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Chapter 2
Skehl
A few hours later, Skehl trailed after his sister as they descended into the Belly, the trench’s deepest, narrowest depth. The water was gelid and stale. Heavy—as all the ocean’s entirety weighed on him. Crushing. His every muscle felt near to bursting. Yet he only bit his lip, clenched his hands, and endured. This pain had become just another part of his life. Gruesome in its familiarity after he and Thressel had first decided to spare the living…
By stealing the dead.
In and out, he assured himself, kicking through the thick, white-grey haze of glow and gloom that lingered here. Two bodies, that was all they needed. The sooner they found them, the sooner they could turn surfaceward. Towards the Skaltressian Palace where his exam was set to take place—if he hadn’t already missed it. Time was impossible to discern when down so deep.
We wouldn’t even be here if she had just requested the night off like I’d asked her to weeks ago…
He flitted his gaze from body to body—so many bloated and rotted. The last remnants of their lifelight wisped from their empty eye sockets and gaping mouths, melding with that pervasive, sickly haze. Tethers of kelp-twine were all that held their swaying remains. One end tied around their waists, the other around any of the myriad sunken boulders, bedded deep in the sludge and grime. Relics from that long ago time when his clan had first invaded the trench and carved out a home for themselves within its sheer, looming walls.
Skehl always swam through these waters with a pang of guilt in his chest, for here was meant to be a place of solace and somber reflection. Of family.
One of his tattered blue tentacles brushed across a corpse’s splayed, frozen fingers, and shivers like squirming eels raced down his spine. Instinctively, he furled his tentacles at the tips and drew them closer to himself.
At least we aren’t adding more tethers. Not like we used to.
Thressel offered little help. Just swam steadily onward, her mass of usually mighty tentacles rustling after her, limp and lifeless. She moved as if lost in a daze—or in the depth of herself. Her self-imposed distance, like an armor, was most impenetrable precisely when Skehl needed her most.
This would go faster if you would help—
There!
He beat his tail and swam over a few bodies towards one nearly identical to the older sister’s—and thankfully not yet decaying. It had a slightly darker green hue, but her length and build, as well as the circumference of the wide jellyfish-like dome atop her head, were close enough.
“Thressel!” he called, waving to get her attention. “How about this one?”
The body would suffice. He only wanted Thressel to offer some semblance of presence, acknowledgement.
She gave neither, just continued to float in place a short distance away. She held her hands clasped at her waist, where the magenta scales of her tail blended into the bare Lais-moon pink flesh of her lower torso. A vest of kelp buttoned over her chest for modesty.
Skehl willed her to respond. To return to some semblance of the sister he once knew her to be. Before they had lost Binah. Before she had accepted her most recent promotion—and lost so much of herself. Before…
Will you ever let me in again?
“Thressel…” he said, kicking his tail and doing his best to close the distance between them. “Can you be here, please. With me. I really need us to hurry.”
She turned to him, eyes wide with dull surprise, as if she had forgotten he was there.
“She’ll do.” Her voice was tired, brittle. Like the cracking of a crab’s shell.
Skehl sighed, his top lip twitching. “Great. Thanks.”
He turned from her and withdrew a clamshell-knife from his satchel, set himself to hacking through the twine.
“Here.” He held the corpse out to her. “Char away.”
Even with his back turned after kicking off to resume his search, the brightness of Thressel’s Shock blinded him for a few long moments as the sharp crackling of her power poked and jabbed at him from all sides, like a throat of needles swallowing him whole. She had needed to use more this time—more body to burn.
Sacrilegious as their actions here were, they worked. Rare was a raised eyebrow or a pointed inquiry when a body was returned to the palace burned beyond recognition.
Of the myriad atrocities Trenchguards were renowned for, their idea of “fun” was the scum on top.
Skehl continued in silence, doing his gods-blessed best to ignore that warm, black scent of death scraping at his nose, that flesh-burned taste seeking to infiltrate his lips. It might have been torture, had it not become so ordinary an occurrence.
