Chapter nine-Shadows beneath the tides
1265 Words
They left the Isle with the stone tablet wrapped carefully in woven cloth. Kalen secured it near the canoe’s bow, his movements precise and uncharacteristically reverent. Liora watched him, noticing how his fingers lingered on the carvings as if they were a language he had once known.
The mist closed behind them, muffling the island until it faded into a pale suggestion on the horizon. For a long while, neither of them spoke. The air felt heavy, as if the tablet carried a weight greater than stone.
Liora sat with her knees pulled close, studying the symbol that had glowed for her. She could still feel the echo of it in her chest, a soft warmth that had not faded since it surfaced. She traced the memory of the shape with her finger in the air, unsure why it felt familiar.
Kalen finally broke the silence.
“The map fragment is real,” he said. “Which means the others are real too. And whoever hid them wanted this place to guard one.”
Liora nodded, though her thoughts drifted back to the echo of the crying woman. The island had remembered her pain for centuries. She wondered what else it remembered. What else it refused to loosen its grip on.
As the canoe glided forward, the mist thinned again, revealing waters that churned more violently than before. Waves lifted and dropped them with a strength that rattled the hull. The sea felt restless, almost irritated.
Kalen tightened his grip on the paddle. “We need to stay close to the currents. This area is known for rifts.”
“Rifts?” Liora frowned.
“Places where the sea shifts from normal to something else. They look like shadows in the water. If we cross into one, we may come out somewhere far from where we need to be.”
Liora opened her mouth to respond, but her breath caught as something surfaced to their right.
A shape. A dark curve rising from the depths, smooth and massive, gliding just beneath the water’s skin. It moved with a slow, deliberate grace that sent a prickle down Liora’s spine.
“Kalen,” she whispered.
“I see it,” he said, his voice steady but low.
The creature passed beneath them, and the canoe rocked with the wake it left behind. Liora gripped the sides, heart pounding. She caught a glimpse of an enormous eye below the surface, gold and ancient.
It blinked. Not in malice. More like in warning.
The water stilled after it vanished, leaving a silence that felt heavier than before.
“What was that?” Liora asked, voice faint.
Kalen exhaled slowly. “A deep sentinel. They guard the trenches here. If one was watching us, it means we are close to the next boundary.”
“Boundary of what?”
He glanced at her, his eyes shadowed. “Where the sea stops trying to test us and starts trying to stop us.”
Before she could respond, a sudden gust of wind swept over the water, sharp and cold. The sky dimmed. Clouds gathered without warning, swelling thick and heavy above them. The mist stirred around the canoe like something waking from a long sleep.
Kalen cursed softly. “Hold on.”
The waves rose higher, slamming against the sides. Liora felt spray on her face, salty and sharp. The air buzzed with tension, as if the sea were drawing breath.
A hollow sound echoed through the mist. Not thunder. Something deeper.
Liora clutched the wooden frame. “Is this normal?”
“Nothing about this place is normal,” Kalen muttered.
The water darkened beneath them, shifting from blue to an unsteady green. Then darker still. Black shapes swirled just beneath the surface, moving too fast to follow.
Shadows.
The rifts Kalen had warned her about.
One of the swirling shadows slammed against the canoe, jolting it sideways. Liora cried out as she nearly slipped over the edge, catching herself just in time. Kalen grabbed her arm, steadying her.
“We cannot get pulled in,” he said, breath quick. “Do not look into the water. That is how they draw people.”
She tried not to, but something tugged at the corner of her vision. A flicker. A shape that looked almost like a hand reaching toward her from beneath the waves.
Liora shut her eyes tight.
The canoe lurched again. Harder this time. A whirlpool began forming to their left, swirling with a depth that looked endless.
“Kalen,” she shouted, “it is pulling us in.”
He planted his paddle hard into the water, straining against the current. “I know. Lean right. Now.”
She obeyed, shifting her weight. The canoe tilted dangerously, but the move slowed their spin. The whirlpool roared, sucking water in powerful spirals. Liora felt the pull inside her chest, as if something wanted to drag her mind downward.
A voice rose from beneath the surface. Soft. Familiar.
Liora. Come back.
She froze.
It was her mother’s voice.
Her real mother. The one she lost years ago.
Liora stared at the water, unable to stop herself. The whirlpool’s center glowed faintly, forming the suggestion of a face.
“Liora!” Kalen’s shout cut through the sound. “Look at me. Not at the water.”
But the voice called again, warm and coaxing.
Liora, come home.
She leaned forward, hypnotized by grief.
Kalen dropped the paddle and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “Liora. Wake up. It is not real. It is the rift.”
Something in his voice broke the illusion. The whirlpool’s glow flickered and vanished. The voice cut off sharply.
Reality snapped back.
Kalen hauled her backward just as the canoe drifted at the whirlpool’s edge. He seized the paddle again and forced it into the water. Liora leaned with him, breath ragged.
Together, they pulled free.
The whirlpool collapsed behind them like a dying breath.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Liora sat doubled over, shaking.
“I heard her,” she whispered. “I heard my mother’s voice.”
Kalen looked at her with a mixture of worry and guilt. “The rifts use whatever they can. Memories. Fears. Longing. They reach into the parts of ourselves we do not guard well.”
Her throat tightened. “I should have been stronger.”
“Strength has nothing to do with it,” he said. “Everyone has something they cannot face alone.”
She looked at him, uncertain whether he was talking about her or himself.
The mist around them thinned once more, revealing calmer water ahead. The worst of the rifts had faded behind them, dissolving like shadows in the morning tide.
Kalen rested the paddle across his knees. “We made it through. That is what matters.”
Liora nodded, though the echo of the voice still lingered in her mind.
“It felt so real.”
Kalen stared into the distance. “They always do.”
As they drifted into the quieter current, the stone tablet pulsed faintly beneath the cloth, as if awakened by the danger they had survived. The symbol glowed for the briefest moment before fading again.
Liora looked at it with a shiver.
“What do you think it means?”
Kalen answered softly.
“That this is only the beginning. And whatever the Tidecore holds, it will not let us reach it without a fight.”
The sea around them went still.
Too still.
As if something just beyond sight had started watching.
And waiting.
.
- Writer
