Ava
The morning broke with a silence that felt wrong. The storm had passed, yet the sea did not roar, the gulls did not cry, and the air carried a weight I could not name. I woke with my pulse still echoing the whisper that had followed me through the night. It had called my name until the sound no longer felt like sound at all, but something alive that had slipped beneath my skin.
A knock shattered the quiet. I opened the door to find two fishermen, their faces drawn tight, fear buried behind salt and exhaustion. "The harbor," one of them said, his voice breaking. "They are sick. Falling, one after another."
Before I could answer, Casimir appeared from the mist behind them. His coat was damp, his eyes darker than the sea. Nicholas followed close, carrying the scent of steel and rain. "You are not going down there," Cas said at once. "The air is wrong. The water reeks of magic."
"I am the healer," I said simply. "They need me."
Nicholas hesitated. "You cannot help them if the Veil itself has poisoned the tide."
I met Casimir's gaze, steady and unflinching. "Then I will find a way."
He said nothing more, but he followed me.
---
The harbor was quiet when we arrived. Nets hung abandoned from the posts, the ropes slick with brine and blood. A strange shimmer lay over the water, faint silver light shifting beneath its surface. The smell of rot and salt burned my throat. Dozens of fishermen lay on the dock, their skin pale, their veins black and glinting faintly in the sunlight.
I knelt beside the nearest man, pressing my hand to his arm. His skin was too cold, but the pulse was there, faint and uneven. As I closed my eyes, I felt it. The same hum that lived inside me, but tainted. The darkness in him was not natural. It pulsed like a heartbeat that did not belong to him.
When I drew the sickness out, the air changed. A ripple moved across the water, and for a moment the world seemed to breathe with me. Then the man's eyes snapped open, silver light gleaming in their depths. His mouth moved, but the voice that came from it was not his.
"She calls the night by name."
The sound chilled me to the bone. Casimir pulled me back before I could react, his hand gripping my arm tightly.
"Do not touch him again," he said, his voice low but trembling with something I had never heard before... fear.
The fisherman went still. His eyes turned blank once more. Around us, the other sick men began to murmur in unison, voices blending with the sound of the waves. The same phrase echoed through the air, soft, rhythmic, almost a prayer.
"She calls the night by name."
Casimir's hand did not leave mine. His pulse thudded hard against my skin. "He is reaching through them," he said. "Elijah. He is testing his hold."
The name made the air colder. I looked up at the sea, its surface black as ink, shifting like smoke.
"Can he see us?" I whispered.
Casimir's gaze stayed fixed on the horizon. "He can feel us."
Among the sick, a small voice called out. A boy, no older than seven, sat against the wooden posts, his skin slick with sweat. His eyes flickered between silver and blue.
The fishermen had gathered around him as if the child were the only one untouched. His mother held him tightly, whispering prayers that dissolved into the mist.
I knelt beside him. "Can you hear me?"
He turned his head slowly. "They are watching," he said softly.
"Who?"
"The ones in the water." His gaze flicked toward the sea. "They whisper. They say her name and his. They say it will open soon."
My breath caught. "What will open?"
He blinked once, and for a heartbeat his eyes turned gold.
"The gate."
Casimir was at my side in an instant, pulling me back. The boy gasped, his small body convulsing. The water behind us surged against the docks, slamming into the posts. The world seemed to shiver.
Nicholas shouted something, but I could barely hear it over the rush of blood in my ears. The light beneath the water pulsed again, answering the boy's heartbeat. When it faded, he slumped against his mother, unconscious but breathing.
Casimir's voice was rough. "This is no illness. The Veil is trying to speak."
"And using children to do it," Nicholas said grimly. "That thing has no mercy."
I rose to my feet, my hands shaking. "We have to help them. If the Veil is bleeding through, we cannot leave these people to die."
Casimir looked at me with something between anger and anguish. "Every time you touch it, it answers. Every time you try to save someone, it marks you deeper."
"Then let it mark me."
He stepped closer. "Do not say that."
"Why not?" I said, meeting his eyes. "You think I am afraid of it? Of what I already carry?"
His jaw clenched. The wind whipped around us, carrying the smell of salt and something older. "If you keep touching the dark, it will become you, consume you."
"Then I will be the darkness that saves them."
The air tightened between us. The light from the water flared once, bright enough to cast our shadows long and sharp against the dock.
For a moment, everything stilled. Then the waves went still, too still, the silence pressing against my ears until I thought I would break. Every man on the dock stopped breathing at once.
Casimir's eyes widened. "Ava, step back."
Before I could move, one of the fishermen sat upright, his dead eyes finding mine. His lips moved, and through him, a voice spoke that did not belong to this world.
"She is chosen."
Then he fell back, lifeless again.
The silence that followed was worse than any scream. Even the sea held its breath. The black water rippled once, then stilled. No wind, no sound, nothing but the faint echo of those words in my mind.
Casimir's hand found mine again. "We are leaving," he said quietly.
I looked at the bodies, the water, the boy who still breathed. "We cannot leave them like this."
"We cannot save them like this," he said. His voice broke on the last word. "If he can reach through the Veil, then you are already in his sight."
I turned to him. "And you?"
"I have been in his shadows all my life."
The words struck something deep in me. I wanted to ask what he meant, but the sea began to move again, its stillness breaking with a slow, deliberate roll. The mist thickened, swallowing the horizon. A whisper threaded through the fog, low and melodic, brushing against the edges of hearing.
My name, carried by the tide.
Casimir pulled me close. "Do not listen."
But it was too late. I could feel it crawling under my skin, gentle, familiar, a voice that felt like memory. I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the hum beneath my palm.
"It is not calling to me," I said quietly. "It is warning me."
The sea shimmered once more, and then the world went silent again.