Instead, he focused on time and its steady passing. Like grains of sand falling—one by one by one.
I’m… not going to make it back in time, am I?
He spotted a faint purple glow, then. Off in the distance.
Someone was coming.
On his own, Skehl could have hidden easily enough—the blue glow of his few and tattered tentacles was subtle, like the light of the Cal-moon, if watered down and muffled behind a splash of grey clouds.
Thressel, however, could not. Tentacle-laden as she was, she was as visible as a sun against the Belly’s grey backdrop.
All they could do was wait.
Skehl only hoped this interruption would not cost him future.
An older sister approached through the haze, slender and rustling with a modest amount of mauve tentacles. Her arm draped the shoulders of a boy barely beyond his youngling years. Skehl noted his length and those vibrant red tentacles, swaying amidst the boy’s titled posture. As if he were struggling to maintain his balance.
It was the boy’s eyes, though, that most piqued his interest.
Inky white… he realized, leaning in as the two Skaltressians neared. The boy’s Shattered. Like Binah.
Skehl hated himself for the relief he felt. For the plan he was already forming.
Technically, the boy was still alive in the sense that he was still breathing. Yet it was widely accepted amongst Master Seers and scholars that there was no coming back from a Shattered mind. Not really.
“What are you two doing out here?” the mauve sister said, her voice shrill and expectant. “And what is… OH!”
Her eyes went wide, settling on the burnt body.
“What have you done?”
Skehl turned to Thressel, unsure what to do or say. But with her eyes downcast and her lips tight as a clam, it was clear he was on his own to get them out of this mess.
“She was, uh…” he began, crafting his lie as he went, “a Trenchguard. Killed our older sister. Burned and brutalized her for unpaid medical debts after I…” He gestured to his blind left eye.
The mauve sister recoiled when she realized and held tighter to her brother as though Skehl’s own “recklessness” could have somehow harmed the boy more than he had already harmed himself.
Facing down her upturned nose and that fierce glint in her eyes of blatant mistrust, Skehl could only think of how this—right here—was precisely why he needed the Tide’s Eyes and the Master Seers. Not only could they teach him better restraint and control, thereby sparing him Seeing’s worst consequences and prolonging his life by years, but they also offered so much of what Skehl has longed for all his life: community, kinship, understanding. Sure, he had contented himself with a life devoid of all that. But only out of necessity. Only because a chance at an alternative had always been beyond his reach.
Until now.
“It’s been years since we lost her,” Skehl continued, fighting with himself to affect a modest, reserved tone. “And the pain never ebbs. So, when we learned that the Trenchguard responsible for her death had passed, well… sometimes vengeance calls with a fervor.”
The mauve sister traced her eyes across Skehl’s form, that etching of disgust never leaving her face. Then her gaze passed to Thressel and her multitude of pristine tentacles. Rare was such a symbol of status and power. Reserved exclusively for the Tidal Family, Skaltressian Reeflords and Reefesses—and decorated Trenchguards.
Skehl fought off the tremors that threatened to overwhelm him. Never before have they come so close to being found out.
Not even the Eyes have made mention of our treason…
The mauve sister turned back to Skehl and said, “Your sister’s untimely fate was the price of your own negligence. You never should have done what you did. This” —she gestured to her brother— “is where your selfish indulgence will get you. Tethered down here right beside her.”
She nodded towards the charred corpse, “It’s disgraceful—what you did to that Trenchguard. She was… only doing her job.” Something flickered across the mauve sister’s face, and she sighed. “Though, I suppose I can understand the sentiment. My older brother, he… The same.”
They all drifted together in silence.
“Was it worth it?” she asked. “Whatever it was you Saw?”
The desperation in her voice hit Skehl. Right in the chest. The deep sorrow so apparent in the wavering of her tone. As if she was seeking solace.
