The Duskvein sailed steadily away from Chastrow, the midday sun casting long shadows across the deck. The air smelled of salt and wood, the only sounds the occasional creak of the ship and the waves breaking against its hull.
Erin sat on the deck railing, staring at the sea. Three—no, four days? Chastrow had swallowed time like a black hole. He had been robbed, thrown into the heart of a Vaelgrim ambush, beaten senseless, hurled into the sky, and crash-landed into a lagoon. And somehow, that still wasn't the worst thing that had happened.
Behind him, the rest of the crew were scattered across the deck, each dealing with their exhaustion in their own way. Fenrick sat on a crate, chewing lazily on dried meat, Ariya quietly wrung the hem of her shirt, her usual brightness dimmed, and Cidrin lay flat on his back with one arm over his face. Narza, as always, was off to the side, leaning against the mast, arms crossed, staring at nothing.
Then Fenrick exhaled sharply. "So… that was a mess."
Cidrin snorted. "Understatement of the century."
Erin ran a hand through his hair, still crusted with dried seawater. "I don't even know where to start."
Thalor's heavy steps approached. He had been at the helm, steering them away from Chastrow's poisoned shore, but now he stood in front of them, arms crossed. The midday sun cast sharp shadows across his face, making his already sharp features look carved from stone.
"I do," he said flatly, looking directly at Erin.
Erin exhaled and pushed off the railing. "How'd you manage to find us?"
"The real question is, How did you lot get to Driftmark before me?"
Erin swallowed. He hadn't realized how fast his heart was beating until now. He hesitated for half a second too long.
"Speak," Thalor said, his voice carrying an edge of command that left no room for disobedience.
Erin straightened. "I—I left the ship to help the others," he admitted. "I found out Narza was in trouble, and I couldn't just stay put. But when I got to her—" He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "There were two Vaelgrim bastards already waiting for her. I tried to help, but they wiped the floor with me. Didn't even try. It was like…" He trailed off, remembering how effortless it had been for them. The way their presence alone had twisted the air, the sheer force of their strikes. "I was nothing to them."
Thalor's expression didn't change. He waited. Erin forced himself to continue.
"We should've died. All of us. But Narza—she did something. Some kind of magic. Next thing we knew, we were falling from the sky. Landed in the lagoon near Driftmark."
A muscle in Thalor's jaw twitched. His silence was worse than yelling.
"You left the ship," he said, voice low.
Erin tensed. "Yeah, but—"
"You left the ship."
This time, it wasn't just repetition. It was a blade pressed against his ribs.
Thalor took a step forward, and despite the open space of the deck, Erin felt cornered. "You think you were helping?" His voice was even, but there was something in it—something cold, dangerous. "You ran straight into Vaelgrim. You barely made it out alive. And then you fell from the sky—do you even hear yourself?" Thalor's eyes narrowed, his tone sharp. "What part of 'stay on the ship' did you not understand? You got lucky, boy. The only reason you're standing here is because someone else saved you."
Erin's hands clenched into fists. "I couldn't just—"
"You could have. You were supposed to. You think you know this world?" Thalor's eyes burned like embers in a dying fire. "You don't know anything. You left the ship, and you nearly got yourself killed. And worse, you could've cost the rest of them their lives."
Erin swallowed. He was used to people getting pissed at him—Cidrin, Narza, hell, even Fenrick sometimes—but this was different. Thalor wasn't just angry. There was something else behind it.
Concern.
It was faint, barely visible, but it was there. In the way Thalor's hands clenched at his sides, in the flicker of his expression before he masked it again, but he wasn't done.
"You think this is some adventure?" Thalor leaned in slightly, just enough to make Erin feel the weight of his presence. "You think you can just charge into danger and hope things work out?" His voice dropped lower, almost a growl. "Hope doesn't keep you alive. Discipline does. And you abandoned it the moment you stepped off that ship."
