Chapter 31 Hakara #2
He bent down, his lips near my ear. “You are Hakara. You have killed two aspects of Kluehnn. You have stood against godkillers and survived. You have been past the second aerocline. We do this together. We go south to Pizgonia, we find Lithuas, and we stop the cycle. All you need to do is pull.”
“All I need to do is pull,” I said. I tilted my head to the side and nodded. “I can do that.” I tipped the gem past my lips.
A quick breath, a brief touch of claws against my hair. “Just… don’t draw more than you have to.”
Before I could think to ask what he meant, a puff of aether materialized around me.
I breathed it in, felt the god arms grow to encase mine.
Strength flooded through me, something in my belly fizzing.
I pulled. And behind me, Thassir, Dashu, and Alifra did the same.
The chain ground against the rail of the ship and the boat moved toward the roiling sea.
The boat jolted as it hit the barrier, though I kept my feet planted and my breath held.
“According to the stories, there’s a lull part way through the barrier here, a place of calm. We can regroup for a moment before we continue,” Dashu called.
I pulled the chain and felt my team do the same behind me.
If anyone could make it through this barrier alive, it was us.
I couldn’t help but glance up as the barrier’s shadow overtook us, as the roar of the moving water filled my ears.
The barrier seemed endless from this angle, a thing moving past the clouds, eternal.
And then we plunged into the dark.
Water buffeted me from all sides. I let my breath out, took in another.
The light tingle in my belly had diminished, the god gem nearly spent.
The god arms were dissipating into the mist. I fumbled for the pouch of red gems at my side, managed to pull one free and slip it between my teeth as Thassir did his job as arbor, hauling at the chain with enough strength for the both of us.
Before I swallowed, I felt it again. That swell of power within me, just out of reach. A banked ember, waiting for a breath to bring it to life. The red gem slipped down my throat, began reacting with the aether in my blood. That whiff of power winked out, a star retreating from the dawn.
I pulled, felt my fingers slip against the sharp edges of barnacles.
I found myself holding my breath without meaning to, long practice and the water around me, thick as a downpour, causing my instincts to kick in.
I put my head down and breathed. Here, in the midst of the Sanguine Sea, I couldn’t tell if that briny, seaweed scent was the aether or just everything around me.
I focused on laying one hand in front of the other, using all my strength and will to get us through this barrier as the ship rose and plunged through waves I couldn’t even see.
The world around us stilled, the splash of water against the deck reducing to a fine mist. I blinked, breathing heavily.
We were in the lull, surrounded on all sides by the barrier.
The cracks in the surface below must have forked, joining again to form an eye in the midst. It was larger than I’d expected, big enough to fit at least ten boats like Falin’s.
The barrier ahead of us was opaque; I couldn’t tell if the distance to the other side was longer or shorter than the span we’d just crossed.
“Your hands.” Thassir dropped the chain behind me. It clattered to the deck as he pried the fingers of one hand loose. My fingers were curled into claws; I couldn’t quite seem to make them open on my own. The palm beneath was streaked with blood.
I pulled my hand away from his, wiped my palm on my pants, which were just as soaked as the rest of me.
It left red streaks – though the clothes were ruined anyways.
“I’m fine. We rest a little before we go on.
” My legs buckled and I struck a foot out, forming a steadier stance.
My other hand was still holding the chain.
A quick glance behind me found Alifra and Dashu slumped to the deck, the loose chain coiled in a tangle behind them.
Everything here was in shadow, the sea dark as a night sky.
Thassir shook his wings, water droplets flinging in every direction.
Alifra lifted a hand to shield her face, but didn’t even manage a groan.
She pulled the filter from her mouth. Water dripped from her russet curls, running in rivulets down the sides of her face.
Dashu looked as sullen as a dog in a bath, his clothes clinging to his wiry frame.
Alifra put a hand on his shoulder and he patted it.
“How much farther?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “No one could tell me how broad the barrier is for certain, but I think we’re through the worst of it.”
The ship lurched.
I stumbled to the side. Thassir crouched, his claws digging into the wood. All four of us looked at one another, as though one of us had somehow caused the boat to tilt.
The sea around us felt ominous, the water surrounding us a hungry, waiting thing. “The goods don’t always make it through.”
Alifra shook her head. “They do not.”
We’d all assumed it was because of the barrier, the churning sea. Something large moved in the sea beyond the boat. A slick shape breaking the water, a puff of mist, and then it dove back into the depths. I thought I caught a glimpse of eyes. More than two. “A whale?”
Thassir’s eyes were glazed as he peered into the sea. “Barexi,” he whispered.
Dashu frowned from his spot on the deck, his chest still heaving. “Barexi is dead. And he wasn’t a shifter – why would he be in the sea?”
Something about this was making me feel a certain sort of way, and it wasn’t a good way. A sense of foreboding was sneaking up on me, breathing at the back of my neck. A hint of a memory tugged at my mind. Dashu droning on, telling Alifra and me the story of a disagreement between Ayaz and Barexi.
“Barexi is dead.” I watched Thassir’s face as I spoke.
“But Ayaz once cut him into pieces. It took him a hundred years to put himself back together, but he lost one of his little fingers. To a whale that swallowed it.” The whale grew into a leviathan, Dashu had said, and then disappeared into the Sanguine Sea.
“It’s just a whale, right?” Alifra’s voice wavered, her hands finding the hilts of her daggers.
The boat rocked again. Harder. I dropped to the deck, felt the rumble of something scraping against the hull through the wood. “Not just a whale. Not anymore. A leviathan.”
“How do we fight something like that?” Dashu was pulling the chain to the mast, wrapping it around the wood, ready in spite of the hopelessness of the situation. I’d only caught a glimpse, but the thing was three times the length of the ship.
Thassir closed his eyes. “I’m not as I once was. I changed myself.”
I shook my head, gritted my teeth. We didn’t have time for this. What use were secrets if we were all dead? I untied the rope from my waist and then moved to untie it from his. “Get that leviathan off us.”
He put his hand to the side, his fingers spread, his face a mask of concentration.
Nothing happened.
Zayyel, I realized. He was trying to summon his lightning-forged blade, the one the stories spoke of.
Something cracked in his expression, like his insides were crumbling to sand.
I wasn’t sure if it was the bond, but I understood something of what he felt – that sense that he’d lost something through his own actions that he could never get back.
Dashu cleared his throat.
As soon as Thassir looked up, he tossed his flower-hilted blade to him. “Don’t lose it.”
Thassir caught it, the sword’s edge glinting.
I shoved another red gem between my teeth and lifted the chain again, ignoring my bloody palms. “I’ll get us to the other side.” I swallowed, and the aether was there around me. I breathed it in.
“You can’t fight this thing,” Thassir said to Dashu.
A head broached the surface of the water, horns like stalagmites atop its mouth, a webbed crest flowing down and into the water, a multitude of eyes staring out from slick skin.
He saluted Dashu with his own sword. “But now I can.” He leapt into the air, his damp wings spread, and then dove into the water.