Winds of Khalakh

The island does not emerge from the clouds all at once—first, the silhouettes of masts appear, then the white stone of the docks, and then everything unfolds across the horizon at once: massive, multi-tiered, with house terraces descending almost to the very edge before plunging into the void. The White Docks. Here, people are used to living alongside the heights, and they do not fear them.

The ship descends slowly. Beneath the deck, the faceted crystals embedded in the hull hum softly. They glow with a steady, pale blue light that intensifies as the vessel slows, fading to a mere whisper when it hovers over the water before mooring. Anchor lines fly downward, catching onto the stone pillars of the pier—and the deck finally ceases its swaying.

The port greets you not with silence, but with a roar: the creak of ropes, the snap of a sail, the cry of a stevedore who failed to dodge a rolling barrel. It smells of resin, the heated metal of smithies, and, for some reason, cinnamon. Seagulls snatch at anything left unattended, while the port guard watches it all as if they gave up on intervening long ago.

Only you know why you are here. Some come to these shores for work, some for profit, and some because there is no place left to return to. Regardless, the coins in your pocket are few, and you must decide where to head before sunset.

The gangplank lowers with a dull thud. Beneath your feet is solid, unmoving stone, a strange sensation after the pitching of the sea. And amidst this clamor, through the crowd, a fragment of someone else's conversation reaches you—two people by the barrels are speaking in low voices, but they utter one name in such a way that the air around it seems to turn cold:

— ...I'm telling you, it was him. The Raven. He ground the Eastern Ridge to dust, but they say he spared one little islet—just because someone made him laugh. Go figure...

They are not destined to finish their sentence. In the next instant, something small and fast slams into you mid-stride—a scrawny figure in rags, a child's palm sliding toward your belt. A petty thief. Either you have already felt their fingers tugging at your purse, or in a second, you will find your last coins missing.

And just two steps away, by the gangplank, a port guard is already turning his head toward the commotion—and his gaze is slowly crawling in your direction.