Erin bit his lip, looking away. He wanted to argue. Wanted to say he had no choice. But the words felt hollow in his throat.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and he nearly flinched before realizing the grip wasn't harsh. Still firm, but not cruel. He looked up. Thalor watched him for a moment longer, then exhaled sharply and stepped back, running a hand through his hair. "Next time, don't make me have to say 'I told you so.'"
The silence that followed lingered too long, stretched taut between them. Erin could still feel the weight of Thalor's words pressing down on him, settling into the spaces between his ribs. He had no response. Not one that mattered.
Fenrick, sitting with his arms draped over his knees, let out a long breath. "Well. That was terrifying."
Cidrin sat up, groaning. "You're telling me. I half-expected him to throw you overboard."
Ariya frowned at them. "This isn't funny."
"No, it's not," Fenrick said, rubbing his face. "But I have to make jokes, or I'll start thinking about how we almost died. And I don't feel like having an existential crisis before lunch."
"Too late," Cidrin muttered. "I've been in a state of crisis since we set foot on that cursed island."
Narza shifted, arms still crossed. "We survived," she said simply.
"Yeah, barely," Erin muttered, running a hand through his hair. "And honestly? I still don't get how." He turned to Narza. "Back there… what did you do?"
Narza didn't answer right away. Her amber eyes flickered, unreadable. "I improvised."
Fenrick scoffed. "Whatever the fuck that means."
She exhaled. "I didn't have enough mana left to transport all of us. Normally, I can only move myself—it's like slipping through gaps in space, bending my body into the smoke so I can pass through. But I couldn't do that for everyone. There wasn't enough energy, not enough room."
Ariya frowned. "Then how did you—?"
"I used the fog."
Erin's breath hitched. He remembered it now—the way the mist had thickened around them, how the air itself had seemed to twist and pull.
Narza went on, her voice steady but low. "I forced the smoke to merge with our mana. Smoke spreads, seeps into everything—so I let it seep into us. I intertwined it with our bodies, made it part of us, and then… I moved the smoke. We weren't teleporting. We were being carried."
Cidrin's expression darkened. "You merged us with the fog?"
"For a few seconds." She didn't blink. "It was the only way."
A heavy silence settled between them.
Erin swallowed. "That's… that's insane."
"I know."
No one quite knew what to say to that.
Cidrin stretched his legs out with a groan. "I say we never set foot on Chastrow again. Agreed?"
"No argument here," Fenrick said.
Ariya sighed. "I still can't believe Lyric played us like that."
"Does it matter?" Erin muttered. "She got what she wanted. And Darial—" He stopped himself, shaking his head. "None of it even mattered in the end."
Thalor, who had been silent, finally spoke again. "None of you should have been on that island to begin with."
Cidrin huffed a laugh. "Well, yeah, Cap, we figured that part out."
Thalor ignored him. "You got lucky. Don't mistake that for anything else." His gaze flickered between them, sharp as ever. "But luck runs out. Fast."
Another stretch of silence.
Fenrick stretched, rolling his shoulders. "Alright, so what now? Are we just gonna keep floating, or do we have an actual plan?"
Thalor glanced at him, then at the rest of the crew. His gaze landed on Erin last, and something in his expression shifted.
A slow smirk.
"Oh, we have a plan," Thalor said, leaning against the railing. "Our boy here is going to put himself to good use."
Erin blinked. "What?"
"You've been so busy running for your life, you forgot, didn't you?" Thalor tilted his head. "The whole reason you're on this ship in the first place."
Erin's stomach dropped.
Oh.
Oh.
It had been… how long? A week and a half? Maybe more? Since he had left home. Since he had stood in front of Thalor and claimed—stupidly, so stupidly—that he could help them find Olaus Ward's map.
He had forgotten.
"You're serious," Erin muttered.
Thalor's smirk widened. "What do you think?"
Erin hesitated for a moment, his thoughts tangled. The journal. It was still tucked away in his cabin, as if it had been calling to him all this time. Without a word, he turned toward the cabin and made his way below deck. His heart pounded as he unlatched the chest where his father's journal lay, its edges worn, pages yellowed by time.
