"Do you have money?"
Ashan's gaze was fixed on the two-storey building before them, its windows dark, its door hanging slightly ajar, its sign swinging on a single rusted chain that screeched with each pass of the wind. The wood was warped, the paint peeling, the whole structure leaning into its neighbors as if it had given up trying to stand on its own.
Toric's cough was thick with embarrassment. "We... might survive three days." He shifted his weight, his voice trailing into nothing. "At best."
Ashan cursed softly, the sound swallowed by the night. The anger settled in his chest, becoming something that could be used, shaped, not forgotten.
"Let's rest for tonight." He moved toward the door. "We'll plan tomorrow."
The door groaned open on hinges that had not been oiled in years. Inside, an old man slumped over the front desk, his snores a wet, rhythmic rasp. Ashan tapped the wood in quick succession. Nothing. He tapped again, harder.
The old man's mouth continued its oblivious flapping.
Toric leaned close, his whisper urgent with confusion. "Captain... why are we paying at all? We're pirates. Isn't the point... not paying?"
Ashan's lips twitched—half annoyance, half amusement. "Is this your first time on Ogefil?"
"Not first. Second. I don't know the island well. Never stayed long."
"The Mistress handles pubs and brothels. The Master handles taverns and markets. Different territories, different rules. Different people to owe or offend." Ashan turned, met Toric's eyes. "And if money doesn't flow, Toric... how do you expect to become rich?"
Toric scratched his head, processed this for a moment, then nodded with the slow certainty of a man accepting a mystery beyond his comprehension.
Ashan's palm connected with the desk in a sharp, cracking slap. The old man's head snapped up, his eyes wild, spittle glistening on his chin.
"Wha—who—!"
"One room. One night."
"Ah. Right. Yes." The old man's hand found a key without seeming to search. "Two bronze."
Fuck. That's daylight robbery.
His gaze swung to Toric like a blade.
With the expression of a man passing a stone from his own bladder, Toric extracted two bronze coins and placed them on the desk. His hand lingered.
The old man bit each coin, studied them with rheumy suspicion, then grunted. "Room five. First floor. End of the hall."
They climbed.
The stairs were steep, the treads worn smooth. The tavern's condition hovered between "character" and "condemned." The air was a thick stew of spilled ale, cheap tobacco, and the ghost of a thousand unwashed bodies. Every board beneath their feet sang its own note of complaint.
Ashan fit the key into the lock. The mechanism surrendered with a reluctant crack.
The room was small, sparse, and unexpectedly clean. Two narrow beds draped in goat hides. A single window let moonlight spill across the floor in a silver rectangle.
Toric claimed a bed immediately, its frame groaning beneath his weight. "Captain. Three months. We have three months, and we don't have money for three days." He sat up, his voice rising. "What's the plan? We need a plan. We can't just—"
Ashan turned the lock behind them. The bolt slid home with a definitive click.
Toric's rambling died. His eyes narrowed. "Captain? Why are you locking—"
"Quiet, Toric. Breathe slowly." Ashan crossed the room, his steps deliberate. "There's something I need to try."
Toric's hand drifted toward his sword hilt, instinctive, automatic. His eyes widened. "Captain, what—"
Ashan's hand shot forward, gripping Toric's dominant wrist with surprising strength. His eyes ignited—greyish-white whirlpools spinning to life in the moonlight.
[Viksana: Memory Drive].
"Relax." His voice was distant, as if from the bottom of a well.
Toric's sword hand went limp. His body remained, but something in his expression shifted—the fear, the confusion, the anger draining away, leaving something open, waiting.
Ashan felt his consciousness lurch.
The sensation was unlike anything he had experienced. Different from the Karmajala-Loka's structured visions, different from the passive observation of his own mind-sea. This was plummeting—a falling through the very fabric of another's being.
Darkness. Complete, absolute, directionless.
Then—splash.
Consciousness reformed. Vision returned, fuzzy at the edges, clarifying slowly.
What the—is this his sea of consciousness?
He floated in an expanse of flowing light, a river of memory that stretched in every direction. Currents of experience streamed past him—images, sounds, sensations, all tangible, all real. If he pushed, he could enter any of them. Become not an observer, but a participant.
He drifted through the currents, letting them carry him. Recent memories first: the negotiation with Solna, the walk through the harbor, the humiliation of paying two bronze coins. Then older: voyages, battles, bottles emptied and refilled.
And then—a pulse. A current that burnt brighter than the others.
Oh. That's... interesting.
He pushed into it.
THUNDER.
The world reassembled around him—a world of fury, of water, of wind. Waves like moving mountains rose and fell, their crests torn to spray by winds that screamed like dying things. Lightning split the sky, and for one frozen instant, Ashan saw everything:
Corpses. Dozens of them, floating amid debris—splintered masts, shattered hulls, torn canvas.
And Toric.
He clung to a broken spar, his body a map of wounds that should have killed him. His breathing was visible—a mist fading with each passing second, slowing, stopping.
This is the moment. His awakening.
The sensation was strange—omnipresence without substance. He could observe everything from every angle, but his hand passed through the spar when he reached for it. He was a ghost in another man's history.
Toric's fingers twitched. His eyes began to focus.
Then, impossibly, he moved. He pushed himself upright on the spar. His wounds—deep gashes, broken ribs, a crushed hand—began to knit before Ashan's eyes. New color flooded his cheeks. His breathing deepened, steadied, strengthened.
Toric blinked at his own hands. His face was a mask of bewilderment. "How? I was dead. My heart stopped. I felt it stop. But now—"
CRACK.
The memory fractured. Spiderwebs of light split across the scene. Ashan felt himself ejected, hurled backward through the currents.
He caught himself in a slower current, deeper than before.
I'm reaching my limit. The mind rejects intrusion after a point.
He had what he needed. More than enough for a first attempt.
He released.
Ashan's eyes dimmed. The greyish-white whirlpools subsided, leaving only his natural hazel, touched by moonlight. The entire endeavor had consumed perhaps three seconds.
Toric blinked, shook his head like a man emerging from deep water. His hand twitched back to life. He snatched it from Ashan's grip, his eyes wide, his pupils blown dark with fear.
"Captain... did you... is it done? Whatever you wanted to do?"
Ashan smiled. It was meant to be reassuring. It was not. "Yes. I understand your power more clearly now. I can help you improve it."
Too scary. Too fast. What did he do? Did he put something in me? Is that thing still in me? Can he see what I'm thinking right now?
Ashan saw the fear. He always saw. "Sleep, Toric. We have much to do tomorrow."
He moved to his own bed, settled onto the goat hides.
He closed his eyes.
Toric lay motionless, staring at the ceiling, at the cracks that ran across it like rivers on a map. His hands were clenched at his sides, his jaw tight.
What exactly did he harvest from me? In those three endless seconds.
Outside, the moon continued its slow arc across the starless sky, indifferent to the questions being asked, to the fears being faced, to the future rushing toward them all like a wave that would not break until it had reached the shore.