The Tidebound Front docks were a storm of organized urgency, dock crews shouting over one another as they hauled lines, shifted crates, and cleared paths to make way for the incoming wreck. The battered hull wasn’t moving fast, but every groan of timber promised it would hit hard. Kade kept pace with Voss, Lawson, Bishop, Burrell, and the three ship’s clerics, boots pounding the warped planks as first responders ran toward the danger.

  Men with pike poles and gaff hooks jogged ahead, their tools catching the sun as they called distances over the roar. Others stacked bundles of rope on the edges of the pier, ready to lash anything that broke free. Hammer blows rang from a nearby mooring point where a team reinforced posts already bowing from the strain of tide and age. The dockside crowd thinned as nonessential workers scrambled clear, leaving only those willing to take the hit standing at the ready.

  A dockhand cursed as he nearly lost a boot between warped planks, shouting at no one in particular about hazard pay that didn't exist anymore.

  The distressed vessel scraped in with a drawn-out screech, drawing winces from the dockworkers and a few instinctive steps backward from those closest, as if the sound alone might splinter bone of wood on wood, a gut-deep sound that set teeth on edge.

  Across the waterfront, the bow's crack echoed, startling gulls into a screaming spiral. The whole pier shuddered underfoot, a brief, jarring quake that knocked knees and sent loose tools skittering into the gaps. Splinters burst outward like shrapnel, forcing some to duck behind crates. With so few hands still moving aboard, the mooring crews abandoned the usual lines, hurling boarding hooks instead, their barbed heads clanging against the crippled ship’s rails before biting into the wood. The hull rocked hard but, against all odds, held.

  Stone sprinted up the boarding ramp the instant it slammed into place with the clerics close behind, folding into the chaos without hesitation. The dockworkers joined them, hauling stretchers and crude slings.

  The groans and low shouts of the wounded drowned the orders barked over the clamor. Stone moved with the efficiency of someone trained in combat triage, pulling a half-conscious sailor away from the gunwale, while a cleric pressed glowing hands to a gut wound, the light fading as the man’s color returned enough to keep him alive.

  Burrell Haskett’s voice cut through it all, directing survivors toward an empty warehouse just beyond the pier. "Temporary ward, now. You can sort your complaints about it later."

  That was when the rumors started. Survivors stumbled from the ramp, some still bleeding, others shaking, muttering about a ship in the fog. Lanterns swinging without wind. A smell of brine and rot so thick it clung to their throats. One man swore he’d seen the crew, bone-white hands working the rigging, empty sockets staring across the water. Another insisted the attackers made no sound but the creak of their own hull. Kade didn’t dismiss it outright. She’d heard stranger things since the world fell apart.

  She stood with Voss, Bishop, and Lawson a few paces from the chaos, eyes fixed on the boarding ramp. The steady, deliberate limp of the distressed ship’s second officer drew their attention. Even though his uniform was scorched at the edges and his face was hollow with exhaustion, his eyes were sharp enough to see where the real command stood.

  Kade stepped forward as he reached them. "What happened out there?"

  He took a slow breath, as if replaying it in his head. "Fog. Thick enough you could lose a man two feet away. Then… a light off our port bow. Couldn’t tell if it was a lantern, a flare, something alive. We closed to investigate, but the shape of a ship came through the mist. Looked like it hadn’t been in drydock in a century. Tattered sails. Hull groaning. Couldn’t make out much else before they opened fire."

  "You returned fire?" Kade asked.

  "We don’t carry cannons." His voice was bitter at the admission. "Captain didn’t want to engage with them, so we ran. They followed. Held to our wake for an hour, maybe more, then turned back. Didn’t feel like we’d escaped. Felt like we’d… left wherever they wanted to hunt. Or like they didn’t want to come closer to the Portland harbor."

  Kade felt a flicker of suspicion. Maybe they hadn’t wanted to come into the harbor at all. The Tidebound Front’s shore batteries might have been built to shatter the shells of sea monsters charging the bay, but against a wooden hull they’d be devastating. Any captain with sense would think twice before testing those guns, ghost ship or not.

  Voss narrowed his eyes, studying the man. "And who are you?"

  The officer straightened, as much as his limp would allow. "First Mate Raymond Fairhope of the cutter Windmere. You can call me Ray."

  "You ought to get yourself looked at over at the aid warehouse. Once you’ve had time to recover, we can talk more." Burrell said.

  Ray gave a faint, tired smile, his shoulders sagging as though the act of speaking had drained what little strength remained, and his voice carried the rasp of someone running on the last threads of endurance. "Sounds good. I’m… exhausted, if I’m honest. Thank you for the help, for getting us in one piece." He nodded to each of them before excusing himself and limping toward the warehouse Burrell had indicated.

  Burrell waited until Ray was out of earshot before speaking. "Ghost ships aren’t real."

  "Maybe not. Then again, I’d never seen a skeleton dig itself out of a cemetery and try to take my head off before yesterday." Lawson replied.

