The pneumatic coil hummed, a resonant thrum against the floorboards of the makeshift clinic. Valen Karr’s eyes, the color of petrified kelp, bore into Korinthal, unwavering. The steel spearhead hovered inches from his windpipe, its barbed edges polished bright. Korinthal felt the cold press of the deep-glass shard he still clutched, the faint purple glow from Savia’s bandage mirroring the phantom ache in his chest.
“She’s dying, Valen,” Korinthal rasped, the words thick with a grief he hadn't known he harbored. “I have to save her.”
Valen’s lip curled, a raw snarl of contempt. “You? Save her? You sealed her fate, Voss. You, who swore a blood-oath to her.”
The accusation pierced deeper than any tempered steel. Korinthal’s vision blurred, not from fear, but from a sudden, vivid memory.
*Rain lashed the docks of the Sunken Exchange that night, a relentless curtain of icy water. Korinthal stood before Savia, the salt spray stinging his face, but his eyes were fixed on hers. He’d just saved her expedition from a catastrophic collapse in the Volarian Trench, a calculated move to gain her trust, to further his vendetta. He’d expected gratitude, maybe grudging respect. He had not expected the brazen challenge in her gaze, nor the sudden heat pulling him toward her reckless edge.*
*“You fought well today, Voss,” Savia had said, her voice rough over the drumming rain. Her dark hair, plastered to her face, framed eyes that gleamed with an untamed fire. “You risked your life for my crew. The Rask house does not forget such debts.”*
*He’d scoffed, feigning indifference. “It was a matter of professional pride, Rask. No more.”*
*She stepped closer, her hand rising. Korinthal tensed, expecting a blow, or a demand. Instead, her fingers brushed the laceration on his forearm, a gash from a ruptured deep-glass seam. She carried a similar wound, a matching line of crimson on her own arm. Then, with a motion that stole his breath, she pressed her bleeding wound against his. The warmth of her skin, the stark red of their mingled blood, sent a tremor through him.*
*“A blood-oath, Korinthal Voss,” she declared, her voice low, intense, almost a vow. “Between our houses, and between us. Partnership in the depths, against any current, any creature. What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours… is ours. Forged in blood, unbreakable.”*
*The words had been a hammer blow to his carefully constructed facade. His revenge, so meticulously planned, seemed petty, small, next to the enormity of her trust. For a single, dizzying moment, the Abyss itself faded. He saw only her, heard only the frantic beat of his own heart, echoing hers. He almost confessed then. Almost told her everything. Almost threw away years of plotting for the searing, undeniable connection that flared between them. But the phantom image of his father’s bankrupt ledgers, the cold shame of his family’s ruin, had risen like a barrier. He’d pulled back, his arm still tingling from the press of her blood, and sealed his lie with a curt nod, his gaze dropping from hers. “As you wish, Rask.”*
*He walked away from her that night, the rain washing over him, a cold dread replacing the fleeting warmth. He told himself it was triumph, the bait well taken. He told himself her trust was a weakness to be exploited. He told himself he hated her. He lied.*
The memory snapped back into the brutal reality of the present. Valen’s voice, a whip-crack, broke through the ringing in Korinthal’s ears. “She swore her life to you. And you paid her back with poison. Tell me, Voss, did her house’s ruin taste sweet?”
Korinthal flinched. The words were daggers. “I thought… I thought it was just deep-glass. A seizure. I never knew…” He trailed off, the lie catching in his throat. He’d known. He’d known it was Void-laced. He just hadn’t known the horrifying specifics, the Rask-specific lethality. And the terrible irony: he’d inherited her house, only to realize he’d traded it for her life.
“Prefect Croy lied to me, Valen. He said he had the Leviathan’s Tear, the cure. He offered it to me if I… if I brought her back to him.” Korinthal’s voice was raw with newfound understanding, the pieces of Croy’s insidious game clicking into place. “He meant for her to die. He meant for *us* to die. He wanted the Rask and Voss deep-glass monopoly for himself. He never had the Tear.”
Valen’s brow furrowed, the weapon lowering almost imperceptibly. A flicker of doubt in his hard eyes. “Croy… always the serpent.” He paused, his gaze raking over Korinthal, searching for any tell, any lingering deception. “Savia knows his treachery. She knew it from the moment she felt the Void-laced deep-glass begin to consume her.”
Korinthal choked on the metallic air. “Then… then why didn’t she come to me? Why didn’t she let me help?”
“You think she’d trust you after what you did?” Valen scoffed, but the venom was less potent now, tinged with a weary resignation. “She said she’d rather face the deepest maw of the Abyss than accept Croy’s ‘mercy’ or your… your calculated pity. She sought the cure herself.”
Korinthal felt a cold dread settle in his gut. “She went… where?”
“The Abyssal Trench. The unmapped, uncharted regions. The only place the Leviathan’s Tear is rumored to exist. She said if she was to die, it would be on her own terms, fighting for a cure, not rotting in a Warden’s cell or waiting for your poisoned generosity.” Valen’s voice softened, a flicker of pain in his eyes. “She knew she had thirty days. She chose to spend them fighting.”
Korinthal stared, dumbfounded. Savia, risking everything, descending into the most perilous depths alone, to find a mythical cure. Not for revenge, not for profit, but to simply *live*. And he, the architect of her suffering, was now her only hope. The vendetta, the years of cold fury, the bitter satisfaction of her downfall – it all shriveled, reduced to ash. He wanted nothing but to find her, to beg her forgiveness, to throw himself at her mercy, to save her. He would grovel in the mud, sacrifice everything, if it meant seeing her alive again.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom, stepping into the dim light. It was Warden Beran, his face a mask of grim concern. He’d been silently observing, a silent witness to the raw confession and the bodyguard’s bitter truth. Beran held a tattered, waterproof chart, its surface covered in faded lines and cryptic notations. He smoothed it out on a nearby crate, his finger tracing a path along a series of jagged, unfamiliar contours. His voice, usually gruff, was quiet, almost a whisper.
“She’s not going to the Trench, Valen,” Beran murmured, his gaze fixed on the map, his finger stopping at a point far beyond the known abyss. “She’s going to the Leviathan’s Maw. And she has a three-day head start.”