The winds shifted early that autumn, carrying the taste of iron and old magic from the northern cliffs. The skies, once crisp and blue, now brooded with the promise of storms.
Alyssa knew that change often came with the weather.
Each morning, she rose with purpose. No longer was she the dreamy child who lingered by the garden gate. Now, she studied the naval engineering scrolls her father left on the study table, read books on shipbuilding in the library, and tagged along with him, listening to every conversation.
She also began practicing etiquette more seriously, not as a girl rehearsing for a ball, but as a strategist studying the battlefield.
"Why are you always with your nose in those boring books?" Emric whined one evening as she corrected a trade report.
"Because someone has to be smart enough to stop Father from building a boat that sinks," she replied, too quick, too sharp.
Elias giggled. Emric frowned. "Boats don't sink."
"Yes, they do. Especially when people don't think carefully."
Their innocence was a constant ache, a reminder of what would be lost. She only smiled.
Later, Alyssa visited the shipyard with the Count. She feigned interest as a curious child might, watching workers, asking harmless questions. One old carpenter offered to show her how joints were sealed with resin and bronze pins. She took mental notes, absorbing every detail.
Alyssa made sure to point at everything she saw, her inquisitive nature on full display. She asked questions about anything that caught her eye: minor details, construction tools, even the thickness of the planks, until at last, she reached the real question that had prompted the visit.
"Sir, what are those beams made of?"
The carpenter looked up, following the direction of her finger to the thick support beams anchoring the grand chandelier overhead.
"Ah, those? Pinewood, milady. From the southern forests of the Empire. Majestic trees...light but strong," he said with a touch of pride.
Upon hearing this, Alyssa turned sharply to her father. Her voice remained polite, but her eyes held a spark of concern.
"Father, didn't the engineer mention the other day that using northern oak would be more durable in the long run?"
Count Velthorn's brow furrowed. He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a well-worn leather notebook. Flipping through its pages, he muttered to himself until he stopped at a page filled with annotated sketches and figures. There it was just as Alyssa remembered from her previous life: the recommendation to replace the pine beams with sturdier oak from the colder northern provinces. The current pine structure was only ever intended as a temporary measure until the oak supply arrived.
He exhaled slowly. A small oversight, but one that had cost them dearly once before.
The following three months were consumed by the meticulous process of redesign.
To the untrained eye, Alyssa was simply a curious, wide-eyed twelve-year-old who had taken an unusual but endearing interest in her father's work. She trailed after Count Velthorn through shipyards and drawing rooms alike, all bright smiles and innocent questions. Her fascination with hull shapes, mast angles, and deck reinforcements amused the craftsmen, after all, what harm could a little girl's chatter do?
But beneath the surface of her youthful façade was the sharp mind of a woman who had lived through catastrophe.
Alyssa played her part with care, careful never to overstep. She offered no commands, issued no direct criticisms. Instead, she whispered gentle reminders when no one else could hear, cloaking her insights as idle curiosities.
She would ask, voice tinged with faux innocence.
Each question was a thread, pulling attention toward overlooked flaws or buried miscalculations. Over time, her subtle interventions shaped the project's course. Design flaws once dismissed as negligible were corrected. Support structures were reinforced. Escape routes were redrawn. She even hinted at compartmentalizing the ship's lower decks, something that hadn't been implemented in her past life until after the disaster.
Alyssa saw things others missed: minute shifts in the ship's frame, asymmetries in weight distribution, stress points hiding beneath pristine woodwork. With the memory of tragedy etched into her bones, she guided the construction toward stability, without ever revealing that she was steering it.
And through it all, Count Velthorn beamed with pride at his daughter's 'unusual intelligence,' believing it to be nothing more than a fortunate curiosity.
He never realized that her questions were not wonderings, but warnings.
The revised ship launched beneath the spring's golden sky, the late afternoon sun casting shimmering light across the calm harbor waters. Nobles in fine silk and polished boots strolled the deck, their laughter rising above the creak of ropes and the calls of circling seagulls. Musicians played lively tunes on the upper deck, and crystal glasses clinked as wine flowed freely. They had no idea how narrowly they had escaped death.
