"There," Lena said, tugging his sleeve in the pitch black room. "On the left."
"I see it," Jack said. He could, now that she pointed it out: the tiny, smoky white aura of a rat. It was hard to see against the raw aether, which itself tended to resemble a white fog - dumb beasts and wild animals never did develop a unique aura - but as white mages couldn't see the raw aether, Lena didn't have that problem. He searched the aether for the makings of a Sleep spell and flung it at the creature. "Done. Any others?"
She was quiet, and though he couldn't fully read her expression, he assumed she was sending her soul sight about the ship's murky, cluttered hold, looking for more of the pests they had been seeking for the past hour. He'd been keenly aware all that time of how close she stood to him; on his other side, he gripped the ice staff so tightly that his hand ached. Of the times he'd daydreamed about being alone in a dark room with her, this was not what he'd had in mind, but when the thought skittered through his head like one of the rats they hunted, he could feel himself blushing so fiercely he was sure she could see it in the dark.
"I think that may be the last of them," she said eventually.
"Alright," Jack said, patting her arm before he stepped away from her. "Wait here. I'll get it."
He stepped carefully around the crates filling the belly of the ship. The aether sight would never take the place of a respectable lantern, but he could at least make out where he was going. Every item in the hold held traces of past aether, of where it had come from and whoever had handled it, a thin layer that glowed for a black mage in faint outlines like a dusting of flour on a cake. As he shifted a box out of the way so that he could reach the rat, he wondered what it was like for Lena: total darkness perhaps, except for his aura and hers in their separate shades of blue, and the cluster of lights in the crate beside the stairs that now held the rats.
When he approached her with this last one, she held her hands out for it, and he gently passed it to her. Her hands glowed softly as she checked over it, making sure it was free of injury or disease. How very like her to care about the well-being of something so small as this, he thought. "We make a good team," he said, guiding her toward the stairs with an arm around her shoulders.
She sighed, cradling the sleeping beast as she followed his lead. "I know we can't leave them down here to eat all our food, but I hate thinking I have any part in killing them."
"If any are left when we reach Melmond, you and I will take them into the countryside and let them go," he told her. "But the ochu won't last that long without fresh meat."
"I wish it could keep eating fish. It's so much easier with fish." She handed the rat back to him when they reached the crate, specially warded to keep them from chewing their way out if they should wake. Jack carefully set the animal down among the others, refraining to mention that Lena was the one who had examined the ochu and declared that it required a more varied diet. "Even I eat fish," she mumbled as they climbed the stairs up to the middle deck. "Fish don't have cute little whiskery faces."
Though the middle deck was dim at this time of day, the afternoon light coming from the upper decks seemed uncomfortably bright after their hour in the hold. Jack glanced over at Lena, able to see her pout now that they were out of the dark, and couldn't resist teasing her. "My lady, I wonder if you've ever heard of such a thing as a catfish?"
That drew a laugh from her, a short, snorting one as she rolled her eyes. "Your cleverness is going to get you in trouble someday," she said, shaking her head at him.
They both flinched at a shout from ahead of them; across the ship in the galley, Biggs, an older pirate, hollered commands at whoever had been tasked with helping him prepare supper. Jack bristled at the tone, but relaxed when Lena seemed unconcerned - the old man was more or less deaf, and shouted as a matter of course. The two of them walked on, stopping shy of the stairs to the main deck. She must have known he wouldn't follow her up; Jack had spent the days since they left Elfheim not far from where they now stood. He saw her eyes flit over to the table in the corner where his books waited for him beside a squat lamp. "Is that old book still puzzling you?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, nervous. She hadn't yet asked him what sort of spells Astos's ancient tome contained; if she did, he would have to tell her it was devoted, as far as he could make out, almost entirely to the practice of dark magic. He didn't want to answer any uncomfortable questions about why he would devote so much of his time to the study of such a thing.
Instead, he was faced with a far more uncomfortable question when Lena asked, "Are you avoiding us all?"
"No," he said quickly. Too quickly, perhaps. His own voice sounded cowardly in his ears and he suddenly doubted himself. "That is… Not intentionally."
"Then…" she said, releasing his arm as she turned to face him. "Will I see you at dinner tonight?"
"Yes."
She smiled and turned to go, holding the edge of her white robe so that it wouldn't trip her on the stairs. Only when she had gone did he realize what he'd done, agreeing to her request without thinking. He was comfortable enough eating in front of his friends, but the pirate crew had not yet seen his naked face. He wondered briefly how he might wriggle his way out of it without hurting Lena's feelings, but as he stood there pondering, staring up the stairs, Kane appeared at the top and came down.
"Jack," he said, flashing a mischievous, white-toothed grin. "What was Lena so pleased about?"
"I told her I'd come to dinner."
Kane blinked in surprise. "You did? Why would you do a thing like that?"
"She asked," Jack said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Kane barked out a laugh. "I've got ten gil that says you'll be too nervous to eat three bites." He sat back on the stairs, one leg stretched out, the other folded beneath him because of the way his sword sat at his waist. When he'd made himself comfortable, he asked, "Have you kissed her yet?"
