By morning, half the city knew.
Word ran along market stalls and across the training yards: Rowan was leaving. Some said he was going to chase a myth. Others said he was going to fetch the sea itself back in his hands. Most just nodded and went on with their work, because that is what people in a growing town do.
I spent the first hours fixing what I could fix. Hinges. A squealing winch on the river gate. The last check on the repaired cart, because it felt good to end a job clean. When I finally crossed the square toward the docks, the wind off the water was sharp and wet. It tasted like salt and metal and promise.
Lyra was already there, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled, taking stock like a quartermaster. Three crates sat open at her feet: rope, tar, and hardtack in one; dried fish and beans in another; bandages, herbs, and small knives in the last. Mira stood beside her like a tied arrow—leaning forward, ready to fly. Darin checked knots without being asked. Callen stood back with his arms folded, saying nothing, eyes on the tide.
"Two weeks' food, if the wind is kind," Lyra said, not looking up. "Four if it turns on us. Tools enough to fix a mast. Extra line. Water skins, but if we do this right, we won't drink from them much."
"You're counting on me," I said.
She gave the smallest nod. "On you, and on the sea."
A gull screamed. The river met the harbor in a loose foam and slid out to the open water beyond the cliffs. Our ship sat low at the wharf—narrow, quick, with a single high mast and a triangular sail patched in three places. Not pretty. Capable. The name painted on her hull had been scrubbed and painted again so many times the letters looked tired.
"What's she called?" I asked.
"Tide's Promise," said a woman behind me.
I turned. The speaker was thick through the shoulders, scar down her jaw, hair gone white at the temples. Her hands were rope and oak. A knife rode her belt for work, not for show.
"Captain Sera," Lyra said, by way of greeting. "You came."
"Brenner asked. I said no. Ashwyn asked. I said no. Then Nyx asked, and I said yes so she'd stop appearing behind me every time I turned around." Sera snorted. "You lot want the islands? I can find you blue water. Can't promise what waits there."
"That's enough," I said.
She looked me up and down, not impressed, not unkind. "You're light on your feet. That's good. Try not to feed my deck your breakfast when we hit swell."
Brenner arrived then, Artan trotting at his heel to the edge of the wharf, sniffing the boards like he might decide to test them. Children followed the bear in a loose, laughing pack until Ari clapped twice and sent them back to practice with the two young archers she'd raised up to leaders. Oriel circled once, a dark cut in the sky, and settled on a spar to watch.
"We're keeping it small," Ari said, joining us. "Five of you, plus Sera and a bare crew. No banners. No show." She jerked her chin at my chest. "Bring my hawk back in one piece, and bring yourself back too."
"I will," I said.
Nyx slid out from the shadow under the pier, Pan's eyes two floating points behind her. She pressed a small coin into my palm. It was dull, scored with a single scratch down the middle.
"Show that to anyone in the ports who whispers to shadows," she said. "They'll pass news to me. If you need to send a message and can't be seen, ask for 'cold water' at a tavern. If they answer 'no stones,' you're safe."
"What happens if they answer wrong?" Callen asked.
Nyx's smile did not reach her eyes. "Then you leave."
Tamsin came last, a worn satchel over her shoulder. She handed it to Lyra without fuss. "Salves. Stitching. Tinctures. Enough for scrapes and bad days. Don't make me come fetch you both from the shore with your lungs full."
Lyra lifted an eyebrow. "We'll try to avoid that."
Tamsin's gaze lingered on Brenner, then on me, as if she had more to say and chose not to. "Eat, sleep, and don't be proud," she said, and kissed Lyra's cheek like a sister.
Ashwyn stood a little apart, as if the crowd's noise slid around him the way water slides around a stone. He beckoned me with two fingers. I went.
He placed something small and rough in my hand. A seed, the size of a fingernail, hard as bone, carved with a spiral too fine for any knife I knew.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A current seed," he said. "Drop it in a bowl of water and it will turn to face the strongest pull. Do the same at sea when you doubt your path. It will prefer living currents over dead ones."
"What's a dead current?"
"Water that moves without life in it," he said softly. "You will know the feel, soon enough."
I closed my hand around the seed. It was warm. Or maybe that was my skin.
"What else?" I asked.
Ashwyn's eyes were tired, but they did not waver. "Three things. First, listen more than you shape. Second, the sea is a teacher who does not explain. Third, remember what brings you home." He tipped his chin toward the city—the crowded lanes, the cranes, the washing lines, the clatter and the laughter. "Don't mistake power for purpose."
I wanted to promise him I wouldn't. I could only nod.
"Go on then," he said. "You have farewells to give, and a deck to learn."
---
We trained hard the rest of that day, but not with blades.
Captain Sera made us climb the mast and slide down the stays until our hands burned. She ran us along the narrow rail until Mira finally fell in and came up sputtering, laughing at her own shock. Darin learned to coil rope without making a mess of it. Callen hauled the anchor chain like he was trying to wrestle the river itself.