When he returned to the deck, the crew was waiting, their eyes following him. His steps were steady, but his mind was racing. His father had written about places, people, and secrets scattered throughout the islands, but the details were often vague, and the entries left more questions than answers. He hadn't realized until now how much the journal had become a part of him. It wasn't just his father's legacy—it was now becoming his.
"Alright, genius," Cidrin said, arms crossed. "Let's hear it."
Erin exhaled. His father's notes were dense, written in rushed, slanted script, packed with anecdotes, observations, and half-formed thoughts. He scanned the pages, searching for something—anything—that stood out.
At first, nothing clicked. His father's words blurred together, just familiar stories he had read dozens of times. His grip tightened.
Come on. Think.
"The map was lost a long time ago," Erin muttered. "But my father always believed it still existed. He mentioned Olaus Ward's expeditions more than once…" He turned a few pages, frowning. "But he never actually says where the map ended up."
Cidrin snorted. "So we're back where we started?"
"Shut up," Thalor said, not taking his eyes off Erin.
Erin ignored them, flipping back through the entries, his mind working. Olaus Ward had been a legend, an explorer who had charted islands no one had dared set foot on. His discoveries were famous, but something about his later years always bothered Erin. His father had speculated that Ward's final voyage had been deliberately erased from history.
And then—something. A shift. His eyes landed on an old passage he had never paid much attention to before.
"Met an old sailor near the docks of Lyngate. Swore up and down that Ward's map never left the Outer Islands. Said Ward was obsessed with a place he never put on any official charts. Claimed he saw Ward return from a journey looking haunted, muttering about a 'truth too big for the world.' Crazy old man, probably, but the way he said it… I almost believed him."
Erin's breath caught.
Wait.
His father had dismissed it, but Erin saw something else: Ward never recorded his final discovery. If the map had stayed in the Outer Islands, then Ward hadn't lost it—it had been left behind on purpose.
"The Outer Islands," Erin said suddenly. "That's where the map is."
Cidrin blinked. "What?"
Erin ran his fingers over the passage. "My father met a sailor who swore Ward never took the map far. Everyone thinks it was lost, stolen, whatever—but what if it wasn't? What if Ward never meant for people to find it? He was haunted by whatever he saw. Maybe he hid the map somewhere in the Outer Islands."
Thalor let out a low chuckle. "Huh."
Cidrin leaned over his shoulder, scanning the journal. "You're basing this off some old drunk's ramblings?"
"Not just that," Erin said, flipping to another entry. "Ward never mapped certain islands in the Outer Islands. People thought he never got to them, but what if he deliberately left them blank? My father thought it was strange. There were gaps in Ward's logs—places he went, but never wrote about. If the map is anywhere, it's somewhere in those missing records."
Cidrin shot him a glare before turning back to Erin. "Hold on, though. We've looked through the Outer Islands before. A lot of people have. If it were that simple, someone would've found the damn thing by now."
Erin didn't respond right away. His fingers drummed against the journal's cover as his thoughts churned. Cidrin had a point—if the Outer Islands were the answer, why hadn't anyone found it?
Unless… they had been looking in the wrong places.
"Olaus Ward's last journey," Erin said suddenly. "It was never recorded."
Thalor's eyes gleamed with interest. Cidrin frowned. "Yeah, so?"
"So we know every island Ward officially explored," Erin continued. His mind was racing now, sifting through every story, every map, every note he had ever read. "If we cross-reference them with the Outer Islands he actually visited, we can narrow it down."
His mind raced through the Outer Islands, running over every name, every region. Sabletide? Documented. Drusk? Documented. Veydrith? Documented. There were dozens—each name flickering through his mind like pages flipping in a journal, he went through them, until he circled back to the same conclusion.
Two islands were missing.
He stopped, breath hitching.
Cidrin raised a brow. "What?"
"There are two islands he never mapped," Erin said slowly. "Two islands he never mentioned in any record—except they exist."
He looked up, meeting Thalor's gaze.
"If Ward really left the map behind… it has to be on one of them."
A beat of silence.
Then, Cidrin let out a sharp breath, rubbing his temple. "how did I not see that?"
