The hairs at the back of Rylan’s neck stood on end as he stared at the perfectly rectangular opening into a dark space for a long moment. As he tried to comprehend what he was looking at, Tamina suddenly stuck her face around the corner.

  He almost threw what was left of the crab at her out of reflex, but managed to contain himself.

  Tamina shot him a mystified look. “It’s clear, you can come on in.”

  Soren cleared his throat. “Right. Is this... a house?”

  She shrugged and disappeared again. “What’s left of it,” her disembodied voice answered, strangely muffled.

  Rylan tilted his head down to better see the ground in his glowband’s dim light and carefully stepped inside. The floor—if it could be called that—was covered in sand and shells, and some disconcerting bones. And while the outside was largely overgrown by neighbouring corals, he found the walls and ceiling on the inside to be covered in nothing but a layer of blue moss.

  With how flat and square the interior surfaces were, it wasn’t hard to tell they were indeed inside a structure that had been built, rather than carved out or formed naturally.

  “People lived here?” he mumbled mostly to himself, glancing curiously at one of the rectangular openings leading deeper in. Most of the other rooms appeared to have collapsed, so he hoped the one they were in would hold.

  He’d heard there were slums around some of the free cities, that lay at least partially below the fog, but from the way the daylight had filtered through, it seemed pretty obvious that they were still deep within the cloudsea, and nowhere near a city.

  Even now, the orange glow of the setting sun did not betray any hint of direction above them.

  Tamina was busying herself tossing some bones and shells to the sides, clearing out a patch of sand, but still answered. “Probably. I’ve seen places like this before. Most likely, if we look around tomorrow morning, we’ll find a whole abandoned village beneath the corals.”

  Soren put the backpack down and started unstrapping the bedroll, clearly not half as perturbed by this as Rylan, so he continued. “How is that possible? There’s not enough light to properly grow crops down here. Not to mention all the fogfish and critters that would ruin the harvest... Did these people eat nothing but cloudlife?”

  Tamina stood up, dusting off her right hand by wiping it on her britches, and shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t much care. Either their way of life proved unsustainable, or something changed that made it unsustainable, because every place like this people find is in ruins. Want me to carve that for you?”

  Rylan frowned, but handed over the crab and got started on dinner. One upside of the cool environment of the cloudsea was that it helped keep ingredients fresh for a decent while, so the crab should still be fine.

  When the food was done, they each picked a wall to sit against—the blue moss proving soft and warm despite the ever-present damp—and ate from the shells again.

  Compared to lunch, Rylan ate his dinner a little slower, more thoughtfully. The brown crabmeat they’d found under the shell was softer than the white from its legs had been, and less flaky, but it had a richer flavour. He really couldn’t decide which he liked better, so he resolved that more taste-testing was required.

  The only damper on his enjoyment of the food was the gnawing in his stomach that increased in intensity every time his eyes threatened to drift over to the right, where Soren was sitting with the bedroll he’d propped up against another wall as a backrest.

  In the end, however—after Tamina excused herself for a moment to answer nature’s call—it was Soren who broke the silence, putting down his chopsticks with a sigh. “It never felt like a choice, you know?”

  Rylan glanced over, blinking. “I’m sorry?”

  “What you said. Earlier today. About my obligations.”

  “Right...”

  “Trying to meet them didn’t feel like a choice,” Soren repeated with a frown. “But you’re right. It was.”

  Rylan just stared at him for a moment, unsure what was happening.

  Soren shifted uncomfortably. “What I’m trying to say is... I don’t think I took your debt seriously enough. Or at least, I didn’t take what it was like for you, seriously enough. I guess I always kinda felt that, since my schedule was busier, my life was more restricted than yours. Plus, it wasn’t that much money.”

  “Excuse you?” Rylan asked, his brows shooting up.

  “To my family, I mean,” Soren hastily clarified, sitting up a little straighter. “I get that it’s a lot of money for most people, but there’s no way my family would care more about two hundred silver florins than they care about you.”

  Rylan folded his arms across his chest. “Well, they have a strange way of showing their affection.”

  Soren shook his head. “Look, my grandmother always has at least two reasons for everything she does, and the main reason is never the one she leads with. I kinda always figured the main point of the debt was to teach you financial responsibility or work ethic or something like that, and someday they’d just... tell you it’s all good, and let you go.”

