The darkness before dawn in Seroja was a living thing – thick, humid, and smelling of salt, seaweed, and the promise of rain. Kiran's bare feet found familiar grooves on the worn dock planks as he unshouldered the heavy hemp net. Below him, the waters of the Cerulean Sound lay unnervingly still, a mirror reflecting the bruised purple sky where stars were fading. Soon, the Twin Suns would breach the horizon: first Ara, painting the world in molten gold, followed moments later by Bara, whose cooler silver light revealed the sea's hidden depths.
Kiran worked quickly, the rhythmic motions ingrained since childhood. Unloop the net, check the weighted sinkers, feel the coarse, salt-stiffened fibers against his calloused palms. He cast the net outward with a practiced flick of his wrists. It unfurled like a grey shadow, sinking beneath the glassy surface with barely a ripple. He secured the lead rope to a barnacle-encrusted cleat and leaned against the damp railing, waiting.
A flicker of movement caught his eye – not fish, but the distant silhouette of a low, sleek vessel cutting through the pre-dawn gloom far out on the Sound. Its lines were sharp, predatory, unlike the broad-beamed fishing skiffs of Seroja. Coral Citadel. A cold knot tightened in Kiran's stomach. Their presence this close to the village was never a good omen. They came for tribute, for conscripts, or worse, to dump the poisonous runoff from their alchemical forges.
"Dreaming of a silverfin feast, Tide-Cursed? Or just praying the sea doesn't swallow your nets whole again?"
Kiran didn't need to turn. Bunga's voice, laced with her usual teasing edge, was as familiar as the slap of waves against the pilings. She padded up beside him, barefoot, a woven basket laden with pungent kelproot and seaspine herbs slung over her shoulder. The sharp, medicinal scent cut through the brine.
"Maybe the fish are smarter than we think," Kiran replied, keeping his eyes on the distant Citadel ship. "They know you'd just grind them into poultices."
Bunga snorted, setting her basket down with a thump. "Better than letting them rot in your hold. Old Man Heru hauled in three bursting nets before first light. Said the silverfins near jumped into his boat." She nodded towards the eastern docks where flickering lanterns illuminated fishermen already sorting glistening catches. "Seems the curse only follows your lines, Kiran."
Kiran managed a half-smile. Three moons of dwindling catches. Three moons of Elder Siti's increasingly venomous whispers about his 'ill-luck' poisoning the waters. He focused on the subtle tug on the rope. Something was in the net. He began hauling, hand-over-hand, the wet hemp biting into his skin. The net felt heavier than usual, promising. Hope, fragile but persistent, flickered.
The net breached the surface in a shower of diamond droplets. Silverfins thrashed, their scales catching the first faint blush of Ara's imminent rise. But at the heart of the haul, something monstrous writhed. Kiran and Bunga froze.
It was a grouper, easily the size of Kiran's torso, but its normally vibrant scales were dull, almost leaden. Its gills flared, pumping not water, but a thick, viscous black sludge that oozed like congealed blood. The stench hit them – a cloying, rotten-egg reek mixed with the metallic tang of alchemical waste. One milky, dead eye stared sightlessly upwards. Coral Citadel's foul signature.
"By the Twin Suns..." Bunga breathed, recoiling, her hand flying to her nose. "That's Citadel filth. Here? So close to shore?"
Kiran's jaw tightened. He'd seen poisoned fish before, scavenged from the northern coves where the Citadel dumped their waste. But never this close to Seroja. Never this blatant. Anger, cold and sharp, warred with dread. He drew his gutting knife, its blade honed sharp. This abomination needed to be cut free and sunk far from where it could contaminate more.
As he leaned over the rail, the grouper gave a final, violent spasm. Kiran's knife slipped. The sharp edge sliced deep across the fleshy pad of his left palm.
"Kiran!" Bunga cried out.
Pain flared, hot and bright. Blood welled crimson, thick droplets spattering onto the grouper's foul hide and onto the dark water below. Kiran hissed, clutching his hand. He barely registered Bunga scrambling for a strip of clean cloth in her basket. His gaze was locked on the droplets hitting the sea.
Where his blood touched the water, the sea didn't ripple.
It recoiled.
