The rain had thinned into mist, and Bondrea breathed like something wounded.Gemma followed Candriela through the city's narrow veins, alleys carved between salt-eaten houses, where the wind slipped through every crack and made the wood groan. The air smelled of fish and rust, of smoke clinging to wet stone. From somewhere in the harbor came the sound of bells, muted and irregular, as if the city itself were trying to remember its own heartbeat.
Each step made Gemma feel heavier. What had once been a faint vibration inside her chest had grown into a steady, pulsing rhythm that shook her bones. It wasn't pain, but something close: an unbearable pressure that wanted release. She pressed her hand against her ribs and felt the tremor beneath her palm. The sound wasn't only in her body anymore; it seemed to hum in the air around her, threading through the rain.
Her vision wavered. The edges of the street blurred as if the world were bending around her pulse. When she tried to speak, her voice came out fractured, like wind slipping through broken glass.
Candriela turned and studied her with quiet precision."You're trembling."
Gemma nodded, her breath ragged. "It's getting stronger."
Without hesitation, Candriela reached into her coat and pulled out a small flask filled with a blackish liquid, along with a thin silver pin. She dipped the tip into the oil, then caught Gemma's wrist and pressed the point lightly into the skin. The sting was sharp and immediate. Then came the cold, an unnatural, sinking chill that spread through her veins and dulled the heat inside her chest. The pulse weakened, then receded, as though retreating into deeper water.
Gemma exhaled, dizzy but relieved. "What is that?"
"Vine oil," Candriela said. "Mixed with sea iron. It quiets the resonance."
Gemma stared at her. "How did you know it would work?"
Candriela wiped the pin on her sleeve and slipped it back into her coat. "Because I've done it before."
Gemma wanted to ask what she meant, but Candriela was already moving, her boots striking the flooded stones in rhythm with the rain.
They crossed through a series of houses connected by collapsed walls. The rooms smelled of salt and mildew, their furniture warped by years of damp air. Old fishing nets hung from the ceilings like cobwebs, and children's toys lay half-buried in the dust, boats with missing sails, carved fish with broken eyes. The sea murmured below them, just beyond the rotting floorboards.
Through narrow gaps in the walls, Gemma glimpsed the harbor: waves black with oil and shadow, ships swaying like skeletal ribs. The mist moved as if alive, wrapping around chimneys and vanishing between rooftops.
"Why are there so many tunnels?" she asked quietly.
"Because Bondrea's been rebuilt too many times," Candriela answered without turning. "Every flood, they build higher. Every flood, they forget what's underneath. We're walking on drowned memories."
Her tone carried no emotion, yet something in it made Gemma shiver.
They descended a flight of stairs that ended in a cellar heavy with mold. Water dripped from the ceiling, echoing into the stone. At the far end, a narrow passage opened into a tunnel slick with moss, its walls green and sweating. Two men stood at the entrance, guards of the Priesthood, dressed in gray armor with the sun-mark burned into their shoulders. One leaned on his spear while the other smoked a long pipe, its ember glowing faintly in the dark.
Gemma froze. "We can distract them..."
But Candriela was already moving.
Her sword came free with a sound that was almost soft. In the dim light, the blade looked black, its edge glinting like oil. She crossed the distance in two steps. The first guard's head hit the ground before he could draw breath. The second raised his weapon, but her swing split his chest open from collarbone to rib. Blood steamed where it met the cold air, hissing softly as it sank into the moss.
Gemma stumbled back, horrified. "You didn't have to kill them!"
Candriela didn't flinch. "Yes, I did."
"They weren't attacking us!"
"They would have." Her tone wasn't cruel, just final. Then, after a pause, she said, "You wanted to know how I knew how to cure you?"
Gemma blinked, confused by the shift. "Yes…"
"Because I tried it once before," Candriela said, sheathing her sword. "Ten years ago. My sister, Virea, had the same kind of power. The same trembling, the same voice calling from nowhere. I made that same mixture to help her keep it contained. We came down here, through these same tunnels, to find where it led."
She looked toward the bodies on the floor but seemed to see something else entirely. "We found this place: the well. It was supposed to help her control it. And for a while, it did. Then the Priesthood found her. Took her. I never saw her again...so don't you dare asking me to have mercy for this bastards"
Gemma didn't know what to say. The silence between them seemed to thicken, heavy with everything unspoken. She followed Candriela's gaze toward the end of the tunnel.
There, half-hidden behind a frame of stone, was a circular opening that descended into a light of impossible color. It wasn't water, not exactly, but something luminous and shifting, like molten glass. The glow painted the walls silver, then blue, then white again, pulsing with a slow, steady rhythm.
"What is this?" Gemma asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"It's what you've been hearing," said Candriela. "Virea called it the voice beneath the world. I don't think it's the Light's doing. I think it's older, something the Light tried to bury."
Gemma stepped closer, feeling the warmth of it against her face. The air smelled faintly sweet, like sap, but beneath that sweetness lingered the salt of the sea."What happens if I go in?"
"You don't go in," Candriela corrected her softly. "You listen. And when you reach it, it listens back."
"I won't be able to climb out."
"You won't need to," she said. "You'll return when you're ready."
The hum inside Gemma had returned, faint but rising again, as though the light below were calling it out of her. She heard it not just in her body but in her thoughts: hundreds of voices forming a single, wordless command: Come closer.
She turned to Candriela, her voice trembling. "Will it hurt?"
Candriela placed a hand on her shoulder. Her grip was firm, grounding. "Only if you resist."
Gemma's throat tightened. "Why do you trust me so much?"
Candriela hesitated before answering. "Because Virea was your age when I lost her. And because I don't plan on losing another."
Gemma met her gaze. "Then I trust you."
Candriela nodded once and stepped aside.
Gemma approached the edge. The glow reached up to meet her, reflecting across her skin like liquid fire. The rhythm in her chest aligned with the pulse below, and for a heartbeat, the world went still.
Then she let herself fall.
There was no sound, no wind, only the sensation of weight dissolving. The air vanished, and the hum inside her deepened into something vast, ancient. When her foot brushed the surface below, it didn't feel like water. It felt alive.
In that instant, the world opened.
Light flooded through her like water through a broken vessel. She saw the cities of Dromo burning beneath a white sun, the seas rising to swallow them whole, the stars dimming one by one. She heard every prayer ever whispered to the Light, and every lie told in its name, all collapsing into the same echo.
And she understood.
Her power was not the Light's.It was something older.Something that had been waiting for her.