In the mist-choked wetlands of the Velorian Sink, where the water tasted of old thunderstorms and the trees grew their roots upward into the fog, there existed a creature that most scholars swore was a myth. They called it the Topeagler .
Kaelira sank back beneath the surface. She swam with powerful, undulating motions—her body a hybrid of avian and aquatic design that had no equal in the natural world. But the machine was faster. It stopped above her spire. A hatch opened. Something dropped into the water—a sphere, black and smooth, trailing a thin wire. topeagler
She swam back to the surface. The white machine still hovered above her spire. But without its sphere, it was blind. After a few minutes, it turned and hummed away, retreating toward Port Glimmer. In the mist-choked wetlands of the Velorian Sink,
Kaelira closed her two good eyes. The blind third eye—the one that had gone white—began to glow. Not with sight, but with projection . The Topeagler’s third eye, it turned out, did not see the world. It showed the world what the Topeagler had seen. She swam with powerful, undulating motions—her body a
Kaelira felt it. A sonar wave, but wrong. It didn't just listen. It probed . It scraped against her mind like a fingernail on slate. Images flashed unbidden: her mother, her mate, the harpoon, the stuffed chick in the guildhall. The sphere was not hunting her body. It was hunting her memories.
A ship. No—a machine . It hovered three feet above the water, supported by spinning rotors of mirrored metal. Its hull was white and seamless, like a tooth. No sails, no oars, no smoke. It was beautiful. And it was heading directly toward her spire.
Kaelira opened her good eyes. The third eye dimmed. She was exhausted. Her feathers were torn, her gills raw, her belly full of a single eel that would have to last her a week.