The ring finished opening at dusk. The ocean itself seemed to hold its breath for it.
The gold light that had been rising from the caldera's heart broke the surface all at once. It spread outward in a slow, silent wall until it had swallowed all four ships inside one wide circle of water. Beyond that circle the sea kept moving the way it always had. Inside it, the wind died and the swells flattened to glass.
"We're sealed in," Fraisea said. She read the boundary with careful, wary attention, her pale eyes tracking a line only she could see. "Nothing's crossing that line. Not water, not wind. Not us either, I'd guess, until whatever this is decides we're finished."
The Hub confirmed it a breath later, and there was no mercy left in how it delivered the news.
[Final Phase: The Reckoning of the Drowned Crown]
[Only one Kingdom may claim what remains of Thurmugin. The other three will be eliminated.]
[Begin.]
