Water climbs the walls.
It doesn't splash. It rises—slow, cold, sure—like patience finally standing.
Kirella leans into the pole and drives the boat forward. The lantern at the prow hums in its stand, its warm glow pushing back the current as best it can. The tunnel breathes in long stone sighs.
"If he has all year," I say, "we have one minute."
"Less," Kirella says.
Ahead, a rusted grate hangs half down over the channel. The gap beneath is a thin smile that doesn't reach the eyes. Water bulges through the teeth and hisses.
"There," he says. "Hold us to the side."
I brace my feet and catch the damp stone lip with both hands. The boat kisses the wall and holds. To our right a shallow recess opens—barely a shelf—with three niches cut into it: sun, hand, hand. Faint words scratch the stone:
HAPPINESS IS A PROMISE KEPT.
"Two hands," I say.
"Two lives," he answers.
I lift the lantern. It warms my palm like a breath. We press our hands into the niches—his on the left, mine on the right—while I hold the lantern so its glow floods the sun. The stone drinks the light. A low click travels the wall like a heartbeat.
The grate shudders.
"Now," Kirella says.
We push off. The boat shoots forward. The grate rises just enough. Iron teeth scrape the lantern's handle and throw a quick shower of sparks. We rip through with a sound like tearing cloth and land in cold spray on the far side.
I laugh once—too fast, too bright. It sounds like someone else.
"Breath," he reminds me, soft.
I breathe.
The tunnel widens, the ceiling arching like a ribcage. Fine glass-eels swim out of the cracks—thin ribbons of pale light that slip through water and air both. They curl around the lantern's glow, hungry moths in a moonless room.
"Don't let them touch you," Kirella says.
I yank my hood forward and throw his cloak over the lantern, dimming it to a muffled warmth. The eels waver, confused, then scatter along the walls, leaving faint trails that sting my eyes.
We skim past. For three strokes it is quiet again. Then the boat clips a hidden stone and the pole snaps with a dull crack.
Kirella catches the broken haft before it floats away. He measures the length with his eyes, thinks, and hands me the shorter piece. "If we spin, brace us," he says.
"Understood."
His voice steadies me more than the wood.
We round a bend. Ahead, a green glow pools on the ceiling and wobbles. A cavern opens—low, wide, lined with rock shelves and piers made from old beams. Lanterns hang in nets over the water, their light wrapped in colored cloth. Three ferrymen watch from a plank platform, faces shadowed, wrists wrapped in cords the color of old blood.
Kirella slows us with a palm on the wall. I keep the cloak half over the lantern. The ferrymen don't reach for weapons. They reach for knives—and their own hands.
"Payment?" the tallest asks, voice flat as a coin on wood.
He opens his palm. A thin scar runs across it. The woman beside him opens hers—the same mark. The third tilts his head at our bare wrists, offended we aren't bleeding already.
"Palm-mark," he says. "No mark, no boat."
"We have a boat," Kirella says.
The tallest glances at our broken pole, then at the waterline, which has crept up the stone by the width of my thumb. "For now," he says.
I lift the edge of the cloak. The ferrymen's eyes narrow at the warm glow beneath.
"And that is?" the woman asks.
"A promise," I say.
"Promises don't float," the third mutters.
"They do," I say, "if two people carry them."
I set the lantern on the pier. It brightens, gentle as a kitchen lamp. The ferrymen flinch, then hold very still—as if any move might cost something important no one told them the price of. I raise my hand, palm up.
"Your boats use blood marks," I say. "Marks bind—sometimes to men, sometimes to fear. I offer a promise mark."
"Words," the tall one says.
"Light," I answer.
I put my palm by the lantern. Kirella lays his over mine. The glow presses through our skin and leaves a soft ring on each palm—a pale, warm circle that fades to a whisper but doesn't vanish.
"No blood," the woman says, surprised. "No pain."
"No chains," I say.
They look at one another with the gaze of people who've been cheated every way men can invent and learned to count before they speak.
"What do you want?" the tall one asks.
"Fast passage," Kirella says. "Left branch, toward the Monster Ward inlet. Then a map line—the Old Lantern Line to the Last Gate."
They murmur. The third spits into the water like he's paying tax. "Left is safe enough," he says. "Old Lantern is watched. And the Last Gate?" He shrugs. "The Last Gate eats hope."
"Let it choke," I say.
The woman studies us. "Price?"
I touch the pouch sewn into my seam. "One gold now," I say, "and a promise for three people—Bora, Lelia, Root—no mark, one ride, when they ask."
Their eyes sharpen at the names. The tall one studies my face like a ledger.
"You owe them," he says.
"I do," I say.
"Then we accept."
He doesn't take our palms. He rests his hand over the lantern—one breath, one pulse—and when he lifts it, a thin pale ring sits in the center of his scar like a coin laid on a wound.
"Your mark," he says. "Our word."
He whistles once, low. A boy no older than thirteen slides a spare pole along the edge of the cavern and hooks it toward us. He bows, shy and pleased.
"For your boat," he says.
"Thank you," I tell him.
"For your names," he whispers back. I understand: the ward pays kindness forward like a hidden tax.
