They had been rowing for over thirty hours.
Cain never slowed.
Not once.
Not through the fog that rolled over the sea like breath from a dying god.Not through the sleet that sliced sideways, clinging to their hair and lashes like frozen spiderwebs.Not even when Janice's voice—soft, raw—had begged, "Please, just an hour."
He didn't stop.
Because he couldn't afford to.
He didn't need rest—not like she did.
But even he could feel it now.
A dull ache blooming in his back.A pressure behind his eyes, like someone was pressing thumbs into the inside of his skull.His arms moved with perfect rhythm—but his thoughts were starting to swim.
The Core helped.The Light Stone helped.
But even they had limits.
The Light inside him wasn't infinite.
And the world was still chasing them.
The sky was starting to bruise—deep violet smearing into iron-gray as the day leaned toward dusk again. The air had stilled. Even the wind felt like it was holding its breath.
That's when Cain spotted it.
A narrow inlet, nearly invisible beneath a jagged wall of stone. The cliff face sloped inward like a broken jaw, and nestled just beneath it—partially hidden by sea mist—was a pocket of calm.
He angled the canoe inward.
A small shelf of stone, dark and smooth, rose out of the water ahead. High enough to stay dry, low enough to reach.
And tucked just above it: a shallow cave.
Dry. Cold. But safe.
Cain didn't speak.
He just guided the skiff in, each motion precise, measured. Like a surgeon navigating veins.
The canoe slid forward, kissed the shoreline, and came to a stop with the softest scrape—like it was exhaling.
Janice moved first.
She tried to stand—her knees buckled.
She caught herself against a rock, legs trembling from the long hours of stillness, her hands white from gripping the map for too long.
"I forgot what standing felt like," she muttered, breath fogging the air.
Cain said nothing.
He hauled the canoe halfway up the rocks, then behind a curtain of wind-split brush, half-dead from salt exposure. He pulled loose snow across it, layering it with stone and shadow until it vanished.
Then he crouched.
Closed his eyes.
Listened.
The air was still.
No footsteps. No engines. No metal.
But not empty.
Just waiting.
They lit a fire the size of a helmet.
Just enough to boil water.
The flames licked low and lazy, crackling in the dark like a whisper they weren't supposed to hear.
They sat beside it, pressed close to the stone.
Dried fish. Jerky. Water from the canteen heated enough to soothe but not scald.
Janice sat slumped against the cave wall, her arms around her knees, rifle laid across her lap. Her mitts were pulled halfway up her fingers. Her eyes were heavy, but watchful.
Cain sat beside her, legs folded beneath him.
He hadn't eaten.
He didn't move.
His gaze stayed fixed on the mouth of the cave, the horizon beyond.
"You're shaking," Janice said, voice hushed.
Cain didn't answer.
Because he wasn't listening to her voice.
He was listening to something else.
Then he felt it.
Not sound.
Not light.
Not scent.
Just pressure.
A weight in the world. Like an invisible finger dragging across his spine.
Steel.
Slicing through the sea.
Displacing the air around it, the cold ahead of it. The memory of war bleeding through the water.
His head tilted slightly.
The Core beneath his sternum throbbed once.
The Light Stone pulsed.
Janice straightened beside him, sensing the shift in his posture.
"Cain?"
His voice was calm. Low.
"Ship."
Her eyes flicked toward the cave's mouth.
Nothing but gray fog.
The sea beyond looked like it had fallen asleep.
"You're sure?"
He nodded once.
Deliberate.
"It's cutting too clean."
Janice blinked, still struggling to adjust.
"Should we run?"
Cain stood.
Shouldered his blade.
Looked once out at the water.
"Too late."
Far out on the edge of the bay, the HMS Falcon slowed.
Its sleek gray hull slid silently through the water, the bow angled in toward the ice-fringed shore like a knife guided by an unseen hand. Steam hissed softly from its stacks, muffled by the fog rolling in from the cliffs.
