"The sea remembers every insult; the shore only pretends to forget."
— Saying of the Old South
The great doors of the Throne Hall opened with a long groan of bronze and oak.
Morning light streamed through the narrow windows, gilding the marble floor in cold bands of gold. Incense burned from iron braziers, carrying the scent of myrrh and salt.
At the far end of the hall sat King Daeryn Vermilion, high upon the Throne of Crest, its arms wrought from the bones of fallen dragons. His eyes were shadowed beneath the weight of the crown, unreadable, still.
Beside him stood Lord Reach Akimbo, silent Regent of the court — his bald head gleaming faintly in the morning light, his hands clasped behind his back.
At the foot of the dais stood Lord Valen ruler of Iceese, face pale beneath the sheen of sweat. His composure trembled like thin glass. Behind him, his envoys waited in silence, the white sigil of their house glinting faintly against the gloom.
When Lord Valen of Iceese was announced, a hush swept the chamber. The courtiers and scribes bowed low, but Valen did not. His cloak of silver fur dragged across the floor as he strode forward — a northern lord in a southern cage.
The air was tight with expectation. The insult of rejection still lingered in every whisper that followed the feast.
"Your Grace," he began, his voice smooth but already steeped in anger. "The winds have brought ill news to my men. The AELINTH, the ship of peace, bearing our gifts to your harbor — gone. No sight of it, no word, no wreckage. By now it should have been seen from the eastern cliffs, its sails gleaming white against the sea wind. Instead, word came from the harbor watch: no sign, no wreckage, no messenger. Only a streak of oil and splintered wood had washed ashore on the northern coast."
The Iceese envoys were quick to speak — and quicker to blame.
"They were seen entering your waters," hissed Lord Edras, Valen's second. His voice carried a sharp edge, honed from insult. "Now the ship is gone, and the South pretends not to have noticed? Do you mistake us for fools?"
"Tell me, where has your sea hidden it?" Lord Valen said.
Akimbo's tone was calm, his manner that of a seasoned diplomat.
"I mistake no one," he said. "The seas of the South answer to no crown — The AELINTH was yours to guard and it was last seen within your own dominion, my lord. The Nareth's mouth is wide, its current treacherous. Many vessels are lost to the tide."
"Many vessels," Valen repeated, his voice sharpening. "But not vessels bearing gold and tribute meant for your king's hands."
He looked up toward king Daeryn on the throne — a silent challenge.
"You would have me believe a ghost tide took her?"
Akimbo answered again, stepping forward a measured pace. "The Crown believes nothing without proof. The realm of men has storms enough without your accusations adding thunder to it."
A murmur ran through the attending lords, but Valen pressed on.
"Accusations? Nay, Lord Regent, I speak truth. The South fattens on deceit while we—"
Edras's jaw flexed. "You call it accusations yet your ports profit most from her loss."
"You speak boldly, lord of frost. Mind the tongue you bring to a southern court." Akimbo The king's Reach warned
Valen raised a hand, silencing his man. He looked to king Daeryn, his tone smooth but cold.
"The AELINTH was my house's gift — a vessel of peace, meant for your harbor. And now peace sinks beneath your waves. Tell me, Daeryn, how do you intend to pay the tide?"
A hush fell.
Only the sound of banners stirring above broke it. He had addressed the king by name alone, showing no regard.
"The Iceese came in good faith. I brought the tide of peace to your door — and what did I find? Mockery, silence, and insult! My son humiliated before your realm, your princess turning her back as though our blood were unclean!" Valen said.
From the gallery above, Saphirra's eyes widened, her hands tightening upon the marble rail.
"The princess owes no man her hand," Akimbo replied. "If your pride cannot bear the weight of her decision, perhaps it is not our peace you seek, but penance."
That struck deep.
Valen's restraint cracked; the room felt smaller.
"Peace?" he barked, stepping closer to the dais. "Do not speak to me of peace, black dog of the Crown! I came to forge alliance, not to kneel to a false king!"
The hall gasps. A sharp hiss of steel filled the room — the Sentinel's guards had drawn their swords, their points glinting at his chest.
Still, king Daeryn does not move — not yet.
He watches Valen with the calm of a coiled serpent.
"You will mind your tone in the presence of His Grace." Akimbo warned the lord Valen without flinching.
But Valen only laughed — a sound that rattled the pillars.
"My tone? I am Ruler of the Black Sea! My tone will be remembered long after your master's name is dust! You speak of grace, but I see none upon that throne! Tell me, Akimbo, when does the shadow believe itself the sun?"
The insult rippled through the room like heat.
Akimbo's expression did not change. He only inclined his head slightly — the faintest warning.
But Valen was beyond warnings.
He jabbed a finger toward the throne.
