Katarina lay still for a moment longer, watching the dust motes lazily drift through the beam of sunlight. The sorrow was still there, a heavy stone sitting directly on her chest, and the resentment still simmered quietly underneath it. But lying in the dark wouldn't bring Meko back. Lying here wouldn't convince her to not feel some hatred towards Doren.
With a quiet, resigned exhale, she threw her legs over the side of the mattress. She planted her bare feet on the cold floorboards and decided to get up.
Through the thin wooden wall, Doren could be heard making muffled rustling sounds. He was also awake. She pulled on the fresh, clean clothes they had purchased back in Limka, the unbroken fabric feeling strangely foreign against her skin without the familiar grit of the road.
She unbolted her door and stepped out into the dim, narrow hallway just as the heavy oak door beside hers clicked open. Doren stepped out. He looked significantly cleaner, the soot and grime finally washed from his face and dark hair, but the deep, bruised exhaustion shadowing his eyes remained entirely untouched. Still, when he looked up and saw her, he offered a soft, gentle smile. It was a fragile expression, carrying the unspoken weight of their shared grief, but trying desperately to project a sliver of warmth.
"Good morning," Doren said quietly.
Katarina forced her posture to remain casual, burying the turbulent, exhausted pendulum swing of her emotions deep behind the iron walls she had meticulously rebuilt over last night. She gave a small, measured nod. "Morning, Doren. You're awake early." She didn't mention that she hadn't slept a single wink.
"I figured I'd get started on getting information about Shifton Island," Doren explained, his voice hushed in the quiet morning air. He shifted his weight, glancing toward the stairs. "The guard at the gate said it was shifting today, and I'm a little curious on what exactly that means."
Katarina considered retreating back into her room. But the absolute silence of those four walls were exactly what had nearly destroyed her the night before. She couldn't sit alone with her thoughts anymore. She needed a distraction, anything to keep the grief and the simmering resentment from clawing its way back up her throat.
"I think I'll join you," she said, her tone steady and flat.
"If you wish to," Doren replied, the gentle smile remaining on his face. He seemed genuinely relieved not to have to face the tavern alone. He gestured politely toward the wooden staircase at the end of the hall. "I'm going to see if they have any posset here first. I think we could all use something warm."
Katarina let out a simple nod. Together, the two of them walked down the creaking steps, leaving Anya to sleep a little longer as they descended into the early morning hum of the inn.
The ground floor of the Greet, Eat, and Sleep was a jarring contrast to the silence of the upstairs hallway. The tavern was already packed and roaring with life. The morning shift of the Iliadis town guard had completely taken over the main floor, crowding around the tables to get their fill of meats, eggs, and warm ale before their daily patrols along the windy coast began. The air was filled with laughter, the clattering of wooden plates, and the smell billowing from the kitchen hearth.
As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, a young server with flour on her cheeks rushed past them. She was balancing a towering stack of empty tankards. She opened her mouth to greet them, but before she could speak, a gruff voice bellowed from across the room.
"Frella! More warm ale over here!"
With a deeply exhausted sigh, the air she exhaled puffed a strand of hair out of her face. Frella gave Doren and Katarina a quick, apologetic glance and immediately sprinted toward the guards' table.
Doren and Katarina navigated through the crowded room, finding a small, unoccupied table tucked away in a relatively quiet corner near a frost bitten window. They took their seats, the rough furniture offering a strange sort of comfort.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, patiently waiting for Frella to make her rounds back to their corner. Doren kept his eyes cast downward, his fingers nervously tracing a deep scratch carved into the surface of the table. The lively noise of the guards around them seemed to make the silence between the two travelers feel even heavier.
Finally, Doren stopped tracing the wood. He cleared his throat, the sound barely carrying over the din of the tavern.
"I'm sorry about Meko," he said quietly, refusing to look up right away. His voice was incredibly soft but carried a heavy, inescapable guilt. "I've been torn up about it... but I can only imagine the pain you're feeling."
The words hung in the air between them, completely cutting through the ambient noise of the room. Katarina let out a small breath. Beneath the table, her hands instantly curled into tight fists, resting on her thighs. Resentment and gone. The pendulum swung violently in her chest.
She looked across the table at Doren. He was finally looking up at her, his eyes carrying a desperate gentleness. He was sincere. He was actually broken up over Meko's death. He probably had never even experienced death until that moment.
But right now, in this exact instance, that didn't matter. The toxic seed of resentment flared in the pits of her stomach. Her best friend was dead because he had chosen to follow this boy.
