Chương 8

The world is ever changing, ever shifting. Nothing remains the same. Don't cry, sweet boy. It's a happy thing. Who would wish the Seas to be stagnant? Harker floated upon gentle waves. He was warm with the taste of salt in his mouth and a silvered darkness pressed upon his face. The deep sound of rolling waters filled his ears, submerged beneath the surface as he rode the soft swell. Above, distant clouds scudded across a dark vault of stars.

They shone, crystal clear in their multitude, an arterial spray across the horizon, their light catching on the edge of waves that extended all around him. Is this… the Infinite Sea? His calm faded swiftly. A tickling cold brushed against his back, like fingers in the dark. The warmth remained, but it no longer comforted. His body bobbed and the Sea's surface rolled, displaced by eddying currents—and the passage of something vast. Harker's buoyant limbs dragged downward, tangling with the thick, cold waters.

He spat, his head and shoulders just barely cresting the waves. Something moved. Though the depths were murky, the starlight glinted off of a sinuous shape. Scales rippled, gills flexed, and a single, vast eye blinked. Harker shouted, choking on saltwater. Teeth flashed, and hot breath soaked his feet—but they rebounded in a swell of gold. Harker's head snapped back, eyes filled with brilliant afterimages as the Sea and his dark visitor were cast away. What remained was golden.

Tendrils of liquid metal radiated through the black water, lacing beneath the foam and just under his heels. They tightened, loops of gold now latching onto Harker like tiny hands, dragging knee and hip. He tried to swim, but the gold held him fast. His breath squeezed shut as the gilded Sea ran roughshod over tongue and teeth, eyes and ears. His flesh ran red… and blazed like a setting sun. The Sea boiled, a cataract of furious foam and jagged wave, until all Harker knew was its roar.

Pressure lifted him from the dark. Chest swollen, buoyant to the point of eruption, he gasped out a ragged cry into a lightless room. Harker blinked, eyes rolling without seeing, as the pressure built to an unbearable crescendo—and burst. Muscles clenched, he heaved himself sideways and vomited a stream of blue-green radiance. It flooded through him like a thousand raging rivers, pouring from not just his mouth but his nose, eyes, ears, and sprang like sweat from every single pore at once.

Liquid light spread from him, illuminating the chamber as it curled through the air and lapped against the floorboards. Yet just as quickly, it evaporated, leaving nothing behind but the faintest glimmering sheen of salt. Harker fell back, his insides as unsettled as his mind. He tangled his fingers in the bedcloths, anchoring himself to the real as his scattered thoughts swam in frenzied circles. The Sea is gone. The Aberrant is gone. It wasn't real— his mouth was too dry. Salty. It couldn't be real.

By slow measures, he brought his breath under control, quieting his pulse with every steadied exhale. Only then did he take in the room he'd found himself in. He was laid out on a suspiciously comfortable bed, the mattress well-stuffed and clean blankets tangled around his knees. He was dressed, at least, though it was with a thin linen shirt and pants. His boots were on the floorboards beside the thin, patterned rug that covered it. It was woven and dyed, bought elsewhere, perhaps from Haver Hill.

A window was on either side of the room, large and glass-paned, and a door sat opposite the bed. There was little else in the room, save a chest of drawers and an empty chamberpot. Whose house is this? He'd rarely been inside the houses of the Vale, but this was someone of means. That rug's expensive, thin as it is, and that glass doesn't have a single bubble. Gathering his strength, Harker propped himself up against the pillows. Outside the window by his feet he could see the faint whitish hue on the horizon.

The sun hadn't risen yet, but false dawn was well underway, and the storm was over. He frowned. Just how much time had passed? He recalled the storm and the woods, running from the—he shuddered—the Stitcher. He remembered falling. Harker put a hand to his abdomen and rolled his ankles, yet there wasn't even a twinge of pain. That's impossible… The smell of salt cut through his thoughts, spiraling him back through time. He remembered the cavern. The call of the Sea. The golden wave.

Memory tangled, pieces of what happened in the cavern mixing with the dream he only half remembered. He prodded at his forehead, running his fingers through his hair and down past his ears, but if there was any trace of that strange golden metal, he couldn't feel it. He remembered all too well what had happened to the Illwrought. Why did he live when the beast hadn't? Harker checked over the rest of himself with a deftess born of long habit and laborious training.

He stretched and prodded, testing his joints and range of motion. There was no lingering pain or damage that he could find—save for his left side. His arm wasn't shredded any longer, but it bore a network of interweaving scars from deltoid to wrist, as if an artist had flayed him open and healed him all at once. Even what had been an open wound in his side was no more than a pocked ripple in his skin. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"That… that shouldn't be possible." Wounds like this would take months to heal, even with Sea-touched herbals. Worse, he'd been attacked by that Illwrought. Through the haze of his injuries, Harker could still recognize the sickly scent of its bite. It was the same rot that had infected Mari. Harker should have been inflicted with a spiritual rot, tearing him up from the inside, and yet he felt fine. Something was deeply wrong. And how did I get here? He took a breath. Calm yourself. Law 3A. Remember.

