“I’ve no idea, brother. But when you find out, share with the rest of us, will you?”
I watch Dagan go—leaving a faint scent of soil on the deck—and feel the cautious bloom of a plan form like a tide pulling back before a swell.
I will show her the things words could not hold.
The knots that mean mercy, the bays where the little coin-fish leap, the shore-rites that teach who will be honored and who will be sacrificed.
I will bring her into the world I rule by demonstration, not decree, and hope that seeing will teach her what saying can’t.
Alaric will meet us at First Shore.
He will have Dragon smoke on him and the old steadiness of a man who has shared his blood with flame and lived to joke about it.
I will ask him what he felt when the zareth braided true between him and Jules.
I will ask him if the music changed, if the reef bent differently beneath his feet.
And then—if answers come—perhaps I will find the courage to tell Phoebe with words as well as with deeds.
For now, the sea slides under our keel, and the day folds toward the First Shore.
The lanterns along the bay begin to wink like distant stars.
I press my palm to the rail and feel the boat breathe.
Somewhere below the planks, she breathes her own small human rhythm.
I try to keep my center, to be the Lord I was schooled to be.Steady, decisive, sure.
But the pull—soft, dangerous, relentless—tugs at me, and I let it.
If the Fates are toying with me, then let them.
I have kept storms in bottles and men in lines.
This is a storm I want to learn to hold.
Chapter 15
Kael
Docking at FirstShore
The First Shore is excess in motion.
Wine poured from carved horns until the crowd smells like an orchard, dishes of rich fish stews steaming with fennel and citrus, platters of fried oysters and ink-dark squid, and, monstrously glorious, boiled colossal prawns—ten pounds each, their shells glistening like polished coral.
I like the prawns best.
The meat is sweet and succulent and pulls apart like memory.
I have no shame in admitting I hope Phoebe likes them.
I imagine watching her learn to peel one, watching her brow furrow in concentration, then her face release into a surprised delighted smile when the flavor blooms.
I think about how many small firsts remain for her here—so many little rituals that will teach her this life isn’t only politics and old bargains but also this.
Heat and salt, laughter, the shock of new tastes.
