Iron on my wrists.

  Iron on my ankles.

  Careful, sweet hands

  not to let me die

  inside my coffin, tied.

  Shall I survive?

  — Berdorf, E. Poems of a Wingless Princess. Unpublished manuscript, Summer.

  They opened her cell, and none of the guards spoke. They did not look at her for too long. Only one of them helped her to her feet, slowly, with a care she did not understand and did not believe she deserved.

  The other guard approached with her chains.

  Eura recognised him. He had stood watch outside her quarters once.

  He closed the iron around her wrists first. Then he knelt. Not hurried. He secured the chains at her ankles at last.

  Eura could barely stand straight; her body was exhausted. Her lips were cracked; her eyes red, worn thin, nearly empty.

  The guard paused before forcing her to open her mouth.

  Then the restraint was applied. A damp cloth replaced words. Leather followed, and her voice was simply gone. She did not try to speak. She suspected they feared even her tongue.

  “Please, Your Highness. Follow us.”

  The guards took her arms without waiting for an answer, guiding her out of the dungeons. The procession moved slowly, in silence, broken only by the metal complaint of chains.

  They brought her through the rear of the palace, where stone gave way to shadow and no windows watched. A plain wooden wagon waited there with its horses stripped of any sign of royalty.

  She did not notice at first. Only when the light shifted did she see them.

  Lolth on her left, in a black robe and mask. Jaer on her right, horns catching the sun, his tail betraying him with a restless twitch.

  She could only see.

  A container waited on the ground, constructed entirely of steel. Long and narrow, its dimensions were not excessive, only exact. It did not press against her yet, but it had already been measured for her body.

  There was no ornamentation—just flat metal, dull and new.

  Near the upper section, a small opening broke the surface. Just enough space for a pair of eyes to remain exposed. A calculated small window, framed in iron, acknowledging the person inside without granting movement or voice.

  Everything else was sealed.

  Only then did the resemblance settle.

  It looked like a coffin.

  She was not permitted to die. But she was granted a funeral.

  They turned her and placed her inside. Metal closed around her.

  The last thing Eura saw was her father, the Elven King. He stood apart from the others. She could have sworn he was smiling.

  After that, there was nothing to see.

  The container was drawn into the wagon. Sound replaced sight: footsteps, the scrape of metal, the low complaint of iron settling into place.

  Beyond her view, the procession did not end.

  Magis followed as far as the threshold of Pollux. There, they removed their elven armour and let it fall to the ground, keeping only their robes. Some of the guards did the same. Not all. Enough.

  “What is happening?” Finnegan’s voice cut through the silence.

  No one answered.

  More armour struck stone.

  Then the crowd changed.

  The sound was no longer only footsteps—a low murmur spread behind her. Eura couldn't understand what it was. It sounded like a collective breath drawn in and out. An orchestra of soft exclamations and questions leaking through the mass. But what was it?

  Something or someone else was moving.

  She heard heavier steps now. Hooves striking earth. The scrape of claws. The padding of paws where there should have been none. Animals?

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Cows lowed. Dogs barked once, then fell quiet. Cats hissed and fled.

  Eura could not see it. She would never have imagined it. Never would know that beyond the wagon, beyond the gates of Sorgenstein, magic was leaving. Spirits that did not need to be summoned or commanded, but chose to follow.

  The water of the Fisherman District was calm beside the boat, broken only by blocks of ice drifting past the hull.

  Esra cast the net and hauled it back again. Empty, again.

  He shook it once, twice, and threw it again without being annoyed, as if the motion mattered more than the catch. He was just killing time.

  The cold didn’t seem to trouble him.

  He tucked his hair back behind his ears with his wet, freezing hand. The bright golden strands that would stubbornly touch his cheeks. The young man finally leaned over the rail to watch the net sink into the sea. His eyes followed the water rather than the rope, blue shot through with gold strikes, daydreaming, as though his thoughts had slipped somewhere warmer.

  The boat rocked, ice tapped wood, and Esra was simply humming a forgotten song, off-key like always, already preparing for the next cast.

  The net flew from his hand to plunge back into the water, but this time it didn’t sink fully. It caught something, and it was definitely bigger than just a fish.

  Esra pulled the rope, feet skidding on wet planks as he tried to force the net free.

  He lost his balance, slamming his butt against the wet, slippery planks painfully.

  Laughter burst from the sea. Esra knew that laugh too well.

  “Lyra,” he grumbled. “Please. Not again. You always do this!”

  She surfaced beside him, laughing louder now, eyes bright and pink, warmed by the sun. Her hair floated around her shoulders in shifting waves.

  “Oh, come on, Ann,” she said, chuckling still. “It was funny.”

