The Drowning Fire

In the Republic of Veridion, marine surveyor Elian Drake is dismissed from his firm after his sexuality becomes known. His appeal to the Federal Labour Board fails—the law, it rules, does not recognise his humanity. Desperate and broken, he signs a contract for a remote deep-sea trawler, the *Queen of the Deep*, believing he can buy a new beginning. Instead, he is dragged into a floating abattoir where undocumented workers are beaten, starved, and murdered on the lawless international waters. Numbed by cold rage, Drake painstakingly plans a mutiny, but his longing for perfect justice makes him hesitate until those he loves are dead. When the bloody reckoning finally arrives, the flame of vengeance has already consumed everything salvageable in him. Hauled back to a homeland that has just granted the very protections he was denied, Drake realises that a fire left to burn too long leaves nothing but salt and ashes to rebuild upon.