First-Realm conception. There were seventeen of them, pits of near-infinite depth in the seabed, and normally they were clear, if distant.
Not today. With Realmspace so clouded and shaken, its terrain so twisted, Atla could only find... thirteen? Fourteen? The vortex of the white cave and the hordes surging around the Court hid far too much, frothy, fluffy obstructions to his Gifted perception. A sinking feeling in his gut told him Af's Sherim was probably one of the hidden ones.
He counted carefully anyway, clinging to bitter hope that he might be wrong. Fortunately, he could make out the extra-wide space between the Gorhilt and Sivristin Sherim, far ahead and off to the left somewhere. Counting round from that gap, Af's Sherim was the twelfth, and sure enough, it was on the far side of the white cave.
Straight lines didn't matter in the Second Realm, but unless he could get a clear hold on the target Sherim with his mind, there was no way he could start finding Routes to it. Trying to reach around the obstruction with just his Gift felt like trying to strangle an eel. Thrashing and writhing, the Gift fought back, as if terrified of whatever it was had happened to the Separatists' lair.
The vortex was still shrinking, Realmspace around the base of its spike rising to absorb some of the energy bleeding out from the heart of the storm. Currents surging through the boundary were beginning to carry a few of the trapped Wildren with them, but the fear, frustration and anger that the creatures gave off hung in the water like sour poisons. Whatever Route he chose had better give them a wide berth.
Atla was just starting to spread his Gift out when a sudden boiling nearby made him flinch. It was just enough to save him. A web of hatred and pain burned through the air where he'd been. Behind it was a tangled network of gold threads that dripped like honey around and through one another, coiling ever inwards. The loops of the Wilder were faintly reminiscent of an oversized flower, but squashed and skewed somehow.
A Separatist, one of the trio that had ambushed Atla and Rel when they first went to the white cave. Lacking options, Atla dived, shouting a warning ahead of himself in a cloud of black arrows. The others didn't really need it - they'd seen the Separatist's attack and already the spikes of their adrenaline were burning into his Gift. They followed with surprising neatness, slotting into a diamond formation behind him.
The Separatist moved without apparent urgency, floating down towards them, not so much moving itself as allowing the Second Realm to change position in relation to it. Its next attack speared right through the middle of the human formation, only Pevan's quick reactions allowing her and Chag to peel away and dodge.
"A Route!" Rel's scream was no attempt to fight back, the anger in his words wasted in a burst of not-quite-orange light that did little except lift the pitch of Atla's fatigue headache. "Get us a Route, now!"
A Route would give them the advantage of a stable logic to fight back. It wasn't like Atla could gainsay Rel's order. Another vicious, roiling attack struck after them, but either the Separatist was incompetent or toying with them. Atla lashed out with his Gift, aiming high and in the vague direction of the distant Sherim.
The Route arced across the sky, invisible, Realmspace fragmenting and crystallising into new patterns along its length. Beneath it, the white cave spasmed, spitting out most of the trapped Wildren, the shockwaves crushing others, sending ragged streamers of mind spiralling away into the waiting appetites of bottom feeders and opportunists down on the seabed.
It wasn't elegant or precise, but the Route probably would take them closer to where they wanted to be. Now he just had to pry it open enough for the other Gifted to find it. Totally absorbed in his Gift, Atla felt the Separatist's next attack before it came, felt the creature's hate-filled attention falling on him like a sudden sucking undertow of frigid water. He weaved aside automatically, then beat his wings sharply and headed for the start of his Route.
Pevan and Chag were falling behind, held at bay by the Separatist's attacks. The Wilder had at least enough understanding of Gifted to know they were stronger together. And on the wing, it was too hard to muster Wild Power for an attack.
"Rel, get Pevan!" Atla's shout twisted and jerked in flight, almost catching the Clearseer despite Atla having deliberately aimed away from him. At least the near miss got his attention, and he rose on swift, strong wing-beats to Atla's level.
Shouting forwards, his words a swarm of long-bodied, dagger-like insects, Rel said, "No, get us to the Route, they can catch up."
"They're cut off!" Atla ducked his head to look back, then had to corkscrew violently downwards as the Separatist struck out. Jab after jab, lances of golden light fenced his descent, kept him twisting as he dropped. Much lower, and the bewildered Wildren below would sense him and rise in hunger.
