The golden letters on the Fallow Slate dissolved back into silver mist as the forty-first morning arrived.
Two miles above, the autumn wind howled across the choppy grey waves of the Star-Fall Sea.
Warden-Elder Moros’s blockade gunboats continued their tight patrol, but their crews were beginning to look miserable.
The Sanctuary sailors subsisted on hard ship-biscuit and stale water from foul copper tanks.
Meanwhile, through their optical spyglasses, they could see the allied sailors on the flagship decks feasting on steaming bowls of garlic-braised trench kelp, fresh baked fish-cakes, and clear distilled water.
Every evening, the allied deckhands even tossed surplus kelp dumplings overboard to the screeching flocks of sea terns.
It was an unbearable economic insult.
On the quarterdeck of the allied flagship, Elder Sterling stood beside Linnea and Deacon Vane.
