It was cold. The water slammed into him like a wall. Thick and heavy, more like sludge than liquid. It filled his mouth, the taste metallic, bitter, and salty.

  Kael tried to scream, but the blood crushed his lungs before sound could escape. He sank deeper and deeper, the light above shrinking into a smear. Pressure wrapped around him like chains.

  He felt the ocean itself reach out to his mind.

  Memories flooded into him, not his own, but those of countless others who died in the Spine. Other seekers. So vivid, so real, that for a moment, he couldn’t tell where he ended and they began.

  He was a young girl, her laughter ringing as she ran across a grassy field with a dog chasing right behind her. He felt the grass tickling his feet and the bright sun on his skin. The dog caught up, its fur soft and warm as it knocked her to the ground. She rolled onto her back, giggling uncontrollably as the dog licked her face. The joy was so pure, so bright, that it made Kael’s chest ache. He could feel it, her happiness, as if it were his own.

  Then, in an instant, the memory shifted.

  He was now a boy clutching a stick, pretending it was a sword in a dusty alleyway. He and his brother both pretended to be heroes, slaying monsters and dragons. His younger sister clapped from the steps, cheering with every lunge. They were hungry, but for a few minutes, they were kings.

  Kael gasped, but the blood rushed in. His scream never made it past his throat.

  The memories kept coming, faster and faster, each one crashing into him like a tsunami.

  He was now a child, hiding under a blanket, his small body trembling. The sounds of shouting and glass breaking echoed from the other room. His parents were fighting again. The door creaked open, and his father stumbled in, his breath reeking of alcohol. The man grabbed a leather strap, and the blows came down, one after another. He clutched his favorite teddy bear to his chest, its fur damp with his tears. He bit his lip to keep from crying out loud. He didn’t want his dad to win, to see him suffer. The pain inflicted was sharp and familiar.

  At times, he forgot Nan’s face. The sound of the docks. His siblings' laughter. Even his own name.

  Other times, he was a young child, and sometimes he was eighty years old. He was drowning in them, their weight pulling him deeper and deeper. They weren’t his memories. But, gods, they felt like they were. The joy, the pain, the fear. It was all his, and yet it wasn’t. It was too much.

  He was a mother smiling as she cradled her newborn. He was an old man sitting alone in his garden, feeding pigeons. He was a teenager standing on a stage, giving it his all as he danced, the roar of the crowd filling his ears as he bowed.

  Finally, his feet struck solid ground. Hard, not gently. The ocean didn’t let him go. It spat him out.

  Stone slammed his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. He choked, his body convulsing as he coughed up the thick, salty blood he’d swallowed. His ribs screamed. His vision blurred with red, and his ears rang with the countless voices of the people he lived through.

  He lay there, twitching, his body trying to remember how to be its own.

  The stone was cold and rough, but it was real. Finally—real.

  Kael clutched the floor as if he were scared it was going to disappear. His breath came in short, choking gasps. His chest heaved, but the pressure was gone. No more weight. No more drowning.

  Just air. Thin and stale air.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, his chest rising fast. Too fast. He couldn’t breathe.

  He blinked. Once. Twice. And the memories shuddered. A mother’s smile. A scream in the dark. The fur of a dog. A strap hitting flesh. A thousand lives not his own.

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  Kael slammed his fist against the stone. “No.” The sound echoed, small in the vast silence.

  They weren’t his memories.

  They weren’t his memories.

  “I’m Kael,” he whispered, as if the ocean might still be listening.

  He said it again, louder this time. “I’m Kael.”

  Again. “I am Kael.”

  He didn’t know how many times he repeated it. Over and over, until the words felt real. Until they pushed the other names away.

  His hands trembled. But they were his hands.

  His ribs ached. But it was his pain.

  He was still here.

  Kael.

  Just Kael.

  The tide had passed. He was Kael.

  He pushed himself up on shaky elbows. He coughed hard, blood spattering across the stone. He was breathing properly now. He was alive.

  Alive and alone.

  Only then did he look around.

  Kael lay on uneven stone veined with strands of mossy seaweed all across the ground. The ground was littered with seashells and fish bones that had long been turned to dust.

  The walls around him rose high, carved from black coral and worn limestone.

  There was no breeze. No dripping. Just a strange humming stillness in every direction. Like this world had drowned and never come back up.

  He pushed himself upright. The floor curved upward into a long, sloping hallway.

  Kael stood on shaking legs as he took a deep breath and moved forward. His feet crunched over bits of bone. A broken jaw of something that might have been a leviathan a long time ago.

  The walls in the hallways weren’t blank. Faded, tattered tapestries of various colors lined the walls. Various sculptures of crowned men and women stood crooked throughout the hallway. Some were chained to the wall, and various pieces were chipped, eaten away by time. They held expressions of agony, awe, and worship. And every single one of their eyes was carved to stare upward. Always upward.

  A painting showed a giant figure diving headfirst into the Silvermere Sea. Its arms stretched out like wings. The giant figure had a large gaping hole in its skull: the Fallen God.

  Another showed the ocean flooding cities. Blood rained from the sky, staining the world red.

  As he walked, he passed a great mural carved into the wall. It was nearly twenty feet wide. It depicted the Spine. Or something like it. But this version twisted upward forever, spiraling like a serpent devouring itself. Tiny figures climbed its surface as they reached the top.

  At the summit, a door floated in the air.

  And behind it… an eye.

  Just one. Watching.

  Kael stepped back. He didn’t know what it was.

  He didn’t want to know.

  He moved on.

  He paused at a final mural. This one was more intact than the others. It showed a tower piercing the heavens. Above it were countless eyes watching from behind a veil of stars. The eyes scattered across the sky like constellations.

  At the base of the tower stood a lone figure holding a burning black blade.

  Someone had etched a phrase beneath.

  “Climb, child of ash. Before the heavens open.”

  He tore his gaze away and kept walking. The throne room was just ahead.

  Kael stepped through the archway.

  The throne room wasn’t grand. Not anymore, at least. Its high ceiling had partially collapsed, letting in red light from the cracks above.

  Its walls were made up of coral and bones. The corals had long lost their color and turned white. While the bones etched beautiful patterns on the crumbling walls. Broken chains and skeletons littered the floor.

  Bones from many creatures lay scattered like old toys. There were huge leviathan ribs and cracked, hollow human skulls.

  The throne in the center of the room matched the walls, made of coral and bone. But it was black, as if someone had burned it.

  Seated upon it was a figure. A man.

  His skin was pale, paler than even the bleached white coral walls. His skin was flaky and cracked, like the surface of a dried coral reef. His eyes were pure black, endless voids that swallowed light around him like a black hole. He wore a crown of twisted bones. Thick, rusted chains bound him to the throne from wrist to ankle, from throat to spine.

  Something about him demanded stillness. Reverence. Or fear.

  Kael’s bare feet crunched over old bones. The sound echoed.

  The man’s head tilted slightly. Those void-black eyes locked onto Kael. Hungry.

  “Who are you?” Kael asked, his voice low and hoarse.

  A faint smile played on the man’s cracked lips, but it held no warmth, only a cold, calculating curiosity.

  “You can call me…” he said, as if trying the name on for size, “Maxwell.”

  His smile widened.

  “And I’ve been waiting a very long time for you.”