Aldric traced the rim of the chipped mug, steam rising in lazy curls from the lukewarm dregs of mushroom tea. The quiet of his clinic was a thin skin, stretched taut over the city's ceaseless groan. Outside, the perpetual damp clung to everything, seeping through the stone, making his joints ache. He had thought of the craftsman, the quiet satisfaction in the memory of his apprentices, and felt a flicker of something akin to purpose. It was fragile, easily crushed by the weight of Vesmoor. A sharp rap on the outer door shattered the fragile peace. Three rapid thuds, urgent, not the hesitant tap of a mourner. Aldric set the mug down, the ceramic clinking against the scarred oak table. He already knew. The city never truly slept, and its demands were relentless. Faelan stood in the doorway, his oilskin coat slick with fresh rain, drips forming dark puddles on the flagstones. His face was grim, drawn tight around his mouth. "Doctor. They found another. Watchman, this time." Aldric’s shoulders slumped, a silent surrender. He reached for his leather bag, its familiar weight a dull ache in his hand. “Where?” "Near the old archway," Faelan said, his voice low, almost a whisper against the rising wind. "The one by the collapsed bridge in the Lower Merchant Quarter. He wasn't on the surface, not at first. Just… floating up from beneath, like the water coughed him out." The ancient archway. The place where the cloaked figure had appeared and vanished. The thrumming, Aldric remembered, had been strongest there. A knot tightened in his stomach. He pulled on his own heavy coat, the wool coarse against his neck. "Any identification?" Aldric asked, his voice flat. Faelan shook his head. "Just the uniform. Name's Elms. Been on the night patrol for years, quiet sort." He watched Aldric, his brow furrowed with concern. "You look tired, Doctor." Aldric ignored the observation. He felt tired down to his bone marrow, a weariness that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with the city's insistent whispers. He picked up his bone stylus, feeling its smooth, cold weight against his palm. The carved iron blade, a darker, sharper presence, sat beside it, waiting. The walk through the winding alleys was a familiar blur of smells: stale fish, damp earth, the acrid tang of industrial runoff. Rain pattered on the narrow roofs, a dull rhythm against the rising thrum from beneath the city. He felt it now, stronger than before, a deep vibration that resonated in his teeth. They reached the canal. A small knot of watchmen huddled under a tarpaulin, their faces pale in the dim lantern light. The air here was colder, somehow, permeated with the scent of stagnant water and something else, something metallic and faintly sweet. The body lay on a slick wooden dock, covered by a rough canvas. Faelan gestured towards the dark water. "The archway is just there, Doctor. Barely visible under the surface, but you can feel the current pulling towards it." Aldric knelt beside the body, pulling back the canvas. Watchman Elms. His face was bloated, blue-tinged, but without the usual lacerations of a common drowning. His uniform was intact, not torn by rocks or debris. His eyes, though clouded by death, held a wide, unseeing stare. There was no sign of struggle on his exposed skin, no frantic scratches. It was too clean, too… calm. A chill, sharper than the cold air, ran down Aldric's spine. This was not a typical drowning. He took a deep breath, the foul air filling his lungs. The bone stylus felt heavy, a burden. He had to know. --- Aldric pressed the tip of the bone stylus against the watchman's cold, clammy forehead. The familiar surge of energy, a rush of raw, dying thought, slammed into him. It was always a violent entry, but this time, it was different. This was not the slow, despairing resignation of a man succumbing to water. This was pure, unadulterated terror. He saw the canal through Elms’s eyes. The murky green water, reflecting the glow of a distant streetlamp. A normal night patrol. The dull scrape of his boots on the cobbles, the familiar weight of his truncheon. Then, a sudden, impossible cold. It wasn't the chill of Vesmoor's night air. It was a cold that radiated from beneath the surface, reaching out, not a current, but a conscious presence. Elms had paused, his breath fogging in the air. He’d leaned over the railing, peering into the blackness. He thought he’d seen something. A flicker, perhaps, a ripple against the tide. His hand had tightened on the iron railing, knuckles white. Then it hit. Not a fall. Not a slip. A sudden, powerful jerk. Aldric felt it, the impossible force yanking Elms from the safety of the dock. The cobblestones scraped against Elms’s boots, a futile resistance. Aldric’s own muscles tensed, mimicking the struggle, his jaw clenching. The watchman’s breath hitched, a strangled gasp as his head plunged beneath the frigid water. The sound of it, muffled and desperate, echoed in Aldric's own ears, even as he stood beside the dead man. The vision was overwhelming, sucking him in. He was Elms, choking, flailing. Strong hands. That was the sensation. Not a tangle of weeds, not a snagged uniform. But definite, deliberate hands. They clamped onto his ankles, impossibly strong, impossibly cold. They dragged him down, deeper into the black, sucking him into the current flowing towards the submerged archway. The pressure was immense, crushing, silencing the frantic screams that tried to burst from his throat. Aldric's own breath caught. His chest tightened, a vice gripping his ribs. He felt the watchman's panic, a suffocating wave of it. The water was no longer just water; it was a hungry maw, pulling him into its depths. He saw the archway, a dark, gaping mouth beneath the surface, its ancient stones blurring as he was hauled past it. The thrumming vibrated through Elms’s body, through Aldric’s own consciousness, a low, guttural growl that was not of this world. He tried to pull back, to sever the connection, but the vision held him fast. He was drowning, even as his lungs burned for air. The unseen hands tightened, moving from Elms’s ankles, creeping up his legs, encircling