The sun had not yet risen, but Driftshore already breathed like a restless beast.
The streets reeked of brine and rot. Fishermen hauled their creaking nets toward the harbor, and hollow-eyed beggars stirred from alleys slick with yesterday's rain. The air tasted of salt, soot, and human desperation.
Malik Korēn slipped through this squalor like an unseen knife.
To most, Driftshore was a cursed port—a place where old shipwrecks became foundations for new homes, and where the whispers of drowned gods were carried on the tide. To Malik, it was simply a board, and its people were pieces waiting to be moved.
In his cloak lay the Anchor fragment, pulsing faintly. A prize stolen from the depths of a cursed ship and pried from under the nose of Elara Volkov. Its faint hum resonated with something hidden deep within Driftshore itself, a whisper threading into his mind with every step.
He did not ignore it. He listened.
Because power always spoke. You just had to learn its language.
---
Vein Experimentation
Back in the Black Hearth—his hidden vault beneath the rotting tavern—Malik prepared the ritual with careful precision.
The room was silent except for the faint hiss of seawater seeping through the cracks in the walls. Candles burned low. The air grew heavier the moment he placed the Anchor fragment on the obsidian slate table.
It was beautiful in a disturbing way. A jagged shard of black crystal, edges slick as though wet, humming with life. But the glow it gave off wasn't light in any normal sense. It was… more like the memory of light, faint and ghostly.
Malik filled a shallow basin with seawater laced with iron shavings, then pricked his finger and let three measured drops of blood fall in. The water hissed, reacting to the Vein energy within his blood.
The Anchor responded immediately.
Its hum grew sharper, cutting through the silence. Shadow Veil energy slithered around Malik, tendrils stretching outward. He let it happen, but only barely. He guided it like a falconer taming a restless bird.
"…come deeper…" whispered a voice in his skull.
"…draw more… merge…"
He did not obey.
Where others would surrender and drink the Anchor's power in one reckless gulp, Malik was patient. He siphoned slowly. A thin thread of resonance peeled away from the fragment, flowing into his Shadow Vein.
The feeling was indescribable—like plunging into icy water and fire at once. His mind sharpened. His perception expanded outward.
He felt the room, not just saw it. He sensed the scuttling of a rat three chambers away. He could hear the faint creak of the tavern's upper floor as a drunkard shifted in his sleep. Even the sea beyond Driftshore's walls became a muted pulse in the back of his mind.
But beneath that… deeper still…
A faint thread connected the Anchor fragment to something below Driftshore. A web of Vein energy slumbered beneath the city's bones. He could almost picture it—a massive underground lattice of black conduits, like veins beneath skin.
If he followed that thread, he'd find the Resonance Nodes, the true sources of power.
Malik opened his eyes.
> So there really is a network beneath the port. The Whispering Vein isn't just myth.
The Anchor fragment pulsed again, as if urging him further.
But he didn't take more. He pulled his will back, severing the connection with a disciplined breath.
Power was never free. And Vein resonance was a double-edged dagger. Too much, too fast, and it would hollow you out like a corpse dragged to sea.
Patience. That was how he survived.
---
Rin's Warning
A coded knock at the hidden door snapped him out of thought.
Three short taps, pause, one long. Rin.
She slipped in, gaunt and shaking. Her cloak was torn. Blood crusted the corner of her lip.
"Had to lose a tail," she said hoarsely. "The Serpent's Daughter isn't just sniffing the docks. She's paying everyone."
Malik said nothing, waiting.
"She bought the Grey Shroud gang outright," Rin continued. "And—" she swallowed—"she's brought Tidewalkers into the port. They move at night. Silent. Wrong."
So Elara was accelerating her plan. Malik had expected as much.
"What about the others?" he asked.
Rin coughed. "The Blackscale smugglers are too busy killing each other. The Church of the Drowned Moon? Quiet. Too quiet."
That made Malik pause. The Drowned Moon cult were old players, older than any Tide cult. If they were silent, it meant they were waiting.
"And Elara?" Malik pressed.
Rin nodded quickly. "She's heading to the southern tunnels. Says there's something there she needs—a Resonance Spire."
Malik's expression didn't change. But inwardly, he cursed.
A Resonance Spire was a Vein Conduit—a natural crystal structure amplifying Anchor energy. If Elara reached it first, she'd establish a permanent node of control over Driftshore's Vein network.
That would be unacceptable.
"Go underground," Malik ordered. "Do not surface until I call for you. The Shroud gang is compromised. No safe ground left."
Rin didn't argue. She vanished.
Malik stayed still for a long moment, thinking.
---
Eliminating Garric
If Elara was moving on the Spire, she needed someone who knew the southern tunnels. That meant Garric, leader of the Grey Shroud. A brute, but cunning enough to navigate the Vein-corrupted labyrinth below Driftshore.
