The Western storm did not break over the Iron Sovereign; it exhaled. It was a cold, saline breath that carried the scent of crushed pearls and the sulfurous heat of underwater volcanoes. As we crossed the invisible meridian into the Gilded Coast's waters, the sky transformed into a bruising canvas of charcoal and gold. The lightning here was not white or violet; it was a searing, liquid amber that arced across the clouds like the veins of a god.
I stood at the prow, the Silver Halo on my palm vibrating with a frequency that made the very air around my hand shimmer. The Iron Sovereign groaned, its heavy iron plates vibrating in sympathy with the ocean. This was no longer the sea of the North, governed by ice and stillness. This was the territory of the Deep-Sea Fire—the primal energy of the earth's core meeting the crushing weight of the trenches.
