Yvain retired to one of the ship's shabby quarters below deck, barely managing to pull off his boots before sleep took him. His body ached with exhaustion, his nerves taut from days of secrecy and flight. He sank into the thin cot as though into a grave and drifted into dreams, unsettling things that slipped from memory the moment his eyes opened.
When he awoke, the room was bathed in darkness. The moonlight filtering through the small, porthole-shaped window told him night had fallen. He stretched, bones cracking, and sat up slowly, already uneasy though he could not name why.
Silence.
The rhythmic sound of sailors' boots, the laughter, the shouted orders, all had vanished. The usual clamor that had filled the ship like a heartbeat was gone. That, more than anything, set him on edge.
Yvain rose and made his way toward the upper deck, each creaking step down the passageway amplifying the unnatural stillness. A foreboding chill crept along his spine. He thought of the sea.
The Wet Wastes. Silent, vast, and dead. Legends said that beneath its black surface swam things older than the stars. Shapeshifters and soul-thieves, beings that could crawl into a man's skin and wear him like a coat. Sailors were warned never to stare too long into the dark waters, lest something stare back.
If one of those horrors had struck, he would have heard it. He would've felt the chaos.
And yet… nothing.
When he emerged onto the upper deck, the moon cast an eerie sheen across the planks. Then he saw it.
The mass.
It undulated grotesquely in the center of the deck, a shifting abomination of tangled limbs, twisted flesh, and dislocated mouths. Eyes blinked from elbows, ribs, and palms. Fingers grew from tongues, mouths from knees. Some faces, barely coherent amidst the melding, were familiar. The quartermaster. A cook. A passenger with whom he'd shared a word at dawn.
Yvain froze.
And there, by the railing, stood Celeste, as calm as the night wind, arms crossed as though admiring a sculpture.
"What did you do?" Yvain asked, stepping out fully onto the deck, voice low but laced with steel.
Her head turned toward him, a slow, graceful movement. Her smile bloomed, delighted, utterly mad. "I made a thing," she said softly. "The Needle dulled all my creativity. But now it blossoms again."
Yvain glanced at the living amalgam, this foul chimera of agony. The thing moaned. No, sang, notes made of blood and despair. Within, hearts still beat. Organs pulsed. Arteries strained to carry blood to parts that no longer knew where they belonged. Eyes begged. Mouths pleaded. Their music scraped the soul.
Vitalism. A discipline once meant to heal and nurture, now desecrated into something unholy. He had never liked the discipline. Growth and change, yes, but not like this.
Still, he felt no pity. Yvain had seen too much, read too much, to be moved by pain. Not anymore. If anything, what he felt was a slow, mounting irritation.
How was he supposed to explain this to anyone at Port Adwini? An empty ship, crew gone without a trace, or worse, evidence of this?
He sighed, rubbing his temple.
He was beginning to regret bringing her. No, that wasn't the truth, he regretted allowing her to follow. It was arrogance, plain and simple. For all his brooding and self-reflection, he was still a Dehmohseni, drunk on the belief that he could control anything, anyone, with enough will.
And Celeste… Celeste had never been controllable.
He looked at her, radiant in the moonlight, her white hair flicking in the sea breeze, her skin like polished obsidian marbled with ghost-pale vitiligo. She looked back at him, eyes glimmering with a wicked sort of joy.
Yvain turned his gaze back to the abomination on the deck. It writhed still, meat shifting against meat, flesh roiling like a sea in torment. The cacophony of moans, gasps, and unintelligible utterings rose and fell like a grotesque choir. But to Yvain, it was simply noise. No more, no less.
He raised his hand and began to move his fingers in a fluid, precise rhythm, the Thamuric Hand-Sign, an ancient silent dialect of sorcery. His fingers danced through the air, tracing sigils and glyphs unseen, each gesture layered with intent, refined by bloodline and brilliance.
Then he stretched out his right hand, palm open. The breath of the world responded.
A spark ignited in the hollow of his hand.
Fire. No, not fire as mortals knew it. This was Hellfire, flame pulled from the deep hollows of infernal spheres where suffering took form. It roared to life, a hungry, seething blossom of orange streaked with veins of black and gold. The air around it warped, as if reality itself rejected its presence.
It bucked like a beast, eager to devour. But Yvain did not flinch. He was no fledgling pyromancer to be devoured by his own conjuring. He held the flame with the poise of a crowned master, his will a cage of iron.
