Kael stood at the bow. Music and laughter drifted from behind him.
"We must be reaching the northern parts of the western continent."
He murmured it to himself, scanning the horizon.
Sheets of ice crashed against the hull at intervals, creating a soft and constant percussion beneath the noise of the party. The people behind him had put on warmer clothes but refused to move inside, insisting on feasting and drinking on the upper deck regardless.
He turned when a clink reached him from behind.
Yvette was making her way toward him holding two wine glasses and a bottle. She leaned against the railing and held one out.
"Please. I need someone to drink with tonight." She said it with an awkward smile.
Kael glanced at the glass.
"I don't drink wine."
She looked at the bottle. "It's the most expensive one they have." She said hesitantly.
Kael accepted the glass. "I'll give it a taste."
She smiled and poured.
'No one here can harm me. And...' He looked at the glass. 'I've never actually tested whether the eye has any effect on poison.'
They clinked glasses and turned back toward the horizon in silence.
The wine was deep and layered. Blackberry and plum first, then vanilla, then a conspicuous bitterness that lingered. Unpleasant by any honest standard. But most people didn't drink wine for the taste itself.
"How strong is this, Yvette?"
She lifted the bottle and let out a low whistle.
"Twenty two percent." She said, amused. "You'll be fine."
A comfortable silence settled between them for a moment.
"So why are you out here?"
She asked it while swirling her wine, her eyes on the ocean.
"I'm interested in the north."
"Not here for the inheritance then?"
"The inheritance that's entirely luck dependent?" Kael took a sip. "No. Chasing something that relies completely on probability is a waste of time."
Yvette tilted her head slightly.
"You think Serene Moon Demon Paragon would agree with that?"
Kael was quiet for a moment.
"The concept of luck itself was stretched beyond recognition when it came to him. At its most basic luck can be described as the distribution of random outcomes tilting in your favour. But somewhere along his cultivation that framework shattered completely." He scoffed quietly. "When probability resolves in your favour with sufficient consistency for long enough, the concept of luck stops being meaningful when applied to your situation. At that point what you're experiencing is no longer luck in any useful sense. It becomes something structurally identical to determinism. Things don't have a chance of going well for you. They go well for you. The distinction between lucky and certain collapses."
He took another sip.
"So no. I don't think he would agree. I think he would find the question amusing. Luck was never really what he had."
She looked at him, the wine doing her no favours in following along.
"So… no inheritance hunt?"
"No." Kael said. "It's also dangerous."
"How so?"
"Serene Moon Demon Paragon was fundamentally ridiculous." He started. "What if the person who found that inheritance was someone who would taint his legacy? What if they could somehow diminish everything he built? Who's to say his luck isn't still operating in the world after his death?" He paused. "For all we know, we could collapse from a heart attack this very instant if his residual luck decided we were a bad omen. I want nothing to do with him and I've already had more than enough dealings with him as it is."
Yvette rolled her eyes. "Everything that happens is probability, isn't it? Why not just take the chance?"
"Because Serene Moon Demon Paragon is so far beyond anyone currently alive that he's completely unpredictable. He's the last Paragon I want any involvement with."
"Fine." Yvette slumped against the railing. "I get your point. Now stop." She said it with a smile. "Although. I do think it's a little ambitious to believe you have the luxury of defiance when it comes to a Paragon."
"I know. I just don't particularly care."
She laughed and poured herself another glass. Then without asking she poured more into Kael's and tossed the bottle overboard.
"Maybe his luck doesn't extend past death. I have a sneaking suspicion you'd have collapsed already if it did."
Kael glanced at his glass.
'I can feel the alcohol. So the eye doesn't counter poisons that don't physically harm me.'
After that the two stood in silence, each entirely consumed by their own thoughts.
When the stars had fully populated the sky Yvette sighed and produced a new bottle from somewhere.
"Do you ever feel hopeless?"
Kael pocketed the silver coin and crossed his arms.
"No."
"How?"
"Why would I?"
She swirled her glass. "Well you're a noble too. Aren't they pressing expectations on you? Marriage arrangements? I just..." She trailed off. "I wish they'd treat me like a person sometimes. The only reason I managed to get away from all of it was this inheritance hunt." She laughed quietly.
"Why not leave your noble status behind?"
"Right." She rested her chin in her palm. "Wouldn't that be something."
She blinked when he didn't follow it up with anything. "You're serious?"
Kael looked at her.
"Don't you think you've spent over twenty years living for someone else's expectations? Leaving the noble status behind would free you from all of that."
"You're a noble though."
"I am. But I've never done anything to meet someone else's expectations except my own."
"I genuinely can't tell if you're joking." She pouted.
"Strip away the facade and the resources that come with it and noble blood hardly means anything. Luminaires bow to us but they don't respect us. They say the right things and put their energy into pretending rather than anything meaningful."
"Ah." Yvette slumped deeper. "You're definitely joking."
"Not one of the nine Paragons was a noble. Yet they reached the top."
"Yes but they're PARAGONS."
"And before they were Paragons they were Luminaires. Most of them were mortals before that. I think you're assigning value to things that don't actually have it. That's all I'm saying."
If she hadn't had so much alcohol in her blood she might have tried to argue. Instead she leaned her head back and puffed her cheeks with a slow exhale.
"I'm going inside. Coming?"
She glanced at him.
Kael shook his head.
"Not yet."
She took his glass, gave a small courteous nod, and headed back toward the cabin.
'Yvette Whitlock.'
The Whitlock family was heavily invested in the economy. By far the most influential name he had encountered since taking on the noble status, possibly aside from Redgrave.
"I wonder if it's luck or misfortune that I've crossed paths with her."
He already knew more nobles would appear once he assumed the Eireindaile name, but they had started surfacing with a frequency that felt less like coincidence and more like something else. There were considerably more noble families in Sole than in a small city like Velthoria, and he had also been deliberately putting himself in places where they would find him. Both things were true but neither really explained the feeling.
His mind drifted back to the Amber Dew mote.
After consuming it he had gone to the library and read everything available on Serene Moon Demon Paragon. The more he learned the more the regret had settled. Yvette wasn't wrong. It was ambitious. Foolish, even, to think he could defy something at that level. He already knew that. But consuming what was presumably a fragment of that paragon's legacy wasn't exactly the ideal way to begin staying clear of his influence.
Though did it really matter? Serene Moon would get what he wanted regardless of what Kael did. Who was to say consuming the Amber Dew wasn't already part of something that would eventually serve him? The pathway was too skewed. Too unpredictably vast to reason around.
'Time will tell.'
As it had so many times before. He was once again completely subject to whatever invisible influence might already be at work on him.
Kael walked over and leaned against the railing.
Far below, just as it had been when he crossed the Thalassic Ocean on foot, luminescent seagrass swayed in slow synchronised movement. But unlike that crossing, something else was down there. Dot-like shadows, each one easily a hundred steps long given the depth, moved like ants across the seagrass bed in short bursts and sharp turns.
The leviathans was hunting.