New Complications

Darius and Elara along with the Eagle Parrot crew are off on a new adventure.

Darius sat propped up on the cot, a blanket draped over his shoulders and a dull ache still humming through his bones. Every movement reminded him of the magic he’d poured into the Eagle Parrot; his strength had flowed like water into the hull, the sails, the mast. It had taken everything.

Elara sat cross legged across from him, flipping her dagger idly between her fingers, eyes half shadowed in the dim lantern light.

He looked at her carefully. “What happened...when I passed out?”

She paused, then slid the dagger back into her boot. “You collapsed the second the ship finished mending. Dropped like a sack of potatoes.”

He chuckled weakly.

She continued. “While the crew was still processing what you’d done...three birds dropped out of the sky.”

Darius frowned. “Birds?”

“Falcons. Massive ones. Black feathered, silver eyed. Vale trained, no doubt.”

His stomach turned. “My father sent them.”

Elara reached into her coat pocket, producing a silver pin and placing it on the edge of his cot. “They dropped this. And a scroll. But I couldn’t open it; locked with some kind of seal I didn’t dare mess with.”

Darius stared at the pin. It gleamed in the lantern light like a shard of moon.

“Did anyone follow the birds back?” he asked.

“No,” Elara said, her voice quiet. “But we’re being watched.”

The silence stretched between them until Darius asked, “Do you remember the story of the Forsaken Isle?”

“The one about the stolen ship?” she asked.

He nodded. “The Celestia. The crime was never solved. The crew vanished. No survivors, no bodies, just the ship drifting back days later, empty.”

Elara leaned forward, brow furrowed. “You think that’s connected to this?”

“My father is.”

And outside, the sea crashed beneath a darkening sky.