The sea was silent now. But silence, Veyan knew, was not peace.
Silence was the sound of judgment, of a storm having passed but not forgiven. The ocean didn't roar anymore—it watched. As if waiting to see whether it had failed in its task. Whether he, Veyan Arcana, would rise… or be dragged back under.
He was half-dead when he washed ashore.
The first breath he drew burned like fire in his lungs. Salt filled his mouth. His ears rang from the echo of collapsing sails, cracking wood, and screaming men. He coughed, spit blood, and heaved onto the black sand beach of an island he didn't recognize.
His limbs refused to obey. His body trembled like it remembered every blow, every betrayal, every second underwater where death coiled around his throat like a serpent whispering promises of rest.
But his will held.
Even now.
Even after they had cast him out.
"You will be forgotten, Veyan. No name. No blade. No grave."
He remembered those words. Cold. Final. Spoken by someone he once trusted.
They exiled him, not because he was weak—but because he refused to kneel.
He rolled onto his side and stared at the shoreline—what was left of it. Pieces of his ship littered the tide like bones. Blood stained the surf pink. One by one, broken bodies floated in, claimed by the tide as offerings.
He knew them all. Every man. Every death.
His hand clenched into the sand. Not in grief.
In shame.
"They died for me…"
He should've been stronger. Should've seen the betrayal coming. He had carried the name Arcana—a name once feared, once honored. It meant those who walk the hidden tide. A family of warrior-commanders. Ghosts of the sea.
Now it meant nothing.
Just a whisper lost in foam.
His memories blurred. The ship ambushed in the dead of night. His own second-in-command—Rael—driving a blade through the heart of his most loyal man. Screams. Fire. Chains around his wrists.
And then the sentence passed:
"You are no longer one of us. The Sea Creed casts you out. Let the tide finish what we will not."
But the tide didn't finish him.
It delivered him.
To this island.
To something older.
He moved again—one foot, then the other. Staggering like a drunk, teeth clenched against the pain. His arm was useless. His ribs were cracked. But he would not fall again.
Not here.
Not yet.
The island loomed ahead. Jungle trees rose like guardians. Thorns tore at his legs. The earth smelled of damp decay, and somewhere, in the deeper woods, a drumbeat echoed faintly—like a heartbeat that did not belong to the land itself.
He paused.
Listened.
And felt… something.
Watching him.
As twilight bled across the sky, the air grew colder. Heavy.
The old warriors called this kind of island "Aathravan"—a "Judging Shore." Places the sea led only those meant to be tested… or devoured. They said such islands carried the memory of forgotten gods and battles older than maps.
He didn't believe in superstition.
But he believed in signs.
And this island reeked of fate.
He collapsed by a dying tree, its bark scorched and twisted like it had once been struck by lightning that never truly left. His breaths came slower now.
The fire in him flickered.
Memories pressed in.
A child standing in the rain, watching his father duel a traitor beneath a shattered moon.A young warrior, kneeling to receive the Moon-Severing Blade, forged in silence, bathed in tideblood.A brother to warriors, a defender of the Sea Creed.
Now?
Nothing.
Just a hunted man. An exile. A ghost.
Then the voice came.
Rough. Dry. Carrying the weight of a hundred storms.
"You gonna lie there 'til the vultures start picking at your soul?"
Veyan opened his eyes to see an old man watching him. Cloaked in furs and sea-worn leathers, he leaned on a gnarled wooden staff, taller than him and carved with glyphs that pulsed faintly in the dark.
His eyes were gray. Not the gray of fog, but of memory—of someone who had lived through too much and survived things that should have broken him.
"Who…?" Veyan rasped.
The man crouched, studying him like a merchant inspecting damaged goods.
"Name's Kaido. I keep to myself. Except when idiots wash up on my shore."
"I don't need help."
Kaido raised an eyebrow. "Didn't offer any."
The silence hung.
Kaido tapped his staff once on the dirt. "You've got death clinging to you like seaweed, boy. Whatever you did… whoever you were… that ended the moment the sea spat you out."
He turned, beginning to walk away.
"Wait." Veyan forced the word out.
"Why… are you here?"
Kaido paused. Didn't turn around.
"Because sometimes the sea sends things back for a reason. Broken blades. Forgotten names. People who shouldn't be breathing.""And because this island? It doesn't take kindly to guests. You'll learn that real quick."
Then he vanished into the trees, like smoke fading with the wind.
Veyan stayed on the ground long after.
He watched the stars emerge—distant, uncaring. But in the patterns above, he saw something he hadn't in years:
Constellations of the Old Creed. Symbols only those trained in ancient Sea Creed lore could read.
The Sword-That-Sinks, the Serpent-Knot, and far above, the Veiled Flame—a forgotten constellation. Forbidden. Omen of rebirth through vengeance.
His fingers traced the sigil in the dirt.
Was it a coincidence? A trick of his broken mind?
Or was the sea sending him a message?
