The Atlantic was a graveyard.
Not the fresh kind, full of bones and grief. The old kind. The kind where death had settled into the silt and become part of the ecosystem. We sailed over it in a salvaged research vessel Lena had bartered from a coastal settlement—a squat, ugly thing named the Barnacle, crewed by three locals who asked no questions and kept their distance from the Stalkers on their deck.
The sun was setting. The Red Shift hadn't risen yet, but I could feel it building beneath the horizon. A pressure in my scar. A hum in my blood. The fragments I'd already absorbed—the broken chain from Chicago, the shattered mask from New Orleans—pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Two pieces of the Primeval's scattered essence, now carried in my veins.
Eleven more on Earth. And one of them was directly below us.
"Five hundred feet." Lena's voice was tight. She stood at the Barnacle's bow, datapad shielded against the salt spray. "The facility is built into a seamount. Volcanic rock. Architect construction, same as the mountain. The fragment's inside, but there's interference. Something alive."
"How alive?" Rook was already checking her gear. Claw sheaths. Rebreather. A harness loaded with Lena's latest prototype—a portable Lunacy dampener that might buy us seconds if things went wrong.
"Big. The signature is diffuse, like it's spread throughout the facility. Not a single organism. More like... an ecosystem. Something that's been growing down there for a long time."
Vex flexed her healed shoulder. The wound from New Orleans was gone, leaving only a faint silver scar. "Underwater ecosystem full of Architect horrors. Fantastic."
"We don't all have to go." I looked at the team. "Rook and I can handle the fragment. The rest of you stay on the Barnacle. Keep watch."
"For Draven?" Torin's voice was steadier than it had been in New Orleans. He was still green, still scared, but he was trying. "He followed us to the coast. Sargo's last transmission confirmed Iron Maw signatures moving south."
"Draven's patient. He won't hit us while we're expecting it." I scanned the darkening horizon. "But he'll hit us eventually. When we're tired. Wounded. Distracted. We don't give him that chance. We go in, get the fragment, get out. Fast."
Lena handed me a rebreather. "The facility has atmosphere pockets. Architect structures sometimes preserve air from when they were built. If you find one, you can breathe. But don't count on it."
I took the rebreather. Looked at Rook. She nodded.
We dove.
The water was cold and clear.
Sunlight faded within the first hundred feet, replaced by the pale glow of Lena's submersible drones—small, sleek machines that swam ahead of us, illuminating the descent. The seamount rose from the darkness like a cathedral. Black rock. Jagged spires. And carved into its flank, half-buried by centuries of sediment, was an entrance.
Architect design. A perfect circle, fifty feet across, framed by symbols that glowed faint silver as we approached. The fragment's energy was stronger here. I could feel it pulling at my scar. Calling.
We swam through the entrance.
The interior was a vertical shaft, descending deeper into the rock. The walls were covered in more symbols—these ones active, pulsing with slow, rhythmic light. Like a heartbeat. Lena was right. The facility wasn't dead. It was alive.
At the bottom of the shaft, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber. And there, covering every surface, was the ecosystem Lena had detected.
It looked like coral. Pale, branching structures that grew from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. They glowed with faint bioluminescence—silver, blue, deep violet. It was beautiful. And it was wrong. The coral wasn't natural. It was Architect-made. A biological system designed to feed on Lunacy. To contain it. Process it. Grow from it.
And at the center of the chamber, encased in a cocoon of the pale coral, was the fragment.
This one was a sphere. Perfectly smooth. Dark crystalline material shot through with silver veins. It pulsed in time with the coral's glow. In time with my heartbeat.
"It's been here a long time," Rook murmured through the comm. "The coral's feeding on it. Using its Lunacy to grow."
"But the fragment's still intact. Still an anchor." I swam closer. "I need to touch it."
The coral reacted to my presence.
Tendrils unfurled from the main mass—slow, curious, almost aware. They reached toward me, silver tips glowing brighter. Testing. The beast inside me stirred. It recognized this substance. It was Warden-made. A containment system. A cage.
Rip. Kill. Howl.
My mind is mine.
I let the tendrils touch me.
