Main chronicle · Passage 5
Her Name Upon the Hull
The voice inside the buried ship belongs to someone who knows Ilyra’s name — and claims Veyr was built to hide her.
Ilyra answered.
The sound did not travel through the hull. It appeared inside her skull, carrying the smell of rain on slate and the ache of a childhood she could not quite remember.
Ilyra Venn.
She placed her hand beside Sere’s. Beneath the black metal, something shifted. Letters rose from it, bright as a cut: ILYR A VENN, CARTOGRAPHER OF THE SECOND WORLD.
“That is not my title,” she said.
“Not in this world,” Sere replied.
The ship began to wake. Dust fell from the chamber ceiling, and far above them the city bells started ringing without hands.
The woman inside the hull spoke again: They made Veyr so you could not remember us.
Ilyra looked at the compass. Its needle was pointing towards her chest. She wondered whether her memories had been drawn — and whether someone had already begun erasing them.