Thalor grinned. "Because you're not him."
"Lyngate and Leefail," Erin muttered, his pulse quickening.
Silence settled over the crew. The Outer Islands were vast, stretching around the edges of most known maps. Just getting to the region was a month and a half to two-month journey—and that was if they sailed without delay. Searching both could take even longer.
Ariya's voice broke the silence. "Aren't those islands on opposite sides of the Outer Islands?"
She was right. Lyngate lay far to the north, cold and mountainous. Leefail sat in the far south, tangled in brackish waters. They weren't just far apart—they were seas apart.
"So we're just supposed to pick one and pray it's the right one?" Cidrin asked, crossing his arms.
"Or split up," Fenrick suggested, though his tone was dubious. "If we had two ships."
"We don't," Thalor cut in. "And even if we did, splitting up is out of the question. There's a reason only the reckless or the desperate venture that far. The Outer Islands aren't a straight path on a chart—they shift, storms bury islands for weeks, and half the maps people swear by are useless. Guess wrong, and we waste months."
Cidrin exhaled sharply. "So, what? We sit here until Erin has a vision or something?"
Erin bristled. "I'm working with what I have."
"Well, what you have isn't enough," He shot back. "We don't have time to chase shadows."
Erin clenched his jaw. He knew that. He wasn't throwing out names just to make conversation—he needed more pieces, something to narrow it down. His father's journal had gotten them this far, but it wasn't giving him the last push he needed.
Ariya's voice broke the tension. "Maybe there's a way to rule one out instead of picking blindly."
Thalor eyed Erin. "Think, kid. Your father knew Ward's habits, right? He'd notice if Ward never went to these places. But why would Ward avoid an island entirely?"
Erin stared down at the journal, his mind churning. Why would both islands be missing? Did Ward ignore them on purpose—or was he stopped from ever reaching one of them? He flipped back through the entries as if an answer would leap out at him. His father had scribbled notes hurriedly, as if they'd been written while traveling.
Lyngate. A city of watchful ghosts.
The old Guild still lingers, but they are not what they once were. Some still carry the spark of the past—if one knows where to look.A meeting with the Vaulthornes was unavoidable. Auden is desperate to hold onto something, but I wonder if he even knows what it is. The towers remember. I swear, they do.
Erin tapped the page. "Lyngate was a center for navigation. If Olaus Ward had something important to hide, why wouldn't he keep it somewhere with the best maps, the best records?"
Fenrick tilted his head. "Sure, but if it's got the best records, wouldn't someone else have found it by now?"
"That's assuming they knew what they were looking for," Erin countered. "The Guild of Navigators isn't what it used to be. My father wrote that they're still there, but they're not what they used to be." he turned the page. More notes—this time, about Leefail.
Leefail. The land shifts when it pleases. Maps are useless.
The people here do not trust paper, only memory. Perhaps they are wise.
Something happened near the Rift Pools. I will not write of it.
The Void Sea stirs. I do not wish to stay here long.
Erin frowned. His father had always been detailed in his journals, but this entry was sparse. Vague. That wasn't like him.
"Leefail is unpredictable," he muttered. "Even the land doesn't stay the same. If the map was hidden there, there's a chance it doesn't even exist anymore. Or worse, it's somewhere impossible to reach."
Cidrin arched a brow. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying the island is too unstable. My father didn't trust it." Erin tapped the last note. "Look at this. He wouldn't even write down what happened. That means something spooked him."
Fenrick whistled low. "Your dad didn't scare easy, did he?"
"No," Erin admitted. "Which is why I don't think we should risk it. Leefail is too wild. Too uncertain. But Lyngate…"
Cidrin cut in, voice steady but insistent. "Lyngate makes sense. If Ward hid his map somewhere, it would be on an island filled with other maps and records. It could be hidden in plain sight—right under everyone's nose. If anyone else found it, they wouldn't even know what they were looking at."
Fenrick leaned back, crossing his arms. "Right, but that also means someone might've already found it. And if it's in some old archive or library, what's stopping someone from tossing it out or locking it away?"