"You call this man a king? You are no heir to Vermilion's throne. You are its carrion. A shadow to your brother, a lecher to his wife—"
Murmurs filled the chamber; courtiers looked away.
Valen turned sharply toward the balcony above, where Princess Saphirra stood — pale, unmoving.
"And your crown?" Valen spat. "A whore's daughter — half-dragon, half-witch! Tell me, Your Grace, what will you call your dynasty when she breeds monsters in your name?"
A stir ran through the hall tearing through the crowd. Even Akimbo, the Lord Regent, turned his head at that.
Still, the King did not move.
The Queen Dowager Naerya rose from her seat among the courtiers.
"You forget yourself, Lord Valen!" she said, her voice soft but sharp. "You stand before the throne of Vermilion, not your drinking halls of frost. You disgrace yourself—— leave these halls before you are dragged from them!"
Valen turns to her — smiling, wild.
"Dragged? By you, perhaps? You would drag me yourself, whore of Crest Keep? Tell me, how long did it take before you warmed Daeryn's bed — when your husband's pyre still smoked?"
The hall froze.
No one breathed.
Even the flames seemed to bow their heads.
Lady Cyrayne Veilwarden tilted her head slightly, a faint smirk curling her lips. She knew the line had been crossed. Akimbo's eyes lowered, slow and grim — not in surprise, but in silent understanding of what had just been unleashed.
And then —
Daeryn moved.
He rose from the throne with calm, terrible grace.
One of the guards still held his blade outstretched. King Daeryn's hand closed around the hilt, smooth, deliberate — as though taking something that had always belonged to him.
Valen turned, half-smirk still curling his mouth.
The sword flashed once — a clean arc of silver through torchlight — and the smirk never finished.
Blood splattered across the marble, the crimson running in streams down the sunburst floor. Valen's head struck the marble with a dull, wet thud and rolled to a stop before the steps of the throne. His body remained upright for a moment, as though refusing to accept its death, before collapsing in a heap.
For a moment, there was no sound — not even a gasp. Only the slow drip of blood on stone.
Daeryn stood over the corpse, the blade still in his hand, his breathing even.
"Let him take his words to the gods," he said quietly.
Then he sat again, the sword laid across his knees. His eyes swept the hall, black and bright.
"Let all who mock the Crown remember this day."
The Blood at the Steps
The throne room still smelled of iron and incense.
Valen's body lay sprawled across the sunburst floor where it had fallen, his blood tracing dark rivers through the carved sigils of Vermilion. The silence that followed the beheading was thicker than the act itself — stunned, unnatural, as if the very air dared not move.
And then the Iceese broke.
The first sword came from one of Valen's men — a silver-bladed scimitar drawn from beneath his cloak. It flashed once in the torchlight before the guards met it mid-swing. The sound that followed was chaos: steel clashing, voices roaring, boots thundering across the marble.
"Seize them!" cried Lord Regent Akimbo, already moving down the steps.
But the Iceese fought like wolves cornered — proud, desperate, doomed.
Their numbers were few — barely twenty — but every man bore the frost-seal on his pauldron, and the cold of their homeland burned in their eyes. They struck for the King, for vengeance, for the honor ripped from their name before the court.
King Daeryn did not flinch. He stood above them, the blood still wet on his sword.
"Let them come," he said, his voice low and terrible. "Let them join their master."
The royal guard closed in, a ring of red and gold. The fight was over before it began. Steel met chain, the clash echoing through the vaulted chamber until it fell into silence again.
When it ended, the Iceese dead lay in a circle around their lord — their pale faces turned toward him as if still waiting for command. Those who yet lived dropped their weapons, breath ragged, eyes burning with grief and disbelief.
Akimbo stepped forward, his voice hard but measured.
"Your Grace, enough. The hall has bled its fill."
King Daeryn looked over the ruin of men — chest rising slow, steady, the fury still smoldering in his gaze.
"Enough?" he murmured."No, Akimbo. The word enough belongs to the weak."
He turned to the surviving Iceese, motioning with his sword. "Kneel and yield your tongues. For the mouths that spoke treason will no longer speak."
One man — an older envoy with silver in his beard — spat blood on the floor. "You are not a king," he rasped. "You are rot in a crown."
The King's eyes darkened.
"Then let rot be your grave."
The guard's blade struck fast — clean through the man's neck.
Naerya rose from where she stood, her face pale with anger.
"Daeryn, enough!" she said. "You've made your point. Will you drown the realm in blood to prove you are not weak?"
The hall froze. Even Akimbo lowered his head slightly — he would not meet her eyes.
For a long breath, King Daeryn said nothing. Then, with a slow exhale, he sheathed his sword.
"Take the rest to the dungeons," he ordered. "We'll send their corpses home when the salt's done."