  Rylan could see how Soren might think that. In fact, he’d half-suspected the same when he’d first been informed of the debt. However, after years of scrubbing, sweeping, and shucking, that belief had been well stamped out.

  On some dark, lonesome nights, he’d considered that perhaps they had wanted to teach him something, but maybe he hadn’t learnt whatever it was fast enough, and they’d realised they preferred him as a servant rather than an adopted kid.

  “Well, they didn’t let me go,” Rylan said irritably, idly scratching at his ankle. “Far from it.”

  Soren nodded. “Perhaps I was na?ve about my family’s intentions, perhaps they take money more seriously than I thought. Or perhaps they were still intending on it, and the plan changed when you became a Quinthar... I don’t know, I don’t know what to think anymore. The point is: I didn’t take it seriously enough, and I would like to apologise for that.”

  “Oh.”

  Soren swallowed, then, his eyes nervously darting over before he continued. “And I’ve decided that, if we make it back to Thistlebloom... I want to start helping you pay off your debt. I get a monthly allowance, and I have some money saved up. And if my grandmother continues to insist on a Contract, I’ll... I’ll put my foot down. I don’t know about dad, but there’s no way Helen would stand for you being forced into something like that.”

  Rylan stared at him, caught rather flat-footed. “That’s... that’s very kind of you, Soren. But to be perfectly clear, I have no intention of returning to Thistlebloom. I plan to pay off my debt through the mediation of a free city bank.”

  Soren’s face fell, but he quickly hid it, nodding again. “Right. No, I get that after... after everything.”

  Rylan turned away, taking a moment to rub his palms into his eyes, then let out a sigh. “I guess I... would also like to apologise.”

  “You would?” Soren asked, sounding surprised and hopeful.

  Rylan nodded, not quite meeting his friend’s eyes. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, too. About how Zahra and I excluded you, and... you’re right. We did, and it wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

  Reaching that conclusion had been a painful process. Rylan had come to realise he’d been treating Soren different even before the whole mess with the Deeptides and the anklet. Because... he’d been envious.

  It hadn’t been the difference in status, food, clothing... all right, those things hadn’t helped, but what he’d really been resentful about, was that the family that had taken Rylan in, clearly loved Soren in a way they’d never love him.

  He wasn’t about to volunteer all that, however, and Soren thankfully didn’t ask.

  “Apology accepted,” the young noble said instead, a smile splitting his cheeks.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “That easy, huh?” Rylan remarked dryly.

  “What can I say? I’m a very magnanimous guy. I guess the question is whether we can say the same thing about you, as you haven’t actually accepted my apology yet...”

  Rylan narrowed his eyes at Soren’s expectant look. “Consider your apology... pending.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That I’m considering it, but I’m reserving the right to change my mind if you act like a clodmonger.”

  Soren smiled another big smile, and Rylan found the corners of his own mouth creeping up again as well.

  “All right, I can live with that.”

  A beat of silence later, Tamina cleared her throat, her head appearing around the corner of the rectangular opening with a dry expression. “Can I come back in now, or do you guys need to hug it out first?”

  They shared a look, then both launched a lump of crabmeat from their shells at her, which led to Tamina ducking with a yelp, then stomping in and muttering under her breath about little children playing with food.

  The sounds of laughter and good-natured ribbing filled the empty shell of a ruined home.

  Even more than when he’d gotten rid of his anklet, Rylan felt like he’d shed a huge weight.

  Soon enough, they’d finished cleaning up, and found themselves with time on their hands.

  It was too dark to continue looking for a way up—or another place to shelter, for that matter—but too early to go to sleep. And so, they sat around and talked.

  They had plenty to talk about, after all.

  Apparently, Soren’s father hadn’t been too happy that Dancing was Soren’s first Skill. Rylan had a little trouble wrapping his mind about being unhappy with any Skill—until he’d remembered his feelings about Cooking.

  Either way, Soren had been spending most of his time trying to get Fencing as a second Skill, but hadn’t succeeded yet. In fact, his time spent training had only increased after he’d become a Quinthar, as both his father and grandmother had started paying more attention to him, which was part of why it had been so easy for Rylan to avoid him.

  “On the one hand it was nice,” Soren said with a sigh, “not feeling like I was living in Helen’s shadow as much anymore, but on the other hand, the pressure only seemed to increase. It’s like they were all saying, ‘getting one Skill is nice, but now you have to show you can grow consistently.’ Ugh!”