The contact was electric. Cold. The coral was trying to read me. To determine if I was a threat to the fragment. To the facility. I felt its ancient, alien consciousness pressing against my mind—not hostile, but utterly without mercy. If it decided I was dangerous, it would encase me like it had encased the fragment. Add me to its collection. Feed on my Lunacy for centuries.
I reached for the silver thread in my blood. The connection to the Primeval. And I showed it.
I am not here to steal. I am here to release. The prison is failing. The Architects are coming. The fragment must be broken.
The coral paused.
For a long, terrible moment, I felt it weighing me. Judging me. Deciding whether I was worthy.
Then, slowly, the tendrils withdrew.
The cocoon around the fragment began to dissolve. Layers of pale coral peeled back, revealing the sphere within. It hovered in the water, pulsing, waiting.
I swam forward and touched it.
The vision hit like a wave.
—a laboratory. Architect design. Wardens moving through halls of black stone, their void-eyes fixed on containment cells filled with creatures I didn't recognize. Specimens. Experiments. The Architects had been studying life across the galaxy, cataloging it, improving it.
And at the center of the laboratory, suspended in a column of silver light, was the Primeval.
Not the vast, chained entity from the moon. This was a fragment. A piece of its consciousness, extracted and contained. The Wardens were dissecting it. Trying to understand how it thought. How it felt. How it had become what it was.
The Primeval fragment was screaming. Not in pain. In rage. It had been imprisoned, studied, reduced to a specimen. And it remembered everything.
One of the Wardens turned. Its void-eyes fixed on me. On the vision-me, standing invisible in the memory.
"You see," it said. Its voice was cold. Clinical. "This is what we do to threats. This is what we will do to your world. To your species. When we return."
The vision shattered.
I was back in the water. The sphere was cracking in my hands. Silver light bled from the fractures, dissolving the coral, flooding the chamber with raw Lunacy.
Break it.
I squeezed. The sphere shattered.
The Lunacy rushed into me—a torrent of cold fire, of ancient rage, of the Primeval's memory. I felt it settle alongside the other fragments. Another piece of the puzzle. Another weapon for the war to come.
The coral around us began to die. Without the fragment's Lunacy to sustain it, it crumbled. Turned to gray ash that drifted in the current.
"We need to go." Rook grabbed my arm. "Now. Before the whole facility collapses."
We swam for the shaft.
We broke the surface gasping. The Barnacle's crew hauled us aboard. Lena was already scanning us, checking Lunacy levels, muttering about exposure thresholds.
Rook pulled off her rebreather. "That was too easy."
She was right.
The attack came as the Red Shift rose.
Not from the water. From the Barnacle itself.
Two of the crew—the quiet ones who'd asked no questions—shifted. Their human faces melted away, revealing red eyes and extended claws. Iron Maw. Draven's people. They'd been on the ship the whole time. Waiting.
One lunged for Lena.
Torin moved.
He wasn't fast enough to stop the claw strike, but he was fast enough to take it. He threw himself between Lena and the Iron Maw Stalker, taking the hit across his chest. Blood sprayed. He went down.
Vex was already on the attacker. Her claws found his throat. He dropped.
The second Iron Maw went for me. Rook intercepted, her combat shift flowing mid-leap. They clashed, claws sparking, and she drove him over the rail into the dark water.
Silence.
Torin was on the deck, bleeding. Lena pressed her hands against the wound, her face pale. "He's healing. Newblood regeneration is slower, but he's healing. He'll make it."
I knelt beside him. "You saved her."
Torin's eyes were glazed with pain, but he managed a weak grin. "Didn't freeze this time."
"No. You didn't."
Vex stood at the rail, scanning the water. "Draven's not here. These were scouts. Sacrifices. He wanted to see how we'd react."
"He's learning our patterns." Rook's voice was cold. "Testing our responses. He'll hit us for real soon. When we're weaker."
I looked at the bleeding moon overhead. At the dark water. At my Pack—wounded, tired, but alive.
"Let him learn. Let him test." I stood. "We'll be ready."
The Barnacle turned toward the coast, carrying us and the third fragment's power back to shore.
Behind us, in the deep Atlantic dark, Draven's red eyes watched. And smiled.