Akimbo's jaw tightened, but he obeyed.
"As you command, Your Grace."
The crowd stirred into motion. Some covered their mouths, others bowed their heads. The Sentinel held his ground. The guards stepped back, reforming their lines in rigid silence.
Above, Princess Saphirra still stood in the gallery — white-faced, unmoving. She said nothing, but her eyes did not leave the spot where Valen's head had rolled. When she turned away, her breath trembled — not fear, not grief, something else. Disbelief, perhaps. Or the first shadow of hatred.
Theon of Iceese stood below the dais, blood on his boots and silence on his lips. He did not draw blade nor speak word. He simply knelt beside his father's fallen body until the guards dragged him away. He neither wept nor spoke.
He only stared at the blood running in slow rivulets between the tiles.
Daeryn handed the sword back to the guard.
"Clean this hall," he said.
He turned and descended from the throne, his cloak brushing past Valen's body as he went.
No one dared breathe until the doors shut behind him.
Only Akimbo's eyes lingered on the King — on the faint, triumphant calm that crossed Daeryn's face as if this bloodletting were nothing but ceremony.
And somewhere deep in that silence, the realm shifted.
The Riverlands, Two Nights After
The Dead Afloat
The fog had thinned, but the river still stank of salt and sleep.
For two nights, Korran Hale had watched the ship drift nowhere — neither sinking nor sailing, just waiting.
Now, before dawn's first color, he crossed the dock again, lantern in hand, boots creaking against the wet planks.
The AELINTH loomed out of the mist like a mausoleum, her timbers dark and heavy with dew.
She had not moved since the night she came. Not an inch. Not a ripple round her hull.
Behind him, Willem followed, clutching a pike too large for his shaking hands.
"You sure of this, Korran?" he whispered.
"No," the ferryman said, and kept walking.
The ship's hull groaned as they neared. A slow, hollow sound, like breath drawn through wood.
Korran placed a hand upon the rope ladder, slick with frost. It burned cold against his skin.
He hesitated, then climbed.
The deck was worse than his dreams.
Bodies lay where they had fallen — some sprawled, others kneeling, faces locked in expressions that weren't quite fear. The air reeked not of decay but of metal and salt, as if the blood had turned to brine.
Willem gagged behind him. "By the gods… what happened to them?"
"Not storm," Korran muttered. "Not plague either."
He crouched beside one of the corpses — a sailor, jaw clenched, eyes glazed over with thin sheets of ice.
When Korran brushed his fingers across the man's sleeve, it crumbled into dust. Beneath the cloth, the skin gleamed like smoked glass.
He drew back sharply.
The lanternlight caught the deck again — the same black veins he'd seen from shore. But now they'd spread, curling through the planks like roots, tracing up the mast, pulsing faintly.
Once.
Twice.
Then still.
Korran raised the light toward the forecastle. A banner hung there — the sigil of Iceese, pale and tattered, still rimmed with frost.
Beside it, nailed to the railing, was a small chest. Its lid hung open. Inside, shards of broken glass glimmered — all that remained of something once whole.
"Tribute gold, you think?" Willem asked hoarsely.
"No," Korran said. "Not gold. Something else."
The ferryman leaned closer, studying the chest. The air around it shimmered faintly — hot and cold at once. Then a sound rose from beneath the deck.
A thud.
Another.
Slow and deliberate, as if something moved within the ship's belly.
Willem stumbled back. "We should go—"
Korran's gaze stayed fixed on the deck, the pulsing veins, the faint hum that seemed to come from the wood itself.
Then, from the companionway, a breath escaped — wet, ragged, human.
Both men froze.
A shadow stirred below, and a hand — pale, glass-slick — reached for the steps, clutching the rail before going still again.
That broke Korran's silence.
"Go," he hissed. "Run to the others. We ride for the Keep at dawn."
Willem didn't argue. He dropped his pike and fled down the ladder.
Korran lingered a heartbeat longer, staring at the motionless hand in the stairwell. Then he turned and followed.
At the dock, the fog was rising again — thick, heavy, hiding the ship from view.
Korran stood there a long while, breathing hard.
He had seen plague. He had seen wreck. But never a thing that watched him back.
He turned to Willem, who waited with two other ferrymen by the shore.
"Tell the guard captain to ready five horses," he said. "We ride for Crest Keep before sunset. No sleep, no rest till we stand before the crown."
Willem nodded, pale and wide-eyed.
"What do I tell him we found?"
Korran glanced toward the fog-shrouded river, where the AELINTH lay hidden once more.
"Tell him the Iceese came bearing gifts," he said. "And the river sent them back."
The Salted Gift
While the river carried its dead northward, the South dealt its own offering to the sea.