"E-excuse me?" Jack stuttered.
"I beg your pardon, I mumble sometimes. I asked if you had kissed her."
"I heard what you said!" Jack croaked. "That's… That's not something you ask someone!"
Kane chuckled. "Don't be so prudish. I'm on your side, remember? Just don't be surprised if father and Orin have a chat with you later about taking advantage of the poor, impressionable soul reader."
Jack scowled. He didn't relish the thought of repeating the conversation they'd had in the groves.
Kane waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway, that's not what I came down here to tell you. Listen, Jack, I've been thinking: Tonight, when I give Shipman his sword lesson, you're getting one too."
"Come again?"
"'Never to harm my fellow man', right?" Kane said quickly. "That's how your oath goes? But that's only for your magic. I asked father about battle mages. He told me they fought with swords. That means your oath doesn't stop you from learning to use a real weapon."
"I have a real weapon!" Jack protested, raising his staff for emphasis.
"Yes, you have a staff," Kane said, rolling his eyes. "You had one in Pravoka too, and you fought well with it. Then you lost it."
"I didn't lose-" Jack started to say.
But Kane raised a hand, cutting him off. "And you had to square off against a dark mage with nothing but a boot knife."
"It was a dagger," Jack said, contemptuously.
"It was a steak knife with delusions of grandeur," said Kane. "And I can't help but notice you seem to have lost that too. Look, I promised Sarah I would protect you. To my mind, that means I ought to teach you to protect yourself."
"I can protect myself!" Jack said, though he was aware that the whine in his voice said otherwise.
Kane shrugged, crossing his arms in front of him as he leaned back against the stairs. "What about Lena? Can you protect her? Where were you when that pirate attacked her in Pravoka?"
"Saving you!" Jack snapped. The question angered him, and the anger chilled him. He gripped his staff in both hands, but he couldn't seem to focus on the spells it held.
"Before that," Kane said, infuriatingly calm. "You left her alone so you could lure those other men away. What if you had known how to fight them off? Think about it!"
"I have, alright?" Jack shouted. He could feel the aether flowing into him, spilling out again. He could feel it in his eyes. Kane stared at him in silence; the only sound was a crackling in the air as frost formed all around them, on Jack's coat, on his hands, on the bottom-most stairs and the tops of Kane's boots. "Gods, not again," he said, only a whisper, but he hadn't meant to say it out loud.
Kane stared at him almost appraisingly. There was no fear in that look, only concern. "What's happened to you, Jack?"
He couldn't meet the guardsman's gaze; instead, he looked down at the staff, at the carving framed by his hands, the Leifenish name for ice, not the word for it, but the true name. "I don't know," he said, as his face burned with shame. "The aether responds to my emotions. It always has."
"But it's getting worse," Kane said, not a question, but a fact. "Back in Cornelia, I saw you face down the mage council without even batting an eye. You didn't so much as raise your voice. But this? This was hardly an argument. And this isn't the first time I've seen you lose control."
"No," Jack said, squeezing his eyes shut as he forced down his rising embarrassment and the rush of aether that accompanied it. "It's… It's getting harder. This helps," he said, gesturing with his staff. "It's not just a weapon. There are spells bound to it that help a mage control the aether. But it's not enough."
"Is it because of Astos?" Kane asked.
Jack shook his head. "No. Not entirely. What happened at the Keep exacerbated it, but it started before then." When I drew off of Gollor, Jack thought, but he couldn't tell Kane that, not after they'd fought and killed dark mages together. He tried to explain it in the most non-magical way possible. "When I… when I performed that ritual to find the cause of the curse… I think I broke something… inside."
Kane sat forward on the stairs, bracing his elbows on his knees. His sword clattered against the steps as he moved. "Broke how?"
"I used to be able to ignore it. It wouldn't bother me as long as I kept my emotions even."
The guardsman nodded. "So you lock your feelings away. Orin's people do a similar thing during combat. It's supposed to help them fight."
"So did the battle mages. That's where I learned it. My…" Words flashed through his mind - mentor, guardian, friend - but none seemed adequate to describe what Cedric had been to him. "One of the people who cared for me after I lost my parents, he was a battle mage. He had the same problem. He taught me to control it."
"And that's his coat you wear?" Kane asked, nodding toward it.
Jack nodded.
"Have you told Lena about this? Maybe she can do something to-"
"No," Jack said. He had heard her say she didn't know much about black magic, but would she recognize dark magic if Kane described the symptoms to her? Was that something she would have learned about at White Hall? "Kane, please don't tell her."
Kane shrugged. "I'm not a mage. I don't know what it's like for you. But this battle mage trick you cling to? It's meant for combat, not for everyday. You can't hold back forever."
He hadn't been holding back forever, of course. He hadn't needed to. He'd spent years holed up in dusty libraries, avoiding confrontation, avoiding the people of Crescent Lake who hated and feared him. Even now, his first inclination was to isolate himself, to hide from other people, but it was difficult to hide from people who considered him a friend. "I have to try," he said.
Kane pushed up to his feet, smoothly and gracefully. "Try harder," he said, cuffing Jack's shoulder before he turned and went back up the stairs.
