Vanna Gorse hated reading other people's handwriting. Especially when it could get her killed.
She sat in the backroom of her shop, ledger open, quill poised but untouched. Morning light filtered through a warped pane of glass, casting pale bars across the table. The air smelled of ink, old salt, and her own nerves. The Braavosi ledger lay in front of her, cracked leather binding and red ribbon still intact. Unassuming. Like all dangerous things.
She didn't look up when Brune entered, nor when Orla and Kreeg followed. She simply flipped the cover open and began.
"You lot brought me a ghost," she said after a few minutes. "Didn't know Brune kept books now."
Brune didn't rise to it. He never did.
"Just read."
Vanna snorted softly and adjusted her spectacles.
She'd captained a sloop once — The Silver Minnow, a fast, sharp little ship that could outrun most Triarchy cutters. For five years, she ran spice and silk out of Volantis until a lucky shot from a Lyseni bolt-cannon shattered her right leg and half her crew. She limped back to Tide's Rest and never took the sea again.
But she didn't fade.
She took up numbers.
And secrets.
As she read, she also watched them. Orla, arms crossed, leaned against the doorway like he was still waiting to be attacked. Kreeg was a storm in a barrel — restless, eyes never staying long on the book. And Brune, steady as driftwood. Watching her. Never flinching.
"Lot of Braavosi glyphs," she muttered now. "Some older than they should be. Whoever wrote this had formal schooling, not just trade cant."
"Can you read it?" Orla asked.
"Some. Enough." Her finger tapped along a string of symbols. "These aren't just ledgers. They're transaction masks. Disguised transfers, ghost ports, falsified cargo... and payments."
Brune leaned in. "For what?"
Vanna's lips pressed together. She flipped three pages forward, then back again. "It doesn't say outright. But it's phrased like spice trade. Too vague. Too careful. The amounts don't make sense."
She underlined a mark with her nail. "Here — a port called 'Briar's Hollow.' Doesn't exist. But it's listed in three entries as a departure point."
Orla frowned. "Code?"
"More like misdirection." She flipped another page. Then paused.
Brune noticed. "What is it?"
Vanna didn't answer right away. Her eyes locked onto a symbol in the lower margin — small, easily missed. A seal. Braavosi-style. Stylized "M" worked into a three-flame trident.
"That's the mark of the Merling Guild."
Brune's brow furrowed. "Thought they dealt in spice routes."
"They do," she said. "But they're tied to dock assessments and inspection bribes in Braavos. You don't use their seal unless you're covered by them — or pretending to be."
Kreeg muttered something low.
"This ledger shouldn't have their sigil," Vanna said. "Not here. Not in these margins. Whoever wrote this wanted someone to think the Guild was involved — or was using their name to cover routes that aren't real."
Brune stayed still.
"Could be an inside job," Orla said. "Someone running side deals through false ports."
Vanna leaned back, spine stiff, hand still resting on the page.
"If the Guild finds out someone's using their seal," she said, "they'll kill for it. Quietly. Thoroughly. That includes us, if we're holding it."
Brune exhaled slowly. "How many names?"
"Too many. Most initials. Some real. But the deeper you go, the more the math stinks."
She flipped to a page deeper in the ledger. "Listen to this. Payment received: three hundred gold for freight marked 'spiced grain'. Port: Laughing Sound."
Orla blinked. "That place silted over years ago."
Vanna nodded. "No one moves grain for that kind of gold. And no one sails from Laughing Sound. Which means it's either a laundering stop or a dead-drop for something much worse."
Brune stepped back from the table. He didn't speak for a long while.
"You sure you want to know what this says, Brune?" she asked quietly. "Some truths can't be sold off with the silver."
Kreeg crossed his arms. "So what do we do?"
Vanna looked at Brune.
"We finish reading," he said. "Then we choose who we fear more — the Myrmen, or the ones who want this buried."
---
After they left, Vanna stayed seated. She traced the guild sigil again, gently, as if it might vanish.
She whispered to no one in particular, "Either someone in the Guild is lying… or someone's trying to get them killed."
She reached for another log, fed the fire, and kept reading.
---
Salt sat at the edge of the tidepool cliffs, boots dangling over the rocks, staring down at the water below.
The sun was just starting to rise, thin and red behind the mist, casting everything in shades of rust and ash. The waves below licked the stone with soft, wet sounds — rhythmic and even, like breath.
He held the axe across his knees. Clean now, but not polished. He didn't like the way it looked when it gleamed.
He hadn't told anyone what it felt like — not Kreeg, not Brune, not even Tern. He barely understood it himself. In the moment, during the fight, everything had gone quiet. Not slow, exactly, just... precise. Like he could see the world a half-second before it moved.
He tried to remember the sensation now — how his hands had moved, how he'd known when to step left, when to duck, when to drive the axe upward.
He closed his eyes.
Tried to find it.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Let the wind run through him. Let the rocks fade beneath him. Let the shape of the fight return.
There.
A flicker.
A whisper behind the ribs. A shadow of stillness just before motion.
Then it was gone.
He opened his eyes. The sea was still there, endless and cold.
Salt scowled. He didn't like the way it made him feel — like something inside him was awake now, waiting.
He gripped the axe tighter. Not fear. Not anger.
But longing.
He wanted to know what it was. What he was when it happened. Because it wasn't rage. And it wasn't training.
It was something else.
And if he could learn to reach it on purpose... maybe next time, he wouldn't feel like a passenger in his own skin.
A gull screamed overhead, snapping him out of it.
Salt stood. Slung the axe over his shoulder.
Whatever it was, it hadn't left him.
It was just deeper now. Sleeping.
But not gone.
---
The Myrman sat beneath a splintered overhang, halfway up the northern ridge trail, watching the smoke from Tide's Rest curl against the slate-gray sky.
His ribs ached. The blade wound across his side had sealed, but the flesh beneath throbbed with every breath. Salt spray and salt blood — the only two things this cursed coast offered.
It had been a clean plan. Simple. Elegant.
They'd used pirates before. Give them a whisper of gold, dangle a soft merchant ship, then pluck what was needed from the wreckage. The pirates rarely even opened the crates. They wanted silver and silk, not ledgers laced with names.
It had worked. Until it hadn't.
He still replayed the moment in his mind. The boy — the young one — had come out of nowhere. Moved like water. Like instinct wrapped in skin. Too calm. Too fast. Too damn aware.
The boy hadn't fought like the others. He hadn't fought like a pirate.
He fought like he'd done it a thousand times before. But there was no fear. No hesitation. Like the killing was already decided, and he was just delivering it.
And that was what bothered him most.
Even if it had come to blades — and it had — the Myrman should've walked away with the ledger. His escape was guaranteed. His backup plan simple. But he hadn't accounted for that one.
That boy.
Not even a man yet.
He wasn't just good. He was wrong.
Unnatural.
And that made the Myrman uneasy.
He shifted, gritting his teeth against the pull of the stitches, and scribbled another note onto the wax parchment tucked in his coat. His hands moved carefully. Soon, a skiff would pass the western shoals. And the message would reach Myr.
They'd send someone else.
Someone louder.
But next time, he wouldn't underestimate the quiet one.