Wellynd awoke to the sun peeking through the window of his room, the curtains moving loosely in the soft breeze. He started, his breath and heart quickening. The room was mostly quiet save for the occasional and familiar thump of crates being unloaded at the conveyor.

Sitting up, he noticed his hand stuck to the sheets as he went to rub his eyes.

Looking down, he lay in the middle of a bloodied mess. He looked at the barely clotted scab on his hand and felt a thrum of pain as his shirt underneath his cloak, stuck to his skin and pulled against his shoulder. He was parched, his mouth, eyes, and skin all felt desperately dry.

He could even smell the blood that was all around him.

But, he was alive.

How had he escaped?

Wincing, he stood, and went to fetch water from the carafe on the table. He drank directly from it, the cool liquid relieving what felt like a week-long thirst.

He wiped his mouth with his arm before changing into a clean pair of pants and tunic, stuffing the bloodied and torn cloak into his pack.

Feeling guilty, he placed a few coins and the room’s key on the ruined sheets, and left through the window. He’d prefer not to explain what happened to the concierge, and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be welcomed back.

As he walked through the now busy streets, the morning sun having already warmed the brown cobble, Wellynd tried to piece together what happened the night before.

He walked by a pair of Vertan soldiers, avoiding eye contact with either of them. If Klent had gone back to the Fort, it didn’t seem like the soldiers had Wellynd’s description yet.

At least not these soldiers.

He still might be able to make it out of the city. As long as Leofer was on time, he just had to make it to the dock.

He felt his pace quickening, a knot forming in his stomach as he descended down the conveyor steps.

Shouts of merchants pushing wares rang out all around him and announced their daily specials. One particular voice caught his ear.

“Ward off the woes of Winter! Powerful stones from the Northern Reaches of Melyar! Talismans from the Lost Forests of Shadkara! Come get them here.”

Wellynd stopped. The stone he’d bought in the square. Where was it?

He threw his pack onto the ground and rifled through it.

It wasn’t there.

Was it in his cloak pocket when he ventured out last night? He’d been so preoccupied with his dream and Kip’s mysterious entrance that he couldn’t remember if it’d been on him.

Could it have fallen out of his pocket during his fight with Klent?

He chewed his lip.

The alleyway was just up ahead. Klent must have been long gone and it would only take a moment for him to look.

He should just leave.

Slowing his pace, he stepped onto the landing and peered down the alley.

There was no commotion. No sign of soldiers.

What if they did find the stone? What if they connected it back to the tent and found the merchant who had sold it to him. She knew he was from Kellek’s Watch.

Taking off at a light jog, he began tracing his winding path from the night before. Every person he passed kept their head down. His stomach started to unknot. He could just check the alley for his stone and be on his way. Even if Klent was searching for him, he’d never expect Wellynd to go back to where he had escaped from.

Just as he rounded the last corner, an odd tapping noise rang out in his ear.

He stopped.

A large crowd had gathered around the dead-end.

What was even more concerning was what loomed above them.

Large jagged spikes of stone shot out in every direction from the far wall, towering over the onlookers. Wellynd slowed his pace as he wandered forward.

Most of the crowd was composed of what looked like regular citizens, but Wellynd could see that four of the town’s watch stood in the crowd, garbed in their distinct light blue tunics. Several flashes of stark black and bronze Vertan uniforms also stood out in the crowd.

The crowd mingled, exchanging hushed words, as Wellynd located the source of the faint tapping. It was the sound of a metal chisel against stone echoing throughout the alley.

He inched closer, hoping he just seemed like some curious onlooker.

Two merchants broke away from the crowd, shaking their heads as they passed by Wellynd.

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The crowd shifted, and Wellynd could now see a robed figure that knelt in front of the stone mass welded to the wall.

It was an older woman, and Wellynd caught sight of the white ink tattoo on her hand as she tapped at the protrusion with her metal instrument.

She was a Koshai, no doubt from the Observatory, a distinct yellow band on the shoulders of her cloak.

She broke off a piece of the stone and dropped it into a glass tube before she stoppered it with a cork and stood up. Her mouth formed a thin line as she examined the mass of stone in front of her.

The town’s watch, ushered on by a command from one of the Vertan soldiers, began to break the crowd apart, making way as the Observer, accompanied by a set of soldiers, began to walk directly toward Wellynd.

He turned, angling away from the alley and walking slowly, head facing the ground.

Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, he sidled closer to one of small clusters of civilians who had broken apart to let the soldiers through.

The procession passed by without a word.

He let out a sigh as they turned the corner and disappeared out of sight.

Breaking off from the group, some of whom were now throwing him odd glances, Wellynd walked back to the dead-end where the remaining town’s guard stood in a wide circle, preventing the thinning crowd from getting any closer to the strange stones.

From this distance, the stone spikes appeared, impossibly, to be made from the same rock as the cobble beneath his feet. They twisted and bent at unnatural angles in almost every direction. He began to trace them back toward the epicentre of the protrusions, until his eyes fell on...

Immediately, Wellynd felt his stomach churn.

