Beyond the Azure Sea — The Lost Island and the Girl Captain's Vow - Ash and Nautical Chart

The smell of the sea. No—that wasn't quite right. Wood shavings, the smoke of tallow candles, salt-soaked timber aged to darkness—these mingled together to become the scent of the world Sheera Tomasena knew. The nights in the timber-frame workshop were always this quiet. Each time the candle flame wavered, shadows danced across the workshop walls. Sheera remained on her knees, checking the angle of the board with her fingertips. The craftsmen of the shipyard had long since gone home. No one remained. That was fine. She wanted to do this last piece herself. The keel plank. She'd spent three weeks carving it from Xena cedar, selecting wood with grain more uniform than anywhere else. Once this fit into place, the hull of the Shoshojo would be complete. She tapped it with a small hammer. The board slid into position. Perfect. "…It's almost here, Mother," Sheera whispered. Her voice was swallowed by the empty workshop. Sheera Tomasena was seventeen years old, one hundred fifty-eight centimeters tall. Her sun-darkened wheat-colored skin contrasted with deep reddish-brown hair—long, wavy hair bound into a single tie, though tonight it had come loose several times during work and now clung to her right cheek. She reached to brush it away, then stopped. A thin scar ran across the back of her right hand, made by a chisel when she was small—back when she'd borrowed her father's tools and didn't yet know how to control her strength. In the corner of the workshop stood a leather tube, leaning against the wall. Sheera's gaze turned toward it. The worn, tanned leather cylinder. Inside, rolled carefully, lay parchment bearing a chart of the Azure Sea. Left behind by her mother, Marina. Scattered across it were symbols not found on any standard map. Nal Soma—the phantom island said to exist beyond the Azure Sea—its position marked by these symbols, or so Sheera had always believed. She wrote "or so" only because she'd managed to decipher barely half their meaning. Nal Soma did not exist on official maps. No navigation chart issued by the Virtia Kingdom, no fishing ledger, bore its name. Only her mother's chart showed its position in a unique symbolic system. Those symbols matched no existing navigational script. Sheera didn't know where her mother had obtained them, or whether she'd created them herself. Every attempt at decipherment left her grasping at sand. Three years of this. Three years ago, as her mother lay dying, she had said: "Build a ship. A small one is fine. A ship you can row yourself—take it to that island." Marina had spoken those words with fever-bright eyes. Sheera had held her hand and nodded. She'd nodded many times. That promise had become the Shoshojo. Over three years, she'd gathered materials alone, carved alone, assembled alone. The shipyard craftsmen had laughed at her endlessly. Too large for a girl to build, her technique still lacking, and besides—Nal Soma doesn't exist anywhere. She'd heard such things so often her ears had grown callused to them. Each time, Sheera simply replied, "I see," and returned to the workshop the next day. It would be finished soon. Soon, she could sail. The candle flickered softly, casting a shadow across the leather tube. Sheera turned her gaze back to the keel plank once more. ＊ Cardia was always busy at dawn. When Sheera left the timber-frame workshop, the harbor street already showed signs of life. Fishermen folded nets while chatting. A stall began laying out smoked fish. The salt of cured fish, the smell of the shore. Waves sounded somewhere distant, their rhythm steady and unbroken. Cardia was a small town. At the eastern tip of the continent, on Gressa Peninsula—a narrow, elongated promontory jutting eastward into the Azure Sea, surrounded on three sides by water—the port town held a population of roughly twenty-four hundred. To the east lay the Azure Sea; to the west, the peninsula's hills. Almost no flat land existed. The entire town seemed to lean toward the sea. The Azure Sea, despite appearances, was not gentle. The coastal region extending roughly two hundred kilometers—called the Rope-Way, the trade route—maintained stable currents. But beyond its outer edge lay the Great Maelstrom. Multiple currents tangled in complex patterns, forming a bleached sea zone of whirlpools. Sails tore, compasses spun wild, and the return rate was said to fall below thirty percent. The official routes of the Virtia Kingdom stopped short of it, leaving the waters beyond marked as unnavigable, blank on all charts. This was the main reason people laughed at Nal Soma as a "nonexistent island." No one had ever returned from it, so no one could prove it existed. Three hundred eighty kilometers by land from the royal capital, Granavice. That was how far the Virtia Kingdom's heart lay from here. As a result, the grand politics of the great nation never reached this place. Fishermen, shipwrights, and crews of small merchant vessels—people like these lived out their mornings as mornings should be lived. As Sheera walked near the harbor, a thick voice called out. "Oi, Tomasena. You slept in the workshop again?" Boltz asked. Boltz Kirsche, the harbor master. Fifty-eight years old. A man with the build of a bear, white stubble darkening his jaw. He made his rounds every morning at this hour, rain or shine, almost without exception. "I didn't sleep there. I just arrived," Sheera replied. "Liar. Look at those dark circles," Boltz said. Sheera didn't answer. Boltz shrugged. "Well, never mind. The ship—is it finally ready?" he asked. Sheera's mouth moved just slightly at those words. "Tonight, the keel plank goes in. Then it's complete," she said. "Hm," Boltz grunted. He folded his arms. After a moment, he murmured, "Three years." Sheera replied, "Three years." When the conversation turned to the ship, something opened in her throat. Normally she spoke in two or three words, but when it came to the ship, words continued to flow. "So where are you taking that ship?" Boltz asked. "The