Queens don’t clap.
They assess.
We walked into Zalkoré’s ruin dressed like entertainers and carrying just enough hope to make it embarrassing.
Bowmore played like the world owed him applause. The rest of us? We owed the world an apology.
I couldn’t keep a beat. Lori sang like she was asking forgiveness from something that stopped listening a long time ago. Balgus lit the air just enough to remind it fire still had a job.
Zalkoré watched.
When you’ve lived long enough, quality doesn’t matter.
Only distraction.
We gave her gifts. Cloth. Stone. Things meant to look like meaning.
Then we gave her the truth.
Omu. A dead city that refuses to stay buried. Nani Pupu. A favor soaked in rot. A path through a jungle that forgets people on purpose.
Bowmore stopped playing when it got real.
Music knows when it’s about to be outlived.
Zalkoré spoke like someone who used to own everything and still remembers how it felt.
The road to Omu is long.
Long enough to regret starting.
Then she gave us the flower.
A black orchid. Said to bring it to Kir Sabal.
Queens don’t help.
They reposition.
Lori asked about the past.
Zalkoré showed her face.
Stone where life used to be.
Not all of it. Just enough to make the point.
She thought her husband betrayed her.
Turns out grief lies better than people do.
By the time she learned the truth, she’d already destroyed everything that could have mattered.
Including herself.
She sent us away.
Not angry.
Just finished.
We took the river.
Water doesn’t judge. It just decides if you’re worth keeping.
The guides told us Omu was a month out. Contracts ticking down. Time thinning like cheap paper.
So we aimed for Kir Sabal.
A detour.
A risk.
A maybe.
That night, Lori reached out.
Guruk answered.
Alive.
For now.
Corvus made promises. The kind you keep with blades. One piece at a time.
Seven days.
Clocks don’t tick louder.
You just start hearing them.
We kept moving.
Because turning back doesn’t give you time.
It just changes where you lose it.
Nothing followed us.
No shadows that didn’t belong.
Which meant we were being watched. oai_citation:0‡2026-03-16_Notes.md
Day 20 broke the canopy.
Lori took the sky and saw it first.
Kir Sabal.
Stone clinging to a mountain like it didn’t trust the ground. Old enough to remember better days and stubborn enough to survive them.
We found Nephur.
Still alive. Still grateful. Still tied to us in that quiet way people get when you pull them out of death.
We told him enough.
Showed him the orchid.
He said their queen would want it.
Of course she would.
Everyone wants something when you’re holding the only thing they don’t have.
Then the air cracked.
“We are under attack!”
Pterafolk.
Wings. Teeth. Hunger given shape.
I put out my cigarette in my palm.
Felt the burn.
Counted what time I had left.
“Alright,” I said.
“Let’s see who runs out first.”