A stone face. Twisted in pain and utter horror, it sat in the centre of the gnarled structure that had melded to the building’s outer wall.

Squinting, he stepped closer instinctively to get a closer look.

It was Klent.

Or, at least, a veneer of rock that added a bit of bulk to the man’s face.

The muffled sound of Klent’s horror from the night before echoed in Wellynd’s memory.

Did he...do that?

Turning away from the horrific scene, Wellynd vomited against the wall, his stomach spasming at the lack of food.

A few of the onlookers grunted sounds of disgust and Wellynd could tell he’d caught the attention of one of the soldiers, but he didn’t care.

His eyes began to water, but whether it was from the violent retching, the pain of his shoulder as he hunched forward, or the shock of the scene before him, he wasn’t sure.

Klent’s tomb stood eerily quiet amid the chattering crowd, and Wellynd couldn’t help but spare one final look at the violent stones that captured his final moments, his terrified visage cut in sharp relief against the tawny rock.

Keeping his head bowed, Wellynd wiped his mouth and started back toward the main thoroughfare, trying to avoid any more attention from the crowd.

—

The walk to the dock felt longer than he remembered.

Every muscle in his body ached, and the gashes in his shoulder and back stung with every step. He had bandaged his hand with a piece of cloth from his bag, but would need the help of Ursa to mend his other wounds.

He also needed rest. Whatever Kip had done to him the night before had worn off, and it seemed an injustice that the one night he spent in a luxury hotel ended in such a wretched sleep.

Klent’s face felt permanently etched into his memory. Anytime he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, or got distracted by a patrol of Vertan soldiers, of which there seemed more than usual of, he’d see that monument of twisted pain carved into the stone.

He needed to know what happened, but first he needed to get out of Revenshore. Get back to the island. Then he could think.

As he stepped onto the docks, the smell of brine and the clatter of feet against planks washed over him. At last some relief. Something familiar. He was one step closer to home.

He made his way towards the ferrying pier and felt yet another surge of relief as he saw Leofer and The Flea tied in at the end.

Leofer was already waving when Wellynd caught his eye, and his steps quickened at the thought of being back on the waves. As he made his way down the long pier, he stared out towards the horizon and Elaudri’s comforting oblivion.

Something else caught his eye.

Not too far from shore, a large Vertan ship, in fact, the largest Wellynd had ever seen, was slowly sailing towards the pier, its awesome hull barely rocked by the small waves.

He slowed his pace a bit as he marvelled at the vessel.

There were at least twenty sails atop its five masts and each side was dotted with countless bronze panels, each one probably hiding some sort of cannon.

Wellynd couldn’t fathom why such a ship was here now. Maybe someone important was visiting the famous port-city. They definitely wouldn’t send something like this for what happened with Klent, would they?

Unwilling to let what he knew to be unrealistic anxieties get the best of him, he turned and continued back towards Leofer. Maybe it was best if he didn’t return to Revenshore for a while.

“Ahoy, Welly! Looks like you bin runnin’ into more rough seas, lad” chuckled Leofer.

“I don’t even know where to...” Wellynd started.

The sky abruptly flashed red, and Leofer’s head snapped toward the open sea. Wellynd paused, one hand on the ladder of The Flea.

“What was that?” he asked, looking up.

Two seconds later, a piercing reverberation shook the air.

The hull of the Flea violently rattled beneath Wellynd’s hand, as if the boat was going to rip apart.

Leofer let out a yelp that was quickly drowned out by a second sharp, high-pitched thrum. Letting go of the ladder, Wellynd stuffed his fingers into his ears.

Leofer scrambled off the boat and walked a few steps down the pier, staring out toward the bay.

Wellynd turned to look with him and yelled out. The massive Vertan ship was gone.

Or at least he tried to yell out. Wellynd attempted to say something to Leofer, but no sound escaped his mouth.

A large wave, visible even from the shore, had formed and Wellynd noticed large pieces of wood hull and debris riding atop it towards the pier. As the wave got closer, he noticed the bodies of a few Vertan sailors also mixed in with the wreckage. The ship had been obliterated. He was so mesmerized by the sight that it took him a moment to see Leofer yelling at him. The captain was clearly unable to hear as well, as he kept rubbing at his ears and trying to yell again.

After a few more moments of deafening silence, the sky began to turn back to its normal hue, and, with it, the sound of the waves gradually returned.

Wellynd felt Leofer put his hand on his shoulder as they watched the large wave crash against the walls of the pier, massive pieces of hull smashing against other boats or breaking off smaller sections of docks.

Then, another piercing sound rang out. This one Wellynd knew. An ominous, low-pitched horn emanated from Fort Gravician on the other side of the bay, and he saw what looked like a green ball of flame shoot up into the air from behind its black walls. Within seconds, Wellynd could see Vertan soldiers spilling out from nearly every building near the wharf, sprinting towards the docks.

Leofer snapped his finger in Wellynd’s ear, who turned back to see long lines deeply carved in the old sailor’s face.

“It’s about to be very difficult to leave Revenshore. We best be going, lad.”