Chương 53

Stormwinds rippled the cream colored sky. The bare branches, skeletal and grasping, held pieces of it stretched between them. It shook, pieces of it brightening with a ruddy light—as if the sun moved sideways across the horizon. … how? The light faded, darkening as something rustled beneath many legs. A… torch? She blinked, eyes not quite working in tandem with one another. It's… hide. A tent. The cream was stretched leather, and the branches were tent poles made of yellowed bone.

The walls were distant, at least twenty feet away as she judged things. Sejal shifted, and for the first time realized she was laid out on a stone table. Hands are… bound. Feet too. Sejal twisted her hips. No straps holding… me down. And for good reason. Her head was spinning, even from that little amount of exertion. Sejal stilled, letting her senses still for a moment before she pushed sideways. Her feet swung off the table and heaved her body upright with a soft grunt. Where am I?

Ropes hung from the tent poles, each of them fastened to cruel hooks. Cages populated the ground, woven of bone and wrapped tendons, but they were all empty. Burned stumps clutched the spaces between, the scent of char almost overwhelmed coppery blood and putrid gore. Almost. Sejal tried to piece together recent events. Her thoughts were fuzzy too, but she recalled fighting the Stitcher and his fresh abominations. She remembered failing. A cheap shot.

She twisted again, teeth grit against the painful burn in her ribs and spine. Salted bloodbreaker has more tricks than a Kelrosian Traveler. She'd been dropped by one of the butcher's monsters—a clawed thing with a beak and teeth. It had been far too strong.

"Sejal…" The soft cry was less than a breath, but it captured Sejal's attention like a ringing gong.

"Adhira?" Sejal could almost see her, standing there in the corner of the room. Her small body shook, and a heaving sob cut through the tent like a knife. Sejal's breath clawed at her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, then opened them again.

"You're not here…" The apparition was gone, replaced by a stack of yellowed bones draped with uncured hides. Shadows danced across it, cast by more of those torches. Something rustled outside again on too many legs, carrying light into the distance. Around her, the room came into focus. Sejal's thoughts sharpened, head clearing for the first time in who knew how long. Something's changed. Muir had used a Talent on her—it was the last thing he'd done before bashing in her spine.

Against all reason, her mind had been hazed. Her refinement was deep, and from their first contact Sejal knew Muir was barely beyond First Depth. Yet the Stitcher had dropped her nearly instantly, and only now was the effect wearing off. With it came awareness of her injuries, sharp as the day they were made. Aside from her ribs and spine, there was a persistent soreness on her right arm, just above her elbow. Twisting slightly, Sejal could see reddened flesh where she'd been opened up.

No more than small scratches, but enough that blood had welled through her toughened skin. That blackhearted butcher took my blood! With a growl she yanked her arms but could not free them. The cuffs that bound her were metal, though they bit into her with more than iron's draw. Abyss. Salt-steel. Sejal worked through the problem. Her reservoir wasn't empty, but she bore no refined Water whatsoever. Salt-steel cuffs were used on fugitive Talents all the time and they had one purpose: keeping you from refining.

Sejal's Current ran itself at this point, but she could feel it being disrupted in a steady wave. She shifted her wrists, but couldn't find a position where the salt-steel was touching her skin. Her ankles were similarly bound, but it was only leather cord. Strong, but not strong enough. She pulled and the bindings snapped around her ankles. The light beyond the tent went out. Distant sound slithered through the air, sharp and soft. Something was going on beyond the tent. Black Tides, this will hurt.

Sejal gritted her teeth. Third Depth—Cetus Sonor. Her Talent rolled up through her center, pushing from her throat to her ears in a caustic rush. Water gurgled and popped, and all at once sound rushed for her. Distant noises from beyond the tent leapt to her attention, joined together with the chaotic swirl of the Sea itself. Turmoil soaked them both—the crash of wave and steel, the hiss of foam and flame—all blurred together into a tapestry of chaos. Death surrounded the tent.

Sejal released her Talent and it was like unclenching her knuckles from around a bucket handle. Pain and relief in equal measure. She bore no refined Water within her, so all she had to pull on was the untempered Sea that had filled her reservoir. She massaged her throat. It was raw from the scouring grit of impurities as the Sea passed through the Lock—a pain that echoed across every joint in her body. How long have I laid here, pooling these impurities? Too long as the answer. Yet she was a veilguard.

