NOVEL NEXT Chapter 115: Currents of Cove Confessions
The cove cradled us through the night like a hand cupped against the sea's endless push, waves whispering secrets to the sand in a language of hush and hush, the air cool with mist that beaded on skin and settled in hair like temporary crowns.
Dawn broke gentle, pinking the horizon where water met sky in a seam of gold, gulls wheeling overhead with cries that sounded like laughter at some private joke.
The relics stirred with the light, the scepter's hum syncing to the tide's in-and-out, a reminder that bindings weren't just seals—they were flows, constant and changing, carrying us forward even as they held the chaos at bay.
We broke camp slow, folding blankets stiff with salt, sharing a breakfast of fisher-leftovers—smoked fish flaky and rich, flatbreads chewy from the village ovens—and the easy camaraderie that came from surviving a mirror's merciless gaze.
Thorne kindled the last embers with a murmured word, his scar softened in the morning glow, and as he shouldered his pack, he caught my eye with a nod that carried the weight of shared vigils.
"The tarn showed you what it will, Cecil—drowned dreams, half-formed fears.
But you pulled through.
We all did.
That's the real weave."
His words landed quiet, the kind that stuck because they didn't shout, born from nights when the illusions had clawed deepest for him—echoes of bindings that had cost him more than scars.
Now, with the circle complete, he walked lighter, like a man who'd found his place not in chasing ghosts, but in guiding the living.
Lilith stretched languid by the water's edge, toes curling in the damp sand, scythe propped against a beached log as she watched the waves curl and retreat.
The tarn had stripped her bare for a moment, reflecting a solitude she'd fought hard to outrun, but she'd emerged fiercer, the demon's fire tempered to something steady and shared.
She turned, scooping a handful of shells and letting them sift through her fingers like secrets not worth keeping.
"Water's tricky—shows you what you hide from yourself.
Mine wanted me small again, back in the clans, playing nice.
But screw that.
I've got better company now."
She bumped my shoulder with hers, the contact light but loaded, her grin flashing sharp and true.
Vorren waded ankle-deep into the shallows, testing the current with a rock's toss that sent ripples racing outward, his reflection fracturing and reforming in the eddies.
The depths had dredged up forge-fires gone cold for him, hammers silent without hands to swing them, but he'd faced it with that unyielding calm, turning loss to the fuel that kept him moving.
He straightened, water sheeting off his boots, and met our gazes with a rare, full smile.
"Showed me empty anvils.
No heat, no spark.
But looking around?
Plenty of both."
His nod encompassed us all, simple and profound, the big man's way of saying we'd forged something stronger than steel.
Jex balanced on a half-submerged rock, skipping stones across the tarn's calm face, each plink sending concentric truths rippling out—his reflection had been a boy with empty pockets and emptier promises, running forever without a place to land.
But he'd laughed it off over the fire, turning sleight into strength, and now he hopped down, pocketing a particularly flat pebble with a wink.
"Depths tried to sell me the old hustle—endless streets, no score.
Boring as yesterday's bread.
I'd rather stick with you lot—got better cons, and the take's always worth it."
His arm slung casual around my shoulders, the gesture easy, brotherly, the spark who'd once danced solo now lighting the whole circle.
Yvra sat on a weathered stump, journal open but untouched, her gaze on the horizon where the tarn blurred into sea, the illusions having whispered of ballrooms bolted shut, titles stripped like borrowed finery.
But the rite before and the tarn now had rewritten that script, her poise less armor and more invitation, and she closed the book with a soft snap, rising to join us.
"It offered isolation—the endless dance of doors closing.
But here?
Open roads.
And better partners."
She linked her arm with Lilith's, the two of them a study in contrasts and complements, noble grace meeting demon fire in a bond forged from shared stares into the abyss.
Fog lingered at the water's lip, his form rippling with the waves' breath, tea cup reflecting the dawn in liquid gold as he watched the currents play.
The depths had stirred misty losses for him—apprentices vanished into similar veils, their echoes fading like fog in sun—and his voice, when it came, carried the quiet ache of waters that had claimed too much.
"Showed me empty cups, Cecil.
No steam, no stories.
But the tide turns.
Fills what it empties."
He raised his cup in salute, the steam curling up to blend with the mist, his calm the current that carried us all, sage and steadfast.
Sir Thrain and Sir Gorrim turned the shore into their playground, Thrain attempting to "valiant vault" a tidal pool only to splash knee-deep—"For the crown's cerulean splash!"—while Gorrim's rescue attempt ended in mutual drenching, both emerging seaweed-crowned and cackling.
"Maritime mischief!" Thrain sputtered, and Gorrim added, "Most moist malfeasance!"
Their folly frothed the waves with laughter, the knights' unpolished valor a splash of joy that scattered the morning's heavier hues.
We lingered on the shore a spell longer, the tarn's truths tucked away like shells in pockets—faced, folded, fueling the forward pull.
The arch's runes had pointed south, to rivers that ran with relic-echoes, but the cove held us a moment, confessions confessed turning to quiet plans over a shared flask of fisher-cider that warmed like old friendships.
Thorne traced the next path in the sand, rivers curving like veins toward a distant delta.
"Coastal currents feed the greater flows.
The weave strengthens there—or frays, if we dawdle."
Lilith shouldered her scythe, eyes on the sea.
"No dawdling.
But a splash first—can't face frayed weaves with sandy boots."
She waded in up to her calves, the water welcoming, and the rest followed—splashes turning to soaks, laughter echoing off the cliffs as we rinsed the tarn's taint and the road's grime.
Vorren dunked Jex with a bearish grin, Yvra splashed Thorne in retaliation, Fog's mist joined the spray in a shimmering veil, the knights attempted synchronized dives that ended in glorious belly-flops.
I stood waist-deep, scepter raised to catch the light, the circle's hum blending with the waves' song—a moment of pure, unbinding buoyancy.
The tide turned, pulling us onward.
We emerged dripping and renewed, packs shouldered, the cove fading behind as the path curved south along the shore.
Confessions carried like currents—lighter now, lifting us toward whatever the rivers held.
Tides turned.
As did we.
With the sea at our backs and the weave in our veins, the delta called—a confluence of currents and confessions, ready to carry us home.
Or to the next horizon.
Either way, together.