"You are no longer one of us."
No.
He was something else now.
Something worse.
Something the Creed should have killed when it had the chance.
Nightfall on the Shore
The jungle came alive as darkness settled.
Insects buzzed like a choral warning. The air grew thick, damp, almost choking. The trees creaked—not from wind, but as if they were breathing. Watching.
Veyan dragged his battered body behind a fallen log. His breath was ragged. Every muscle screamed. But his mind refused to rest.
Too much had been stolen from him.
Too much unanswered.
He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the faded mark on his shoulder: a broken Sea Creed sigil, carved long ago in ink and oath. A ritual shared by all warriors of the Creed. A pact of honor.
Now a scar.
He ran a finger over it, slow and quiet, like tracing the grave of someone he once loved.
"They turned on me before I turned on them."
"I never broke the Creed. I was the last one who still believed in it."
Flashback Fragment: The Court of Tides
His thoughts slipped into memory, unbidden.
He stood again in the Court of Tides—a towering chamber beneath the Hollow Spire, carved into the bones of a Leviathan skull. Its salt-rimed arches echoed with whispers. The Council stood in a circle, faces hidden beneath hooded veils of kelp and shell.
And at the center—
High Archan Rael.His once-loyal brother-in-arms. His shadow twin.
Rael's voice rang out across the chamber, cold and precise:
"Veyan Arcana defied direct orders. He harbored traitors. He killed one of our own.""He has become a fracture in the Creed."
Veyan remembered staring at him—not with anger, but disbelief.
Rael knew the truth.
They all did.
But none spoke.
"You lied," Veyan whispered to him in the silence before the sentence."You know I never betrayed the Creed."
Rael had looked at him then. Something unreadable in his eyes.
"Doesn't matter anymore."
And with that, he condemned him.
Back to the Present: The First Dream of Fire
A sharp breeze dragged Veyan back to the jungle.
He had dozed off. Or passed out. But something stirred the edge of his mind—something ancient and wrong.
He heard drums again.
Not close. Not loud. But rhythmic. Measured. Like a heartbeat echoing beneath the ground.
His dreams deepened.
He saw a tower, made of sea-glass and bone, rising from the waves.
He saw a figure cloaked in flames, its mouth a dark spiral, whispering secrets in a language older than death.
He saw his own reflection—but older, colder, crowned in coral, standing on a battlefield of gods.
"You were never meant to kneel," the voice said."You were meant to break."
He woke with a start, chest heaving. Sweat clung to his skin. His wounds pulsed in rhythm with the sea.
The tide had risen.
The jungle was quieter now, unnervingly so.
Veyan sat up, pain stabbing through his side.
He wasn't alone.
A small figure approached—cautious, light-footed. A child? No. Small, yes, but the silhouette moved with precision. Like a predator.
Then the figure stepped into the pale moonlight.
A girl. Maybe fifteen. Barefoot, dressed in rags, carrying a short spear of coral and bone. Her eyes were too sharp for someone so young.
"You don't belong here," she said simply.
Veyan didn't move.
"Neither do you."
She tilted her head. "I was born here. You were delivered."
"You speak like a priest."
"I listen to the island. It speaks back."
A strange energy hung in the air between them.
She pointed to the jagged hill in the distance—its silhouette shaped like a broken crown.
"You should leave before the Tide Tyrant finds you."
"The what?"
"He rules the ashlands. He kills the storms."
And then she vanished into the trees.
Kaido Returns
Kaido arrived not long after. A rustle of leaves, a faint tap of his staff, and the old man stepped into view again—calm, unimpressed.
"Met the girl, did you?"
"Who is she?"
"Ghostspawn. One of the Ash-Born. Children of the jungle. She's got more sense than half the warriors I've known."
Veyan wiped his mouth, tasted blood.
"She said a tyrant rules this place."
Kaido nodded.
"Ashvar. They call him the Tide Tyrant."
He sat beside the log, sighed.
"He wasn't always. Once, he was Creed too. Like you. Like me."
"He's Creed?" Veyan narrowed his eyes.
"Was. Long ago. Before they left him here."
A silence followed.
Kaido continued.
"He rose again—made this island his kingdom. Killed every Creed sent to drag him back. They stopped trying after the sixth."
"And you stayed?"
Kaido smirked. "I don't like people. Ashvar doesn't like company. We have an understanding."
"You're not afraid of him?"
Kaido leaned in.
"Oh, I'm terrified of him. That's why I'm still alive."
Veyan looked toward the jagged hill in the distance.
Ashvar. A fallen Creed. A tyrant made by exile. A mirror of what Veyan could become.
He didn't say it aloud, but the fire had returned to his eyes.
"Then I'll face him."
Kaido snorted. "You can barely walk."
"I'll crawl if I have to."
He rose, stumbling—but with purpose.
Kaido watched, eyes narrowing.
He walks like a broken blade drawn once more.Maybe the island hasn't wasted its judgment after all…