Page 32 of The Crown's Awakening
I follow his gaze back toward the path ahead, toward the place where the frozen sections begin to thin and something smoother takes their place, something that does not ripple with the movement of the sea.
“So the ship itself doesn’t enter Alarna?"
“No.” The answer is simple. Final.
“The hull only needs to touch the boundary. Once it does, the passage opens. Those aboard cross on foot.”
“And me?”
His attention shifts to me then, steady, measured. “You enter last.”
“Why?”
“Because your blood is what the wards are waiting for.”
The pendant rests warm against my skin, more present now than it had been moments before, as though something in the air has drawn it forward into my awareness.
“Do I have to give blood?” I ask.
“No.”
There is something quieter in his expression now, something pulled tighter beneath the surface.
“The wards will sense your arrival,” he says. “It is old magic. It does not require offering. Only presence.”
I turn back toward the water ahead, watching the way it holds, the way it resists movement in a way the rest of the sea does not. The ship presses forward, slower now, the distance between us and whatever boundary lies ahead closing in increments that feel too deliberate to ignore.
Behind me, the crew begins to shift. Not dramatically, just small adjustments in stance, in position, in readiness.
And then?—
“She needs to stay above.”
The voice cuts through the space behind me, sharp enough to carry, controlled enough to matter. I do not turn immediately because I already know who they are speaking about. And I already know this will not end quietly.
I don’t turn right away. The words move across the deck and shift something in the air between them, quiet but immediate, the kind of change that doesn’t need volume to take hold. I can feel it in the way the crew holds themselves, in the way attentionsharpens without anyone fully committing to looking where it shouldn’t.
When I do turn, the man who spoke is already watching me, his expression composed, certain in a way that suggests he has already decided how this will go. He continues without hesitation, as though Teorin’s refusal was something to be worked around rather than obeyed.
“She and the other Alarnan are the only ones here who can hold lightcraft long enough to matter,” he says. “If the hull gives, it won’t matter where she is. At least above she can keep them back.”
“No.” Teorin’s voice cuts through the space with quiet finality, and the rest of the man’s reasoning falls away without being finished.
The man exhales, impatience beginning to show. “Then we lose her when they breach,” he says. “And they will.”
Teorin doesn’t shift his stance. “She will not be above.”
Another man steps forward, slower than the first, his attention fixed on Teorin with a deliberation that makes it clear he understands exactly what he is doing.
“KingFysas says the bond is all we need.”
He emphasized the word “King” with a pointed sneer, clearly trying to undermine Teorin's authority. The words draw more attention than anything that has been said so far. No one interrupts. No one dismisses it.
“If we do it before we reach the worst of it,” the man continues, “then it doesn’t matter if she survives. The bond holds eitherway. If she dies, it will be the undead that take her. Alarna can’t turn that into a war against us.”
A few of the crew shift, listening in a way that suggests this thought has already crossed more than one mind.
“Are you sure the Alarnans won't care?” someone says, though there’s little conviction behind it.