Katarina forced her jaw to unclench. She kept her expression completely flat, locking the swirling storm of anger and grief behind a mask.
"Don't," Katarina said. Her voice was perfectly steady. "You don't need to imagine it, Doren, and you don't need to apologize for it. Apologies don't change what happened in Limka. And apologies won't bring him back."
She leaned back in her chair, breaking eye contact to stare out the frost bitten window at the waking town. "Let's just focus on getting that posset, and figuring out what Shifton Island is doing today. We have to get to that island to find that Fennix guy."
Doren took the verbal blow without a flinch. He nodded and dropped his eyes down to the deep scratches carved into the wood. He didn't push it. He understood that it was Katarina's grief and he had no right to tell her how to wield it.
Before the heavy silence between them could fully settle, Frella skidded to a halt beside their table. The young server was out of breath, her chest heaving beneath her flour-dusted apron. She hurriedly balanced a sloshing tankard of warm ale against her hip, her eyes darting nervously back toward the demanding guards across the room.
"What can I get ya?" she asked, her voice frayed and breathless.
Doren looked up, pushing the heavy thoughts aside to focus on the girl. "Two tankards of posset, if you could."
Instantly, Frella's face fell. A deep, distressed frown creased her forehead, and she let out a defeated sigh that drained whatever energy she had left.
"Unfortunately, we do not have the livestock right now," she stammered, her knuckles turning white around the handle of the ale she was holding. "Our only Moonst passed away last month, and no one has gone to get another one. I'm sorry..."
She shrank back slightly, her shoulders hiking up toward her ears as she winced. It was a subtle, heartbreaking flinch, the bracing of a girl who was entirely used to being shouted at or physically struck by angry, impatient guards whenever she delivered disappointment.
Doren caught the flinch immediately. The sadness of the gesture pulled him out of his own shadowed thoughts. He didn't raise his voice. The lines of his face softened. He looked up at her and offered a warm smile.
"That's completely fine," Doren said, his voice soothing. "How about just your normal breakfast? And ale will work perfectly. Three of each. I'm sure Anya would appreciate some breakfast."
Frella looked visibly relieved by his gentle response. She offered a quick nod before darting back into the chaos of the tavern. True to her word, she was back in a flash, dodging a pair of boisterous guards to slide three heavy, sloshing tankards of warm ale onto their table.
"Your breakfast will be up shortly," she promised, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
"Thank you," Doren said, wrapping his hands around the warm wood of his tankard. He took a sip before looking back up at her. "Say... when does the island do this supposed shift?"
Frella paused, her rag hovering halfway to the table. She looked at Doren, and then at Katarina, her brow furrowing in genuine surprise. "You're traveling to Shifton and you don't know about the shift?" she asked, her voice dropping slightly as if she were discussing a town secret.
Doren offered a humble shrug. "We've traveled a long way. The details have been... scarce and some forgotten."
Frella wiped her hands on her flour-dusted apron, leaning in just a fraction to be heard over the roaring guards. "It's exactly what it sounds like," she explained, her tone hushed and respectful of the phenomenon.
"The entire island literally shifts like a giant, slow moving scale. Starting sometime today, the western side of the island will rise up high, and the eastern side will dip down low. The land never goes below the surface of the ocean-but the elevation changes drastically. It'll stay lifted like that for a couple of days, and then it'll do it all over again in reverse. The eastern side will rise, and the western side will fall."
Katarina, who had been staring blankly out the frost-bitten window, slowly turned her head. Her mind automatically engaged with the bizarre new information. "So the terrain is never fully settled. Half the island ascends into the air, and then a few days later, it's a steep drop."
Frella gave a grim, confirming nod. "Exactly. And while the landmass is actually in motion, the waters in the strait go completely mad. The currents whip around and get violent enough to snap a ship's hull in two. No captain dares sail until the shift is completely finished and the island is locked in place for a few days."
Doren's mind immediately flashed back to the crude parchment pinned to the board by the door. The Elemental Assassins. Join Today. It made perfect sense. If you were running a secretive guild of killers, you would want a headquarters with ever-changing, unpredictable terrain surrounded by water that violently chewed up approaching ships.
"Thank you, Frella," Doren said, offering her another warm smile. "That's very good to know."
Frella smiled back, her shoulders easing in tension. "I'll go check on those plates for you."
