The sea was not meant to rise that high.
Kairo stood at the edge of the crumbling pier, staring at the water licking over the stone like a beast testing its cage. The moon bled red across the horizon, and in the reflection of the waves he thought he saw faces—eyes, mouths whispering soundless words.
He blinked. They vanished.
The old fishermen in Calmaris used to say the ocean remembered. That every shipwreck, every drowned soul, every storm was written in its tides. Tonight, Kairo wondered if the sea was remembering him.
He pulled his cloak tighter, though the night was warm. The scar on his arm—the strange mark that had burned into his skin weeks ago—throbbed in rhythm with the waves. A sigil, curved like a spiral, jagged like lightning. He'd tried to carve it off once. It had only returned, brighter, etched deeper into him.
"You shouldn't be out here," a voice said.
Kairo spun. An old man in layered robes stood at the end of the pier. His eyes glowed faintly, as if a fire smoldered behind them.
"Do I know you?" Kairo asked, trying to sound braver than he felt.
"Not yet," the man said. "But soon. Sooner than you wish."
The mark on Kairo's arm flared hot. The sea slapped the stones violently, as if answering the stranger.
Kairo staggered back. "What are you talking about?"
The old man's gaze drifted toward the black horizon. "They're waking."
"Who's waking?"
He looked back at Kairo with something like pity. "The Watchers."
And then the sea roared.
A wall of water rose in the distance, higher than the city walls, blotting out the bleeding moon.
Screams rang out from the harbor as fishermen dropped their nets and fled inland. Torches fell into the tide and vanished.
Kairo froze, heart pounding. The mark on his arm seared like fire.
The old man only whispered, "Run."
But Kairo couldn't move.
The wave hit.
The pier shattered beneath him, tossing him into the icy black. Salt water filled his mouth, his lungs. He thrashed, but the tide dragged him deeper, spinning him among debris and broken wood.
In the chaos, he saw them.
Shapes moving in the depths—giant silhouettes with wings bound in chains. Their eyes glowed faintly in the dark, watching him. Waiting.
A whisper clawed into his mind.
"Child of earth and sky…"
The scar on his arm blazed white, lighting the water like a torch. The chains binding the shapes rattled. The sea itself trembled.
Kairo screamed, bubbles tearing from his throat—then darkness claimed him.
---
End of Chapter 2.