The dock erupted into a disorder of ropes and shouted names.
Ren barreled between overturned crates, the unfinished glider thudding against his back as Kira cursed and fumbled with the launch mechanism.
Smoke rolled low across the planks; sparks dotted the air like angry fireflies.
"Faster!" Kira hissed, hands greasy and trembling. "The latch is stuck—give me a lever!"
"On it."
Ren shoved a spare bar into her palm and planted himself at the entry, eyes flicking to every shadow.
The pendant at his throat pulsed once, hard, as if answering a bell.
"Children first!" Li bellowed, hauling a small girl by the hem of her coat.
His breath came ragged but steady; his feet found purchase on wet wood.
"Kira, don't dawdle!"
"Stop telling me what to do and hand me a rivet!"
Kira snapped, voice raw with smoke.
She pried at the jammed mechanism, oil and ash on her fingers.
"The release plate's bent—where did you hide your father's damn file?"
"Would not be hiding if I'd finished the hinges like you wanted," Ren shot back.
He pivoted as a pack of pirates barreled toward the dock.
He shoved one aside with a shoulder; the man tumbled into a stack of netting, cursing.
"Ren!" a voice called. "Skiff's down—the line's frayed!"
Ren lunged, knuckles scraping splintered wood, and drove a stake into a rope to keep the next planks from sliding.
His jaw tightened; the scar along it tugged with each breath.
The pendant thrummed again, a hot vowel against his sternum.
A pale flash—like a curtain of light—brushed his vision for a heartbeat.
"Hold the entry!" Kira ordered without looking up. "If the launch jams, I'll kick it free."
A pirate thrust a hook into the air; the hook found only empty space as villagers slammed a barrel into his path.
The dock smelled of hot cordage and iron and the sea itself—salt that clung to lungs.
Kira's hands moved faster; sparks flew as metal met metal.
"It's the pin—stuck!" she muttered.
She slammed the bar into place, then hissed as a spring snapped loose.
"Ren, push that wing forward!"
"On three."
Ren grabbed the glider frame and shoved.
Wood groaned in protest; straps bit into his palms.
The pendant's pulse skittered like a trapped bird, and the golden shimmer at the edge of his sight winked.
A low sound rolled across the cloud-sea—a sick, sucking silence that did not belong to wind.
Men froze as if someone had pressed a palm to the world.
"Do you hear that?" Kira breathed, head tipping back.
Her goggles fogged.
"Not a hull. Not a horn."
Before Ren could answer, a mass rose from the clouds—liquid shadow and teeth of mist gathering into a form.
It rode the updraft like a storm-bred whale, not solid but hungry.
A sound rose from it that scraped at the inside of Ren's skull: a high, keening whistle folded with a lower, worming hiss.
Pirates staggered, hands flying to helmets.
Faces twisted as if someone had pried open their minds and taken a handful of memory.
One man dropped to his knees, eyes rolling, then bolted—no direction, only away.
"Retreat!" a pirate slurred, voice gone small. "The thing—get—"
Kira grabbed Ren's arm, nails biting into his sleeve.
"Not storms—those are Devourers. They feed on fear and life. Don't look it in the face!"
Her whisper snapped into command.
"Get the children to the skiffs!"
The mass oozed lower, tendrils spooling into the terraces like smoke with teeth.
It did not attack the pirates.
Instead, it aimed for the heart of the village, drawn by the concentrated panic.
"Back! Move!" Li barked, shoving two children into a skiff with hands that shook but did not fail.
His voice cut through the keening like a blade.
"Row! Row, now!"
Ren shoved another crate against the dock rail.
The Devourer's passing fouled the wood; where its shadow kissed planks, the grain blackened into ash that smudged his boots.
A metallic tang filled the mouth—old blood and burnt copper.
"Kira—signal!" Ren snapped.
She beat at the jammed release with frantic punches, lubing the mechanism with oil until her palms were slick.
"Come on, come on—"
"It's trying to latch onto everything living," Kira said, voice cracking. "If it reaches the core, the terraces go dead. We lose our beds, our grain—Li, the elders—"
Li did not answer with words.
He ran, hands wide, gathering children like a net.
The Devourer's whistle pressed at Ren's bones; a nausea crawled behind his eyes.
The pendant buzzed and then went almost numb.
A ripple of ash crawled across the earth ahead of the creature, leaving a path of muted gray.
Plants wilted where it passed; a rooster stopped mid-crow, feathers drooping.
The village's heartbeat hitched—small sounds gone suddenly too loud.
Ren's fists clenched.
The unfinished glider sat half-ready behind him—Kira's craft, patched from his promise.
The mission of the village, Li's steady hands, the children's small faces braided together in his mind like a rope he could not cut.
"To the launch!" Kira screamed, slamming the mechanism. "If the skiffs can't get out, we signal—get anything airborne!"
"Li!" Ren shouted, lunging forward.
Li's path bent toward the old barn, not the dock.
Children crowded behind him; a mother stumbled, clutching a sack of Celestial Grains.
Li's back was a straight line in the dark, a point of light in the fog-ash.
A tide of shadow slid nearer, drawn to the noise, the human panic like a lantern.
It hissed as it moved, and where its tendrils brushed stone, the mortar flaked into gray like dried skin.
The pirates who had been fleeing now watched, faces slack with a strange awe.
"Kira, finish it!" Ren barked, sprinting.
His lungs burned with every step.
The pendant throbbed at a faster rhythm—no longer a bell but a drum counting down.
Kira slammed the lever.
It popped free.
The glider's wing rocked and came to life; fabric snapped like a flag.
"Go—now!"
She threw the strap forward. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely tie the knot.
Ren looked back toward the barn—toward Li—then at the glider, strapped and ready, the pad of varnish still wet.
The world narrowed to a line between them.
The Old Man Li, trying to evacuate children from a barn, stood directly in the path of the thing.
Ren was fifty meters away, with the unfinished glider behind him.
The eyes of Li met Ren's, full of calm and terrible acceptance.