  "That is because it isn’t a ghost ship," Kade said. "It’s the Widow’s Grin. This feels like something Naomi would try. She followed us up here and is playing theatrics."

  Voss gave her a sidelong glance. "We don’t have proof, and I’m not about to send us chasing phantoms. But if it is Naomi, I wouldn’t mind evening the score." His gaze hardened at the memory. "Still, we haven’t seen so much as a whisper of her since Block Island."

  Kade’s gaze lingered on the crippled cutter. "Before we start making plans, I want to see her damage up close."

  "Fair enough. It appears that the first responders have the worst cases offloaded. Let’s take a look." Burrell said.

  The five of them crossed the pier and moved up the boarding ramp, the boards creaking under their boots.

  Up close, the Windmere looked worse than she had from the dock. The mainmast was split nearly halfway through its thickness, with a jagged seam running from the deck up into the first set of spars. Each time the tide rolled over her, the crack flexed and groaned like an injured limb under weight. Frayed lines drooped from the yards above, their loose ends swaying and knocking against the mast in an irregular, hollow rhythm.

  A crewman watched them from the shadows of the rigging, bandaged hand shaking as he tried not to be seen. The man was clearly in shock.

  They walked aft, stepping over a section of deck where the planks had been gouged deep, too deep for stray shot, like something heavy had been dragged across.

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  "That’s not storm damage," Lawson said.

  Burrell grunted agreement but said nothing, his eyes scanning along the hull.

  It was Voss who spotted the odd shape first. "There."

  Kade followed his finger to where, on the far side of the ship from the dock, a heavy harpoon jutted from the hull just forward of the stern. The barbed head had punched deep into the planking, splinters feathering the edges. A length of rotted rope trailed from the shaft, its fibers spongy and frayed, the whole coil swaying gently with the ship’s motion.

  "Whaling gear?" Lawson asked.

  "Looks like it," Burrell said, crouching to study the corroded metal. "But the rope’s gone soft. This thing’s been in the water longer than this fight."

  Voss ran a hand over the splintered wood. "Or whoever fired it didn’t care about keeping the line intact. Just wanted to hit hard and leave a mark."

  Kade knelt beside it, eyes narrowing. Something clung to the iron, barnacle-like growth that was black and brittle and broke away under the lightest touch. "Either way, it wasn’t meant to scare them. If I had to venture a guess, it was supposed to capture."

  Bishop scanned the surrounding hull. "If it were just this, maybe. But look…"

  He pointed toward the midships. Several planks were blackened, scorched in irregular patches, as if fire had licked across them without catching. Just forward of that, smaller holes peppered the wood in a tight cluster, the angles all wrong for a single volley.

  "… that amount of damage indicates they were going for the kill, not a capture."

  Kade rose, taking in the damage in silence. The cutter was a patchwork of wounds, some fresh, others older, none of them quite matching the others.

  "This ship has been through more than just this latest attack. That first mate is going to have quite the story to tell about their first two weeks of the cataclysm when he's ready," Kade said.

  Bishop shifted his attention to Burrell. "I’m pleased with how the Front’s work on the Talon is coming. We’re ahead of schedule, but we ought to get her out of drydock sooner rather than later. This is a real threat, no matter what it ultimately is."

  Burrell responded, "Agreed. Those shore batteries have taken down sea serpents bigger than a galleon. One pirate ship won’t be a problem, but I think I'd feel better about having your ship mobile."

  As if to punctuate the moment, Simulation flashed a quest notification into Kade’s view. She couldn’t accept it herself, but if it worked like their last ship quest, it would appear for everyone listed on the crew manifest.

  Lantern's Without Wind

  Quest Notification! An incoming cutter reports being pursued and fired upon by an unidentified vessel near the mouth of Portland Bay. The attacker broke off when it drew too close to the bay, leaving survivors unsure whether its intent was to capture or destroy. With only one confirmed sighting, details are scarce, but the risk to Tidebound Front shipping lanes cannot be ignored. Investigate the waters beyond the bay and neutralize any threat.

  Difficulty: Medium

  Rewards: Gold, Experience, One Ship Item

  Accept? Yes/No

  *Note only the captain of the vessel can accept this quest.

  The quest made no mention of Naomi or the Widow’s Grin, only the bland certainty that someone, somewhere, wanted answers. Kade, however, had no doubt. When she found Naomi, she’d see to it the woman never surfaced again.

  Kade’s eyes went to Lawson. Judging by the tight smile he had on his face, he'd had the same thought. "You’d think the system would give us more than a few vague lines before sending us into trouble." Kade said.

  "Would ruin the surprise," Lawson said.

  Voss’s expression didn’t change, but his voice carried the weight of a decision already forming. "We’ll get the Talon seaworthy first. Then we find out what’s prowling out there."

  Bishop’s gaze lingered on the dockside warehouse where Ray had vanished. "And hope we’re not already too far behind."

