The Brine Sea did not sleep.

  It never had.

  It watched.

  It swallowed.

  It dissolved all into nothing.

  Tides heaved and sloshed, not with the rhythm of any true sea, but with the weary drag of dissolution.

  Salt pressed heavy in its waters, grinding ships to husks, leeching color from fish until they swam as pale ghosts in its depths.

  Men called it the Sea of Death, but names meant nothing here. In time, all names dissolved.

  How long had it existed?

  Some said Longer than the birth of any continent, others longer than kings, longer than crowns.

  When the first bones fell into its waters, the Brine took them whole, stripped them clean, left them gleaming.

  Yet there were ‘They’ who saw in its waters not ruin but as perfection, one of the world’s purest solvents, the great dissolver.

  The Brine cared nothing for them. It had no hunger, no mercy, no malice. Only purpose.

  It would take.

  It would unmake.

  It would return all things to sameness.

  The Sea stretched out endless, pale and heavy, waters dragging like something old and tired, as though centuries clung to each wave.

  Nothing stirred above. No gulls. No foam. Only silence, broken by the dry taste of salt in the air.

  The caravan broke formation, moving toward the waiting vessel at the rocky shore.

  Barges of slaves unmounted from the wagon accompanied by the rattling and clinking of chains, their eyes froze wide with terror as they finally saw it.

  "Gods save us," one breathed.

  Their words elicited mocking laughter from the Hosts.

  "There are no gods in this land," a guard grunted, shoving the man forward. "Only in the New World….Move along”

  "Captain."

  The first thing Dion noticed was the figure standing alone on the deck of the derelict ship.

  A man-shaped piece of the darkness, silhouetted against the tattered sails. Imposing was the only word.

  He was garbed in a trench coat that fell to his knees and a wide-brimmed hat with a deep V in its crown.

  He stood perfectly still, looking down at them from the rail. He looked every inch the pirate, and from that perch, he looked like a ghost.

  The ship itself was black as tar, anchored in the bay. Its hull was scarred where names had once been burned away. Salt crystals crusted the wood so thick they glittered like jagged glass.

  The mast sagged like a broken limb, the sails hanging in ragged shrouds. Yet the timbers groaned with a low, rhythmic pulse, like a beast with lungs.

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  Then the smell hit the shore.

  Salt so thick it seared the back of the throat, cutting through leather, sweat, and blood.

  Veynar drifted to the water’s edge, studying the sea with a chemist’s cold appraisal.

  “The concentration is perfect today,” he murmured. “See the viscosity? Like old honey. It will be… thorough.”

  “How many” the Captain’s voice drifted across the water. A dry baritone, the scrape of stone on stone.

  “Over half a thousand,” Veynar confirmed.

  While the number seemed vast at first glance, it was a drop in a bucket.

  Less than a single village, when measured against the teeming millions of the continent’s kingdoms.

  Dion was still staring at the ship. Its grotesque, unnatural structure was a horror no kingdom like Lavos would ever build.

  And for good reason. The sea, it was cursed.

  From the deck, the Captain’s shadowed gaze swept over the line of terrified slaves on the shore. His order came back, clear and final.

  “Board them.”

  ---

  The Host worked quickly. Chains rattled, locks snapped, and the first captives were shoved toward the gangplank.

  Screams tangled with curses as they were herded below deck.

  Dion’s turn came, a guard yanked him hard by the shackles.

  He stumbled, his feet dragging against the rough plank.

  He could see the fear in their eyes as the slaves ahead parted, a ripple of bodies shrinking back.

  Even now, they treated him like an enemy.

  He couldn't blame them. The name Lavos was synonymous with conquest, still it was a bitter sweet feeling.

  He couldn't decide if their terror was for him, or for the groaning, salt-crusted sea waiting below.

  And then he heard it.

  The Brine whispers against the hull.

  Dion froze, breath catching, as he thought no, he knew he heard words in it. A low voice, endless as the tide.

  Step down.

  Be free.

  Dissolve.

  A hard slap across his back jolted him.

  “The sea, it's cursed don't listen to it…. don't listen”

  Dion caught a glimpse.

  Grash laugh interrupted “Don’t dawdle, princeling. The sea doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Dion staggered down into the hold, swallowed by shadows. The hatch slammed behind him, cutting away the last of the light.

  Above, the ship groaned, and the Brine lapped eagerly at its sides.

  The hold was black. Not night-black, not candle-black, but a pressing, smothering dark that stuck to the skin.

  The only light came from cracks in the boards, thin slivers that carved dust and salt motes into the air.

  The stench hit him first, the wood swollen with brine, piss soaked into the planks, bodies pressed too close. Breathing felt like drowning without water.

  Chains rattled. Dozens of eyes turned toward him. Hollow and sunken, Dion’s throat tightened.

  There was the hate he was most familiar with, yet mixed with that was fear. The fear of the unknown.

  He took a step forward, gaze sweeping the gloom. This particular cell had thirty captives from what the eyes could count, maybe more, bound in rusted shackles, their bodies knots of bone and sinew.

  For a moment he missed fighting in the makeshift arena, at least, back then his living conditions were better.

  He saw a child no older than ten lay curled at his mother’s feet, lips cracked white with thirst. In the far corner, a man muttered to himself, words spilling like broken prayers.

  Everywhere Dion looked he saw wrists rubbed raw, ankles scabbed and bleeding, eyes ringed with salt and hunger.

  The chains were not only iron. They were silent.

  Resignation.

  The slow surrender of will.

  Dion lowered himself against the damp boards, drawing his knees close. Sweat and salt burned his eyes. He closed them.

  And then he heard it again.

  At first, just the ship. The groan of timbers. The drag of water. The hiss of brine against the hull.

  He heard it again.

  The voice.

  It didn't sound like words. It was low and endless, not a language, but a weight, but he could understand it.

  Step down.

  Be free.

  Dissolve.

  His breath caught. He looked up, heart hammering, but none of the others stirred. They stared blankly, resigned.

  No one else heard it.

  The whisper came again, soft as tide against sand. All things return. All things to sameness.

  Dion pressed his palms hard against his ears, but it didn’t stop. It wasn’t sound. It was inside him, curling deep like salt in an open wound.

  For one mad heartbeat, he wanted to obey. To walk through the wood, through the chains, into the waiting sea.

  And then a hand gripped his arm.

  A lean, scarred figure leaned close, his single sharp eye gleaming in the dark.

  “I told you not to listen, boy. The cursed sea talks to you. That’s how it eats.” His voice rasped.

  “You let it in too deep, it’ll take you whole before the Host even sells your bones.”

  Dion knew the voice. It was the same ragged figure who’d shaken him awake. What surprised him now was the man’s indifference.

  He was looking directly at Dion, at the gold hair and eyes that screamed Lavos to anyone with half a mind and he didn’t even seem to register it.

  The whisper faded, leaving only the creak of the ship and the rattle of chains.

  Dion swallowed hard, staring at the figure who pulled him back from the edge.