Marcus Drake
Born in the outer districts of the Cinderhold Empire, Marcus Drake was the son of two perfectly respectable, utterly ordinary merchants who sold perfectly respectable, utterly ordinary fire-proof clothing. They had expected a perfectly respectable, utterly ordinary son. What they got instead was a boy who managed to set their entire inventory on fire while …
Chapter 28: The Price of Depths
The void-hunters struck before they made it halfway to the surface. Their protective sphere shattered like frozen dreams, void-blades cutting through magic older than oceans. Water rushed in – not the controlled liquid they’d been breathing, but crushing depths that remembered when drowning was invented. “Hold on!” Kira reached for Lira as currents tried to …
Chapter 27: Deep Truth
The thing about reaching for power older than oceans? Sometimes it reaches back. Kira felt it the moment her fingers touched the water sphere – not just its physical form, but the weight of memory it contained. Every drop of rain that had ever fallen. Every tide that had ever turned. Every current that had …
Chapter 26: Proving Memory
The entity’s crystal-current lattice shifted, thousands of eyes swirling into new configurations. Their protective sphere now floated in the center of a vast memory-theater, where every surface showed a different moment of elemental choice. “They’re all turning points,” Kira said. Her coral spheres resonated with the ancient scenes – the first tide choosing its rhythm, …
Chapter 25: Trial of Memory
Inside the ancient thing’s heart, pressure turned memory solid. Stories wrote themselves in currents around them – not in water or stone, but in pure recollection given form. The entity wasn’t just a guardian. It was what remained of the first witnesses, those who had watched elements learn their separate natures. Its form shifted constantly …
Chapter 24: What Depths Hide
Their protective sphere hit something solid in the dark. Not rock, not ruins, but something that pulsed with its own light. “The water’s wrong here,” Kira said, her coral spheres flaring bright against the strange surface. “It’s not flowing like it should. Like it’s afraid.” The void-hunters’ empty patches pressed down from above, forcing them …
Chapter 23: Pressure Points
The ancient thing that rose from the deep wasn’t alone. “Above us,” Kira breathed, her coral spheres pulsing warning. “Something’s wrong with the water up there. It’s… empty.” Lira felt it through her earth-sense – patches of ocean where pressure simply ceased to exist. Where void-hunters had unmade the very memory of depth. They were …
Chapter 22: Deep Songs
“Water remembers everything it touches,” Kira said, coral spheres pulsing in the crushing dark. “That’s what they taught us in Maralyd.” “They were wrong,” Lira replied, feeling the ocean’s weight press against her earth-sense. “Water doesn’t just remember. It keeps.” Their shared magic sphere – a creation born of necessity and desperation – held back …
Chapter 21: The Cost of Light
“We’re burning away,” Jin gasped, her voice echoing with borrowed starlight. Not just her voice – her entire being flickered between flesh and pure radiance. Where once she’d felt the simple currents of air, now she sensed the vast flows between stars, the ancient paths that light took before wind knew it wasn’t flame. Around …