It happened at night while I was asleep, cursed by my perennial nightmares.

Feia shook me awake, hissing about splashing and sounds from the sea. So I sent Protis and the few others beneath the forecastle out to search. The response came quick, with Protis's low voice rumbling through the door.

"They are gone," it said.

I stormed outside in little more than the thin linen tunic I occasionally slept in and my Sorcerous Artifacts. True enough, the ship was empty. It seemed, however, that nothing was immediately sabotaged. Before completing a full inspection, I used my Soulsight to locate the men in the dark waters, only thirty strides from the ship. As I'd worn my Corrupted Eye, even while I slept, it was no difficult feat to reach them. But ought I?

They flee a perceived doom, a figure of menace and evil intent… Can I blame them for their fear? Their desperation? These thoughts made me hesitate as I watched their life-filled forms struggle against the waves. We were in the middle of the Kastalec and, according to their hopefully accurate portrayal, only a few days away from Nova. Where could they possibly escape to?

Then I saw it: in the distance, half a mile away, lay another ship bobbing on the waves, barely visible in the darkness. So I strained my Soulsight, feeling the power course through me like a quickened pulse, like a rush of cold from a quenched fire and a wintery breeze. There was the slightest flicker of flame aboard, sufficient to reveal it was no bustling warship but a merchant vessel of some sort.

"You saw nothing of their escape or communication with this other vessel?" I asked Protis.

The Soulborne didn't respond.

"How? I instructed you to stay aware."

"Hungered," it replied.

Of course. While life aplenty existed below the surface, Soul energy was difficult to access, for water proved an obstacle, greatly reducing any efficiency in its consumption. And there was little above the surface to leech off of, as it was. On land, it was in the air, circulating with the death and rebirth of nature, ever-present except in a few places of severe abandon, such as deserts and tundras. It shouldn't have come to this. They never should have spotted my Dead in the first place if I'd tossed out the ballast to make up for the Soulborne's weight. We would reach Nova, and my creatures would be refilled nearly instantly. But I didn't know how to sail a ship of this size. Did my Dead?

I called up the few raised to higher intelligence and asked, but I had no luck. Any memories there were not intact enough to make use of.

"Kill them," Feia said, close behind me, though I hadn't heard her approach.

I glanced to her, letting my Soulsight fade, my eyes returning to a cool, dim maroon. "Why? They are innocent of any crime except that of misfortune. It takes bravery to do as they've done."

"Must I explain the obvious? The weak and innocent, with the right words, can tip the hands of fate as sharply as the most courageous violence. End them, Daecinus."

"The probability of their return to Nova, given all they know—."

Her hand came to my shoulder, pulling me around to face her fully. "Look at me." Even in the dark, her eyes found mine, determined and unyielding, yet searching. "I know the fear. I do. But they chose this knowing the power you yield. They are woven into the story now. There is no avoiding it."

"We are the deciders of our own destinies."

"Then choose the future of justice. Hesitance will mean it all for naught if warships come and it turns to battle or the gates are closed and guards ready."

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, then turned, fueled my Soulsight once more, and drained the mass of swimming men of their Souls. In the invisible plane of Sorcery, which I could pierce but hardly commune with, the tools of my manipulations tore into them, undoing the bindings of their Souls, devouring and shredding. They died quickly, sinking in silence beneath the sea, my Corrupted Eye cold as ice against my chest, full of power.

The world was silent. The distant ship unmoving except in undulations upon the waves. I knew not what could have been communicated between the two—nothing more than a signal, perhaps, a raised flag at most. Not enough to relay the truth, certainly. And in the dark, they would not have seen the men pulled to the depths by their own Soulless weight. I felt empty, cold. I'm sorry.

"Daecinus Aspartes," Feia said, hand intertwining with mine. "You did a brave thing."

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"Brave? I killed innocent men, Feia. For good cause, yes, and yet…"

"Yet they are husks, and you feel pain. I know."

I sat down on a bench and put my head in my hands. I felt tired. "The Spirits told me after I had seized them from Emalia and forced out their answers that it was my armies that destroyed the East. Pethya was as much my disaster as their genocide. I never want to commit such folly again, Feia. Yet even in this small act, I feel that possibility closer at hand."

"They were priests of Vasia, you said. They lie every time they speak."

"Maybe so, but the tomes I found seemed only to confirm it."

"Yet some were pulled away, stowed in the Column, no?"

"You seem unconcerned with the possibility I had the greatest hand to play in the destruction of my own people," I said sharply, baring teeth out of frustration. "It is nothing to wave aside!"

