The Sussurro Curioso tilted, a slow, polite defiance against the cloud-sea.
Ren clung to the rail as Tianyun shrank beneath them—terraced roofs like pieces of a broken comb.
A sudden ache hit his chest, sharp and private.
"Kira," he mouthed, but his voice thinned into the morning haze.
She waved from the dock, small as a carved toy.
Her fingers made a hard, ridiculous shape—an order and a smile.
Ren held it as the island slid from sight.
Lin leaned over the control panel like a man tending a stove.
"Balance the port balloon by two notches," he said, voice a practiced hum.
"Listen to her sigh—she tells you where she wants to go."
Ren obeyed, fingers clumsy on leather straps.
The craft responded with a gentle tilt.
"The first rule?" Lin called, winding a rope. "Respect the empty. The second? Have a plan B. Third: always keep tea near the helm."
He popped a small kettle from under the bench with theatrical flourish.
Kira's laugh floated back from the hold.
"If the tea's cold, you're already dead."
Ren watched Lin read currents like a script.
The Sussurro Curioso sighed and climbed, balloon fabric creaking like an old book.
"You ever get tired of talking to wind?" Ren asked, voice raw.
Lin shrugged, wiping grease on his sleeve.
"Wind's honest. It tells you when you're foolish."
He cocked his head.
"And when it's dishonest, it takes your hat."
The Echo announced a small task into Ren's mind.
The interface blinked with flat encouragement.
Ren closed his eyes for a second and the pendant under his shirt warmed.
He counted lines of rope and the odd instruments Lin offered.
The gravity of his choice sat as a tiny stone in his stomach.
"Ready?" Lin asked, voice soft for a crack of sincerity.
Ren nodded.
The cloud below swallowed the island whole.
The day folded into chores.
Lin showed him how to ease a balloon valve, how to listen for a seam stress.
Each task was small and necessary.
"You read currents like a reader finds commas," Lin said, handing Ren a thin oar.
"Three functions: ballast control, seam check, emergency vent. Learn them. They keep you alive."
Ren practiced until his arms ached.
The Echo counted each action with polite silence.
Kira hovered like a practical shadow.
"If you'll be airborne, at least do not break the glider's cardinal rule: don't fly with loose rivets and big ideas."
He learned, clumsy and stubborn.
The war between the thing inside Ren and the hand he was learning to be eased.
Night pooled over the cloud-sea, white and endless like milk.
Ren zipped the hatch and took the first watch.
Lin perched at the helm like a patient animal.
"Night watches teach you a few truths," he said, voice low.
"First: the sky is a liar. Second: be polite to the liar."
Ren rolled the calibration key between his fingers.
The mission instruction sat like a small coin in his mind.
He counted valve clicks in the dark and checked seams by touch.
"Three functions right?" Lin asked, as if reciting a nursery rhyme. "Show me a fix on the port seam. Now."
Ren bent and worked the seam until the fabric lay flush.
The cost of the day's training threaded through his muscles like rope.
"You're improving," Lin observed.
"You move like you might not shatter immediately."
Kira stuck her head through the hatch and glared at both of them.
"Compliment him by fixing his hair," she said, then vanished.
Lin unrolled a small sketchbook and set it between his knees.
He marked routes and odd stone marks on map margins.
Ren's mind drifted to Hano's instructions, to the bracelets Li had given him.
The home he'd left hummed at the back of his skull.
The Echo hummed a soft encouragement.
Hours bled into the hush of clouds.
Lin's voice lowered to near-whisper.
"These routes have names," he murmured, pointing to a stretch of map.
"Danger follows where trade goes. Ambushes favor cliffs that eat light."
Ren sat up straighter.
"You mean pirates again?" Ren's voice was thin but not soft.
"Not always pirates," Lin said, and his glasses caught the faint cabin light.
"Sometimes it's men who buy lives. Sometimes it's weather that has teeth. Sometimes both."
The Echo sketched a small branch on its tree.
Ren tucked the pendant beneath his collar.
"We'll take shifts," Lin said, practical as a rope knot.
"You learn, you rest. The sea below is patient and hungry. We keep watch."
Kira looped a strap around a bulkhead and set up a crude alarm.
"If anything moves funny," she said, "ring. Don't be quiet about it."
Ren nodded and checked the seam one more time.
The night deepened.
The white below became a bright, soft plain that swallowed noise.
Ren stepped into the tiny observation port and leaned on cool metal.
Lin joined him, gaze toward a distant horizon.
"Look east," Lin said, pointing with the practiced certainty of a man who reads maps.
Ren turned and the horizon answered with a faint staccato glow—little lights far off, blinking with an ordered rhythm.
The air tightened.
Lin's mouth softened into a line that could be a smile or a warning.
"Those mark routes and rendezvous," he murmured. "They tell stories about what passes this way."
Ren's hand closed on the pendant.
The Echo hummed the tail end of its travel instruction.
The distance blinked again, patient and regular.
The kettle had gone quiet.
Below, the world kept its breath.
While Ren keeps watch at night, Lin points to the east.
There, distant, a string of lights blinks in rhythm, like a beacon.
"The Lament Cliffs," he murmurs.
"They mark the trade route. And they're a good place for an ambush. Best keep watch."