Where Precipitation had strangled her, Azia wished she had the strength to strangle Seleth in turn.

  “I said stay back!” she cried. “What the hell are you doing? Run!”

  “Screw that!” he snapped, bracing against the sand. “I’m not watching this anymore!”

  Azia tried to stand. Anything beyond propping herself up on her elbows was impossible, and her body ached horrifically. Even raising the glaive had become a trial. “Seleth, you can’t fight them! They’re not normal!”

  She thought to warn him as to the quantity. They’d exceeded three. There were at least five, now. With utmost certainty, they’d exceeded fifteen minutes, too. Azia was somewhat convinced she was in Hell, burdened with a storm set to rage forever. She could see his head slowly turning in the direction of every shadowy silhouette. Seleth had gotten the idea himself, undoubtedly.

  “I don’t care!” he argued. “I’m not just gonna stand back there and do nothing!”

  “No, Seleth, you really can’t fight them! You don’t understand!”

  He didn’t answer. She wanted to scream. She did.

  “Go back! Please, go back!” Azia screeched, her voice cracking. “I’m begging you!”

  There were six. There were seven. If she stopped counting, maybe they’d stop appearing. Maybe she’d reclaim the sun, and maybe her tears would suffice in place of every droplet. Even as he backed down, his arms lowering and his purity fizzling, Seleth never once abandoned her. Somehow, that was worse.

  “Seleth, go! Please!”

  He surrendered his water altogether. He found an eighth, and so did she. If Azia sent her prayers high, maybe they’d pierce the clouds and spare her a ninth. Even defenseless, even devoid of what purity kept him perfect, he was unbending.

  “Azia,” Seleth said plainly, never turning to face her.

  “You’re precious!” Azia screamed. “Your life is precious! You can’t be here! We can’t lose you! Seleth, I’ll do anything, just run!”

  He never sought his personal tides again. Instead, one hand drifted towards that which was far more worldly--if not useless. Seleth’s fingers grazed his waistband, and his eyes were fixed firmly ahead as he wrapped his palm around the sheath. It was a gift so recently given, gracious as Klare’s offering had been. It meant nothing. Right now, everything meant nothing.

  Seleth slowly pulled the little knife free, aloft and hesitant in the face of eight murky shadows that lingered too near. If she cast her gaze to the right, Azia was all but certain she could finally see the tell-tale clotting of a ninth.

  It was dreaded and expected in equal measure, thick droplets sculpting a sickening form from the ground up. It was one more wavering figure that stared him down with no eyes of its own. For a moment, his head drifted downwards, and his attention fell to glistening steel just barely out of sight.

  Azia’s heart threatened to burst. She shook her head violently, for whatever good that would’ve done. “Seleth, that won’t do anything!”

  “Watch.”

  She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to so much as give him the chance, for what pain would follow. “Seleth, listen to me! That’s just a regular knife! It’s not enathium! It won’t hurt them!”

  His gaze was all that could cleanse her fear. Azia stole it for a fleeting second, cast sharply over his shoulder. Liberated of the dark, it was as beautiful as she remembered it to be.

  She was growing used to eyes that drifted on tides of their own, dynamic as his rich colors were. Not since the night she’d crossed paths with him had she been truly blessed with the sweetest of aquamarines, beautifully aglow as they clung to her. She’d long since dismissed it as a hallucination, born of fear and carried on disbelief. Now, Azia had her truth.

  She couldn’t breathe, briefly. There was no sun, stolen away by an infinite storm. Still, what flashing lightning graced the sky contrasted sharply with a night of awe. Seleth’s gaze was outright luminescent, and Azia didn’t dare look away of her own accord.

  “I have an idea,” he insisted calmly. “Just watch.”

  Seleth reclaimed his eyes of his own volition, eventually. They were wasted on filth, and a raised knife was wasted on the same. Again, Azia wanted to vomit. Every attempt to move more than several inches still left her aching horrifically, and her bare skin was still in flames. She was fairly certain parts of her face were beginning to blister. If Azia could’ve reached out and gripped his ankles in a desperate plea, she would’ve.

  “Seleth, did you hear what I said? It won’t work!”

  Why he was rolling up his sleeves was beyond her. It left toxic droplets peppering his skin, sullying that which was pure. Azia wanted to cry from the sight alone. For how Seleth only ignored her, steadying his grip on the knife, she wanted to cry even more.