They cheered at the ship's first successful glide from the dock, raising their goblets in celebration.
"To House Velthorn!" someone called.
"To the future of the Empire's seas!" another chimed in.
"And to the Seastar!" came the final cry, taken up by dozens of voices.
The name had been chosen by the nobles themselves, enchanted by the vessel's elegance and ambition. The Seastar, they said, shimmered like a dream, sleek, stately, and born for both beauty and battle.
Alyssa stood slightly apart from the crowd, her gloved hand raised to hide the small, private smile that curved her lips. No one noticed the way her eyes scanned every joint in the mast, every sail as it caught wind, every creaking board beneath their feet. No one heard her breath catch when the keel held steady over the deeper waters where, in another life, it had split like a broken spine.
She had stood here before. On this same deck, years older. Dressed in ceremonial navy blue instead of soft silver-grey. But in that life, the cheers had turned to screams, and the toast to her father had dissolved in saltwater and fire.
Now, the silence she carried inside was not grief, but victory.
"Not this time," she whispered under her breath, her voice lost to the breeze.
Beside her, Count Velthorn turned, his eyes gleaming with pride as he looked at his daughter. He placed a steady hand on her shoulder.
"You have a gift for ships, Alyssa," he said warmly. "Maybe too sharp a mind for your age."
Alyssa looked up at him, her smile turning wistful. "Maybe I just listened more than most, Father."
He chuckled, ruffling her hair affectionately before returning to his guests. He didn't see how her fingers curled slightly around the railing, gripping it like an anchor.
The ship cut through the water with ease, elegant and sure. From the docks, onlookers clapped and threw flowers into the tide. The Velthorn crest flew proudly from the mainmast, not as the banner of a fading legacy, but as a promise renewed.
And by sunset, word had spread like fire on dry grass.
The Seastar had launched.
The Velthorn name had returned, reborn not in arrogance but in triumph. Those who had once whispered of their fall now spoke of their brilliance.
No one would ever know that the true architect of salvation had been a twelve-year-old girl with a mind full of ghosts.
And that, Alyssa thought, was just as well.
After the Seastar's successful launch, it quickly caught the attention of the nobility. Some saw an opportunity to expand their trade networks through maritime routes, while others dreamed of leisure voyages and opulent cruises. Commissions poured in from every corner of the Empire.
Soon, a new commission arrived, this time, not from Any noble with dreams of luxury or coastal parades, Duke Maelor Servyan wants ships.
It began with a sealed letter bearing the emblem of the Servyan Dukedom. Count Velthorn read it in silence, his expression unreadable even to Alyssa. When he finally looked up from the parchment, there was a glint in his eye she hadn't seen since before the fall, before pride had turned to ruin.
"They want six ships," he said, voice low but brimming with restrained excitement. "Reinforced hulls, deep keels, built for ice and storm. They want them ready before next spring."
Alyssa thought for a moment. Duke Servyan wants ships that can withstand harsh weather? As a southern noble, he had no need for such vessels. Then he's probably going to use them to import iron and mana crystals from the northern mines.
This wasn't just a contract.
This was the Duke's way of exploiting the North's resources even more. Duke Servyan, the Emperor's closest advisor and right hand, had likely played a role in Kaelvion Verathen's eventual rebellion. After Grand Duke Verathen's execution, the Emperor had handed the distribution rights of the northern mines to Duke Maelor Servyan—ostensibly to prevent Erevian's son from acquiring the materials needed for weapons.
As the Emperor's nephew, Kaelvion Verathen had a claim to the throne.
Alyssa knew that working with Duke Servyan would mark her family as enemies to the North in the future. But there was little she could do. Duke Servyan's influence was unmatched. She could only hope that someday, somehow, she would find a way to save her family again.
Word spread fast. Southern engineers began appearing among the craftsmen. Strategists walked the docks with maps in hand, muttering about ocean currents and monster attacks along the northern coasts.
And above it all, the Velthorn crest flew higher than ever.