As she hurried back toward the kitchen hearth, Doren turned his attention back to Katarina. The temporary distraction of the island's lore had passed. The heavy, cold reality of their situation settled right back into the space between them. They were stuck in Iliadis until the island finished shifting and the waters calmed. And behind them, somewhere in the woods, the Order of the Sunless was still hunting. Getting closer if not already on top of them.
Anya finally made her presence and navigated the bustling tavern floor. She groggily dodged a pair of boisterous guards before finally reaching their quiet corner. She pulled out the third wooden chair, the heavy legs scraping against the floorboards, and slumped into it with a deep sigh. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her hair still carrying a slight dampness from her bath the night before.
"Morning," she said through a wide, jaw-cracking yawn.
"Morning," Doren replied softly. He pushed the untouched tankard of warm ale across the scratched wood toward her. "Sleep well?"
Anya wrapped her hands around the ceramic, welcoming the radiant heat against her palms. "Like a stone. I don't think I moved an inch the entire night. I didn't even make it to my bed!" She took a cautious sip, blinking as her focus adjusted to the overwhelming noise of the room. She winced slightly as a roar of laughter erupted from the guards' table. "Are they always this loud before the sun is fully up?"
"Town guard," Katarina stated flatly, her gaze remaining fixed on the frost creeping up the windowpane. "They eat loud and leave early." She remembered how the Havenport guards would act before their shifts.
Doren watched Katarina for a brief second, his expression tight, before turning his attention back to Anya. "We have some news, Anya. We aren't leaving Iliadis today."
Anya paused mid-sip, the sleep instantly vanishing from her face. Her brow furrowed, and a familiar spark of panic flared in her eyes. "Why not? What's going on?"
"No," Doren assured her quickly, keeping his voice low and steady. "It's the island. It's 'shifting' today."
Anya blinked, her panic giving way to sheer confusion. "Shifting? I remember the guard at the gate saying something. But shifting?"
"Literally," Doren explained, summarizing what Frella had just told them. "The entire landmass moves. The western side is going to rise up, and the eastern side is going to dip down. While it's moving, the water in the strait becomes too dangerous. No ships can sail until the island finishes moving and locks into place."
Anya slumped back in her chair, slowly digesting the delay. The thought of being in one place for too long while the Order was out there made a cold knot form in her stomach. But as she looked down at the warm ale in her hands, the thought about the feather-stuffed mattress waiting upstairs reminisced. It was a small, guilty part of her that couldn't help but feel relieved.
"So we're just... stuck here?" Anya asked quietly. "For how long?"
"A couple of days at least," Doren said. "Maybe tomorrow if the waters relax."
Before Anya could voice her conflicting thoughts on the matter, Frella reappeared through the thick crowd of guards. The server expertly balanced three heavy wooden trenchers on her arms, sliding them onto the table with a loud clatter. The plates were piled high with steaming scrambled eggs, thick cuts of sizzling salted meat, and fresh, buttered bread.
"Eat up," Frella said with a quick, breathless smile before turning to rush back into the chaos of the tavern.
Anya dug into her breakfast, her mood noticeably lifted by the hot bath and the full night of uninterrupted sleep. Doren and Katarina, however, picked at their plates. The salted meat and buttered bread didn't appease them, their appetites entirely suppressed by the weight of Meko's absence and the heavy dread of the unknown road before them.
Once they had scraped their plate clean, they pushed their chairs back and navigated through the chaotic tavern. Before heading outside, Doren stopped at the heavy wooden bar to speak with Mandee, the brusque but motherly innkeeper who had checked them in the night before.
"We'll be heading out for a bit, but we are keeping the rooms for the duration of the island's shift," Doren confirmed. He slid a few extra silver coins across the polished wood to ensure their sanctuary remained untouched.
Mandee scooped up the coins with a brisk, reassuring nod. "The doors will stay locked and the hearths stoked. They're yours until the waters calm, lad. Go on, now.. get some fresh air."
Doren thanked her, and the three of them pushed through the heavy doors of the Greet, Eat, and Sleep. The moment they stepped off the threshold, the biting, cold coastal air hit them like a physical blow. The damp fog of the morning carried the scent of salt. The air felt like something was about to happen. Like the calm before a storm. Katarina instinctively crossed her arms, shivering slightly as the wind cut right through her fresh clothes, while Doren pulled his collar up against his neck.
The cobblestone streets outside the inn were quiet. But as they looked down the sloping road toward the water, the reason became obvious. Iliadis had practically emptied its homes and businesses.