At Crest Keep lay heavy beneath a gray dawn
Fog clung to the parapets; crows lined the walls like sentinels. At the courtyard's center, an iron-bound coffin waited — black oak sealed with wax, reeking of salt and southern oil.
The King's crest was stamped deep into its lid.
A crimson inscription glared beneath the seal:
"To the King of Iceese — a lesson in loyalty."
Theon stood before it, his face pale, his eyes empty. Around him, the surviving Iceese men were stripped of arms and escorted by the King's Sentinels. No one spoke. The only sound was the slow hiss of the wind and the creak of the wagon wheels.
From the balcony above, King Daeryn watched — cloaked in crimson, his presence cold and absolute. Lady Cyrayne, the Veilwarden, stood beside him, arms folded, the faintest smile tugging at her lips.
"You could have sent him home with honor, Your Grace," she said.
King Daeryn's eyes did not leave the coffin.
"Honor is the crown's to give, not theirs to demand."
Her smile thinned. "Salt and oil, my king. Even you must smell the insult in it."
"That," Daeryn replied, "is the point."
Behind them, Queen Dowager Naerya stood apart, her gaze cold as iron. "You've turned grief into spectacle," she said quietly. "Do you think the gods will overlook such pride?"
"The gods," Daeryn said, "made me king. Let them watch."
Below, the Iceese captain barked an order. The coffin was lifted onto the waiting wagon. Theon did not look up to the balcony, nor did he speak. His silence was deeper than shame — it was purpose, frozen and waiting for the right thaw.
The portcullis opened. The chains groaned. The Iceese departed, their black banners trailing behind them like shadows.
The King watched until the last wheel vanished into the fog. Then he turned away, voice low and final.
"Let the realm see what becomes of those who bare their teeth at lions."
Lady Cyrayne inclined her head. "They'll see, my king."
Naerya said nothing. But when she looked down at the empty courtyard, she felt the echo of something larger than pride — something shifting. The air itself seemed heavier, the silence different.
Far beyond the walls, across river and reed, a bell tolled faintly. Not of mourning.
Of omen.
The Queen's Shadow
The wind over Crest Keep carried the scent of salt and ashes.
Far below, the remnants of the Iceese fleet were drifting out to sea — slow, solemn, their white sails dull against the gray horizon. The water was calm, but the air itself seemed to tremble, heavy with the echo of what had been done.
King Daeryn stood at the edge of the high balcony, gloved hands resting on the stone rail. He did not move as the last of the ships shrank into the mist. His cloak snapped softly in the wind.
Behind him, footsteps — soft, measured.
"You've brought doom upon us," said Queen Naerya.
Her voice was quiet, but it cut clean through the sea's murmur.
"I've brought fear," King Daeryn replied, still watching the horizon. "And fear keeps kingdoms alive."
"Fear also feeds rebellion."
Naerya came closer, the wind tugging at her gown. "You think the realm will stay loyal because you frightened it? You've salted a king and burned a peace treaty."
"Peace?" Daeryn turned at last, his eyes sharp, gleaming with something too alive to be reason. "Peace is a word for men with full coffers and dull swords. I have neither."
He looked past her then — past her and into the empty distance where the fleet had vanished. His voice softened, though it lost none of its weight.
"The girl's rejection was a blessing. The Iceese will come, yes… and when they do, the realm will need strength — not silk, not smiles. She'll serve her purpose better than any wedding bed could offer."
Naerya's brow furrowed. There was something in his tone she had never heard before — not resolve, not wrath, but belief. Dangerous belief.
"Serve her purpose?" she asked quietly. "What purpose, Daeryn?"
He didn't answer. Not immediately. The silence between them filled with the groaning of the sea wind and the cry of distant gulls.
Then he said, almost reverently, "The blood of Vermilion binds the Crest. Through her, I'll wake its strength again — the power our line has wasted for generations."
Naerya stared at him, the words sinking like stones into cold water. "You'll use her," she whispered.
Daeryn's jaw tightened. "I'll free us," he said. "Through her blood, through the old rites, the South will rise unbroken. The gods themselves will remember our name."
"You don't even know what you're trying to awaken," she said, stepping closer, voice trembling between fury and fear. "You play with things that buried empires. Grim's fire died for a reason."
The King's gaze darkened. "You think me blind? I have read what remains. The Crest is our birthright, Naerya. I only mean to claim it."
"And if it claims her first?"
That stopped him. For the first time, something flickered across his face — not doubt, but hesitation, brief and brittle. Then it was gone.
He turned back to the sea. "The world is dying in slow rot. If her blood can stir it, so be it. A queen must serve her realm — even if it's in pain."
Naerya's voice broke. "She's your blood!"
Daeryn didn't look at her. "That's why it must be her."
