Recovered from a Cinderhold skiff found adrift near the Pale, 50 years after her departure by dense time. Entries are transcribed as written.
Day 14, Bright Forge ascending
Wind steady. Crew in good spirits. Joren says the water ahead looks “thin” — he’s right, it doesn’t hold a reflection properly. I told him that’s why we’re here. To map what doesn’t want to be mapped.
Day 31, Shield Mate ascending
We passed the last trade beacon yesterday. The charts call this the edge. It’s not an edge. It’s a fading. The water is pale as milk and cold in a way that has nothing to do with temperature.
Day 33, Midnight ascending
Saw our first ghost ship at dawn. It was us. Older. Whole. Lanterns burning. I was at the wheel and I raised my hand — or she did — pointing back toward the deep. Joren wanted to follow. I ordered us away. I don’t know if I was warning us or inviting us.
Day 41, unknown watch
Time thins out here. The moons… I can’t tell which is ascendant. They overlap. The toll is real — it’s behind the eyes, like a headache that eats memories. I lost my mother’s face this morning. I can describe her, but I can’t see her. The crew are forgetting each other’s names. We write them on our hands.
Day 47
Something enormous shifted beneath the ice last night. Not a leviathan. Bigger. Older. The hum of the Pale Courts is louder now — it’s not a sound, it’s a pressure. Like being at the bottom of the ocean and realizing the ocean is thinking.
Day 52
We are close. I know because I don’t want to go back. None of us do. That’s how you know the deep has you — when home stops feeling like a place and starts feeling like a story someone told you.
If you find this: don’t follow my route. Or do. I can’t decide which warning is true anymore.
— Sarella
The journal ends here. The skiff’s log shows no crew aboard when recovered.
