“Or is it?” I murmur, eyes narrowed.
He glances at me, and I know he’s thinking of our conversation from earlier. About what it means to be “chosen” by powers we can’t see or fight. And how, despite everything, we’ve both felt that pull in our own ways.
“The journal we found, the one with all the old maps?” I say, crossing my arms. The leather of my coat creaks, tight against the strain. “It said she decides whose life she takes and who gets to pass unscathed. Some sail by because she allows it, and the rest? They’re just… offered up.”
“The Lady of the Seas doesn’t leave things to chance,” Ridley adds. “Her realms, her rules. She decides who finds their way home and who’s lost for good.”
He clears his throat, a slight edge there that’s impossible to miss.
It’s a jab at me, that much is clear. Unlike the others, Ridley doesn’t think I’m mad for believing the realms exist, nor even for wanting to charge headlong into them. He thinks I’m reckless because I don’t bother to keep my hatred for her a secret. Because I want her to hear it, to know I’m coming, whether she likes it or not.
“That’s… unhinged,” Vinicola says. “But what does that have to do with the Trials?”
“The gateways are directly tied to the Trials,” I answer. “Every single gateway you see on this map? Each one used to mark where a Trial was held.”
Vinicola’s face pales. “This… many?” he asks, his eyes wide.
“More than that,” I reply. “What we’ve charted here is just a fraction of them. The Trials have been held since the first fools dared these seas. Four Trials per cycle. One cycle every hundred years. And each Trial… selects four champions.”
Vinicola’s hands are shaking as he reaches for the edge of the map, pulling it closer like he’s hoping to find some mistake in the ink. Zayan, on the other hand, crosses his arms
“And the champions this time around… is us four?” Zayan asks, making a slow, mocking circle in the air with his finger. “Gypsy, the bard, me… and you?”
I ignore the disdain in his voice. “Precisely.”
Gypsy, who’s been silent for some time now, starts pacing the room. “What about the gate we just passed through?” she asks. Her voice is steady, but I can see her mind whirring.
Ridley glances at me, his white, bushy eyebrows lifting slightly.
“That one’s one of the newer gates,” I reply. “Appeared about a hundred years ago.”
“You seem to know a hell of a lot about something supposedly so ancient,” Zayan murmurs, standing to circle the table with the map. His gaze shifts between Ridley and me, distrust barely veiled. “Where did you pick all this up?”
“From anywhere we could. Some of it stayed in the family.” Ridley’s eyes flick to me before he continues, “Some, the young master here traded from witches and shamans. Some came by… less noble means. Make no mistake—this knowledge has a cost. The Trials aren’t a fable you hear in taverns; even those who know pieces of the truth keep it close. It’s not for sharing with just anyone.”
“That all sounds unreliable at best,” Zayan mutters, crossing his arms.
He’s right, in a way. We’re no scholars, no alchemists or sorcerers. Just men with no choice but to turn every stone, unearth every half-truth. Men willing to crawl through dirt and dive into madness if it meant scraping together one more shred of understanding. Sometimes that meant listening to whispers from a homeless man lying in the gutter, his words sick with fever and soaked in filth. Sometimes it meant giving up my parents’ heirlooms, piece by piece. And sometimes, it meant sacrificing another scrap of sanity, just to reach further into the darkness.
Madness. That’s what this all is, and the sooner my new companions understand it, the better. If we keep going, they’ll lose more than they’ve bargained for.
Ridley and I share a look, a silent warning. It’s time they know just how deep this goes.
“There are… other sources,” I say, knowing full well how this will go over. “Ones that come straight from the source itself.”
The response is instant, almost reflexive.
“What sources?” Gypsy’s voice is sharp.
“Well...” I start, brining a hand to rub at the scruff on my face. “It’s us. We’re the conduits to the source.”
Her eyes become two thin slits. “Us? What exactly does that mean?”
“Each of us,” I start carefully, weighing each word, “is connected to the Trials. It’s not just that we were chosen—we’re bound to them. It’s why Vinicola heard the goddess’s voice when he held the compass and the first key. It’s why, when Gypsy took the wheel and led us toward the horizon, the gateway didn’t even try to trap us. It let us pass—or perhaps it was her doing. Maybe, Captain, you even knew the way without realizing it.”
Gypsy’s eyebrows draw together as she glances away, her expression one of deep concentration. It’s strange, but she doesn’t look ready to throw my head to the waves. For that, at least, I’m grateful; I’ve dealt with more than enough doubters, and my patience, once a strong suit, is running thinner by the day. The longer I’m in this, the more I feel the threads of my world pulling apart. I’ve forgotten what “normal” even was.
But her silence tells me something—it’s as if my words have struck a chord. Maybe they’ve already seen enough of the inexplicable to make them believe, even if only a little.
