Page 46 of Elemental Hall: Nautica
We stay there for a minute or two under the stars, simply staring up at the sky. Then staring ateach other, then kissing once again. I don’t know what the future holds for us at theElemental Hall or beyond it, but for now, I feel as though I’ve found some missing part of myself.
We walk slowly back to the dormitories, and no one seems to mind that we barely make an effort to sneak in together. I suspect that, after everything the students have been through, no one cares. Perhaps it helps that I need Darius’s help to make it back there, and to walk up the steps to my room. I’ve used so much energy today that even now, I feel as though I might fall in a heap and just sleep if he lets go of me.
We make it to the door of my room, and I slip inside, pausing at the threshold.
“Thank you for being there, Sera,” Darius says. “I guess this is where I say goodnight.”
It would be the sensible thing to do. It’s been a long, dangerous day. We should both get some sleep and see how the world looks in the morning. We should rest and prepare for whatever they are going to throw at us next. We should take the time to recover from nearly dying at the hands of a traitorous student.
We should do all of those things, but they aren’t what Iwantto do right then. Not even close. Instead, I catch hold of Darius, pulling him to me, pulling him into the room.
“Don’t go,” I murmur.
He doesn’t. Not for a long time.
Chapter TWENTY FIVE
Now that my mind is clear from confusion over Orion and Darius, the seraphin comes to me again. I go down to its pool every day, grateful for its presence, grateful that I can feel the vastness of the ocean through the connection we share. It shows me the workings of water, shows me how it summons whirlpools and waves, how it feels the subtle shifts of the ocean, how it communicates across vast distances through sounds sent on the waves.
I learn more from the seraphin than I do in classes at the moment. Those are winding down, leaving us with more free time, although of course the more sensible students spend that time in study groups and sparring sessions, because we all know that the elemental mistress might spring another challenge on us.
But it gives me time to spend with Darius. We walk the islands, finding secluded spots where we can be together, enjoying that freedom, enjoying simply being with one another. He is smiling now for what seems like the first time since he arrived, washed up as flotsam on Nautica’s shores.
Today, he is sitting on the sand near the bay where I meet with the seraphin, watching as I wade out to it, my hand reaching for it. I wait for it to show me the beautiful secrets of the deep oceans, or some lost piece of knowledge.
Instead, the seraphin shows me a nightmare.
It shows me the moment that the seaquake hits, only now I am watching it from beneath the waves, and I can see that it was not something summoned simply to test us. Instead, I watch the ocean floor shifting and twisting, and I see the vast shape of a leviathan rising up from some long slumber. It is like a whale, but on a scale that makes even whales look like minnows. Itsjaws open wide to reveal rows of teeth, while there is a deep, powerful connection to the ocean in its eyes. It is something elemental, something primal, something that has power in a way that even the seraphin does not.
But the leviathan is not the nightmare. It is what flees ahead of it. The kraken rise up as the leviathan shifts from its resting place, moving ahead of it in a swarm too numerous to count, gathering and spawning in the forgotten buildings that the seraphin showed me so long ago. I have seen the damage that even one kraken can do. So many of them… it is unthinkable.
I break the connection with the seraphin, hurrying back to the shore. Darius is waiting, and he must see the fear on my face because his expression shifts to one of concern.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Kraken,” I say. “So many kraken.”
I barely survived an encounter with one, and now it seems that the waters around Nautica teem with them. I stare out at the water, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever dare get back into it.
“Come on,” Darius says. “Let’s head back.”
He takes me back to the library tower, and as we approach, I see that students have started to gather there. Is there a class I didn’t know about? I can see Elemental Mistress Halan at the front, but there are other elementalists with her too, flanking her like officers waiting for orders from a general. Even Finder Davan is there.
She is speaking as I approach.
“Your fine efforts this year notwithstanding, there is one more thing that Nautica must ask of you.”
“Another challenge?” Orion asks.
“Nota challenge,” Elemental Mistress Halan says. “At least not in the way all the others were. This is… a mission, a duty for all of us.”
“Is this about the kraken?” I ask as I approach.
Elemental Mistress Halan gives me a surprised look. “How do you know about that, Seraphina?”
“The seraphin showed me them,” I explain. “It showed me that the seaquake was due to a leviathan lifting from the ocean floor. It showed me the kraken moving ahead of it, going into the sunken city beyond the islands to spawn.”
“Then you have seen a great deal,” Elemental Mistress Halan says. “Yes, this is about the kraken. Every few years, the leviathan rises. That is, as you say, what causes the seaquake. When it does, we incorporate that moment into our challenges. But what it drives ahead of it does not represent a normal challenge. It is a mission for all of those who do not wish the ocean to be overrun by kraken.”