  “Seleth, it’s a normal knife!” Azia shouted. “It can’t do any damage! It’s not made of--”

  He raised his arm high. He brought it down hard. He struck anything but poison, and he earned a different liquid altogether.

  Azia didn’t have time to scream. She hardly had time to process the sight at all, intentional as it was. His slash was as urgent as it was clean, and skin tore neatly beneath the bite of a little knife. Seleth did little more than grit his teeth, giving up the slightest grunt of pain as he gashed his arm. The depth was just as impressive, his haste be damned. Today, Azia learned that he could bleed in earnest. Beyond the confines of a tiny vial, the display was ethereal.

  Where pressure had offered the smallest of flows, Seleth now summoned the thickest of rivers. Azia had settled on the term “current," not so long ago. In abundance, it was applicable tenfold--if not outright majestic. It was every bit as beautifully cyan, almost sparkling as it gushed beyond ruptured skin.

  From the laceration poured the sea itself, and the purest liquid Azia had ever seen in her life climbed high above his arm. Where he bled, he did so with bursting force and gorgeous clarity. So, too, did he manage it twice over.

  Even with rich tides quite literally spilling from his wound, he still had the leeway to move. Seleth claimed the handle of the knife in the same hand. One swift slash was enough to mirror the damage on the other side, and he drew the same explosive blood--if Azia could even consider it that. It was every bit as shimmering, every bit as forceful, and every bit as lovely.

  He’d cut every bit as deep, shockingly, and his escaping purity rose every bit as high. Above all else, it was every bit as personal, and his fleeing sea still called him home. He’d surpassed angelic. At this point, Azia had no idea what to call him anymore.

  Seleth’s fingers just barely trembled as he unwound them from the handle. The slick knife slipped from his grasp, tumbling uselessly to the sands below. Azia wasn’t used to seeing him with one, anyway. Given what flowing waters drifted aloft, trailing to graze his cheeks, he seemed far more comfortable. He inhaled. He exhaled. He lifted his forearms, somewhat, and he briefly stared.

  “Yeah,” Seleth mumbled plainly, content to watch escaping blue. “This’ll work.”

  Azia never got to ask what he meant. She found out firsthand, still tethered to the ground and given only his back.

  What bubbles he offered up were louder than she was used to. They weren’t unwelcome, for how they outmatched nine vile assailants on every side. His volume made sense. After all, she’d never seen that much of it at once, either.

  Azia had grown so accustomed to his teasing droplets and his gentle ripples that she’d nearly forgotten about their first impressions. With certainty, he could do far, far more than repel a frightened alchemist. Now, Seleth could’ve drowned her altogether.

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  The sea itself was still unmistakably his to keep, and every motion of skilled hands wove pulsing tides from nothing. They really had been ripples, once. Now, they were waves. They’d surpassed rivers, at some point, and they were no longer translucent. Azia had thought it was born of his fingertips, at first, given what she knew of him.

  Still, it was instant, by which she’d blinked and unlocked the ocean. Seleth was fast, and his blood was faster. He was his own reservoir, stealing from himself with each flawless movement. If he had qualms about guiding the flow of a leaking current, he didn’t show it. Azia wondered if it hurt.

  She wasn’t sure where his blood ended and he began. It pulsed. It surged. It swelled, it spun, and it followed his touch. Two deep gashes poured shining purity, and Seleth fanned their watery flames. What didn’t crest his palms crested his shoulders. What didn’t crest his shoulders hugged his sides. He didn’t hold onto it forever, and he brought a brilliant sea crashing down ninefold.

  The motion was just as fluid as the rest of him. Seleth’s hands went wide, and his tides followed suit. What that left him with was a wall more than inescapable, surging forth and bursting against poison. Every shadow sank deep into swirling blues, caught in a current under perfect control. His frothy violence outdid their own endlessly, and the roaring tides were louder than any sludge that could curse Azia’s ears.

  What didn’t grow entangled in his gushing stream was blasted back, and Seleth carved a gap so desperately needed. As for filth he’d swept away, he never let it go. He doubled down, tensed his muscles, and tore it to shreds with empty hands.

