The boat drifted across the water like a silent verdict waiting to be cast.
Oizys narrowed her eyes. Her stance never wavered on the rippling surface, yet her voice struck with the force of an anchored spear.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
The cloaked figure lifted her head slightly. The golden glint beneath the hood caught the distant horizon's fractured shimmer, and the row halted as if time itself recognized the gravity of the moment.
Laughter, soft and splintered at the edges, spilled from under the veil. A rhyme followed, archaic in rhythm, bladed in content.
"An end to the rise, a cleft to the tide—she asks for the fire, yet spurns the light. Thou seek'st to silence the crown of the skies, yet ignore the bloom born from divine rite."
The ferrywoman cocked her head with that same brittle mirth, as though Oizys' confusion was the punchline of a joke etched into the bones of the world.
