Page 37 of The Nymph King

“There won’t be another chance like this to prove you’re the true monarch,” Ellisar said.

“This is bigger than anything you suggested,” she said. “And you want me to get involved while it’s already falling apart?”

She tracked the line of Norn soldiers as it faltered, their bodies giving inch by inch as the Lochheim push tightened from the sea. The slip pulsed behind it all, each ripple sending another distortion across the battlefield, bending magic and momentum alike. This was an unraveling, unfolding faster than anyone could contain.

Ellisar caught her arm and pointed toward the beach below. “We need to get closer before you try anything.”

He led her toward the rough-cut stone steps carved into the cliffside, choosing their route as soldiers surged around them. Imani followed without argument. She had plenty of nerve, but the Ascension Assessments had taught her to survive a melee, not to navigate a formal battle with armies, ships, and commanders. Ellisar knew what he was doing.

The wind hit harder with every step. By the time they reached the shoreline, the roar of the sea and battle swallowed nearly everything else. Sand shifted beneath Imani’s shoes, and salt spray struck her face while Norn soldiers rushed past them in both directions.

An officer hurried toward Ellisar. “Boat?” Ellisar demanded.

The officer pointed farther down the beach. “Waiting beyond the second line, sir.”

Ellisar changed direction, and Imani followed. They crossed behind the Norn line, where several elves held a low war vessel against the surf. Waves slammed its hull sideways while two sailors fought to keep the boarding rope taut. Ellisar stepped aboard first and turned back.

“Stay near the center until we clear the fighting.”

Imani took his hand long enough to cross the gap, then released it. The deck pitched violently beneath her feet, forcing her to catch the nearest railing while sailors worked around them.

The vessel pulled away from the shore. As it drove farther into the surf, the slip tugged against Imani’s magic with increasing force. The center of the deck was safer, but it was also too far back.

Ellisar shouted instructions to the crew as Imani made her way toward the front of the vessel.

“Imani.”

She turned.

“You can work from here.”

“Not well enough.”

He ran a hand through his sea-soaked hair. “You have never fought from a ship?”

“No.” Another swell rocked the deck beneath her. Imani tightened her hand around the railing. “But I need to feel the slip.”

Another distortion rolled outward from the fracture, and she moved before he could argue further. Imani worked her way toward the bow, one hand on the railing whenever the vessel pitched beneath her. She did not know how to command a naval battle, but she knew her own magic, and the closer she moved toward the fracture, the more clearly she felt the pressure beneath its surface.

The distortion brushed her signature first, an invisible weight pressing inward. Beneath that pressure, she could sense a structure she did not understand. And unfamiliar Lochheim magic clung to the fracture’s weakened edges, holding them apart whenever the Fabric tried to draw itself closed.

Imani slowed, shielding her eyes to get a better look.

The pattern beneath the distortion became clearer. She didn’t think the Lochheim witches were controlling the slip, not truly. Their magic fastened itself to weaknesses already present in the fracture, reinforcing the opening every time the Fabric tried to contract.

They couldn’t cast a doorway, not like Imani could, so they found a slip and refused to let it close.

Beyond the fighting, more vessels appeared through the distortion in the horizon, their shapes first warped into dark smears before resolving into hulls on the Mesial side.

So that was how they were coming through… her thought trailed off as she watched the ship bulge through the opening. Lochheim was moving ships and people through the slip, using the fracture as a passage between sealed kingdoms.

Another dark hull emerged.

Then another.

A roar rose beneath the sounds of battle.

Imani whipped her head to the sky, her hair plastering itself around her cheeks, as she initially mistook it for thunder. She swiped her hair off her face and turned back to the Neshuin Sea.