The sea had a way of stretching days into something shapeless. Sunrise and sunset blurred into a rhythm of rope, sail, and salt. The deck pitched, the gulls laughed overhead, and our bowls of water sloshed as we strained to shape them.
It had been four days since Lyra had shown us how to draw air from water, and in that time each of us had found our own wall to bash our heads against.
Darin cursed at his bowl so often Captain Sera threatened to toss him in and let him swear at the sea instead. Callen stood stiff-backed, muttering that all of it was useless fog, yet still came back every morning, jaw clenched tighter than the knots he tied. I had begun to sense it now — the subtle difference between water and the light pockets within it. I could coax out small bubbles the size of a fingernail. Not enough to keep me alive under the waves, but proof I wasn't completely hopeless.
Mira, though, was relentless. She was smaller than the rest of us, quick with her tongue and quicker with her temper, but I had never seen anyone glare at a bowl of water as if she could break it into obedience. Each night she crawled into her hammock with salt crusting her lashes, and each dawn she was crouched at the rail again, knuckles raw from trying.
And then, on the fifth morning, she did it.
We were crowded around the bow, Bounty swaying patiently behind Lyra with packs on his back, when Mira bent low over her bowl, lips pressed tight in concentration. A shimmer rippled up from her palms. For a heartbeat I thought it was just another fizz of spray. Then it swelled, round and perfect, a globe of clear air floating above her skin.
It didn't wobble. It didn't collapse. It held.
Mira gasped, half from shock, half from the sudden pull in her chest — and then the bubble steadied, glowing faintly as if the morning sun itself had decided to live inside it.
The deck went silent.
Her aura flared like a torch in the gloom. Not the faint spark of a Flicker, but the steadier burn of someone Awakened.
Mira stumbled back, wide-eyed. "I—"
"You did it," I said, grinning before I knew I was moving. "You've Awakened."
Lyra's smile was small, but her eyes shone. "No longer a beacon."
The words sank in. Relief rolled through us like a wave. For weeks, Mira had been a target, a light for corruption and raiders alike. Now she was free of that mark.
Even Callen's stony glare softened, though he muttered, "One less mouth for the sea to swallow."
Darin whooped, clapping her on the back hard enough to nearly knock her into the rail. "About bloody time. Now maybe the rest of us can stop wasting our breath."
Mira ignored him. She stood straighter than I had ever seen her, eyes shining. "I can breathe," she whispered. "I can breathe where no one should. The sea is mine now."
I clapped her shoulder. "The sea's never anyone's. But it listens to you now."
She laughed, sharp and bright, and for the first time since leaving Wraithborn, hope felt like something solid under my feet.
---
The storm came two days later.
Lyra had warned us, her voice certain in that way it sometimes was when her merged gift brushed the future. "Three days of fair wind, then the skies break. Lash everything you don't want the sea to take."
She had been right.
By nightfall the sky was a wall of bruised purple, the air thick with the smell of rain and iron. The wind came first, snapping the sail taut, then the waves, rolling higher and higher until the Tide's Promise groaned like she might split her spine. Lightning ripped the sky in jagged silver. Thunder chased close behind.
"Reef the sail!" Captain Sera roared. "Hold her nose to the swell! If you fall, pray you float!"
The deck became a blur of rope and bodies. Water crashed over the rails, filling our boots, stinging our eyes. I clung to the rigging, lungs raw, trying to pull water for a shield, but the sea laughed at me — too vast, too wild to shape in the teeth of its rage.
And then Mira screamed.
I spun just in time to see her swept from the rail. One moment she was there, hair plastered to her face, hands on the rope. The next she was gone, swallowed by the black water.
I didn't think. I dove.
The sea hit like stone, freezing and endless. My eyes burned. The current seized me, dragging me down into a chaos of bubbles and dark. I kicked hard, searching, praying—
There. A faint glow below. Mira. Her bubble clung to her face, trembling but holding. Her limbs thrashed against the pull of the rip.
I struck for her, the weight of my boots dragging like anchors. My chest screamed for air. I reached her, caught her wrist, pulled her close. She clung to me, eyes wide with panic but alive, the bubble still feeding her breath.
We kicked upward, but the current was a beast. It ripped at us, dragging sideways, spinning us until the light of the surface seemed further away with each heartbeat. My lungs burned like fire. I forced myself not to inhale. Stars burst behind my eyes.
This was it.
And then — the shimmer.
At first I thought my vision had cracked. Silver darts flickered in the dark. A dozen, then a hundred. A school of minnows swarmed around us, bright as living coins, bodies brushing our skin. They pressed against the current, nudging, guiding, turning the tide just enough that Mira and I could feel the lift.
Two broke from the swarm. One darted into Mira, the glow of her bubble flaring as if it had drunk the light itself. The other shot toward me.
I gasped — stupid, desperate — and instead of drowning, air filled my chest. The minnow burst into light, sinking into me, and the sea bent closer, sharper, clearer than it had ever been. I could feel its weight, its rhythm. The fish around us were not just creatures — they were part of me.
A Soulkin.
I had one. Mira too.
We kicked again, and the school surged with us. Dozens of tiny bodies pressed against our backs, our legs, driving us upward like a living tide. The current screamed, but the minnows carried us through it, relentless, tireless.
The surface tore open in white foam. We broke through, gasping, coughing, clutching each other. Lightning cracked overhead, turning the world silver.
"Boat!" I rasped, and the minnows seemed to hear. They surged beneath us, carrying us like a living raft toward the dark hulk of the Tide's Promise.
Ropes flew. Darin's arm locked around mine, Callen's around Mira's, and they hauled us over the rail in a tangle of limbs and seawater. We collapsed onto the deck, coughing salt from our lungs, glowing faintly with the bond we now carried.
For a moment no one spoke. The storm howled, waves smashed, and yet everyone stared at us.
At Mira. At me. At the faint silver light that still shimmered on our skin.
"They have Soulkin," Lyra whispered, voice steady but awed.
Captain Sera spat seawater, then barked a laugh. "Well, by the bones of the deep. Keepers, are you? Looks like the sea's claimed you proper."
Mira rolled onto her back, breathless and laughing, tears streaming into her hair. "I thought I was dead," she whispered. "And instead—" She pressed a hand to her chest, where the minnow's glow still throbbed faintly. "Instead, I'm alive. More alive than I've ever been."
I sat up slowly, the deck still pitching, my wrist band heavy, my lungs burning with borrowed air. Inside me, the minnow stirred — not just a companion, but a part of me, fused into something I couldn't yet name.
Around us, whispers spread through the crew. Keeper. Keeper of the minnows. Mira, too.
Lyra crouched beside us, Bounty's nose nudging my shoulder. "You both crossed a line tonight," she said softly. "The sea sees you differently now."
I nodded, still trembling. "Then I'll make sure it never regrets it."