CHAPTER 3 – THE WEIGHT OF TIDES
Hours after the surge.
The last of the Deepspawn were ash and shattered coral. What remained now were wounds—fresh and deep. The trench walls still bled steam from ruptured valves, and Crate's Forgebinders moved in silence, patching pressure fractures and Codex rifts with shaking hands.
But EchoWomb stood.
And it would rise.
Kovarra's Outer Corridor | Skirmish Detail
"We've got movement—low trench," called Yaveth through a flaring comm.
Kestri didn't wait. She dropped from the scaffold like a shadow-knife, talons flaring bright. Below, a ragged band of Codex-linked scavengers tried to scale the outer reefline with pulse-harpoons and Codex rods humming.
They never made it.
Reefstone buckled. A reefbeast shimmered through the muck—Sael Vox rode atop it, his sonar blades glinting. The beast lunged, slammed into the lead scavenger, and melted back into the trench.
"Fish-boy's got style," Kestri muttered, touching down beside the impact crater.
"Form's solid," Ironmark grunted, flanking her with Bront Veil and the Ashguard. "Showmanship's a bonus."
Mharrek entered next—silent as tectonic stone. One Codex merc charged him and shattered his own shoulder upon contact.
Above, Whisper-Vow's Veiled swept in—one by one, cutting the Codex relay anchors with surgical strikes. The last merc turned to run.
A whisper. A flicker. Gone.
"Area clear," she signaled.
EchoWomb was still bleeding.
But it had teeth.
EchoWomb – Medical Bay, Hours Later
The triage chambers pulsed with low-frequency tide chants. Thal'khaar healers mixed coral-based poultices while gilled masons reinforced pressure hatches with living reefstone. Civilians—young, old, hybrid and aquatic—wove through the corridors bearing food, water, tools.
Selkha hovered beside Crate, adjusting an emitter coil with one hand while signaling to her people with the other.
"Pulse flares should reach twice the range now," she said.
"Twice the risk too," Crate replied. "Codex might notice."
"Then we make them regret looking."
Kael moved between wounded, one hand still bandaged. He stopped beside a young hybrid with gill-ridges forming.
"They saved us," the boy whispered.
"No," Kael said. "They joined us."
Command Deck | Thyrn and Kael
Thyrn stood over the railing, trident resting on his back, watching the reef-tide outside.
"I rushed ahead," he said quietly. "We left Raazhk behind. A trenchstorm cut the path. I felt something wrong. Couldn't wait."
Kael nodded. "You were right."
"Raazhk took the main column—civilians, forgechildren, coral beasts. He'll move when the reef parts."
Crate's voice buzzed through the intercom. "Signal stabilized. We're linked to Raazhk's beacon."
A deep pulse echoed through the command deck.
"Tide stable," Raazhk's voice rumbled through the static. "Moving at dusk."
The Awakening of Hope | Communication Chamber
Word of the signal spread fast.
Other vice-commanders stood near the new relay—eyes wide. Whisper-Vow silently keyed in a code.
Marren, her second, whispered: "Could they still be out there?"
Talym ran a scan.
Crate narrowed his eyes. "One signal. Deep. Barely holding."
Then a voice.
"Tell him I'm coming."
Dreadmaw froze.
Even Kael turned.
Kestri raised an eyebrow. "Your spine just twitched."
Whisper-Vow stared. "You never twitch."
"…Maelith," Dreadmaw whispered.
Selkha turned slowly. Her voice was barely breath.
"...She lives?"
Mharrek stopped mid-step.
"Maelith of the Coral Pyres?"
Sael Vox knelt, stunned.
"She is real?"
"She walks," Crate confirmed, eyes still wide.
One Thal'khaar warrior whispered in awe: "And she chose him?"
Nightfall | The Arrival of Raazhk Thren
The reef trembled. Soft pulses echoed across the trench like the breathing of a god.
Light glimmered.
Not from tech. From life.
Lanternbeasts swam in procession ahead of great moving shapes—coral constructs, forgebeasts, towering aquatic silhouettes. And at the front—taller than any, moving like a living monument—Raazhk Thren.
He did not speak as he stepped into the trench gates.
But the sea moved with him.
Behind him followed 300+ Thal'khaar: artisans, warriors, children with bone-carved masks, tide-singers humming ancestral war-songs.
Kael stood on the high platform.
Raazhk looked up.
"We bring the tide."
Kael didn't reply.
He just opened the gate.
And EchoWomb, for the first time, felt not like a warband.
But a city.
To be continued in Chapter 4: "The Wake of Maelith"