(Arc 2: The Vein War Prelude)
Driftshore burned under a moonless sky.
The smell of brine and charred wood mingled with the screams of the dying. From the broken docks, plumes of pale-blue fire hissed as Tidewalker squads purged the slums, searching for one man. Malik Korēn had become more than a thief now; he was a shadow stitched into the whispers of the Vein lattice, an anomaly no faction could ignore.
From the roof of an abandoned fishery, Malik crouched, silent as a reef predator. Beside him, Rin shifted uneasily, her dagger clutched in white-knuckled hands. The Resonance Codex lay open on the wooden planks, glowing faintly like a captured piece of moonlight. Its pages were not mere ink and paper—they were etched with living resonance, shifting symbols like schools of fish scattering from a predator.
Below, the streets were chaos. Tidewalkers dragged smugglers out of hiding, executing them for information. Cultists of the Drowned Moon ambushed squads in sudden strikes, vanishing into the flooded alleys. The mainland envoy's troops marched in confused formations, unsure who their real enemies were.
It was a perfect storm.
Rin's voice was taut. "She's burning half the damn port just to flush you out. Elara's gone mad."
Malik didn't answer immediately. His eyes traced the Codex's shifting symbols. It never spoke in plain words. It hummed. It showed fragments, glimpses of unseen paths. Sometimes it felt like the book was looking back at him, judging.
Tonight, the fragments aligned again.
Vein diagrams danced across the page. He followed the currents with his mind, mapping their flow beneath Driftshore's foundations. It led to familiar tunnels… then beyond the city's reach, to the edge of the sea.
The Saltspire Ruins.
Malik touched the shards hidden in his cloak. They vibrated faintly, almost eagerly.
So the whispers were true. The third shard was there.
"Predictable," Malik murmured finally. His voice was calm, almost bored.
Rin blinked. "Predictable? Malik, she's throwing everything she has at Driftshore. That's not predictable—that's a death trap. If we stay, we'll get boxed in between three armies. And the Saltspire? It's cursed. Everyone who goes near it drowns, or worse."
Malik closed the Codex with a soft snap. "Desperation makes her loud. Loud makes her predictable. She'll chase smoke while we take the real prize."
Rin grimaced. "And what if the prize kills you?"
"Then I'll die knowing more than she does."
He stood, slipping the Codex into his satchel. The shards in his cloak thrummed with anticipation.
---
The Envoy's Dying Words
They moved silently through the burning streets, taking routes only the oldest smugglers knew. Driftshore was dying. Malik could smell it in the air—blood, wet stone, rotting fish, and the acrid tang of Vein rituals.
As they cut through a narrow alley, Rin suddenly froze.
A man was chained to a post, his body beaten and bloodied. He wore the envoy's insignia, though most of his uniform was in tatters.
When he saw Malik, his eyes flared with faint hope. "Korēn—!" he rasped, coughing blood.
Malik regarded him with the same detached look he might give a wounded animal.
The soldier struggled to speak. "They… they're moving inland. The envoy—damn fools—they think they can seize the Vein lattice first. But the cult… the cult has already infiltrated them. There's a mole. You have to—"
His words were cut short.
A shadow flickered above. Malik moved on instinct, shoving Rin aside. A harpoon whistled down from the rooftop, impaling the soldier clean through the chest.
Blood sprayed the alley walls. The soldier twitched, then went limp.
Malik's dagger flashed upward in the same motion. For a split second, he caught a glimpse of the assassin—a masked Tidewalker—before the figure vaulted into the fog, vanishing like a wraith.
Rin swore under her breath. "We're being hunted from both sides now."
Malik ignored the corpse and knelt. The soldier still clutched something in his stiffening hand—a torn scrap of parchment.
He pried it free.
It was a piece of an old map. On it was a single symbol, etched in a style identical to the diagrams in the Resonance Codex.
Saltspire. Again.
So the envoy had been moving toward it as well. They'd been played into the same trap.
"Malik," Rin pressed, voice trembling slightly, "what do we do?"
He tucked the map away and started walking.
"We move faster than the trap can close."
---
Shadows on the Water
They reached a hidden launch beneath the docks. The small skiff rocked gently in the dark tide, its hull carved with faint Vein lines.
Malik placed the two shards on the prow. Immediately, the air grew heavier, as though the sea itself was holding its breath. The water's surface began to ripple unnaturally, tiny waves forming even in the windless night.
Rin eyed them warily. "You're going to… test it?"
Malik's eyes narrowed. "If I don't, we die blind."
