They called it the Fracture. The day the sky split and pieces of other worlds began to bleed into their own.
Decades later the cities still bore its scars. Towers leaned beside hollow ruins, and at night faint lights sometimes shimmered where no lamps burned. Most people learned not to stare at them for too long.
Nora Vale had grown up in one of those scarred cities. She worked as a courier along the docklands, knew every shortcut through the rain-slick alleys, and had a stubborn streak that had kept her alive so far. Brave enough to talk back to dock guards, but not trained for real fights.
She always carried a short silver blade. It was thin and plain, the kind of thing you might call a keepsake rather than a weapon. Her mother had pressed it into her palm before disappearing without a word, and Nora had never let it out of reach since.
On this night the rain came down hard, drumming on the rusted metal roofs. The streetlamps near the bay flickered and went dark one by one as Nora passed beneath them. The air felt charged, as if the city itself was holding its breath.
She had meant to go straight home. But somewhere between the courier depot and her stairwell she felt something strange. Not a voice, not even a thought — more like the way the tide pulls at a boat that isn't tied down. A subtle drag in her chest, urging her toward the waterfront.
It made no sense. She didn't like Pier Thirteen. Nobody did. The old pier had been condemned after the black water surged in from the Fracture years ago. Even smugglers avoided it.
Yet her steps kept falling in that direction. It felt foolish to follow the sensation, but even more foolish to ignore it.
The mist was thick when she reached the pier. The wood planks were slick and splintered beneath her boots.
A figure stood at the very edge, his dark coat stirring in the rain-driven wind. For a moment she thought he might be a fisherman, but there were no nets at his feet, no lantern to light his path.
He turned his head slightly as if noticing her approach, though she had been silent. His eyes caught what little light there was — pale and distant, like the reflection of a moon that didn't belong to this world.
"Bad night for a walk," he said, his voice even, carrying easily over the sound of the rain.
Nora stopped a few paces short. "I could say the same for you."
That was all the conversation they had before the water beneath the pier shuddered.
It rose without warning. A jagged thing of shadow and claw, hauling itself out of the black waves as though the sea had spat it out.
Nora's first instinct was to run. Her second was to reach for the silver blade in her boot. Her hands trembled, but she drew it anyway.
The stranger moved faster. He stepped forward as the creature lunged and met it with a long, curved sword that glimmered faintly as it cut. One smooth strike split the thing across the chest, scattering a spray of sparks that hissed out against the rain.
Another shadow leapt from the side. This one veered toward Nora. She stumbled back and slashed blindly. The blade barely grazed the creature, but where it touched, the flesh sizzled and the beast reeled, shrieking before sliding into the sea and dissolving.
When the last of the creatures vanished, the pier was empty again except for the two of them and the rain.
Nora stood with her blade still raised, breathing hard. The stranger glanced at the knife and then at her, one eyebrow tilting in the faintest suggestion of curiosity.
"Silver," he said. "Good choice."
"I wasn't exactly choosing," she shot back, trying to sound steadier than she felt.
That hint of a smile appeared again, sharp but not unkind. "Keep it close. Not that it can save you from what's about to come."
Before she could ask what that meant, he turned and walked into the rain, vanishing into the mist without a backward glance.
For a while Nora stood there, feeling the rain seep through her jacket, listening to the distant groan of the tide. The pull in her chest had faded, but a new unease lingered.
She shifted her grip on the blade and noticed something she hadn't before: a faint crescent-shaped shimmer just beneath the skin of her left wrist, like the trace of moonlight on wet sand. It wasn't a wound, nor a scar. It pulsed once, softly, then stilled.
She yanked her sleeve down quickly. In the docklands, that mark meant being Riftbound; the kind the authorities kept on watchlists and the street kids called Drifters, the ones rumored to be claimed by the rift.
Nora had spent her whole life pretending the stories were just stories. Now she wasn't so sure.
She turned away from the pier and hurried home, her thoughts racing as the rain swept the empty streets.
In the dark water beneath the pier, faint ripples of violet light spread outward as if something below had woken from a long sleep.