The last hours were completely quiet.
No one was. Eating. We just stood by the railings. Stared at the water and the sky and the stars that we had never seen before.
Kael was standing at the front of the ship. He did not move for hours. He just kept looking at the stars, trying to find a pattern that was almost complete.
I was standing next to Kael. My name is Lina. I was holding his hand, which was really cold. It was not because of the wind. Because of something else.
"Do you see it?" Kael asked me.
I looked up at the sky. The stars were shining with a light that they should not have during the day. I saw a pattern that was almost formed.
"I see something," I said. ". I do not know what it is."
Kael did not say anything. He just held my hand tighter.
Behind us Maya was sitting on a box. Her silver bracelet was glowing a bit. Raka and Kirana were standing together looking at the water. Aldo was steering the ship, looking at the horizon with his blue eyes.
No one was moving. No one was talking.
The ship was moving through the water. The sky was changing from blue to orange to purple to black. The stars were shining brighter. The pattern was getting closer.
Then the ship stopped.
It did not stop slowly. It just stopped. The water around us was really still like something was holding it in place.
"Kael," I said; my voice was tense. "Do you feel that?"
Kael did not answer. He just kept looking at the sky.
The pattern was complete. There were five stars and a hand reaching down. It was the design that Aldo had shown Kael on the map. It was the design that Kael's grandfather had followed twenty years ago.
"They are aligned," Kael whispered.
The water beneath us changed. It did not change colour or temperature. It changed in a deeper way. The water was still like it was waiting for something.
Then I heard it.
Breathing. It was slow and deep and rhythmic. It was coming from below us, from the water from the sea.
"Kael", I said, my voice was barely audible. "Do you hear it?"
Kael turned to me. His face was pale. His eyes were dark. There was something in his eyes, something that had been there since we were in the temple.
"Yes," he said. "I hear it."
The water moved. It did not move in waves or currents. The whole sea seemed to stir like something beneath was waking up.
The ship. The hull groaned. Then the water started to part.
It was not like the door in the temple, which was a circle of light. This was different: a crack, a wound, darkness splitting apart to reveal darkness.
I held Kael's arm. "What is that?"
Kael did not answer. He just kept looking at the darkness at the opening in the water at the thing that was looking at us.
There were two eyes. They were white and pale. Had no colour or light.
They were the eyes we saw in the temple. They were bigger and older and awake.
"We are here," Kael whispered.
The eyes blinked. Once. Twice.
Then the water pulled us down.
This was not like our dive. In the temple we had chosen to jump. We were ready. Had each other.
This was different. The water did not wait for us to jump. It just grabbed us.
I felt the cold before anything – not the cold of the water but the cold of something ancient that had been hiding in the dark for twenty years.
Lina's hand was in mine. I could feel her warmth and her fear and her strength.
The water surrounded us. The light from the ship faded. The stars faded. Everything faded.
Then there was silence.
Not the silence of the sea but the silence of something listening, something watching, something that had been waiting for us.
"Kael", Linas's voice echoed in my mind. "Are you okay?"
"I think so," I said. I opened my eyes. The water was dark, darker than anything I had seen before. I could see. The Ember Core was beating in my chest, warming my blood and protecting my lungs.
"Where are the others?"
I looked around. Maya was to my left; her silver bracelet was glowing a bit. Raka and Kirana were behind us holding hands. We were all together.
"We are together," I said. "We must stay together."
Linas's grip on my hand tightened.
Below us there was not sunlight, not starlight, but something else pulsing with the same rhythm as the breathing we heard.
"The Core", Lina said. "It is there."
I looked at the light at the pulse that was beating like a heart.
"Let's go," I said.
We dove down.
The pressure was getting stronger as we went deeper. The Ember Core was holding firm, protecting my lungs and bones and blood. I could feel it straining, pushing, working harder than it ever had before.
"Kael," Mayas' voice echoed in my thoughts. "How much further?"
"I do not know," I said.
The light below was getting brighter. The pulse was getting faster. The breathing was getting louder.
We kept going down.
"I can see the bottom," Kirana said. Her voice was steady. I could sense her fear.
I looked down. The seabed appeared black and smooth like glass. In the centre there were three openings, three caves, dark and silent and waiting.
"Three caves," Raka noted. "Which one?"
I was not sure. The light was coming from all three. The pulse was coming from each, as was the breathing.
Then Lina spoke.
"The one that breathes," she said.
I looked at her. Her eyes were glowing, silver-white like the light in the temple.
"What do you mean?"
"The caves," she said. "One of them is breathing. The others are not. We should go into the one that breathes."
I looked at the three openings. Two were still silent, lifeless. The third one was moving, slowly in and out like a chest rising and falling.
"That one," I decided.
We swam towards it.
The entrance was bigger than I thought, tall enough for us to swim through together. The walls were really smooth, like they were carved by something that did not need tools.
"I do not like this," Raka said.
"Keep moving," I said.
The tunnel went down deeper, darker. The light from the surface was gone, leaving the pulse from below to guide us.
Then the tunnel opened up.
We entered a cavern bigger than the temple. The walls were decorated with something I had never seen before glowing, like stars trapped in stone.
"What is this place?" Kirana whispered.
I did not answer. I was looking at the centre of the cavern.
There was a stone, taller than the one in the temple, pulsing with light and sound and something like a heartbeat.
"The Core," Lina said.
I swam towards it with the others following me.
As we got closer, the light changed, the pulse changed and the breathing stopped.
"Kael!" Linas's voice was sharp. "Something is wrong."
I looked around.
The lights on the walls were moving, changing. In the center of the cavern behind the stone something was stirring.
Something that had been waiting.
There were two eyes, white and pale and lacking colour and light.
They were the eyes we saw on the surface, the same eyes we saw in the temple.
Here they were not alone.
There were more, dozens, hundreds, all around us in the walls, in the stone, in the darkness.
Watching. Waiting.
The biggest one, the one behind the core, opened its mouth and spoke.
"You have come," it said.
The voice was echoing not in my mind but in the water, the stone and my bones.
"You have come to claim what your grandfather could not."
The eyes looked at me at Lina then at Maya then at Raka then, at Kirana.
"You have brought the one who woke the one who should be sleeping."
The eyes settled on Lina.
"Why are you sister?"