Spire trained and tested with far worse than a little salt and silt. Salt-steel and poisoned blood to keep me senseless. They aren't enough, Muir. I will not be held any longer. Third Depth—Cetus Sonor! The untempered Sea rose up through her throat Lock once again, joining with the whistle that passed through her lips. Her Talent resonated, threading and empowering the noise as it shook the air… and washed against her cuffs.

It was immediately absorbed, but Sejal did not stop, no matter the knife-edged scrape of the Sea in her chest. She sharpened the sound. Over half her reservoir was gone and the cuffs still drank her power, but it couldn't last forever. Salt-steel had a single flaw: it absorbed. It didn't nullify. Blood welled across her wrists, skin broken and sizzling. Water bubbled and foamed. The note from her mouth ascended, and like a sword from on high, it dropped. The cuffs snapped in half.

With a groan, Sejal pulled her arms forward. She massaged her wrists and shoulders in turns, the sudden lack of pain a drug all on its own. With a small movement, she dropped off the edge of the stone table. For a moment her legs refused to hold her up, but Sejal locked her joints. Her refined body could handle far worse. It's been at least three days. Anything less and salt-steel would not have affected her so much. It sapped the strength of Talent, but only through prolonged exposure.

No less than five, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stand. She swallowed, hands flat against the table. With a few deft motions, she tore her tunic and bundled up the remains of the cuffs. Only then did she afford another scan of the tent. There was blood everywhere, splashed about like a child's ill-advised painting, and it was eerily silent. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The exit.

Sejal stumbled forward, her legs regaining strength with every step. Outside the flaps of the tent she could hear the sounds of conflict. It was far off, but growing closer. A gurgle was her only warning. A horror lurched out of the shadows, hurling a knot of bone and jellied skin at her knees. Sejal pulled back. She snapped her fingers. Third Depth—Cetus Sonor. Water scraped through her left palm, amplifying the sound of her snap. It screeched only for a second, then it went entirely silent.

Hanging hooks rattled from above and the grass flattened. The horror ignored it, throwing its liquid flesh at her like a net of distended teeth. It met her sound and froze. Its flesh rippled into rigidity as spikes of vibration coursed through every inch of its being. Sejal bared her teeth, the pain of her tributaries minor before her frustration. She was not normally so weak. She stepped forward, driving her bare hand through its center with a foul squelch.

There was a hard lump just beneath its putrid body, and she seized it and ripped it free. The horror fell, its body turned to a limp mush as it died. Sejal held up the reservoir. It was not ossified like an Aberrant, but fleshy and oozing with Water. It had belonged to a human. She dropped it and crushed it beneath her heel before scraping it against the stone and dirt.

"Sink swiftly, poor souls." Many would have cried foul at such a thing, but Sejal had no qualms.

"Find your rest outside the hands of this bloody butcher." She lifted the tent's flap. Outside, Illwrought prowled a camp of sorts. A series of tents surrounded her, each of them made of the same cream-colored hide and draped by a type of vine-netting that extended all the way up into the trees. Sejal blinked, uncertain of her own senses. The netting… flexed… squirming about as if it rippled in a wind she couldn't feel. Camouflage. Second Depth. She looked away from the netting. Stolen like everything else.

A person shouted and the low growl of an Illwrought pitched across her ears. Shapes flitted through the lower pieces of netting. A flash of light on metal. A crash and scream. Muir's being assaulted, and it's not going well for the attackers. The Illwrought already seemed stronger than when she faced them. Either he was hiding his strength, or he's stolen new Talents since last we fought. Such improvements in only a few days were possible, but not for a natural Talent of the Sea.

This was strength at the expense of the soul. The sounds of altercation increased, but Sejal put it out of her mind. As much as she wanted the Stitcher dead, it wasn't her goal now. She tuned her ear, listening through the gurgling rustle and panicked shouts. There. The resonance could be hidden, but not erased. She stole across the ground, slipping between shadows as rain started to pour onto the encampment.

None of the tents were guarded—not now, at least—and she ducked through the flaps of her target without notice. Inside were stacks of crates and locked chests, at least two dozen, all of them marked by the local trade association. Stolen goods. For what? A creature lunged out of the shadows—not toward her, but away. It was a slim abomination, all eyes and mouth, which it snapped open and started to scream. No sound emerged.

