The Smoking Sea did not welcome them.
It swallowed the horizon in a haze of ash and steam, the sky above a bruised gray, the water below black as ink. The air was thick with the scent of sulfur and something older something that reeked of rot and ruin.
Vaelros stood at the prow, his hands trembling as he traced a protection sigil in the air. The runes flickered, unstable, as if the very fabric of magic here resisted his touch. He gritted his teeth, forcing the spell outward, wrapping the Ashen Gale in a shimmering veil of warding.
The backlash hit him like a hammer.
Blood burst from his nose. His knees buckled. The world tilted sideways.
Then darkness.
He woke two days later, drenched in sweat, his head pounding like a war drum. The ship creaked around him, the air still heavy with heat and dread. His vision swam, but he could feel it his magic was fractured, like a cracked lens. He could still cast, but only in fragments. Five spells, maybe. And only the simplest ones: enchantments, healing, nothing more.
Captain Raveth Marr stood at the foot of his cot, arms crossed.
"You're awake," she said. "Good. We lost one."
Vaelros sat up, wincing. "Who?"
"Deckhand. Young. Fool touched your sword while you were out. Thought it was just a blade."
Vaelros's stomach turned. "It's warded. It reacts to intent."
"Well, his intent was to clean it. Now he's ash."
He closed his eyes. "I'll speak to the crew."
"Do it soon. They're spooked. And we're not even at the worst of it."
Later, Vaelros stood at the rail, staring out at the wreckage drifting in the distance half-sunken ships, their sails tattered, hulls split like fruit. Some were ancient, barnacle-covered relics. Others looked recent. Too recent.
"This place is cursed," he muttered.
In his mind, memories stirred dimensions, fractured timelines, realms beyond reason. Echoes of a life once lived, when he bore a different name and walked among gods and monsters. Even then, he had never felt anything like this.
He found Captain Raveth on the quarterdeck. "We need to be careful," he said.
She nodded. "I've already doubled the watches. But there's something out there. I can feel it."
"So can I. The illusion ward is holding, but barely. It's diverting attention, not hiding us. There's something in the water. Something big."
"Big enough to eat us whole?"
"Big enough to never notice."
They stood in silence, the sea groaning beneath them.
By the third night, it was Vaelros's turn on watch.
He was paired with two others: Ser Calen Waters, a bastard of House Velaryon tall, lean, with a noble's posture and a sellsword's eyes and Tharn, a wildling from beyond the Wall, broad as a bear and twice as hairy. Tharn had spent years in Essos, working as a caravan guard and pit fighter. His skin had softened in the southern sun, but his instincts were sharp.
They stood near the stern, passing a flask between them.
"So," Calen said, "what do you think we'll find? Gold? Glory? Or just a slow, horrible death?"
"I'm hoping for a dragon egg," Vaelros replied.
Tharn grunted. "I'll settle for not being eaten."
They chuckled, the tension easing for a moment.
Then Tharn froze.
"Something's climbing," he said, voice low.
Vaelros frowned. "I don't feel anything "
Then he did.
A presence. Cold. Watching.
He spun, eyes narrowing. "Get back!"
He shoved Tharn aside just as a figure lunged from the shadows skin like cracked stone, eyes milky and dead. Vaelros recognized it instantly.
"Stoneman!" he shouted. "Don't let them touch you!"
He slashed with his curved sword, knocking the creature back. Another climbed over the rail. Then another. Five in total, maybe more.
Vaelros traced a protection sigil in the air, pressing it to his chest and then to his companions. The spell took hold, but it drained him his limbs felt heavy, his breath shallow.
"Hold the line!" he gasped.
Tharn roared, swinging a massive axe and cleaving one of the stonemen in half. Calen moved like a dancer, blade flashing in the dim light. Vaelros fought clumsily, his swordplay raw but effective. The curved blade served him well, slicing through brittle stone and rotted flesh.
One stoneman lunged at him he spun, using his cloak to blind it, then drove his blade through its chest, kicking it overboard.
The deck was slick with blood and dust. The air stank of rot and old magic.
When the last stoneman fell, Vaelros dropped to one knee, gasping.
"We're not ready for this," he muttered.
Calen wiped his blade. "Then we'd better get ready fast."
Tharn nodded. "Because they'll be back."
Vaelros looked out at the black sea, where the waves lapped hungrily against the hull.
And he knew they were right.