Then, without a word, he hurled it.
The fire screamed through the air and struck the abomination squarely in its roiling center.
"Wait!" Celeste shrieked.
Too late.
Her masterpiece went up in flames, spectacular flames. They erupted in brilliant, hungry tongues, setting the night alight. The amalgam wailed, a chorus of a dozen voices in simultaneous agony. Eyes burst. Limbs withered and blackened. Fused bones cracked open, and viscera hissed as it boiled away.
The fire consumed indiscriminately. Screams became steam. Flesh melted into cinders. Soon, nothing remained but a charred blotch on the deck and the sharp, acrid scent of burnt horror.
Celeste stood frozen, fury etched across her face. "You had no right," she said, voice trembling, not with sorrow, but with rage.
"Any more of your antics," Yvain said coldly, brushing soot from his cloak, "and I'll leave you behind."
Celeste held his gaze for a long, silent moment. Then her lips curled into a smile, one of those cruel, crooked things she wore like jewelry. A smile that was not a smile at all.
"Yes, cousin," she said, voice smooth as glass drawn over a whetstone.
He stepped toward the prow and looked out across the black waters. The port was just ahead now. Port Adwini, the sprawling city at the edge of the Yelich dominion. Lanterns bobbed on the harbor in neat rows, and tall spires cut into the horizon like the teeth of some watchful beast.
"Who's piloting the ship?" he asked, only then realizing he hadn't seen the captain since boarding.
Celeste joined him, arms crossed, her hair tousled by the salty wind. "I left the captain out of my art," she said with nonchalance. "He's whole. More or less."
"Cast a shrouding mist," Yvain ordered, turning from her. "We can't arrive with a deck full of charred remains."
Celeste's grin widened, but she obeyed. She stepped away from the rail and raised her hands, fingers flicking through the air in elegant, spiral patterns. Then she spoke two words in Nasqari, a language that lilted like a song but carried ancient power beneath its cadence. A tongue once spoken by illusionists who cloaked cities in lies and made phantoms of kings.
Mist rolled in from the water, thick and unnatural, spilling over the deck like ghostly silk. It stretched outward, gliding across the harbor and swallowing the docks in pale silence. Lantern lights flickered and dimmed beneath its touch. Somewhere onshore, dogs began to bark, first one, then many. The residents living near the waterline would soon notice the sudden fog, and whispers would follow.
Perhaps someone would send a wizard to investigate. But by the time they arrived, Yvain and Celeste would be gone.
He gave the fog one last glance before turning away and making for the bridge.
The helm creaked underfoot as he ascended, and there, silhouetted by the faint glow of the ship's lanterns, stood the captain. The man's hands were firm on the wheel, guiding the vessel with mechanical precision. His eyes, however, were vacant, deeper than mere exhaustion. They were glassy hollows, vessels emptied of will, reflecting nothing.
Enchantment. Subtle, invasive. Celeste's handiwork, no doubt.
The ship slid into the harbor without sound, the fog muffling even the scrape of hull against dock.
Then he stepped behind the captain and raised a hand.
No words. No incantation. Just a quick, precise gesture of the Thamuric Hand-Sign, and the captain's heart stopped mid-beat.
The man slumped forward over the wheel, lifeless.
Yvain caught his body before it hit the deck, easing it down with a strange tenderness, as if granting the man a kindness he didn't deserve. He had no time for loose ends, not with Celeste aboard and the authorities likely to swarm soon.
Yvain rejoined Celeste on the deck, the fog still curling around their ankles like living smoke. She stood near the gangplank, hood drawn over her wild hair, eyes gleaming in the mist-light. When she saw him, she grinned, sharp and satisfied, as though the world itself had just played into her hands.
Beyond the fog, the port city of Adwini rose in tiers of stone and light. Balconies jutted out like thorns from old walls. Lanterns swayed from rusted chains. The scent of salt, fish, and burning resin clung to the air like sweat on skin. Voices echoed faintly from the harbor's edge, dockhands shouting, merchants arguing, children running barefoot through the early night.
"We made it," Celeste whispered, her breath visible in the cool sea air.
"We did," Yvain murmured, adjusting the strap of his pack.
They walked together into the waking belly of the city, shoulder to shoulder, hearts thundering. For the first time in their lives, there were no tutors, no watchers, no Vaelha. Only the clamor of a foreign city and the weight of possibility pressing down on them like a second skin.