his waist, pulling him further down. The cold intensified, piercing through skin and bone, reaching for something deeper. It wanted not just his life, but his very essence. The darkness deepened. Elms’s vision blurred, lights dwindling to pinpricks. The hands were everywhere, relentless, methodical. A silent, terrifying descent into oblivion, not through natural failure, but through active, malevolent intent. Aldric tasted bile, the metallic tang sharp on his tongue. He was submerged in the watchman's final, annihilating moments. --- The descent continued, dragging Elms – and Aldric with him – into the lightless depths. The unseen hands were a relentless, suffocating presence, pushing the last vestiges of air from the watchman's lungs. His struggles weakened, each frantic kick a futile gesture against an overwhelming, invisible force. Aldric felt the terrible slackening of muscle, the slow, cold surrender. Then, a shift. Through the murky, water-distorted vision, a shape began to resolve. Not another hand, not another phantom limb. It was above the water, perched on the moss-slicked keystone of the ancient archway, framed by the faint, shimmering light from the surface. A bird. A raven. It was impossibly large, its feathers a darker black than the night sky, absorbing what little light reached it. Its head was cocked slightly, a predator's posture. As Elms sank past the archway, the raven turned its head, its gaze piercing the watery shroud. Its eyes were not the dull, beady black of a common scavenger. They glowed. A malevolent, pulsating red, like twin embers in the gloom. Aldric recoiled, a gasp escaping his own lips, unheard over the roar of the vision. The raven's gaze was not random, not accidental. It was fixed. It was watching *him*. Not just Elms, not just the drowning, but Aldric himself, a silent, ancient sentinel. The red eyes burned into his consciousness, conveying a message colder than the deepest canal waters. This was not the work of a mindless, reanimated corpse. This was something deliberate. Something aware. Something that hunted. The primal fear that had been simmering beneath Aldric's professional detachment now flared into an icy blaze. He had faced the restless dead, the tormented echoes of humanity's grief. He had seen the malevolent flicker in Kael’s reanimated eyes. But this raven, this silent observer with its glowing red gaze, spoke of a different kind of horror. It spoke of intelligence, of patience, of an ancient, predatory will. It was orchestrating. It was watching. The watchman’s final thought, thin and reedy as a broken string, resonated with Aldric: *He sees me. He wants me.* It was a terror beyond death, the terror of being claimed, not by the grave, but by something far worse. The raven’s red eyes seemed to expand, filling the entire watery frame of the vision, burning through the blackness. They were a beacon of malevolence, a silent promise of relentless pursuit. Aldric’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum in the depths of the drowning world. He was no longer just a Rest-speaker, an observer of final moments. He was suddenly, terrifyingly, the prey. He felt the connection to Elms’s mind fray, the intense sensory input beginning to tear, but the image of those eyes, that dark, knowing bird, remained seared into his internal vision. The deep thrum from beneath the city pulsed in time with his racing heartbeat, a chorus to the raven’s silent threat. He wanted out. He wanted to sever this connection, to escape the suffocating grip of this revelation. The cold dread seeped into his bones, colder than any Vesmoor canal. --- Aldric ripped the bone stylus away from Watchman Elms’s forehead, gasping for air. The raw, guttural sound tore from his own throat, shocking even him. He fell back onto the slick dock, his heavy coat catching the damp stone, the world spinning around him. The cold, the terror, the crushing pressure of unseen hands – it all evaporated, leaving only a bone-deep chill and a profound sense of violation. He lay there for a moment, disoriented, the rain a cold, familiar baptism on his face. The actual dock felt solid beneath him, blessedly unmoving. The actual watchman’s corpse lay still, quieted, his unseeing eyes now mercifully vacant. The frantic thrumming from beneath Vesmoor still vibrated in the air, a constant reminder of the city's dark secrets, but it was distant now, external. Faelan knelt beside him, his face etched with concern. "Doctor? Are you alright? You went pale as a ghost." Aldric pushed himself up, his limbs heavy, sluggish. His hands trembled. He wiped a clammy palm across his mouth, tasting nothing but the residue of fear. "He wasn't drowned, Faelan. Not truly." "What do you mean?" Faelan asked, his voice hushed. The other watchmen stood at a respectful distance, their lanterns casting long, dancing shadows. "He was taken." Aldric swallowed, his throat dry. The words felt inadequate, hollow against the vividness of the vision. "Pulled down. Deliberately." He looked at the archway, now just a dark shadow beneath the churning water, then up at the rain-streaked sky. No raven. No glowing red eyes. Only the ceaseless, grey light of a Vesmoor morning. They helped him back to his clinic, the journey a blur. The familiar space felt alien, suddenly permeable. He discarded his coat, the damp wool a clinging reminder of the canal. He slumped into his chair, the weight of Elms's death, and the raven's gaze, pressing down on him. It wasn't just a vision. It felt like a warning. He poured himself a glass of bitter Vesmoor gin, the fiery liquid a brief warmth against the internal cold. The watchman's terror, the unseen hands, the malevolent bird – it coalesced into a chilling certainty. Vesmoor was not merely awakening; it was hunting. And he, Aldric Vane, was no longer just an unwilling participant in its unraveling. He was being watched. He was being targeted. He brought the glass to his lips, but paused. A sharp, physical pressure settled on his chest, heavy and cold. It felt exactly like those unseen hands from the vision, pressing against him now, even in his quiet clinic.

A Raven's Warning