"Not to mention," Ariya cut in, "if Lyngate is still crawling with scholars and cartographers, it's gonna be a pain to search without someone catching on."
Erin frowned but didn't argue. He turned back to the journal, rereading the sparse entry on Leefail. His father had barely written anything about it—just cryptic mentions of shifting land, distrust of paper maps, and an event near the Rift Pools that had shaken him enough to leave it unwritten.
That wasn't like him. His father documented everything.
But that's when he realized.
"The fact that he didn't write much about Leefail is exactly why we should consider it," Erin said, more to himself than the others. He looked up. "Think about it—Leefail is unstable, the land itself moves. If Ward hid something there, it wouldn't be on any map, because the island doesn't stay the same."
Cidrin scoffed. "And that's a good thing? If it shifts around, how do you expect us to find it?"
"Because no one else would want to." Erin's voice picked up. "No one trusts paper maps there. No one stays long. It's not a place people go willingly. It's barely even a known island." He set the journal down and leaned forward. "It doesn't make sense for Ward to hide something there—which is exactly why he would."
Silence. Fenrick and Ariya exchanged glances.
Fenrick rubbed his chin. "That's a hell of a stretch, Scrap."
"Is it?" Erin pushed. "If he hid it on Lyngate, someone could've found it already. Even if they didn't know what it was, it'd be recorded somewhere. But Leefail? It's a dead spot. No one's keeping records there. No one's searching for anything there." He exhaled sharply. "It's safe."
Cidrin narrowed his eyes. "It's also a pain in the ass. We have no idea what we're walking into."
Erin met his gaze. "We never do."
He grunted but didn't argue.
Fenrick sighed. "Alright, let's say you're right. Say the map's on Leefail. If we get there and it's not—if we waste our time on a hunch—what then?"
Erin hesitated. Then, he set his jaw. "Then you can leave me there."
Fenrick blinked. "Huh?"
"You heard me." Erin's voice didn't waver. "If I'm wrong, if there's nothing there, you can leave me. I won't waste your time any longer."
Narza finally spoke up and scowled. "That's stupid."
"Is it?" Erin's grip on the journal tightened. "I believe I'm right. And if I'm not, then I have no right to drag all of you along with me."
Silence again. But this time, it was different.
Thalor let the silence sit. He didn't look at Erin right away—just exhaled, slow and measured, his fingers drumming against his arm. Then, at last, his eyes locked onto Erin's, sharp as a drawn blade.
"You'd better be right," he said, voice cold and deliberate. "Because if you're not, I will leave you there."
The weight of his words settled over the room. Erin didn't flinch.
"I know."
Thalor's expression didn't change. "No, you think you know. But you don't. If you're wrong—if we sail all that way, burn through supplies, waste months—I won't hesitate. I won't argue. We'll leave you on that rock, and the rest of us will move on."
His voice wasn't harsh. It was worse. It was final.
Erin swallowed, then nodded. "Then I'll make sure I'm not wrong."
Thalor held his gaze for a moment longer, searching for hesitation, for anything less than absolute certainty. Finding none, he exhaled sharply and straightened.
"Then it's decided. But before we set out for Leefail, we're stopping at Brackton Cay. We'll need to stock up on supplies before we push into the Outer Islands. The journey won't be short, and it won't be easy."
Cidrin threw up his hands. "Unbelievable. We're actually doing this?"
"Looooooooks like it," Fenrick muttered, rubbing his temples.
Ariya sighed. "I don't like it either, but if this is what we're doing, we need to be ready. We don't know what's waiting for us."
"We never do," Narza said flatly.
Thalor cracked his neck. "Everyone should rest up while you can. We'll reach Brackton in late in the afternoon tomorrow. And Erin?"
Erin lifted his head.
"You've set us on this path." Thalor's eyes were unreadable. "If it leads nowhere, I hope you're ready to walk it alone."
Erin clenched his fists around the journal, his pulse steady. "I will be."
Thalor gave a small nod, then turned on his heel. No more arguing. No more doubts.
The course was set.