To my best partner at sea, my most trusted friend on land:
When you receive this letter, I will probably still be on my return voyage, fated to miss the midnight bells of the Consecration Festival. So let me offer my blessings in advance: may the land beneath your feet be calmer than the sea beneath mine.
This year's main dividend has been entrusted to reliable sailors bound for Wood Town. The rest will be delivered with this letter by the guild. Be sure to count it again in person, with a third party present, just in case.
I suppose you have long since forgotten this trifling sum of income. Even in Wenden Port, the kingdom's northernmost backwater, people have heard of the generous handouts bestowed upon certain distinguished figures.
There is no shortage of rumors claiming that some unspeakable secret lies behind them.
Yet anyone with even a slight understanding of the inside story should find nothing surprising about it. A capable person is like a keel hewn from a giant tree, born for the most challenging routes; naturally, he deserves the broadest deck and the strongest sails. No investment is too great.
Assets that do not flow merely satisfy the urge to hoard, while materials worth investing in are few and far between. I trust that anyone who has secured a high position through their own ability possesses at least that much discernment.
Of course, that also means greater storms and trials that stretch farther into the future. But since you could bring us back from the hell beneath the Southern Hills, what could possibly be harder than that experience?
Speaking of ships, I must introduce you to my new home. "Snow Rime"—that is what they called her—a grand lady who had endured a full five years of