Page 95 of Surface Pressure

Soulara knelt in front of her, watching closely as Autumn unscrewed one end of the tube and removed thin white sheets of something that looked like dried seaweed without the colors or the wrinkles.

Slowly Autumn flattened them out, and Soulara’s eyes grew wide as she looked closely at the lines and drawings that covered the pages.

“Oh!” Soulara danced her fingers over the instructions. This was so unlike the black box that Zendalia and Kaelin had brought her. That had been sophisticated with technology, but this was basic. Rudimentary even.

She skimmed her gaze over them, looking at the lines and the words. The words she didn’t quite understand, but the lines and details of the drawing she did. Squinting, Soulara clenched her jaw. This was a complicated piece of tech, especially for them to make underwater where harnessing electricity was not as easy as it was on the surface.

“Does it make sense?” Autumn’s voice thrummed with concern.

“This is perfect. And I’m certain we could make them. Many of them and quite easily.” Soulara didn’t want to burst Autumn’s bubble of excitement. She could easily make several, but how many would they need in total? “How long do we have?”

“Only four days,” Autumn replied swiftly, looking out over the water as if she caught something out of the corner of her eye.

“I thought they would attack sooner.” Soulara worked the numbers in her head quickly, where she could move troops to and from.

“They would have if Chalmers hadn’t decided this would be the last attack.”

“The last?” Soulara cocked her head to the side and pulled her eyebrows together in confusion.

“Yes.” Autumn took a deep breath. “He’s sending all of the collectors down together. Every single one of them.”

“All of your people?”

“No.” Autumn shook her head. “But most of the soldiers.”

“What about Chalmers?” Soulara’s mind flooded with plans, while her fingers buzzed in anticipation of creating these machines. She could already imagine them in her mind. They would need a lot of them, but if she could get the range large enough, one burst should be able to disable several at once, if they were close enough together.

“No.” Autumn scoffed at the question. “Of course not. He wouldn’t dare to get his hands messy over his own massacres.”

“So he’ll stay at the place with the non-soldier humans?”

“With the civilians, yes.”

“Hmmm.” Soulara’s mind continued to buzz.

“So, do you think this could actually work?” Autumn chewed on her bottom lip.

“This is going to work, Autumn. It’s perfect.” Soulara rolled up the paper and handed it back to Autumn.

As soon as the lid was put back on the end of the tube, Soulara pulled Autumn into her arms and kissed her hard.

Autumn returned the kiss with a fiery urgency that caused a flood of warmth to pool at Soulara’s core. That was a sensation she was still having to get used to.

“Soulara!” The call came from the water.

Autumn and Soulara jumped back from each other, both instantly planting themselves into fight positions.

Honour drew closer in the water until her torso was visible above the surface.

“Why did you follow me?” Soulara stepped into the water. She kept going until she was face to face with Honour. Anger burned inside her.

For a moment, Honour simply stared at Soulara, mouth open and eyes bulging. It wasn’t until that moment that Soulara realized what had made her general balk.

“Honour,” Soulara softened her voice and lifted her hands slowly.

“They’ve changed you—used magic on you.” Honour found her voice, but the incredulity in her tone was nothing like the friend or the warrior Soulara had known her entire life. Her eyes darted around, as though searching for a way to understand Soulara’s form.

“I am me, Honour.”

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