The scout ship returned at dawn.
Lysander was already on the tower when it came through the barrier pilings. He had been there since before first light, watching the horizon with the particular attention of someone who knew that what was coming would arrive on the water. The sea was grey, flat, the sky low and colourless. A wind had picked up from the north during the night, carrying the smell of salt and something else—something acrid, faint but unmistakable. Smoke. Distant burning.
The ship moved differently from the vessels that had come before it. Not damaged, not limping. Fast. The way a ship moved when its captain had pushed the crew hard because the information they carried mattered more than their exhaustion.
He went down to the dock.
Dorian came off the gangplank first. The young captain's face was hollow with fatigue, his eyes red-rimmed from a night without sleep, but his spine was straight and his voice was steady when he spoke.
"Report," Lysander said.