  The Mere caught the boat's edge and pulled herself up, water spilling from her skin, glimmering under the cold sun. Then she sat beside him, legs dangling over the side, still smiling like she’d done nothing wrong at all.

  “Aren’t you cold?”

  Esra steadied himself and sat beside her, feet braced against the rail. “I’m not the one swimming naked in the water like a madman.”

  “I’m not naked,” Lyra said, amused, gesturing at herself from head to toe. “See? Skin.”

  Esra glanced once and looked away again with a player smirk. “I don’t think we’re using the same definition of being naked.”

  Lyra rolled her eyes. “The other fishermen boys don’t complain about my definitions.”

  “I’m not a fisherman boy.”

  The oar dipped. Water lapped against the hull.

  Lyra sat on the bench, wood cold under her palms. “No,” she agreed. “You make that very clear each time, but I wonder in my little Mere head. Listen to me, you’re on a boat, right? And fishing, right? That makes you a fisherman, right?”

  Esra didn’t answer as he tried to hold a chuckle.

  The net slipped from his hands and kissed the water with a dull splash. He hauled it back in, then cast again. And again. Each throw landed farther, and silence became uncomfortable for Lyra.

  “What’s wrong with you? What's the tea, Blue-One?”

  “Nothing.” He answered flatly.

  "Girl?

  "No."

  "Boy?"

  "No. Of course not!"

  She gasp, "Both?"

  “Stop it,” he snapped, then sighed. “I already told you. I’m not gay. You’re always making fun of me.”

  Lyra laughed, but it faded quickly.

  “I just don’t feel like chatting today. Sorry, I am not a good company today.”

  She hesitated before asking. “Is your mum… alright?”

  Esra’s hands got distracted on the rope. His eyes drifted past the line where sea and sky pretended to meet.

  “She’s gone again,” he said at last after a long pause. “Not saying anything. Just… gone somewhere I can’t... she can't listen to me. I guess she is lost somewhere inside her mind, where she feels safe. I don't know... like her lighthouse is off again.”

  “What was the trigger this time?” Lyra asked, resting her shoulder against his. "Do you know?"

  Esra didn’t pull away. His fingers worried the edge of the net, twisting the cord until it bit into his skin.

  “A scarf,” he said. “Red. She saw it. And then, she was gone. She wasn’t there anymore. Her eyes went blank. Last thing she said was his name again, Mediah.”

  The boat rocked once, gently.

  “You think this Mediah is your real father?”

  “I already have a real father. His name is not Mediah, is Muru Ann.”

  Lyra’s shoulder shifted. “That's not a father. He hates you.”

  “He still taught me how to tie a knot, how to use a sword and... that I should knock on the door before I enter.” Esra leaned into her, a short bump of bone and stubbornness. “Whoever Mediah was, he never showed up. He abandoned my mum. He hurt her. So why should I care?”

  Esra turned his head at last. “What about you? Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Lyra shook her head. “Nothing. No one knows her. No one’s seen her. It’s like she was never on land.” Her fingers curled around his fingers. “I keep thinking she just disappeared as foam on the water. And I never got to tell her. That Father forgave her,” Lyra added. “That she could come home.”

  “You’ll find her,” Esra said. He didn’t sound certain, but he said it anyway.

  “Maybe. But now I just need to know what happened to my sister. Is she safe? Does she need help? Or... did someone hurt Shuri?” She suddenly tilted her head toward the horizon. “That’s a strange boat.”

  Esra followed her finger as it pointed to the horizon.

  There was nothing there but cold wintry haze.

  “I can't see anything.” Esra thought out loud while his boat shifted beneath him anyway. Not with a tide. Not with the knock of ice.

  The distant fog parted.

  A ship ten times bigger than his little fishing boat emerged far too close, its hull cutting through the pale like something that had never learned to ask for space.

  Esra’s chest tightened, it hurt, and he could barely breathe. His mouth felt full of something that wasn't there, as if filled with something wrong, thick enough to steal words before he could shape them. Not letting him speak, not even breathe.

  His knees gave out. Esra fell hard against the planks, the world tilting above him as the boat rocked on.

  “Ann? Ann, are you okay? Look at me!”

  Lyra was hovering over him, her hands on his shoulders, shaking him harder than before. The boat rocked with the motion.

  His body betrayed him. Muscles tightened, then pulled against themselves. The deck blurred beneath him as his limbs jerked, convulsing with no control.

  He could not stop it. He could not feel it either.

  Sound thinned. Everything did. Something reached for him from inside his own head. Not a thought. A presence. Eyes of a colour he had never ever seen. A colour that defied everything he knew.

  It crawled along inside his body, his mind and saat, dragging words with it.

  He understood none of them, only that they were meant for him.

  

  I hex with whispers soft as night's own hush.

  Feel my highs, my lows, the push and shove,

  In every quiet, fleeting rush, I hex you...