After the meeting, Thren’s head of operations intercepted Drew before he could leave the meeting room.

  “You will brief Diego, Thren, and me on all technical work going forward,” she said, already walking. “No exceptions. In joint meetings, we assume information leaks.”

  She stopped and turned, studying him.

  “Leonor.” She offered her hand. Her grip was firm, practiced.

  “Your designs are valuable,” she continued. “That also makes them dangerous. You think in terms of efficiency. I think in terms of leverage.”

  She paused and inhaled deeply.

  “The Silent Wake Compact is not a neutral body. By protocol, we are now obligated to disclose or license your canoe design to them.” Her mouth tightened. “That is a problem.”

  She folded her hands behind her back.

  “Captain Esteban is one accusation away from being declared a rabid pirate. The only reason it hasn’t happened is fleet strength. Your work changes that balance.”

  Leonor met his eyes.

  “Which means we do not innovate in isolation. You work with us, or you work against us without realizing it.”

  Her tone softened slightly, but the edge remained.

  “Keep us informed. We will decide what becomes public, what is traded, and what never leaves this island.”

  She nodded once.

  “Do that, and you’ll be very useful to Thren. And to yourself.”

  Drew considered how to respond.

  “I owe you an apology. I spoke out of turn, and I did it in front of people who did not need to hear it. But the designs remain mine.”

  Leonor crossed her arms, nodded once, then departed the meeting room.

  Drew remained where he was, alone with the echo of his own confidence. After a moment, he began to pace.

  In this world, he could fundamentally change how people sailed the skies. The realization sat heavy. He warned himself to be careful about what he pulled from Pandora’s box.

  Fray Hernando’s words returned to him, the way he had spoken about the professor who disregarded the traditions of the vines in Nueva Trujillo. Drew understood the distinction now.

  Control was not just about who received his designs. It was about which designs should exist at all.

  I will not hand over designs that remove restraint, skill, or accountability from violence.

  That meant no Minié balls. No graft-integrated weapons. No mass production methods for killing tools.

  He would not become the professor.

  The next few weeks leading up to the Black Keel Hall races and graduation passed quickly. Long days made for short weeks.

  At the Black Keel Hall, Drew learned the fundamentals of trade and commerce: negotiating shipping contracts, arranging protection agreements, hull design and navigating the tense economic balance between Nueva Trujillo and the dispersed Arawinaya diaspora.

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  Every day before and after instruction, Drew worked to finalize the designs of two racing canoes.

  The X-1, based on his original scale model, used rear stabilizing fins in an X configuration. The X-2 employed a more traditional cruciform fin arrangement.

  Even without ailerons on the rear fins, test pilots quickly found the X-1 far more difficult to control. The X-shaped tail produced stronger coupling between pitch and yaw, making the craft less forgiving under manual control.

  The cruciform-tailed X-2, while slightly less efficient, proved markedly more stable and predictable.

  The forward solar sail arrangement became the greatest challenge. It pushed both Drew’s engineering instincts and the material limits available on Deadwake.

  The forward sails deployed in a triangular cone ahead of the craft. Each sail was framed by a curved perimeter spar grown from stiffened vine and wrapped in keelweave.

  Steel pins at reinforced joints allowed the sails to fold when stowed while remaining semi-rigid when deployed. Traditional cloth failed under the loads involved, so Drew adapted keelweave techniques to produce a tensioned vine-fabric laminate capable of holding shape under sustained stress.

  Four copper tension cables ran from the sail frame back to hardpoints on the forward missile-shaped body of the canoe. These cables carried load continuously and were never intended to run slack.

  Drew remembered what had doomed María’s test flight: the uncontrolled release of sail tension.

  Instead of relying on the pilot to manually pull or dump lines, he designed a compact pedal box that drove a drum winch through a geared transmission. A ratchet and pawl ensured the winch could only move when deliberately actuated.

  The sail could not run free. Drew realized he was no longer designing a sail. He was designing limits.

  Pedaling allowed the pilot to shift the sails between defined configurations: launch, cruise, gust, and sprint.

  Drew labeled the modes one through four above the pedals, each paired with a simple reference diagram showing sail shape and orientation.

  The labels were added after Rafael took the first test flight rather than one of Thren’s veteran pilots and nearly spiraled into the clouds below by engaging gust mode instead of launch mode during takeoff.

  After that near disaster, Drew added a red dump handle that rapidly depowered the forward sail by flattening its camber.

  Two smaller levers near the pilot’s left knee allowed controlled easing of the sail under load without releasing tension outright.

  SYSTEM MESSAGE

  +7,500 XP (Crafting Milestone: Mechanical Safeguards & Control Systems)

  Crafting: Level Up

  Crafting Level: 5

  You have created a new class of sailing craft built without wood or Vélaria Sanctum.

  You replaced traditional hull strength and sacred materials with engineered structure, controlled load paths, and integrated restraint systems.

  You demonstrated that stability, power, and safety could be achieved through design discipline rather than mass, tradition, or ritual.

  Bonus Applied:

  ? +1 Mechanical Design Proficiency

  ? +1 Systems Safety Insight

  ? Passive Trait Unlocked: Fail Safe Bias (Designs you create resist catastrophic failures)

  Nothing runs free by accident anymore.

  The test sailors initially struggled to fly the X-1 and X-2. The concept of pedaling to change sail configuration was foreign.

  Drew spent additional time refining the controls and making the system idiot proof.

  Rafael quickly fell in love with the X-2, outperforming all of Thren’s test pilots.

  Isabela was invited to observe the final test flights.

  She watched in awe as Rafael ran the X-2 through its paces, buzzing the dock in a shallow dive at a record ten knots. He finished with a barrel roll as he flew past them, hooting.

  Isabela turned to Leonor.

  “A truly marvelous craft. However, my patron is most concerned with courier and trading variations.” She glanced at Drew. “Have you given consideration to a larger winter trader?”

  Drew let Leonor answer, but he did not contradict her. Not yet. They had worked on the larger variant already, and Thren’s crews were putting the first prototype through its paces at Thren’s Reach.

  Leonor answered for him.

  “Yes. We have developed a four person winter trader variant capable of carrying four to six canoes’ worth of cargo. It sacrifices speed under load in exchange for stability and range.”

  She gestured toward Rafael ’s passing silhouette above the docks.

  “And when can we expect delivery,” Isabela asked, “given our injection of gold? The Skyfall Run and the winter season are close at hand.”

  Leonor’s response was cool.

  “We can commit to the delivery of two winter traders with full training provided in three weeks. That aligns with the start of winter sailing.”

  Isabela pressed. “And the exclusivity of the design?”

  Leonor replied without hesitation.

  “For the first two winter sailing seasons, the design will be offered only to you and to those flying Thren’s banner.”

  Isabela’s eyes flicked from Leonor back to the craft streaking past the docks. She did not answer immediately.

  “At that scale,” she said at last, “two hulls will not satisfy my patron’s appetite.”

  She paused, then inclined her head.

  “But it will satisfy her caution.”

  She turned to Drew, her tone warmer but still appraising.

  “A winter trader that flies when others ground themselves changes more than routes. It changes who sets prices.” Her lips curved faintly. “That is worth patience.”

  She glanced skyward as Rafael banked again, then looked back at Drew.

  “We will expect design revisions as winter teaches you what theory cannot.”

  There was no threat in her voice. Only certainty.

  “Two hulls,” she concluded. “For now.”