[Boat — Open ocean — Day 60 — 6:20 AM]
Maya saw it first on the map.
Not on the horizon — on the Eternal Sailors' living map, where the point that had been an abstract destination on the far right of the parchment for days began to take on contour. Coastlines. Elevation. The silhouette of something too large to be an island.
"Team," said Maya without looking up from the map. "Four kilometers."
The team came up on deck.
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It wasn't on the horizon yet when Alex's Soul Sight found it.
Not like the ships or creatures — not a point signature, not a localized density. The Eastern Island reached Alex's Soul Sight like the ocean floor appears when you swim in clear water: not an object, a presence. The ocean's spiritual plane changing character twenty kilometers from the coast, the deep currents responding to something that had been there long enough for the ocean around it to have learned to bend around it.
[Soul Sight — massive spiritual signature — direction east]
Alex stopped.
