The Leviathan's shadow swallowed the church.
Its body coiled through the shattered stained glass, a mountain of scales and sinew, each scale a shard of black diamond pricked with a thousand eyes—some weeping, some screaming, all fixed on me. The air reeked of brine and rot, as if the ocean had died and its corpse had crawled inland.
"Starwatcher!" Claire yelled, her voice muffled by the thing coiled around her throat. The voidspawn tendril had tightened, lifting her off the ground, her brass bracelets clattering uselessly against its hide. Edmund fought nearby, his pocket watch spinning like a dervish, slicing through spawn after spawn, but his movements were slowing—exhausted.
I scrambled to my feet, the Stellar Fragments clutched to my chest. The book's pages were no longer just glowing—they were burning, searing my palms with their heat. The incantation hung on my tongue, half-remembered, half-felt.
"By the seven stars… by the anchor of time…"
The Leviathan's head loomed closer. Its mouth, a chasm lined with teeth like icebergs, yawned open, and I heard a sound that wasn't sound—a vibration in my bones, a whisper that said: "You are mine."
Something in me snapped.
I thought of the dockworkers, their eyes hollowed out like empty cups. Of Edmund's locket, the shattered watch that had once ticked for his wife. Of Claire's star-pigeons, feverish and dying, trying to warn us. Of the city outside—children laughing, merchants haggling, living—all of it hanging by a thread.
"No," I said, louder than the whisper.
The Leviathan paused. Its eyes—all of them—flickered, as if surprised.
I opened the book. The pages, now fully ablaze, showed a diagram: a human figure standing beneath a star, arms outstretched, a line connecting their heart to the cosmos. "The Starwatcher is a bridge," the text read, "not between worlds… but between what is forgotten, and what must be remembered."
I understood.
The "anchor" wasn't a physical object. It was memory. The sum of every human who'd ever looked up at the stars, who'd dreamed, who'd dared to hope.
"Edmund!" I shouted. "The Eclipse Elixir—it's not for the watch. It's for us!"
He froze, mid-swing of his pocket watch. Then he grinned, that same grin of his, tired but defiant. "Took you long enough. Here." He tossed the vial.
I caught it, uncorked it, and drank.
The liquid burned—mercury and starlight, ozone and something ancient. My veins lit up like a circuit, and I felt it: the city. Not just Port Belen, but every city, every town, every hut where someone had once gazed at the sky. Their hopes, their fears, their love for the stars—they rushed into me, a tidal wave of light.
The Leviathan roared.
Its body convulsed, scales falling away, eyes popping from their sockets. For the first time, I saw fear in its gaze—a god, realizing its prey had stopped being afraid.
"Now!" I yelled.
Claire dropped her knife. Her hands, free at last, flew to her throat, where the voidspawn's tendril still coiled. But instead of tearing it free, she embraced it. "I remember," she whispered. "My grandfather's clock. The way he'd laugh when it stuttered. The way he'd say, 'Even broken things keep time, if you wind them right.'"
The tendril shuddered. Claire's eyes glowed—blue, like the Leviathan's, but warm.
Edmund was already moving. He placed the Astral Pocket Watch at the center of the rune circle, its hands spinning wildly. "Zhou!" he barked. "Do the incantation!"
I raised the book high. The words spilled out, not in a whisper now, but in a roar: "By the seven stars, by the anchor of time, by the memory of every soul that dared to look up—we bind thee!"
The church exploded with light.
The Leviathan's body disintegrated, scales and eyes dissolving into stardust. Its roar became a wail, then a whimper, then silence.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of our breathing.
Then the light faded.
The Leviathan was gone.
But not entirely.
In the center of the rune circle, the Astral Pocket Watch lay cracked, its hands frozen at 12:00. Claire's tendril, now harmless, slithered away, dissolving into smoke. Edmund sank to his knees, gasping, his hair suddenly white.
And I…
I looked down at my hands. The burns from the book were gone, but there was a new mark—a constellation, glowing faintly on my palm. Ursa Minor.
"The bridge," Edmund said, weakly. "You've become it."
Claire freed herself from the last of the voidspawn, her hands trembling. She knelt beside Edmund, placing the locket in his palm. "He's right. You're not a hero. You're… something else."
I stared at the cracked watch, at the book still burning in my hands, at the stars now peeking through the shattered roof.
Somewhere, far below, the city stirred.
And in the distance, a foghorn blew.
"This isn't over," I thought.
But for now…
We'd won.