Narrow

Start and let it finish where the mist haven's southern reaches stretch for every last inch of overhang on the sea. On the top of the rock, dais of the water's command, is where the ritual shall summon the hordes that reek of algae and seafoam.

Where she was crowned the queen, I stood alone, wondering what she must have had in mind, heart of the storm, as tides portended of a grisly ill-fated battle. What dutiful tears she must have cried as salt washed up with every crash, landing harsh as cymbals on the steel barricades taken by the barnacles. The beaches had the rotting flesh of all those washed ashore who fought the wars lamented in the prayer I came to read. The shape of each lash of my tongue brought the elements to uneasy submission, forcing them through a sieve to plunder the mana that the lost nation surrendered generations ago, absconding from the twists and turns of fate and fortune.

The spirit of the shore arrested my sight when she appeared, arriving in the spray, combing her hair with the last of the sun rays. Grace is yours to have, she declared in an aria of distant peaks. Find me the laughter of a crying child, and the seat of power is rightfully yours.

But where to find this child? I wandered through the inlands as an outlaw, hiding from the light and flinching at the dark.