The first drop of seawater hit the scarred wooden countertop, and Elara Wynn's world dissolved into blood.
One moment she was wiping down the espresso machine, the sharp, comforting scent of grounds filling her nose. The next, a fisherman's sodden coat sleeve had dripped onto the varnished wood. The saltwater touched her skin.
A vision, sharp as shattered glass, slammed into her.
Not water. Blood. The entire harbor, churning, viscous, and red under a bruised purple sky. The screams aren't human; they're the groaning protest of moored ships being crushed in a fist of tide. And him. The man with storm-grey eyes, standing at the end of the main pier, his arms raised not in surrender but in summons. Chains of water, solid and cruel, are wrapped around his wrists, pulling him under the crimson waves. He turns his head, and his gaze locks on hers—not in the vision, but through it. He sees her. He mouths a single, silent word. A name. Her name.
"Elara?"
The voice, her manager's, was a distant buzz, a fly against a windowpane. The world snapped back into focus with a nauseating lurch. The coffee grinder's whine. The hiss of steam. The chatter of early morning customers at The Salty Bean, all oblivious to the apocalypse she'd just witnessed brewing in a single, errant drop.
"Elara, you okay? You've been staring at that spot for a solid minute. You're white as a sheet."
Mira, her roommate, was suddenly beside her, a tray of dirty mugs in her hands. Her brow was furrowed, her artist's eyes missing nothing. Elara could feel the weight of the memory-ink on Mira's skin, the subtle hum of power in the intricate tattoos that coiled up her arms, but that was a secret for another day. Right now, the only secret that mattered was the one screaming in her head.
"I'm… I'm fine," Elara managed, her voice a rasp. She grabbed a rag and scrubbed furiously at the droplet on the counter, as if she could erase the vision with it. "Just… a long night. Didn't sleep much." The lie was ash in her mouth. She hadn't had a vision this violent, this real, since she was a child. Since they'd called her a liar, a freak, and sent her away.
Mira's look said she didn't believe a word, but she let it go. "Well, caffeinate. The fog's rolling in something fierce. Looks like the whole ocean decided to pay us a visit."
Elara turned to the large window that faced the Forgotten Harbor. Mira wasn't wrong. The fog was a living thing, a grey-white wall swallowing the fishing boats, the bobbing buoys, the distant lighthouse beam. It muffled the world, turning the familiar docks into something spectral and unknown. It felt like a shroud. Or a warning.
She busied herself with orders on autopilot, her hands performing the familiar ballet of grinding, tamping, and pouring while her mind reeled. The man with the storm eyes. Who was he? She'd never seen him before. And the chains… they weren't metal. They were made of water, impossibly solid, living. And the blood. God, the blood-tide. It felt… hungry.
The bell above the door jangled, cutting through her panic. A gust of wet, frigid air swept in, carrying the smell of salt, diesel, and something else… something ozone-sharp, like the air after a lightning strike.
A man stood silhouetted in the doorway.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, his posture rigidly straight even as he seemed to lean into the doorframe for support. He wore a dark pea coat, worn at the elbows and epaulets, but it wasn't standard issue. Not anymore. It was the coat of a man who had been stripped of his rank but couldn't bring himself to strip away the identity. His hair was dark, damp from the fog, and his face… He was handsome in a way that was all hard lines and shadows, like a cliff face eroded by a relentless sea. But it was his eyes that stopped her breath.
Storm-grey. Exactly as she'd seen them.
Recognition was a physical blow. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. The cup she was holding slipped from her suddenly numb fingers and shattered on the tile floor. The sound was gunshot-loud in the cozy café.
Every customer turned. He did too.
His gaze swept the room, dismissive at first, a man used to assessing threats and finding none. Then it landed on her. And stopped.
Something flickered in those grey depths. Not recognition, not quite. But a deep, unsettling intensity. A focus. It was the same look he'd given her in the vision. As if he could see the chaos swirling inside her. As if he could see the blood-tide reflected in her own wide, terrified eyes.
He took a step inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. The ambient noise of the café seemed to dampen, as if the fog had followed him in. He moved with a predator's grace that was at odds with the slight limp in his right leg.
"Coffee," he said, his voice a low rumble, like distant thunder. It wasn't a request. It was a command, stripped of the courtesy that usually accompanied one.