We push off. The platform drifts behind. The water runs faster now—not just rising, but pulling—like the city decided to drink from its own throat. I tuck the gold away and keep the lantern under the cloak, leaking just enough warmth to steer.
"Wrists," Kirella says. "Let me see."
We wedge into a thin alcove. He wraps clean cloth around the raw places where the grate and glass-eels kissed my skin. His fingers are quick and careful. He's patched more soldiers than he's killed. The thought sits in my chest and makes a small, strange heat.
"We don't belong anywhere," I say—no sadness, just the mess.
"Then we build somewhere," he says. He ties the knot and tests it with a gentle tug. "Us first. Others next."
The words settle inside me like a stone in a river—weight, then quiet.
We push out again. Behind, the flood deepens. Ahead, the tunnel narrows and shows its teeth: three sets of iron ribs fallen crooked across the water, a jaw that broke wrong and healed worse. Hit them broadside and we lodge and drown.
"Angle," Kirella says.
"Angle," I echo.
He shoves hard. The boat slews. The first rib kisses our hull and tries to bite. I grab a hanging line crossing the ceiling like an old vein and shadow-step onto a narrow ledge beside it—a quick blur that leaves a faint red shimmer on the damp stone.
The shimmer will betray us later. Right now it saves us.
I haul the line. The boat jerks and slips the first gap. Kirella ducks the second rib by inches and rides the third with a curse and a grin that tries to live. We're through.
Water slaps the walls in applause that isn't for us.
The tunnel breathes deeper and opens a side mouth where dried herbs hang from pegs and hand-painted letters mark the stone:
WE KEEP EACH OTHER.
We drift in. Sage and mint steal the bite from the air. A clay cup sits on a shelf with a tea bundle tied in twine—Lelia's careful knot. I dip the bundle, warm it a breath over the lantern. The tea tastes like travel and trying, but my head clears.
On the wall, a child's charcoal map shows a long curve labeled Old Lantern Line, with a star near the end: Last Gate.
"Left at the fork, then up," I read. "Up is bad for me."
"We'll cover you," Kirella says.
"'We' is two," I say.
"That's enough," he says.
We push back into the main flow and ride the city's pulse. The ceiling drops. The water rises. A current from below presses our hull—urgent, not gentle.
"He turned another key," I say.
"Then we turn another promise," Kirella answers.
The channel climbs a shallow slope and dead-ends at a wall with a round shaft cut up into darkness. A ladder of iron rungs climbs toward a grate. Daylight leaks through in thin, dusty fingers. It isn't holy here. It's simple, small—and it still hurts me more than it should.
"Surface or drown," I say.
Kirella ties the cloak tighter under my chin. "Floor, not glass," he says—the old chant we made new.
We wedge the boat in a notch so it won't float off if the water lifts. I lift the lantern; it answers with a steady pulse. Together we climb—my hand above his, his hand under mine—two bodies learning one rhythm.
At the top, the grate sits heavy in its frame. Through it: boots and the clean edge of a spear tip. Voices drift down, blurred by distance and arrogance.
"Change of watch," someone says.
A third voice is softer, too smooth. "Wait," it says. "Listen."
The voice strokes stone and makes it purr.
Kirella presses close; I feel his heart in my back. He nods at the latch. "On three," he whispers. "One, two—"
"Three," I breathe.
We push.
The grate lifts with a groan and sticks halfway. Bright glass-light from a shrine window across the alley splashes my face. It bites—not with heat, but with shame it didn't earn. The world tilts. My hands slip.
Kirella's arm straps my waist and hauls me close. "With me," he says, steady as a doorframe.
I blink the light into pieces and find shadow—narrow slats on a wall, the back of a barrel, a stack of empty crates. We heave the grate the last inch and ease it down without a clang.
Boots step closer. A spear tip writes a lazy circle in dust.
"Little red," says the soft voice from the shrine steps. "Your light points the way."
He's right. Even under the cloak, even with my eyes down, the lantern's breath paints a faint glow in the alley fog. A candle behind a curtain. Enough.
"Back," Kirella mouths.
I shake my head—small. Forward is the only way that isn't drowning.
I slip out of the shaft into the alley's thin shade, crouched behind the crates. Kirella follows, smooth as a whisper. He pulls the grate almost closed behind us, leaving a sliver so the boat won't break when the water rises.
Ahead, three soldiers stand in a lazy line, spears butt-down, helmets tipped back like men who think God likes them. On the shrine steps, the key-man toys with his ribbon and smiles at the morning.
"Your choice is the same," he calls softly, not bothering to look because he knows I'm listening. "Coin or breath."
He tilts his head, charming.
"Or neither," he adds, as if giving a child a third sweet.
He lifts the key. Somewhere behind us, a lock answers with an old, polite click.
I tighten my grip on the lantern's handle. It warms my fingers—steady, waiting.
Kirella's shoulder brushes mine. "Floor," he whispers.
"Not glass," I say.
I straighten into the worst of the light and step from behind the crates.
The soldiers' eyes widen. The key-man's smile widens more.
A lock turns.
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