Neither thief could remember what exactly occurred thereafter.
Erin had fallen, they both knew that much.
Erin could remember staring up at her brother as the rest of the world fell away, consumed by swirling blue waves of not quite water, not quite light...
And then Garrett had fallen. Using his sister's tool, her Claw, as she had affectionately dubbed the device, to avoid the same fate as his sister. Erin would later claim to have heard Garrett scream, though Garrett would insist on having no such memory.
Both siblings ended up unconscious before they could realize the sheer gravity of their situation.
The newly created Primordial Basin, scared and alone and young and ancient, seated itself in Erin's womb, binding itself to her flesh and bones, seeping into her blood and breath, forcing itself to beat in time with her heart.
At best, Erin would go onto describe the sensation of being host to such unfathomableness as softly drowning. As though she were floating, weightless, suspended in an endless sea, an endless sky, no horizon in sight, unable to breathe, brine burning her lungs and eyes as she was helplessly tossed around in a unseen storm…
Until the water abruptly disappeared and Erin was left feeling nothing but the chill of the night.
Ultimately, the ritual failed.
The Primordial Sea was lost to men yet again and would be for a very long time…
The Baron Northcrest however, was undeterred.
Just because they had not obtained control over the equilibrium of the worlds through that particular ritual, did not mean it was as unobtainable as some of the more discouraged men within the Baron's circle claimed it to be.
If anything, the Baron speculated, the botched ceremony had aided them in ways neither party could have imagined.
Rather than take control over the impossible beast that was the Primordial Sea.
They simply needed to extract the sliver of water that had passed through during the ritual.