  Azia had never explained the cores. Seleth didn’t know they existed, and he didn’t know where to aim. She’d hardly bothered to explain Precipitation to him at all, beyond the most basic of concepts. If he didn’t need to fight, he still didn’t need to know. Apparently, it didn’t matter, and he hardly needed a weak point at all. In the grasp of his shining blood, everything was weak. He may as well have been ablaze, fluid fires swallowing each droplet of black.

  Seleth practically unraveled what polluted forms he’d ensnared, flawless guidance leaving his blood outright lethal. Azia, now and forever, refused to call it "magic." At the moment, as he erased impurity from the face of the earth, Seleth had never gotten any closer to meeting the definition. Azia finally considered making an exception.

  He bore down on six more without so much as flinching. Seleth pulled from the wellspring of his veins ever further, seeping cyan barreling forth where his fingertips saw fit to lead. He railed against the storm with a storm of his own, turbulent and vicious as he sent his rivers surging. Seleth pushed. He burst. He crashed against poison, and poison gave way with ease.

  He washed away what was deadly and annihilated what sought revenge. Not one violent figure grazed him, try as they might. If they had, Azia wasn’t sure how she would live with herself. At the moment, she was mostly preoccupied with remembering how to breathe.

  And when he’d earned precious peace, devoid of immediate disgust, he stilled. Seleth kept his raging sea, still adrift somewhere in his watery offenses. He was absolutely draped in it, crowned by rapids ambling in wait. Pelting droplets from on high meant nothing, and they fizzled out against what gorgeous blues adorned him. He didn’t battle for his breath. Azia wasn’t even sure if he needed it. Right now, she could hardly register him as anything less than divine.

  Seleth never lowered his arms altogether, still weeping glimmering blue as they were. His head snapped to the left, actually. By the time Azia’s gaze followed his own, she’d already lost him. He was just barely slower than his waves.

  Azia was liberated. Those who remained were not. In the throes of an eternal storm, Seleth was undaunted, aglow beneath lightning and surging like the sea he was. Where he sprinted, he brought his bountiful rivers with him, still born of his blood and obedient to his touch. Even resorting to violence, he kept his grace, and each careful movement left him steering swirling streams towards poison incarnate.

  Azia could hardly take her eyes off him, nor did she want to. Again, he brought purity unmatched to a place so vile, striking down what silhouettes crossed his path. He twisted, he tore, and he flowed forever.

  There were those who’d long since surrendered to the sand, much the same as her. Not once did he falter, by which no harm came to fallen researchers. Azia couldn’t gauge how many were conscious at all. If some of those who languished were bodies, she would’ve believed it. Given the way desperate hands rushed to one another’s aid, she liked to imagine otherwise.

  It left Seleth conquering a stormy battlefield alone, an inexplicable one-man army. On a plane of tainted black and beige, he was the sole refreshing spark of color. His footsteps never slowed as he brought his watery wrath crashing down.

  “Azia!” she heard on a scream, bundled to footsteps of another kind.

  It took effort to turn her head, and Azia’s neck ached severely the moment she attempted. She still did her best. Her voice was weak, hoarse from both filth and pleas so recent. “Kassy?”

  “Klare!” the librarian cried instead, far more panicked. “Klare, Klare, Klare, Klare!”

  She dropped to her knees quickly enough that Azia feared she would collapse altogether. Hunched over the researcher’s body, tears were already pricking at the corners of Kassy’s eyes. Utterly drenched by falling toxins as she was, marred by streaking black, the sight was enough for Azia’s heart to skip a beat painfully.

  “He left you!” Azia shouted. In reality, she kicked herself for not considering it sooner.

  Kassy shook her head frantically, never tearing her eyes from a quiet Klare. “I told him to! What’s wrong with Klare?”

  Azia struggled to sit up in full, ignoring the constant throb in her every muscle. Two cramping fingers settled against Klare’s upper throat. “She’s okay. I-I think she’s just unconscious.”

  The reassurance wasn’t enough to stop Kassy’s tears, ultimately. When they slipped down her reddened cheeks at last, they trailed over what toxins had seen fit to dirty her soft skin. Azia made a mental note to actually strangle Seleth--salvation or not.

  “You’re soaked,” she murmured sadly. “You’re gonna get sick.”

  Again, Kassy only shook her head, raising Klare’s limp hand to her sullied cheek. “I don’t care,” she sobbed. “I just wanted you guys to be okay.”

