It rains nine days out of ten in the Kingdom of the Storm and the Forest. That’s why everyone just calls it the Rainlands.

  Raintown—well, that’s not its real name, but no one uses the old Elvish anymore. Only a few scholars and stuffy nobles still call it Vynvyrafel. The rest of us? We aren’t so pretentious, despite what the humans will tell you. And besides, Raintown fits.

  Perched on the western cliffs of the South Lands, overlooking the endless, furious Sea of Storms, the city is the only splash of civilization in an otherwise untamed wilderness. You can see the castle from miles away, through the dense trees of the forests below, but the rest of the city? It stays hidden in the gloom of the endless rain.

  That’s where I was born.

  A minor noble, though that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Elves live a long time. Human nobility can rise and fall within a few decades, but for us? It takes centuries to earn respect. Our family had survived eight hundred years. But it is said in the most elite circles of Raintown that a name younger than one millennium is a name not worth speaking. Give it another two hundred years, and maybe we’d finally be considered real nobility.

  We elves keep to ourselves. We live in small families, rarely more than one or two children, though that was not the case some two thousand years ago.

  But our culture changed with time, I guess, as things always do.

  We also don’t make friends easily. That’s probably why our ancestors built Raintown where no one else wanted to live—deep in the forest, beneath the constant downpour. It kept people away.

  But do not be mistaken—Raintown is a beautiful place. We pride ourselves on our elegant architecture, and our vibrant red lanterns adorn every street, lighting the way on the darkest days for each of the one million and three hundred thousand elves end men who call it home (..but mostly elves). And when it doesn’t rain, it becomes even more breathtaking. It’s a big deal to us. The sun shines on the wet, green and blue rooftops, the streets come alive with music and dancing, and festivals erupt as bakeries hand out food to the children for free. There is no place in the Lands I would rather live.

  I spent my youth at the Builder Yerev’s University of Raintown, the greatest artisan institute in the Empire. The place wasn't just named after him, no, Yerev himself had taught there once, though I’d been born too late to learn from him directly. You’ve heard of him, I’m sure—Yerev’s Bridge in the Sister Cities, the Southern Walls, the Aqueducts of Yusund, the Shrine of the Mother. Nothing too important. Heh.

  I never intended to be a soldier. War never interested me much. I am a builder first and foremost. I wanted to learn, to build. But war brings opportunity, and I? I’m an opportunist as well.

  The rebellion had begun. The Empire faltered. I wasn’t one for swords or bows, neither was I one of those lucky few who awakened strange powers, but I had my own weapons—my mind, my hands. I studied siegecraft, scoured over trebuchet designs, tested materials for ballistae. I had one goal: find a way to crack Yerev’s walls.

  I failed.

  His designs were perfect. No weaknesses. No vulnerabilities. It seems Yerev’s reputation was well-earned.

  So I thought differently. If I couldn’t break through the walls, why not go around them?

  The Imperial Army had been shattered at the Battle of the Daughter. The loyalists were fleeing back to the Sisters, those that survived that is. It didn’t take a military mind to understand what would happen next. A siege, and a long one at that, too. But I had another idea. I turned to shipbuilding.

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  Everyone knew the Sea of Storms was impassable. The winds could peel flesh from bone. The waves could devour ships whole. The lightning struck so often, it turned night into day. But I believed it could be done.

  It took weeks to perfect the theory. Day and night, with little to no rest, spent over books and papers and more books and more papers. I consulted with the greatest minds that the Rainlands had to offer but none believed my vision. They called me a fool for even suggesting it. Another month to convince the King. He called me mad, I think. Twice. Maybe he was right, I was starting to believe it myself.

  But in the end, he gave me a chance—on the condition that I sail with the fleet. If my ships failed, I would disappear into the storm along with them. I don’t think he had any trust in me at all, and that he had grown so annoyed at me he had simply deemed it worth it to lose a few soldiers if it meant I would wander off and disappear into the sea.

  I accepted.

  Ten ships, I had built. A hundred elves each. We set sail into the unknown.

  At first, it worked. My ships held strong. But then the first cracks appeared.

  Two ships vanished without a trace before we were even halfway through. No wreckage, no screams—just gone. Swallowed by the mist.

  Then the storm truly began. The wind was deafening, a constant roar that drowned out all sound. Lightning flashed, illuminating the world in eerie, flickering bursts. On the third day, one bolt struck a ship dead-on. It didn’t survive. Others were hit, too, but managed to stay afloat. My designs was working, though they could use improvements.

  The stories of the Sea of Storms were true. The waves were mountains. The shadows beneath the water? They were real. On the fourth day, I saw them. Long, slithering forms beneath the surface. Something reached up, curling around a ship. Dragging it down.

  Another was lost.

  I saw elves get up, and walk into the sea by their own will, seeing things that weren’t there, talking to beings that only they could see.

  I remember one kid in particular, couldn't have been older than my nephew, laughing and crying and starting to run off towards the sea. I tried to stop him. "My mother is calling for me!" He said, before breaking free from my grasp and jumping into the dark waters below. I spent the rest of that day with my eyes closed, holding on for dear life, praying, ignoring every voice that wasn't my own.

  By the time we reached the far shore, only four ships remained.

  328 of us survived. Barely.

  The King hadn’t sent his finest—just those he could afford to lose. Raw recruits. Wounded veterans. Men with no names, no titles, no futures. But that was fine. We didn’t need the best. We only needed to land.

  The Greylands fell without a fight. Their forces had marched south to reinforce the Emperor, never expecting an attack from the sea. No one did. It was supposed to be impossible. The only way through was under the watchful eye of the Imperial fleet. And yet, here we stood.

  We burned the fields. We torched the granaries. We intercepted supply caravans bound for the front lines and turned them to ash. We took only what we needed and vanished into the forests.

  I am not proud of it. Not at all. But war is war, and it is not the time to be too picky about what’s right or wrong.

  By the time the Empire realized we were behind them, it was already too late.

  Their surrender came faster than I’d expected. Turns out, their king’s reputation for cowardice was well earned, too.

  No one wanted to sail back. None of us wished to challenge the storm again. So we burned the ships, to keep their designs a secret. My designs.

  The war ended weeks later. We had won.

  I was awarded the Crown of Ingenuity—a pretty little trinket, though I cared more for the weight my name now carried. In Raintown, people listened when I spoke. When I had an idea, no one called me mad anymore. Instead, they asked me, how?

  I've heard the Northmen have taken to calling the little town where I first landed my ships Port Cedric. I won’t lie—seeing my name on maps stirs something in me. Pride, perhaps. If only for a moment.

  More importantly, I was given a new task—to rebuild the royal fleet. This time, we wouldn’t be running from war. We’d be preparing for the next one.

  And in a few decades, when I’ve seen this through, I’ll return to the Builder Yerev’s University. I’ll teach the next generation of engineers.

  Teach them to strive for the impossible, not to accept it as the status quo. And together, we will build marvels the likes of which the Lands have never seen before.