Chương 55

We were born in this word to see it. To hear it. We are the Sea, experiencing itself.

"I don't understand." Outside, the storm raged. It battered against the walls of the trailhouse, pattering waves that rolled against the thick stone. Distant thunder boomed. Adhira pinned him to his seat, her silver eyes vivid in the firelight.

"How have you been using your Talent as you have, if you possess no Current?"

"Very carefully," Harker said.

"No that's not possible." She tapped her chest.

"The impurities would build up so fast it would bind you up well before it ripped apart your spirit. Touching upon the Sea without a Current is to invite calamity itself." Harker pushed the food away from him.

"None of that is important. I've survived. But I've reached the end of what I can manage…alone." That hurt—saying it out loud. Adhira rubbed at her face. A thousand questions assembled on her lips but she thinned them out. Swallowed. Leaned in.

"You saved my life, Harker. What can I do to help?" Unbidden, a warmth crawled in his chest. He ignored it, but the heat remained.

"I need to see you." She leaned back.

"What does that mean?"

"Your spirit," he clarified, face heating.

"Use your Current and I can watch."

"That won't be enough."

"You felt the movement of the Water in my body just fine."

"Yes, after years of training. And even then, I can gather only impressions. Enough to tell that there is something going on, but not nearly enough to detect a full Current." Harker schooled his expression.

"Then how do people pass down Currents?" He knew that was possible. Families passed down Currents like heirlooms, and not just the famous Houses either. Even folks like the Vinells taught their children. His own mother… Well, he'd never know what hers might have been.

"It's called Submergence. You observe, but you must be closer."

"Closer…"

"You must stand in the Sea with me." Harker grimaced. His few experiences in the Infinite Sea were not good by any measure. The feel of things slightering beneath his heels was still vivid. He shoved his discomfort aside.

"Show me."

"We start by breathing." Adhira inhaled, holding it for several seconds before releasing it for even longer.

"Do what I do." Harker did. It was a bit uncomfortable, but he found the pattern soon enough. Four seconds in, hold for seven seconds, followed by an exhale lasting eight seconds. They repeated it for five entire minutes, long enough for Harker to stop being annoyed and instead find a groove of comfort. His lungs felt…not strained, but moved in a way he'd never tried before.

"Keep breathing." Adhira's voice broke through the calm, nearly upsetting his pattern.

"Next, you must open yourself up to the Sea as if to dive into your own soul. Instead of yours, however, you must follow me into my Scope." Harker's breath hitched. His own Scope was a storm tossed expanse where he'd barely kept afloat, and it was only Minor. Adhira was a Dual Talent. She put out her hand and, after a moment, raised her eyebrows. Harker smoothed his breathing as best he could, resuming the pattern. He placed his hand in hers. Almost immediately, he could feel her withdraw.

Not physically, but inward, as if she were receding into her own skin. Toward her reservoir. The dive. Harker initiated his own fall. His reservoir pulled at him. At its center was his Soul Lock, an open aperture bound by thickened Stature, a series of pale petals against a black bough. The Sea raged beyond it, spilling into him with every breath—but he was jerked aside. Pressure seized his hand and soul in tandem and suddenly he wasn't looking at his own reservoir, but one that was far larger. Everything tilted.

The food on the table slid off as the room pulled upward as if to tip over itself, and debris clattered into the fire with a great sizzling whump. Water surged across his ankles— Water? His eyes flung open. Around him, the Sea rolled into the trail-house, pouring from the collapsed hallways and blocked chambers. The door broke open, Adhira's Bulwark failing as a deluge of frozen water hurtled into the trailhouse.

"Hey—! Adhira!" She remained calm, eyes closed, but her grip tightened against Harker's. The Sea roared, hurtling tables, mattress, and debris into a wave that crushed into him. He immediately lost grip on the girl's hand and was cast into the depths. Harker spun head over heels, carried by the surging tide and ribbons of foam. A deep blue darkness filled his vision. Something brushed against him. He paddled his limbs, uncertain of up or down, only that he needed to keep moving. A glimmer.