Jack wandered over to his table in the corner. He sat in the chair and pulled the ancient book to him, but he didn't light the lamp, lost in thought. Had it been so obvious? If Kane knew how much he was struggling, did Lena know? Did everyone know? He looked down at the staff Lena had given him. Tentatively, he pulled his mind away from the focus spells within the weapon, and the hollow in his soul grumbled like a starving dog.
I can't control it anymore, he thought, truly knowing it for the first time. He could have worked his whole life and never held as much aether as he did now. It would have taken decades of work, Gollor had said, decades of learning how to control it. Unless I draw from someone else, he thought.
No. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't go that far. But even as his stomach sickened at the idea, his mind ran with it. It wouldn't take much, he knew. Instinctively, he knew. The barest flicker of power, a morsel no bigger than the scraps they fed the ochu.
No bigger than the soul of a rat? he wondered.
He pushed back from the table, standing, but frozen by his own doubts. Never to harm my fellow man. But they're not men. They're only rats. Captive and sleeping, a whole box of little aetherial souls. Can I even draw from an animal? He thought of Lena, of the white mages' Oath to harm no living thing. She couldn't possibly approve. But then he thought of Cedric, of his letter to Iris, of how he'd loved her for years but hadn't been able to tell her. "I could never contain my happiness if you loved me in return," the letter said. That could be me, Jack realized. He couldn't even stand beside her without worrying what the aether would do.
And yet she expected him at dinner.
"Confound it," he muttered, striding toward the lower stairs, toward the ship's hold and the darkness that awaited him there.
Kane leaned on the railing, feeling the gentle rolling of the ship. The Mondmer was rougher than the Aldean Sea, the waves higher, even when they were still in sight of the Nerrick Pass. Kane had half hoped the pass would be blocked, still devastated by the quake that had closed it, but it had been clear when they reached it, four days out of Elfheim and three ahead to Melmond. They had sailed through without a hitch not an hour past, taking him farther from Cornelia than ever.
He looked up at the quarter deck, where his father stood at the ship's wheel beside the captain, the two of them deep in conversation. Lord Redden scowled as he spoke. He's as unhappy about returning to Melmond as I was about leaving Cornelia, Kane thought. His father grew more irritable the closer they came to his homeland.
He returned to the task in front of him, tried to let the sword lesson take his mind off of home. "Don't let his height intimidate you," he told Shipman as the boy prepared to square off against Jack with a wooden sword. "He's taller, yes, but you're faster. Remember yesterday's lesson?"
"Yup!" Shipman said. "Aim for the hamstrings!"
Kane cocked his head. "I didn't teach you that."
"No, sir! I figured that bit out for myself!" The boy stepped forward, but Jack's attention was elsewhere.
What had started as Kane continuing Thad's training on the ship's deck of an evening had grown to include all of the Warriors of Light and a good number of the pirate crew, those who weren't otherwise busy about the ship. Everywhere Kane looked, the pirates worked in twos and threes, practicing, learning from each other. You didn't last long as a pirate without learning a few tricks along the way.
Even Lena, though she was sworn to nonviolence, trained with them, working with Orin in a corner away from the others, learning a few defensive moves from the bare-handed fighting style of the northern desert. Kane watched as the monk guided her through a maneuver meant to disarm an attacker. Her form was terrible, Kane thought, but he knew it was her legs, in the short, baggy trousers that left everything exposed below the knee, that held Jack's gaze.
Shipman laid into the mage with the practice sword, hitting him in the legs just as he'd said he would. "Ow!" Jack bellowed. "Thad, what-"
"Do you yield?" the boy cried, swinging the wooden blade at the other leg.
Jack blocked the strike, but only just. "How can I yield if we haven't started yet?" he asked, anger tinging his voice.
Kane laughed, and laughed harder when Jack cut him a glare. "Shipman, go practice with Felder," he said when he got his breath back.
The boy skipped off toward the prow, where the dark-skinned young pirate worked with some of the others at the Cornelian sword drills Kane had taught them. The potted ochu dozed nearby, a tiny, hideous counterpart to the ship's angry sahagin figurehead. With Shipman gone, Kane rolled his shoulders, assuming an attack stance, and asked, "How does it feel to lose to a boy of eleven?"
Jack's demeanor made the figurehead look tame by comparison, though the blue scarf he wore hid most of his face. "Humiliating!" His eyes darted toward the corner nearby where his white staff leaned unobtrusively out of the way. The spellbound weapon was never more than a few feet from him.
The motion wasn't lost on Kane. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine," Jack said, letting the tip of his sword fall to the deck, but raising it to ready position again when Kane made a threatening gesture. He huffed out a frustrated breath. "I can handle another hour, but then I'll need a break."
Kane nodded. The mage had taken to retreating to the ship's hold several times a day, claiming he needed the quiet and the dark to get his mind straight, to sort out this problem he had with the aether. Whatever he was doing, it seemed to work. Still, it was clear the sword training was disheartening him. "Don't get discouraged," Kane said, bringing his sword around in a wide, slow attack that Jack had plenty of time to block. "Shipman only has a month's training on you. Less than that, as I don't think he practiced at all when he was in Elfheim."
