Chapter 10 | Part 5

Maris told them about the vision.

The same image, repeated endlessly: a small boat on black water that moved wrong. A figure in the boat—shape unclear, features impossible to see. A hand reaching up from beneath the surface, grey-dark skin and long fingers, slipping under before anyone could grasp it.

“The water isn’t normal,” she said, her voice flat with exhaustion. “It’s too thick. Too alive. Like it’s fighting whatever’s in it.”

Eldric listened with the part of his mind that collected data, while the rest processed implications. Black water. A drowning figure. An artifact that tracked seers and prophets. None of it connected to anything he understood, but the pattern was forming regardless.

“How long have you been seeing this?” Xandor asked.

“Days. Weeks, maybe. It started as fragments—just flashes, easy to dismiss. Then it got stronger. Longer. Until I couldn’t sleep without seeing it, couldn’t wake without remembering it.” Maris’s hands were steady on the table, but her posture said she was holding herself together through sheer will. “Three days ago, I collapsed in a field outside my village. When I woke up, I could feel… this.” She gestured at the artifact. “Like a hook in my chest, pulling me east.”

“The Nexus draws connected people,” Dulint said quietly. “That’s what Xandor’s texts suggest. Seers, prophets, those touched by prophecy.”

“I’m not touched by prophecy. I’m cursed by it.” Maris’s voice sharpened. “You don’t understand what it’s like. The visions come whether I want them or not. They leave me collapsed, vulnerable, unable to function. And no one believes me when I try to warn them about what I’ve seen.”

Eldric heard the echo of his own experience in her words. Being right. Being ignored. Watching disaster unfold because the people in charge couldn’t accept information that didn’t fit their expectations.

“I believe you,” he said.

Maris looked at him, surprised.

“I spent years telling my commanders about Grukmar patterns that no one else could see. They dismissed me. Called me paranoid. And then men died because no one was watching the places I told them to watch.” He met her gaze steadily. “I know what it’s like to see things that others miss. And I know what it costs when people refuse to listen.”

Recognition stirred in her expression, cautious and incomplete. Two people who had seen too much and been believed too little.

“The vision,” Xandor said carefully, steering the conversation back to practical matters. “The drowning figure. Do you have any sense of who it is? Or when it’s happening?”

Maris shook her head. “I see the same thing every time. No context, no explanation. Just the boat, the water, the hand.” She paused. “But I have a feeling—nothing I can prove—that it’s not symbolic. Someone is actually drowning. Or will be. Or already has.”

The artifact pulsed gently, as if confirming something.

“The Nexus tracks connected events,” Xandor murmured, almost to himself. “If Maris is seeing someone drowning, and the artifact brought her here, and it’s been pointing toward something moving…”

“You think they’re connected,” Eldric finished. “The drowning person and whatever the artifact is searching for.”

“I think everything is connected. That’s what the Nexus does—it creates connections. Draws things together. The question is why.”

Balin, who had been silent through most of the conversation, finally spoke. “So what do we do? Wait for more visions? Follow the artifact wherever it points? We can’t hide here forever, and we can’t run without getting caught.”

“We need more information,” Eldric said. “About the system, about what the artifact is looking for, about who’s pursuing you and why.” He looked at Xandor. “You said you’ve been researching this for decades. What do your texts say about completing the search? About what happens when the Nexus finds what it’s looking for?”

Xandor was quiet for a long moment. “The texts are incomplete. Fragmentary. But the implication is that the Nexus system has a purpose—something it was built to accomplish. Finding the pieces is part of that purpose. So is finding the people connected to them.”

“And what happens when it accomplishes its purpose?”

“That’s the part the texts don’t say.” Xandor spread his hands. “Or can’t say. Or won’t say. The ancient writings are full of references to outcomes that are never specified, costs that are never named. Whatever the Nexus is supposed to do, the people who built it didn’t want us to know.”

The room fell silent. Outside, night had fully fallen. The only light came from the candles and the faint luminescence of the artifact itself—still pointing, still searching, still calling to something none of them could see.

Eldric counted the people around him. Five, including himself. A merchant carrying ancient weight. A youth who wanted to prove himself. A scholar who knew too much and not enough. A seer who couldn’t escape her visions.

And himself. A bitter man who saw patterns but couldn’t make anyone listen.

Not a team. Not an army. But something that might, eventually, become both.

“We stay together,” he said. “We share what we know. And we figure out what this thing wants before the people hunting you figure out where we are.”

Dulint nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

Balin was quicker. “Agreed.”

Xandor inclined his head, saying nothing more, but his expression carried the same weight.

Maris was the last to speak. She looked at the artifact, then at the people around her, and her expression was unreadable.

“I came here to make the screaming stop,” she said. “If staying helps with that, then I’ll stay. But if you’re wrong—if this is all some elaborate trap—I won’t hesitate to leave.”

“Fair enough.” Eldric stood, moving to the window to look at the dark street below. “Get some rest. All of you. Tomorrow, we start asking questions.”

Behind him, the artifact continued its patient vigil. It kept pointing, searching for whatever came next.

Eldric stared into the dark street and couldn’t shake the sense that something out there had already noticed them.

End of Chapter 10.5 —> 11.1: The Kind Man: The Savior