The Pearl-Sovereign did not glide across the Western waves with the majestic,
effortless grace of a goddess's chariot. It labored. The great iron-and-silver
hull, once a shimmering mirror for the starlight, was now a battered,
soot-stained testament to the relentless friction of a world that had reclaimed
its gravity. The coal-fired engines in the belly of the ship roared with a
frantic, industrial hunger, belching a thick plume of black smoke that smeared
the pale indigo sky of the new era.
I stood at the aft railing, my hands white-knuckled as I gripped the salt-pitted
wood. The Silver Bracelet on my wrist—the mark of the Anchor—was cold, vibrating
with a low-frequency hum that matched the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the
propellers. But underneath the mechanical noise, I felt the void where Leo's
presence should have been.
For nineteen years, my brother had been the sound of footsteps in the straw, the