  “I’d actually heard about your sister before,” Tamina remarked. “Not you, obviously. Is she as good as they say?”

  Rylan glanced up from the red-glowing canine he was playing with, one of the four he’d liberated from the armadon Malequint’s mouth. He’d poured mana inside until it grew too hot to handle, and now had to toss it from hand to hand to keep it from hurting his skin.

  Interestingly, the Mana Shell did not seem to protect him from things he was already holding in his hand, but it did flare up a little when he caught it in his other.

  Soren grunted. “She’s a freak. Pretty sure she already has her second Sapphire-Grade Skill. If she’d been here, she’d probably have killed that armadon by herself without breaking a sweat.”

  Tamina let out a low whistle, but Rylan frowned.

  “Was it that weak, or is Helen that strong?” he asked. “I thought Malequints that can do advanced stuff like control flames were supposed to be pretty scary... I mean, that’s like the equivalent of a Ruby-Grade Skill, right?”

  Ruby-Grade Quinthar were the next step up from Sapphire, and they were supposedly the true powerhouses of the Kingdom, though Rylan wasn’t quite sure how big the gap was. There was still the Diamond-Grade above it, but that was truly the stuff of legends, and he didn’t even know what it entailed, really.

  Tamina shook her head. “There are Malequints like that, but this wasn’t one of them. All armadons can breathe that noxious yellow gas; regular ones use it to fend off predators with the smell. All this one used its mana for was to heat its teeth to ignite it. It barely rated as an Emerald-Grade Malequint, to be honest. If it wasn’t for its size and the synergy between its teeth and breath ability, it wouldn’t have been very dangerous.”

  “How can you tell the difference, though?”

  “Well, we’re not dead, for starters,” Tamina replied dryly. “Also, it only dropped regular Cubes. A Sapphire-Grade Malequint would have dropped at least one Decacube, and a Ruby-Grade even a Hectocube.”

  Rylan’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of the larger variants of Cubes. He’d never seen any, but he knew how valuable they were. A single Decacube supposedly ‘only’ held ten times the Quintessence of a normal Cube, yet it was valued at around a dozen silver florins—the equivalent of a gold crown—which was almost fifty times the value of a regular Cube! And a Hectocube was worth closer to fifty gold crowns, similar in price to an Enhancer!

  So that’s where they come from... stronger Malequints!

  “That tentacled Malequint was actually stronger,” Soren said, idly letting some sand run through his fingers. “That one was Sapphire-Grade, I’m pretty sure.”

  Tamina nodded.

  “And how’d you determine that?” Rylan asked.

  Soren clicked his tongue, looking up. “All right, so can you remember what the mana around its tentacles looked like?”

  Rylan squinted, considering that. “It was kind of... buzzing?”

  Soren nodded. “Exactly. That’s what mana with a shearing effect looks like. Textured mana—mana that’s structured to enhance a particular effect—is the mark of a Sapphire-Grade Skill. The Skill associated with shearing mana is Cut. My dad actually has it; he uses it to enhance the cutting ability of his sword. Of course, Malequints don’t actually use Skills, as far as we know.”

  “So can Helen do that too?” Rylan asked, fascinated.

  Soren shook his head. “She has Pierce; it adds a piercing effect to her mana instead.”

  That sounded even better for Rylan’s knives. As a lull fell in the conversation, he couldn’t help but daydream about reaching Sapphire-Grade, and becoming a truly powerful Quinthar.

  He recalled the way the floating Malequint’s tentacles had cut through the armadon’s protective plates—that made a lot more sense now. If he’d been able to add a piercing effect to his knives earlier today, he wouldn’t have had any trouble piercing the creature’s side!

  While he was distracted by his fantasies, Tamina had shifted and taken out a small bottle, from which she was now dripping a viscous liquid onto the armour covering her left arm, before slowly moving it back and forth.

  Rylan cocked his head. “Wouldn’t it be easier to take that off first?”

  Tamina froze. Soren snapped his head over to him, looking alarmed.

  “What?” Rylan asked, startled by their reactions. “It was just a suggestion...”

  “Taking it off isn’t so easy,” Tamina replied, sounding terse. “It’s clamped on pretty tight, and I didn’t bring my tools. I’m just glad I carry around a kit for basic maintenance.”

  Rylan frowned. “You need tools just to take off your armour?”

  Soren blinked, and shared a glance with Tamina. “Rylan... unless I’m sorely mistaken, that isn’t armour. It’s a mana-powered prosthetic.”

