Mina Vance stamped her small cloth boot against the caldera flagstones.
A five-mile ring of pale blue frost exploded outward from her soles, rushing down the cliffs and hitting the incoming fifty-foot tidal wave head-on.
The wall of water froze solid in mid-air.
Thousands of tons of crashing sea brine locked into a monolithic barrier of pale Yin ice, shuddering under its own weight before settling against the outer seawall.
Surrendered depot corsairs fell back along the battlements, their teeth chattering from the sudden drop in temperature.
Barnaby Holt leaned over the outer railing, brandishing his wooden ladle toward the northern horizon. “Four massive warships! Those are heavy ironclads from Moros’s inner fleet!”
High on the northern ridge, Sanctuary Admiral Iron-Anchor Drax lowered his massive gauntlet.
He stepped off the bow of his flagship, walking through the air toward the harbor pier. His heavy black plate armor clanked with every stride, radiating the suffocating gravity of a Saint Vessel Early warlord.
