Dawn in Driftwood crept in soundlessly, as if even the sun hesitated to wake a village gripped by terror.
Rianor was awake long before the first bright streak touched the horizon. On the straw mattress beside him, Roland was still fast asleep, his breathing heavy and even, his face half-buried in his pillow.
Rianor left his brother to his rest. He grabbed his notebook, re-examining the array of hypotheses he had scribbled down last night. On the rickety wooden table, his mana compass had returned to normal. Its needle pointed passively south, no longer spinning wildly. Silent. As if the audio terror of the night had been nothing but a collective hallucination.
But when Rianor peered through the window slit... Lupus's boat still drifted in the center of the bay. It was a stark, undeniable reality.
He closed his book with a soft, muffled thud and stepped out of the room.
