Still water lapped against the ancient shell. The Giant Turtle glided through a featureless grey mist toward the distant Tear of Dawn. The rhythmic pulse as it swam replaced the logjam's grinding chaos.

  The mist swallowed time and distance, a beautiful grey eternity. Overhead, Bomber wheeled in patient circles, its pink and yellow fur a muted splash of color in the fog.

  The sun-drenched park on Mount Royal was a phantom warmth on his skin. His father’s resurrected smile, a memory of a perfect lie. Waking from that warmth to this grey reality had torn open a fresh wound. A hollow ache settled in his chest, a physical weight of longing for a world now twice lost.

  Am I doing the right thing? I'm lost in these mists, hunting the One-Eye to pay for my mistake. But my family is waiting. The Shears are on their way to poison Earth, and my promise was to save them, not hunt ghosts in this mist.

  Through the shimmering tether, a current of profound peace flowed from the ancient turtle, a silent gratitude that smoothed the raw edges of his grief.

  Ezy was studying the shattered remnant of her iron hook, a stump on a stump. A flicker of clinical frustration tightened the corner of her mouth. Her gaze swept the debris-littered water, locking onto a gnarled piece of driftwood floating nearby.

  "Mara," she said, her voice flat, "that branch. And your kris knife."

  Mara retrieved the waterlogged branch without a word. Zeen took it, bracing its weight against the turtle's shell. He angled it toward Ezy, who was taking Mara’s offered knife.

  The blade in her left hand bit deep into the wood. Shavings curled from its edge, spiraling down to land on the ancient, mossy carapace.

  Ezy paused her work, inspecting the newly shaped wood. Zeen used the quiet moment to unsling the musket from his back. He cradled the weapon, his thumb tracing the rune-carved ivory of the stock.

  "I was so scared I’d lost you again," he murmured, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. "That I’d condemned you to an eternity at the bottom of that lake."

  He took a shaky breath, his focus locked on the weapon in his hands.

  “Thank you for coming to my help, Gil," he continued, his voice gaining a firmer resolve. "Who knows what would've happened if we were all hallucinating when Spider-House hit the water below."

  Mara paced next to him, pacing. Every few steps, her eyes would dart toward Trenn, holding an unreadable, analytical glint before she turned away.

  Trenn pushed himself to his feet, the motion stiff. He crossed the short distance between them, his own steps quiet on the mossy shell. "Are you alright, Mara?" His voice was low, careful.

  She stopped pacing, her body rigid. Her amber eyes locked onto his, their usual predatory fire banked to an analytical stillness. "Your hallucination," she stated, her voice flat, clinical. "Was it your family?"

  A slow nod was his only answer.

  The muscles in Mara’s vulpine jaw tightened beneath her white fur. She took a deliberate step backward, the movement creating a physical chasm between them. Her gaze broke from his, fixing on the featureless grey mist. "And that's what this is all for, isn't it? Getting back to them."

  “That’s what I was thinking about, actually. If I die here, or if we get lost…” a knot formed in his throat. He sighed. “But I was the one fooled by the One-Eye. This… is my responsibility.”

  Mara eyed him suspiciously.

  “Responsibility,” she repeated. “What about your responsibility to me?”

  Zeen’s prayer was cut short, Ezy’s hand stilled on her carved hook, and Almitad rose to her feet.

  Trenn looked at her, at the tension in her fur. “Of course. We’re a team. You’re coming with me, right?”

  Mara closed the chasm between them. She slowly wrapped her arms around him, resting her twitching muzzle on his shoulder.

  "Yes," she answered, her voice a muffled tremor against his tunic.

  The world outside their embrace dissolved. He felt the rigid tension in her arms, the slight tremor that ran through her frame. Through their braided tether, a torrent of her emotions flooded him—a wave of desperate relief, so profound it was almost painful, followed by the jarring spike of her own embarrassment at the display.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  He returned the embrace, his own arm wrapping around her back, a silent promise to hold fast against the storm of her fear.

  Her breathing hitched, a single, shuddering intake of air against his shoulder. For a long, suspended heartbeat, there was only the quiet pressure of their shared hold, a single point of stability in the endless grey mist.

  Zeen stood frozen, his jaw slack. Ezy’s one good eye was wide, fixed on the embrace. They had witnessed something impossible: Mara, stripped of her warrior’s shell, utterly vulnerable.

  “This is about the hallucinations, isn’t it?” Ezy asked. Without waiting for an answer, she continued: “I saw my mother. She… listed everything I’ve lost.” Ezy paused, swallowing hard, her gaze dropping to the space where her hand should have been. “She made sure to mention the irony of losing the Stomper.”

  She met Trenn’s gaze, her one eye burning with a new, fierce resolve. “I’m coming with you.”

  A weary, genuine smile touched Trenn’s lips. He shifted, keeping one arm around Mara while opening the other.

  “Then get in here,” he said.

  The charged silence of the embrace was broken by Almitad. She stepped forward, her gaze sweeping over the featureless grey mist.

