Chương 1

We are the Sea, and the Sea is us. The calm and the storm. A healer needed clean hands, and there was grave dirt under Harker Shoalborn's nails. He scrubbed at them again, wincing at the wire brush and the steaming water. Two weeks gone and still he found flecks of it lingering. He had a Talent for noticing things, but they evaded him, like specters. Thunder rolled in the distance, and Harker looked out of the farmhouse window. It was a thin sound, little louder than the wire brush scraping his callused palms.

Winds chased bruised storm clouds across a vault of gray, ever so faintly howling from the distant peaks of the Gnarl. Lightning, seen so often in the months of Spring, flashed cloud to cloud as if Winter's frost was not still lingering in the Vale. Snow's on the ground. And more before long. The shutters rattled against the casements and the old farmhouse was set to creaking. Some said the storms were a sure sign of warmer weather to come.

To Harker, though he couldn't explain it, the storms felt cold and unnatural—like the night stretched too far past dawn.

"Boy!" hissed a creased-faced woman. Her hair was iron gray and she was missing more teeth than not—she should have looked harmless, but made up for it in pure, dogged cussedness.

"Stop wasting time here! My granddaughter's still sick!"

"Of course, Mother Vinell." Harker inclined his head and turned from the shutters. With nimble fingers only slightly shaking, he rolled up his satchel of tools. He knew his implements better than a smith knew their hammer. The medicinal pouch at his waist was newly full. He was ready.

"Please, lead the way." Mother Vinell grumbled but did so, likely finding his agreeableness more off-putting than if he had fought back. Everyone expected him to fight back. Harker found it useful to regularly disappoint them. The sickroom was through a narrow doorway and his patient was upon a narrow bed, wrapped in a mountain of blankets. Her name was Mari, but Harker preferred to think of his patients as strangers first and foremost. It helped him forget about their shared past.

Like most in the Vale she was fair skinned, so the flush of fever was clear across her nose and forehead. Her cheeks were hollow and waxy, and the air smelled of a faint, sharp odor emanating from the bandage on her left forearm. Family hovered all around the girl, some at her feet or holding her uninjured arm, but most were simply looking on in worry or fear. Harker kept his eyes away from theirs, careful to keep his own face kind and sincere, but not pitying.

Few in the Vale could stand pity, least of all from him.

"Boy, come here. Check her now," Mother Vinell demanded. She had shoved aside her own daughter to remain close to her grandchild's side. I'm right behind you, old hag. He burned to say it aloud, but that was unkind. Mother Vinell was simply worried—coupled with her acidic personality and it wasn't surprising that she'd lash out. Harker sat on a hand-carved wooden stool and let his hands hover over Mari's forearm.

"May I?" Mari nodded, though her eyes were a bit unfocused, and he carefully peeled back the stained piece of cloth. It stuck to the skin of her wound, so he applied a little water and lifted its edge. There was no danger of further harm, as the cloth hadn't been driven into the open wound, just stuck to some of the oozing discharge. Once it was pulled back, that faint odor became very strong, and very foul. A green-yellow discharge around the wound wept slowly but steadily.

Harker set his tools down and unrolled them. Tucked within the leather and cloth were dozens of specialized metal implements, all designed by himself or his mother for particular applications of their craft. This time, he selected a thin rod that had a wider piece at the very end. It was useful for sounding the depths of some wounds without overly aggravating the patient or the injury itself. Delicately, Harker cleaned the wound with freshly boiled rags and warmed water.

The water was a boon, provided to him by a nodding Mother Vinell. Once it was relatively clean, he used his rod to push aside the weeping edges. The woman's forearm was missing a significant chunk of muscle and skin, and that green-yellow discharge was being produced deeper in the muscle than he anticipated. It looked a lot like other wounds he'd been seeing around the Vale, but all those were on animals.

"This looks like a bite. You encountered a beast?" he asked. Too sharply. With a nervous glance at the family surrounding him, he modified his tone.

"What kind?" Mari nodded, but her head moved oddly. Like her neck had been loosened.

"Just a— ahh —just a hound. It was hasslin' the goats up on the ridge, so Kiv and I were tryin' to chase it off. It took a goat and ran, which pissed Kiv off bad. Ahh!"

"Be careful, boy!" Mari's mother snapped at him.

