The journey through the underground river was a maze without light and without end. After the grand silence of the Library, the unceasing roar of the water was deafening, echoing against the rocks around us. We clung to the small hide boat we had found at the portal—a relic of some ancient traveler—and let the current carry us into the suffocating darkness. Time lost all meaning. Perhaps hours, perhaps days.
In that darkness, I became Kael's eyes. I extended my senses, singing a soft song and reaching into the water. I could feel the mud and gravel on the riverbed, sense when it shallowed or when a jagged boulder lurked beneath the surface. "A little to the left," I whispered to Kael, and he would use the old paddle to steer us away from unseen dangers. I was the navigator in a world without light, charting our path with a song only I could hear.
Suddenly, something changed. The air, which had smelled of damp earth and stone, now carried a sharp, salty tang. The river's roar began to compete with a deeper, more powerful rumble that seemed to come from every direction. And ahead, the pitch darkness thinned into a dim gray.
Our boat slid out from the gaping mouth of the cave into a vast sea cavern. And I saw it for the first time.
The ocean.
It was not water. It was a living, breathing force. Great gray-green waves smashed against the rocks beyond the cave, sending thunderous sprays into the air. The wind howled, carrying sideways sheets of cold, stinging rain. The whole world seemed to move, churning in relentless chaos. The river that had nearly drowned me felt like a puddle compared to this.
We paddled the fragile boat to a rocky ledge inside the cavern, dragging it out of reach of the crashing surf. We were soaked, freezing, and trembling—but we had arrived.
"Siren's Cove," Kael said, his voice barely audible over the storm.
We crept to the cave's mouth, sheltering behind a jut of stone, and looked out. It was a hellish beauty. Jagged black cliffs like a dragon's teeth jutted into the furious sea. Each incoming wave smashed into the rocks with bone-shaking force, exploding into white foam. No ship could survive these waters. No person could swim them.
And there, in the midst of the chaos, on a rocky headland that jutted into the sea, I saw it. It was not a building, but an arrangement of strange black metal pillars that hummed with a wrongness. Between them, the air seemed to warp and shimmer with a sickly violet light—a color that should not exist in nature. Even in the heart of the storm, I could feel its unnatural hum—a deep, hungry note that drew power from the storm itself, drinking in the energy of sea and sky.
It was the Resonance Well. A man-made tumor at the heart of the tempest.
I looked down from the headland to where the massive waves crashed. There was a small patch of dark sand beach that appeared and vanished between each surge. Sand. My foothold.
The plan that had seemed so clear and clever back in the Library's quiet now felt like a reckless fantasy. To reach that well, I would have to cross the raging beach, climb the slick cliffs, and somehow dismantle a machine powered by the storm itself—while Kael watched from afar, too weak to help.
A cold spray hit my face, and I drew in a deep breath, tasting salt and ozone. The Library had taught me harmony. Now, I had to find my song amid the screaming of the storm.