February 2nd, 1890

I arrived upon the island of Aegir just over three weeks past, and already I feel the weight of its grave isolation. Yet this is the path I have chosen. There can be no lament, no protest, for it was my own hand that steered me to this forsaken place.

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It is foreign to me, this land of unrelenting rain and restless winds—so unlike the golden shores of Maravella, where the days stretched long beneath the sun and the storms came only as brief and passing tempests. Here, the storm never passes. It lingers, ever present, as if the sky itself mourns.

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Was it thus for you, I wonder? Could you still see the sun, even as I turned away? Do you see it now, Maria, in my absence? I pray that you do, though in truth, I fear I have left you only with shadows. If storms have come, they are mine to bear.

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Perhaps this dreadful, haunted place is my penance.

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I am sorry, Maria. More than you will ever know.

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The warden from the penal colony upon Blackrift Isle paid me a visit not long after my arrival. Faltwell Greaves. A tall, broad-shouldered wall of a man, possessed of the bearing of one who does not ask for obedience, but expects it. I will admit to a flicker of unease as he stood upon the threshold of the cottage, his gaze heavy upon me. He assured me that, despite the unresolved circumstances surrounding the former keeper’s untimely demise, Blackrift remains secure. He was careful to emphasize that many of its inhabitants are political exiles rather than violent criminals. As for those who are... Well, he said, they rarely see the light of day.

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His visit was brief, yet his presence lingered long after he departed. As I watched the Patience vanish beyond the horizon on the day of my arrival, I felt a quiet dread settle within me. That feeling has not left me since I first laid eyes upon Warden Greaves.

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Will it always feel this way? This nameless discomfort? This ceaseless longing?

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For now, I must take solace in the distance, in the rhythm of my duties, in the hope that the solitude and labor will mend what I have broken.

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Or, at the very least, that it might mend me.

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