Chapter 1:Salt and Ember
The fishermen of Keralde said the sea had a heart, and that it was older than names.
They spoke of it in the careful way people use for things that might be listening. Not loudly, not all at once, but in fragments traded over mended nets and half‑emptied cups of brine‑sharp ale. The sea's heart, they said, beat far below the reach of anchors and light, beneath pressure that could crush bone to dust. When it beat true, the tides arrived as expected, the storms announced themselves, and the fish returned year after year to the same forgiving waters. When it faltered, everything went wrong.
Mira had grown up on those stories the way other children grew up on lullabies.
She had been born during a storm that split the old lighthouse in two. Her mother liked to say the sea had screamed her into the world, that the waves had clawed at the rocks until Mira finally answered by crying back. The midwives had laughed nervously and crossed their fingers against ill luck, but Mira's mother only smiled and held her child close, listening to the thunder as if it were speech.
By the time Mira was old enough to walk the docks alone, she knew the moods of the water better than most grown sailors. She could tell, by the taste of the wind, whether the tide would be gentle or sharp. She could hear when the waves struck the pilings with impatience rather than rhythm. She learned these things not because anyone taught her, but because she listened.
Keralde was a town shaped by salt. Its buildings leaned away from the sea even as they depended on it, wood warped and whitened by years of spray. Nets hung like ghostly curtains between posts, and the air always carried the mixed scents of kelp, fish oil, and old smoke. People worked hard and spoke little, saving words for what mattered.
What mattered, most days, was survival.
The morning the tide went wrong began quietly.
Mira was sitting on a low stool near the eastern pier, repairing a trawl net torn by something large and careless. Her fingers moved with steady patience, weaving fiber through fiber, following the language of the tear. Around her, gulls argued over scraps and the harbor water lapped at the posts with lazy familiarity.
Then the water kept going.
The tide did not simply retreat, as tides always did. It drew back farther than it should have, uncovering rocks that had not seen air in generations. The harbor floor emerged slick and black, studded with shells that glistened like fresh wounds. Boats listed awkwardly, lines creaking as they strained against moorings never meant to be pulled so tight.
Voices rose along the docks.
"Low tide already?" someone called.
"It's too far," said another. "Moon's wrong."
Mira stood, the net forgotten in her lap. A pressure had settled behind her ribs, not quite pain, not quite fear. The sea, bare and exposed, felt like a held breath.
Then she smelled smoke.
It did not belong.
There were hearths in Keralde, and kilns, and the occasional tar fire for sealing hulls, but this scent was different. It was warm and ancient, carrying the memory of embers banked deep beneath ash. It cut through the salt air with unsettling clarity.
No one else seemed to notice.
Mira followed the smell instinctively, stepping down from the dock onto the revealed seabed. The stone was cold and slick beneath her boots. Anemones writhed, exposed and offended by the air, and small fish flopped desperately in shallow pools. She moved carefully, murmuring apologies without quite realizing she did so.
The smoke scent grew stronger as the seabed sloped downward into a natural bowl. At its center lay a pool of water darker than the rest, still as polished glass despite the wind.
Something massive shifted beneath the surface.
The water steamed.
Mira froze.
A shape rose slowly from the pool, scales breaking the surface with the sound of distant cracking ice. The creature coiled upon itself, unfolding with evident effort, as though each movement cost more than it should. Wings, folded tight, glistened like wet sails. A long neck curved protectively around a broad, armored chest.
A dragon lay where the sea had retreated.
He was not the towering horror of children's nightmares, blotting out the sky and breathing fire upon cities. He was vast, yes, but contained—drawn inward, conserving what little strength he had left. His scales were the color of deep water, blue‑green shot through with veins of dim firelight that pulsed unevenly beneath the surface.
Steam curled from his nostrils.
Mira's heart hammered, but her feet did not move. The pressure in her chest sharpened into certainty: this was wrongness given form, a wound in the world laid bare by the retreating sea.
One enormous eye opened.
It was the color of molten amber, clouded at the edges, and when it fixed on her she felt seen in a way that stripped away every polite lie she had ever told herself.
"Go," the dragon said.
His voice did not boom. It rasped, low and rough, like stones grinding beneath a relentless tide. The sound vibrated through Mira's bones.
"Before the sea remembers how to drown you."
She swallowed. Her mouth was dry, her thoughts scattered like startled fish. Sensible people ran from dragons. Sensible people screamed.
"You're hurt," she said instead.
The dragon's lip curled, exposing a line of darkened teeth. A sound escaped him—half laughter, half cough. "You have sharp eyes for something so fragile."
"I mend nets," Mira replied, though she did not know why that mattered. "I see breaks."
His gaze flicked over her, lingering on her hands. "Then you know what comes of leaving them unattended."
"Who did this to you?" she asked.
The dragon's eye closed briefly, and when it opened again the fire beneath his scales flickered erratically. "Time," he said. "And forgetting."
A tremor ran through the ground as the sea began, slowly, to return. Water crept inward along the seabed, thin fingers of foam reaching for the dragon's coiled body. He hissed, pain shuddering through him.
"If you stay," he warned, "you will be swept away."
Mira looked back toward the docks. People were gathering now, pointing and shouting, panic blooming at last. She looked again at the dragon, at the way his massive form tensed as the water touched him, not with relief but with dread.
"What happens if I leave?" she asked.
The dragon studied her for a long moment. "Then I die," he said. "And the sea will lose more than it already has."
The tide surged faster, racing back toward its rightful place. Mira felt cold water close around her ankles.
She made her choice.
"Then you'll have to take me with you," she said, voice shaking but clear. "Because I don't think the sea wants to lose you yet."
The dragon's eye widened, just a fraction.
For the first time, the fire beneath his scales steadied.