He glanced again at her brother, floating tilted. Lifeless. Yet still breathing.
That question isn’t really for me, is it?
And he found it in himself to be kind.
“In a way, it was,” he said. “I’ll… never forget it. It was the only time I ever felt truly one with the gods.”
The mauve sister held his gaze for what felt like a brief eternity; a thousand conflicting feelings played across her face.
Thressel grabbed Skehl’s hand and squeezed.
“Well, I suppose that’s that…” the mauve sister said, stifling a sniffle. “Off with you both. And remember, the Belly is a place for mourning, not vengeance. Whoever they were in life, the dead are owed their rest. Understand?”
“Of course.” Skehl’s stomach was a tangle of knots. “We won’t do it again.”
He almost didn’t notice then… how easily lying now came to him.
He and Thressel kicked off and left the mauve sister to her grieving.
After swimming a short distance away, Skehl leaned towards Thressel and whispered, “Not too far. I have a feeling she’ll be quick.”
Thressel just looked at him in that lifeless manner all her own.
“His size,” Skehl said.” His coloring. A strong charring and we’ve got our last body.”
“But…” Her eyes narrowed. “Skehl, he’s still alive.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Except that he’s not… there anymore. You know that. Binah always said that once Shattered, a swift death was preferable to one drawn out. He might be in pain for all we know.”
“And it would get you back to the palace faster.” Thressel’s tentacles furled, and something fierce flashed in her eyes. “No. We’ll find another. However long it takes.”
Skehl clasped his hands together and sighed, gills fanning. “Thressel—”
“No, Skehl.” Her resolve was absolute.
Now you come alive. Just to hold me back.
Thressel started off in the opposite direction from the boy.
Skehl glanced back and saw that the mauve sister had tied her brother’s tether and was already departing back into the gloom and darkness.
You never lift a tentacle to help me…
He beat his tail and shot straight for the boy.
Let’s see if you’ll lift one to stop me.
Another kick, and he was by the boy’s side, slowing only when he heard that undeniable, paralyzing sound: breathing.
But this isn’t living, Skehl reassured himself. Like Binah wasn’t living when Thressel—
He drowned the rest of that thought—too painful—and focused again on the boy. On that whisper of warmth radiating from his not-dead cheeks.
Yet… in the boy’s eyes…
Skehl saw Binah. Her madness. The pain of losing her.
He saw himself. The future he was fleeing from.
Saw who he needed to become to avoid such a fate as this. Someone with skill and control. Someone with power.
Someone like Thre—
He stopped himself before finishing the thought.
Why can’t you understand?
He withdrew the clamshell-knife from his satchel and raised it to the boy’s throat. Pressed it ever so tenderly, his hand trembling.
Getting into the Tide’s Eyes isn’t just for me.
He felt that steady pulse of his life, beat-beat-beating against his palm, clasped firmly around the pommel.
It’s for us. So that we might know what it is to laugh together again.
Skehl took a breath. Then another.
Please, Thressel. Let me help you.
He readied himself. Then he readied himself some more.
But he couldn’t move. Not a muscle.
“I can do this.” He had meant for it to be a shout, but even he had barely heard his words. “I can…”
His eyes began to sting.
“I…”
Movement in the water.
“Skehl!” Thressel swooshed up beside him. “Don’t. We can find another body.”
He shook his head. “If there’s a chance I can make it back in time…”
And in the fury his sister wore, Skehl saw how puny and pathetic he really was.
“Is the Tide’s Eyes really worth this?” she asked. “Why can’t you just… not See, Skehl? After all it’s taken from us?”
He recalled Binah’s face from that last day, when he had found her—what remained of her. Her lifeless eyes. Her mouth agape, as if frozen in a perpetual scream. How weak she must have been after so long strong. How she must have lost control while doing that singular, glorious thing that is most indescribable. Most irresistible.
When the itch comes.
