Chapter 5 #2
"Exactly. Which is why this is either going to be really good for you or spectacularly bad." She leaned back against the wall. "Just be careful, okay? We don't know him. We don't know what he's hiding."
"Everyone's hiding something."
"True. But most people aren't hiding it while sailing you into one of the most dangerous realms in the Gallery." She softened. "I just don't want to see you hurt."
I set down the blade. "I'm not going to get hurt. This is business, nothing more. Once we retrieve the codex and get my dad out of the Dredge, we'll never see Cypher again." Even as I said it, the words felt wrong. Like I was lying to both of us.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in my bunk listening to Kora's soft breathing and Click's occasional chittering, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about copper eyes and scarred hands.
Finally, I gave up and climbed out of bed.
I pulled on my leather void mantle and made my way to the deck.
The Gallery stretched endlessly around us, both beautiful and terrible.
The ship's crystal lamps created a bubble of light, but beyond that was only darkness and distant portals.
I moved to the rail and looked out, letting the void's presence wash over me.
I could feel it now, even without trying. The currents that flowed through the Gallery, the pull of portals, the whisper-soft presence of echoes drifting in the dark. It should have terrified me. Instead, it felt almost peaceful.
"Couldn't sleep?"
I turned to find Cypher approaching, two mugs in his hands. He offered one to me.
"What is it?"
"Tea. Omri makes it with some herb he picks up in port. Claims it helps with void-sickness."
I accepted the mug, grateful for its warmth. "I don't have void-sickness."
"I know. But I do, sometimes." He leaned against the rail beside me, close enough that I could feel his body heat. "The emptiness gets into you after enough years. Leaves marks you can't see."
"Is that what happened to your face? The scar?"
His hand moved unconsciously to touch the claw marks. "This? No. This was a creature in a collapsed realm. Got too close while I was trying to save one of my crew." He smiled, but there was no joy in it. "I saved them. But it cost me."
"You have a habit of that? Saving people at your own expense?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I just make poor tactical decisions." He sipped his tea. "You asked me why I agreed to this job. The truth is more complicated than needing money."
"I'm listening."
He was quiet for a long moment, and I thought he'd changed his mind about confiding in me.
But he did. "Nytheris is... personal to me.
I've been there before, yes, but it's more than that.
I have history with that realm. Things I need to settle.
" He turned to look at me. "This job gives me a chance to do that.
To finish something I started years ago. "
"What kind of history?"
"The kind that haunts you." He set down his mug. "The kind that makes you wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you made the right choices."
I understood that feeling. I'd been living with it for three years, ever since I fell into the Gallery.
"The echoes," I said quietly. "In the storm. They called to me. Told me to come home."
"They do that to rifts. Echoes are the remnants of people who lost their lives out here. Their souls have nowhere to go, so they eventually become a part of it. They recognize you as kin, in a way. Some rifts eventually give in to that call. They walk into the Gallery and never come back."
"Is that what happened to whoever saved me?" When I fell?"
Cypher's head snapped toward me. "What?"
"I wasn't alone for all three days. Someone—or something—found me in the darkness. They pulled me toward the portal that led me out." I wrapped my hands around my mug. "I never saw their face, but I felt them."
"And you think it was a rift who'd given in to the void's call?"
"I don't know what else it could have been. The echoes are fragments of those who were lost to the void, not conscious enough to guide someone to safety. But whoever helped me felt alive somehow."
Cypher's expression had gone strange, almost haunted. "That's not possible."
"I know what I felt."
"No, you don't understand. Rifts who give in to the void's call don't become helpful guides. They become part of the Gallery itself, lost to madness. They wouldn't save you. They'd try to drag you deeper."
"Then what was it?"
"I don't know."
We stood in silence. Close enough now that if I leaned just slightly to the left, our shoulders would touch. Close enough that I could see his chest rise and fall with each breath. I had no business being this close to the captain.
"You should get some sleep," he said finally as he began to turn away. "Tomorrow I want to push your training harder. If we're going to survive Nytheris, you need to be able to use your abilities instinctively, not consciously."
"Cypher?" He paused, looking back at me. "Thank you."
His dark brows dipped into a frown. "Don't get used to it. I don't make a habit of late-night confessions."
"Aye, Captain."
"Good night, scavenger."
"Good night."
I watched him disappear below deck, then stayed a while longer, nursing my tea and thinking about everything he'd said.
And everything he hadn't said. He had secrets.
Deep ones. And they were connected to Nytheris somehow.
I should have been worried. Should have seen the warning signs.
Instead, I found myself wanting to know more.
Wanting to understand this complicated, damaged man who pushed me away with one hand while pulling me closer with the other.
It was dangerous. He'd said as much. But I'd never been good at staying away from dangerous things.