The wind rose, carrying their silence out over the water. Below, gulls wheeled through the fading light. Naerya stepped back slowly, eyes glistening, realizing with a kind of horror that whatever man Daeryn once was had drowned with those ships.
As she turned to leave, he spoke again, softly — to himself or to the sea.
"The gods demand balance," he murmured. "And balance is bought in blood."
Naerya's hand trembled on the door before she walked away. The King did not watch her go. He only stared out at the horizon — at the vanishing sails — as though they carried with them the last remnants of mercy from the South.
THE SEA OF IRON
The wind over Iceese carried the sound of mourning like a blade through frost.
The harbor lay silent beneath a sky of white fire, the frozen sea gleaming with veins of blue ice that caught the sun like shattered glass.
At the heart of the capital, within the Vault of Kings, a coffin of southern oak stood beneath a ring of braziers. The wax seal still burned faintly red — the crest of Crest Keep pressed deep into it:
"To the King of Iceese — a lesson in loyalty."
The wax cracked beneath the weight of a chisel.
The lid groaned open.
A wave of stench rolled through the hall — salt, oil, and slow decay.
Inside lay Valen Vael, once Lord of Iceese, now little more than a husk lacquered in shame. His eyes were sewn shut, his skin glistened like polished marble, and his tongue — blackened and shriveled — was nailed to his chest with an iron spike.
Around the coffin stood the captains of the Ice Fleet — twelve men in heavy furs, their faces lit by blue flame. None spoke. None breathed.
At last, Aedric Vael, younger brother to Valen and Lord Commander of the Northern Fleet, stepped forward. His breath came in white plumes. He looked down at the body for a long time before he knelt.
"Brother…"
His voice cracked, then steadied. "They salted you like a beast."
A murmur stirred behind him.
"No," Aedric said, rising, eyes glinting in the firelight. "They salted you like a warning."
He turned to the gathered captains, his voice swelling through the vault.
"The South thinks us made of ice — cold, unfeeling, breakable. They think salt can preserve their pride."
He struck the coffin once — the sound echoed like thunder.
"Let them learn what the sea remembers."
That night, across the frozen bay, the Ice Fleet came alive.
The air split with the crack of banners unfurling — white on blue, stitched with the sigil of the Frost Serpent devouring its tail.
Men poured through the shipyards like veins of quicksilver. Oars clattered, chains groaned, and the bay lit with a thousand torches whose flames turned the ice red.
The wind sang through the rigging, a deep, mournful sound that rolled over the sea like a dirge.
Drums beat from the lower docks — slow, deliberate, ancient.
Each strike seemed to stir the dead waters, as if the sea itself waited to bear witness.
On the prow of his flagship, Aedric Vael stood clad in black sealskin, the wind howling through his hair like the voice of the storm itself.
The firelight danced across his face, painting his eyes in flame and frost.
He raised his sword — its edge gleaming like frozen glass — and shouted to the legions below:
"You see him there," he began, his voice rough, rising like the growl of shifting ice.
"Lord Valen Vael, ruler of Iceese, father of our people, salted like a carcass and sent home as spoil."
He lifted his gaze to the captains — twelve men carved of wind and iron, their beards rimed with frost.
"They thought this would break us.
They thought Iceese would kneel — that we would drown our shame beneath the waves and call it peace.
But hear me now: we are born of the sea, and the sea kneels to no throne."
He stepped to the coffin, laying his palm on the frozen wood.
"The South sent us salt, thinking to preserve their mockery.
They forget — salt is ours. It comes from our blood, our tears, our dead.
We carve it from the bones of the sea and taste it every time the wind cuts our lips.
They sent us a warning," his voice deepened, "but it is they who should fear what the sea returns."
Aedric turned, drawing his blade. Its steel caught the torchlight, gleaming like a shard of winter's heart.
"By the Frost Serpent that guards our shore, by the spirits of the drowned who sleep beneath our hulls, I swear this:
For every grain of salt they poured upon his flesh, a hundred shall bleed in the South.
For every drop of oil that slicks his corpse, we'll set a hundred of their ships aflame."
He pointed the blade toward the distant sea.
"The South boasts dragons and fire — let them.
Fire burns and dies.
But ice endures. Ice remembers. Ice does not forgive."
The captains bowed their heads; the wind keened through the vault like a mourning woman.
Aedric raised his voice again, and it broke like thunder across the bay.
"They call us cold — and we are!
Cold enough to kill without pity.
Cold enough to wait while their pride rots.
Cold enough to see the long war through, until their rivers run with the salt they sent us!"
He struck the coffin once again with the flat of his blade — the sound echoed like a drum of war.
"Sound the horns," he said.
"Wake the Serpent Fleet.