Remove Garric, and Elara would lose time.
That night, Malik moved.
---
The Grey Shroud gang had taken up residence in an abandoned lighthouse. Once it had guided ships safely into harbor. Now it was a nest of cutthroats.
Malik watched from the shadows for nearly an hour, counting guards. Six outside. Four more inside. Too many for a head-on strike.
But Malik never fought fair.
The tide was low. Beneath the lighthouse was a sea cave—accessible only for a few hours each night. Most people had forgotten it even existed. But Malik remembered. He'd mapped it years ago.
He slipped into the cave silently, climbing the jagged rocks. A rusted grate blocked the way forward, but corrosion made it weak. With slow, silent effort, he pried it loose and entered the lighthouse's lower chamber.
The smell hit him first. Rum, sweat, and stale blood.
Above him, voices murmured.
"—don't like this Volkov woman," one thug grumbled.
"Shut it," another hissed. "You saw what her Tidewalker did to Jorek. One touch and gone. Like he was never born."
Malik smirked. Even her allies fear her.
He moved upward like a shadow. The old wooden stairs creaked in places, but he stepped only where they didn't. He reached the upper chamber unseen.
There was Garric.
A heavyset man with scars across his bald scalp, sitting at a table strewn with maps and coins. Two half-drunk guards flanked him.
Malik struck like a whisper.
One guard's throat opened before he even registered the movement. The second managed a surprised gasp before Malik's dagger buried itself beneath his ribs.
Garric lunged for the axe on the table. Malik was faster. He slammed Garric's wrist down and pinned him with a blade to the neck.
"Speak carefully," Malik said quietly. "Where is she moving next?"
Garric's breath hitched. "The… southern tunnels! The flooded ones. Said something about a Resonance Spire. That's all I know!"
His eyes darted, searching for escape. Malik saw no lie.
"Good," Malik murmured. Then—crack—he snapped Garric's neck in one smooth motion.
No hesitation. No witnesses.
---
Into the Southern Tunnels
The southern tunnels were older than Driftshore itself. Half-flooded, riddled with Vein growths, and steeped in whispers that eroded sanity.
Malik entered alone.
The walls wept brine. Barnacle-like Vein cysts pulsed faintly. The water at his boots rippled even when he stood still. And always, faintly, there were voices.
"…you are not alone…"
"…become tide… become one…"
He ignored them. His Shadow Veil stretched outward, feeling the faint resonance currents like threads.
Hours passed. The tunnels narrowed, then opened into a cavern vast as a cathedral.
There it was.
A Resonance Spire—a jagged pillar of black crystal, rising from a pool of dark water, glowing faintly with Echo light. Around it knelt five figures—Tidewalkers, their flesh pale and slick, eyes empty.
And at the far side of the cavern stood Elara Volkov.
---
She looked different now. Her serpent-scale armor gleamed with faint Vein etchings. Her pale hair was tied back, and her eyes… glowed faintly blue, unnatural.
She turned slowly, sensing him before he spoke.
"Malik Korēn," she said softly. "Still scurrying like a rat in the dark."
Malik stepped into the dim light, unhurried. "And you're still dressing like a serpent that swallowed too much."
Her lips curved in a faint smile. "You've touched the Vein. I can feel it on you. But you're a child playing with knives you don't understand."
She gestured. The five Tidewalkers rose silently, their movements smooth, alien.
"Hand me the Anchor fragment," Elara said, "and perhaps I'll leave your corpse intact."
Malik's hand brushed his cloak. The fragment pulsed faintly.
Could he fight? Possibly. Win? Unlikely. Not against her and five fully Vein-bound Tidewalkers in a Spire chamber.
But Malik hadn't come to win a fight.
He'd come to learn.
---
He smiled faintly. "You want it?"
"Yes," she said simply.
"Then come take it."
And before the Tidewalkers could move, Malik flicked a small vial into the Spire's pool.
It shattered.
Brine-oil mixed with Vein disruptor salts spread instantly, corrupting the Spire's resonance.
The cavern shuddered violently. The Tidewalkers staggered, their connection faltering. Even Elara flinched as the backlash rippled through the chamber.
Malik didn't waste the moment. His Shadow Veil surged, cloaking him fully. In the chaos, he darted back into the tunnels like smoke.
---
By the time Elara stabilized the Spire, Malik was gone.
But as he emerged back into the cold Driftshore night, Malik's expression was not relief.
It was calculation.
> The Spire is real. The cult is moving faster. But they're not ready. Which means I have time… if I move faster than her.
The Anchor fragment pulsed again in his cloak.
"Not yet," Malik whispered. "I'll consume you when it matters most."
And somewhere in the deep Veins, the Keeper's laughter echoed again.