The Blackfin slipped away from Bloodport in the predawn gloom, its decks eerily silent save for the scrape of Selene's ritual blade against wood. Kneeling at the stern, she carved glowing runes into the planks with a mixture of sulfur and her own blood. Each stroke leached more color from her face, leaving her ashen.
"You won't survive the crossing." Calvin loomed over her, his gut wound poorly bandaged, his voice gruff with something almost like concern. "A second forbidden ritual will shred what's left of your circuits."
Selene ignored him. The sigils pulsed with each completed line, their light revealing fine crystalline cracks spiderwebbing across her fingertips—mirroring the corruption in her shoulder.
Lion stepped forward, the salt wind tugging at his clothes. "What is the Phoenix Ember?"
Her knife stilled. In the pale light, the scar across her nose gleamed an unnatural violet. "Three years ago," she said tonelessly, "I stole an egg from the Conclave's White Tower. A source of flame pure enough to burn away any shadow."
Calvin barked a laugh. "And then used it to roast a village alive?"
"That wasn't—!" Selene's head snapped up, her eyes flaring crimson. "They infected my mother with the Shadowplague. I had to—" She cut herself off abruptly, turning back to Lion. "The Ember is the key to igniting the Crown. Without it, even all three shards are useless."
Lion recalled Marlene's taunt. "The Conclave said it's matured..."
"Because they sense you." Exhaustion lined her voice as she massaged her temples. "Shadow and flame are twin forces. The stronger you grow, the more the Ember stirs."
The ship lurched violently. Lion staggered to the rail—and froze.
Beneath the ink-black waves, a monstrous shape glided past, easily triple the Blackfin's size. Some primal instinct locked his muscles. "Dragon?"
"Worse." The captain shrieked from the crow's nest. "A Tideseeker!"
The sea erupted. A leviathan of rotting bone and kelp-cloaked flesh surfaced, its hollow eyes burning with corpse-light. A hunched figure perched atop its spine, strands of seaweed clinging to its decomposing face. When it spoke, bubbles of black sludge burst between its teeth:
"The Shadowheart... returns..."
The bone-drake's tail whipped toward the ship. Wood screamed as the Blackfin nearly capsized. Lion was hurled across the deck, skidding toward the opposite rail—
And in that suspended moment before the sea claimed him, he saw Selene tear open her collar, revealing the split-sun brand on her clavicle—
—just as the world ignited into hellish crimson.