The Atlantic was not a reprieve; it was a vast, liquid silence that swallowed the sun and the stars alike. The Aethelgard cut through the swells with a heavy, grinding determination, its steel hull groaning under the pressure of the deep. Inside the belly of the ship, the air tasted of salt and old copper. Alessandro stood by the observation glass, watching the dark water churn. His palm throbbed in time with the ship’s engines the silver mark etched into his flesh was no longer just a scar; it was a compass, a biological tether vibrating with the frequency of the woman submerged just a few feet away.
Seraphina was submerged in the Mirror Tank, a massive glass cylinder filled with hyper-saline water drawn from the deepest trenches of the Azores. She looked like a marble statue preserved i
