The Call of the Deep
The sea hissed against the coast of Thal'Vess like it was breathing. Heavy, humid winds swept ash over the surf. The tide carried whispers only Eleanor could hear.
Ashryn stood beside her, squinting at the gray horizon.
"Nothing but death out there."
"It's not death," Eleanor said, "it's memory."
They had come to find the Third Vein, buried beneath the sea in the sunken ruins of Rhaegis—a city drowned in the Queen's first purge.
Their guide, a gaunt sailor with coral in his beard and one glass eye, spat into the surf.
"Rhaegis doesn't want to be found," Marek muttered. "But if you want to sail to it, there's only one ship mad enough to try."
He gestured to the far dock, where a broken vessel sat half-submerged.
The Hollow Star.
A Ship That Shouldn't Sail
The ship groaned as it moved, its hull patchworked with driftwood and bone. Lanterns of drowned fireflies hung from its rails. The crew? Silent—wrapped in soaked robes, faces hidden behind kelp masks.
"This is cursed," Ashryn whispered.
Eleanor boarded anyway.
As they set sail, the sky darkened. Winds didn't blow—they pulled. The waves didn't crash—they whispered.
Below them, in the black beneath the surface, something swam beside the ship. Long, slow, watching.
By nightfall, stars disappeared. Clouds of bone ash drifted above the mast.
Marek held the wheel with white knuckles. "Rhaegis is near."
Eleanor stood at the prow. Her heartbeat aligned with something deeper. Older.
"Daughter of the Depth," the sea sang. "You come to bleed."
The Tideborne Matron
The city broke the surface like a drowned cathedral.
Black towers covered in coral jutted out from the sea. Barnacles grew like tumors on marble statues. Bells rang from beneath the waves—though no one had touched them.
The Hollow Star scraped along a stone dock.
"Past this gate," Marek said, "lies the temple. But beware—the city has guards. Tideborne."
They entered the flooded halls. Magic in the stone kept the water out, but the air smelled of salt and rotting pearls.
Then the singing began.
A low hum. A song meant for bones, not ears.
A shape crawled from the shadows—a creature with a woman's torso but a body like a sea serpent, arms fused to fins, mouth stretched in a perpetual scream.
The Tideborne Matron.
Ashryn raised her blade—but her eyes glazed.
She whispered, "Mother?"
Her feet moved toward the creature.
Eleanor shouted—but the song hit her, too. It felt like home, like safety. She saw herself as a child. A castle. A mother's arms—
Then blood dripped from her eyes.
"No," she whispered. "You won't take me."
She touched the Vein within her—and let it scream.
A Memory Lost
The Tideborne shrieked.
Water poured from cracks in the ceiling. Coral cracked. Glyphs on the walls flared.
Ashryn collapsed, coughing salt.
The Matron melted into barnacles and blood, vanishing into the walls.
But the price had been paid.
Eleanor staggered back, clutching her head.
"What did you do?" Ashryn gasped.
"I pushed back… used the Vein."
"What did it take?"
Eleanor blinked.
She remembered her mother. Her sword. Her mission.
But—there was a face missing.
A boy. Laughter. A promise.
She couldn't remember his name.
Tears welled.
"I don't know," she whispered.
Kael's Mirror
Far across the sea, Kael Varnoss watched from a mirror made of bone and oil.
He smiled.
"She resists… but not without cost."
He turned to the creature beside him—a thin man in tattered robes, with no mouth and too many eyes.
The Rift-Seer.
"Follow her," Kael said. "Guide her deeper. Let her break the Third Vein."
The Seer bowed.
Then vanished.
The Third Vein
They reached the heart of Rhaegis.
A cathedral half-submerged, tilted on its axis, overtaken by algae and coral.
Inside, the walls moved. The stained glass showed Eleanor, though she had never been there.
At the center, pulsing in a cocoon of bone coral and black stone, floated the Third Vein.
It did not speak.
It dreamed.
As Eleanor stepped forward, her vision faded.
She stood in a city of light. A throne made of coral. Thousands kneeling in silence.
She stood above them. A crown of teeth on her head.
Then darkness.
A whisper from behind.
"Choose."
Her hand reached forward.
Ashryn screamed behind her.
Something stepped into the cathedral.
The Rift-Seer.
Its mouthless head tilted.
Eleanor turned—and the Vein behind her flared to life.
She had not yet touched it.
But it had already marked her.