  Kassy’s quiet hiccups were louder than the pouring Rain that beat against the earth. They were significantly louder, eventually. The moment Azia saw the faintest crack of sunlight scrape the sand, she was almost convinced she was dreaming. She’d begun to believe the sickening storm was a permanent fixture of her life, for as recently as it had started.

  “It’s stopping,” Azia said urgently, breathlessly.

  Kassy didn’t answer with words. She raised her head, at least, never surrendering Klare’s hand. It hardly mattered if she looked to the sky. She was already tainted enough. What tapering Rain gradually faltered took its time, still splattering them with cursed toxins right up until the end.

  Azia lost the lightning she loathed, and she found sneaking rays as they squeezed their way through the clouds. It wasn’t a fast reprieve by any means. It was still the greatest relief she could ask for, short of Kassy’s safety. Klare’s, too, was necessary.

  Of what was most precious, Azia still chased him with her eyes. Seleth cleaved apart all that was left, scorching tides banishing the silhouettes that clung to life even now. They were never at risk again, ultimately. If he’d seen to that much on purpose, maintaining their gap from distant shadows, it showed.

  Time destroyed a storm, ultimately. The sea, born of a boy’s blood, destroyed the darkness below. Even as the sky gave way to dull grays in place of boiling black, he didn’t back down until the earth was free of the same.

  Seleth slowed to a stop, somewhere not so far from her. Azia had somewhat concluded his water was as infinite as he was, for how he still clung to it so perfectly. Even idle and adorning him with care, the wounds on his arms were still spraying the same shimmering currents.

  When they fell to his sides limply, it never stopped, and the spiraling streams of blue only continued to rise ever higher. His shoulders heaved as he gasped for air at last. The moment he stumbled backwards, Azia panicked.

  “Seleth!” she cried, fighting to rise to her feet. She failed immediately, her knees giving way as she tumbled back down into wet sands. It didn’t keep her from scrambling to try twice. “Seleth! Seleth!”

  Unsuccessful as she was, it didn’t matter. He never fell. Seleth caught his balance, one palm pressed weakly to his forehead as his drifting waters finally calmed. What hung aloft fizzled to a sparkling end, made gorgeous by new sunshine. All that still wept from his wounds now poured steadily down his skin, streams of serenity trailing along his wrists and dripping from his fingertips. It was still excessive, weaponized or not.

  “I’m…fine,” Seleth called back between labored breaths. “Just…a little dizzy. I’m good.”

  Ignoring the chronic burn in her throat as she shouted to him was awful. “What…was that?” Azia asked hesitantly. “How did you…”

  When he found his breath, tired eyes fell to hers from afar. Aquamarine had dulled, somewhat, devoid of a glow she’d seen so recently. Still, it was his gaze, and it came with a fatigued grin. For now, that was enough. Azia wanted to cry. She almost did.

  “Had a feeling that would work,” Seleth said. “Put a bit of faith in me every now and then, alright?”

  Azia had thought it was Raining again, at first. Something was trickling down her cheeks. She was crying, apparently. She didn’t bother trying to stop.

  Seleth’s grin brightened into something stronger. “What’s it gonna take to get you to call me ‘precious’ again? I’ll do whatever you want. I could seriously get used to that.”

  His smile might’ve been contagious, given the weakest pull that Azia felt tugging at her lips. It matched poorly with her bitter tears, and yet it was there all the same. “You’re so stupid,” she scolded, her voice cracking.

  He only laughed, bleeding in his own way or otherwise. Azia couldn’t find the drive to do the same. Even so, she soaked up the warmth that came with his safety alone.

  Azia’s eyes wandered, burning as they still were. In truth, hers was possibly the only gaze that had fallen to something besides an anomaly amidst the sands. Sickness was irrelevant, and every researcher was fixated on one boy alone. There were some who, impressively, had held fast to soaked glaives all the way through. That didn’t last.

  Hands unfurled in abject shock, and weapons fell pitifully to the earth. Amidst fresh, curt alarms that spoke to freedom, they were silent instead. They stared. Seleth only smiled back. The coy wave he gave didn’t help. If anything, it was making him bleed harder, gushing cyan bursting fresh from the cut with every motion. He didn’t seem to care.

  Azia had gotten her camaraderie in the most horrific manner imaginable. It wasn’t intentional. So, too, could she not have chosen a worse way to introduce her anomaly.