Sejal coughed, blood trickling from her lips, but she held her Talent firmly around the beast. Her other hand struck, ripping out its throat in a single smooth motion. Sejal whipped her hand to the ground, cleaning it up the ichor as untempered Water scoured her knuckles. Her chest was aflame, like shards of glass had been injected into her veins. Her Current was active again, but it took time to refine the volume of Water she possessed.

If she weren't mistaken, her need for Talent would be lessened in a few moments. The resonance came from one of the locked chests. Sejal approached it, lifting up the pieces of the salt-steel cuffs. They were blackened around the split where she'd snapped them open, but the rest still glimmered with silver flecks—refined salt, forged into the metal. She unraveled the strip of her tunic, depositing them haphazardly onto the top of the chest.

They rattled about, blackened ends striking first, before the silver salt all but adhered to the container. A sudden wash of Water flowed over it, pulling in strange tides toward the cuffs. In moments, the metal went entirely black… and the chest fizzled with a liquid pop. Salt-steel was excellent for dealing with Talent traps. Unhindered, Sejal bashed her knuckles through the lock. It sheared off like wet clay, and the lip opened up. The resonance strengthened, and she bit back a groan of relief.

Inside was her armor, her weapons, and her veil. In a matter of minutes, she wore it all again. Every piece she owned was designed to be donned alone and injured, and it slipped onto her like a second skin. The veilguard were solitary warriors and lone guardians—it was not their way to expect a helping hand. As her veil settled across her shoulders, rippling in the shadows of the tent, a sound pricked at her ears. The Sea. She could hear it churn all around her.

The Horizon was drawing closer, weakened by whatever the Stitcher had done. She had heard sounds like it before, moments before a Break. What is this? Sejal slipped toward the exit. The chaos outside drew near, along with the shouting of men. She peered through the flaps in time to see an Illwrought fall, its wolven limbs split from its body by a stream of thick orange liquid. It didn't stand back up as the fluid dissolved swaths of its body. Acid Talent. Major.

A woman emerged behind the beast and flung her hand, sending a stream of orange acid sideways into the maw of another pouncing abomination. It fell, but the acid failed to dissolve any parts of it that mattered.

"Margo, if you please," she said. Another woman stepped out of the shadows and brought her hands downward.

"First Depth—Air Claw." Air hardened into near-invisible claws that raked across the Illwrought's downed skull. She had to strike twice to kill it, but eventually it stopped moving.

"These things are getting harder to kill," their final companion commented, walking calmly between the two women. He had the gait of a far taller man, and bore a sword at his side that was devoid of ornament. A killer. All of them were clad in a pale tabard emblazoned with the serpent strangling a wolf, and She recognized the grim company mercenaries. They only spotted her when she decided to move.

"The veilguard."

"I thought she died." The man hid his surprise well. He put his hand to his hip.

"You still with us, Tellevite?"

"I hail from Lirien." Sejal's voice was cold, but she kept her hands away from her weapons. There was little need to make a scene. For now.

"No matter. That far east and all the isles look the same." The man waved off his mistake, a smile on his lips and sword in hand.

"Did the butcher steal your senses or not?"

"If he had, you would not have gotten so close." The three of them exchanged a look. Two had enough sense to be afraid, but their leader, a short man with narrow shoulders, hid behind bravado.

"Try me, veilguard. I never had my hand held at your fancy school. I earned my Depth in the real world." Sejal only smiled.

"Hold," the Acid Talent said, putting her empty hands up.

"We seek no quarrel with you or the veilguard."

"Speak for yourself—""She speaks for all of us." The other woman—the Air Talent—spoke over the man.

"She is our first in this mission." Sejal watched all three of them. Their unity was flawed. She could use that.

"What is your mission?"

"To rescue those that had been taken from the local villages and kill the Stitcher." Something exploded in the distance.

"How has that gone?"

"Better if everyone we tried to save didn't try to kill us," the man said, halfway between a growl and whine. That confirmed things. The people she'd remembered in the tent… Had the Stitcher worked his darkness on them? Had he tried it on her? Sejal frowned.

"The Stitcher did not affect my mind or Talent. I am untouched by his corruption."

"That's what the last one said."

"Then allow me to prove it to you," she said, reaching for her hip.

"Jump." Illwrought dropped from the camouflaged netting without a sound—until they landed. The ground heaved upward, and all three mercenaries were sent somersaulting backward. Sejal rode the wave, weight shifted to the side as three abominations screeched through unnaturally fanged beaks. She unsheathed the chakrams from her hip.

"Now fight, mercenaries!"