The voyage to Crete was a silent, grim affair. Nox had commissioned a small fleet of fast, dark-sailed ships, built by the Dwarven smiths and crewed by his most loyal soldiers. They sailed under the cover of a magical fog woven by Vexia, a gray, silent fleet of ghosts moving across a storm-tossed sea.
Nox stood at the prow of the flagship, the 'Unspoken', his gaze fixed on the horizon. He was not wearing his armor. He was just a boy in black, with the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders.
Serian stood beside him. "You have become a true king," she said softly.
"I'm just a guy who's tired of being told what to do," he replied.
They made landfall on the shores of Crete at dawn on the seventh day. The island was not the idyllic paradise of myth. It was a fortress. Massive, bronze walls, etched with glowing Olympian runes, rose from the cliffs. Cyclopean sentries patrolled the battlements, and in the sky, griffons and harpies circled like vultures.
