Chapter 67: Bridge Beyond Horizon
The salt wind rolled in from the Bay of Kareya, brushing against the new marble archway that bore the crest of Aragon—a crowned lion resting upon a globe. Below it, masons carved the inscription in three languages: Castilian, Latin, and Mandarin. The foundation stone of the Aragonese Maritime Research Institute had been laid just the day before, and scaffolds were already rising.
Prince Lancelot stood on the cliffside platform overseeing the bay. His coat was buttoned high against the breeze, a set of scrolls tucked under his arm. Below him, cranes and pulleys hoisted timber beams and brass piping onto the docks. Shipwrights and engineers moved with quiet purpose.
"Two months ago," said Admiral Fausto, approaching from behind, "this shoreline had nothing but kelp and gulls."
"And now," Lancelot replied without turning, "it will launch ideas faster than any fleet we’ve ever built."
Fausto stood beside him, the same man who five years earlier had cursed the Prince’s refusal to commission more ships of the line. He had grown grayer since then, though his hands were still calloused from decades at sea.
"You were right," the Admiral said at last. "The dreadnoughts didn’t just change our navy. They rewrote what navies are."
Lancelot gave him a faint smile. "We’ll need minds sharper than steel if we’re to remain ahead."
The Maritime Research Institute wasn’t a naval dockyard. Not exactly. It would host mathematicians, oceanographers, astronomers, and hull designers. Its tower observatory, shaped like a ship’s sail, would track tides and starlines. Beneath it, vast halls would echo with theories on hydrodynamics and experiments on steam propulsion.
"Is this meant to rival Firewell’s Academy?" Fausto asked.
"No," said Lancelot, "it complements it. One gives us depth. The other, direction."
Behind them, the city stirred.
Kareya was changing. What had once been a fishing town had grown into a port of exchanges—of goods, languages, and philosophies. With rail lines reaching its harbor, even scholars from distant provinces now came to see the sails and turbines of progress.