Adrin broke the surface and filled his lungs with air instead of water, then coughed and nearly went under once more. A hand gripped his and hoisted him out of the Ocean.

“You had me worried for a while there,” Gerimon said, grinning as he clapped Adrin on the shoulder.

Adrin couldn’t return his smile, even when Gerimon hoisted his arm into the air. The crowd on the cliff cheered, but Adrin could barely hear them over the roaring surf. Dizzy and exhausted, he lost his footing when a wave crashed into him.

“Steady, now. You’ve been through a lot, I know,” said Gerimon, helping to support Adrin as they waded back to the shore. “Just hang in there a little longer, and then you can get some rest.”

Adrin tensed, sure that he sensed a wave approaching from behind, something big enough to engulf him. But when he looked over his shoulder, all he saw was the shining thread that connected him to the sunken city. A second thread just like it was attached to the king. A third strand connected with Queen Zafrys back on the beach, but it flickered and wasn’t as bright as the other two.

The sand collapsed beneath his feet, and Adrin plummeted. He was falling in a cascade, a rush of water carrying him down a dark passage, rising and falling in sickening lurches and slamming into walls. His mouth filled with seawater and he choked.

“Who are you? Where did she find you? Why did she choose you?”

The voice was masculine, insinuating his questions into Adrin’s mind. It slipped around him, coming at him from different directions. Trying to find an opening.

“This is only a dream.” The Ocean’s voice flowed into his brain, smooth and calm, and the waters stilled.

“What’s going on?” Adrin gulped for air and breathed water, and then he was back in Vas, his consciousness inhabiting the piece of himself that she kept there. His true body was only a distant impression, miles away. He stood with the rest of the shades of the Ocean’s chosen in a circle around the door at the center of the city, Gerimon to his left, and Isuld to his right. The ancient queen nodded to him before turning her eyes outward again.

“I chose him to stand against you,” Brizin said, speaking not to Adrin but to the presence that had questioned him. “And he chose to answer my call.”

“And did you tell him what that entails, Mother? The price he would pay for your favor? Without that, how could his choice be freely made?”

A man appeared in the open square, but didn’t seem to fully manifest, instead flickering and fading in ripples that coursed through his body. The distortions made it impossible for Adrin to make out his face.

“He would destroy everything. You must not let him through,” Brizin’s voice whispered. She sounded close, but Adrin couldn’t see her human form.

Why did Adrin feel like he was draining away, being pulled through the thread connecting him to that mysterious door? Suddenly he was aware of a thousand different paths leading from the point where he found himself. The paths formed a labyrinth, far more intricate than the ones within the seals that contained the constructs, but it served the same purpose.

It was a trap.

“So you’re prepared to give your life for her? How noble. I do admire your spirit of self-sacrifice. A spirit like yours does not deserve to die.” The man walked towards Adrin, but Isuld stepped between them, staring a challenge at the strange man.

The stranger’s voice turned wistful. “So this is all that remains of you,” he said, reaching his flickering hand toward her face. “A cruel mockery. I could bring you life again, true life, the life we never had—”

Isuld seized his hand and twisted it, and the man vanished. Far away, miles away, someone grabbed Adrin’s shirt and shouted at him. For a moment he was back in his true body, thrashing in the shallows. He reached out to grasp the king’s arm, but then he was back in the dark, still water.

The man appeared again, but it was hard to look at him. The chaotic distortions to his form were nauseating. Adrin got an impression of colors: a cloak of deep gold, black hair, red eyes. And then he was being sucked down into the labyrinth again, the paths twisting around him, connecting to him like extensions of his veins. Adrin thrashed and the paths moved with his limbs.

“You knew I would sense her, didn’t you, Mother? That’s why you called this one. No time to summon another exemplar, so you settled for mere adequacy. But since you’ve made your choice, why not see how he fares? Give me my daughter and I will go. I won’t come any closer to your precious wellspring.”

“She’s not here, Kaethar,” Brizin said.

“Where is she, then?”

“What makes you think that I know?”

“Always so quick with a lie.” His voice remained calm, but the ripples in his form pulsed an angry rhythm. “I couldn’t find her in the unconscious sea. No one else could keep her from me.”

“Oh, if I could keep her from you, I would,” Brizin said. “But I—”

A wave slammed into Adrin with all the force of a speeding linecar, and he was in two places at once, in his body, lying on the shoreline below the palace, and within the shining labyrinth on the stone door.

“Adrin! Can you hear—” The king shouted over the storm that now churned the waters. A wave swept over Adrin and he lost touch with his real body—but was that his true body, in the shallow bay near Thaliron? He was becoming more and more part of the labyrinth, its myriad paths dwarfing his tiny body, yet they were all connected to his brain. Power flowed through its channels to suffuse Adrin. He was aware of something burning far away, but felt no pain.

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There was the man, Kaethar, trying to find his way through the maze to the wellspring on the other side, the source of the power that saturated Adrin now. Not knowing precisely how he did it, he twisted the maze so that Kaethar would be sidetracked, channeled to a dead end.

Kaethar grinned sardonically. He looked more solid and human, here, an ageless man with a golden cast to his skin and red eyes like Brizin’s.

“It will kill you, you know. You’re no Rispara.”

“I know,” Adrin replied. He knew he was supposed to feel . . . something about that, but it was merely a cold, hard fact.