"I didn't know the match had started!" Jack protested, but Kane followed up the slow attack with a quicker one and the mage had to hurry to fend it off.
Kane chuckled. "Maybe if you kept your eye on your own opponent instead of Orin's you'd have better luck."
"It's possible I need a better teacher," Jack said, attempting a clumsy attack of his own, which Kane blocked easily.
"Orin's always saying when the student is ready, the teacher will appear," said Kane, whipping his sword out to thump Jack's bicep where he'd left himself open. "Meanwhile, you get me. Keep your guard up."
Kane settled into drills then, repetitive exercises that built up muscle memory. He moved slowly for Jack's sake, building speed as the mage caught on. Jack wasn't as bad as he believed himself to be. Fighting with a staff had made him good at blocking. Kane occasionally called out short commands like, "Left," or "Arms in," but otherwise he kept silent.
He became vaguely aware they'd acquired an audience: Shipman, Felder, a handful of others. Jack didn't seem to notice them until Felder yelled, "Just finish him off already!"
Between one move and the next, Jack hesitated, and Kane landed a blow to the distracted mage's side that he should have been able to block. His coat took the brunt of it, but when Jack grunted at the impact, Kane winced in sympathy nonetheless. The small crowd cheered the strike, hooting approval.
"Sorry," Kane hissed, letting his sword's point fall in a gesture of surrender. "We'll stop there."
"Come on!" Cole said, laughing. "You're going too easy on him."
"Easy?" Jack said, rubbing his side. "He nearly had me in half!"
The white-blond pirate grinned. "That'd put you at about the right size, long-shanks. Good thing for you he pulled that hit at the last."
"Of course I was going easy," Kane said. "It's only his third lesson. What do you expect?"
Cole snorted out a derisive laugh. "I expected to see more than you waving your sword about like a priss. Looked more like a dancing lesson to me. Wouldn't you say, Felder?"
"Aye," Felder said. "Was that one of those court dances I hear so much about? Learned that from your princess, did you?"
The other pirates, four altogether, laughed. Shipman looked between the lot of them in dismay, clearly confused at the good-natured mocking. He's not used to it, Kane thought. The pirates were behaving no differently than the guards in the barracks back home. He worried briefly that Jack might be uncomfortable with such treatment, but Jack appeared unbothered. Kane grinned, facing Cole, and said, "Tough talk from a street brawler who only started learning the sword yesterday."
The gathered pirates grinned and chuckled. One whistled at the comeback. Cole and Felder exchanged glances, Cole with a wicked smile, Felder expressionless. "All talk is it?" Cole said, waving his practice sword as he flexed his wrist. "Alright. The two of us against the two of you. What do you say?"
Kane looked at Jack. The mage nodded. "You're on," Kane said. "Standard dueling rules?"
"Don't know any other kind," said Felder. "Care to wager on it?"
"I would," said Kane.
"You're flat broke," Jack whispered.
"Yes, but you're not," he whispered back. Kane couldn't believe Jack had held him to that throw-away bet. He'd been trying for three days to convince the mage to let him win back the gil he'd lost. To Felder, he said, "How does ten gil sound?"
"Sounds like you're buying us drinks in Melmond," Cole said. He thumped Shipman's arm. "Start us off, kid."
Shipman smiled uncertainly and moved over a few steps so that he was facing the space between them. He raised a hand high in the air, waiting for the four of them to assume their stances.
"Leave Felder to me. Focus on Cole," Kane muttered. "He'd beat you in a fist fight, but he has as much experience with a sword as you do."
"Got it," Jack said.
"Fighters ready?" Shipman asked.
"Hold on," Cole said. He raised a hand to cup his mouth as he yelled across the deck. "Hey, Lena! Miss Lena! We're having a duel! Will you watch?"
"Bastard!" Jack hissed.
"Stay focused!" Kane said. "He's only trying to distract you."
"It's working!" Jack's entire posture showed his distress; his back was too straight, as if the bones were fused together, and his arms were stiff. "Is she watching?"
Kane looked over his shoulder. On the other side of the ship, Lena smiled and gave him a little wave of encouragement. "Don't look," he said.
"Kane!" Jack said, his voice strangled.
"Oh, she's watching, alright," Cole said, waving back to her. "If I decide I'm going over there to steal a kiss, can you stop me?"
"You wouldn't dare," Jack growled.
"Jack, focus, damn it!" Kane said.
"Fighters ready?" Shipman repeated sharply, rolling his eyes to show how tired he was of holding his hand in the air.
"Ready," Cole and Felder said together.
"This was a mistake," Kane muttered.
Jack stared at him.
Shipman cleared his throat loudly, glaring at both of them.
"Ready," Kane said.
Shipman's hand dropped.
Felder went for Jack, of course. Kane had expected it. While Cole had no experience with a sword, Felder did. The dark skinned pirate lacked formal training, but he fought well with the curved, single-edged blades from his homeland on the Stone Coast. Kane got in front of him, blocking Felder's wooden sword with his own. "Let the beginners have their fun," Kane said.
