I.iii

Driftwood

Kal packed her belongings—including the strange ring and a lot of smoked fish wrapped in palm leaves—into a waterproof sealskin bag, which she threw into the bottom of her coracle. She wasn’t much of a sailor, but she didn’t need to be—the coracle was almost spherical, and if she picked the right current to launch herself into, she could be in Port Black in three days, with little to no effort on her part.

Port Black! Scene of old battles and former lovers; Kal hadn’t been back for almost a year now. She had meant to, but the longer she put it off, the more she wondered if she would ever go back. She was happy alone, and the longer she spent in her new home, the further behind her she could put her old life. But now … her old life had come to find her instead, and all she could do now was to follow the trail backwards and attempt to find whatever it was that had sent assassins after her. She had to find whatever tiny ember in her past she had failed to rake over and left burning.

Find it, then stamp it out.