"The Column has destroyed countless lives. Whole towns, even, out of fear of independent witchcraft and Sorcery not under their supervision, lies of rebellion, and more that the gods would be ashamed of. I do not trust their words enough to grant them even the slightest consideration. And neither should you." She kneeled before me, hands on mine, cradling my face. "Even if they spoke true, they attacked you. They wrested control away by force. Do not let cries of collateral from their war convince you of anything more than their own cruelty." I was silent, and in this, she seemed to find confirmation of understanding, for Feia stood and faced our cabin. "Come back to bed soon. We near our prey. I will see to the ship; worry not."

I watched her go. True to her word, she walked like a serpent slides, agile, flowing, and always in control. Sometimes, the woman seemed hardly human in her strange ways, her unending confidence and certainty. A younger me would have questioned my indecisiveness and interpreted it as a weakness, especially in contrast to Feia's bearing. If I were the same man who had acted so violently, so rashly after Demetria was murdered, I would have slaughtered those sailors instantly and borne no clear guilt over it. But this was not strength. Not really.

It was denial.

The deck creaked, and I glanced back, expecting Feia to be waiting impatiently close by, but instead, there stood Protis. In the dark of a cloudy night sky, my creation's pale skin stood out amongst the murk like a statue's outline within a fog bank. Protis wore the Sorcerous gambeson still, and without armor or weaponry, it was an oddly civilized gesture to an otherwise monstrous frame. Would I be known for this, and this alone? I thought, looking at the Soulborne. A new age where everything I've accomplished has been forgotten. A new beginning, and I start it with destruction.

"Did I summon you?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How?"

Protis's face was impassive as a corpse's. "A feeling. A sensation. Fear."

"Fear." I smiled. "I've felt fear before, and you have not come."

"It is deep. It is sharp. It clouds thoughts."

I shook my head in wonder. "I didn't know so much was communicated through our connection. You cannot focus because of my emotions? Are all strong emotions so tangible for you?"

"No. Fear. Anger." Protis's eyes met mine in a flicker of awareness akin to knowingness. "Pain."

"I see. And those negative emotions block your cognition. Curious."

I looked out over the sea, vaguely aware that Protis remained standing there, watching me. Being around Dead all my years, they ceased to bother me as they did nearly all others. Only Maecia could stand them as I did, commander and leader of men and Dead as she was. A shiver of anguish struck me at the thought of her. How I wished she were simply alive and held in the other fallen city's sarcophagus, ready to be retrieved. But even if she were, underwater as it was, there was no possible way she still lived deep below the surface for the hundred years or more it had been underwater. Kept alive by Sorcery funneled by air all around, fed into my blood, slowing aging and keeping my body going—water would negate all of that for her.

And yet…

I had a ship. Plenty of Dead to try and break her free, if she truly was there…

Curiosity, like any virtue, was a vice when overexpressed. It made me a good Sorcerer but a poor leader in many ways. I had to keep true. If I survived this. If I succeeded, then I could try. What use would it be to bring her back into a world as broken as this?

"Do you believe we will succeed?" I asked Protis.

"Yes."

"You have no doubt?"

When my creation didn't reply, I looked over and found it staring at me with eyes wide in hunger and almost desperate determination, if such human attributes could be applied.

"What is it?"

"They have taken, they have devoured. We will make them suffer."

Protis's words sent shivers up my spine. Had it integrated my emotions as its own? Did it feel what I felt to even marginally similar extremes? "We will make it right," I said, in hopes of correction. "Justice, not merely vengeance."

Protis said nothing to that but just watched me with those large, almost vacant eyes. Somewhere, deep within, I saw a spark of fire, and it worried me.

I returned to the room and found Feia waiting in the cot with all but a thin sheet pulled down, revealing the sharp contours of her body, the points of her nipples. Her head was rolled to the side, and she watched me enter in silence.

"We will need to see to the ship," I said, standing there, still as a rocky promontory.

"I told you not to worry."

"I lived near the coast for many decades. I ought to worry about the sailing of the ship now that our sailors are dead and sinking into the sea."

She rose like a ghost, draped in the thin sheet wrapped around her. "Come."

"I'm not in the mood, Feia."

"Stop your bristling. I do not seek a fight. I simply wish to feel your skin on mine."

I did as she instructed, leaving on only my Sorcerous Artifacts, and pulled her close. Against my cool skin, she was a warmth I couldn't hide from. In this comfort, I finally let myself relax, and my eyes fell closed, thoughts drifting away as we swayed there. Not aware that after I fell asleep, laid upon the bed, she would rise to see to the ship's rigging, instructing the Soulborne on basic matters, keeping us on course. I only knew of this because I woke from a dream and found the bed empty, and watched from the cracked door with a soft smile as she worked, glad to not be alone in this dreadful pursuit.

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