Azure Sea," Sheera answered. "I know that. Where exactly?" he pressed. Sheera fell silent for a while. "Far away," she said. Boltz snorted. "If you weren't going to answer, I shouldn't have asked," he grumbled, returning to his rounds. Sheera watched his back disappear, then turned her gaze toward the harbor. Eight mooring piers. This morning, three fishing boats and one small merchant vessel were preparing to set sail. From the end of the pier, the horizon of the Azure Sea was visible. Today, mist hung over it. The water's color was nearly gray. Then she noticed a figure in the corner of the harbor street. A man with the bearing of a merchant. His clothes were odd for this hour. He carried no cargo, wasn't boarding any ship. He simply stood there, gazing toward the harbor. Cardia was small enough that most faces were familiar. A man who wasn't a fisherman, shipwright, or crew member, standing at the pier at this hour watching the water—he would stand out. His eyes didn't meet Sheera's. He entered her field of vision for just a moment, then slipped from her awareness. The Shoshojo would be finished tonight. Thinking only of that, Sheera walked on. ＊ The sparks rose into the air at midnight. Sheera was on her way back to the Tomasena house. Before the slope that led up to Hill Street, she'd been gazing absently at the lighthouse's beam. An eighteen-meter stone tower. At night, it cast its light toward the sea. Fishermen without a tide-reader's skill used that light as a landmark to find their way home to port. So that someone, always, could return from the sea. Then the air behind her changed. She turned around. The night sky above the harbor was red. For a second, she stood frozen. The next moment, she was running. Down the slope, through the harbor street, toward the mooring piers. Wind cut past her ears. Her feet struck stone. As she drew closer, the smell of smoke grew stronger. Hot air filled her lungs. A section of the pier was burning. There was a word—"raging fire." Sheera learned its meaning with her whole body that night. The flames devoured wood, rope, canvas with ravenous hunger. At its center—the Shoshojo. "—" Sheera grabbed a water bucket nearby and stepped forward. One step. Two. An arm seized her. "Don't!" Boltz shouted. It was Boltz. A shipyard craftsman held her other arm. Sheera tried to wrench free, but couldn't. Both men pulled her backward. "Let go—" she cried. "Impossible. You go into that fire, you die," Boltz said. "But—" "I said no," Boltz said. His voice wasn't angry. It was simply immovable. Sheera stopped struggling. Her feet went still. In the flames, the ship's frame groaned. The sound of wood burning, heard from a distance, is quiet. A gentle *patter-patter*—bright and cheerful. But standing close, it's different. There's a deep, resonant creaking that seems to come from somewhere far within. The sound of a beam breaking is like the sound of bone snapping. The Shoshojo's frame broke like that. One beam, then another. Sheera heard it with her entire body. People gathered around the pier. Someone shouted for bucket brigades. Others yelled orders. But Sheera heard nothing anymore. Only the flames. Three years, burning. ＊ The fire subsided after midnight had passed. Sheera entered the burned wreckage alone. No one stopped her. Her eyes were too quiet to stop. Ash and mud. Fragments of charred wood. What had once been canvas, what had once been rope, what had once been a keel plank—all mixed beyond recognition. Sheera crouched and pressed her hands down. Mud clung cold and wet to her palms. The Shoshojo was nowhere. Nothing remained of its form. Even searching, she couldn't tell what lay where. Could a ship built over three years really vanish in a single night? Sheera couldn't yet grasp the weight of that fact. She moved her hands. Pushed ash aside. Shoved charred wood fragments away. She didn't know what she was searching for. She simply couldn't stay still. Eventually, her hand reached toward the workshop's edge. She touched something. Leather. Burned. The surface had blackened. But it held its shape. Sheera carefully pulled it out. A leather tube. The one she'd placed in the workshop corner before starting work. That very tube. Her hands trembled. She opened the lid. Slowly drew out the parchment inside. It wasn't burned. It was untouched. Sheera unrolled it there, carefully. Her mother's chart. The lines marking the Azure Sea's waters, the Rope-Way trade route, and—the symbol for Nal Soma, recorded on no official map. It remained unchanged. The flames and smoke had never reached this parchment. A single tear fell. A round stain appeared on the parchment. Sheera pressed it with her palm. It was warm. Her own tear, yet it felt warm. She held it to her chest. She stayed like that for a long time. In the smell of ash, cradling her mother's chart. She couldn't tell if she was crying or not. The sky slowly began to lighten. ＊ With the dawn, the harbor's recovery work began. The shipyard craftsmen gathered. In silence, they began clearing the burned wreckage. No one spoke to Sheera. The atmosphere didn't allow it—or perhaps it was the expression on her face. Sheera hadn't slept at all. Her eyes felt heavy. But sleep wouldn't come. What had happened tonight was too large to sleep through. While working, she continued observing the burned site. It was a craftsman's instinct, perhaps. As a shipwright raised in this trade, Sheera understood something of how wood burned. Which timber was weak to fire, where flames would spread, which direction the blaze would travel. Seven years watching her father's back at Cardia Shipyard had taught her these things. Tracing the fire's path in her mind as she examined the wreckage, Sheera found something wrong. Water-soaked old pier timber doesn't burn easily. It's nothing like dry inland wood. Yet last night, it had burned

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Episode 1

Name: Beyond the Azure Sea — The Lost Island and the Girl Captain's Vow
Author: Novelia

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