The morning fog of Beren always smells of rust.
I squat on the weathered wooden planks of the dock, pinching half a cold oatcake between my fingers—stolen from the laborers' shed this morning. Mixed with the damp sea breeze, it tastes better than the instant coffee in the lab of my past life.
"Watch it!"
A hoarse shout cuts through the air. I flinch, ducking my head as a bundle of oil-stained canvas slams into the ground beside me. Murky water splatters my faded gray shirt, already threadbare at the cuffs. Glancing up, I see a red-nosed sailor gripping a rope, snarling: "Bloody scavenger! That's the gearbox for the Anvil! Scratch one bolt and you'll be fish food!"
I bend to retrieve the canvas. The moment my fingers brush the bottom of the bundle, something hard digs into my palm.
It's a book.
Wrapped in oilcloth, its edges frayed, faint gold patterns peek through—like star charts, or twisted vines. My heart races. Memories from my past life, spent poring over occult texts, surge: some ancient civilizations sealed forbidden knowledge in "vessels," waiting for a "worthy one" to unlock them.
"Hey! That's mine!" The sailor lunges. I step back instinctively, but my ankle catches in a gap between the planks.
As I fall, I clutch the dock's iron chain.
Saltwater floods my nose. Before darkness claims me, I glimpse the book's cover unfurling in the waves, revealing its full design: seven stars encircling a ring, with an ouroboros coiled at its center—exactly like the "Stellar Orbit Diagram" I'd copied in my notebook.
When I open my eyes, I'm lying on a musty straw mattress.
"Awake?"
A gravelly voice emerges from the shadows. By the flicker of a kerosene lamp, I make out a woman in a forest-green dress, a scar slicing through her left eyebrow. Her left wrist bears brass bangles, each etched with a different constellation. She holds a book identical to the one in my arms, its oilcloth peeled back to show yellowed pages.
"This is Stellar Remnants. You found it at the dock." She slides the book toward me. "I'm Claire, an astrologer with the Owl Society. Three days ago, Beren's fog was thicker than this. Seven sailors went mad in it, screaming about a 'whale with a million eyes.' And you…" She nods at my chest. "You stood where the fog was thickest, clutching this book, as if dragged by something."
I recall the dream before I'd crossed over: endless gray mist, a voice murmuring "return."
"Owl Society?" I rub my throbbing temple. "What do you—"
"We handle 'anomalies.'" Claire's finger traces the pages. "Three months ago, City Hall's steam clock reversed, its hands pointing to the 'Void Sun'—a time that doesn't exist on any calendar. Two weeks back, nurses at St. Mary's swore corpses sat up, scratching 'Eclipse comes' into walls. All threads lead to the Stellar Whale."
She pulls a crumpled newspaper from a drawer. The headline blazes in scarlet ink: "Siren Songs Again! The Anvil Vanishes Without a Trace." The photo shows a ship tangled in black tendrils, like a giant creature's limbs.
"The Stellar Whale isn't a beast." Claire's voice drops. "According to Stellar Remnants, it's a shard of the Old Gods, sealed in a rift between stars. But these three months, Beren's 'eclipse index' has spiked—it measures the barrier between reality and the Void." She flips to a star chart. "Look. The Corona Borealis, once stable, is shifting toward the Void Sun."
I lean closer. Faded edge the page: "When the Seven Luminaries align at the Void Sun, the Whale will breach the fog. Only the Stargazer can command the stellar orbit, saving all."
"Stargazer?"
"Sequence 9 of the Stellar Path." Claire unclasps a silver badge—a hexagram with a sapphire center. "Each Path has nine Sequences, matching the stars' phases. Stargazers read omens, foresee perils. But the last one vanished in the 'Fog Disaster' ten years ago." She suddenly grabs my wrist, pressing her thumb to my lifeline. "Your palm has a star 芒 mark, resonating with the book's charts—you might be the next."
I yank my hand back. The mark still burns. In my past life, I was a history grad student, specializing in 19th-century occultism. Now I'm drowning, swept forward by a current I can't fight.
A ship's horn blares outside.
"The Silver Moon is docking." Claire stands. "The Owl Society meets in the old church basement at eight. If you want answers—or to see tomorrow's sun—come."
She opens the door. Morning fog floods in, sharp with rust. I watch her vanish into it, then stare at the book in my lap. Its pages flip on their own, revealing new text scrawled in blood-red ink:
"When the Stargazer stares at the stars, the Void stares back."
Screams erupt from the dock.
I grab the book and rush outside. Dockworkers point at the sea, yelling. Through the mist, a colossal shadow rises—like a moving mountain, its scales slick and black, each embedded with countless eyes—exactly as Claire described the Stellar Whale.
Above it, seven stars converge, forming a line that pierces Beren's sky.