The morning the sea turned to glass, Edda woke to total silence. No waves, no birds. From her window the whole harbor looked frozen smooth and shining. She sat at her desk and, almost without thinking, dipped her pen and inked a brand-new coastline onto a blank chart: cliffs, a bay, a row of sharp rocks. None of it was real. By the time the ink dried, a fisherman was pounding on her door, shouting that ships were sailing toward land that had never been there before.

Edda grabbed the chart and ran to the docks. Sure enough, three trading ships were turning toward the new bay she had drawn — straight at the rocks she'd inked. She had to warn them. She lit a lantern, swung it over her head, and shouted for the captains to turn back.

A young sailor on the nearest ship spotted Edda waving and rang the alarm bell. The crews scrambled. All three ships dropped anchor just short of the rocks, sails flapping, safe for now. The captains rowed ashore, furious, demanding to know who had put a deadly coast on their maps overnight.

Edda decided to tell the captains the truth: she drew the coast, and she didn't know how. Instead of mocking her, the oldest captain went pale. He said his grandmother had warned of mapmakers whose ink shaped the world — and that such a gift always came with a price waiting to be paid.

Edda asked what the price was. The old captain shook his head — he didn't know. But he handed her a worn sailor's compass and said it had always pointed his crew to safe water. Using it, Edda drew a steady channel toward the harbor, and the three ships followed it in. She kept the compass close from then on, ready for the day the price came due.