He surged toward it, legs kicking frantically. The glimmer brightened, stretching into fractured crescents that dappled his outstretched skin. A yawning presence opened beneath him—as wide as the blue dark itself. His hand touched the light… Harker floundered and gasped as air met his face. He sucked in deep bellyfuls of breath, arms splashing against the still waters.

"You shouldn't be there!" Adhira seized Harker by the wrist and hauled him up and out of the water. He immediately curled his legs up, turning to stare back into the depths—but there was nothing below him. Just placid, translucent water that faded into darkness.

"When I said submergence I didn't mean this." She set him atop the Surface, and much to Harker's surprise it was firm as granite. Adhira leaned into his vision, staring into his eyes as if looking for something.

"Are you alright?"

"A bit waterlogged, but fine." Harker turned away, staring instead at the world around them. The Sea extended in every cardinal direction, and above it soared orange and pink clouds tall enough to toy amid the speckled stars of early evening. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Adhira grunted but let go of him.

"Guided submergence is steeping yourself in someone else's soul. The Sea barely tolerates us in our own Scopes, let alone another's. Next time, hold me tighter." He coughed again, looking at the water under his feet. He stomped on it. It flexed, but didn't sink.

"How are you doing this?"

"The Surface must be claimed." He considered her, water dripping from his hair and into his mouth. It was bitter, like tears.

"That isn't as helpful as you might think." She cracked a smile.

"The more you refine yourself, the more secure your hold over your Talent becomes. Increase your hold enough, and you can claim your stretch of the Sea. This," she tapped the water with her foot.

"Is the result of my Current feeding back into my soul." Harker turned slowly. The calm firmness extended in a vast circle—perhaps more than two hundred feet in diameter, but he wasn't certain. Beyond that, the waves of the Infinite Sea rose and fell, not so much crashing against the visible boundary as dwindling until the Surface merged with Adhira's circle. Her Scope made physical. He looked sideways at her. She was already sitting down, cross-legged atop the water.

"Sit, Harker." He stared down through the crystalline waters below. Nothing moved in the dozens of feet before the Sea faded into an occluded shadow, but he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. He sat.

"You're worried." Adhira hadn't missed his hesitation.

"That is wise. While our flesh is nothing but a reflection here, the wounds we take are just as dire."

"Comforting."

"Mhm. Still, there are safeguards. My claim on my Scope is one—no Aberrant can reach us here. And our reflection in this place allows us to do this." She breathed inward, utilizing that same pattern as before. Her hands, however, were drawn to her chest, and her fingers bent into a convoluted gesture. Water bloomed beneath them, gathering in her chest like a hazy light just beneath her skin. Luminous wine into an empty chalice.

"How is this any different from observing you from the outside?" Harker asked.

"Because here, you can truly see." Her gesture changed and so did her breathing. Immediately, the Water of Life flowed away from her center—her reservoir—into separate paths. It ebbed and flowed through the primary tributaries in sequence: head, left arm, right leg, right arm, left leg. Once complete, Water returned to her reservoir only to repeat the order. A sheen of sweat formed across her brow, but Adhira's face was relaxed.

"This is my Current. Once you've established yours, you must hold it at all times."

"At all times?"

"It gets easier the longer you practice it." She grunted as a wave tried to rise up around her Scope. It sloshed into the barrier and set them to rocking slightly. At the same time, her Current trembled in her tributaries.

"Though not all Currents are made equal. Mine is…complicated. A struggle passed down to me from my father, but one worth the effort."

"Why?"

"Because of the features it offers." Her smile was thin.

"I have to keep some secrets." His answering grin was sharp, but it faded as Harker watched the light play beneath her skin. Her sweat continued to bead. If she is always maintaining her Current, then what is straining her? Or is it the showing that's taking so much effort? He wanted to ask, but their time was limited, and Harker couldn't turn away from this opportunity. Hungrily he followed the push and pull of her Current as it spread through her body.

He'd picked out the pattern immediately, but the longer he looked the more there was to find. He lingered on her left leg, frowning when he witnesses a smaller pulse of Water along the entire length of the primary. Water curled through the smaller tributaries, arcing outward into muscle and skin alike. Current and body refinement all at once. He hopped about, hunting for more details as he went.