Tonight, the sea itself will rise for Iceese.
And the world will learn — the South sent us salt…"
He raised the sword to the storming sky, his voice a roar that shook the vault.
"…and we shall return it in blood!"
The horns answered.
One by one, they cried out across the bay — deep, mournful, terrible — the call of a thousand ships waking from their slumber.
And beneath the sound, the ice cracked like thunder, splitting wide as if the sea itself had taken oath beside its sons.
High above the fleet, upon the cliffs of Iceese, the first raven broke into the storm — wings slicing the snow, bound southward with tidings of war.
THE FERRYMAN'S ROAD
The fog had not lifted in two days.
It clung to the river like mourning cloth, thick enough to drown the sun. Even the crows had gone quiet, and when the wind passed through the reeds, it made a sound like whispering voices — low and restless.
At the dock of Branmeadow, Korran Hale stood with his lantern dimmed to a dull glow.
He had not slept since the night he boarded the Aelinth — the ghost ship that had drifted upriver against the current, carrying death and salt and silence.
The smell of that night still lived on him: oil, brine, and rot beneath the skin.
Now he stood beside three saddled horses, ready to make for the Keep before the dawn burned off the mist.
The Aelinth lay still where she'd lodged herself upon the riverbend, her hull splintered and her masts heavy with frost. The ferryman had stared at her for hours, wondering whether she was dead or dreaming.
A boot scraped behind him. Willem, young and thin as a reed, came out of the fog holding a bundle of bread and smoked fish.
"You sure we're doing this?" Willem asked, his voice trembling slightly. "You seen what that ship was. No message worth carryin' that far."
Korran didn't answer at first. He cinched his pack, then checked the binding of his spear.
"We go south," he said finally. "The river brought her for a reason, lad. We'll tell the Keep what we saw, before the river brings worse."
Three more ferrymen joined them: Osric, a brawler from the docks with more scars than teeth; Tam, soft-faced but steady-handed; and Lorn, the old mute who spoke only with nods.
Each man bore a weapon not for battle, but for the dark — short spears, hooks, and knives meant for cutting rope or fending off beasts that rose from the reeds.
The fog swallowed Branmeadow as soon as they left it.
Their horses moved cautiously, hooves muffled by mud.
Behind them, the Aelinth was still visible — a shadow in the mist, her frozen masts bent toward the sky like praying hands.
The Road Beside the River
By the time the sun broke the horizon, it was pale and thin, more ghost than flame.
They followed the river's curve for miles, where the road turned to blackened silt. Half-flooded fences and broken mills lined the banks.
The fields that once grew barley and flax were now shallow lakes, slick with drowned stalks.
At a bend in the river, they found a cart overturned and half-swallowed by mud. Two oxen lay beside it — stiff, their eyes wide and glazed with frost.
Willem swallowed hard.
"It's the river," Osric muttered. "The tide ain't right. It's pullin' things it shouldn't."
Korran dismounted and crouched near the cart.
The wheels bore black streaks — the same thin, veined markings he'd seen on the Aelinth's deck.
He touched one. It pulsed faintly, then faded.
"Mount up," he said quietly. "Don't stop again till the bridge."
They rode on. The silence pressed against them like fog.
Even the river seemed to watch them now, each ripple like an eye half-open.
The Marrow Bridge
The Marrow Bridge rose out of the fog — a half-collapsed span of stone and iron that crossed the Nareth's narrowest throat. The current below was strong, thick with reeds and the pale drift of bones.
They led their horses single file.
Each step echoed through the hollow underside of the bridge. The sound made Willem's skin crawl.
Halfway across, Tam pointed down. "Korran… look."
The ferryman peered over the edge.
Beneath the water, pale shapes turned slowly — bodies caught on the bridge pilings. Five… six… maybe more.
Their faces were drawn and colorless. Their eyes open.
They floated upright, not face-down as the drowned should.
Korran drew a breath through his teeth. "The current's bringin' them from the north. If it reaches the Keep before us—"
He didn't finish. They all knew what that meant.
They rode on in silence. Not even Willem spoke again until the bridge disappeared behind them.
Camp at Reed Hollow
By nightfall, they made camp in a hollow of reeds where the ground rose just high enough to stay dry.
The men lit no fire. The mist ate the moonlight whole, leaving them in dim gray shadow.
Willem tried to sleep but couldn't. His hands shook when he tore bread. "Korran," he said softly, "why us? Why the river show that ship to us?"
Korran stared at the water, his face drawn tight. "Because we're the only ones that still listen to it."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"My da used to say the Nareth keeps the memory of every man that's ever crossed her. She don't speak much. But when she does, it's never for nothin'."
Osric snorted, but softly. "If she's speakin' now, I don't care to know what she's sayin'."
