42 Meryn

After a fraught night contacting Killian, Meryn gathers Stark, Saela, Venna, Noemi, and her father to share that Killian is searching for more Goddess Tears and that her foresight pointed to a tower. Saela races for their mother’s journal and finds a diagram of seven teardrops, suggesting seven total Tears. Noemi recalls a song about a woman locked in a tower who cries exactly seven tears, which Meryn tentatively links to the Faceless Goddess.

Accepting they must find the tower, Meryn approaches Lucien, interrupting him mid feeding, and demands information. Lucien produces maps of the Bloodthorn Sea and identifies three tightly clustered, largely uncharted islands shrouded by impenetrable mist where expeditions have repeatedly failed. Elias adds eyewitness sketches of a massive stone tower; at its peak are symbols matching the four direwolf packs: Strategos, Daemos, Kryptos, and Phylax.

The group infers the fog may require combined magic from all four packs to pass and realize their party uniquely contains one of each. With Killian likely to coerce missing packs, Meryn pushes to leave immediately. She requests a fast ship; Lucien agrees on the condition that he and Elias personally accompany them, maintaining power balance should a Tear be found.

Weighing their need for Astreona’s resources against Lucien’s renewed marriage pressure, Meryn reluctantly consents to sail together. As preparations begin, she withholds a grim detail from her vision: a woman’s body in the tower, leaving her privately convinced someone in their party may die.