Currents howled across the trench rim, rolling debris in gritty crescents that rang like sleet on coral. Shockwaves from the dying whirlpool trembled through every scale, yet the water felt unnaturally warm, as though the trench itself exhaled fever after a long chill. A distant thunder‑like growl rolled through limestone, then paused, considering whether to strike again. My gauntlet burned where Darun's tether line scraped it, metal sparking into tiny fireworks. Kaelen was somewhere below, swallowed by a violet‑choked throat that bent light and sense alike. Panic clawed behind my ribs, but panic could wait, anchors came first.
Rejah hovered beside the piton, shoving two crystal cores into her filament sleeve. Blue light flared against her wrist, but her hands never trembled. Echo‑Hand knelt opposite, masked cheek near the stone, listening to the rock's pulse. With four measured taps, tap‑tap, pause, tap‑tap, he struck each core. Tones rose from dull slate to silver, vibrating the ledge until loose motes leapt like frightened insects. Darun braced on the anchor, his injured shoulder bleeding through the med foam yet his jaw set in a stubborn tilt.
I threaded mirrored flare line through the anchor ring, fed it once around the piton for luck, then thumbed the ignition stud. Liquid silver blossomed, an artificial dawn that stained every shard and crevice. If Kaelen's eyes were open, that brilliance would guide him.
"Crystals tuned," Rejah called, voice frayed at the edge.
"Latch them to the descent rope," I said, forcing steadiness. "Their song will bite the suction."
Water clawed as Echo‑Hand clipped his harness. The Exile slipped over the ledge with the poise of someone who had lived too long in narrow vents. Rope hissed through Rejah's gloves while she counted, six heartbeats, seven, eight, numbers falling like beads of an old prayer.
The resonance rod across the trench flashed bright, dim, bright. Kaelen's earlier strike had cracked its casing but not killed its grafted core. Each surge pulled fresh rubble downward. If the pulse stopped altogether the whirlpool could implode, shredding anyone trapped. If it flared beyond tolerance the piton would tear free. Either fate was unacceptable.
The rope jerked twice, contact. Drag eased, a fragile spark of relief. Then the rod brightened again and the maw deepened.
"One more note out of that stick and it peels the reef like fruit rind," Darun growled.
"Then we end its song." Blade drawn, lungs steady, I leapt from the ledge.
Broken crystal spines jutted from the wall like crooked teeth, chiming beneath my boots. Rejah's calm voice drifted, "Pulse sequence three bright, two dark, strike on one." I timed the drop, landed on the rod, and cut in one committed arc.
Metal fused with living organ split in a violet cataract. For a heartbeat the whirlpool paused, startled, then reversed. Water hurled outward, flinging grit like hail. I tucked and let the surge slam me back against Darun's good shoulder. Pain flared, but I was breathing.
Around us the trench fell strangely silent, only Darun's ragged exhale and the click of Rejah's slate disturbed it. The maw had vanished, but darkness below still seethed.
Grey swallowed color as I tumbled. Pressure crushed my ears, molten glass flared behind my eyes. The pearl clenched in my chest. Micro‑eddies along my armor slowed the fall, though each swirl lanced new pain. Up felt like memory, down like rumor. For a handful of heartbeats I was not Kaelen the Watcher or Kaelen the demi‑god's student, just a sliver of scale caught in a grinding sea.
The haze parted and a ring emerged, half buried in silt: metal‑stone, massive, its spokes inhaling motes through hollow throats and exhaling pale vapor. The structure shimmered, covered in shifting scales. The ring hummed a note that slid under my ribs, flirting with the pearl's own frequency. My stomach lurched.
Silver flared above, Ashekan's beacon. Rope spilled into view, crystals pinging like distant rain. Echo‑Hand descended, mask gleaming in the glow. Harness clasps locked across my chest.
"Spokes drink living light," he warned. "Touch them and they drink you."
Pain folded my reply into a grunt. He tapped a crystal, pitch slid lower, suction slackened. We rose. Weak yellows seeped back into my sight, dusty oranges followed. Red refused to return.
Halfway up a blast shook the trench. Rope whipped, suction flipped. The whirlpool exhaled, launching us skyward. Colors strobed. Ashekan's arm caught my shoulders as we breached. Rejah clamped the rope; Darun hoisted Echo‑Hand one‑handed.
I counted faces, five survivors, not four. The broken rod smoldered below, fading from bruised rose to charcoal. Water stilled, but not in peace.
Tiny motes drifted across the rim, moving sideways through fissures like pilgrims. Echo‑Hand rolled a rod fragment between gloved fingers, held it to the mask. I felt its pulse in my lateral line, faint yet steady.
"This was only the lung. Somewhere nearby, there is a heart," he said, then added, "Exiles breathe this water too."
No one challenged him. Even Darun was quiet as we watched the motes vanish into darkness. Behind us the trench exhaled once more, then lay still, as though waiting for the next beat.
We rigged stretchers for salvage. Each push from the ledge set shards clinking inside my ruined spear haft. Rejah flipped her slate between cracked gloves, tracking pressure shifts. "Baseline settling," she murmured, "but the trench silence drifts."
Yera crackled over Ashekan's conch, "Status."
"Rod silenced, Kaelen breathing, minimal mobiles," he replied. "Unknown artifact remains."
"Understood," Yera said. "Return. Grid drain rising."
We began the long slog home. Migraine pain receded to a hot ember. Colors edged toward normal, yet crimson stayed thin. Somewhere behind us the shattered rod fragment cooled, final spark extinguished.
I glanced back once more. Far below, the colossal ring slept in its cradle of silt, but a tremor whispered through the water, too steady for current, too alive for stone. Heartbeat or warning, hard to say.
I kicked forward, ruined spear tapping a hollow rhythm against armor. Unseen gears were turning, and the reef would soon learn what they powered.