They left at dawn.
Not as an army.
Not as heroes.
But as an expedition wrapped in careful words.
Seltra called it an academic investigation of "coastal disturbances." Zenith labeled it a cooperative reconnaissance effort. Gracia, reluctant and wary, provided ships under protest.
No one called it what it was.
A race.
Kael stood at the docks of Port Avenrel, a weathered harbor town along Gracia's western coast. Fishing nets swayed from wooden beams. Seabirds circled overhead, their cries sharp against the restless wind.
Beyond the horizon—
Dead Man's Anchor waited.
The ship prepared for departure was a Seltran vessel named The Luminous Quill. Its hull was reinforced with rune-etched plating, faint geometric lines glowing beneath the wood like veins under skin.
Kael adjusted the simple leather straps of his armor. No glowing sigils. No holy insignias.
Just steel.
"You look like you're about to attend your own execution," Tomas remarked.
Kael glanced sideways.
Tomas wore Zenith's white-and-iron cloak now, the rising sun sigil stitched proudly across his chest. The golden shimmer around him had grown stronger in recent days — more stable, more responsive.
"You're not coming," Kael said.
Tomas shook his head. "Orders changed. Zenith is consolidating forces north. They believe something larger will surface."
"Larger than what we fought?"
"Yes."
Kael let that settle.
"And you?" Tomas asked quietly. "You're certain?"
"No," Kael replied honestly.
Tomas smiled faintly. "Good. Certainty is usually a lie."
They clasped forearms — a warrior's farewell.
"If you die," Tomas added, "make it meaningful."
Kael snorted. "If I die, I won't care."
Tomas stepped back as the boarding call sounded.
"Try not to discover you're secretly divine," he called over his shoulder.
Kael watched him disappear into the thinning crowd.
Divine.
The word tasted foreign.
He turned and boarded the ship.
The crew was an uneasy blend.
Seltran scholars and mage-adepts formed the intellectual core, robed and composed. Gracian sailors manned the rigging with pragmatic efficiency. A small detachment of Zenith soldiers stood apart, their presence less cooperative and more watchful.
And then there was Kael.
Unmarked.
Unaffiliated.
Uncertain.
Ilyra stood near the bow, gaze fixed westward.
"You came," she said without turning.
"I said I would."
"Many say that."
Kael leaned against the railing. The sea below churned in uneasy rhythms.
"When do we reach it?" he asked.
"By tomorrow evening, if the currents allow."
He nodded.
"Captain Edrik insisted on embedding observers," she added dryly, glancing toward the Zenith soldiers. "He believes we might 'misinterpret' what we find."
"And will you?"
"Almost certainly."
Kael almost smiled.
The ship lurched gently as it pulled away from port.
Gracia's coastline receded slowly behind them — cliffs and whitewashed buildings shrinking into the distance.
Ahead, mist hovered faintly over the water.
The closer they sailed west, the quieter the sea became.
Not calmer.
Quieter.
Waves still rose and fell, but the usual creak and groan of the ocean felt muffled, as if submerged beneath something unseen.
Kael gripped the railing.
He felt it again.
That subtle pressure in his chest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
By dusk, the mist thickened.
The horizon vanished entirely.
Even the sun dimmed prematurely, swallowed by gray.
Sailors muttered under their breath. One traced a small symbol over his heart before quickly pretending he hadn't.
Dead Man's Anchor did not appear suddenly.
It emerged.
First, as a darker shadow within the fog.
Then as jagged shapes piercing through it.
Black cliffs rose sharply from the sea like broken teeth. No vegetation clung to them. No birds perched upon them.
The island did not look abandoned.
It looked withheld.
Kael stared.
There was something wrong about its proportions — angles slightly too sharp, ridges too symmetrical. As if shaped by intention rather than erosion.
"That's it?" one of the Zenith soldiers muttered.
"That's it," a Gracian sailor confirmed grimly. "We don't sail closer than this."
Ilyra stepped forward. "We must anchor within rune-range."
The sailor paled. "Rune-range?"
"To establish a perimeter."
The crew exchanged uneasy glances.
But coin and contracts overruled superstition.
Slowly, carefully, The Luminous Quill advanced.
As they drew nearer, Kael noticed something else.
The water around the island was darker.
Not from depth.
From stillness.
No fish broke its surface.
No foam gathered at the rocks.
It was as though the sea held its breath.
Then Kael saw them.
Shapes beneath the water.
Not moving.
Waiting.