  "They were hunted, you know," she said, her voice a quiet, somber current. "The animal gods. Armies would hunt them down for their lords. Once caught, they were bled of their ichor and turned into trophies for their courts. That is why Dawn created a place where the Morning Mists would protect him and his fellow gods. A place mortals could only leave if Dawn allowed it."

  Almitad’s gaze was fixed on the distant light, her voice soft with ancient reverence.

  “The bards sing of the cost,” she murmured. “To maintain the mists, to hold back the sun, Dawn endures a constant, physical strain. They say this great labor makes the god weep."

  Her gesture encompassed the silent, beckoning light.

  "Those are his tears,” she said, gesturing to the twinkling lights. They fall from his eyes as he endures his endless task.”

  When a shoreline of fine, black sand coalesced from the grey mist, the Tear of Dawn drifted away, its lights extinguished in the fog. The scrape of the turtle's ancient shell against the shore interrupted Almitad’s story.

  As he stepped from the shell, a faint sound reached him. It was distant and muffled by the heavy mist. A rooster’s crow. It called out once, then again, and again. It repeated without pause.

  “Can you guys hear this?” he asked, as his gaze went toward the distant horizon. The mists were clearer here than near the waterfalls, but the sound came from afar. From an unknown direction.

  Ezy slid off the shell, her good hand already wrapping leather strips around the crude, newly-carved wooden hook that served as her new hand.

  Her posture stiffened, her jaw set in grim anticipation. The still water churned. A skeletal hand breached the surface, its bony fingers clamped around Skate's obsidian form. Then the rest of the Scrapper rose from the depths, a macabre, dripping marvel of bone, wood, and scavenged metal.

  Water streamed from its barrel-like cockpit and sluiced between the joints of its frame. It walked from the lakebed onto the black sand, its bony feet sinking a few inches with each heavy step.

  "Scrapper, put Skate back on Trenn’s head," Ezy commanded, her voice flat.

  The undead machine obeyed. Its skeletal hand moved with a jarringly gentle precision. Trenn bowed his head as the bony fingers released their grip on the obsidian sphere.

  A pleased hum vibrated from Skate as its pliable mass settled, molding itself into a familiar, protective helmet over his scalp.

  While the others disembarked, Trenn approached the turtle’s immense head. He reached out, placing his palm against its ancient, wrinkled hide.

  He pushed a silent message of gratitude through their shimmering tether.

  The response was a wave of benevolent peace. For a single, blessed moment, the oppressive weight of their journey lifted from his shoulders.

  The Giant Turtle turned, its shell cutting a silent path into the black water. It was a mountain of reassurance in the mist, a dozen yards out—

  —when the black water detonated.

  The Gem-Croc erupted from the depths, its immense jaws snapping shut around the turtle’s neck. Ivory teeth punched through the ancient hide, and golden ichor streamed between its jaws.

  A collective cry of "No!" resonated over the rooster’s crow, as the tether that bound Trenn to his dying friend became a conduit for fear and pain.

  The giant crocodile applied more pressure while the ancient turtle gargled helplessly. A sickening crunch of bone vibrated through the water, through the sand, and up Trenn’s legs. A slow, viscous bloom of golden ichor spread across the surface of the water.

  The fluid shone, and the air filled with the intoxicating sweetness of nectar. To his left, Zeen shouldered his musket, the barrel instantly tracking the creature, waiting for his chance.

  Near the water's edge, Ezy’s one eye widened. A flicker of something beyond horror crossed her face. Almitad clenched her fist and lowered her bone lantern. “So that’s the One-Eye,” she whispered to herself.

  The glittering crocodilian body surfaced in the center of the golden stain. It opened its gigantic maw, easily twice the size it was when they had first met.

  The stain of ichor reversed course. Tendrils streamed inward, drawn to the Gem-Croc’s opened mouth.

  The creature's bulk swelled, its form expanding in the still water. Yet the left side of its face remained a ruin, the scales permanently scarred by the elemental's fire. Trenn’s fingers instinctively rose, tracing the thick scar where Ash-Wraiths had split his face open, a jagged path from ear to lips.

  The Gem-Croc’s one eye, a hole in reality, a void to another world, turned towards the beach. A booming laugh grated from the mist, the sound so deep it vibrated through his skull.

  "I wi-ill ki-ill all yo-ur ff-rrr-ien-ds, T-rrr-ennnn. E-ve-ry cre-at-tu-rrr-e yo-u cha-ar-mm in the Mo-o-rrr-ning Mis-ts wi-ill di-ie."

  The Gem-Croc sank with its prize.

  The team stood frozen on the black sand, their gaze fixed on the golden ichor staining the water where the turtle god had died.

  Then, in the distant mist, a new Tear of Dawn ignited, and the rooster’s crow grew a little louder.

  Chapter Release Schedule (until November 10):

  Future Schedule (after November 10):

  Join me on Discord, or go check out the lore on my free Patreon!

  https://www.patreon.com/cw/RDDMartel