"Again," Sera barked, until our steps on the planks matched without words. "If I say 'reef,' you move. If I say 'bear away,' you don't stare at the bear. You turn the boat. If I say 'duck,' do it. The boom will not apologize when it kisses your skull."
Lyra never looked bored. She listened to every command once and made her hands do it right the second time. When a knot slipped, she showed Mira without speaking. When Mira's fingers cramped, Lyra shook her hands out and pushed them through.
Between drills, I stood at the bow and worked at the other lesson—hers, not Sera's. You're breathing it now. I closed my eyes and felt the wind. It brushed my face, salted and cool. I stopped trying to pull water the way I pulled a rope. I let it touch my skin and tried to notice it instead of grabbing it. Tiny beads. A film you only know is there when it leaves.
A minute. Two. A prick of cold gathered over my knuckles. When I opened my eyes, there was nothing to see. But my skin held a wetness that had not come from spray.
"Good," Lyra said, passing me. She never slowed.
Callen watched from the stern, expression flat. "Fog tricks," he muttered. "Give me something I can hit."
"You'll get plenty," Captain Sera said. "There's always a wave with your name on it."
He grunted, but he worked.
By afternoon, the dockside had changed. Word spread to the craftspeople and the fishers. A basket of smoked eels appeared with a ribbon tied to it. A pair of new oars leaned against the mast, shaved smooth by a hand that knew good wood. The fletcher's boy delivered a bundle of arrows to Ari, who did not smile but said, "Thank you," in a tone that meant more than the words.
Brenner pretended he was not saying goodbye at all. He lounged on a bollard while Artan let three small children braid flowers into his fur. When the children ran off, Brenner came to the edge of the wharf and thrust a leather band at me.
"For your wrist," he said. A thin plate of hammered iron sat stitched into it, marked with a single red line. "If you find a fight you can't win, hit the plate with your knuckles and remember you have a promise to come back."
"You think iron will send me home?" I asked, smiling.
He shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe it will just hurt and make you angry enough to live. Either way."
I buckled it on. It felt heavy in a good way.
Ari came next with something wrapped in cloth. Inside lay a single arrow fletched white and blue, the shaft dyed a deep green.
"Signal," she said. "If you need us and the sky is clear, fire it. Oriel will see it before any hawk on this coast. I can't promise I'll be the one who comes, but someone will."
Nyx said nothing for a long time. When she did speak, it was to Lyra, not me. "If anyone tries to chain you with a smile, break their wrist and run," she said. "Talk later."
Lyra's mouth tipped. "I know."
"And to you," Nyx added, turning to me at last, "if you come to a place where your name closes doors, stop using it." She pressed a thin strip of black cloth into my hand. "Blindfolds remind men to listen."
I pocketed it. "I don't like being blind."
"No one does," she said. "Sometimes it's the only way you'll see."
The sun fell, and the wind picked up with it. We ate on the dock—stew that tasted mostly of salt and onion and comfort. Torches climbed the wharf. The town's noise thinned to the softer sounds of night—laughter from a tavern door, a baby somewhere, the last ring of a hammer.
When most others drifted away, Ashwyn called quietly for stillness. People stopped without being told to. That is what a town does when it trusts a voice.
He spoke only a few words.
"Wraithborn stands because we learn faster than we fall. These five go to learn what we do not know." He raised his staff and set its iron tip to the planks with a small, sharp sound. "Let the tide carry them out, and let the same tide bring them home."
No cheering. Not this time. Just breath held in a hundred throats, then let out together as if the city itself exhaled. It was better than cheering.
We slept by the ship to be ready with the light.
---
Dawn made a pale road across the water. Mist lay in torn ribbons on the river, rising to meet the gulls. Sera's crew moved like ghosts, quiet and sure. Lines came free. The sail climbed. The cloth filled with a sound like a door opening.
My stomach lifted and dropped as the Tide's Promise stepped away from the dock. Wraithborn slid backward—walls, cranes, roofs stacked on the cliff like a child's careful game. Ari stood at the end of the wharf, bow in hand, Oriel on her shoulder. Brenner had one arm around Tamsin's waist and waved with the other, wide and careless as always. Nyx was simply gone. Ashwyn's staff made a small silhouette against the light, the old man straight as a mast.
"Hold your water," Captain Sera called, voice easy. "We're not out yet."
The river took us. The sea waited. Spray touched my face—cold, clean. I closed my eyes and, just for a breath, I felt it: water in the air, water in the wind, water in me.
Lyra's hand brushed my arm. Not a grip. Not a guide. Just a touch to say: See?
"I see," I said.
"Good," she answered, and turned to the work.
We pointed the bow toward the line where the sky met the water. The city behind us grew small. The day opened in front of us like a page. And the sea, without saying a word, began to talk.