“No!” the king’s voice roared, doubled between him and his shade, both on the shore and within the maze. Pain seared through Adrin. Steam rose around him as the Ocean boiled. The reality of his imminent death slammed into him, and his body rebelled against it.

A moment later, when he lost touch with his physical form once more, becoming more and more labyrinth and less and less Adrin, the panic remained. He was going to die, at least in every way that mattered, hadn’t Kaethar called the state of the remnants here a “cruel mockery?”

Kaethar was gone. He’d slipped away while Adrin thrashed in fear. Adrin reached out through the maze again and found him. The red-eyed man unraveled the twists and turns to clear his way. Adrin extended himself into the maze and created a dozen new paths ahead of the interloper, each twisting off in a different direction.

“I won’t . . . let you take . . . another one.” The king spoke through gritted teeth. He tugged Adrin’s body up through the sand as rain poured down on them, sizzling on his burning skin. It didn’t hurt as much, this time. His connection to his body was getting weaker.

“It’s all right,” Adrin whispered. “You can let me go.”

While Adrin’s attention was elsewhere, Kaethar surged, but he came upon the first lock. It was not of Adrin’s making, but he poured himself into it, bolstering it against Kaethar’s assault. He braced himself for another blow—

And he was lying on the sand. A wave rushed out, leaving his body out of the Ocean entirely. When another swept in to reclaim him, Gerimon hauled Adrin out of its reach.

“Stop!” Adrin begged, but his voice was weak, his body half-numb and too weak to fight. “He’s—he’s going to break—”

A blast knocked both Adrin and the king to the sand as Kaethar breached the first barrier. Screams sounded from above—only Adrin and the king remained in the cove—in the wake of the shockwave. Adrin tried to stand, but he’d barely gotten to his hands and knees before Gerimon was charging into the water, glowing with the power that had filled Adrin just a moment before. Another shock followed and flattened Adrin, leaving him without even the strength to lift his head.

He closed his eyes, but the bright form of the king remained seared into his vision. Gerimon had taken up the battle in his place. Adrin had failed. The Ocean put her trust in him, had given him a duty to carry out, and Adrin had failed.

* * *

“There he is.”

“Is he alive?”

No. Adrin had been hollowed out, torn apart and tossed aside. He had no future, nowhere to go, nothing left to give. He might still be breathing, but that wasn’t enough to make a person alive.

Footsteps coming closer. A glint of bright light through the darkness. Someone rolled Adrin onto his back. It hurt. Why did it still hurt when he was supposed to be dead?

“He’s still breathing!” More footsteps hurrying over, answering the call of their companion. More light bouncing through the darkness, like the glimmers in the drowned city. Adrin scrunched his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

“Hey, can you hear me? The healer’s on his way. Hang in there, ah, what’s your name again?”

Nobody, Adrin thought. Nobody who matters. I wasn’t even . . . adequate.

A cold hand on his forehead. “Depletion,” said another voice. “The abrasions aren’t serious. He just doesn’t have any vitricity to draw upon to heal himself.”

“The poor child.” That dry-but-kind voice was so familiar. “He’s just been dragged through hell. When I came out I felt like I’d had my soul sucked out of me and shoved back in crooked, and I didn’t even have to deal with all this drama on top of it.”

Adrin cracked his eyes open and peered up at the wizened face of Queen Zafrys. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Nothing to apologize for,” Zafrys replied briskly. “Do you think you can walk, or shall I call for another stretcher?”

“It should have been me. I’m supposed to be dead.”

“Dead? Do you think—oh no, Gerimon is still alive. A bit worse for the wear than you are, but alive.”

“He’s alive?” Adrin sat up, looking around for the king. Two people carried Gerimon up the steps on a stretcher.

“What happened in there?” the healer asked.

“He couldn’t tell you even if he wanted to,” Zafrys chided him. “But it’s over now. Come now, you’ve earned a rest.”

With help, Adrin was able to get up and make it back to the palace on his own two feet. Perhaps he was still alive, at least a little, but part of him was dead. His feet were heavy, and his thoughts seemed to trickle through sludge. Something had burned out inside him, leaving an aching void.

The city was so dark. Thaliron should have been filled with lights by now. Instead it was a dark silhouette against the dusky sky.

“The light is gone,” he said.

“Not just the lights,” Zafrys said. “It looks like every single appliance stopped working when that blast went through. Everything that drew on the ambient field.”

Adrin was too exhausted to shudder. “I should have stopped it.”

Zafrys patted his arm. “Rest now, Prince Ethereal. There’s nothing more you can do tonight.”

The darkness followed him into the palace. He didn’t have enough vitricity to light an incand, but an attendant held one out ahead of him and used it to lead the way down the unfamiliar halls. Adrin followed that light like an automaton, as if it were the only light left in the world.

“We’re here, Prince Ethereal.”

Adrin didn’t feel any right to claim that title, but he was too tired to correct the man, too tired even to thank him. He went through the door without speaking a word and closed it behind him.

It was too dark to see anything, but he felt his way to a sofa and lay down on his side, one arm stretched out in front of him, hanging over the edge. When he closed his eyes, he saw flashes of the visions, flashes of the labyrinth, flashes of Brizin and Kaethar and Gerimon. When his eyes were open, he saw nothing. The night stretched out in front of him forever, dark and empty.

Adrin lies on the sofa. The night stretches out in front of him, dark and empty. [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/571846492780757003/1132318703946575892/by_all_accounts.jpg]