The storm broke by morning.
It wasn't a gentle clearing, more like a curtain yanked open to reveal a merciless sun and a deceptively calm sea. The air still tasted of salt and steel.
Kiro stood at the bow, eyes narrowing at the glint of shapes on the horizon.
Not waves.Not seabirds.Ships.
Lots of them.
Ral's voice was low but heavy with tension. "That's not a trade convoy. That's a blockade."
Ara joined them, a hand resting casually—too casually—on the hilt of her dagger. "Spectra colors," she said, her voice unreadable. "And look who's leading them."
Kiro followed her gaze to the largest vessel at the blockade's center. Even at this distance, he recognized the silhouette standing near the prow—tall, hooded, utterly still.
"The same one from the rooftops," Kiro muttered.
Ara didn't answer, but the way her jaw tightened was answer enough.
Ral cursed under his breath. "We can't outrun them in open water, and turning back puts us in Nior patrol territory."
"They're here for me," Kiro said.
Ara shot him a sharp look. "You don't know that."
"Yes," Kiro said, his voice harder now. "I do."
The blockade began to shift, ships fanning out into a wide arc, leaving no visible gap. The hooded figure raised one hand, and every vessel slowed to a perfect, coordinated crawl—like predators encircling prey.
Kiro felt the threads before he saw the maneuver. Thick, disciplined lines of mental command, woven between captains and crew.
"They're linked," he said quietly. "Every ship. Every sailor. One mind."
Ara's brow furrowed. "That's… impossible."
"Not if they have a god-thread."
Ral barked orders, and the crew scrambled to adjust sails, but there was no path forward. The blockade tightened.
"Options," Ral snapped.
"Through them," Ara said.
"That's suicide."
"Not if we don't go over the water," she said, looking at Kiro.
It took him a second to realize what she meant. "You want to go under?"
Her smile was thin. "Can you keep them blind long enough?"
Kiro glanced at the blockade, then closed his eyes. The hooded figure's mental presence was vast—an ocean of control, deep and suffocating. But it had a flaw: the same flaw all mental networks had.
Too many threads to watch at once.
He began pulling—not hard, just enough to introduce static, interference, hesitation. Somewhere out there, orders would start repeating, sailors would blink and hesitate, rudders would turn a half-second too late.
"Now!" Ara barked.
Ral swung the ship toward a narrow stretch between two blockade vessels, sails catching the wind. At the last moment, the crew released weighted nets and lines—an old smuggler's trick—and the ship tilted hard, spilling Kiro, Ara, and a half-dozen barrels overboard.
The barrels were tied together with a rope loop, and Ara shoved one into Kiro's arms as the sea closed over their heads.
The world went silent.
Kiro kicked hard, following Ara's dark silhouette through the green-blue murk. His lungs burned almost instantly—he hated open water, hated the way it muffled his sense of threads.
But then he felt them: faint lines in the depths.
Not human threads.Something else.
Ara noticed his hesitation and grabbed his arm, dragging him toward a darker shadow beneath them—a jagged tear in the sea floor, a cave mouth yawning black.
They slipped inside, and the pressure shifted. Air, stale but breathable, met them in a narrow cavern lit only by faint blue fungi clinging to the stone.
Kiro coughed, shoving wet hair from his face. "What is this place?"
"Smuggler's tunnel," Ara said, panting. "Runs under the blockade. Ral knew it existed, but he can't bring a ship through."
Kiro leaned against the rock, catching his breath. "Those threads in the water—"
Ara froze. "You felt something?"
"Yeah. Not human."
She didn't answer right away. Finally, she said, "Then we need to move. Now."
They followed the narrow tunnel, wading waist-deep through cold water. The further they went, the stronger the strange threads became—not taut and purposeful like human minds, but restless, shifting, hungry.
When they emerged into a wider chamber, Kiro saw why.
A massive creature lay coiled in the shallows, scales shimmering faintly, eyes closed.
Its threads wrapped the room like a spider's web.
Ara drew a slow breath. "Sea wyrm. Juvenile, by the size. Don't wake it."
"Too late," Kiro murmured. The wyrm's eyes snapped open—molten gold in the gloom.
For a moment, there was no attack, no movement—just a heavy, alien awareness pressing against Kiro's mind.
It was studying him.
The wyrm's threads were unlike anything he'd touched—raw, ancient, and vast. He felt an instinctive urge to pull away, but instead, he reached in, testing the lines.
The creature let him.
And then—strangely—it shifted aside, sinking deeper into the water, opening the far exit of the chamber.
Ara stared. "It let us pass."
Kiro's voice was low. "It knows me."
They waded on, the wyrm's golden eyes following until the darkness swallowed it.
Ahead, faint daylight shimmered through the water. Ara slipped beneath the surface and swam through, Kiro on her heels, until they burst up in the shadow of a rocky outcrop—well past the blockade line.
The sea was open. The hooded figure's ships were nowhere in sight.
Ara pulled herself onto the rock, water streaming from her hair. "We're clear. For now."
Kiro didn't join her immediately. He was staring back toward the blockade, at the place where the wyrm had been.
Not fear.Not anger.
Recognition.