The salt had already formed a second skin, a brittle crust that chafed my neck and made the fabric of my clothes grind against me. The sea wasn’t just hurling itself against the coast; it was a beast, and the waves exploding against the jagged black rocks were the sound of it grinding its teeth. Above, the gulls’ shrieks were torn from them by the wind, thin and desperate as they wheeled over the skeletal remains of fish and birds bleaching on the stones. Seaweed clung to everything. Even the sand was wrong—a black, gritty powder that whispered of ash and endings.

I let out a sigh that the wind stole from my lips. “No one ever described the Coast like this.”

“They probably didn’t live to,” Cassius’s voice cut through the gale. I turned, startled he could have heard me over the din.

He was looking past me, his gaze fixed on the bluffs where a town was crammed, a precarious jumble of crooked homes that clawed at each other for purchase, silhouetted against a bruised sky of red and violent orange. They looked like they where one strong gust away from sliding into the churning ocean below.

“We should get moving,” Cassius stated, his tone flat, betraying nothing.

“Right,” I agreed. We began the treacherous walk, our boots slipping on rocks slick with sea spray and a film of dark green algae.

The rocks gave way to a steep, winding path. As we ascended, the town loomed, its jagged rooftops cutting into the bruised sky. It radiated a gloom so profound it seemed to poison the very air. The defensive walls were little more than crumbling suggestions of stone, and the iron gates hung ajar.

The moment we stepped through, the atmosphere grew thick and suffocating. It was the reek of old fish guts, rot, and a sour, metallic tang that was pure dread. The decay was worse up close. Buildings slumped, their timbers warped and bloated by the perpetual damp. The cobblestones had long ago surrendered, leaving a dirt path littered with treacherous, broken stones.

Near the entrance, a woman’s head snapped up. Her hand shot out yanking a small boy to her side. She pulled him against her skirts, a hiss of words lost in his hair. The boy glanced over his shoulder as she dragged him into an alley, his eyes wide with a worry that had no place on a child’s face.

A hush followed us, a tangible presence. We earned stares of cold, flat disdain and wide-eyed fear. Some townspeople simply turned their backs, a gesture of stark, unnerving finality. A cold prickle of unease traced a path up my spine. I focused on the ground ahead, forcing my face into a mask of neutrality.

Cassius leaned in, his voice a low rumble in my ear. “Where are we headed?” The warmth of his breath was a startling intrusion in the chill.

“A tavern,” I murmured, my eyes flicking to him for a fraction of a second.

I snapped my gaze forward again and stopped dead. A young man blocked our path. Grime was splattered across his clothes, and a lock of greasy hair escaped from under a worn cap. His eyes weren’t hot with anger, but cold with a flat, settled malice that was far more unnerving. Every instinct screamed to draw my mana. I clenched my fist at my side, a silent command to remain calm.

His face twisted into a sneer. He made a wet, sucking sound with his teeth and spat. A gob of saliva landed on the toe of my boot.

“Don’t want your kind here, spit-stain,” he hissed. “Get out.”

I felt Cassius go rigid beside me. The man’s cold eyes shifted to him. He spat again, the projectile hitting Cassius’s boot squarely. “Next one lands between your teeth.”

From across the street, a pair of old men leaning against a decaying wall broke into wheezing cackles. “Heard him!” one of them rasped. “Get gone, filth!”

I forced my legs to move, stepping around our accoster as if he were just another rock in the path. My gaze swept past him, desperately searching for the sign of a tavern. But my movement only amplified the hostility. Shutters slammed. Bolts were thrown. From behind drawn curtains, I could feel the weight of unseen eyes. The message was absolute. Dread churned in my stomach. This is impossible. How are we supposed to find her in a place that wants us dead?

That’s when I saw it: a sign hanging from a single, groaning chain, swinging in the wind. A flickering lantern cast a greasy light on the words carved into the wood: The Sea Side Tavern. From within, a wave of laughter washed over us, a jarring, alien sound in the dead quiet of the street.

Taking a breath, I sent up a silent plea. Let this be it. I pressed my palm to the damp, splintered wood and pushed the door open.

The roar of conversation and laughter inside was choked off the instant the door swung inward. In the sudden, heavy silence, every eye turned to us, a gallery of hostile stares. Ignoring the suffocating attention, Cassius and I strode to the bar where a mountain of a man with a face like a pitted rock was wiping the counter with a grimy rag.

“Two beers,” I said, my voice louder than I intended. I slid six silver coins across the sticky wood.

The bartender’s eyes narrowed. Wordlessly, he filled two mugs and slammed them down, ale sloshing onto the bar. “Drink up,” he growled.

“I need information.”

“Information costs,” he sneered. I pushed ten more silver his way. He swept the coins into his massive palm. “Spit it out.”

I leaned in, my voice dropping to a near whisper. “An elf. I’m looking for an elf who passed through here.”

A harsh laugh erupted from his throat, echoed by a scarred man hunched over a drink beside me. “I took your coin for the question,” the bartender said, a cruel glint in his eye. “Not the answer.” He turned his back on me.

Anger flared in my chest. Fool. I was a fool.

The scarred man next to me chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Now that was a show worth the price of a drink,” he said. His hands, resting on the table, were a roadmap of pale scars. “So I’ll give you something for free.” He beckoned me closer with a flick of his eyes, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “She came on the back of a storm and left a curse in its wake. They say she walks the cliffs on a new moon, a ghost of salt and sorrow.”

He straightened up, his brief moment of generosity vanishing. “Now get out. Before we throw you out.”

It wasn’t a lead; it was a ghost story. But it was a thread. I glanced at Cassius, but his expression was carved from stone. “Thank you,” I said to the scarred man, leaving my beer untouched.

I pulled the heavy door open, but a shift in the room made me look back. They were on their feet, a silent, menacing wall of bodies between us and the bar.

“Best we keep moving,” Cassius murmured, his hand resting near the hilt of his sword.

We stepped into the crisp night. The moon hung high and indifferent. And then I saw it—a bright, dancing light in the distance, where no light should be.

The flickering light was a bonfire, and silhouetted against the flames was a mob blocking the path out of town. They held pitchforks, rusted swords, and heavy clubs. Their intent was as clear as the fire that lit their faces.

I saw Cassius’s fist clench. I put a hand on his arm. “Relax,” I murmured, the word feeling hollow and foolish. “They just want us gone.”

A burly man stepped forward, his face a mask of hate in the firelight. A voice like grinding stones boomed across the distance. “Leave Coral Bluffs! You ain’t welcome. Get gone now, or you won’t live to see the dawn!”

“We’re leaving,” I called out, my voice tight with a humiliation that burned hotter than the bonfire. I turned my back on them—a deliberate act that sent a fresh chill down my spine—and we walked back through the dead town’s gate. They followed us to the entrance, their jeers and cheers chasing us out into the darkness. The cool night air did little to quell the fire in my cheeks. We didn’t stop until the mob’s fire was a distant, angry ember behind us.

We paused on the dark path, the silence of the coast now heavier than the mob’s shouts had been. “Now what?” The question hung in the air between us.

“We can make camp here,” I said, mostly to break the oppressive quiet.

Cassius’s reply was edged with steel. “And you’re sure there’s anything left to find?”

“I know—” I began, but the word was strangled in my throat.

A shriek, thin and sharp as a shard of glass, tore through the night from our left. It was answered by another from the right. The deep shadows under the trees and boulders began to move, to uncoil. Shapes detached themselves from the darkness, rising as if they had been born from it, lying in wait for us all along. And in the blackness, a pair of hungry eyes began to glow.