Page 29 of Lover from the Waves

Ector’s hearts ached for her. Perhaps those dreams could never be made true, but if swimming and flying were anything alike, he would bring her as close to soaring in the clouds as he could.

“It does not seem silly to me,” Ector said gently. “I admire that sense of wonder. I wish I had been exposed to it much sooner in my life—or maybe it is more accurate to say that I wish I had been more open to it much sooner.”

Kathryn stopped and turned to face him, still wearing a soft smile on her lips. “Things are different now.”

He made no effort to prevent his gaze from dipping to take her in again. “They certainly are.”

She turned away, and they continued onward. The jungle filled in around them; within a minute or two, they were standing in front of the object Kathryn had spied through the vegetation. While it had stone components, it certainly was not a rock. Kathryn had been correct—it was a building.

Its cracked and crumbling foundation was constructed of countless stones that must have once fit together neatly, and much of it was obstructed by a thick overgrowth of vines and low vegetation. The logs forming the walls atop that foundation were rotting with age; many of them had sagged or broken, leaving large gaps in several places. More vegetation clung to those logs, though it was not as thick as around the foundation.

Ector and Kathryn slowly walked around the structure. A portion of the side facing away from the stream had collapsed, leaving a pile of loose rocks across which lay several broken logs, their cores dark and decaying. Something about the shape of the opening suggested that this had once been an entryway.

In his mind, Ector couldalmostpicture this place as having looked like one of the buildings in The Watch, but there was something about it that spoke of a cruder construction.

Kathryn stepped closer, placed a hand on the wall beside the gaping hole, and leaned inside the building. “I’ve never heard of anyone living alone this far outside town. I wonder if this place was used by traveling hunters or something.”

Ector studied the ruined wall she was currently using for support and frowned. The Facility his people had called home for hundreds of years was old, but it was not in anywhere near as deteriorated a state as this building. “Do your hunters usually rove this far?”

“From The Watch? No, never this far. There’s plenty of game closer to town. My family and I never hiked more than a day or two away when I was younger.” She turned her head to look at Ector. “But…there could be another town near here. Regular communication broke down between the settlements on Halora a long time ago, but there are still several towns we trade with, probably even more we don’t know about. I’m just not sure where we are in relation to any of those places.”

She leaned back slightly, swung her rifle over her shoulder, sweeping it behind her back, and braced her now free hand on the other side of the wall gap.

Something tightened in Ector’s chest. “What are you doing, Kathryn? This building does not look safe.”

Kathryn paused and shoved against the log wall. It didn’t budge. “It’s sturdy enough. Anyway, I’m just going to look around for a minute.” She stepped over the rubble at the base of the entry and entered the dark interior.

Though he may well have hesitated to enter this building if he were alone, he did not delay in following Kathryn through the gap. Of course, the passage that she made look so effortless was somewhat more difficult given his larger body, and he was forced to carefully twist and contort himself in an effort to avoid the jagged pieces of broken wood to either side as he entered the building.

A flare of pain on his right shoulder signaled that he’d failed in those efforts. Once he was clear of the entryway, he paused and turned his head to look down at the cut. It was a minor wound, about half the length of his forefinger, but it was already oozing crimson.

Kathryn stepped up beside him, placing a gentle hand on his bicep. “Oh, Ector. We’ll get this patched up once we get back.”

“It is nothing,” Ector said, Laying his hand atop hers. “We kraken heal quite rapidly. There will be no trace left of it within a few days.”

Her frown said that she was skeptical—and the set of her brows said she’d be patching up the cut regardless—but she didn’t press the matter. Together, they turned their attention to their new surroundings.

The hints of light visible through the cracks and gaps in the walls were just bright enough to cast the contents of the single large room in a gloomy glow; Ector’s eyes adjusted quickly. He assumed the heaps of broken wood scattered around had been furniture of some sort many, many years ago, though they were well beyond his ability to identify in their current states. A thick layer of dirt and dead leaves covered the floor, and the slight give beneath it suggested wood planks of some sort that had gone soft with moisture and time.

Kathryn’s eyes were wide, her pupils so dilated that they swallowed up her irises. She stepped deeper into the room carefully, almost reverently, as though she were afraid to disturb anything within. As strange as this place was to Ector, it was Kathryn who caught his attention. Her reaction—her wonder—was fascinating.

She approached a formation of stone that ran from the floor to the ceiling on the far wall with a large, cavern like opening at its base, and gently set her hand atop it. After a few seconds, she turned her head and swept her gaze over the rest of the space. “This place has been abandoned for a long, long time.”

Ector looked the room over again, struggling to see it through her eyes. Time passed at the same speed both above and below the waves, but its ravages were different here.

“How long?” he asked as he moved toward a large piece of collapsed furniture in the far-left corner. He folded his tentacles and lowered himself to study the remains. All that was left of the item were a great many branches and sticks, all thick and crudely whittled down—and none quite straight.

“Longer than either of us has been alive, at the very least,” Kathryn replied. “Colin always used to talk about how most Halorian wood is very resistant to rot. That it could go untreated for decades and still hold its strength. That’s one of the reasons our boats last so long. So, given the state of this place…it has to beold.”

Ector chuckled. “Well, that’s the second thing to make me feel young in the last week.”

“What’s the other?”

“You.”

Kathryn smiled and tilted her face down, but she wasn’t quick enough to hide the blush staining her cheeks.

A fresh swell of pride filled Ector’s chest. He knew that human skin often turned that pinkish-red shade when they were angry or embarrassed, but he also knew that wasn’t the case now. Her flushed skin was a good sign—she was flattered by his words.

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