Felder grinned. "If you wanted to dance, my lord, you could have asked nicely."
"Don't call me that," Kane said, shoving him away, freeing his sword. He brought the wooden blade around in a tight slash, but Felder ducked sideways, kicking at Kane's ankle as he did so. Kane cried out, shifting his weight to his other foot. The movement left him exposed on one side, but Felder wasn't quick enough to land a strike before Kane had his sword up again.
The pirate was fast, though. He fought by ducking and evading, only occasionally striking out, a style obviously suited for a man who was used to being one fighter among many rather than for one on one combat. Kane fought defensively, knowing Felder needed to end the fight quickly before he tired himself out. The sounds of their wooden blades cracking together stung his ears.
Felder struck at Kane's shoulder, but Kane blocked it easily. The pirate smirked, grabbing Kane's wrist, keeping their weapons locked together. "This is why people say you southerners can't dance, you know. You never move your feet." He slammed his knee into Kane's gut with the force of a charging ox.
Kane doubled over, momentarily unable to breathe. He watched helplessly as Felder stepped in behind Jack. The mage didn't notice, focused on Cole. Felder swept Jack's feet from under him with one low kick. Jack fell hard. As Cole stepped forward, pointing his wooden blade at Jack's throat, Felder came back for Kane, resting his sword across the back of Kane's neck like the executioner at the chopping block. "Yield," Felder said.
Kane could do nothing but nod.
"That's not fair," Jack said from the deck. "You said standard dueling rules!"
"Didn't your father ever teach you life's not fair?" Cole said, chuckling.
Felder laughed. "See, Cole? Didn't I tell you a mage would fall as easily as anyone?"
Kane heard cheering as the watching pirates congratulated their young companions, but then one voice rose above the others, sharp and angry, a string of words in Leifenish. Kane felt the Silence spell close over his throat like a swallowed wasp, hot and stinging. The pirates' cheers died abruptly as the spell landed. Some cried out in alarm, but only gasps escaped their lips.
"You boys want to fight a mage?" Kane's father asked, walking slowly into their midst. He drew his sword, not one of the wooden practice swords but the thin-bladed weapon he'd brought from Cornelia. "Fine. Come and fight a mage."
"No!" Cole tried to say. It came out in a croaking whisper. He threw his practice sword to the deck and raised his hands in an unmistakable gesture of surrender.
"Redden, wait!" Felder said, his voice breaking. He backed away from Kane until he hit the ship's rail and could go no farther. Cole was right there with him.
Lord Redden muttered another spell, and his sword caught alight, fire dancing along the edge of his blade. "You'd best brace yourselves, lads," he said. His face was expressionless, his voice eerily calm.
Cole and Felder talked over one another, pleading, but their Silenced voices squeaked incomprehensibly, like the buzzing of summer cicadas. The other pirates murmured, but none stepped forward to help the unfortunate pair.
"That's enough!" another voice shouted, seeming louder for the hush of the others. Gabbiani hurried in front of his youngest crewmen, hand raised to stop Lord Redden's forward progress. "That's quite enough!"
"Captain!" Felder squawked.
"You, shut your gob," the captain said, pointing at him. "It's kitchen duty from here to Melmond. Report to Mr. Biggs, the pair of you. If I see your noses outside of the galley before we make port, I'll break 'em. Mark my words." He watched as the two of them scrambled away toward the lower decks, then looked at Lord Redden questioningly.
Kane's father nodded. He flicked his sword, extinguishing the magical fire, and when he sheathed the blade, it rang with a sound like a plucked harp string.
The captain sighed as if in sudden relief, as if he'd truly been worried that Lord Redden would use magic against a pair of upstart boys. He turned to Jack, who still sat on the deck where he'd fallen during the fight. "Jack, with me. Bring the Tear." He stalked off toward the stairs to the quarter deck without waiting to see if Jack followed.
Jack pushed unsteadily to his feet. Lena stepped forward to help him, but he waved her off, whispering assurances that Kane couldn't hear as he retrieved his staff from the corner. Shipman walked with him, passing him the green orb on its long silver chain as the two of them followed the captain.
"Kane?" Lena said, her voice soft but unaffected by the Silence spell.
"I'll take care of him," said Redden.
Lena nodded, walking away with Lord Orin.
Kane winced as he tried to stand straighter; it felt as though a ball of pain was pulling him in on himself. Redden laid a hand on his lower back, casting Cure, and Kane felt his muscles relax, but he ached all over. Still, he tried not to show it as he faced his father. "I didn't need you to rescue me!" he said, his voice still harsh and raspy.
"I wasn't rescuing you," Redden said. "I was rescuing them."
"Maybe you missed the part where they won that fight?"
Redden chuckled. "They did. They fought dirty and they beat you soundly. Did it ever occur to you to cheat?"
Kane blinked. "What?"