A small fire flickered faintly onshore—just a pinprick of orange among the dark rocks.
Tiny.
But real.
The officer of the watch, a pale-eyed lieutenant wrapped in a thick oilskin coat, raised his spyglass. His fingers were trembling—not from the cold.
"Camp," he muttered. "Too remote for locals."
"Too clean," said the second officer beside him. He was younger, smug in the way only someone who hadn't fought a real war could be. He drummed his fingers on the frozen rail.
"They said the woman was beautiful. Blonde. Maybe she's keeping the boy warm."
There was a pause.
The captain stepped forward from the shadow of the bridge.
Captain Edwin Rutledge.Square-shouldered, immaculate. No trace of humor in his eyes.
He didn't speak for a long moment.
Then:
"Send a cutter. Ten men. Quiet. If it's them—I want them alive."
Cain stood at the edge of the inlet, one boot resting in the dark surf, the other on the stone. His gaze was locked on the glimmer of movement far out on the sea—just the slightest bend in the fog.
He could feel it.
The ship was there.
The cutter would be next.
He didn't hesitate.
He stepped into the water.
The cold closed around him like a breath drawn too deep.
But he didn't shiver.
He moved slowly at first.
Wading.
Then diving.
The water embraced him.
Silence.
Pressure.
Home.
He cut through the waves like a spear, his arms trailing slightly behind his body, legs propelling him with smooth, impossible speed.
The moonlight fractured above, pale shafts slicing through the deep.
He blinked once, the world narrowing into instinct.
He was planning to take the cutter before it reached the shore.
Drag it down.
Break its crew.
Then vanish again.
But—
He stopped.
Mid-stroke.
The water around him shifted.
It trembled.
And he felt it.
Not the cutter.
Something older.
Something hungrier.
The shadow passed beneath him—wide and slow, like the shadow of a passing cloud… if clouds had teeth.
He turned.
And saw it.
An arctic shark.
Ancient.
Massive.
At least five meters long, its belly a pale gray riddled with scars, barnacle rings etched into its side like rings on a tree. Its eye—black and clouded—fixed on Cain with a gaze that was neither afraid nor angry.
Just curious.
It had smelled the Light.
And come to see.
Cain narrowed his eyes.
"Not now."
The shark lunged.
Cain twisted to the side, body rolling with the current.
The beast passed within inches of him, its body like a freight train of muscle and instinct.
The force of it kicked up a froth of bubbles and salt, blinding him for a second.
He twisted again, dove deeper.
The current exploded behind him as the shark came back, jaws snapping open.
Cain turned mid-spin, slammed both feet into the side of its head, and launched himself sideways. His hand flew to the strap on his back.
The glaive came free.
He didn't swing yet.
He waited.
The shark circled.
Slower now.
Testing him.
Then it darted in again—faster this time, like a torpedo of meat and rage.
Cain moved first.
He grabbed its snout, using the force of its own charge to twist around its body, letting it drag him deeper into the black.
The pressure built around his skull.
His ribs groaned.
The world went silent.
Then—
Cain slammed his forehead into its eye.
The shockwave was immediate.
The shark recoiled, stunned, its body twitching.
And that was all Cain needed.
He flipped the glaive in his hand—
And drove it through the shark's open mouth, piercing the roof, straight through the skull.
The blade burst out behind the eye, coated in darkness.
Cain twisted.
Twice.
Then kicked off.
Blood clouded the water in swirling ribbons of black and red, spreading like ink in milk.
Cain surfaced with a single, explosive breath.
Steam hissed from his skin as the cold met the heat pouring off his Core.
Behind him—
He dragged the shark.
Split.
Dead.
On the deck of the cutter, the lead sailor lifted his lantern.
His light fell on the pale figure rising from the sea.
Eyes wide.
Maskless.
Steam trailing from his body.
Behind him, the corpse of a beast too large to name.
