The Vengeful: The Story So Far Part 1

The first movement of The Vengeful begins with a dying lord, a disputed inheritance, and two roads leading into the Narrows. What first appears to be a local matter of succession quickly widens into something older: Hickic memory, fey relics, smuggler politics, Navy intelligence, and a cove where time itself seems to move in circles.

At the center of the opening arc are Lilya Bkorneblume and Philippa Vertin. Lilya enters the affair through Port Surrey’s Navy, a bounty for Murky Mabrams, and Henry Surrata-Spellvig’s reckless plan to become heir to Lord Malthren. Philippa enters from Tidemark, carrying the Church’s mission into the same dangerous township. Their roads meet around the Narrows, where Lord Malthren’s estate and Vortex Cove draw the first outline of the deeper mysteries surrounding Surrey-on-the-Brams.

Background

The matter begins on Surrey-on-the-Brams, an island where the Crown, the Church, the Navy, the old Hickic countryside, and the criminal towns of the Brams all scrape against each other. The immediate point of pressure is the Narrows, a rough settlement tucked under the trees of the Keelswood and known to respectable people mostly as a place where smugglers, reavers, assassins, and other hard-to-categorize criminals can disappear.

The lord of that place, Marthur Malthren, is dying. He has no acknowledged heir and no public will. That makes his estate a prize. On paper, it is only a small lordship, but it is attached to older ceremonial rights connected to the Magarisok and to older Hickic power. For local factions who do not want another convenient Dragonheart favorite inserted into the Brams, his death is a narrowing window of opportunity.

There are other pressures moving at the same time. Members of the crew of the Principium are awaiting execution in Seneran custody. The Royal Navy of Senera suspects that Apgarian privateers from La Camaraderie de la Mer may be collecting intelligence in the Narrows. Hickland for Hicks is becoming louder and bolder. Strange things are being stolen from ships in the Gulf of Inespell, including iron fittings and anchors. Volcanoes that should have been dead have begun to show signs of life.

This is the world into which two journeys begin: one from the Navy at Port Surrey-on-the-Brams, and one from the Church mission out of Tidemark.

Day 1

On the Navy’s side is Lilya Bkorneblume, a lieutenant in the Royal Seneran Navy’s Ground Command. Her squad operates under Lord Captain Boyle Eastonton, patrolling the area around Port Surrey as a peacekeeping force while also taking bounties through the Navy’s Commissioning Office. The squad is already a small family of nicknames and habits: Jalester Silvermane, the corporal; Kaelin Thralson, called Spot; Tormor Stavner, called Shortcake; Elmor Havelman, called Shad; and Erik Bekker, called Becky.¹

The bounty that catches Lilya’s attention is for Murky Mabrams, wanted on suspicion of murder and assassination and thought to have ties to the Brams Reavers. The posted reward is enough to be worth chasing, but for Lilya it also fits into a broader ambition. She and her squad want enough money to eventually commission a ship and transfer from Ground Command into Sea Command. Lilya’s private motive is less grand and more sincere: she wants to see dolphins in their natural habitat.

Before that bounty hunt can become a simple bounty hunt, Kurris Wudward finds Lilya. He explains that Henry Surrata-Spellvig, her adoptive brother, has heard the same news everyone else has heard: Lord Malthren is dying, and the old man has no heir. Henry has decided that this is his moment to go to the Narrows and convince Malthren to name him successor. Kurris wants Lilya to escort him there and back before the Narrows does what the Narrows usually does to proud young nobles with loud plans.

Lilya does not give Kurris the answer he expects. Instead, she goes directly to Henry’s quarters, has her squad hogtie him, and carries him to the stables. Only once they are outside Port Surrey’s southern gate does she properly explain that they are going to the Narrows. To keep Henry from standing out as exactly the kind of cadet noble who should be robbed or kidnapped on that road, she disguises him as an ordinary sailor.

Meanwhile, in Tidemark, Philippa Vertin is preparing for the Church’s regular mission to the Narrows. These missions bring food, healing, clothes, and religious service into a township that the rest of the island often treats as a problem to be contained. Sister Agatha Thralvig, who normally leads the work, has been called into a change of plans. The Bishop of Surrey wants a trusted paladin, Sir Aigral Eastonton, to take charge of this year’s mission.

