Cairon Shipwright

Cairon Shipwright has built more escapes than most kings have won battles, and he considers that a cleaner legacy. He knows a hull is not only timber and pitch, but a promise measured in berths, water casks, medicine chests, hidden coves, and how many children can be lifted aboard before the harbour lamps go dark. Vaelorn understands him completely. Its mercy needs keels, sail lofts, pilot codes, guarded quays, and men patient enough to make refuge float. Cairon smells of pine resin, wet canvas, salt rope, sawdust, lamp oil, and old fish blood under pearl-white stone. In his hands retreat is not shame but preparation, and every shoreline becomes a road waiting for the hour when land has failed the living.