The sailor dropped the lantern.
"God save us," he whispered.
And then he screamed.
Cain hauled the shark ashore in silence.
The sea hissed around his ankles as he stepped up onto the black rocks, water steaming from his skin. Blood dripped from the wound in the shark's jaw, pooling in the tide like ink.
He left the carcass sprawled on the shoreline—split from mouth to gill, teeth glittering in the moonlight.
A message.
A monument.
A warning.
He stood over it for a moment, eyes locked on the cutter's lanterns as they flickered and backed away—nervous hands turning oars in retreat.
He could feel the fear ripple through the hull, up through the signal chain, back toward the gray shadow in the distance.
The Falcon.
They would radio.
Report.
Regroup.
And come back harder.
Unless…
Cain turned from the carcass.
Stepped back into the water.
And vanished.
He moved through the sea like a second thought, just beneath the surface, invisible against the deep. The cutter had gone—retreating in panic, its searchlight swinging wildly, its commander already shouting for extraction.
Cain ignored it.
He was hunting something larger.
The Falcon lay further out—massive, silent, cutting through the sea like a blade.
Its iron hull glinted under the moonlight, sleek and menacing, steam rising from its stacks in quiet bursts.
Cain surfaced once—eyes level with the water, watching the ship from 100 meters off.
He saw the deck.
The pacing silhouettes.
The gun crews resetting position.
The command cabin still alight.
Then he dove again.
There was a maintenance ladder welded beneath the aft loading deck—half-submerged, slick with ice and rusted salt.
Cain found it by feel alone, fingers gripping the icy metal like it had been waiting for him.
He pulled himself up with measured control, each motion silent. His body, soaked and steaming, left no sound, no splash, no breath against the cold.
He moved like smoke between the rungs.
Then he reached the top.
Paused just beneath the railing.
And listened.
Two men.
Starboard watch.
Their boots scraped softly across the deck. One of them struck a match, shielding it with his palm.
"I swear, I saw him. Rising out of the water like a ghost. Dragging a damn shark behind him."
"You're tired. Everyone's tired. You know how the eyes play in fog."
"It wasn't fog."
A long silence.
Then the second man said, quieter now:
"You think he's real?"
The first replied:
"No."
Then added:
"But I'm still scared."
The other didn't laugh.
Cain vaulted the railing.
One seamless motion.
No hesitation.
No noise.
He was behind them before they finished the breath between words.
The first man collapsed without sound—his windpipe crushed by a silent strike to the neck.
The second reached for the signal whistle at his belt.
Cain caught his wrist mid-motion.
Crack.
Palm upward, into the jaw.
A snap.
The skull struck steel with a wet thud.
The body dropped.
Cain stepped over them with surgical calm.
His feet made no sound against the deck.
His eyes swept the ship's lines—pipes, ladders, cables, doors. He counted with his eyes, assessed load balance, traced the vibration of the engines through the hull.
He moved through the Falcon like a virus entering the bloodstream.
Down the hatches.
Past the gun deck.
Across the officers' corridor slick with seawater and oil.
Each step took him closer to the bridge.
He didn't kill everyone.
Not this time.
In the engine room, he moved fast—just three men. A wrench strike to the back of the skull. A knife across the spine. One shoved into the boiler chute while still trying to scream.
He let the others live.
Let them see him.
Let them fear him.
He wanted the story to grow.
By the time the bridge crew realized something was wrong, he was already inside.
He stepped through the rear hatch like a wraith in boots.
The comms officer turned—mouth open, eyes wide.
Cain slit his throat with the elegance of a bow being drawn.
The helmsman screamed, grabbed the alarm lever.
Cain shattered his wrist with a hammer-fist, caught him by the collar, shoved him aside like old rope.
The Falcon shuddered as he slammed the throttle forward—all steam, all speed.
The boiler growled below like an animal waking up hungry.
Cain gripped the wheel.