A massive crowd had formed along the rocky coastline. It looked as though the majority of the villagers were all piled near the edges of the main stone pier, their heavy cloaks and coats whipping wildly in the rising coastal wind. The air started moving. The villagers stood shoulder to shoulder, an ocean of expectant faces staring out across the choppy expanse of the Shifton Strait.
Despite it being a regular occurrence for the locals, the sheer scale of the geological event still commanded the entire town's attention. They were waiting for the island to move. Whatever their reasoning was. The villagers treated it as a regular spectacle, and the mood of the crowd was a bizarre mix of casual entertainment and superstition.
To their left, near a stack of wooden shipping crates, a group of burly fishermen and dockworkers were loudly slapping silver and copper coins into a leather pouch. They were taking spirited bets, arguing over exactly how long the island would take to fully complete its shift this time around, laughing as the cold wind whipped the words from their mouths.
To their right, however, the atmosphere was vastly different. Several older villagers stood near the water's edge with their heads bowed and their hands clasped together. They were murmuring quiet prayers to the goddess who had originally split the island apart. They cast small offerings of dried herbs and salt into the churning tide, paying homage to her ancient power and begging the divine forces to ensure that the mainland of Erenia would never suffer the same catastrophic fate.
Doren watched the worshippers for a moment. Katarina, meanwhile, wasn't looking at the gamblers or the praying villagers. Her eyes were locked on the town guard.
A thick line of guards stood at the edge of the stone docks, completely ignoring the massive silhouette of Shifton Island in the distance. Instead of gawking, their postures were relaxed. Their hands rested firmly on the hilts of their swords and the shafts of their long spears, as they talked amongst each other.
"They aren't watching the island," Katarina noted quietly, her voice barely carrying over the wind.
"No," Doren agreed, following her gaze to the churning waves. "They're waiting to see what the sloshing wakes up."
The guards were bracing themselves, hoping that the underwater chairs wouldn't drive any colossal sea beasts up to the surface and toward the vulnerable docks of Iliadis. It has happened frequently in the past.
Katarina leaned closer to one of the villagers standing nearby, an older woman wrapped tightly in a thick shawl. "When exactly does this thing happen?" she asked, raising her voice slightly to cut through the whistling wind.
The older lady turned, her deeply lined face lighting up with a genuinely excited expression. "Any moment now, dearie!" she practically cheered, her eyes wide with anticipation. "It's never exact. It could be a minute from now, or we could be standing here freezing for hours. But you'll know it when it starts. If you feel the earth, you will be able to tell right in your bones."
Doren, who had been quietly watching the tense line of guards and the gambling fishermen, slowly turned his head. The old woman's words echoed in his mind. If you feel the earth.
His gaze drifted out across the violent chop of the Shifton Strait toward the massive, hazy silhouette of the island. In his core, the Powerhart thrummed a slow, erratic rhythm against his ribs.
Doren took a steadying breath, letting the icy coastal air fill his lungs. He closed his eyes for a brief second, pushing past the noise of the crowd, the howling wind, and the crashing waves against the stone pier. He forced his awareness inward, past the suffocating grief and the anxiety, tapping into the grounded hum of the earth magic buried deep within his chest.
The old woman was right. He wouldn't need to wait to see the island physically move against the horizon, and he wouldn't need to watch the water recede to know it had begun. He fixed his gaze on the shadowy landmass of Shifton Island, waiting for the world to move.
Beside him, Anya and Katarina fell into a quiet conversation to pass the time. Doren could barely hear them over the coastal winds and sloshing waves. He stayed concentrated, pulling his focus away from the cold.
Where are you, Galdur? Doren thought, casting his mind into the void of the Powerhart, trying to awaken the ancient earth spirit embedded within his own being. But all was silent. The earth within him remained completely dormant.
Just as Doren opened his eyes, the waters grew violent. The dark, choppy expanse of the Shifton Strait suddenly seemed to inhale. With a rushing hiss, the ocean forcefully receded, drawing back from the stone pier and exposing slick, barnacle-covered rocks that hadn't seen the air in days.
The unnatural pause lasted only a heartbeat.
Then, the ocean slammed against the coast. Small waves picked up rapidly, curling into aggressive swells that smacked against the rocky coastline with concussive force. Plumes of freezing white foam shot up into the gray morning air. The heavy stone pier jutting out into the strait got splashed from both sides simultaneously as the conflicting currents violently collided around the man-made structure.
