Endless Sea—September 12—Cycle 9.
Morning on Windrest City’s docks smelled like tar, fish, and wet rope. Ethan spoke the release word and tossed the bottle into the harbor—
—and the sea answered.
Glass vanished in a blink of blue light. Wood unfolded from nothing. Sails snapped into existence with a crack like thunder.
A ship rose from the water as if it had always been there.
Skye stared, mouth slightly open. “Okay. That’s… actually cool.”
“Don’t get attached,” Ethan said, stepping aboard. “We’re borrowing trouble.”
They left Windrest behind, the city shrinking into mist and gull cries.
For the first hour, Skye insisted she could navigate.
She sat at the helm with the seriousness of a seasoned captain, a rolled map spread across her paws. Ethan watched for five minutes—then for ten—until the coastline they were following started looking suspiciously wrong.
“Skye,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re steering us toward rocks.”
“I’m steering us toward adventure.”
“Eira would call that suicide.”
Skye hissed at the name, then grudgingly let Ethan take over.
By late afternoon, the sea changed.
Reefs surfaced like jagged teeth. Pale coral shelves broke the waves in long, curved lines, as if a giant had tried to comb the ocean and snapped the teeth off the comb.
“Dusk Isle should be ahead,” Ethan murmured.
A horn answered him.
Not a bell. Not a fishing whistle.
A deep, metallic blast that rolled over the water like war.
Skye spun around. “That’s not—”
A ship emerged behind them, enormous, painted a hard, bright red that looked almost obscene against the gray-blue sea.
Steam rose from its stack in thick white columns.
On its hull, a gold emblem caught the sun: a stylized sun-disk, rays flaring outward.
“The Sunship,” Ethan said, recognizing the emblem—Radiance Isle’s pride.
The red vessel closed the distance with arrogant speed.
Men in crisp uniforms lined its rails. A noble flag snapped overhead.
A voice carried across the water through a speaking trumpet.
“Small craft ahead! You’re in reef water. Cut your speed or you’ll shred your keel!”
Ethan didn’t bother taking offense. He adjusted course.
The Sunship angled closer until a man in a tailored coat and officer’s sash was visible on the forecastle.
Young. Handsome in the way nobles practiced. His hair was tied back, his eyes bright with restless energy.
He saluted with theatrical precision.
“Captain James Lloyd,” he called. “Radiance Isle Navy. This channel is treacherous. Follow my flags and you’ll make it through.”
Skye muttered, “We were making it through.”
Ethan raised a brow at her.
She coughed and looked away.
James’s sailors began waving signal flags from the Sunship’s side, marking a safe path through the reef maze. The red steamship moved first, slow and deliberate now, and Ethan guided the Bottled Ship behind it.
They threaded between coral spines and hidden shelves. More than once Ethan caught the pale shadow of a reef just beneath the surface and felt his stomach tighten.
Without the Sunship, they’d have been toothpicked.
When the water finally deepened again, Dusk Isle rose from the horizon—a low, forested shape under a smear of cloud.
They anchored in a sheltered inlet.
James Lloyd had his crew lower a launch. He stepped onto the sand like he owned the island.
Ethan followed with Skye at his heel.
A beached fishing boat lay crooked on the shore, its wood scraped raw, its nets tangled like ripped intestines. No one was aboard.
James crouched, studying the sand. “Tracks. Fresh.”
“Your men?” Ethan asked.
James’s jaw tightened. “A scouting party. They went inland before the fog rolled in.”
Skye sniffed the air. “Fog.”
James stood, expression hardening into a captain’s mask. “Rhine, isn’t it?”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. The name traveled fast.
James kept going, voice dropping. “I know what you did in Windrest City. People are calling you a miracle.”
“I’m not,” Ethan said flatly.
“Maybe not. But you’re capable.” James gestured toward the tree line. “I can’t leave my men. Help me find them.”
Ethan hesitated only a moment.
If he refused, he made an enemy of Radiance Isle.
If he went in, he risked stepping into someone else’s trap.
Either way, he’d be in the story.
“Fine,” he said. “But if the fog turns hostile, we pull out.”
James nodded once. “Agreed.”
They entered the forest.
At first it was only damp shade and the smell of moss. Then a pale mist began to seep between the trunks, curling around ankles, swallowing sound.
The world softened at the edges.
Somewhere ahead, faint as a memory, a woman’s voice began to sing.
Ethan tried to focus on it—tried to parse the melody—
—and the mist poured into his lungs like cold milk.
His legs went heavy.
His thoughts turned syrup-slow.
The last thing he saw was James Lloyd turning his head as if listening to someone calling his name.
The forest tilted.
Darkness took him.