Page 101 of Call of the Fathoms

“I’ll do my best.”

With her bloody hand on the wall, she started her process toward the next hatch, listening to the wet slaps of a hundred undines entering the only home she had ever known to bathe it in blood.

Forty-One

Fortis

Life is a funny thing.

Sometimes, it is lost far before it is meant to be lost. Sometimes, it is given back when it shouldn’t be.

Lights blinked in and out of existence. Wasn’t it supposed to be a void of darkness? Instead, the glimmering lights appeared to be caused by the power grid of a city turning on and off. As though they had... won.

Was he dreaming? Or perhaps his soul had returned because he needed to know the end before he left to greet all his ancestors. Fortis knew it was to be expected that his spirit might want to linger, but he could still feel his body.

He could flip his fluke. He could feel the bruising where she had injected him, and he knew there was far more strength in his body than there should have been after she’d poisoned him. Surely that wasn’t right. He had died. That was his destiny.

But as he felt life fill his veins and reality hit him hard, Fortis understood that he had not, in fact, died.

Sitting up, he pinned his gaze to a man in the corner. The human was a weak-looking thing, shivering the moment Fortis’s gaze caught him where he stood. He lifted his hands as though begging a monster to not hurt him.

“Please, please no. She sent me. Alexia sent me.”

Why would Alexia send anyone to greet him? She should have made certain that he was really dead before she left, becausethat was his fate.

“What happened?” he snarled.

“My name is Doctor Barker. I have been a friend of Alexia’s for many years. When she approached me after returning and told me about you, I thought she was mad, but the more she talked, the more I believed.” He twisted his hands together in a move that betrayed how nervous he was. “She asked me to be here when you woke, and told me to tell you that the future is never concrete. And that sometimes, we have to choose our own path even if someone else told us what to do.”

“That makes no sense.”

“She said you would say that.” Doctor Barker seemed to hesitate before adding, “She also said to tell you that whatever future you saw might not have been the whole truth. That maybe you saw her, but she never killed you after all.”

That dastardly woman. She’d changed his fate.

He didn’t know whether to be furious or joyful. Because he hadn’t wanted to go yet. He wanted to stay alive. With her. Fortis wanted to spend an entire lifetime dedicated to learning every sound she made. To explore the world that she had never seen and to see all the wonder in her gaze every time he showed her something new.

And he wanted to make her happy. He wanted to see her smile more often. He wanted to hear that horrendous laugh and watch as she experienced new things. He found her amazing and wonderful and he’d never told her that.

This doctor was now standing in his way, though. Fortis rolled off the table, landing on his forearms hard and wincing at the impact. Maybe he wasn’t entirely at his best, but soon enough, he would be. And then he would find her.

Leveraging himself upright, he looked the doctor in the eyes and growled, “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why did she send you here?”

“To make sure you were alive.” The doctor swallowed with clear nerves. “She wanted to... well, she wanted to make sure you were taken care of. The others would have experimented on your body and they would have realized very quickly that you weren’t, in fact, dead. That’s why I took you here.”

Here? He looked around and realized this wasn’t even the same room he’d been in before. That complicated things.

“I was awake when they took me into the other room. I knew where they had taken me and how to get back.” Frustrated now, he crawled to the wall so he could lean against it and pull himself higher than the doctor. Glaring down at the man, it did at least ease his anger to see the man’s trembling begin again. “How do I find her?”

“I don’t know that either. She didn’t tell me anything of her plan, but there has been sounds of fighting out there for hours now.” To punctuate his words, a resounding bang echoed outside of the door, as though someone had fired a gun and then a loud silence that came after.

Of course they had been fighting. Fortis had missed all the fun.

He headed for the door, only to pause and look back at the doctor. “If she’s hurt, how do I fix her?”

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