"You hurt my girl and I'll—""Enough, Vana, enough," Mother Vinell hissed.

"Just hold her legs so the fool girl don't move." Vana went silent, but she glared daggers at Harker. It was a look he was quite used to, unfortunately, and he tried to let it fade from his concentration. He kept inspecting the wound, but shook his head and cleaned off his implement.

"Please, keep talking. Knowing more will help." Mari swallowed but nodded. If she weren't so ill, Harker might have even enjoyed the way she simply listened. Had she been in her right mind, the woman would have spit on him rather than let Harker look at her wound. Small blessings, I suppose. He felt guilty for that thought.

"Uh, Kiv chased after the hound, and I chased after Kiv. We ran that beast to the—to the ground..." She kept talking, but Harker only had half of his attention on the story. The rest of it was focused on his fingers, which trailed slowly from the patient's wrist down to her elbow. He let his power flow, bubbling up from the shallow reservoir in his chest and traversing the thin and stunted tributary etched within his arm.

"Delve," he whispered. The Water gathered in his fingertips for just a second before pressing beyond and into Mari's skin. Wherever he touched, his power echoed back what it saw—a visceral image of what lay just beneath her skin. Hmm. The flesh and bones of her wrist were fine and perfectly healthy, except for a touch of inflammation. Yet as his fingers hopped over the wound and pressed into her bicep and shoulder, he could sense a darkening in her veins and, more importantly, in her tributaries. Harker frowned.

It was possible to contract a spiritual illness, most typically from Sea-touched plantlife or even an Aberrant... but a normal wild hound? There were a few packs out there, hunting the lands alongside wolves and the other feral beasts, but unless they too had been infected... He shook his head. Harker wasn't certain, but this illness did not seem like it was trying to contaminate Mari so she could infect others, as some did. No, based on the way the affliction was spreading....

He returned his attention to the wound itself, and the Water that still pooled below her skin. He sent his Talent questing into the unbroken flesh above it. His Talent was not great, for all that it helped him with his work as a healer. It was ranked so far below Minor that most considered him Talentless. While it wasn't strictly true, it couldn't be said to be a lie either. Harker's Talent was what most folk called a Knack, hallmarked by a shallow reservoir and limited effectiveness.

His power could briefly peer into any object, animate or inanimate, for a depth of a single inch. Not always useful but at times it could afford him a unique view of an injury. If he were lucky, it would also illuminate a path toward recovery. Yet what Harker sensed within the wound was horrifying. An object was wedged deep in her arm, and to his Talent it appeared to be radiating a green-yellow light. Unfortunately, sight was not the only thing informed by his Talent, but smell and often taste as well.

The clotting of foreign matter smelled like rotting death and tasted of a fetid pile of pig leavings. It was so heinous, in fact, that Harker had to fight every instinct not to recoil violently off his stool. Luckily, at that point, his Talent sputtered and failed.

"... and Kiv fought for the goat, but the hound had its—its teeth sunk in too deep. It pulled too, too strong and—and the goat and Kiv they fell. Off the Drop." A collective gasp ripped through the room as Harker came back to himself, nursing a sudden, piercing headache and leaden fatigue. Consequences of using his Talent and half-emptying his reservoir. The latter would fade relatively quickly, but the former would linger for a few hours, he knew.

Harker had only heard the last of Mari's story, and blinked owlishly at her mention of the Drop.

"He fell?" he asked.

"What're you deaf as well as Talentless?" A burly man said—Yarl, Mari and Kiv's father. He looked at his gathered family, reaching out to grasp another man's shoulder as if in support.

"She got bit, and Kiv. My poor Kiv died a warrior's death, killing the beast."

"Died in the Drop," someone muttered.

"That's an ill-omen."

"Shut it, Pol! My Kiv was a Sea-fearin' boy! No Mosskin or hill-beasts are comin' for his soul!" Yarl's raspy baritone rumbled with the promise of violence. Harker's skin tingled, a sure sign that someone else was pulling deeply on their reservoir, and by the way the wood paneling was flexing toward Yarl's fists, Harker had little doubt as to who.

"Boy." Harker met Mother Vinell's sharp gaze.

"Can you heal this with your herbs and poultices, boy?"

"I—" The part of Harker that was a healer urged him to tell the unvarnished truth. It was better in the long run. After seeing Yarl's outburst, his self preservation demanded otherwise.

