The tide had risen by nightfall, dragging its weight across the pier with the steady, ceaseless rhythm of something older than men. The horizon had vanished into haze again, the sky a dim wash of indigo streaked with faint bruises of cloud. Lanterns flickered along the warped boards, their light pale and weary, like dying stars.
Ira sat apart, hunched near one of the thicker pylons, his back pressed against it for support. The ache in his body had dulled to a simmering throb, though each shift still reminded him of bruises buried deep beneath his skin. He breathed slow, careful, because every inhale was a knife dragged across tired ribs. Yet there was steadiness now—foreign, strange. Not freedom, exactly, but no longer chains either.
The map lay folded beside him.
It had been quiet since his collapse, though its presence was not absent. Not anymore. It lingered like a heartbeat under his own, steady and patient, waiting for him to acknowledge it. He found himself glancing at the roll of parchment as if it might move of its own accord, coil like a serpent and strike.
Rust was gone to drink or sulk—likely both. Zadie lingered further down the pier, sharpening her blade against the railing in the dim lantern glow. Sparks flared and died with each pass of whetstone against steel. She did not look at him, not directly, though Ira could feel her awareness like a drawn bowstring.
"Why wait?" he muttered under his breath, low enough that only the sea might hear. "If you've chosen, why not finish it?"
The answer came not in words but in the shifting of the night around him. The lantern flame guttered, dimmed. The mist thickened, swallowing the pier, the sea, even the stars above, until only he remained. The air turned heavy with brine and iron.
Then came the voice.
Ira Finch.
It whispered from the cracks in the boards, from the hollow between his ribs, from the cold wind curling around his throat. It was not the hiss of chains this time, not the lash of command. It was smoother now, deliberate, like a judge reciting a verdict already decided.
"You waited long enough," Ira rasped, forcing his voice steady though his palms sweated.
I waited for you to stand. A pause, almost indulgent. You fought me, and you bled for it. Yet when the time came, you chose defiance. I would not bind myself to a coward, nor to a vessel too weak to carry me.
The mist shifted, coalescing at the edges of his vision into shapes that were not shapes—threads that writhed and dissolved before his eyes could name them. For a moment he thought he saw a hand, pale and long-fingered, reaching through the fog, before it slipped away again.
Ira clenched his jaw. "And what exactly is it you want bound?"
Not want. Require.
Something brushed against his chest, not physical but weighty all the same, pressing down until his heart stuttered against his ribs. The rhythm inside him—the steady thrum he had felt since waking—beat faster, aligning with the unseen pulse of the map.
Blood for path. Breath for voice. You will carry me, and I will bear you where no man treads unbidden. This is the pact.
He let the words sink in. The phrasing was ceremonial, but the danger was real. "And if I refuse?"
A ripple of laughter, soft as a tide curling against stone. You already did, Ira Finch. That is why I offer again—not as leash to dog, but as blade to hand. Do not mistake me for mercy. This is necessity. Yours and mine.
He drew in a sharp breath, ribs protesting. His gaze slid to where Zadie's silhouette moved in the distance. She hadn't noticed the mist swallowing him whole. She was sharpening steel as though nothing had changed. He envied her ignorance in that moment.
"You've given me little choice," he muttered.
Choice is illusion. Will is truth. Say it, and be bound.
The mist pressed tighter, crowding against him, filling his lungs. He felt his throat burn, the taste of salt sharp against his tongue. His hands twitched, fingers curling into fists, but there was no blade, no fight here. Only surrender—or something perilously close to it.
He closed his eyes. "Fine. But you'll hear this once, and once only. I will not be your thrall."
No, Ira Finch. The voice thickened, weightier now, curling around his full name like an oath. You will be my partner. And I, yours.
The boards beneath him shuddered. A crack of light split the mist, not bright but piercing, spilling across the folded map. The parchment unfurled of its own accord, edges curling outward as though caught in a wind only it could feel.
Lines bled across the page—ink flowing like veins, pulsing in rhythm with his own heartbeat. Rivers, mountains, coasts drawn in jagged strokes, none he recognized. The map shifted and rearranged itself as though searching for a form that suited him.
Pain lanced his chest. He doubled over, gasping, as the pulse within him fused with the one on the page. He felt something reach through him, weaving threads between blood and ink, stitching marrow to parchment. His body convulsed once, twice, and then it stilled.
The mist parted.
He was not on the pier anymore.
Stone walls rose around him, slick with damp, lit only by the glow of the map hovering before him. Shadows stretched too long, curling like smoke where they should have ended. A chamber, circular, carved of rock older than words.
At the center, a pedestal stood. Upon it, an empty scabbard of black iron.
The binding is done. The voice filled the chamber, resonant now, not whisper but declaration. Your blood is mine, my path is yours. Together we tread where no man has returned the way they entered.
Ira staggered forward, catching himself against the cold stone wall. His chest still throbbed with the weight of the bond, but there was no fight left in it—only a strange equilibrium, as though he had learned a rhythm to walk with.
He glanced at the scabbard. "What's that?"
A reminder. You may sheath me when the burden grows too great. But empty hands cannot carry destiny's fervour.
Before he could answer, the chamber rippled, stone bleeding into fog, the pedestal dissolving like sand in tide. The world collapsed inward—
—and he was back on the pier, gasping, one hand braced against the pylon.
The lanterns flared again. The mist lifted as though nothing had stirred.
Zadie's whetstone stilled. She was watching him now, eyes narrowed, blade halfway raised as though she had felt the shift even without seeing it.
"Your wounds reopened," she said flatly Her hands reapplying bandages to Ira's chest. Yet her hands didn't move with the normal speed or precision of a doctor but more of a slow methodic movement like someone who had stumbled upon something they lost and didn't even knew they lost.
Ira wiped sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. His mouth was dry, his body still humming with the echo of the vow. He looked down at the map, lying open on the boards beside him. The ink still pulsed faintly, as though alive.
"Yeah," he said at last, voice hoarse. "Sorry to bother you again."
Zadie's gaze lingered on him, sharp as the steel in her hands. Yet soft with a sense of unspoken care. She opened her mouth as if to press further, then stopped. Her jaw tightened. She slid the blade back into its sheath with a clean snap.
"Don't sweat it Mr. Finch," she said quietly. "I'm just repaying a deed." She said yet her heartbeat said more than her voice could ever.
He met her eyes, something heavy and unspoken hanging between them. Then, for the first time since the whispers began, he didn't feel entirely alone.
The map pulsed once beneath his hand. Silent. Watching. Waiting.