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month passed and with it rolled in the first violent tremors of autumnal chill. It was as though the heavens, having sensed the comedown from the feverish highs of summer, had emptied themselves in a great outpouring of grief for the withdrawal.

Dr Hariken grimaced as she looked upon the downpour that awaited her. This should’ve been a time of jubilation. The solarites had signed a formal declaration of her clean bill of health in indelible ink and she had been discharged back into the freedom of civilisation, her expedition now all but certain.

When the morning of her departure arrived Hariken had hoped for sun and she couldn’t help but regard the violent gale as an ill omen. Such thoughts were packaged away with the last of her belongings into her suitcase before she climbed into the carriage.

The early morning drive was a pastel coloured blur to the harbour of Le Creissant where the lacquered oak hull of the SS Great Northern gleamed with new polish. The carriage drew to a stop before the docks, the ship’s funnels puffing clear white vapours into the hazy peach-coloured dawn. The rain had ceased by then, replaced by the sun’s lilting aubade dispersing in the breeze.

Dr Hariken exited the carriage to see that her crew was awaiting.

At the forefront was a uniformed magician who stood with a soldier’s resolve, emanating a smouldering furnace energy that could only belong to a Seraji.

“You must be Commander Mabakir of the Red Dragon company?” Dr Hariken guessed. Those of the Seraji desert were well-acclaimed for their gift of pyromagic which made them invaluable soldiers and mercenaries.

“I am indeed.” Commander Mabakir bowed her head. Her firedrake was perched on her shoulder—a black iridescent serpent that exhaled a puff of steam in greeting. “I have two dozen pyromagi ready to be deployed at your service.”

“Oh, excellent,” Dr Hariken said, intrigued by the saurian creature on her shoulder, “I look forward to becoming acquainted with you and the rest of your troop.”

The rest of the team exchanged pleasantries as porters descended from the ship to handle the passengers’ luggage.

Dr Isuka watched the final suitcases ascend into the ship before she looked back to Dr Hariken, twiddling her thumbs awkwardly. “Well, I suppose this is the part where we say goodbye.”

“It’s a shame you aren’t coming with us,” Hana said with a frown.

“Unfortunately, my orders are to remain here,” Isuka explained, “but I expect detailed letters from each of you.”

She glanced at Dr Hariken then, her throat thick as she stepped forward to embrace her. This may have been the lengthiest period of absence they’d had since they were girls, when a childish squabble had seen them parted for a mere fortnight before they rushed to reconcile.

“Safe travels, Emica,” she murmured into the crook of her shoulder. She stepped back to smile, blinking back tears.

“Oh, Akira, don’t look so forlorn,” Hariken said, taken slightly aback by her friend’s emotion. She wiped the tear away from her friend’s cheek. “Before long, I will have returned. And you and I will have made history.”

Dr Isuka nodded in response. Their hands parted slowly.

Dr Hariken gave her a final smile before she retreated up the boarding path into the ship to embark on her long journey to lands yet unknown.

Once on deck Dr Hariken was immediately ushered into the captain’s cabin to be greeted by the woman herself. She was of Malakian birth—her tall, wiry build poured into nautical finery whilst her dreadlocks tucked beneath her cap.

“Welcome aboard, Dr Hariken, they call me Captain Silveira,” she greeted, hands clasped behind her back.

Dr Hariken shuffled forward awkwardly and straightened her spectacles. Then she held out her hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Captain.”

Captain Silveira eyed her hand before taking it. “I was hoping to pick your brain on how to chart our course.”

“But of course,” Dr Hariken said, straightening in false confidence. “Just point the way.”

Captain Silveira gestured to the map unfurled across the table. It showed the landmass of the Vysterian continent along with the archipelago bordering Malakia on the Crysteaen Sea.

“I see you already have our first destination marked.” Dr Hariken observed the pin implanted on the northernmost body of water past the ridges of Odaka. The White Sea. “Have you done many voyages north?”

“None so far north as to reach the White Sea—the tales of it always rattled me bones too much—but I’ve known of others who have ventured this far. Some who returned. Many who did not.”

“I see.” Dr Hariken ran her fingers across her sleeved wrist, too self-conscious to bear the wound as she leaned forward. Instead she retrieved the handwritten note from her pocket.

“What is that?”

“Our directions.” Dr Hariken unfolded the note as she read. “Tread the course of ivory salt, ‘til the dragon’s lungs exhale. Cross the wound of despair before I entered my lair, within its innards you shall prevail.”

“Queer way to offer directions,” Captain Silveira said in her heavy accent; a smooth, rhythmic tongue.

“I’m afraid it’s all I have.” Dr Hariken shrugged. “I at least managed to decipher that the dragon’s lungs refer to the Dragon’s Breath.”

The mention caused the captain’s eyes to widen. It was an infamous arctic sea fog that had sent many past vessels spiralling way off course.

“I assume you’re familiar with it.”