Elara couldn't move. She was rooted to the spot, her hand still outstretched where the cup had been. Run, every instinct screamed. This is him. The man from the vision. The summoner of the storm.
Mira, ever the savior, stepped into the breach. "Sure thing. Black? Latte? We've got a pumpkin spice that'll really—"
"Black," he interrupted, his eyes never leaving Elara's face. "Strong."
Finally, Elara's body unlocked. She turned away, fumbling for a new cup, her back to him. She could feel his gaze like a physical weight between her shoulder blades. Breathe, just breathe. He doesn't know. He can't know. But the vision said otherwise. He saw you.
She poured the coffee with a hand that trembled only slightly. The rich, dark aroma usually grounded her. Now it did nothing. All she could smell was the ozone and salt that clung to him.
She turned and placed the cup on the counter. He had moved closer, standing right across from her. He didn't reach for the drink.
"You're new in the harbor," he stated. Another command disguised as observation.
"I've… I've been here a while," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She forced herself to meet his eyes. Up close, they were even more unsettling. They weren't just grey; they were the color of a winter sea, and just as cold. And deep within them, something churned. Something as turbulent as the vision she'd seen.
"I haven't seen you," he said.
"I tend to keep to myself."
A ghost of something—amusement? contempt?—flickered on his lips. "A wise policy. This harbor… it has a way of swallowing those who draw too much attention." His gaze dropped to her hands, still clutched together on the counter. "You're shaking."
Before she could respond, a violent shudder ran through him. He gripped the edge of the counter, his knuckles bleaching white. A low, pained sound escaped him, swallowed by the café's chatter. For a split second, his eyes screwed shut, and Elara saw it—a faint, phosphorescent shimmer, like the ghost of chains, flickering around his wrists before vanishing.
The chains. Water-chains.
The vision was real. It was all real.
When his eyes opened again, the cold control was back, but she'd seen the crack in his armor. The torment beneath.
"Rough night?" she heard herself ask, the question absurd given the circumstances.
His smile was a bitter, thin line. "You could say that. The sea was… restless." He finally picked up the coffee, draining half of it in one scalding gulp. He didn't even flinch. "What's your name?"
"Elara." The name felt like a confession.
"Elara," he repeated, and the way he said it, low and deliberate, made her name sound like a foreign word, a secret. It was the same way he'd mouthed it in her vision. "I'm Calver. Rhys Calver."
He didn't offer a hand. He just watched her, as if waiting for a reaction to the name. She had none to give. It meant nothing to her. Yet.
He placed a few coins on the counter, far more than the coffee was worth. "I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again, Elara."
It wasn't a promise. It was a threat. Or a prophecy.
He turned and limped out of the café, swallowed by the fog as quickly as he'd appeared. The room seemed to exhale, the noise level rising back to its normal hum. Life went on. But for Elara, the axis of her world had just tilted irrevocably.
She looked down at the coins he'd left. Among them was something else. Not money. A small, smooth, greyish stone, worn perfectly round by the sea. It was warm to the touch. And as her fingers closed around it, another micro-vision, a fleeting echo, hit her.
The feel of that same stone, clutched in a different hand—a smaller, younger hand—as waves crashed on a shore at night. A voice, desperate and familiar, whispering, "Don't forget me. Don't let it forget you."
"What did Captain Broody want?" Mira asked, coming up beside her and nodding at the stone. "Paying in pebbles now?"
"Captain?" Elara's blood ran cold.
"Yeah. Rhys Calver. Well, former captain. Big scandal a few years back. Mutiny on his ship, the Sea Fury. Someone died. He got a dishonorable discharge. Word is he's been… different since. Cursed, the old dockworkers say." Mira shrugged, as if curses were just another piece of harbor gossip. "Comes and goes with the storms. Nobody really sees him. Until now, apparently."
A mutiny. A death. A curse. The pieces clicked into a terrifying mosaic. The man from her vision was a pariah. A killer, maybe. And he was tied to the sea, just as she was. Tied to the coming blood-tide.
She clutched the sea stone, its warmth a stark contrast to the ice in her veins. The fog outside pressed harder against the windows, a palpable, hungry presence. Elara knew, with a certainty that chilled her soul, that this wasn't over. Rhys Calver hadn't just walked into her café. He'd walked into her vision. And he'd be back.
The tide was turning. And she was the only one who could see the blood on the horizon.