body accelerated toward Loki before the captain could fully react. Loki tried to raise his arms, only to find that his limbs ignored the command. His body froze as though he had been locked inside his own skin, forced to face what was coming.
Roc spun through the air.
For one heartbeat, his body twisted unnaturally, warped into the shape of something broken.
Then it snapped into place.
His fist drove toward Loki's jaw.
It was not the fastest strike Loki had ever seen.
Not the strongest.
Not the cleanest.
But in the space between heartbeats, instinct overrode confidence.
Loki wrenched his neck aside.
The strike sheared past his cheek.
Heat ripped through the air before him.
The binding spell shattered, and Loki's body followed the motion of his leaning head, staggering half a step away as Roc tumbled from the air and landed on both hands and feet.
The sand hissed beneath his touch.
Steam rose from his fingers.
Loki lifted a hand to his cheek.
A thin cut had opened there.
His eyes narrowed.
"What kind of magic is that?"
Roc rose slowly.
"Entanglement."
The silver threads moved around him like living vapour.
"I can restrain or capture anything I can get my Misting Threads on."
Loki stared.
He did not seem to be lying.
That made it worse.
Because Entanglement did not explain the heat.
Nor the way his body had moved.
Nor why, for one breath, Loki's instincts had screamed at him like a child warned not to reach into fire.
"If you think this is enough," Loki said, settling back into stance, "then you will be sorry—"
"No, Loki."
The voice did not come from the pit.
It came from somewhere deeper.
Somewhere Roc had buried and failed to bury well enough.
"I think it is time you shut up."
The crowd vanished.
The pit vanished.
The Glass Sea's light bent into the pale glow of a castle courtyard.
Roc blinked.
He was younger.
Smaller.
His limbs burned from training, his knuckles raw, his throat dry, the old grey walls of the coastal fortress rising around him like the ribs of some dead giant left standing against the sea.
Before him stood Loki.
Not captain yet.
Not blood-handed.
Only a superior. A recruit elevated too quickly, given command over others because cruelty, when useful, was too often mistaken for strength.
Around them, other young recruits stood silent.
Some amused.
Some afraid.
Some looking away.
Roc remembered the girl.
Her name had been Maiya.
He remembered her laughter at supper. The way she tied her hair with blue cord. The way she had looked at the sea whenever the instructors shouted too long, as though somewhere beyond the walls there was a place no rank could follow.
He remembered the door shutting.
Her muffled cry.
The weak, broken way she begged for help while Loki held her inside a room that should never have been locked.
Roc had moved.
He had not thought.
He had simply moved.
Only for the castle guards to drag him back, their hands tight on his arms, their words sharp in his ears.
Orders.
Rank.
Discipline.
Authority.
The door remained closed.
When it opened, the laughter was gone from Maiya's face.
The memory shifted.
Roc stood in the courtyard before Loki, rage wrapped around him so tightly it might have been a second body.
From the crowd emerged a towering figure in an ashen coat detailed with silver, white tufts of fur lining the collar. Each step he took echoed over the stone. The recruits parted before him as though he carried a storm beneath his skin.
Commander Veyr.
He removed his hood.
Piercing blue eyes pinned the courtyard in place, but it was not his gaze that silenced them.
It was his presence.
Like a crushing waterfall made flesh.
He raised one finger into the air.
No one spoke.
"Those who started this, stay. Everyone else, return to your rooms."
He lowered his hand and pointed to the ground.
The shockwave that followed rippled through the courtyard, throwing the watching recruits back against the walls hard enough to tear cries from them.
Only Roc and Loki remained standing.
Barely.
The commander turned to Roc.
"You, boy. What is your name?"
"Roc."
"Now, Roc," the commander said, his tone oddly casual beneath the weight of his aura, "did you think it wise to fight your superior?"
"He is no superior of mine."
Roc spat at the ground.
Loki smiled through the blood on his lip.
The commander sighed.
"Oh, so you have a problem with authority."
"I have a problem with him."
"As long as you are ranked beneath him, you had better get used to the idea."
The words were firm and unshaking despite the unserious tone in which they were delivered.
But they did not sit right with Roc.
The image returned.
The door.
Maiya's cry.
Her weak whimpers beneath Loki's forceful grasp, begging for someone to help as he shut the world away from her.
Roc's hands curled.
"Fuck this."
Mist gathered around his fingers.
Evanescent strings wrapped themselves taut around his hand, the tension sharp enough to be heard as he clenched his fist.
He charged toward Loki.
The commander's aura held the courtyard still, but Roc moved anyway.
For the first time, Loki's expression changed.
Panic stormed through his eyes.
How is he moving?
The commander turned.
"How about we all calm down a little bit."
Roc's perception slowed.
The courtyard froze.
Dust hung in the air.
Loki remained kneeling, squinting against the incoming blow that would never land.
To the commander, Roc became a statue carved from hatred.
The commander looked toward the edge of the courtyard.
"Would the young lady who came to find me please escort your friend to his room. I will deal with them in the morning."
Maiya stepped forward.
Pale.
Silent.
Alive.
Roc's frozen eyes found her.
For a moment, the rage faltered.
Commander Veyr grabbed Loki by the collar with one hand and Roc's frozen body by the back of his shirt with the other.
"I would have a word with both of you."
The memory cracked.
The pit returned.
The Glass Sea returned.
But the hatred did not leave.
It had only found air.
Loki stared at Roc as if he, too, had tasted a ghost.
Roc's misting threads drew tighter around his hands.
"You," Loki whispered.
Roc's face remained calm.
But his eyes burned.
Before either could move, Seleste's voice tore through the pit.
"Roc!"
Her voice struck him with such force that the world seemed to shudder.
No.
Not voice.
A tune.
For less time than a single breath, Roc grasped not her words, but the melody beneath them. The same one he had heard when they first met. The same one that made his body feel lighter whenever he was lost in thought. The same one that had guided silver etches across his pages in the dark.
The silver returned to his eyes.
Roc coughed as though learning to breathe for the first time.
Loki moved.
Too late.
Roc twisted his leg.
The movement was small.
Almost careless.
Yet Loki's footing vanished beneath him, and the captain slammed into the sand hard enough to split the pit floor beneath his shoulder.
Roc stood over him, swaying.
Blood dripped from his mouth.
His chest rose and fell in uneven pulls.
"Now," he said, wiping the blood from his chin, "where were we?"
He nearly fell on his face.
Seleste moved without thinking.
"Look out!"
Several pirates leapt into the pit.
They came from three sides, blades drawn, boots tearing through the sand.
Roc did not turn.
"Do not lose your head, miss."
The air paused.
For a single heartbeat, silence held everything.
Then the bodies dropped.
Headless.
One after another, the pirates toppled into the sand as dark blood sprayed across the pit walls. Their heads struck the ground a moment later, rolling through the sand with expressions still fixed in surprise.
The deck above fell dead quiet.
Seleste froze at the railing.
Roc looked back at her, his expression strangely gentle beneath the blood and steam.
"Please be patient, Seleste."
The air around him shifted.
Threads danced into sight, wrapping around his wounded body like mist given purpose.
"As you can see…"
The deck cracked beneath his feet.
The sand trembled.
Loki groaned beneath him, trying to move.
Roc turned his burning gaze back down to the captain.
"…we are not finished yet."
The Misting Threads pulled taut.
The ferry groaned.
The red sails snapped in the wind.
And Roc smiled without warmth.
"Right, Captain Loki?"