Steered hard to port.
The ship groaned, turned, veering away from the coast—east, into the open sea.
Behind him, footsteps approached.
More men.
Shouting.
Boots pounding on steel.
He didn't flinch.
"They gave me a ship," he muttered under his breath."How generous."
He would take it.
He would use it.
To cut the ocean in half.
To carry Janice faster, farther.
To reach Germany before the Empire could blink.
He didn't need maps anymore.
Just direction.
And steel.
He heard the first gun cock behind him.
He ducked, spun, disarmed, and crushed the man's throat in a single motion—then turned the wheel again with blood still on his knuckles.
He would not let this ship follow them.
He would sail it.
Or burn it beneath him.
Amd now the Falcon was no longer following him. It was his, it was Cain's now.
He stood at the helm, the wheel steady in his hands, guiding the ship into the open sea with unflinching precision. The Light Stone under his coat pulsed steadily, synced with the drumbeat of the engines below.
But he could hear them.
The last men.
Running toward him from the corridor behind the bridge.
Boots on steel.Rifles readied.Voices rising—not in coordination, but in fear.
Cain didn't care anymore.
He had already given them enough.
Warnings.
Mercy.
A chance to walk away.
Now they were a risk.
To him.
To her.
To everything he had left.
And Cain didn't leave risks alive.
The door burst open behind him.
Captain Edwin Rutledge stood at the threshold, pistol drawn, eyes hard. Two marines flanked him—one with a bayonet, the other with a trench shotgun.
"Drop the blade," Rutledge said, voice cold. "Step away from the wheel."
Cain didn't turn.
His voice was quiet. Even.
"You shouldn't have come."
The Light Stone beneath his coat glowed once, faint but unmistakable.
Rutledge saw it.
His jaw tightened.
"So it's true," he muttered. "The freak is real."
Cain exhaled.
Then moved.
The glaive came up, spinning with impossible speed.
The bayonet marine lunged—Cain twisted, sidestepped, and cut him in half from hip to neck. The body didn't even fall right away. It slid, sagged, then crumpled.
The shotgun roared.
Cain was already past the blast—inside the marine's guard. He elbowed the man's jaw, snapped his neck, and drove the glaive through his chest just to be sure.
Rutledge fired twice.
One bullet grazed Cain's shoulder.
The other missed.
Cain caught the third shot with his forearm, absorbing it with a grunt—then threw his blade.
It struck Rutledge in the sternum, burying itself deep.
The captain staggered backward—eyes wide—grasping for a final command.
Cain crossed the room in two steps, grabbed the hilt, and leaned in.
"You should have stayed at sea."
He ripped the blade free, let Rutledge fall.
No words.
No last rites.
Just silence.
He cleared the rest of the ship in ten minutes.
Room by room.
No more pressure-point strikes. No more quiet mercy.
Everyone died.
Even the ones who begged.
Even the ones who ran.
One tried to hide behind the lifeboats.
Cain found him.
Another tried to radio for backup.
Cain tore the console out of the wall, then slit his throat.
By the time he returned to the bridge, the ship was his in truth.
Empty.
Bleeding.
Silent.
He walked to the helm again, still breathing steady.
The Light Stone pulsed—satisfied.
Cain looked out over the bow toward the dark sea.
No more shadows following them.
Only open water.
Far behind him, the cliffs of the inlet stood quiet.
The cave was just visible from the Falcon's searchlight—barely a notch in the dark.
Inside, Janice sat by the fire, watching the flames flicker.
The shark's corpse still lay on the rocks outside like a monument.
But in the distance—
A light moved.
Closer.
Bright.
Not a torch.
A searchlight.
She stood, rifle in hand, heart suddenly tight.
Then she saw it.
A warship.
But not chasing.
Not hunting.
Approaching.
Slow.
Silent.
And at the helm—she could just make out the silhouette.
Small.
Straight-backed.
Cain.