Shadow Slave

As the winds turned violent and the surface of the Great River grew restless, Ananke gave them a few simple instructions. There was not much to say, really - she would be responsible for steering the ketch, protecting it against the ravages of distorted time, and preventing it from turning over. While they had to scoop up the water that would inevitably get inside and throw it back overboard.

The three of them also used sturdy ropes to tie themselves to the ketch. If the boat did overturn... hopefully, they would not be pulled into the depths of the underwater storm immediately.

Sunny was not sure what would happen if Ananke failed to keep their boat above the waves, though, so he didn't feel too hopeful.

"Prepare yourselves."

The voice of the young priestess was grave, which created a strange dissonance with her adolescent appearance.

"Once we enter the storm, we won't be free of it for several days. It will be hard to endure the strain, even for Ascended like you, my Lord and Lady. Conserve your stamina. And essence, too."

She lingered for a few moments, and then added quietly:

"All kinds of things can happen... but fate will guide us. Have faith!"

Sunny gritted his teeth.

If there was one thing he did not have, and never wished to possess, it was faith. The only thing he believed in was the strength of his arms and the resilience of his spirit. But Ananke was different. If faith in Weaver could help her cope with the cruel truth of the world... then he didn't have the heart to diminish it with his words.

So, he remained silent.

'Let's survive this.'

Looking at the wooden dipper he had been given, Sunny sighed.

would miss traveling inside the giant alloy coffins of

darkness, meanwhile,

and erratic, carrying the ketch forward with frightening speed. Tall waves rose and fell, and the wooden boat rose and fell with them, strong

of this,

understood why Ananke had said that enduring the storm would not

it was not a mundane storm,

few moments before it did, the light of the seven suns suddenly grew strange and distorted, as if someone had covered the sky with a muddy

He experienced a very eerie and uncomfortable sensation... a sensation of the laws of the

shadows surrounding him were fragmented and twisted, stretched endlessly or moving in

rather... maddening.

sense of wrongness, the ketch was being thrown around like a toy by the waves. His body was being jerked from side to side, up and down, experiencing moments of weightlessness and rough impacts. The winds were battering him, throwing streams of water at his

of the storm

of water

And afraid.

the face of raging nature. But here, it was not even nature - instead, the storm surrounding them

was just as

only at the outer boundary of the unnatural

torture - if the ketch wasn't destroyed sooner, at that - he heard Ananke through the cacophony of the raging storm. The Names she had spoken were unfamiliar, and

nauseating distortion of the time storm seemed to have subsided a little. The ketch was still climbing the tall waves and plummeting from them, and the winds were still as violent as they had been a moment before... but the physical hardship of enduring their

time appeared around the

to

the mist with a focused expression. Her youthful face was pale, but her azure eyes were full of stalwart determination. She controlled the ketch with a skill born from hundreds of years

he glanced

the light fabric of her tunic fluttering in