The Hollow Armada

The Argent Whisper cut through oceans that were not oceans—a shimmering sheet of liquid starlight, its surface shattering like glass beneath the thorn-studded hull of the ship. The crew travelled quietly, their half-human bodies etched with the scars of wars lost and won. Lysandra's storm-marbles hummed in their orbits, sending jagged shadows dancing across Garvin's bark-scarred face as he sharpened his axe. Sera was at the prow, her silver-tipped hands dissolved into the ship's living helm. The garden's roots pulsed beneath her palms, whispering their secret voice to her alone.

They're close.

The vacant armada crested the horizon like a horde of locusts sculpted from dead stars. Their ships were distorted parodies of sailing vessels: bows shaped into screaming maws, sails stitched from the flesh of forgotten gods flayed and stretched, hulls pierced with spines of frozen chronology. At their prow rose the flagship—a leviathan of throbbing black ore, its surface battered with runes that predated the giant-kings.

Zmey soared overhead, his wings ruffling the statically charged air. "The fleet devours worlds, Starweaver. Yours is but a crumb."

Sera didn't bat an eyelash. "Then let's make them choke on it."

In the root-chamber, the crew huddled beneath the thorn-vine skull—the remnant of the Dawn Pirates. Sera's reflection shook in the Veil-shard mirror, her silvered veins spreading out like fault lines.

The center of the flagship burns with the same passion as our seed," she declared, tracing the fractal patterns etched into the roots. "If we unbalance it, the fleet disintegrates."

Garvin snorted, his thornvine arm creaking. "And how do we reach it? Swim through a storm of time-spines?"

Lysandra's storm-eyes furrowed. "We ride the maelstrom. My marbles can whip the sea into a tool—buy us passage.".

Zmey's midmost head bowed, wisps of smoke unwinding from his nostrils. "Even should you desecrate the flagship, its core is a gaol. The Old Ones' first defeat. Break it, and you can unleash something even they fear."

"Risk is all we have left," Sera breathed, her gaze drifting to Kael's ghostly constellation that pulsed in the roots.

The crew froze. Somewhere, the garden breathed out.

Dawn was stained with the blood of false suns. Lysandra climbed the mast, her storm-marbles whirling like caged supernovae. Garvin organized the strike force below—six hybrids wielding bark-forged swords and eyes that glowed like dying stars.

"Ready?" Sera yelled, her voice lost in the wind.

Lysandra nodded. "For Kael."

She tossed the marbles.

The sea erupted.

A whirlpool of starlight consumed the lead ships, vessels shattering into icicles of suspended time. Garvin's crew leaped onto the nearest ship, thornvine axes ripping through hulls that wailed like injured beasts. Sera witnessed a deckhand—a boy just sixteen, his flesh stitched with bioluminescent algae—fall to a spine through the gut. His blood ran gold, into the roots.

No time for mourning.

Zmey plunged, his fire-breath blazing a path through the chaos. Sera clung to his scales, the garden's roots holding her in place as they smashed through the hull of the flagship.

The flagship's belly was a cathedral of shadows. Ribs of black ore arched overhead, dripping a substance that hissed like acid. At the chamber's heart floated the core—a sphere of liquid void, its surface reflecting Sera's face as a hundred different monsters.

"Starweaver." The core's voice was the garden's whisper, magnified. "Join us. Together, we'll unmake the chains of creation."

Sera stepped forward, roots erupting from her sleeves. "I've heard better offers."

The core lashed out. Tendrils of antimatter shredded the air, shearing through Zmey's wing. The dragon roared, his blood sizzling as it hit the floor.

"Hurry!" he snarled, clamping his jaws around a thrashing tendril.

Sera plunged her hands into the sphere.

Cold.

Then—memory.

The void showed her the truth.

The heart was not a weapon. It was a child—the first child of the Old Ones, a raw-potential creature born in the Veil's cradle. They had named it The Last Tide, something capable of remaking reality itself. But when it began to dream, its nightmares threatened their control.

And so they locked it away.

Sera saw it all: the child's soul drained to power wars, its cries muffled by runes, its form corrupted into a tool of destruction.

"Let me go," it cried, its voice a chain of defeated stars. "I will take care of you."

Sera hesitated. The Dawn Pirate's words echoed in her mind: Break it, and you will lose something even they fear.

And the agony of the child reflected hers—a heart imprisoned, used, discarded.

"What are you called?" she breathed.

"I am the Last Tide."

Her anchors in her chest pulled out.

The middle shattered.

Reality howled.

The flagship disintegrated, its wreckage spawning black holes that devoured the fleet. The Last Tide burst forth—a being of light and darkness, its form shifting between child, storm, and serpent of a thousand wings.

"Thank you," it whispered, and vanished into the universe.

The mirth of the Old Ones turned to rage.

Back on the Argent Whisper, ash-filled triumph had the flavor of defeat.

Zmey's wings hung, shattered, their scales flayed by antimatter. Garvin's left arm was gone, replaced by thornvine that lived and writhed like a living thing. Lysandra's storm-marbles floated listlessly, their flames dwindled to ember.

But Sera's mutation was worst of all.

The roots had wrapped around her legs, anchoring her to the ship. Silver veins ran up her neck, and her shadow… her shadow no longer matched her shape.

"The garden grows," Zmey grunted, his voice gravelled with pain.

Sera caressed the thorn-vine skull, its grin permanent. "And so do we."

In the root-chamber, Sera found a new carving—a straw-hatted man pointing to a coordinate seared into the Veil-shard. The Last Tide's voice echoed through the roots: "Find me where the chains are weakest."

Lysandra appeared, her storm-eyes fixed. "Where now?"

Sera smiled, her teeth glinting silver. "Where stories go to die."

Above them, the ashes of the hollow fleet twinkled like false stars.