Dreams of inhuman skeletons disturbed her sleep, long boned and joints clicking. The skulls were horned and more like those of a wolf than a human. Deformed hands like sharp pincers.

Lithilian woke in the middle of the night with the realization The Narwhal had stopped moving. A stream of watery moonlight poured in from the dew covered porthole. Ribbons of fog pressed to the glass, swirling to almost resemble faces and hands.

‘Fog always puts me in a bad mood,’ she thought, pulling the blankets back and rising. ‘Can’t see through it. Always tricks you.’

She thumped the wick of her unlit candle. It burst into flame and lit the room for her to dress.

It was almost a ceremony. First the thin silk purple under robes. Then the thicker blue robes that marked a Storm Warden as a cleric of Rapida. She fastened her leather belt, slipped on her heavy boots, and grabbed her carved staff.

The candle snuffed itself out behind her as she trudged up the stairs to the deck. She would have a word with the captain.