I can’t let that be my future. I can’t…
“Yes,” he said, only slightly hating himself as the word passed his lips, knowing full well what it meant. “It’s worth it.”
It has to be.
Thressel stared into his eyes, and he almost recoiled. Almost.
“Fine, then,” she said. “Kick off.”
“But I can—”
“Kick off!”
That tone of hers… arguing would have been futile.
He slunk away. Watched as Thressel coiled her tentacles around the dying boy’s body and squeezed—almost as if she was more clinging to the boy than rearing to kill him.
Do you really think me so incapable?
He turned away as his sister let loose another burst of light, another thunderous crackling—all that power he didn’t possess.
Aren’t I?
And the deed was done.
The deed was done.
They started back through the Belly in utter silence, kicking their way towards the tail-end of the trench, where it opened to the uncharted waters of the western oceans.
Best to avoid swimming surfaceward through the trench itself; the bodies would only bring unwanted questions, whirl up unnecessary intrigue and panic.
Skehl swam fast and focused, forcing dozens of scenarios to flash through his mind. Some where he arrived at his exam on time, the tests and trials he would be asked to complete. And others where he arrived late, and all was lost. Each one was a distraction. Bad distractions, for the boy—now dead—managed to surface in every one.
Familiar voices pulled Skehl from his waking nightmares, and he realized they had arrived at the trench’s tapering end.
“Come on,” came that deep, predatorial voice that could only belong to a Tethien. To Bren. “I should be getting relieved soon, and we’ve both got the next few days off. How about we go for a little risqué hunt? Just us. Out in the western oceans.” He pumped his brow and flexed his biceps, clearly showing off for Thressel’s enjoyment. “I hear there’s a pod of spear-nosed slashers migrating through. And you’re in definite need of a little fun. What do you say, starfish?”
Skehl rolled his eyes, both at Bren’s unimaginative nickname for Thressel and at his asinine proposal. He’s been nudging Thressel to go hunting with him out there for weeks.
Tethiens and their ridiculous need for bravado…
“Hey, hey,” came Cahla, Bren’s Skaltressian Trenchguard partner. “Before everyone gets all mushy—pay up.”
She held out her hand to collect their bribes, the cost for her discretion. Cahla had never really been one to take her job seriously, but when she found opportunities to squeeze something out for her own benefit, she squeezed hard.
Skehl and Bren each handed her three moonstone-chips apiece.
“Everyone,” she reiterated, sneering at Thressel.
“I… forgot my chips at home,” Thressel said. “Assignment came unexpectedly…”
Cahla flared her nostrils, her sunrise-yellow tentacles glowing brighter.
“That’s the second time you forgot this month. I’m not running a Carekeeper’s charity hovel here.”
“You’re not doing anything here,” Thressel snapped.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh, by Cal’s decree, can you two just drown all that?” Skehl shouted. “Here.” He pulled another three chips from his satchel and shoved them into Cahla’s hand. “Some of us have places to be.”
Cahla flitted her eyes between him and Thressel, then grunted as she kicked off and swam a short distance away.
“Well,” Bren said, smirking at Thressel as he wagged his long, angular tail under him like a bulbous-nosed shrieker eager for a treat. “What do you say?”
Thressel hesitated.
But Skehl was out of patience.
“Whatever you chose to do,” he said, kicking surfaceward, before glancing back down at her, “be smart about it. And don’t go anywhere until the afternoon classes start, okay? I need to be at my best for this, so I need you nearby. Please?”
Thressel nodded, the two charred bodies still swaying on the tethers she held. She’d need to deliver them to her commander to confirm the assignment was successful, which meant that she’d be near the palace—near Skehl—for a short while, at least.
“Thanks,” Skehl said, meaning it.
And, as he kicked off surfaceward, he thought he heard the faintest whisper of Thressel’s voice saying something that sounded an awful lot like: “Good luck.”
Read Chapter 3 here!
Joshua Stavick 