The morning mist clung to the surface of the sea like a blanket of silk, thin enough to see through but thick enough to remember. The Dreadnought Thalassa sat low in the water just off Tawantin's coast, its hull gently rising and falling with the swell, its solar sail folded for departure.
Marya stood at the railing, her leather jacket catching the damp air, her golden eyes fixed on the shoreline. Behind her, the island rose in terraces of green and stone, the temple complex just visible through the thinning mist. Before her, the Rokaku loomed—three ancient sentinels, their massive forms cracked and wounded from the battle.
Cracks spiderwebbed up their legs, spreading like frozen lightning, reaching toward the carved symbols on their foreheads. The triangle pillar leaned slightly now, a subtle shift that would have been unthinkable days ago.
Atlas leaned on the railing beside her, his rust-red arms crossed, his blue eyes following her gaze. He let the silence stretch, giving her space, before finally breaking it.
"What do you think, boss?"
Marya looked over, a questioning expression flickering across her features.
Atlas grinned, that particular grin that meant he was about to say something annoying on purpose. "About the new guy?"
Marya opened her mouth to respond—
The door behind them creaked open.
Jannali emerged, one hand pressed to the side of her head, her face twisted in discomfort. She cursed under her breath—a string of expletives that made Atlas's ears perk up with interest.
"Still pounding?" he asked.
Jannali found a spot at the railing and leaned against it heavily, her third eye throbbing beneath its covering. "Yeah, mate. This bloody headache won't go away. Feels like someone's drumming inside my skull."
Marya's golden eyes studied her with calm concern. "It might fade once we're away from the island. Out of the Florian Triangle."
Jannali nodded, then looked up at the Rokaku. The massive pillars dominated the view, their cracked surfaces catching the weak morning light.
Marya followed her gaze. "Hear anything?"
Jannali was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded slowly.
"Yeah. Drums. Really loud drums."
Atlas straightened slightly. "You've heard drums before. The festival, the rituals—"
"Not like this." Jannali's voice was low, certain. "This is different. It's like... like something just woke up."
Marya's eyes returned to the Rokaku, to the cracks spreading up their legs, to the ancient stone that had stood for eight hundred years.
"Is it them?"
Jannali shook her head, wincing at the movement. "Not really sure. But something's coming. I can feel it."
The screech of a condor split the morning air.
Everyone turned as a silhouette emerged from the mist—wings spread wide, gliding with the effortless grace of a creature that owned the sky. It circled once above the submarine, then dove.
Bō-Zak Kaminosukei shifted in mid-air, his body flowing from condor to human in the space between one heartbeat and the next. He landed on the deck with theatrical flair, a pack slung over one shoulder, his smirk firmly in place.
"Miss me?"
Jannali rolled her eyes so hard she probably strained something.
Atlas shook his head. "We almost left without you."
Bō-Zak's smirk widened. He jerked his head toward Marya, one eyebrow rising in a knowing gesture. "No way. She needs me, remember?"
He winked.
Atlas's expression shifted to something between disgust and reluctant amusement. He shook his head again, harder this time.
Jannali pushed off from the railing, gesturing toward the hatch. "Come on, then. Let's get below before you say something even stupider."
Bō-Zak fell into step beside her, his eyes scanning the submarine's exterior with obvious interest. "I like your style," he commented. "Very... nautical."
Jannali cursed under her breath.
Marya watched them go, a small smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. Then her eyes drifted back to the Rokaku.
The voices of her crew faded into background noise.
---
The world fell away.
Marya stood on water.
Not the deck of the submarine, not the shore of the island—just water, stretching in every direction, dark and still and endless. Mist swirled around her, thick as cotton, thin as thought, moving with a purpose that had nothing to do with wind.
And before her, the Rokaku.
Not as salt pillars. Not as stone.
As flesh.
They rose from the sea like living mountains, their skin wrinkled and ancient, their eyes—gods, their eyes—open and aware and looking at her. The triangle pillar, the square, the circle, no longer symbols but beings, creatures of impossible scale and impossible age.
Marya blinked.
She did not know what to do.
A voice boomed across the water—deep as earthquakes, old as continents, vast as the space between stars.
"The drums of liberation beat again!"
The water rippled with the sound.
"The new dawn is upon us!"
Marya cocked her head, her brow furrowing in that particular way that meant she was cataloging information, filing it away, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
"What happens," she asked, her voice calm despite everything, "when the new dawn comes?"
Another voice answered—different from the first, but just as vast, just as ancient.
"What was old will be new."
The mist swirled.
"The world will emerge, returning the sky to what it once was."
Marya sighed.
It was a very specific sigh—the sigh of someone who had dealt with cryptic prophecies before and was already exhausted by them.
"Riddles," she murmured. "Always riddles."
A third voice boomed, and this one carried something different—something that might have been warning, might have been hope, might have been both.
"The mist of oblivion will be the salvation of the fallen."
Marya opened her mouth to ask—
"Boss?"
Atlas's voice cut through the vision like a blade.
Marya blinked.
She was back on the deck, the mist thinning, the Rokaku stone once more. Atlas stood before her, his brow furrowed with concern.
"Everything okay?"
Marya took a breath. Nodded.
Atlas gestured toward the hatch. "Noodle neck says we're good to go. Running final checks below."
Marya nodded again, turning to follow him. Her eyes found Jannali and Bō-Zak disappearing through the hatch, the former monk still chatting, the former hunter still cursing.
She paused at the threshold.
One more look.
The Rokaku stood against the sky, cracked and wounded and watching. The mist swirled around them, thick as memory, thin as hope.
Marya's golden eyes traced their forms one last time.
Then she stepped through the hatch and closed the door behind her.
The Dreadnought Thalassa hummed to life beneath her feet.
And somewhere in the depths, drums beat on.
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