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The Navigator and the Sleeping Wind

by Lada Terentyeva

Trinity Books · November 2, 2026

A sea chase in which the most frightening moment is a calm.

Reading time: About 4 h 0 min (at 230 words a minute)

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Cover of The Navigator and the Sleeping Wind

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Length240 pages

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Details

AuthorRussia Lada Terentyeva
CategorySea adventure / Adventure
Language of the bookEnglish
PublishedNovember 2, 2026
Length240 pages
Product numberTB-W0013-EN
Reading timeAbout 4 h 0 min (at 230 words a minute)
Print-ready PDFA5 · interior PDF and cover PDF (with bleed: two versions, 3 mm and 3.175 mm, can be downloaded.) · 240 pages

Categories of this book

CategoriesStoriesSea adventure

CategoriesStoriesAdventure

About this book

If you love sea stories but have grown tired of cannon fire and shouted orders, this voyage is for you. In the age of myth, an exploration ship carries home the only chart of a safe passage through the northern fog and ice, and four black-sailed ships hunt it across a stormy sea. When the wind dies away, the escape rests on an old, half-blind navigator who teaches by asking questions and letting the sea answer.

When the wind falls asleep and the hunters lie on the same glassy sea, the only way home is to listen.

You are the youngest person aboard the Heron, an exploration ship that has just charted a safe passage through the fog and ice of the far north. On the night it returns, word comes that the lord of the Iron Shore has sent four black-sailed ships to take the chart, and the old navigator Ingrith leads the crew out into the dark without a single light.

The voyage is told to you as sixteen lessons, framed by a prologue and an epilogue. Each one begins with something that everyone believes, that you need light to see at sea, that the faster ship wins a chase, that the wind never sleeps in the north, and lets the sea show what is really true.

Then the wind dies away. Hunters and hunted lie becalmed on the same water, and the escape turns into a long, quiet contest of oars, currents, stars, fog, ice and patience, with a small crew learning whom to trust when there is nothing to fight.

Aboard the Heron, you will learn to

  • Read the long swell of a storm far away and keep a course under a closed grey sky
  • Find the slow river that runs inside a flat calm sea
  • Tell how far north you are from the height of the one star that does not move
  • Hold a frightened crew together with a steady voice rather than a loud one