Aigral’s presence gives the Church mission a second purpose. The Bishop wants a pious hand near Lord Malthren’s succession, and Aigral is trusted enough to carry that ambition without making it too plain. Philippa defers to him, the mission loads its supplies, and the Tidemark group begins its own road toward the Narrows. Around that early movement are Agrippa Aventador, Philip, George, Thomas, and Fido the sailor.² Not all of them become important immediately, but they establish that Philippa’s road into the Narrows is not a solitary holy errand. It is a small social world already full of siblings, novices, sailors, and locals with their own reasons for paying attention.

The Road to the Narrows

The road south quickly shows why both groups need escorts. Lilya’s group rides down Admiralty Way, stopping at the Crosswise Tavern to exchange horses and gather information. Murky may be in the Narrows, but nobody is eager to collect the bounty themselves. The road has become more dangerous than usual, with raiders striking caravans and travelers.

Philippa’s group meets those raiders first. They claim to be Hickland for Hicks, but Philippa is able to defuse the confrontation by explaining that the mission is bringing food and healing to the people of the Narrows. Whatever else the raiders are, they are not ready to attack that kind of mission in the open. They let the Church group pass.

Lilya’s group has a rougher meeting. Armored Navy personnel escorting a disguised noble are exactly the sort of target the road’s malcontents are ready to hate. Their leader is Donmar, a mercenary operating near the road into the Narrows. Lilya handles the confrontation with directness rather than diplomacy. She subdues Donmar before the others can properly react and gives the raiders a simple choice: leave, or be dealt with.

The raiders leave. They claim not to know where Murky is, but Lilya does not fully believe them. For now, the bounty is less urgent than reaching the Narrows with Henry intact.

The Narrows

Philippa arrives first and is greeted by people who know her. She grew up around the Narrows, and her brother Philip meets her near the entrance to town. Philip’s absence from the tavern matters because the Narrows is the kind of place where someone’s absence can say as much as their presence.

The Church mission begins setting up while the town’s local texture starts coming into focus. The Salted Skillet is a two-storey tavern owned by Brandon Havermill. Nearby are the long house, the Murmals market, and the Smugglers Guild. Martina is less a simple contractor than a connector of people, someone who facilitates arrangements and puts the right hands near the right work. There is also a bookkeeper who hires contractors to acquire manuscripts for a library, which is exactly the kind of harmless-sounding job that becomes less harmless when it is happening in the Narrows.

Lilya and Henry begin asking after Lord Malthren. They learn that he is a recluse and that he has largely left the Narrows to its own devices. That neglect is part of the town’s character. The Narrows has official power above it, but day to day it belongs to the people who can move goods, hide people, make introductions, and keep secrets.

Murky’s shadow hangs over this part of the affair. He is connected to caravan men, fishing, the Reavers, and handlers who can tell people to leave a spot when attention comes too close. Marlion, also known as Gil, is one of the names attached to the smugglers’ side of town. The early picture is less of a single criminal conspiracy and more of a town where every social layer touches the underworld somewhere.

What pulls the opening movement out of bounty hunting and succession intrigue is Vortex Cove.

Vortex Cove

The Vortex Caves are fronted by a cove that can be entered from Surrey’s Ear. Permission to enter comes through Lord Malthren, though certain locals know more than they should. That alone would be enough to make the place valuable. But the stranger part is older than smuggling or succession: the cove is tied to the Magarisok, to time, and to a set of old objects that sound like fairy-tale relics until they begin to prove themselves real.

The remembered verse is fragmentary, but the shape is clear:

Take heed, watcher of the tides. The ebbs and flows in these pools show time itself. Our existence in time are vortices; as you peer into these vortices, you shall see the future.

Three relics sit around this mystery: a mask, a cloak, and a red amulet. From the eyes of a dead urdefolcin, one may peer. From the cloak, one is spared from age and hurt. By the amulet, one may travel through.

This is where Lord Malthren stops being merely a dying local noble with an inconveniently valuable estate. His line is attached to something older: the ability of the Malthrenok of the Magaris to read the future in the swirls of Vortex Cove. The Narrows is not just a criminal township under bad trees. It is a threshold. The old Hickic world, the fey stories, the smuggling routes, and the succession crisis all begin to fold into one another there.

By the end of this opening movement, the group’s direction has changed. Lilya still has Murky and the Reavers to worry about. Philippa still has the Church mission and her own Narrows ties. Henry’s plan to become Malthren’s heir remains absurdly dangerous. But the road now points beyond the town: rusted armor, nymphs, dense forest, an earth elemental, a volcano, fey houses, memory vials, a magical spyglass, waterfalls, elves, and a strange journey toward the past.

The group heads toward Surrey’s Ear.