The men slept in turns. Korran didn't sleep at all.
He sat awake until the mist thinned and dawn crept gray over the marshes.
The Woods of Valecray
The second day took them through the Valecray Woods, where the trees stood close as soldiers.
The ground was littered with old shrines — stone markers half-eaten by moss, carved with forgotten prayers.
Once or twice, they saw shapes among the trees — figures that vanished when the mist shifted.
At midday, a foul stench came with the wind. The horses shied.
Then they saw him — a man stumbling along the road, barefoot, his clothes torn to rags.
His skin was pale, slick with sweat and salt.
He muttered to himself in a voice too hoarse to understand.
"Hoy, you there!" Willem called.
The man turned.
His eyes were white. His mouth opened, but no words came — only a long hiss, like air escaping a bellows.
He took one step forward, then fell.
When Korran rolled him over, the flesh came apart in his hands. Saltwater spilled from the man's chest.
The veins beneath the skin were black — the same black that had marked the ship.
Tam gagged. "Gods save us."
Korran stood slowly, wiping his hands on his coat. "No gods here," he said. "Only the river."
They buried the man under a cairn of stones.
When they rode on, the woods were utterly still.
The Crossroads of Emberlight
By the third night, they reached Emberlight, a roadside hamlet little more than three huts and an inn.
Smoke rose weakly from the tavern chimney, and one lantern hung above the door, its flame small and trembling.
Inside, a handful of travelers sat around a dying fire. The air smelled of damp straw and boiled grain.
The innkeeper, a bearded man with eyes like wet gravel, looked up as the ferrymen entered.
"South road's closed," he said. "Flooded near the riverbend. No sense goin' further."
Korran laid a silver penny on the counter. "We're not lookin' for sense. We're lookin' for the King's Keep."
At that, the innkeep blinked. "You'd best hurry then. Word is the North's stirred. Ships gone missing. Iceese banners seen in the sea lanes."
Osric grunted. "So war's comin'?"
The innkeep shrugged. "All I know is— the river's wrong. Folk been sayin' the tides pull against the moon."
No one laughed.
The ferrymen ate in silence, then lay by the fire. The warmth felt foreign after so many nights of fog.
Korran stayed up again.
When the others slept, he stepped outside, looking north. The mist was thinner here, but far beyond the hills, he thought he saw light flashing — once, twice — as if from a ship's lantern.
And in the distance, faint and rhythmic, came the sound of oars.
The Last Bend
By the fourth dawn, the fog had broken into strips, drifting like smoke. The land began to rise. They followed a ridge overlooking the southern floodplain.
Below, the Nareth widened — no longer a river, but a shallow, glimmering sea of silver water stretching toward the horizon.
Crest Keep stood on the far hill, its towers pale and jagged against the rising sun.
"We're close," Willem said softly. "By dusk, we'll see her walls."
Korran nodded. But his eyes were on the river below.
Something was moving there — a ripple that traveled against the flow.
He knew better than to mention it.
They descended slowly. The horses were uneasy, stamping and whinnying at unseen things in the reeds.
When they reached the last crossing before the Keep, the air grew colder. The river's surface had turned black — not with shadow, but with some thin film that glimmered like oil.
Korran dismounted, crouching near the edge. He dipped his fingers. The water was icy, though the sun was bright.
He lifted his hand and found his fingers dusted with salt.
"The sea's movin' inland," he murmured. "The gods damn us all."
The Gate of Crest Keep
They reached the Keep by late afternoon.
The walls rose high above the plain — gray stone streaked with red banners.
At the gate, soldiers barred their way until Korran raised the sigil carved into his ferry hook — the mark of the Nareth Guild.
"We bring word from the Riverlands," he said. "Urgent for the Crown."
The guards exchanged glances, then let them pass.
As the gate closed behind them, Willem looked around the courtyard — banners half-lowered, soldiers sharpening blades, priests whispering near the fountain.
"What's happenin' here?" he asked.
Korran didn't answer. His eyes were on the keep's tallest tower, where black smoke rose thin into the sky.
"War's happenin'," Osric muttered. "And we've brought news that'll feed it."
That night the ferrymen were given quarters below the southern ramparts — a narrow stone chamber that smelled faintly of hay and old wine. The room was meant for servants, not guests, but after four days on the road, it felt almost royal.
A single torch flickered in its iron sconce, throwing restless shadows across the wall. The sound of the Keep — the murmurs of distant guards, the clatter of armor — came faintly through the ceiling above.
A pot of stew steamed weakly in the center of the room, and a loaf of brown bread lay broken beside it.
"By the gods," Osric groaned, tearing a chunk. "Never thought I'd see a fire again. Or stew that ain't half water."
He raised the bowl, grinning. "To the South — where even the air smells richer!"