He pressed his palm against the shards.
The world shifted.
Resonance flooded his body like liquid fire. He saw visions—not his own memories, but echoes imprinted in the shards.
The Saltspire before its fall: a spiral tower of coral and bone, glowing like a beacon. A ritual chamber filled with chanting voices. The hum of resonance so deep it felt like drowning in sound. And then—black water, screaming, shattering.
In the fragments was also a pattern.
Not just power. A technique.
The shards whispered it into him: Shadow Vein Step.
Malik opened his eyes slowly.
This was different. Unlike the crude resonance surges he'd forced before, this was refined. It let him align momentarily with the Vein lattice itself—making his body semi-intangible, capable of slipping through obstacles in the blink of an eye.
Perfect for infiltration. Perfect for escape.
A predator's trick.
Rin shivered. "What… what did it show you?"
"Enough to reach the Saltspire before they do."
He pushed the skiff off the dock.
---
The Saltspire Ruins
They sailed under a sky blacker than pitch.
The Saltspire appeared first as a silhouette, then as a monstrous jagged fang rising from the sea. Half-submerged, broken walkways jutted out from the ruin at impossible angles. Strange bioluminescent algae crawled across its walls like veins, pulsing faintly as if the ruin was still alive.
As they neared, the shards in Malik's cloak vibrated so strongly Rin could feel it. The resonance here was wrong. The sea was too still. No wind, no waves—like the ocean itself was holding its breath.
"This place…" Rin whispered, her voice hollow. "…it feels wrong."
Malik stepped off the skiff onto the reef. He didn't need to say it. It was wrong.
The ruin's corridors were silent. Barnacle-encrusted pillars stretched into the darkness. Strange carvings lined the walls—spirals of eyes, drowned figures reaching upward, glyphs in a language no human tongue had spoken for centuries.
And beneath it all, the faint hum of the Keeper's will.
The shards pulsed harder. The third shard was here.
---
Elara's Arrival
But they weren't alone.
From the shadowed reefs beyond, torches flickered. Dozens of Tidewalkers moved in disciplined silence.
And at their head was Elara Volkov.
She wore ceremonial Vein armor of bone and kelp-metal, her hair tied back in a crown braid, her eyes glowing faintly with resonance. She had touched the Keeper's power too. It clung to her like a second skin.
She'd tracked him.
Rin cursed under her breath. "We can't fight her and a dozen Tidewalkers."
Malik's lips curved faintly. "We won't fight. We'll move faster."
He touched the shards again.
Resonance flared.
Shadow Vein Step.
---
Through the Veins
For a split second, Malik's body blurred like smoke. The ruin's walls seemed to open, Vein currents guiding him forward.
He slipped through.
In the blink of an eye, he was inside the heart of the Saltspire.
Rin scrambled after him the old-fashioned way, squeezing through a cracked archway just as the Tidewalkers reached the ruin's entrance.
The chamber ahead was massive, cathedral-like. Bioluminescent coral spirals lined the walls. At its center floated a coral heart encased in crystalline lattice, pulsing faintly.
And within that heart—
The third shard.
---
But as Malik stepped closer, the air grew heavy.
The Keeper was here.
Not a fragment. Not a whisper. Its presence filled the ruin like a tide rising in his skull.
"Three shards… awaken the lattice…"
The crystal casing cracked. The coral heart throbbed like a living thing.
From the shadows at the edge of the chamber, another group emerged.
Drowned Moon cultists.
They wore kelp-draped robes, faces hidden behind barnacle masks. At their head was a tall figure with a coral crown fused into his skull—an Arch-Deacon of the cult. He raised an ancient Vein sigil, chanting in a language that made the ruin tremble.
So they had come too.
---
The Trap Closes
Outside, Elara's voice rang through the chamber as her Tidewalkers stormed in.
Inside, the cultists began their ritual. Black water started seeping from cracks in the floor, forming tendrils that coiled toward the shard.
And Malik stood between them all.
He understood in that instant:
If he took the shard, it wouldn't just give him power. It would unlock the lattice key. The ruin itself would awaken. And every faction here—Elara, the cult, even the Keeper—would converge on him.
Rin's voice was trembling. "Malik… we need to move. Now."
Elara's voice echoed closer. "Korēn! Don't you dare!"
The cult leader's chant grew louder, summoning a wave of black resonance water.
And then—
The Keeper's voice pressed directly into Malik's skull, suffocating and sweet.
"Take it. Let the tide claim you."
---
Malik smiled faintly.
Then, without hesitation—
He reached for the shard.