“At least the tales.” Captain Silveira unscrewed the top of her flask and drank her coffee. “You can only wander so far north before the Dragon’s Breath sets in. Those who entered there—they always spoke of strange sea life: monsters, leviathans, krakens, you know the sort. Do you expect we’ll see a real dragon out in these waters?”

“Well, I should certainly hope not!” Dr Hariken exclaimed, straightening her spectacles. While exalted in her homelands, dragons had long thought to have gone extinct—nothing greater than fossils or firedrakes had ever been discovered. “Though it would be a sight to behold I’m sure, with lungs this powerful.”

“Hm,” Captain Silveira agreed, “best to keep an eye out I s’pose?”

“And what of this… wound of despair? As someone more familiar with maps than I, do you think you might know what this alludes to?”

Captain Silveira rubbed beneath her chin as she looked over the map. “My best guess is they be talking ‘bout the Calantic Trench.”

“Calantic Trench?” Dr Hariken echoed in curiosity.

“Deep pit in the ocean where Calante fell to his defeat. Asemani then scooped him out before she locked his rass up for good. But the Trench remains as proof.”

“Wound of despair… yes, I think that might be it.” Dr Hariken searched the map for the destination before she marked it. “Well, now. I think we have our course.”

“And what of the final sentence?”

“Now that I can’t make sense of.” Dr Hariken sighed in dejection. “Perhaps once we’ve reached the Trench we’ll be able to reconvene from there.”

Captain Silveira hummed softly. “I’ll let you know should I need anything further.”

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Dr Hariken settled down for the evening in her cabin, having brewed herself a cup of jasmine tea to help her settle. She produced the drop bottle of elixir from her pocket and glanced at the inscription on the label. Three drops, morning, noon and night. Enough to keep her cleansed of the dark forces that lurked behind her shoulder.

She squeezed a few drops into her tea and sat at the edge of her bed, warming her hands on the cup before she rose it to take a sip. The cup paused mere inches from her lips as black symbols supplanted her vision.

She lowered the cup from her mouth before she stood, wandering into the adjoining washroom to tip the contents into the drain with a long, slow trickle. Once it had emptied she returned to the room and resumed her position on the bed, raising up the cup in perfect mimicry to where it was last positioned.

Dr Hariken lifted the cup to her lips to have a sip of long awaited tea, discovering with a gasp that it was empty. She blinked profusely in confusion as she tilted the glass and saw only dregs remained.

How much time has passed? She wondered with a chill of dread. And had I even drunk the tea?

She swallowed thickly and decided it best not to dwell upon it as she dressed herself for bed. Though upon climbing underneath the covers she felt no safer and for hours after sleep and her remained elusive strangers.

She tossed and turned in discontent, terrorised by that same skittering crawl seeping up her scarred wrist.

Emica, it seemed to call to her with cricket whispers, scraping up from her arm to her soft cerebral tissue. Emica.

Dr Hariken whimpered as she flopped onto an alternate position, smothering herself with her pillow. Anything to will away the eventual vision she knew was about to invade her.

She was barefoot treading through blank drifts of snow. It was the coldest snow she had ever felt; a cold so intense it burned. She had to keep walking. There was nowhere to go where she could stop. Even as the frost erased every hint of feeling in her toes, her heels, her soles, and left them blackened.

When the base of her feet had been rotted away to nothing she came across the first body. She would always see it from the blood. Against the white the hue was vibrant—as red as beets in the summer.

It coaxed Hariken, desperate to put her hands on something live. She dug deep, ignoring as her fingers cried out in protest from the burn until she touched fur. She grabbed and yanked until the limp, lifeless ear of a lop-eared bunny withdrew, petrified by frost. The head flopped pathetically to the surface like a fish with no air.

Hariken stood up in disappointment and came to see there were more lumps laid in her path. Carcasses long buried beneath winter’s funereal white sheet. As she moved onwards, the mounds enlarged and the blood grew so hot and slippery it felt as though life still pumped in it.

Emica— a raspy caw, followed by a deluge of feathers as a black eagle settled upon an emaciated branch.

Emica— called another, from a neighbouring skeletal tree.

They flanked on both aisles, overwhelming the branches, screeching a chorus of her name that raked her ears and beat them bloody. Hariken smacked her palms over her sensitive drums, crying from her torment, before she slipped and fell into a bloodied puddle. She peeled herself free with a grimace.

When she looked up, she saw him. A man who was not a man. Jet black eagle wings draped along his sides where his arms should be, tapering off into clawed hands. He had the bent limbs of a wolf for legs. His spine was bent over his most recent kill—a buck whose nostrils still frothed in anguish.

The eagles had quieted and a few even gathered on its antlers to observe. Hariken watched with them. She watched the fluctuating arc of his spine as he ate, his long and large wings forming a shroud of privacy during his feast. She only had to take one step before he twitched, darting to face her with his ugly and terrible maw that dripped with blood.

He smiled when he saw her, showing many teeth, and then he grew larger and larger—his maw distorting to be replaced with a gnarled beak spiked with fangs. He unfurled his wings to display their prodigious length, then he arched forward before her to call her near.

