As soon as I touch it, I feel a rush of power, but it's nothing like when I touched Raith or Bastian or anyone else. This power feels… dirty. Messy. Chaotic.

It surges into me almost greedily, filling me like a waterskin until the pressure seems like it might burst me from the inside.

My body becomes a lightning rod in a storm, every nerve ending screaming as the raw, untamed energy floods through me. I think I scream, but I lose all sense of time as the energy floods me. The only thing I remember is a faint, ethereal voice and the sensation of being lifted.

"Thank you, unbound. If you see me during Confluence Day, you must run. I can't keep it from hurting you. So run."

I blink several times, frown in confusion, and then wonder why I'm not dead. I can sense that time has passed. Seconds or minutes, I’m not sure. But I must have lost consciousness.

I cough, spitting up water and wincing at the memory of my shoulder. I was stabbed.

I sit up, and shout in fear.

Malakai is lying beside me on a rectangle of magical water. The rectangle is keeping us above the water and slowly drifting toward shore, where I see students climbing from the water with glowing echoes in hand. I spot some other affinities and first-years waiting on the shore as well.

I touch the place where Malakai stabbed me and feel only smooth skin. When I look at my bare shoulder, I see a magical blue mark like a scar, but oddly beautiful.

What the hell happened?

I try to remember. I saw Malakai's allies being eaten. I let Malakai go so he would have some chance of escape, but then the creature was right in front of me. And then… it spoke to me.

So it was an elemental, then. But gods. It must have been a truly ancient elemental to take a form so large and powerful. And it must have healed me and put us on this water platform.

It… saved us? But why would it save us and then warn me to run if I saw it on Confluence Day?

Malakai coughs and sits up, his muscular body already showing hints of an ugly purple bruise forming from his armpit to his hip. He sees me and his eyes harden.

I hold my palms up, then realize I'm still holding an echo.

His eyes fall to it, too. He doesn't have an echo.

"I could have let you die back there," I say, scooting back on the platform and reaching for water essence. But I find I’m completely exhausted. The power slips through my fingers like sand.

Malakai's features harden. "You should have let me die."

"Malakai… come on," I say, scooting back more, though there's not much room to escape on the small magical rectangle of water. "For once, just be a decent human being."