"There is something within the wound. A foreign object that might be the source of this rot. If I can remove it, then... perhaps." Mari groaned, but not at his words. Her eyes were closed and her hair slicked with sweat. The fever gripped her.

"What do you need?" Mother Vinell asked. Swiftly he was brought a wide wooden bowl, more water, and a few other items most had freely in their homes. Harker had a good selection of remedies and ingredients in his satchel, but he was happy to use theirs so long as they were offering. As glamorous as he made it seem, being a poor man had its downsides. Harker dug into the wound, moving ever so carefully. Each pained gasp or cry from Mari earned him another hard stare, and not just from Yarl.

All the family gathered round, staring balefully at Harker. That was nothing new. He focused on his task, working his forceps into the wound and slowly felt around. The image of the green-yellow object was clear in his mind as if he was still staring at it through his Talent, so when he felt the hardened shape of something he knew it instantly. Gently he gripped the object and worked it back out, careful not to rip the flesh any further. With a muted pop the object came free...

and a rush of foul discharge followed it.

"The bowl, please!" Someone handed it to him, and he caught the majority of the discharge in it before holding his forceps up. In them, he held a long, jagged tooth the size of his pointer finger. The vile smell came from it directly, and before long, the entire thing began to smoke. He exclaimed, dropping the tooth into the bowl as well.

"What is that?" Mother Vinell asked. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Tooth of the creature that bit her, if I had to guess." Harker stared a moment longer, watching the bubbles rapidly spread through the bowl. Then he set about dressing Mari's wound. He mixed a poultice of Sea-touched fennel and pine nuts, mixed with the tiniest dash of purified wellwater. Boiled, in this case, for the heat as much as the purification. With the ease of long practice, he wrapped Mari's forearm with the poultice and a final bandage.

"That is all I can do," he admitted as he washed his hands in a separate basin. Blood and dried pus discolored the liquid.

"The poultice should bring the swelling down and drain her of any lingering infection... but..." The people around him stilled as he hesitated over the words. The floorboards creaked behind him, and Harker turned to see the burly Yarl clenching his fists, inches behind the healer.

"But what?" Yarl demanded. Don't say it. Just walk away. Just walk away and your life will be fine... until she isn't. Harker ignored his better instincts, and took a breath instead.

"But whatever bit her infected her with a spiritual rot. Her tributaries are falling apart." Harker swallowed, but clenched his jaw and maintained eye contact with the taller Yarl.

"It isn't likely she'll survive. I'm sorry." The blow that caught him across the cheek was too fast to be seen. He was simply standing, and then he was on the ground, his jaw aflame as the burly Yarl loomed over him with murder in his eyes.

"You're sorry?" he shouted. Yarl loomed large, easily twice as wide as Harker and topping him by a head.

"I allow you here— into my house! — and all I get from you is a bandage and 'I'm sorry'?"

"Yarl—""Don't you 'Yarl' me, wife! I'll see this Talentless wretch strung up if he thinks he can get away with refusin' to help my girl!" Harker stood, though his muscles felt like jelly and his head was swimming. He leaned against the stool, and then the bedframe, until his well-worn boots righted themselves atop the floorboards. Mari sat, inches away, her eyes glazed with fever but Harker only saw recrimination in them. I can't do anything more, Mari. I wish I could.

"Gather your things, boy. You need to leave, right quick." Mother Vinell held his implements out to him, the lot of them rolled up tight. Harker took them without another word. Fast as he could manage, he stuffed things back into his satchel, for once not caring about their placement or cleaning them. If there was one thing Harker had gotten good at in his life, it was telling where the wind was blowing. A storm was about to break in that house, and he had no intention of being caught in it.

"Yarl, get a hold of yourself! Boy or not, you assaulted a healer," Mother Vinell said.

"That has consequences!"

"No one would waste their breath defending him! I told you inviting that thing into our house was a mistake!" Yarl didn't even look at Harker as he slipped out of the room, his attention wholly taken up by the aging matriarch.

"Of course he couldn't help! Worthless Knack like him—" Harker slipped out of the house just as the argument burst, yanking on his patched cloak as he scurried across their grounds. He sped across the thawing fields, uncaring that his boots left sliding tracks in the furrows or splashed in the near-frozen puddles. The sky above him rumbled, but it was far more welcoming than the violence brewing back in the farmhouse. Idiot. You stayed too long.

