Chapter 6: The Drowned Adulteress

The journal's final pages had been damaged by years of salt spray and dampness, but as Elias huddled in his clifftop shelter, the fading afternoon light revealed words that had previously been illegible. Marina Keane's handwriting grew more erratic in her final entries, as if she'd been writing while her hands trembled with fear—or something worse.

Fifteenth day of Deepcurrent - The child moves differently now. Not the gentle stirring of a babe eager for birth, but something purposeful, deliberate. Sometimes I feel it responding to the tide's rhythm, growing restless when the water calls. Cain watches me constantly, his eyes bright with anticipation I find increasingly repulsive.

I confronted him today about the translations, about what the Shearings truly represent. His mask slipped entirely. There was no shame in his expression, only desperate fear barely held in check.

"You don't understand," he said, gripping my shoulders until I cried out. "The God doesn't accept partial service. Once you've fed it, once you've tasted its favor, there's no walking away. Marina, please—if you try to leave, if you take that child away from here, it will follow. It will drag us all down to the depths."

Elias's hands shook as he turned the page. The implications were becoming clearer with each revelation, painting a picture of cosmic horror that made his father's recent behavior suddenly, terrifyingly comprehensible.

Sixteenth day of Deepcurrent - I understand now why Cain is so frightened. It's not just about the child, though that's part of it. The God has been patient with our small offerings, our careful rituals, because it was waiting for something specific. A perfect vessel, born of the Shearer's bloodline and properly prepared through ritual scarification.

The child I carry isn't just Cain's bastard—it's been chosen from the moment of conception. Every Shearing performed during my pregnancy has been building toward this moment, preparing the way for something to cross over from the depths into our world.

But I won't let that happen. Whatever the cost.

The next entry was written in a different hand—shakier, more desperate:

Seventeenth day of Deepcurrent - Thomas came as promised. Dear, faithful Thomas, who never questioned why his sister needed to flee in the dark of night. We planned to leave at dawn, when the tide was at its lowest. But something went wrong. Cain discovered our preparations.

He didn't try to stop us directly. Instead, he performed a ritual I'd never seen before, using his own blood and symbols carved into the harbor stones. Within hours, Thomas began acting strangely—distant, unfocused, as if something else was looking out through his eyes.

"You can't leave," he told me, his voice flat and emotionless. "The God has invested too much in this child. If you try to take it away, the consequences will be... unfortunate."

I realized then that Cain hadn't just been feeding the entity our flesh through the Shearings. He'd been feeding it our loyalty, our free will. Every ritual, every offering, every drop of blood spilled in the God's name had been creating invisible chains that bound us to its purpose.

Thomas is lost to me now. I see my brother's face, but something else looks out through his eyes. Something patient and cold and utterly inhuman.

Elias felt sick. The man he'd killed—Thomas Keane, consumed by grief and rage—hadn't been acting entirely of his own volition. The entity had been using him, manipulating his emotions to serve its broader purpose.

Eighteenth day of Deepcurrent - There is only one way to break the chains, only one sacrifice the God will accept in place of what it truly wants. I have made my choice.

If I cannot save the child through flight, perhaps I can save it through substitution. One life for another. My willing service in the depths, in exchange for the child's freedom from this curse.

I pray I am not simply deluding myself. I pray that some part of what we call God still remembers mercy.

The final entry was barely legible, written in what looked like a mixture of ink and blood:

I go to the harbor now. Thomas waits for me there, though it is not truly Thomas anymore. Cain believes he has won, that his carefully laid plans will come to fruition. But he underestimates a mother's love.

The God wants a vessel? I will give it one. But not my daughter. Never my daughter.

Claire will grow up free of this madness. She will never know what she was meant to become.

Below this, in a different hand entirely—one that seemed to writhe across the page like something alive—were additional words:

The bargain is accepted. Flesh for flesh, mother for daughter. But purpose runs deeper than blood, and some destinies cannot be escaped. The child will remember when the time comes. She will choose.

Elias slammed the journal shut, his heart hammering against his ribs. The truth was worse than he'd imagined—not just his father's adultery and murder, but the revelation that Marina Keane had willingly sacrificed herself to save her daughter from becoming the entity's vessel.

But the attempt had failed. Whatever had spoken through those final words, whatever had accepted Marina's bargain, had been lying. Claire hadn't grown up free—she'd simply been allowed to mature naturally until the proper moment arrived. Until a Shearer of the Thorne bloodline could perform the ritual that would complete her transformation.

A sound from below made him look up from the journal. Someone was climbing the treacherous path that led to his clifftop hideout, moving with sure-footed grace despite the gathering darkness. As the figure drew closer, Elias felt his blood turn to ice.

