She couldn't see beneath the surface.
But she watched anyway.
The water just off the trench's edge no longer boiled. It trembled, subtle, like breath through clenched teeth.
She hadn't seen Seisyll vanish, but she'd felt something. The wave of silence that followed. That snap inside the Whisperer's arrays. The way the sea itself had sighed and gone still, like even the ocean had bowed its head.
Now it was just her. Waiting.
Waiting for the storm to quiet. For Aleks to rise.
For the Lorebreakers to remember who they were, even if the sea tried to strip it from them.