  Rylan gaped, then quickly shut his mouth. “My apologies, Thar Tamina, I didn’t realise...”

  Tamina snorted, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. “I guess you couldn’t have known. But yeah, it’s a prosthetic.”

  Rylan looked over her metal arm with new eyes. Now that he was paying closer attention, it didn’t take him long to spot the Thorn emblem on the back of her hand—the same one that had adorned his anklet. Despite the bad blood between the Talons and the Thorns, they clearly still had to rely on their rivals for mechanical marvels like this.

  “How, ehm, how does it work?” he asked. “Do you power it yourself?”

  She nodded. “There’s a slot for Cubes in the pauldron, but it always seemed rather wasteful to me to use it. It doesn’t need a lot of mana anyway. As for how it works, exactly... I’m not sure. I had to practise with it for a while, but now it just moves like my other arm.”

  “You don’t have to sate my curiosity if you don’t want to,” Soren started politely. “But I am curious about the story behind it.”

  Tamina sighed, oiling up and testing her mechanical fingers. Looking at them now made Rylan feel a little silly for not noticing earlier how unnaturally thin her ‘armoured’ fingers had been. “Not much of a story. I was out hunting with Vidric. We were working on taking down this white bear Malequint when another—a gapejaw shark—appeared out of nowhere. It lunged for Vidric, so I did my job and jumped in front of him. Unfortunately, its jaws were stronger than my Skill. Bit right through my shield, and tore off everything below the elbow. I pretty much blacked out from the pain after that. When I came to, they told me it had gotten away, so there was no chance to even try reattaching my arm.”

  Great spirits... Not much of a story, she calls that.

  Rylan swallowed. “I’m sorry. That really sucks.”

  Tamina shrugged coolly, avoiding his eyes. “The Talons compensated me well. That money means my little brother is getting a good education, and even stands a chance of becoming a Quinthar too, so I don’t want or need your pity.”

  Rylan frowned and opened his mouth but saw Soren shake his head, and closed it again.

  Soren cleared his throat. “Providing for one’s family is certainly something to be proud of. Do you have more siblings?”

  Tamina smiled. “No just the one. He and my mom live on Hawkwing Crest now.”

  “The Talons clearly value you then,” Soren remarked. “You said they live there now. Does that mean you grew up elsewhere?”

  Tamina nodded. “Summit. My mom worked there as a seamstress. However, we lived in a pretty small place in a not-so-great neighbourhood, so Hawkwing Crest is definitely an upgrade.”

  Rylan couldn’t help but notice that she had yet to mention her father, but he didn’t dare ask.

  Soren hummed. “Must be quite a bit of weight on your shoulders, though, to have them relying on you.”

  “It’s fine,” she replied with a shrug. “I can handle it. Just need to make sure I get out of here in one piece. Actually, even if I don’t, the Talons will take good care of them.”

  “Is that in your Contract?” Soren asked.

  She just stared at him blankly.

  “Right, never you mind.”

  Rylan shifted uncomfortably. “Thar Tamina, I would like to apologise... for my part in getting us stranded here. When I left, I was prepared to get lost in the cloudsea if need be—though I’d never intended on being this lost. As far as I’m concerned, being out here still beats being back on that fogging island... but I realise you didn’t make that choice when you came after me, so, I’m sorry.”

  Tamina sighed. “It’s... I won’t say it’s fine, but it’s not really your fault either. Honestly, the cliff crumbled beneath our feet and we fell into a fogwhale. If that’s not the definition of a freak accident, then I don’t know what would be. And I haven’t forgotten that you pulled me out of its carcass either, so... I’m sorry too, for what I said this morning.”

  Rylan nodded. “Consider yourself forgiven. And I promise that I’m going to put in my utmost effort to help us all survive this place and get you back to your family.”

  She smiled at him, possibly for the first time, and Rylan’s heart stuttered a little. “Thank you. Actually, it’s good that you mention that,” she said, dusting some sand off her knees as she got to her feet. “We have an entire evening to fill, and you have a lot to learn. Both of you, actually...”

  Rylan swallowed, for some reason not liking the glint in her eyes...

  Want to read ahead? Check out my !

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  The Whispering Crystals is available on KU, Audible, and in print:

  : Unnatural Laws

  : Unusual Enemies

  : Unimagined Adventures

  : Unchained Potential

  : Untamed Spirit

  : Undivided Worlds

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