The Water within her wafted like cerulean smoke, illuminating what it passed through but fading from visibility instants later. Harker couldn't pay attention to it all fast enough to understand what she was doing, though he tried. Sovereign Sight. Harker choked. His thoughts no more than brushed his Talent and it had unfurled from him like a banner in the wind. Surprise nearly let it slip. How—? I've never used my Talent without speaking before.

Before he could explore the thought, however, sensory information filtered into him in a heady rush. His vision blackened at the edges as ineffable sensations stabbed through him from the air, the light, and the Sea itself. The touch of hard-packed earth. The smell of slow moving waters. A taste that was salt bordering on poison. All of it yanked at his mind and soul, far different than the physical banalities of the real world. Adhira. The placidity of her Scope was a smooth glass stone against his lips.

Beyond her, the wild waves crashed in eager rows, filled with an intent he couldn't parse. The sense of being watched grew. Just below the edge of the dark were a great many things. Shapes of shadow and hardened scale, with maws of endless teeth and minds rapt with hunger. Their attention was fixed on Adhira's Scope—how he could tell, Harker wasn't certain—but the moment his Talent touched them they knew. The Aberrants focused on him, and it was as if a thousand teeth clamped onto his flesh all at once.

Harker bared his teeth, burning the pain, and squeezed his Talent. He strangled the shape of it, honing it into a narrow line as he'd practiced. Immediately all sensation and awareness of the Sea faded, his vision brightened, and the agony across his arms and belly vanished into uncertain smoke. All he could sense now was Adhira. Questions later. He adjusted the shape of his Talent, allowing it to spread a bit to cover more of the girl. Current now.

It took time for his mind to settle and divide off the horror he'd witnessed, but Harker had a great deal of practice. His Laws rattled through him, reinforcing his will every step of the way. Show Nothing. Want Nothing. Become Nothing. All that existed were the tributaries before him. He got to work. They were no longer illuminated by smoke. Instead, every bit of Adhira's tributaries were laid out before his eyes as if sketched by a fine hand.

The first thing he noticed was that thye were nothing like Stillwater's. Though the five primary tributaries existed in the Eidhrin as well, Adhira's smaller components spread outward in gentle ripples. Those circular patterns spooled through skin and muscle alike with an elegant simplicity, feeding Water into her body at a rapid rate. He traced down every limb and up to her head, and the story was the same: she bore dozens of smaller tributaries, but all of it avoided the thorned tangle of Stillwater.

Where the Gilken was like the growth of a bramble—natural, wild, and free—Adhira's was more like a carefully painted masterpiece that prized simplicity above all else. What was most surprising, however, was her reservoir. Harker never expected it to look like Stillwater's, but it wasn't anything like his own either. First, it was massive, at least five times larger than his own center. Second, and more importantly, the Water within her reservoir was spinning.

Not one, but two separate vortexes drew Water in through her primaries and pushed it back out. At first he took it for an intake and outake, like air supply for his old Talent stove, but it was far more. He watched as glowing Water flowed into one of the vortexes and then was pushed back out by the same spinning cycle. It never touched the second vortex. Instead, that one was doing its own thing. Each vortex is pushing and pulling her Current at different rates. Simultaneously.

Harker's eyes itched, but he dared not blink in case he missed a single detail. The dual vortexes were holding their own shape despite being side by side in her reservoir. The separate rates are creating the pattern throughout her tributaries. It's— Harker couldn't help it. He blinked. His Talent stuttered out and a deep ache stabbed through his chest and limbs all at once. As if he had overdrawn his entire reservoir and tributaries. It was a familiar feeling, though not one he'd experienced in days.

The Sea was darker, lit by a ruddy light, and by slow measures Harker realized he was back at the table in the trailhouse. The room was dry and everything was in its place, including the Bulwark that still blocked the door. He was sweating a lot. Adhira sat before him, massaging her back.

"That was harder than I expected. Never done that before." Harker licked his lips.

"Can we try again? I feel like I almost had it." She groaned, and something clicked in her spine.

"That wasn't enough time for you?"

"What, ten, fifteen minutes? That was hardly time at all."

"A few minutes," she interrupted, frowning.

"It's been two hours, Harker."