The ship groaned as if bracing for something unnatural.
Above deck, clouds had gathered without warning, windless but heavy, casting the sea in a monochrome haze. The light had dulled into a dull pewter glow, shadows smearing unnaturally long against the sails. Then, the sky split, not with thunder, but with absence. A thin line of nothing carved through the air, and from it, Seisyll stepped through.
He did not fall. He did not land. He arrived.
One foot met the deck without sound. His black and red-streaked cloak flared behind him, though no breeze stirred. The volcanic scarring across his face pulsed faintly, a dull ember glow seething beneath the charred cracks of his skin near the eye. He held the Whisperer loosely, its runes now dim. The beast beneath the ship grumbled low, disturbed.
The wind tugged at the edge of his cloak, but he didn't feel it. His gaze, usually flat and distant, found Arthur at the far end of the stern, and stopped cold.