"I know it never occurred to Jack," Redden said. "He didn't once use his magic against those two, not for a play fight like this. He could have ended it with a thought. But those boys were set to believe they'd fought a mage and won, and that sort of thinking will get both of them killed. Not all mages fight with honor. Not all of them swear oaths." He gripped Kane's shoulder, looking him in the eyes. "Don't think you know black mages just because you know one of them, son. I know Jack's your friend, but he's a dog among wolves. If you go thinking all black mages are the same breed, you'll end up with your throat ripped out. Don't ever forget it."
He held Kane's gaze, waiting for a reply. Kane coughed to clear the last dregs of the Silence away, then said, "Yes, sir."
Redden nodded, walking toward the door to the captain's cabin, where Orin waited. Kane watched him go, but his eyes were drawn to the quarter deck above them, where Jack stood staring up at the sails as he controlled the wind. They were sailing toward the sunset, and the orange light made the mage seem more real than the shadows behind him. His eyes glowed green, like the orb he held at his side, like an animal's eyes on a dark night.
"Ain't you bored, Shipman?" the pirate Maxell asked.
Thad shook his head. He sat cross-legged on the quarter deck, watching Jack control the wind, trying to see the aether himself. He was so close! He could feel it all the time now. He'd seen it before, by accident, but couldn't seem to get the hang of calling up the aether sight on command. If only he could figure out how to… how to feel it with his eyes. That made no sense, but that was how his brain interpreted the sensation he understood instinctively but couldn't describe.
"Suit yourself," said Maxell, holding the ship's wheel steady as the rough waves rocked the ship despite Jack's efforts. "Reckon we'll hit Melmond by morning if he keeps this up. What do you say?"
Thad shook his head again. He knew the signs by now. He'd been watching the mage for most of two days. When he was fresh, Jack watched the sails, the sky, occasionally the waves ahead or behind, but when he grew tired, he closed his eyes, concentrating on his aether sight. Jack's eyes were closed now. Soon, he'd pinch the space between his eyes, or rub his temples, and then he'd stumble below decks to sleep it off for a few hours. "He can't. He's about done," Thad said.
"I can hear you, you know," Jack said, tilting his head Thad's way though his eyes remained shut.
"Am I wrong?" Thad said.
The mage only grumbled in reply.
Maxell chuckled, a rumbling noise that echoed from his barrel chest. "Ah, well. We'll still make it in time for Midsummer. Won't that be a treat?"
"Yup," Thad said absently. He focused on the flow of aether around him, focused on the orb in Jack's hand. He opened and closed his eyes. He squinted. He held his hand in front of him, concentrated on the aether moving over it, willed himself to see it move.
...And then he did. It was so subtle at first he nearly missed it, a ripple on the back of his hand, just as if the muscles and bones were moving beneath the skin yet he knew he held perfectly still. He stared at the odd motion, but it was gone as quickly as it came.
What did I do just now? he thought, trying to recall exactly what he'd felt, trying to repeat the sensation.
He was still working on it some minutes later when he felt the flow of aether taper off. Jack swayed where he stood, rubbing his temples. He stepped slowly over to where Thad sat and held the orb out to him, letting it dangle by its long chain, and as it swung in front of Thad's face, it shone.
There! Thad thought. He'd done it! He'd called up the aether sight!
"Take it already," Jack muttered.
Thad snatched the Tear out of the air, holding it in his open palm, just… just staring at it. It was so beautiful! He thought to say something, to tell Jack, but Jack was already heading down to the main deck, too exhausted from working the aether to walk straight. The aether moved as the mage passed through it, like smoke, like ink in water. It moved around everyone - there weren't many people on deck this late in the evening, but the aether responded to each of them.
He didn't know how long he sat there seeing the world through new eyes, trying to take it all in. It wasn't just the people he noticed. The aether had substance. In places it flowed, but in other places it seemed solid, like dust motes in a sunbeam, glittering flecks settling over everything, moving in unnatural breezes. The ship's deck seemed to glow, like it was covered in fireflies, even in the deepest of the twilit shadows.
"Getting dark." Maxell's voice startled him; Thad had forgotten he was there. "Ought you to be gettin' to bed too?"
"Hmm," he said. Dark. Yes. That was why he had wanted to learn aether sight, wasn't it? So he wouldn't have to be afraid of the dark? "G'night, Maxell," he said, heading below decks.
He walked through the strange fog, moving hesitantly as he adjusted to what he was seeing, this substance that was very clearly there, to his mind, but that had no bearing on his physical space. He couldn't help but think he should feel some sort of resistance when he moved through a thicker patch of it. It seemed particularly thick around the crew quarters on the lower deck. Because aether comes from living things, he thought, remembering something he'd read in his magic book. A handful of men were already settled in for the night; Thad could see Jack in his hammock in the corner, dead to the world.
A few men were still awake, though, playing cards atop a chest near the galley. Redden and Kane were there, father and son enjoying the game together. The dim light of the lantern they played by seemed bright compared to the evening outside. Thad squinted against it, but even when he closed his eyes altogether, the aether sight was still there.
He ducked around under the stairs to the main deck and stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the hold. There's no door, he reassured himself, staring into that dark abyss. This ship was smaller than his father's had been, the hold nothing but a big room at the ship's heart. There's no door. They can't lock me up in there. He knew deep down that no one aboard this ship would do that to him, but still his heart beat like a festival drum as he took that first step.