The crowd of villagers erupted into a chorus of gasps, cheers, and louder, more frantic prayers. Several people standing too close to the edge shrieked as the icy spray soaked their heavy cloaks. The massive group instinctively stumbled backward onto the wet cobblestones to avoid being dragged in.
"It's starting!" the old woman beside Katarina yelled over the roaring tide, clapping her weathered hands together in pure excitement.
Anya instinctively grabbed Katarina's arm to steady herself as a particularly heavy wave shook the deep foundation of the pier beneath their boots. Katarina immediately widened her stance to anchor them both, her eyes narrowing as she peered through the misting sea spray. Further down the docks, the town guards shouted sharp orders to hold the line. They gripped their spears, staring intensely into the frothing surf to see what horrors the churning deep might spit out.
Doren didn't step back. He stood firmly near the edge of the pier, letting the freezing spray dampen his clothes and face. While the rest of the town watched the terrifying power of the ocean with their eyes, Doren experienced it from within. The thrashing kinetic energy of the strait resonated within him, stirring up his elements and making his body naturally warm.
Then, beneath the deafening roar of the crashing waves, a new sound joined the symphony of destructive waves. It was a grinding rumble that vibrated into their souls. It didn't come from the water. It came from the island's foundation. Out on the hazy horizon, the massive silhouette of Shifton Island slowly began to shift.
The colossal eastern side of Shifton Island began its slow descent. Simultaneously, the lower Western half of the landmass began its earth shaking climb upward. Right down the center of the massive silhouette, a deep, jagged fissure became visible. The break in the middle of the island groaned under the pressure, moving apart just slightly, but enough for the awestruck viewers in Iliadis to clearly see the gap widening against the gray morning sky.
As the island committed to its massive shift, the crowd packed along the rocky coast got louder. A roaring cheer of whistles, applause, and triumphant shouts completely cut through the whistling wind. It was a strange and magnificent geographical occurrence that happened nowhere else in the known world but Shifton Island.
Down below the docks, the Shifton Strait reacted to the moving landmass. The massive body of water separating the island from the mainland of Erenia suddenly experienced a massive, rapid drawdown. The water sucked backward with a deafening hiss again, peeling away from the coast and exposing vast stretches of the rocky seabed. Slick, barnacle covered boulders, tangles of thick kelp, and thrashing marine life were laid out, exposed to the freezing air for several breathless seconds.
And then, the ocean retaliated.
The displaced water rushed back in, the waves crashing violently against each other and slamming into the Iliadis coastline with earth shattering force. The stone docks shuddered under the concussive blows, sending sheets of freezing white spray high over the cheering crowd and the braced town guards.
Still in the distance, entirely unbothered by the chaos of the strait, the island continued to move at its agonizingly slow, but majestic pace. As the Western side was pushed higher and higher into the atmosphere, the small mountain range capping its peaks was elevated into the sky. The summits rose up, piercing straight through the low hanging clouds.
Within less than an hour, the groan of the tectonic plates grinding against one another finally began to subside. The Western peaks now sat above the cloud line, while the Eastern half had sunk closer to the dark embrace of the ocean. The island had locked itself into its new position.
It would remain this way for five to six days. Then, the earth would move again, the massive crowd would return to the docks, and the island would shift back the other way.
But while the earth had finished its rapid, violent repositioning, the Shifton Strait was far from calm. The mani waters continued to churn and thrash, the waves relentlessly smashing into the stone docks and the rocky coastline. It would take at least another day for the ocean to fully digest the massive disturbance and settle back into a normal rhythm.
For the villagers, the show was over. The gamblers began leaving with their winnings, and the worshippers dusted off their knees. The massive crowd slowly fragmenting and migrating back up the sloping streets toward the warmth of the tavern and their homes.
Doren, however, didn't move to follow them. His gaze was no longer fixed on the distant, altered horizon of the island. He was scanning the immediate coastline of Iliadis, his brow furrowing deeper with every passing second.
Tomorrow their plans were supposed to be their crossing. The moment the waters calmed enough to not shatter a hull, they needed to be on a ferry and moving toward the island. Their main goal was to find and talk to Fennix about Doren's father. They couldn't afford to wait in Iliadis any longer than that. The Order of the Sunless had trackers and they were closing the distance with every passing hour. They could've already found them for all they knew.
But as Doren's eyes swept across the length of the massive stone pier, and then down the jagged, rocky shoreline stretching in either direction, a cold knot of genuine worry tightened in his stomach. A genuine worry and fear. He noticed that there were no ferries in the area. How were they going to get across?