Above, Rel's voice came in staccato bursts, incoherent single syllables buzzing in a cloud around the Separatist until its attack faltered. Atla pulled himself out of his dive, nursing new, wearying aches as he hauled himself back towards the fraying end of his Route. His hold on it was slipping.
Pevan joined Rel's assault, a howl of rage rippling out of her like a shoal of panicked fish through Atla's Gift. Somewhere in the chaos, Chag slipped past beneath the creature and, flapping frantically, levelled with Atla. The thief's emotions were a riot, and this close, they pummelled Atla, shaking his grip on the Route, blurring everything he felt through his Gift. He gritted his teeth and forced his wings to lift him another stroke, then another.
Fortunately, Chag's wings were too weak to follow, and he dropped back a precious handful of feet. Atla shook his head and regretted it as the lump of his fatigue bounced around the inside of his skull. The thief's weakness might be blessed relief, but it was also a growing problem. Every ragged feather that dropped from his wings was fatigue taking another step towards getting the better of him. They needed to get onto something resembling ground soon.
The Route was a confused mess of sensations, still lacking any First-Realm-logical organisation. A long series of not-quite-concentric circles naturally formed the boundaries of some sort of transparent pipe, but none of the long, narrow strips of colour threaded through them really rationalised into a floor. There were other feelings lurking in there, too: wet, misty air, the scents of tar and spices, organic, muscular shapes sliding beneath downy fur.
Pevan's voice rose in a yelp of alarm, and instinctively Atla craned round to look. The motion sent him yawing wildly, sliding sideways in the air, and only the fact that Chag fell into exactly the same mistake prevented the two colliding. Up above, Pevan had dropped back from the Separatist, and was now ducking and weaving through a vicious maze of projectiles spat out by the Wilder.
They were too high up for Atla to make a difference directly. He hauled his flight back level and resumed his ascent towards the end of the Route. It hung in his Gift, streamers of Realmspace trailing off it where it was beginning to come apart. Desperation pushed him higher, his shoulders singing in pain.
He was almost up to the Route, close enough to start to act. Chag, still struggling, was too much of a distraction for Atla to sense Pevan and Rel clearly, but from their shouts, they still fought. Chag was the one in urgent need of relief, and he hung only a few feet behind and below. Atla closed his eyes and reached forward afresh, setting new bonds on the trembling Route.
There was just enough time to force a few of the Route's trapped sensations into something resembling sense, and then new gravity caught him. Suddenly, he was flying head-first at mottled, colourful ground, wings spread in battering defiance of the headwind. He managed to pull himself into a ball, his wings turned back into arms that hugged his knees, praying that the quilt-like look of the ground would translate into the impact.
His prayer was half-answered; he landed on his shoulders, jagged pain shooting up his spine as he bounced, heels-over-head backwards. He fetched up face-down and sprawled out on something that felt more or less like bedding, albeit lumpy. The whole surface wobbled underneath him, as if it was up on springs.
> Chag hit nearby with a curse, shockwaves from the impact tossing Atla up and down on the bouncing ground. Atla used the impetus to roll onto his side, but when he started to get to his feet, he slipped almost immediately. Still, at least he could look 'up' - back the way they'd come - to see what was going on.
Cold fists seized his bones when he did. The Separatist seemed to fill the sky, glaring down at him despite a complete lack of facial features. Then a black shape obscured it. Atla flinched, almost threw himself to the ground, but the shape resolved into a falling human, shrinking rapidly as it approached. Some trick of perspective caused by the edge of the Route, then.
The falling body was Rel's, the Clearseer not looking down as he fell, his brown wings trailing loose feathers. Above him, the sky darkened again and Pevan began a more controlled descent, her wings already forsaken. Unlike her brother, who was an increasingly tempestuous coil of emotional countercurrents, Pevan showed up in Atla's Gift only as a tightly-focussed, vibrating pebble, shooting through the water as if fired from an ancient firearm. She had some plan in mind.
Sensation ceased.
It wasn't even pain. Just... whiteness. It lasted however long it lasted, and then Atla felt himself reeling,
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