Harker needed a way out. No matter how he had moved from the Drop to this room, none of it mattered if he couldn't escape. His eyes returned to the room. He took in the quick dimensions once more, but this time the glaze of sleep had worn away. Now he spied his torn satchel there atop the chest of drawers. Most of its contents had been laid out on the table, organized into discrete piles. Someone had gone through it. A burning ember of rage knotted within him. A violation. He shoved it down.

It was not a useful emotion. Not then. He couldn't let it have free reign. He swung his feet over the bed, testing his weight. Harker found that he could stand easily. He walked to the chest of drawers, inspecting the satchel. It was broken, but it could be fixed with some scrap leather, waxed thread, and a little effort. He ran his fingers through it, feeling at the hidden stitching near the bottom and sides. He loosed a tightened breath.

The coins he'd sewn into the lining were still there, as was his mother's mysterious cache. Undiscovered. Good. Many of his supplies had remained in the satchel, and Harker packed them back up with several quick motions. Some of his dried rations were gone, as well as his mending kit, but his herbalist kit was untouched. I'll have to replace my herbals. Harker bit his lip, thinking. North of the Drop doesn't have most of what I'd need though. From the chest, he could see through the eastern window.

A strip of well-cobbled street lay two-stories below, and beyond a cut stone wall was the rush of the Gallant. He knew this viewpoint, and if he angled himself properly—he grunted. He could see the Charterstones standing in the market square. I'm either at the Marknuys or the Jasp's home. But why here? Neither family would have saved him from a burning building, let alone pulled him up from a cave in the Drop. None of it made a lick of sense, and things that didn't make sense worried Harker a great deal.

A flash of white caught his eye. In the distance, a trio of rough-looking men prowled across the square. They lingered near the Charterstones, their pale cloaks too unblemished to hide in the night. As one, they turned away and started down the river road. Toward him. Harker instinctively ducked lower, though they'd have to be true monsters to spot him from such a distance. What are the hunters doing? They couldn't be coming for him, right? Harker wasn't interested in finding out.

The eastern window lacked a lock, but the hunters' approach nixed that exit for now. The western window was likewise unguarded—most windows were in the Vale. For as sour as they were, Vale folk were entirely too trusting in their own strength. That window opened up onto a rooftop, dropping down onto what seemed to be a small courtyard on one side and an alley on the other. Harker eyed the distance between the roof and the nearest neighbor across the alley. Given a solid run up, he could make that jump.

That would be his second option. The first was, of course, the most obvious. The door was closed, latched shut with a simple sliding bolt. It looked clean of rust from ten feet away, but he couldn't be sure. Harker crept toward it slowly, testing his feet against the floorboards. They creaked and he cursed inwardly, certain that with each step the door would be thrown open by his imprisoner. Yet no one appeared. Harker made it to the door and paused, letting the whole of him go still.

He listened, but he heard nothing save the wind outside. The door was thin—that was easy to tell by how it warped near the edges—too thin to test the slide bolt without alerting everyone in earshot. Marknuys. Has to be. Only that cheapskate Coren would pay good money for a door so rickety. He smiled. Lucky for me. Harker had been out for hours. Even with his poor Scope, that was more than enough to gather a small measure of Water in his reservoir. Enough for one try.

He reached his left hand out, setting it against the door.

"Delve." The Water of Life rushed through him—and his eyes bulged. What felt like a floodgate opened in his chest, and Water raged through his reservoir—more Water than he'd ever handled in his life. It rioted through him, spilling up through his gut, spiraling up out of his skin in luminescent swirls as it carved through his left arm. The tributary took it, pressing Harker like he was trying to hold the Gallant itself in his veins. Water gushed from his Lock, but it didn't pool through his fingertips.

It arced to either side, sweeping outward in a sudden torrential rush. Two words followed in its wake. They glinted gold, echoing across portions of himself he didn't recognize. Sovereign Sight. A sudden, dire awareness of everything around him filled his mind. He could taste the wood of the door, the dusty weave of the carpet, the air itself. He viewed the unmade bed behind him, the shadowed recesses of the rafters, and the painted over windowsills.

Scented cold dust, his own unwashed stink, and the faint lingering aftertaste of the salt he'd left coating the floorboards. What… what is this? He heard the sound of his own breathing, the creaking wood of the doorframe, and the hammering of his heart. He saw… through the door, into the hallway beyond. There was an empty stretch covered by yet another too-thin carpet. There was one other door to the right and he was filled with the absolute certainty that there was no one standing anywhere close.

Everything all at once poured into him. It was too much. It rocked his Mind, dragging Harker backward away from the door. The rafters rose before him, the shadow swirling with odd motes of light, like— He hit the ground, driving the breath from his taxed lungs and lighting up the nerves across every inch of his flesh. His vision vanished, swallowed by shadow that sharpened into a blinding light.