The Dawn-Seeker did not sail through the Western waters so much as it carved a
path through a shimmering, liquid hallucination. Three days out from the
Whispering Coast, the sapphire indigo of the Northern oceans had been bleached
away, replaced by a substance the Eastern journals called the Sea of Glass. It
was not water in any biological sense; it was a vast, undulating expanse of
liquefied silica and frozen light. The waves did not crash; they shattered,
sending shards of translucent turquoise flying into the air with the sound of a
thousand crystal bells.
I stood at the prow, the wind whipping my silver-pearl hair into a tangled halo.
The air here was bone-dry, tasting of scorched minerals and the sharp, electric
scent of a coming storm. My skin felt tight, the Ivory Sieve within me vibrating
in sympathy with the refractive surface of the sea. Beside me, the Living Silver
coating of the ship's railing was constantly shifting, turning from liquid
