The eastern outskirts of Bondrea looked nothing like the city they had imagined. There were no towers, no shining docks, no marble temples catching the sun. Just a sprawl of tilted houses leaning over the water, roofs patched with tar and rope, nets hanging like dead skin over porches and windows. The air reeked of salt and rotting fish, a thick smell that clung to their clothes the moment they stepped near the shore. Fog crawled through the alleys as if trying to escape the place, dragging itself along the ground like something wounded.
Broko led them along the edge of a narrow pier, his boots splashing through puddles that never dried no matter the season. “She should be here,” he muttered, scanning the fog. “Said she’d meet us by the cranes.”
“Who?” Gemma asked, pulling her cloak tighter.
“Digiera,” he said. “Talon’s contact.”
The answer arrived before she could ask anything more.
From behind a pile of broken crates, a woman stepped out. Tall. Sharp-featured. Her hair was tied back in a thick knot, dark as wet rope. Her coat was military-cut but worn thin, patched in a dozen places by different hands. The smile she wore didn’t reach her eyes; they flicked over the group with a predator’s focus.
“Well, well,” she said. “The famous wanderers. You took your time.”
Her voice was all smoke and irony, rough around the edges. She looked them over like a butcher examining half-dead meat. “Talon said you were useful. He didn’t mention you were so… damp.”
Broko grinned. “We try to keep a low profile.”
“Then you’re failing,” she said, stepping closer until they could see the small scars on her cheek. “Follow me before someone decides you’re worth reporting.”
They followed her through a maze of alleys that smelled of fish and metal and stagnant water. Everywhere, people were working: gutting fish, salting them, packing crates, their hands moving with mechanical precision. Their faces were gray and expressionless, dulled by routine or hunger or both. A child watched them from a doorway, holding a net full of empty shells. When he smiled, his teeth were black with salt.
“Bondrea’s east quarter,” Digiera said, walking fast. “You’ll love it. Nobody asks questions here. Mostly because the last one who did got nailed to a boat.”
She laughed softly, as if she enjoyed testing which of them would flinch. Gemma didn’t.
“Was that necessary?” Diana asked.
“Everything’s necessary,” Digiera replied. “You just don’t always live long enough to see why.”
They reached a grate half-buried in mud. Digiera crouched and pulled it open with a groan of rusted metal. The stench that rose from below was thick and wet, like old storms trapped underground.
“Our shortcut,” she said. “Try not to breathe too much.”
The tunnels were older than the city above, carved long before Bondrea sprawled across the shore. Water dripped from unseen cracks; the walls pulsed faintly with the glow of fungus growing in slow breaths. Gemma walked between Aros and Candriela, the echoes of their steps blending into a single heartbeat that filled the narrow space.
That was when she heard them again.
Whispers.
Not from the group, but from below. The same voices she had heard in the marshes, closer now, more insistent. A thousand breaths drawn together in the dark. The sound slid under her skin like ice and heat at once.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She stopped suddenly, clutching her head. “They’re here,” she said.
Aros turned at once. “Gemma…”
“They’re so close, Aros. Closer than before.”
The voices swelled until she could barely hear herself. The words weren’t clear, but the intention pressed into her mind, soft and terrible: Come down, child. We’ve been waiting.
Aros grabbed her shoulders, grounding her. “Breathe. Look at me. It’s not real.”
“It feels real,” she whispered, shaking.
“It doesn’t matter. You control it. Not them.”
For a moment, she did. The noise receded like a wave pulling back, the tunnel shrinking into silence again. Her breath came shallow and quick. Aros didn’t release her until he felt her steady beneath his hands.
Behind them, Broko whispered to Diana, “Tell me again how she’s not dangerous.”
“She’s a child,” Diana said. “Not a weapon.”
Broko’s jaw tightened. “That thing back there in the swamp wasn’t a child.”
Candriela’s voice cut through the dark, low and absolute. “Enough.”
Broko looked at her. She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t move, but something in her tone ended the conversation. “It’s not power of the Light. It’s something else. And if you keep running your mouth, I’ll shut it for you.”
Broko tried to stare her down, lost almost instantly, and muttered something too soft to catch. Candriela didn’t even blink.
They moved on. The tunnel eventually opened into the base of a wooden pier, where the sea lapped gently against the supports, rocking the beams with slow, tired breaths. Through a hatch, they climbed into daylight or what passed for daylight in Bondrea.
The sky was colorless, the horizon blurred by mist thick enough to taste. Wooden shacks clung to the coastline like barnacles, crooked and stubborn. Their windows glowed faintly with oil lamps. Fishermen shouted over the wind, hauling nets thick with silver bodies that slapped rhythmically against the wood. Above it all, gulls circled lazily, their cries sharp as knives.
Digiera gestured ahead. “Home, for now.”
The house leaned as if tired of standing. Inside, the air smelled of salt, damp wood and something faintly metallic, like rusted chains. A handful of rebels waited by the walls, their faces drawn and hollow, their eyes flicking over the newcomers with cautious recognition. One of them wore the same mark Talon did: a hand raised toward the sun.
Digiera crossed her arms. “Talon’s little prodigies,” she said. “Try not to scare them.” Then she left, her laughter echoing down the stairs like the last note of a broken bell.
Gemma barely noticed she was gone.
The hum had returned. Not a memory, not an echo. The same voices from the marsh, but now louder and clearer, threading through her mind like a tide she couldn’t fight. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to quiet the sound, but it only swelled, rising through her like a pulse.
“I have to go,” she said suddenly. “They’re close. I can feel them.”
Aros turned sharply. “No. We stay together until Talon gives orders.”
“They’re calling me,” Gemma said, her voice trembling. “There’s something out there, waiting. I have to know what it is.”
Candriela, standing near the window, straightened. “Then I’ll go with her.”
Aros stared at her. “You? Absolutely not.”
“Yes,” Gemma said before he could continue. “If I have to go, she comes with me.”
He looked at her, confusion flickering into hurt. “You trust her?”
Gemma hesitated. “I don’t know why. But there’s something in her. It’s quiet. Like the world around her stops for a second.”
The silence stretched between them. Outside, the sea hissed against the docks, the wind scraping at the walls.
Aros took a step forward. “Gemma, you’re not ready for this. After what happened on the road…”
“I need time,” she interrupted softly. “Time away from you. From everything. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”
Her words cut through him, soft but absolute, leaving him no room to argue.
Candriela’s gaze flicked between them, unreadable, steady as the tide.
Finally, Aros exhaled through his teeth. “Fine,” he said, voice low. “You go. But you come back.”
He looked at Candriela, every word sharp and precise. “Bring her back.”
Candriela nodded once, slow and solemn. Then she opened the door, letting in a blast of cold air that carried the scent of the sea and distant rain.
Gemma followed her into the fog, her heart beating in rhythm with the voices only she could hear. The door closed behind them with a sound that felt like an ending, or the start of something neither of them understood.
Do you trust Candriela