No one in the Vale liked having Harker Shoalborn shadow their doorstep. Knowledge and skills learned at his mother's side were all he had to survive on, and even that failed him today. He should have given them a salve, some assurances, and left before Yarl had time to stoke his anger. Harker had rules—Laws, he called them—for these sorts of interactions for a reason, ways to minimize exactly how much time he spent around dangerous company like Yarl Vinell. He groaned.

Mari's inevitable decline wouldn't reflect well on Harker, despite his best attempts. At this point, his safest option was to make himself scarce for as long as possible. If I see another Vinell in the next six months it'll be too soon. If he'd been able to heal Mari, the situation wouldn't have escalated. If I had more training perhaps I could have stopped the rot. If I bore a real Talent. If I could even glimpse the smallest piece of the Infinite Sea. If, if, if.

A sharp crack caught his ears, and Harker whipped toward the forest, hood falling back. The fields were empty. The farmhouse wasn't, but this didn't come from there—these sounds never did. Harker licked his lips, squinting through the wan sunlight and into the close packed trees just beyond the frozen fields. Winds shook their skeletal branches, rustling like dry fingers that cast shifting shadows deep into the dark of the Vale. Shadows that could hide anything. Beasts, Aberrants, even Tidelings. Hark scowled.

Having lived his entire life in the wilds of the Vale he was used to the dangers that could skulk out there. Even a Knack could handle beasts, so long as they were smart about it. Aberrants stayed away from farmsteads. As for the Deep Children… Harker touched the chain around his neck. There was a reason he carried cold iron. It could be another wild hound… Harker gave himself a shake. Fear was only useful when it could be leveraged. Don't see one. Don't hear one. Just keep moving.

"Where're you goin', Knack?" Harker mouthed a curse. In his distraction, he'd lost awareness of his surroundings, and two boys had approached him from the other side of the barn.

"Kaz. Mert." Harker nodded to each. They were easily a foot taller than him and wide with heavy muscle despite being two years younger than the healer.

"I'm leaving."

"You hurt cousin Mari," Mert said through a wispy mustache. Kaz cracked his knuckles and the skin along Harker's forearms tightened. One or both of them were tapping into their reservoir.

"You ain't goin' nowhere til you talk to Uncle Yarl. He's lookin' to vent and it ain't gonna be on us."

"I didn't hurt anyone, Mert. She was bitten by a wild—" A punch in the gut folded Harker in half. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

"Stop lyin', Knack," Kaz said. He spat on Harker's back, but the healer couldn't worry about that. He had enough trouble trying to breathe.

"We heard Uncle shoutin'. Everyone knows you're a curse. Whatchu think Shoalborn means?" Treacherous. Shallow. The last name of foundlings. Harker was intimately familiar.

"Nah, Kaz. He didn't curse her." Mert scratched at his belly.

"He was just jealous. Mari had real Talent." A boot caught Harker in the shoulder, flipping him up into a wild spin. He landed over two yards away, splatting into the half-thawed furrows.

"No. Bet it didn't even matter." Kaz kept talking, but Harker was having trouble following the words or the logic. His ears were ringing. While they were well-muscled their strength wasn't from hours working on a farm, but from the Water that was cycling through their tributaries. Harker's own anemic reservoir couldn't compete, and they weren't even using their Talents. Yet. Harker shoved all those thoughts away and focused on breathing—on thinking. He needed calm. He had Laws for battle too.

Law 3a — Have An Escape Route. Reach the woods. The trees are too close together for them to attack as easily. It also meant he could get ahead of them and potentially lose them in the thicket.

"You couldn't hold a candle to Mari. And you're here, walkin' free while she's dyin'." Harker mastered his breathing as he watched the both of them slowly walk closer. Kaz stomped, but Mert prowled.

"Don't seem fair."

"Plus, it's fun," Kaz added with a gleeful smile.

"Knack's gotta know his place." Harker pushed himself to his knees. He was going to have some serious bruises, but they hadn't broken anything yet. That punch was fast and well aimed. He's been getting practice. Need to... ugh, need to get them off balance. His mother's words were etched into his mind so deeply he could almost hear her voice. Law 4a: Seize Their Minds. Exploit their weaknesses. Disorient them. Make them mad. Whatever you can do. You're weaker than they are, Harker.

