Sinia Montfort Kiskaddon gazed at the map of ley lines she was painstakingly crafting in her cabin. In the months she had been at sea, she had adjusted to the pitch and sway of the ship. There were times when the wind had blown them steadily westward. On other occasions, the ocean was flat as glass and the crew labored with oars and dinghies to drag the ship onward.

Staring at the map, she touched the various islands that they had visited along the way, looking at the markings she had made in her elegant script with the assistance of the ship cartographer. They had encircled the islands to collect the shapes of the coves and inlets.

Each one they had found contained a carved boulder—a boulder with a face engraved into it. The boulders contained the magic of the Fountain—asleep and waiting to be awakened. Whenever she reached out and touched one, she could see blazing in her mind the location of the next stone on the next island. There was also script carved into the rocks, an ancient language, which she had used her magic to decipher. The markings had been left by a Wizr from Chandigarl centuries before, and they documented his search for the Deep Fathoms.

With each visit, Sinia had felt something beckoning her onward.

She sighed, mopping sweat from her brow with a nearby towel. The journey had been both thrilling and dangerous. Storms had threatened them and damaged the ship, and they had encountered a treasure ship not long after leaving Ploemeur. The Wizr on that ship had sought to hunt them down, but Sinia had conjured a mist to hide their escape. Still, all their adventures could not banish her sense that something terrible was happening back at Kingfountain. She’d had a vision of a runaway wagon barreling down the switchbacks from the castle atop the hill in Ploemeur, but the vision was frustratingly short on details. They so often were.

Sinia leaned back in her chair, staring at the map but not seeing it. The urge to turn the ship around was nearly overpowering. There was a war in her heart. She was determined to exercise faith in the Fountain and where it was leading her, but her instincts as a mother were powerful and omnipresent. She would do anything to safeguard her children and protect her people. She had trained Trynne in what to do, how to reset the wards and preserve Brythonica. She thought back again on the vision she had seen of Trynne’s marriage. She had never met the man before. Judging by his clothes, he appeared to be from the East. King Andrew had been there. So had Genevieve and Lady Kathryn. She herself had not been there, so she had taken the vision as a blessing from the Fountain. It allowed her to be there even though she could not be.