Ren's hands trembled as the little tuner clicked into place against the pendant's chain.
The metal mechanism hummed, a neat, mechanical sigh.
A pressure that had sat like a pebble at the base of his skull eased by degrees.
Air tasted cleaner—less like iron, more like cold sea.
"Did that work?" Kira asked, hovering with a rag in her fist.
"It—" Ren swallowed, thumb rubbing the fossil groove.
The pendant answered with a soft, neutral pulse.
The Echo in his head offered a single, crisp line.
"Seventy percent?" Lin's voice carried from the mast.
"Not bad for something that didn't exist yesterday."
Kira tossed the rag at Ren and it landed like a dare.
"Don't be a lighthouse," she said. "Be less bright."
Ren bowed his head and let the metal cool against his chest.
The bracelets Li had given him tugged tiny knots of memory.
"Listen," Lin said later, voice folding into the cabin's low light.
He unrolled a leather sheet covered in spidery notes and crude sketches.
"First lesson: geography, not glory. Currents of Jade run deep—follow them and you find Forge routes. Vortices of Silver will tear your seams out. Islands of Fungus appear and vanish; do not anchor there."
Ren leaned over the map, breath shallow.
Paper smelled of oil and old storms.
"You mean treasure maps?" Kira snorted.
Her fingers traced a dotted line as if memorizing danger.
"No." Lin's glasses magnified his eyes.
"Paths and traps. The sky has its terrain. Learn the terrain and you stop being prey."
"Teach me the currents," Ren said, voice a flat line of determination.
Lin barked a short laugh.
"You want theory? I give you routes. You want survival? We train on motion. The Echo will be your ledger—but I will teach the territory."
"Tell me about the Devourers," Ren pushed.
Lin's face went a shade harder.
He folded the map with careful hands.
"They're not animals," he said finally.
"Think of them as fever: a symptom, not the disease. Where the world frays, the Vacid leaks. What leaks becomes shape—fog with teeth. They ride fear and energy. Where people panic, they grow teeth."
Kira set down a crate.
"So they feed on what we give them."
Lin nodded.
"Exactly. Which is why you can't be a bell."
Ren pressed his thumb into the pendant.
Training turned the deck into a small, clumsy dojo.
Hano's cloud-cut movement had taught Ren to fall toward intention.
Lin added a new layer—use the ship's sway as a partner.
"Balance isn't stillness," Lin said, demonstrating a move.
"It's falling in the right direction."
Ren tried to bend with the Sussurro Curioso's breath.
The deck rolled; his ankle slid on salt-smear.
He smashed his hip on the coaming.
Pain flared bright and stupid.
He spat out a breath and got up again.
"You okay?" Kira asked, cradling a bandage.
"Fine," Ren lied and then bared his teeth in a crooked grin.
"Again," Lin said, voice even.
"This time, use the roll. Let the ship carry your momentum; don't fight it."
Ren breathed, measured, and the world blurred into rhythm.
He moved and the deck answered—an imperfect duet.
By night the cloud-sea became a quiet white plain.
The Echo pulsed a travel mission into his mind.
"You should get sleep," Lin said, passing him a cup of tea.
"A brittle fighter forgets his feet."
Ren sucked the warmth.
The tuner's small mechanism ticked faintly in his pocket.
"Three functions," Kira recited, checking a seam.
"Ballast, vent, and seam. Know them without thinking."
Ren ran his fingers over the valve grips until they read like braille.
"You'll earn three PADs and not spend them on stupid things," Kira said.
Ren gave a small laugh and held the pendant.
The first night watch pulled him to the rail.
Lin sat near the helm, eyes like two moons on the map.
The lights on the horizon blinked a pattern.
"Look east," Lin said, pointing.
"Those mark the Lament Cliffs. They're trade markers—and hungry places."
Ren squinted.
The lights blinked in a patient cadence.
"Ambush corners?" Ren asked, chest tight as a drawn rope.
"Good places for men with knives and for weather with bite," Lin said.
"It's where routes narrow and choices get expensive."
The wind picked up like a whisper.
The tuner in Ren's pocket thudded softly against his thigh.
The Echo flared a quiet warning and then settled.
A sound threaded through the cloud-silk then—a noise that was not wind or creak.
It pulled at the back of Ren's bones, a melody heartbreakingly close to song.
Lin's hand froze on the wheel.
Kira's head snapped up and she mouthed a single command—quiet.
Her fingers tightened around the calibration key.
Lin's eyes went very still.
He dropped his voice until it was a thread.
"Fog Singers. Beautiful. Mortal. If they hear us singing back, they can take us forever. Absolute silence."