  Burrell folded his arms, eyes drifting toward the open water beyond the piers. Kade followed his gaze to the tide running fast out there, whitecaps breaking over the shoals, and the flat gray smear of the horizon beyond.

  "I can put some of our salvage sloops out past the mouth of the harbor," he said. "They’re not fast, but they can spot trouble early and keep it off the charts until you’re ready to take the Talon out."

  "Those sloops can take a hit?" Voss asked.

  Burrell shook his head. "Not from whatever this is. They’d be eyes, nothing more. They’d shadow at a distance, report back before anyone got chewed up."

  Kade shifted her neck to look up at the gulls drifting overhead. The thought of sending small crews out as lookouts didn’t sit right. "So they’d be bait."

  "That too, if it comes to it," Burrell said without flinching. He turned toward her, expression unreadable. "Every vessel I send out is one less crew I have here pulling in supplies or fixing damage. But it’s worth it if it keeps something like this from drifting into the bay unannounced."

  Bishop glanced at the Windmere, still sagging against the pier. "You’re already spread thin."

  Burrell smiled faintly, and Kade couldn’t tell if it was meant to reassure or challenge. "Everyone in the Front is behind me on pushing for us to control the Safe Zone instead of the Restoration Council or . But if a big push of monsters or pirates makes it into the harbor, the kind that rattles windows and leaves bodies in the street, people will start to question who’s in charge."

  His eyes moved over each of them, lingering on Kade a beat too long. "And scared people do stupid shit."

  Voss broke the silence. "Meaning they’d turn to the Council."

  "Meaning," Burrell said, "they’d turn to whoever makes them feel safe in that moment." He looked back toward the edge of the bay, but Kade was certain his attention hadn’t really left them. "I don’t intend to give them a reason to look elsewhere."

  Burrell wasn’t wrong, and that was the problem. Kade still didn’t think the Talon should take sides, but she’d seen enough fear turn into violence to know how quickly a crowd could unravel. Right now, there was a fragile balance between the Tidebound Front and the Restoration Council, but if panic ever got a foothold in Portland, the ripples could be enough to drown the entire city in blood.

  Both Burrell and Councilor Ryan Callan needed to pull their heads out of their collective asses and agree on something that actually worked. As it stood, even if one side took control of the contested districts, she wouldn’t put it past the other to turn to sabotage. And if that happened, they’d all be too busy fighting each other to stop whatever came through the bay next.

  Stone was waiting near the end of the ramp when they came off the Windmere. Her sleeves were rolled, her uniform soaked to the elbows in other people’s blood. There was no hint of the clean and sterile environment of a hospital ward here. This was battlefield medicine on rotting planks, in wind and salt spray, with shouting in your ear and no margin for error.

  She gave a quick salute to Voss before speaking. "Half a dozen of their crew didn’t make it. Captain will live, though."

  "Good," Voss said. "I’d like a word with him when he’s able."

  "Me too," Burrell added, glancing back toward the warehouse.

  Stone shook her head. "Not today, I'm afraid, Captain. Man’s running on what’s left of him. Tomorrow at the earliest if you want him coherent. Right now he's babbling about ghost ships, dragons, and monsters off the edge of the map."

  "Then it's best to let the man rest. I appreciate you being here. You saved lives." Burrell said.

  Kade stayed quiet, but the thought stuck. Stone had been carving out her place aboard the Talon with every crisis, slotting in beside Briggs and Myers as the kind of steady hand the crew could rely on when things broke ugly. If they meant to keep the Talon in one piece and her people alive, they were going to need more like her.

  They started back toward the Talon, the smell of the Windmere’s damage and spilled blood still clinging to Kade’s uniform. Burrell fell into step with Voss, trading low words about patrol schedules for the sloops, while Lawson kept a watchful eye on the crowded dock.

  A figure in dark blue stepped into their path near the end of the pier, the Ebonwake Conclave insignia stitched in silver over her coat. The messenger looked between Kade and Burrell with a faintly triumphant expression of someone who had just saved themselves an extra mile on foot.

  "Messages for both of you," she said, producing two sealed notes. "Fortunate to find you together."

  Kade took hers, feeling the weight of the wax seal for a heartbeat before breaking it. Mireya’s handwriting was sharp and precise. It read, I’ve located information on the artifact.

  Burrell unfolded his own, eyes gliding over the contents. "Mine says the same."

  That was fast. Too fast. Kade kept her face still, but the thought coiled at the back of her mind. The Ebonwake Conclave had come across as harmlessly eccentric, a group of scholars with more ink stains than scars, but something about them didn't sit right. This speed only sharpened that edge.

  The note went on to recommend holding a summit aboard the Horizon Talon as neutral ground. All three factions invited, the matter said to concern everyone.

  Kade refolded the paper and slid it into her coat. Neutral ground or not, having all three factions on her deck was going to be its own kind of storm.

  "It appears that tomorrow, we'll be having guests, Captain," Kade deadpanned.

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