It was Thomas Keane—or what remained of him.

The man he'd killed three days ago stood at the edge of his small camp, seawater streaming from his clothes, his throat bearing the terrible wound that should have been fatal. But he was walking, talking, his eyes reflecting the last rays of sunlight like mirrors.

"Hello, boy," Thomas said, his voice carrying the sound of surf over shingle. "We need to have a conversation."

Elias scrambled backward, his hand closing around the bronze shear he'd taken from his father's body. "You're dead. I killed you myself."

Thomas smiled, and his mouth was full of things that belonged in deep ocean trenches—not teeth, but rows of needle-sharp calcium growths that clicked together when he spoke. "Death is such a limited concept, don't you think? The God has need of servants, and I have always been... willing to serve."

He stepped closer, and Elias could see that the wound in his throat was moving, pulsing like gills. "Your father was a coward," Thomas continued. "He understood what was required but lacked the will to see it through. He tried to have it both ways—to serve the God while protecting his own interests."

"Marina," Elias whispered. "He killed Marina."

"He killed the vessel that would have served perfectly," Thomas corrected. "A willing sacrifice, already prepared through pregnancy and ritual scarification. But he allowed sentiment to interfere with divine purpose."

The thing wearing Thomas Keane's face tilted its head, studying Elias with predatory interest. "She came to the harbor that night, ready to make her bargain. One life for another, her service in exchange for her daughter's freedom. But Cain couldn't bear to lose both his lover and his child. So he tried to save them both."

Thomas began to circle Elias's small campfire, his movements too fluid, too graceful for anything that had once been human. "He performed the ritual incorrectly, tried to substitute his own blood for hers at the crucial moment. The God accepted Marina's sacrifice, yes—but it did not honor the bargain. How could it? The ritual was flawed, tainted by Cain's desperate selfishness."

Elias felt understanding crash over him like a cold wave. "Claire was never free."

"Claire was always destined for this purpose," Thomas agreed. "The only question was timing. Would she serve willingly, as her mother intended? Or would she need to be... prepared through more traditional means?"

The fire between them flickered, casting dancing shadows across Thomas's ruined face. "Your Shearing ritual completed the process. Blood calling to blood, Shearer to shorn. The channel is open now, the pathway prepared. She becomes what she was always meant to be."

"And you?" Elias demanded, raising the ceremonial blade. "What are you?"

Thomas laughed, a sound like waves grinding pebbles to sand. "I am what remains when human will is subsumed by divine purpose. Your father killed this body, yes—but the entity that drives it found the death... useful. The dead make such excellent messengers."

He stopped circling, fixing Elias with eyes that reflected no light at all. "The God has a message for you, boy. You can return to Saltcradle willingly, take your place as the vessel's consort, and rule at her side as divine purpose unfolds. Or you can continue running, and watch as everyone you've ever known pays the price for your cowardice."

"There's a third option," Elias said, his grip tightening on the shear's handle.

Thomas's smile widened, revealing more of those terrible teeth. "Is there? Tell me, boy—when you performed Claire's Shearing, did you feel it? The connection forming, the bond that ties your essence to hers? You can run to the ends of the earth, but that channel will always exist. And through it, she will always be able to find you."

As if summoned by his words, a sound drifted across the evening air—distant but unmistakable. Singing. A woman's voice raised in one of the old hymns, but pitched at frequencies that seemed to resonate directly in Elias's bones.

Claire's voice, calling to him across the miles.

"She knows where you are," Thomas said softly. "She has always known. The only question is whether you'll answer willingly, or whether she'll need to come collect you herself."

The singing grew louder, and with it came the sound of the tide turning, water rushing up the narrow channels that carved the coastline into a maze of inlets and hidden coves. But this tide was wrong—too high, too fast, carrying with it the phosphorescent glow that marked the entity's presence.

"Choose quickly," Thomas advised, his form already beginning to waver like heat shimmer. "The God's patience has limits, and those limits are rapidly approaching."

Then he was gone, dissolving into mist that smelled of deep ocean trenches and ancient hungers. Elias stood alone on the clifftop, the journal clutched in one hand and the ceremonial shear in the other, while Claire's impossible song grew stronger with each passing moment.

Below him, the unnatural tide continued to rise, carrying with it things that had never known sunlight. The reckoning his father had feared, the consequences Marina had tried to prevent—they were finally, inevitably, coming to shore.

And somewhere in Saltcradle, a sixteen-year-old girl who was no longer entirely human waited for her chosen consort to return home.