📗 The following story stands alone and can be read without any knowledge of my prior works, but does involve story elements that appeared previously in Sea Prince.
The coronation ceremony of an agonarch was a grueling funeral and bittersweet coming of age, but at least Varpen had inherited one advisor he could trust: his ship, living wood imbued with the immortalized soul of his grandfather.
Family legend claimed the ship came courtesy of Grandfather's torrid affair with a Voldshee shaman, and that she'd given up her own chance at immortality for love of the seafaring prince. Varpen cared only that his grandfather's wisdom, and motives, could be trusted.
"We're an island, my father never should have allowed so many mages to cross the sea to Tal," he said the moment the last of the coronation celebrants finally stumbled back onto dry land. "I don't care how good their Collegium is."
"If you try to ban them from leaving, they'll flee, just for fear of losing the chance." Grandfather's words emanated from the drums nestled beneath the bow.
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