Willem laughed, his voice light again for the first time in days. "Aye, and the women too! You saw the ones in the courtyard? I swear they shine like—"
He caught Korran's eye and hesitated. "Like polished coin," he finished lamely.
Even old Lorn gave a quiet grunt of amusement, tugging off his boots and stretching his blistered feet toward the coals.
For a while, the room filled with the small comforts of men too tired to think: the scrape of spoons, the creak of armor, the sigh of contentment after hot food and warmth.
But Korran said nothing.
He sat apart, his bowl untouched, staring at the torchlight dancing on the walls. His hands were clasped, his jaw set like stone.
The flicker of the flame caught in his eyes — and something in them looked hollow.
Osric noticed first. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You look like a man at his own wake," he said. "What's crawlin' under your skin, Korran? We made it. The Keep's ahead, the King'll hear us out. Maybe even throw coin our way for our trouble."
Korran's voice was low, flat. "You think coin's what we'll get for bringin' this kind of word?"
Osric frowned. "What word? That a ship came wrong up a river? They'll call it storm work, or bandits, or—"
"It wasn't storm work," Korran said. "And those weren't bandits."
The room fell still.
Even Willem, halfway through his drink, stopped.
Korran leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "The Aelinth was empty of breath, aye — but not of life. You saw the men on her deck. They weren't drowned. They weren't cold. They were… waitin'."
He looked at each of them in turn. "And the river carried her upriver, against the tide. Tell me what storm does that."
Osric shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe the gods sent a sign. Ships've drifted before. Maybe the river's tryin' to speak."
"The river don't speak," Willem muttered. "Not to men, at least."
Lorn made a sign against evil and turned his face away.
But Korran wasn't finished. "You all felt it. The salt in the water where it shouldn't be. The frost on the hull when the air was warm. The eyes of them dead men open wide as if they saw somethin' comin' for us. Don't tell me the river's speakin' — tell me what it's warning."
Osric exhaled through his nose, leaning back against the wall. "You're seein' ghosts in your head. The South's full of tales — the Nareth swallows men, the sea brings omens, the sky bleeds before a war. Always a story before a storm."
"Then maybe the story's startin' again," Korran said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried. "The river's changin', Osric. The air's colder, the tide don't answer the moon. I've ferried her waters thirty years — and never once has she flowed like this. She's sick. Or cursed."
No one spoke for a while.
The fire popped, throwing sparks across the floor.
Finally, Willem set down his bowl. "If you're right… what do we tell the King? That the river's gone mad? That the dead are walkin' home?"
He tried to smile, but his voice shook. "We'll sound like fools."
Korran looked up. "Fools maybe. But fools that lived to speak."
Osric rubbed his jaw. "And what good'll speakin' do, eh? Kings don't listen to ferrymen. We'll say our piece, they'll nod, and they'll send us back north to drown with the rest."
Lorn stirred the fire with a poker, the flame flaring briefly.
The light caught the ferrymen's faces — worn, dirt-streaked, haunted.
Korran let the silence settle before he spoke again.
"When I boarded that ship, I thought I knew what I'd see. Bodies, maybe gold, maybe a curse of Iceese make. But what I saw… it weren't death, Osric. It were something else. Somethin' waitin' to be woken."
The room grew colder.
Even the torch seemed to burn lower.
"What do you mean?" Willem asked quietly.
Korran's eyes were distant. "The hull had veins. Black, twistin'. They pulsed, once. Like it was breathin'. And the men on her… they weren't laid down. They were standin'. Like they'd froze that way. Like somethin' stopped time mid-breath."
Willem's face paled. "You think it was magic?"
Korran didn't answer.
He only stared at the torch until the flame bent and flickered as if a wind had passed — though the air was still.
Osric grunted and threw a blanket over his shoulder. "Enough of this. We'll tell our tale at dawn and let the nobles sort their witch stories. If the gods are angry, they can take it up with the priests."
He lay down, pulling his hood low. Lorn followed suit, curling up against the wall.
Willem lingered a while, glancing between them — between the safety of company and the unease of Korran's silence — before finally lying down as well.
Korran remained where he sat, staring at the dying coals until they turned red as blood.
The torch guttered once more, then steadied.
Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, he thought he heard the faint lap of water against stone.
The sound of the river.
Still moving. Still watching.
He whispered to it under his breath — not a prayer, but a promise.
"If you're bringin' the dead, old girl, I'll make sure the livin' hear you first."
They would speak before the court at dawn.
But as Korran lay awake, he could not shake the sound that had followed them since Branmeadow — that slow, steady rhythm of unseen oars.
He rose quietly, stepped outside into the chill, and looked up at the stars.
For the first time in his life, he wished the river had kept its secrets.