The water directly below the dock bulged upwards. Not a splash, not a wave, but a perfect, unnatural dome, roughly the size of a fisherman's hut. The surface tension held impossibly, reflecting the dim pre-dawn light and Kiran's own stunned face in a distorted, convex mirror. It shimmered like quicksilver for three terrifying heartbeats, silent and utterly wrong. Then, with a sound like a gasp, it collapsed. Not collapsing inward, but shattering outward, sending perfectly concentric rings rushing across the unnaturally calm surface of the Cerulean Sound, far faster than any stone could produce.
Bunga stared, the strip of cloth forgotten in her hand, her eyes wide with disbelief, darting from the vanishing rings to Kiran's bleeding palm. "What... Kiran, how did you...?"
Before she could finish the sentence, the wind changed.
It came from the east, where the Coral Citadel ship had been – a sudden, ice-edged gust that tore at their hair and clothing, smelling of ozone and distant lightning. Above them, the bruised purple sky seemed to curdle. Dark, roiling clouds, like great bruises, boiled up with unnatural speed, swallowing the fading stars and the promise of Ara's golden dawn. A low, hungry growl of thunder rolled across the Sound.
From the shore, piercing the sudden stillness before the storm, came Elder Siti's voice, sharp with vindicated fury and primal fear: "See! The Tide-Cursed has called the storm upon us! His blood poisons the sea and angers the Sky Spirits!"
Kiran didn't hear the rising panic in the village behind her. He stared, transfixed, at his bleeding palm. Where salt spray had mingled with the blood, tiny, almost imperceptible flecks of gold light shimmered for an instant within the crimson, like dying embers, before vanishing completely.
Then, the first fat, cold raindrop struck his cheek like a slap.
Another followed. Then another. Within seconds, the sky opened. Rain fell not in drops, but in a roaring, deafening curtain, turning the dock slick and treacherous, hammering the water into a frenzy, and washing Kiran's blood from the rail in thin, pink rivulets.
All around, Seroja erupted into chaos. Shouts of alarm mingled with the drumming rain. Villagers scrambled from their stilt houses, desperately securing shutters, hauling boats higher, herding children indoors. Bunga grabbed Kiran's arm, her grip tight, her face pale under the deluge. "Kiran! We need to get off the dock! To the cliffs, high ground!"
Kiran tore his gaze from his hand. His mother. Lia. Alone in their hut, weakened by the fever that had lingered for weeks. "No," he shouted over the roar of the rain. "My mother!"
He turned towards the shore, just as figures emerged from the blinding downpour. Not villagers seeking shelter, but men moving with grim purpose towards the dock. Johan led them, his tall frame unmistakable even through the grey wall of rain. Rain plastered his dark hair to his skull, and his face was set in hard, unreadable lines. In his hand, he didn't hold a fishing gaff or rope. He held his warrior's trident, its three cruel points gleaming wetly in the gloom.
Bunga instinctively stepped between Kiran and the approaching men. "Johan! What is this?" Her voice was nearly lost in the storm.
"The Elder's orders!" Johan shouted back, his voice strained but carrying over the gale. His eyes, sharp and accusing, locked onto Kiran's bleeding hand, then flickered to the spot where the unnatural water dome had been. "After what he just did? After this?" He gestured wildly at the raging storm. "He comes with us! Now!"
A jagged fork of lightning split the sky, illuminating the scene in stark, blinding white. In that frozen instant, Kiran saw the truth etched on Johan's face beneath the duty: raw, superstitious fear.
The sea surged violently against the dock pillars, lifting the structure with a tortured groan. Kiran felt the wood shudder beneath his feet. His cut hand throbbed in time with his pounding heart, each pulse sending a strange, unsettling warmth up his arm, a counterpoint to the icy rain.
"Kiran," Bunga hissed urgently, her eyes darting between Johan's advancing men and the churning sea, "you have to run!"
As Johan and his men closed the distance, tridents lowered not in salute but in threat, Kiran looked from their determined faces to the storm-lashed jungle behind the village. He thought of his mother, of the unnatural dome, of the golden flecks in his blood, of Elder Siti's venom, and of the Coral Citadel ship lurking in the storm-tossed distance.
He did something he had never done in his life, something that went against every instinct to protect his home and his mother.
He turned his back on the village, on Johan, on Bunga's desperate cry, and ran – not towards safety, but straight into the teeth of the raging monsoon, towards the dark, waiting embrace of the jungle.