"Po! Where is Po?!"

Nightwhisper was already sailing across the night sky and Gilbert glanced back at me with a little scowl before looking at Levi who seemed to be doing a head count.

After looking at everyone and truly not seeing Po, Levi exhaled, lifted his hand and slammed the armrest of his seat. The roughened ship groaned beneath his punch, almost as if it was going to come apart.

The sound jerked Gilbert and made him shout.

"Hey!! I swear I'll drop you right now!"

Levi chuckled, "Ai aii, I apologize, I snapped a little because the bastard always does this. And I somehow always fall for it."

Nisha exhaled and said:

"Po has a knack for things like this. He has a very silent steps anyways and can sneak away and back whenever he wants. He's done this too much, it's not our fault if we aren't particularly worried about him. Besides, its Po, we should be worried about what made him sneak away."

Gilbert exchanged glances between Levi and Nisha. I also did, I was observing both their words and disposition.

Levi seemed a bit bothered but with Nisha words, he also seemed to have calmed down. Tristan was quite indifferent to all of this.

Both of us after all, haven't known Po for that long. I was worried about him though. He was a very good friend to me after all and I really would love to try his meals again.

'Please Po be safe…'

But I think it seemed to be unsurprising that Po slipped away.

'Come to think of it, he always sneak up without a sound.'

I exhaled and tried to not think about it, about him. Everyone seems to be settling into a different mood also and worried less about him.

Suddenly a thought came to me.

'He wouldn't happen to have gone after Yuan… right?'

I wanted to believe that wouldn't be the case.

'Right, I need to stop overthinking. Po is alright, Yuan too is alright.'

The hours passed in a strange half-sleep.

The Nightwhisper hummed beneath us, her wings catching air currents that made the cabin sway gently, almost like being rocked in a cradle. If the cradle was forty feet in the air and piloted by a man who'd threatened to drop us twice already.

I drifted in and out of consciousness. Every time I opened my eyes, the view through the porthole had changed — different islands below, different patterns of light and shadow, the same endless darkness of the ocean beyond. At some point, Nisha started snoring softly. Tristan hadn't moved from his position near the front, arms crossed, chin on chest, apparently able to sleep anywhere.

Levi was awake. I caught him staring out his own porthole with an expression I couldn't read. Something distant and old.

'Even criminals have their quiet moments, I guess.'

Kassie hadn't moved either, but I knew she wasn't sleeping. Her breathing was too controlled, her posture too deliberate. She was either meditating again or just existing in that strange space she occupied — present but not quite here, aware of everything while seeming to notice nothing.

"You should rest," she said without opening her eyes.

"I'm trying."

"You're thinking… again. Are you worried about him?"

I shifted against the bench, trying to find a position that didn't make my back ache.

"I am worried about a lot of things, Po included. It's hard not to be worried, wouldn't you be in my shoes. We're approaching a new and dangerous continent. Po vanished without a word." I paused. "Yuan going her own way… and I lost Emma thanks to my own patheticness."

Kassie was silent for a moment.

"Losing the girl wasn't your fault. The situation was not just right."

"If there was someone else with my power in the same situation, how am I sure they wouldn't have done better?"

She finally opened her eyes, turning to look at me with that calm, assessing gaze that always made me feel like I was being weighed against some standard I didn't understand.

"But you're not, accept your flaws as a character and improve in them, instead of complaining and wishing. What use will that do? Whether someone else could have done better or not what's done is done, it is your responsibility to never make such a mistake again.

She studied me a bit and added, "Right now, concern is a luxury… one that often costs more than it's worth."

"That sounds like something someone who's been hurt says."

Her expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. Her words though no doubt came from a place of experience.

"That sounds like something someone who hasn't been hurt enough says."

'Touché.'

I let the silence settle between us. Outside, an island passed beneath — larger than the others, its surface dotted with lights that formed patterns I almost recognized. Roads, maybe, or districts. Signs of civilization carved into floating rock.

"I used to think concern was weakness," Kassie said quietly. "In the church, caring for others was... exploited. They used your attachments against you. Made you compliant by threatening those you cared about."

I turned to look at her. She was staring straight ahead now, her voice flat and distant.

"It took me a long time to realize that wasn't concern's fault. It was theirs."

'She's talking about her past...'

The Fortitude increase really wasn't a joke.

"So you do care," I said. "About Po and Yuan and Emma, you care like I do even though you don't know them.?"

She was quiet for a long moment.

"I care that they survive," she said finally. "Whether that constitutes concern by your definition, I cannot say."

'Close enough.'

I closed my eyes and let the hum of the airship carry me back toward sleep.

***

"Wake up. We're approaching."

Gilbert's voice cut through the fog of exhaustion. I blinked, disoriented, and found that hours had passed. The quality of darkness outside had changed — lighter somehow, touched with the first hints of pre-dawn gray.

Through the porthole, I saw it.

Chainbreak.

The island was different from the others we'd passed. Where Wavegem had clung to its mountain like barnacles on a ship's hull, Chainbreak sprawled. The island was flatter, wider, its surface dominated by structures that looked less like buildings and more like warehouses — massive rectangular blocks arranged in rows, connected by roads wide enough for heavy traffic.

And the chains…

I understood the name now. Chains descended from Chainbreak in every direction — not one or two like the other islands, but dozens. They spread outward like the legs of some massive spider, connecting to islands I couldn't see, disappearing into the darkness below. This wasn't just an island. It was a hub. A nexus of some sort.

'The center of the web.'

The harbor was visible on the island's eastern edge — a proper harbor, not the crude docks of the smaller islands but a sprawling complex of piers and berths and cranes that jutted out over empty air rather than water. Ships were moored there. Actual ships, some of them larger than anything I'd seen in Crystalis, suspended over nothing by mechanisms I couldn't begin to understand.

'Airship harbor. Of course.'

Gilbert brought us in low, circling around the island's southern edge to avoid what I assumed were the main approach routes. The Nightwhisper descended smoothly, her wings adjusting to catch different currents as we dropped toward a section of the island that looked considerably less official than the harbor.

The backside, I realized. Where people who didn't want to answer questions did their business.

'Some things really are universal.'

We touched down in a clearing between warehouses, the landing gentler than I expected. The crystalline orbs along the ship's spine dimmed, their pulse slowing to nothing. The wings folded. The hum faded.

And silence descended.

"Alright." Gilbert's voice broke the stillness. "Everyone out. I've got a schedule to keep and you're not on it."

Levi was already moving toward the hatch. "Gilbert, you have our eternal gratitude."

"I don't want your gratitude. I want you to not come back for at least a year." Gilbert paused. "And if you do come back, bring more money."

We climbed down the rope ladder one by one, our boots hitting packed earth that felt impossibly solid after hours in the air. The pre-dawn air was cool, carrying the smell of salt and machine oil and something else—something sharp and chemical that I couldn't identify.

Chainbreak smelled like industry and purpose.

The Nightwhisper lifted off almost the moment Kassie's feet touched the ground, Gilbert apparently eager to be anywhere we weren't. I watched the ship rise, her bone-white hull catching the first light of dawn, and felt something strange.

Gratitude, perhaps… for the flight and for helping us skip ten more days of climbing chains. And giving us a few hours of peace.

'Don't get sentimental. We're still criminals in a strange land with a three-month journey ahead.'

"This way." Levi was already walking, his stride confident despite the unfamiliar terrain. "I know a broker who works the southern routes. If there's a ship heading for Ashara's coast, she'll know about it."

Nisha fell into step beside him, her earlier sleepiness apparently forgotten. Tristan followed, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his blade.

I took a breath of Chainbreak's industrial air and started walking.

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