When he was halfway down, the noise became too much for him. The creaking of the ship, the sounds of the waves lapping against the hull outside, both were louder here, loud enough that he could no longer hear the voices of the men playing cards up above. This was not his father's ship, but it sounded just the same, and the sounds evoked memories he didn't want to remember. He heard his father's voice as clearly as if he was on the stairs above him: It's the hold for you, boy!
Thad stopped where he was, breathing hard. He's not here, he told himself. The only people on this ship were his friends. They would come if he called. Kane was right there, and Kane wasn't afraid of anything.
He took a deep breath and tried to focus on his aether sight, realizing through his fear that though it was dark, he could indeed still see. A shimmering rainbow haze like a fine mist covered everything. He could see the bulkheads, he could see every box and trunk.
And one of those boxes was glowing.
It was a mid-sized crate, nearly half his height, but quite near the stairs. He remained where he was, only looking, but his eyes kept coming back to that box. Why is that one glowing? None of the others were glowing. Some of them, in fact, were nearly invisible, covered in hardly any aether at all, and he knew, though he didn't know how, that no one had touched them in a long time.
His curiosity soon overcame his fear. Without quite knowing how he'd come there, he found himself beside the strange box. He touched the lid, but it was stuck fast. He ran his hands over it, feeling a few holes here and there, no bigger than his pinky finger, but no lock, no hinge, no nails. Odd.
There did seem to be a ribbon of aether around the seam. A lock made of aether? he thought, pressing his finger into it. He knew about locks…
His hand went right through the ribbon as if it wasn't there, pressing into the box beneath. He sighed, still unused to the idea that this thing he could see wasn't solid. But I should be able to touch it, he thought. That's what mages do, and I'm a mage now.
He pulled his hand back and reached for the box again, only this time he focused on the ribbon, thought about touching it, about breaking it. At his touch, it dissolved, shattering like a soap bubble. He tried the lid once more. It came loose easily.
He could see nothing inside the box, nothing but bright spots of aether. They glowed, yes, but apparently they gave off no actual light. He could see that they were there, but not what they were. I guess the aether sight really doesn't show everything, he thought, wondering if this was what Matoya saw when she looked at the world, colors and shapes without substance.
Standing on his tiptoes, he reached into the box, reached for one of the white spots, wondering if his hand would slip through it as it had slipped through the ribbon around the box's lid, but his fingers brushed against something soft and furry. Something breathing. Some animal, asleep. He felt a cold dread in the pit of his stomach as he found the whiskers, ran his hand down the small creature's body toward its long, ropey tail.
He ran.
Lena woke on the narrow bunk in the cabin as the sun peeked through the large window at the ship's stern. It faced east, and the sunrise over the water was glittering and lovely. She rolled over to get a better look at it, her back twanging at the movement. She moaned, stretching, wondering not for the first time if she wouldn't rather have one of the hammocks in the lower decks like the boys did, but the crew, with the captain foremost among them, had insisted the captain's cabin should be hers for the duration of their travels together. Some privilege, she thought, drawing her knees up as she rolled out of the uncomfortable bunk.
A cabinet on the room's other side held a wash basin and a pitcher, both nestled in grooves in the wooden countertop so that they wouldn't slide around if waves rocked the ship. Lena's own things rested there: a hand mirror, a wide-toothed wooden comb, a yellow ribbon Refial had given her that made her smile but that she was unlikely to ever wear. Lena splashed some water over her face before she looked in the mirror. "Curls," she sighed, setting it down again. Between the heat and the humidity, they were everywhere.
She took her comb back to the bunk and sat cross-legged as she set to, untangling her red hair from the bottom up, staring idly at the sunlit water as she worked. It would be a warm day, she thought, the longest day of the year. They hadn't set out to reach Melmond at Midsummer, but they would. In Cornelia, the common people would have feasts and parties and plays, but they celebrated differently in Melmond. The Midsummer Revels were a thing of legend: three days of costumed parades and dancing in the streets. She was excited to see it. And if my hair continues in this way, she thought as she struggled with the comb, I can dress as a bird's nest.
She squeaked as the door burst open and a small figure darted toward her. It took her a moment to realize it was Thadius, though who else it could have been was a mystery to her. There's no one else of that stature aboard ship, she chided herself. The boy barrelled into the bed, jostling her as he burrowed under the covers behind her.
"Thadius, what in the world-"
"Hide me!" he chirped, his voice muffled by the blankets.
The door slammed open again, harder this time, and Jack stood there, out of breath, eyes narrowed and glinting with aether as he closed the door roughly behind him. "Get back here!" he snarled. "I know it was you! You've nowhere to hide!"
"Jack!" Lena gasped, covering her nightdress with her hands, but it was as if the mage hadn't noticed her.
"I didn't do anything!" Thadius said.
Liar, Lena thought, sensing his guilt. She patted the top of his head, all she could reach of him as he tried to blend into the lumpy mattress. "Oh, Thadius, you shouldn't lie. It's bad for your soul!"