If they land a hit, a real hit, the fight is over. Do not let them.

"Mari kicked me in the balls once," he said, climbing up from the ground.

"Said I answered too many questions in class; made her look bad. You remind me of her." Harker faked a laugh, forcing it through his lungs with all the derision he could muster.

"I suggest staying away from dogs though."

"You little shit!" They rushed him, but this time they were sloppy. This time, Harker was ready. Slow, telegraphed haymakers swung for his head and chest—Harker ducked back, evading one and side-stepping the second. Mert bumped into his brother, spoiling both of their follow ups, and in that moment of confusion, Harker turned and ran. Kaz caught up to him in less than a second, tackling Harker to the ground. They rolled along the muddy earth, clothing soon smeared and soaking.

He pinned Harker down, one hand creaking the bones of his shoulder while the other seized Harker's neck.

"Use that smart mouth for somethin' more suited." Kaz leaned close, breath stinking of morning gruel.

"Scream for me." Without word or breath, the healer jabbed his fingers at Kaz's eyes. The big guy flinched, and Harker threw his weight into the man's elbow—not against the joint, but with it. Kaz fell forward, off-balance again, and Harker rolled free. He made it two steps before Mert kicked him back into the mud.

"Stay down!" Mert shouted.

"Take the beating like your s'posed to!" Harker rolled to his feet, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. His breath was heavy steam in the frigid air, uneven and rapid, but he lifted his clenched fists.

"Make me." Mert screamed as he charged, going for another tackle. Harker twisted free by the barest of margins. The farmhand sprawled into the dirt, but Kaz was right behind him, leg already swinging for Harker's groin.

"Ah!" The healer twisted to avoid the blow, but took it to his thigh instead. He staggered backward, and a half-standing Mert tripped him. Harker fell, tumbling out of the fields and into the moldering wet leaves near the forest's edge. S-so close. Thinking was hard and moving was harder, but he forced himself to scan the terrain, eyes never stopping as Mari's cousins advanced on him. Law 4b: Seize The Field. Rotting leaves. Mud. Stones and roots and the leaning trees. What else? What else?" Delve!"

Desperate, Harker pulsed his Talent once—all he could afford before his reservoir was exhausted and pain crawled through his chest. Even so, he saw something. A possibility. He just needed them closer. Kaz cracked his sunken knuckles.

"I'm gonna enjoy this."

"Depths, Kaz. Ask…ask the elders to court me first," he said, spitting out a wad of bloody phlegm.

"I'm not some longhorn you cornered in the barn, you know." Kaz flushed a deep crimson, but in his rage he manifested his Talent. Stones hidden in the muck shot upward and assembled over his left fist, forming a craggy gauntlet.

"You need a lesson in manners, Knack," Kaz growled.

"Sorry for you, but I'm not gentle neither!"

"Those poor steers," Harker gasped through bloodied teeth.

"Shut up!" Kaz charged, kicking off the soft earth with murder in his eyes.

"Surface Depth - Earthbones!" Law 4d: Show No Mercy. With all of his strength and body weight, Harker threw himself onto a thick stick hidden below the wet leaves. It lurched upward atop a buried rock like a fulcrum, flinging leaves and mud up and outward. Straight into Kaz's eyes.

"AHH!" The stick shattered as Kaz ran face-first into its length, but the mud proved more pressing. Blinded, Kaz swung with all of his might. A glimmer of yellow-brown liquid flickered atop his rocky fist just as it crashed into the ancient oak. It erupted. Pulped wood blasted outward, and the sheer impact of the blow threw Harker backward so forcibly his damn boots flew off. The huge, fifty foot tree broke, its trunk sundered in that titanic blow. It fell... right on top of the idiot.

"Kaz!" Mert bellowed before getting himself tangled in the descending branches. He crumpled into the wet leaves. Harker stood up and stared, heart pounding, but only for a worried second. Only to make sure the idiots were alive. Hallowed Depths. They're still breathing. Harker let out a relieved breath, before a painful hitch caught at his side. I think they cracked my ribs. A crashing noise sounded from the farmhouse, audible even from the forest, and Harker stopped caring.

If Yarl or the others got involved, he wouldn't just have a few bruises and cracked bones. He stumbled into a run, barefoot through the cold mud and snow.