The Ironwater Coast had always smelled of salt and steel, but now it smelled of war.
It didn't take many days for Lan and his men to return from Ranevia, riding the roads and sailing the river routes they had carved open with blood during Phase 1.
When the first spires of Ironwater's dockside towers came into view, the air was already thick with the smoke of industry.
The harbor was no longer the neutral ground it once pretended to be. Every mast, every wharf, every creaking pier now flew the banners of the Northern God Sect.
Where the merchants of old had once traded in spices and cloth, soldiers now traded in oil, timber, and sharpened steel.
Out in the bay, the wreckage of Solaris' once-proud fleet bobbed like broken teeth in a dying mouth. Hulls split clean through from boarding hooks, masts snapped and leaning into the water, sails burned down to blackened rags.
