We dive back down together, and his hand moves from my ribs to my lower back. His palm presses flat against the small of my back, right above my hips. The heat radiates from that single point of contact and spreads through my spine, my core, my limbs.
Chapter Six
Castien
No assignment has ever destabilized me the way this one is, and we’re only on the first challenge.
I’m aware of it like I’m aware of a fault in my systems. Not with alarm, but with the unsettling certainty that something is wrong and I can’t locate the source to fix it. My focus has always been absolute, the one thing I’ve never had to question. I point it at a problem, and it stays there until the problem is solved. But I keep losing it now.
I keep finding my attention pulled away from the task at hand and toward Jessa. Toward the way her body shudders in the water, how her lips have gone blue and her movements are slowing down.
I understand what she’s experiencing in a rational way. I can calculate the drop in her core temperature, model the oxygen depletion in her blood, and predict with reasonable accuracy the point at which her body will stop cooperating with her mind. I understand all of it like I understand things I’ve read and processed but never lived.
I’ll never feel what she’s feeling. I’ll never know what it’s like to be cold, to burn for air, to have a body that can be pushed past its limit. The gap between what I am and what she is doesn’t close, no matter how long I observe her.
Jessa is still guiding me. Her hands move through the water with less precision now, but she points, adjusts the direction with two fingers, and I follow. I rotate the sixth ring a fraction to the left. She shakes her head. I reverse. She nods, and the ring resists, grinds, and then settles into place with a vibration I feel through my palm.
All six rings are finally aligned, and what remains is for her to press her hand to the center panel.
Jessa reaches for the panel but stops midway. Her body makes the decision before her mind can catch up. I watch it happen, the moment survival overrides logic, and her lungs stop waiting for permission. She kicks her legs hard, driving herself upward toward a surface that no longer exists. The last pocket of air closed minutes ago. There’s nothing above us but stone and water.
I grab her arm and pull her back down.
She fights me, because there’s no reasoning left in her, only the raw understanding that she needs air, and air is up. She twists and kicks, and I feel her heel connect with my forearm. Her fist strikes my shoulder, and none of it registers as pain, but I’m aware that I’m holding down a human against her will. I worry that my grip is too harsh and my fingers will leave bruises on her flesh. I’m hurting her, but I can’t let her go. I pull her toward the trap door while she fights me with everything she has.
I direct her hand to the panel, press her palm flat against the indentations, and hold it there. I see bubbles escape from between her lips in a long stream, and my Aether Core seizes at the sight of it.
Her blood seeps into the mechanism.
I count the seconds – three, four, five. It’s slow at first, a change in pressure, then grates in the floor open, and the water level starts dropping. I pull Jessa upward as it recedes, and her face breaks the surface, but she doesn’t gasp to take in air. She’s not breathing. I get my arms under her and carry her to the floor as the last of the water drains.
I lay her down and place my hands on her chest to apply pressure. I try to control my movements so I don’t hurt her, and do my best to be as gentle as I can. I can feel how fragile her ribs are underneath my hand, like twigs that would be so easy for me to snap. Her heartbeat is weak, barely there.
On the fourth compression, Jessa convulses and coughs. She rolls onto her side and vomits water, and keeps coughing until her whole body shakes with it. Finally, she stills, and the only sound in the chamber is her ragged breathing.
I remain kneeling beside her. After a moment, she rolls onto her back and looks up at the ceiling, then turns her head and looks at me. Her face is pale and her eyes are red and watering, like she’s been crying. It strikes me that if I were to ever see her cry, something in me would shatter and I would not be the same after.
Unexpectedly, she lifts her hand and presses her palm against my jaw. Her hand is cold, shaking, and small against the angle of my face.
She looks into my eyes and smiles.
“We did it.”
I should pull back. This intimate touch is unnecessary, the objective has been achieved, and there’s no protocol under which I should allow a client to hold my face in her hand. I know all of this, and I have every reason to move, but I stay exactly where I am.
My Aether Core pulsates when her thumb runs across my chin. I don’t want her to stop, and that’s probably why, in my mind, time has slowed down. I lean into her hand. It’s only a slight movement, but I let it happen.
Jessa holds still for one moment longer. Then she drops her hand, pushes herself up and gets onto her knees over the trap door. She’s not looking at me anymore, and I’m grateful for it. I realize that if she hadn’t broken the moment, I wouldn’t have had the strength to pull away from her.
Back to the mission. I need to keep a clear head.
“Can you open it?” she asks. “It should work now.”
I nod and pull the door open. Below, I see a ladder. It’s made of iron rungs set into a shaft of carved rock, but the bottom isinvisible in the dark. I direct the light from my eyes downward so Jessa can see her footing, and she swings onto the ladder and begins to descend. I follow, pulling the trap door shut above us.
We climb down in silence. I focus on the scrape of her boots on the rungs and the groan of iron under my weight. The air grows colder and damper with every foot we drop. The descent takes longer than I expected, and when we finally step off the last rung and into a cramped chamber, the darkness above us feels very far away.
The room is maybe fifteen feet across. All I see is stone walls, a low ceiling, and old torches sitting in brackets. Shelves line one wall, whatever they once held long since rotted away. The room is dry, and the air moves faintly from somewhere above, carrying the smell of salt.