Contents

  • The Navigator and the Sleeping Wind
  • Why I Wrote This Book
  • Prologue: Lamps
    1. The harbour lamps are lit at dusk on two posts
    2. A game of stones is left unfinished on the board
    3. The trader brings word from the south-east
    4. Askel and Ingrith weigh the night between them
    5. What the Old Song Says
    6. The Mark on the Chart
    7. Every lamp aboard the Heron goes out at once
    8. The rocks speak in different voices to those who listen
    9. Ingrith steers by what she hears and feels
    10. The island falls behind into the darkness
  • Lesson 1: Darkness
    1. Your eyes learn the dark slowly and unwillingly
    2. Ingrith teaches you to look beside a thing
    3. What the Old Song Says
    4. The white of breaking water shows the skerries
    5. Surf on rocks has a voice that carries far
    6. The keel feels what the eyes cannot see
    7. Dawn finds the sea empty to the south-east
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. The crew learns to work without a single light
    10. The evening sky turns pale and streaked in the south-west
  • Lesson 2: Storm
    1. The wind rises out of the south-west by mid-morning
    2. Askel points the ship towards the nearest harbour
    3. Ingrith asks where the rocks are in a storm
    4. What the Old Song Says
    5. The sail comes down to a narrow strip of cloth
    6. The Heron runs before the gale into open water
    7. Night falls inside the storm without a star
    8. The storm hides the Heron from every eye
    9. The Mark on the Chart
    10. The gale blows itself out under a closed sky
More
  • Lesson 3: Swell
    1. Grey cloud closes over the sea from edge to edge
    2. Two seas run across each other under the keel
    3. What the Old Song Says
    4. Ingrith counts the long swell by slow breaths
    5. The wind turns and the ship turns with it
    6. Ingrith wakes and knows the ship is wrong
    7. The sun-crystal finds nothing behind the cloud
    8. A new swell arrives from far to the north-west
    9. The Mark on the Chart
    10. The first birds pass at the edge of the evening
  • Lesson 4: Birds
    1. The cloud breaks and the sea is full of wings
    2. Bran shouts for land at the first gull
    3. Some birds sleep on the sea all their lives
    4. What the Old Song Says
    5. The noon sun proves that the swell told the truth
    6. A raven is let out of the wicker cage
    7. The Mark on the Chart
    8. Askel wants to make for the empty island
    9. The evening birds fly home towards the west
    10. Wenna sees something at the edge of the dusk
  • Lesson 5: Sails
    1. Four black sails stand low in the south-east
    2. The net draws in towards a single line
    3. What the Old Song Says
    4. Askel wants every oar in the water
    5. Ingrith sets out the stones to show the chase
    6. A chase is a long game of position
    7. The Wolf gains a little through the long afternoon
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. The sea ahead turns colder and darker
    10. The fog bank rises white across the bow
  • Lesson 6: Fog
    1. The grey wall closes behind the stern
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. The lead goes down without a splash
    4. Every sound aboard must be put away
    5. A drum beats somewhere in the grey
    6. The Wolf passes within a long bowshot
    7. Ingrith turns the ship while the hunters listen
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. Morning comes as a paler kind of grey
    10. The sail begins to breathe more slowly
  • Lesson 7: Stillness
    1. The sea lies as flat as polished bronze
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Wenna finds four black sails on the rim
    4. Askel wants to row while the hunters sit
    5. Fear moves through the ship like cold water
    6. Ingrith plays a slow game while the crew watches
    7. When she wakes, every idle hand is given a task
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. The swell remembers a wind that has gone
    10. Every sound carries across the glass
  • Lesson 8: Oars
    1. Bran sets a stroke like a hammer
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. By noon the hands begin to fail
    4. Ingrith asks Bran to count the drum
    5. Half the benches row while half the benches sleep
    6. The Mark on the Chart
    7. Lise wraps the oar looms in wool
    8. The old song becomes a count for the stroke
    9. On the twelfth day the gap holds
    10. Weed lies along the water in a line
  • Lesson 9: Currents
    1. Two feathers fall on either side of the line
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. The colour of the water tells its secret
    4. Askel doubts a river that cannot be seen
    5. The Heron crosses into the blue water
    6. The Mark on the Chart
    7. The black ships row on in the green water
    8. Bran learns to row with the river
    9. Ingrith keeps the ship inside the seam
    10. The sky clears for the first time in days
  • Lesson 10: Stars
    1. The fifteenth day is bright and still
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Ingrith brings out the board and the knotted cord
    4. The star that does not move stands higher than at home
    5. You hold the board at arm’s length against the star
    6. The cord lies past the last of her knots
    7. The Mark on the Chart
    8. Askel asks what the hunter sees in the same sky
    9. Stars that set at home now circle without setting
    10. Dunn comes aft with the count of the casks
  • Lesson 11: Water
    1. Ingrith tells the crew the truth about the casks
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Dunn ties one knot for every day
    4. Bran dips a cup into the sea
    5. The Mark on the Chart
    6. Fair shares are measured where everyone can see
    7. The black masts appear once more on the rim
    8. Lise spreads the sail to catch the sky
    9. A windless drizzle falls all through the nineteenth day
    10. Great breaths sound around the ship in the dark
  • Lesson 12: Whales
    1. The breathing in the dark was not the sea
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Bran reaches for an oar and Ingrith stops him
    4. A grey back passes under the keel
    5. The whales are eating, not hunting ships
    6. Cold water lies on one side of the line
    7. Ingrith reads the old verse again
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. The black sails are still on the edge of sight
    10. The edge of the current becomes a road
  • Lesson 13: Ice
    1. The first piece of ice is no bigger than a sheep
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Askel says the ship must turn back
    4. The white light under the clouds shows the way
    5. The ice sings as old air leaves it
    6. Lise lays the mast down on the deck
    7. A small boat comes looking along the lanes
    8. The tall ice gives water without salt
    9. The Mark on the Chart
    10. The cold comes in at the end of the day
  • Lesson 14: Doubt
    1. A voice comes across the ice at dawn
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Bran stands up on his bench to speak
    4. Askel shouts louder than all of them
    5. Ingrith waits for the shouting to tire
    6. Ingrith speaks so quietly that they lean in
    7. The Mark on the Chart
    8. Every person aboard drops a stone in the cup
    9. Askel asks how it was done
    10. Fog begins to rise off the ice
  • Lesson 15: Waiting
    1. The fog lies on the ice like wool
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. The crew make the Heron as silent as stone
    4. The drum of the Wolf comes back through the white
    5. The Wolf comes along the open lane
    6. The fog opens for the space of ten breaths
    7. Morvane lifts his open hand and lowers it
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. Ingrith tells you who taught her to wait
    10. Wenna climbs the tall ice to look south
    11. A breath of cold air touches the frost
  • Lesson 16: Wind
    1. The crew watch the south-west all morning
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Dark patches walk across the glass from the north-east
    4. Lise and Bran raise the mast again
    5. The Heron leaves the ice under oars
    6. The sail fills and the water talks under the bow
    7. The Mark on the Chart
    8. The star sinks a little lower every night
    9. The last raven flies toward the land
    10. The lead comes up with sand from home
  • Epilogue: Harbour
    1. The lamps along the quay come out of the dawn
    2. What the Old Song Says
    3. Ingrith brings the Heron in through the harbour mouth
    4. People run down to the quay in the grey light
    5. The Council of Lamps receives the chart
    6. Ingrith says this voyage was her last
    7. Askel walks with you down to the ship
    8. The Mark on the Chart
    9. Ingrith puts the chart and the log into your hands
    10. The game of stones goes on through the winter
  • Afterword
  • Colophon

From the publisher

A sea chase in which the most frightening moment is a calm.

This is an adventure built from the quiet moments that most sea stories rush past: the night crossing without lights, the hour in the fog when an enemy drum passes close, the days on a glassy sea when the water casks run low. The second-person voice puts you on the deck beside Ingrith, holding the lead line and counting the strokes of the oars, and the slow tension of the chase never lets go.

Ingrith is a memorable hero, underestimated by everyone on the quay and wiser than all of them. The seamanship is real even though the world is mythic, and each lesson leaves you seeing the sea, and perhaps your own certainties, a little differently.

What we like

  • A long chase across a stormy northern sea, told without battles
  • An old navigator who reads the sea by listening, touch and patience
  • Sixteen lessons, each overturning a belief that everyone holds
  • Real seamanship of swells, currents, stars, fog and ice in a world of myth
  • Written to you, so that you live the voyage as the apprentice aboard

Recommended for

  • Teens and adults who enjoy sea adventures and stories set in a mythic past
  • Readers who like quiet, thoughtful stories in which patience wins

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