Emica—

She was powerless to resist. His entire being roared with life from the reservoir of souls he’d devoured. She longed for warmth. Even the eagles had gathered to nestle on him too.

Emica— Calante called to her, soft as a caress. —Bring me flesh.

Dr Hariken catapulted upright with a scream.

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It took five days for them to reach the White Sea.

During the morning of their arrival Hana rose up with eagerness to meet the new dawn, scrutinising the landscape’s natural migration from the limestone cliffs of the Soleterean coast to the frigidity of arctic ice caps.

She stood on the dock, watching the pale waves of the White Sea surging below. Just the sight of it chilled ​Hana’s bones and made her hug her mink coat close.

According to legend, the sea’s sickly pallor was due to witnessing an atrocity so vile it shocked all the colour from it. Many called it cursed, others an unnatural phenomenon, and it had long served as the site of blame for nautical disappearances large and small. Whatever the case, after centuries of speculation, Hana hoped this expedition would help her find the truth.

“You seem to be deep in thought,” Dr Hariken said as she moved to join her at the dock.

“I’m exhilarated,” Hana chirruped, nose pinked from the cold. “I’ve heard so many stories of the White Sea. But never once did I ever dream that I would see it myself.”

“Yes, well, it’ll certainly be something to write home about,” Hariken said, removing her spectacles to clear the condensation from it. “Though we’ve been at sea for several days now, I should be eager to find dry land.”

“So shall I,” Hana agreed, rubbing her gloved hands together. “What do you suppose it will be like out there?”

“I—” A chill overcame Hariken with a suddenness; so cold it burned. Her mind echoed the creak of skeletal trees—a vestige of a long-forgotten nightmare. She gathered her arms with a shudder. “Goodness, there is a chill in the air. Let us continue this conversation indoors.”

She ushered Hana inside to the lower decks where green tea and rice cakes awaited them in the dining room. They relaxed in the cosseted warmth of varnished oak panels and chairs upholstered with thick blue velvet.

Dr Hariken drank two cups to chase the chill away before she felt human enough to resume. “I must admit I am glad to see at least one of us happens to be enjoying the voyage. Especially for such a dire expedition.”

“Well, I suppose it’s rather silly but…” Hana mumbled with a mouthful of rice cake, her cheeks dusted with sugar paste. “I’ve always wanted to be an explorer ever since I was a little girl. My family can trace their lineage back to the village I am from for several generations. None of us have ever left it. Our family shrine and temple are more than filled. I always feared I’d live my life just like theirs. Never seeing what lay beyond those gates. Withering and dying in the same house, the same bed in fact, as the many grandmothers who came before me. It made me feel… insignificant.”

Dr Hariken smiled, finding her reasoning charming. How much of herself she saw reflected in the glistening eyes of this barely woman. “I don’t think it’s silly.” She traced the rim of her cup with her thumbs. “When I was your age I- well. I don’t think I would’ve been nearly so bold as you. Dr Isuka was always the more confident one of the two of us.”

“Have you and her always been working partners?”

“I’ve known her perhaps my entire life,” Dr Hariken admitted, straightening her spectacles. “When we were young we were always told we’d serve a higher purpose. To rise up and save the world from invading forces of evil.” Hariken paused with a chuckle. “At the time they always made it seem so grand and heroic but- well, I wouldn’t nearly say we are quite so glamorous. I often find myself studying evil more than fighting it, I feel.”

“So when you finally reach the place Calante dwells? What then?”

“Well—” Hariken’s words failed her.

Bring me flesh— rose a voice from the hidden depths of unconscious memory, soft as satin along her cheek. She shoved it out; blocked it away. She would give no fuel to this writhing void inside of her that hissed and snarled.

“I suppose that’s the part of the story we shall have to write ourselves.”

Dr Hariken heard the footsteps of someone approaching. She turned towards the source with a smile and nodded in greeting. “Captain.”

“Doctor.” Captain Silveira returned the salute. “It seems we have reached The Dragon’s Breath and my crew’s navigation skills have gone a bit groggy. I just wanted to let you know in case we suffer delays from this point forth.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Hana clambered towards one of the windows and saw they’d all been curtained by the tenebrous gloom offered by the Dragon’s profuse exhalations.

“Oh my,” she exclaimed, turning back in concern. “Do you suppose we’ll get lost?”

“There is a likelihood but I want to assure you my crewmates are more than capable of weathering a fog. Even one as severe as this,” Captain Silveira replied, tucking a loc behind her ear. “But I’d suggest you wrap up warm tonight. I don’t like the look of this fog and even northern folk like yourself ain’t immune to the chill.”

“Yes, of course,” Dr Hariken said, “thank you kindly, Captain.”

Captain Silveira bobbed her head in response and walked away, crossing her hands behind her back.

Though lurking a two day journey past the curtain of the Dragon’s Breath, an even greater phenomenon awaited.

The silhouette of the Calantic Trench was a blot on the landscape; a malignant depression on an otherwise untouched body of water. Should one loom close enough, one could almost swear that the spines encircling the chasm were forming a ring of teeth.