Morning came slowly. The sunlight crept into my room. I sat on my bed feeling empty. The cup on the table beside me was still warm. The tea was gone. The warmth was gone. The smell of my grandfather's tea still lingered in the air.
Lina stirred beside me. Her eyes opened slowly. I saw the dark brown colour that I loved. They were warm, but not glowing. She looked at me. Said, "You didn't sleep." I told her I did. She didn't believe me. She looked at the cup on the table. Her eyes narrowed. "That wasn't their night," she said.
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to explain the cup or the tea or the smell. Lina sat up. Touched the cup. It was cold, now empty. She said, "It's still warm." Then she looked at me. Asked, "Kael, who..." I didn't know what to say. I just said, "I don't know."
Lina held my hand. Her warm hand felt good. She asked me if it was my grandfather. I didn't know. I just said, "I don't know" again. She didn't push me. She just sat beside me, holding my hand, watching the morning light fill the room.
An hour later Aldo called us to the hall. The hall had no students, no instructors, just us. There was a map spread across a table in the centre. It was a map, with thick paper and burnt edges. The lines on the map were clear, too clear. Aldo said, "This is the Mariana Trench, not the one on any chart, the one your grandfather found."
I stepped closer to look at the map. The depths marked on the paper were 11,000 metres. It seemed impossible. The temple had been seven thousand metres. That had nearly killed us. Aldo said, "The temple was a lock, but this is something. This is where the first lock was, the one your grandfather couldn't take."
Raka stood on the side of the table; his face was pale, but his eyes were sharp. He asked, "Why couldn't he take it?" Aldo pointed to a spot on the map near the centre marked with a symbol. The same symbol from the temple walls from the stone in my pocket from the walls of Room 13. Aldo said, "Because something was guarding it, something that was awake, something that didn't wait."
Kiran's voice was cold. "The creatures we saw in the temple were sleeping, waiting. This one..." Aldo said, "This one is awake; it has been awake for twenty years since your grandfather opened the door. " I looked at the map at the symbol at the depths that seemed to swallow light.
Maya asked, "How do we get there? The temple was seven thousand metres; this is eleven thousand, the pressure..." Aldo said, "The Ember Core will protect you. It protected your grandfather; it protected you in the temple. It will protect you again." Raka's voice was tight. "If it doesn't?" Aldo didn't answer.
I looked at the map at the spot where something was waiting. "What is it guarding?" Aldo pulled a piece of paper from his old, torn robe with my grandfather's handwriting. He placed it on the table beside the map. The words said, "Don't go to the Mariana Trench. I tried. I lost everything: Bayu's eyes, Reno's hope, and my soul. Don't make the mistake."
I read the words and then read them again. Linas's voice was quiet. "What does he mean by 'my soul'?" Aldo looked at her; his pale blue eyes were tired, older than I had ever seen them. He said, "I don't know; he never told me. He never told anyone he came back from the trench, and he was different, quieter, like something inside him had been replaced."
I looked at the map at the symbol at my grandfather's words. "We're going," I said. No one argued.
The next three days were a blur of preparation. Aldo taught us about the trench, the currents, the pressure, the cold, and the creatures that lived in the darkness. Bayu trained us harder than before – morning, afternoon, and night. Maya practised her Null, and Raka and Kirana trained together in fire and ice.
Lina sat by the water every day and every night, staring at the sea. I found her there on the night the moon was full; the water was still, and her eyes were glowing silver-white like the light in the temple. She said, "I hear them, the creatures, the ones that are still sleeping; they're calling to me." I asked her, "Calling you what?" She was quiet for a moment, then she turned, her eyes looking at me. "Sister", she said.
The word hung in the air, cold. I took her hand and asked her, "What do you think?" She looked at our hands, her glowing hand in mine. Said, "I think I don't know what I am. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I can hear them. I don't know why I could make the creature wait." She looked at me; her eyes were not glowing, Lina, the girl who had been beside me since we were children.
"But I know one thing," she said. "I'm not going to let you go there alone." I squeezed her hand. "You're not going to let me do anything." She smiled, a smile that reached her eyes. "No," she said, "I'm not."
On the night I went to Room 13. The door was open. The chair with my name carved sat in the centre. The walls were still covered in my grandfather's words. I sat in the chair for the time since I had found this room. I sat in the chair that had been waiting for me since before I was born.
The wood was hard and cold. After a moment it warmed, like it had been waiting for someone to sit in it, like it had been waiting for me. I closed my eyes. I heard his voice, my grandfather's voice, not the whisper of the Ember Core, not the voice in my head, his voice, the one I had heard every night when he told me stories of heroes.
"Kael", he said. "You're going to the Trench." I said, "Yes." He said, "I tried to stop you. I left notes. I left warnings. I left everything I had, but you're going anyway." I said, "You knew I would." He was quiet for a moment, then I heard a sound, not a laugh, not a sigh, something in between.
"You're like me," he said, "stubborn, brave, stupid." I opened my eyes; the room was empty, the chair was cold, and the walls were still. But the cup on the table beside me was warm; steam rose from it, and the smell of my grandfather's tea filled the room. I picked it up, took a sip, and heard his voice again.
"Find Core," he said. "Find what I couldn't take, and when you find it, you'll understand why I did what I did, why I gave away the lock, why I couldn't go back." The cup was empty; the steam was. I sat in the dark room with the empty cup in my hands and waited for the morning.
The morning we gathered at the dock before dawn. A research vessel waited. Aldo had arranged it, not for the public. For us. On the ship Aldo pulled me aside. "There's something you need to see, something your grandfather wanted you to know before you go down."
Kael goes to the bow with him. The sky is still really dark. You can see the stars. Then Aldo points to something that Kael has never seen before. These are stars that are not on any map. These stars actually move.
"Your grandfather found these stars," Aldo says. "He spent a lot of time tracking them. They do not behave like stars. They do not stay in one place. They move with the water. With the tides. With something inside the earth."
Kael asks, "What are they?"
Aldos' face looks pale in the light of the stars. "They are like markers. The same markers that your grandfather used to find the temple. To find Aegis. To find.
He stops talking. He points to one star. This star is fainter than the others. It is pulsing. It is, like a heartbeat.
"That is Core. The centre of the lock when that star lines up with the trench."
Kael asks, "When will that happen?"
Aldo checks his watch. "We have twenty-three hours. You have one day to get ready. One day to prepare… Then.
He does not finish what he is saying. He does not need to.
Kael looks at the star. At the light that is pulsing in the darkness. At the thing that his grandfather tried to take and failed.
Kael says, "I will bring it back."
Aldo looks at Kael for a time. Then he nods his head.
Aldo says, "I know. That is what I am afraid of."