His hand drifted instinctively toward his sword.
"Do not provoke," Ilyra murmured quietly beside him.
"I wasn't planning to."
"That is not what I meant."
The anchor dropped.
It did not splash loudly.
It vanished beneath the surface with an unsettling silence.
Moments passed.
Then the chain jerked violently.
Several sailors stumbled.
"What in the—"
The chain snapped taut as if caught on something far too large.
The ship groaned.
Zenith soldiers braced themselves. Golden light flickered faintly around them.
"Hold!" the captain shouted.
The water churned.
Black shapes surged upward.
Drowned Strays burst from the sea, more numerous than before. Their slick forms clawed against the hull, scaling it with unnatural speed.
Chaos erupted instantly.
Magic glyphs flared along the ship's sides, intercepting several creatures in explosive bursts of light.
Zenith warriors leapt into action, Zen amplifying their strikes as blades flashed gold.
Kael moved with them.
A Stray vaulted over the railing, landing heavily on deck.
He met it head-on.
Steel clashed against claw. The impact reverberated painfully through his arms.
He pivoted, sliding beneath a second swipe and slashing across its underbelly. Black ichor spilled onto the planks.
Another lunged from behind.
He felt it before he saw it.
That narrowing.
He ducked instinctively, the creature's claws grazing his hair, and drove his elbow into its exposed ribcage before finishing it with a precise upward thrust.
No glow.
No aura.
But precise.
Intent aligned.
The deck was slick with seawater and blood.
Ilyra stood near the center mast, chanting rapidly. Runes spiraled outward from her hands, forming a barrier that sealed breaches along the railing.
"Kael!" she shouted.
He turned.
The sea was rising.
Not in waves.
In mass.
A column of dark water lifted near the bow, twisting unnaturally.
From within it, a larger shape began to form.
Not the same entity as before.
But similar.
Threads of mist wove through the water, shaping a towering silhouette.
The slit-face emerged first.
Kael's breath caught.
It was the same.
Or something like it.
But bigger.
More defined.
Zenith soldiers launched coordinated strikes, golden arcs slicing into the watery mass. The attacks disrupted it briefly, scattering droplets into the air.
Magic followed — concentrated beams of structured force that carved temporary gaps in the forming body.
But the shape reassembled.
"It's anchored!" Ilyra called. "The island is stabilizing it!"
The slit-face turned slowly.
Again.
Toward him.
Why?
Kael's pulse pounded in his ears.
He was not the strongest.
Not the most radiant.
Not the most learned.
Yet its attention found him every time.
The entity extended an arm.
The water obeyed.
A torrent surged toward the deck.
Kael ran toward it.
Not away.
He didn't think.
He didn't calculate.
He simply moved toward the point where its form thickened — where threads tightened.
There.
He leapt onto a coil of rope, launching himself higher.
The world narrowed to a single line again.
He swung.
The blade cut through water—
And struck resistance.
A pulse exploded outward.
The deck shook violently.
The water-column destabilized, splintering apart as Zenith and Seltran forces poured everything into the opening he'd created.
The entity convulsed, its slit widening unnaturally.
For a split second—
Kael saw something inside it.
Not darkness.
Not void.
An eye.
Watching from somewhere deeper.
Ancient.
Calculating.
Then the form collapsed, water crashing back into the sea with thunderous force.
The Strays scattered or dissolved.
Silence returned as abruptly as it had broken.
Kael landed hard on the deck, breath ragged.
The mist around the island swirled violently for several moments—
Then stilled.
No one spoke.
Even the sea seemed subdued.
Ilyra approached slowly.
"You saw it," she said quietly.
Kael nodded once.
"It's not just projecting forms," she murmured. "Something is using them."
"Using them to what?" he asked.
She looked toward the island's cliffs.
"To test."
The word hung heavy between them.
Zenith soldiers regrouped, shaken but standing.
The ship creaked as if reconsidering its proximity.
From the black cliffs ahead, something shifted.
Not outward.
Inward.
As if the island itself had acknowledged their presence.
Kael wiped seawater from his face and stared west.
He had waited his whole life for the world to recognize him.
Now it had.
And it did not feel like blessing.
It felt like invitation.
Or judgment.
The illusion of choice lingered again at the edges of his thoughts.
Had he stepped forward?
Or had something pulled him?
The wind rose suddenly, cutting through the mist.
Dead Man's Anchor loomed closer than before.
And somewhere within its jagged heart—
Something waited.
For him.