Chapter 7:Whispers in the Port of Shadows

The Silent Dominion stank of salt and rotting fish, its docks teeming with sailors hawking contraband from lands not yet named on any map Kael knew. The group kept to the shadows, cloaks pulled tight against the biting sea wind. Lysara trailed behind, her small hand clutching Seraphine's sleeve. Since Varynth Keep, the girl had spoken little, but her eyes—once bright with defiance—now held a hollow gleam, as if she'd glimpsed the void beneath the world.

"We need supplies," Borin grumbled, eyeing a spice merchant's stall. "And ale. Gods, I'd kill for ale."

"You'll kill for nothing," Kael said flatly. His scar ached, a constant reminder of the shard's corruption. It had been three days since he'd last unleashed its power, and the restraint felt like holding a live coal in his fist. "Dominion ports have eyes. We move fast. We move quiet."

Vessa nudged him, nodding toward a tavern sign creaking in the wind: The Drowned King. Its wood was carved with a crown submerged in waves—a symbol Kael had seen before, etched into the Obsidian Throne's shard. "Coincidence?" she murmured.

"Nothing's coincidence here," Lirael said, her gaze lingering on the sign. "The Drowned King is an old legend. A ruler who traded his kingdom to the sea to save his people. The throne consumed him anyway."

"Cheery tale," Borin said. "Let's hope their ale's better."

Inside, the tavern was a cave of smoke and whispers. Sailors with tattoos of tentacled gods hunched over tankards, while hooded figures traded vials of glowing liquid that smelled of burnt sugar and decay. Kael claimed a corner table, his dagger discreetly loosened in its sheath.

A server approached—a gaunt man with milky eyes and a necklace of shark teeth. "What'll it be?"

"Food. Whiskey. No questions," Kael said, sliding a silver stag across the table.

The man pocketed the coin. "You're the ones they're hunting. The Duskwardens'll pay a fortune for your bones."

Before Kael could react, Vessa's dagger pressed into the server's ribs. "And you'll die before spending a copper of it."

The man chuckled. "I like you. The whiskey's poison, by the way. Try the rum."

As he slipped away, Lysara stiffened. "That man… his shadow doesn't match."

Kael followed her gaze. The server's shadow stretched too long, too thin, its edges writhing like smoke. Duskwarden spy.

"We need to go. Now."

Too late.

The tavern door slammed shut. A figure stepped from the shadows—a woman in a cloak of stitched-then sails, her face hidden behind a mask of polished abalone. When she spoke, her voice was the rasp of a ship's hull dragging against stone.

"Kael Varynth. The sea whispers your name. Come. The Tidebreaker demands an audience."

The woman's abalone mask glinted like a shard of moonlight as she swung her cutlass. Kael parried, the clash of steel ringing through the tavern. Fire from the shattered lantern licked up the walls, casting frenzied shadows over the fray.

"Borin! The door!" Kael barked, ducking a swipe meant for his throat.

Borin hurled a table at the tavern entrance, splintering wood and trapping two Duskwarden enforcers beneath. "Not my best work, but it'll hold!"

Vessa danced through the chaos, daggers slicing tendons and severing weapon hands. Her movements were fluid, precise—a street brawler's grace honed in Eldervale's gutters. She disarmed a sailor with a belaying pin, cracked his skull, and tossed the pin to Seraphine. "For the zealot!"

Seraphine caught it, her Dawn Pact pendant swinging as she shielded Lysara. A Duskwarden lunged, crystalline dagger aimed for the girl's heart. Seraphine blocked, holy fire erupting from her free hand. The attacker's mask melted, revealing hollow eye sockets filled with glowing brine.

"What are you?" Seraphine hissed.

The enforcer laughed, saltwater dripping from its lips. "The Tidebreaker's heralds."

Kael pressed the masked woman toward the bar, her cutlass screeching against his dagger. Up close, her cloak reeked of kelp and iron, and her strikes carried the weight of the deep. "You fight like a rat cornered on a sinking ship," she taunted.

"And you talk too much," he said, feinting left before driving his knee into her ribs.

She staggered, mask slipping to reveal gills fluttering along her neck. Not human. Not anymore.

Lysara's scream cut through the din. A tendril of shadow—living shadow—had coiled around her ankle, yanking her toward a fissure in the floorboards. Seraphine hacked at it with the belaying pin, but the darkness regrew like severed roots.

"The girl comes with us," the Tidebreaker rasped. "The Drowned King's throne hungers."

Kael's scar flared. The Obsidian shard's power surged, unbidden, and he pulled. Shadows erupted from the floor, swallowing the tavern in pitch-black tendrils.

When the darkness receded, the Tidebreaker and her heralds were gone. The tavern lay in ruins, its patrons fled or dead. Lysara knelt, trembling, her fingers brushing a scorched symbol on the floor—a crown submerged in waves, now cracked by Kael's power.

"You… summoned the throne's shadows," Lirael said, her voice unsteady. "You're stronger than I feared."

"And you're hiding more than you've said," Kael shot back, wiping blood from his split lip. "Who is the Tidebreaker? What does she want with Lysara?"

Lirael's gaze drifted to the symbol. "The Tidebreaker serves the Leviathan Church. They believe the Drowned King will rise when his throne is fed royal blood. Lysara's blood."

Borin kicked a shattered vial of glowing liquid. "And this swill? Smells like a brothel fire."

"Stolen magic," Lirael said. "Distilled from the Burner's flame. The Duskwardens sell it to fund their hunt for the throne's shards. It's rotting this city from within."

Vessa crouched beside the dead enforcer, prying the crystalline dagger from its grip. The blade's hilt bore a kraken sigil. "Leviathan Church. Same as the mask."

Seraphine turned to Lysara. "How did you know the server's shadow was wrong?"

The girl stared at her palms. "I… don't know. It was like the throne showed me. Like it wanted me to see."

Lirael stiffened. "The shard you touched in Varynth Keep—it didn't just mark you. It changed you. You're a conduit now. A bridge between the thrones."

Outside, the wind carried the briny stench of low tide. The Eclipse loomed on the horizon, its cannons dormant but watchful. Kael gripped the kraken-carved dagger, its edge humming with unnatural sharpness. "We need leverage. Something to force Illys and the Tidebreaker into the light."

"The Shark-Kissed," Vessa said, nodding to the server's corpse. Its shark-tooth necklace gleamed in the firelight. "They control the black-market routes. If the Leviathan Church is using their ports to traffic flame, the tribes will gut them for trespass."

"And if they gut us instead?" Borin grumbled.

Kael tucked the dagger into his belt. "Then we'll die in better company."

As they slipped into the labyrinth of docks, Lysara lingered, her gaze locked on the dark waves. "I hear it," she whispered. "The throne… it's singing."

Far below, in the lightless deep, something answered.