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Low-river Dispatchbrook Emberfront
The river had always been the heart of Low-river.
It cut through the town like a vein of black glass, wide and slow, carrying the faint shimmer of the moon on its oily surface. At dawn, mist rolled from it in long, ghostly tendrils that curled around the bridge pilings and drifted through the lower streets. People said that the river sang sometimes — faint hums that rose at night when the fog was thickest — but most called it superstition, a story to keep children from wandering too close to the current.
Alden Merrin never believed in river songs.
At least, not until the night he saw the fire on the water.
He had just finished his route, the last of the evening dispatches bundled in his worn leather satchel. Low-river’s courier service was a dying trade — most of the town’s folk worked upriver at the docks or in the few remaining warehouses that hadn’t gone bankrupt. Still, there were always messages to carry between the old folded letters sealed with wax, parcels wrapped in oilskin, and the occasional urgent note marked for Emberfront. The foundry had been closed for decades, yet its name still appeared on mail. It was almost as if the town refused to admit that the past was dead.
The air that evening carried the scent of rust and coal. The lamps along the main road flickered against the encroaching fog. Alden’s boots scuffed the cobblestones as he crossed the bridge toward home, his shadow stretching thin under the last orange streaks of sunset. He paused halfway across and leaned on the railing. The river beneath him was dark — too dark, even for twilight.
Then it happened.
A glimmer moved beneath the surface, faint as a candle flame.
He frowned, thinking it must be a reflection from one of the lamps. But as he looked closer, the light brightened — a burning vein unfurling along the water’s edge. Then another, and another. Within moments, the whole current seemed alive with slow, curling tendrils of amber fire.
Alden blinked. The flames didn’t rise or crackle. They drifted under the surface, flowing with the current like molten ribbons. The heat didn’t reach him, yet the air trembled as if the river exhaled.
“What in the hells…” he whispered.
A sound answered him.
It cut through the town like a vein of black glass, wide and slow, carrying the faint shimmer of the moon on its oily surface. At dawn, mist rolled from it in long, ghostly tendrils that curled around the bridge pilings and drifted through the lower streets. People said that the river sang sometimes — faint hums that rose at night when the fog was thickest — but most called it superstition, a story to keep children from wandering too close to the current.
Alden Merrin never believed in river songs.
At least, not until the night he saw the fire on the water.
He had just finished his route, the last of the evening dispatches bundled in his worn leather satchel. Low-river’s courier service was a dying trade — most of the town’s folk worked upriver at the docks or in the few remaining warehouses that hadn’t gone bankrupt. Still, there were always messages to carry between the old folded letters sealed with wax, parcels wrapped in oilskin, and the occasional urgent note marked for Emberfront. The foundry had been closed for decades, yet its name still appeared on mail. It was almost as if the town refused to admit that the past was dead.
The air that evening carried the scent of rust and coal. The lamps along the main road flickered against the encroaching fog. Alden’s boots scuffed the cobblestones as he crossed the bridge toward home, his shadow stretching thin under the last orange streaks of sunset. He paused halfway across and leaned on the railing. The river beneath him was dark — too dark, even for twilight.
Then it happened.
A glimmer moved beneath the surface, faint as a candle flame.
He frowned, thinking it must be a reflection from one of the lamps. But as he looked closer, the light brightened — a burning vein unfurling along the water’s edge. Then another, and another. Within moments, the whole current seemed alive with slow, curling tendrils of amber fire.
Alden blinked. The flames didn’t rise or crackle. They drifted under the surface, flowing with the current like molten ribbons. The heat didn’t reach him, yet the air trembled as if the river exhaled.
“What in the hells…” he whispered.
A sound answered him.
67 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 7, 2025
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