The boy looked at her, brown eyes wide with fear. "For your soul maybe! I have an angry black mage out for mine! I'll lie to him if I like!"
She laughed. She couldn't help it. The very idea that anyone would be afraid of Jack seemed so ridiculous to her.
But not, it seemed, to Jack, for he glared at her. "Can you try not to be amused by this, please? I'm serious," he snapped.
She raised her eyebrows at that, meeting him glare for glare. She felt his anger then, like the scent of distant smoke in a forest. He does have a temper after all, she thought, half offended, half intrigued. "I'm sorry, but it is amusing," she said, trying to keep her tone imperious. "What is it he's done?"
"Nothing!" Thadius cried before Jack could answer.
"Your aura was all over the box!" Jack said, facing the boy again as if Lena wasn't even there.
"You don't know that it was mine!" Thadius argued.
"I do!" Jack yelled.
"Do not!"
Like children, both of them, Lena thought. She was sure she sounded like her mother when she said, "Enough!" Thadius stared at her, and she could feel how much she'd surprised him. She darted a glance toward Jack, but she could read nothing in that flat, blue gaze. She sighed, turning her attention back to the boy. "He does have a point, Thadius. Your aura is a rather distinct color. If he says you touched the box, I'm inclined to believe him."
That piqued his curiosity. She could feel his internal struggle between wanting to deny the accusation and wanting to ask questions. The curiosity won out, as it usually did with the boy. "Auras have colors?"
She smiled to put him at ease. "They do. Redden's is red, for example. Yours is green. Though I suppose Orin could have done it - his is green too."
"It wasn't Orin," Jack growled.
"There you have it. It wasn't Orin."
"What about Kane?" Thadius asked.
She shook her head. "His is yellow."
"What about yours?"
She chuckled. "I don't know. I can't see my own aura. White mages don't work that way."
"Then maybe it was you!" Thadius said, turning up a charming grin. She could feel his playful nature and knew he had completely forgotten about the tall black mage seething a few feet away.
"Ah, but I wouldn't be able to lie about it!" she said, ruffling his tawny hair.
"Are you two quite done?" Jack asked, in a tight, quiet voice, words clipped as if he'd spoken without moving his jaw. At his tone, Thad became afraid again.
Lena kept her attention on Thadius, ignoring Jack altogether, knowing he must be frustrated indeed if she could feel it. "Thadius," she said gently. "Tell the truth now. Did you open our box?"
He shook his head rapidly, eyes squeezed shut. "No! I wouldn't do that! I wouldn't let those rats out! I wouldn't!"
Jack started to say something, a protest she was sure, but she raised a hand to cut him off, still focused on Thad. That's a puzzle, she thought, for he was telling the truth. With every fiber of his being, he meant it. He absolutely would not do a thing like let a bunch of rats out of a box. He's scared to death of rats, she realized. And yet… She stroked his hair, bent close to his ear, and whispered, "Thadius, I don't believe either of us said anything about there being rats in that box."
The boy began to cry.
Jack grumbled. "Don't think you can draw us in with your tonberry tears!"
"Jack, you need to step away," Lena said, pulling Thad into her lap and holding him.
"But Lena-"
She pointed toward the window. "Jack Ashward, if you don't go stand in that corner right now, I won't speak to you for a week!"
His shock flowed over her like a wave, a quick rush of sensation that made her breath catch and then was gone, but he did step stiffly toward the sunny window without once looking her way. She knew then that her words had hurt him, and if she hadn't been holding Thadius, she would have gone to him and apologized instantly. He doesn't have a family, she remembered, thinking back to what she had seen of his past when she read his soul the day they met. It's just possible no one has ever spoken to him in that tone of voice before.
She rocked Thad as he cried, and by the time his tears had devolved into nothing but sniffles, she became aware of Jack's growing remorse. She hugged Thadius a little tighter and said, "You're not in trouble, Thadius. We can capture the rats again." She glanced at Jack as she said it, for it was as much for him as for the boy. He faced the window, but his ear was turned toward her, and she knew he listened. "But you shouldn't lie to us. We're your friends. I think you should apologize to Jack, don't you?"
Thadius nodded, climbing down from the bed. He went to the corner and hugged Jack around the middle, hard enough that the mage swayed on his feet. "Sorry, Jack," the boy said.
Jack didn't move. He didn't turn from the window, even as the boy disentangled himself and ran for the door. He didn't move until she went to him, ready to take him into her arms as she had Thadius, to comfort the hurt she'd caused. He shied away from her, stepping back even as she reached for him, and she could feel him reining in his emotions again.
"I didn't know he was sincere," he said, looking down at the floor.
"I realized," she said, dropping her arms to her sides. "I'm sorry I snapped at you."
He shook his head. "You were in the right."
She rubbed her arms against a sudden chill, remembering that she wasn't properly dressed for company, but it seemed silly to be embarrassed about it now. "He's only a child. I know it's easy to forget that while we're all traveling together," she said.
He strode for the door, but stopped with his hand on the knob. Over his shoulder he said, "It's blue."
"What?" she asked stupidly.
"Your aura. You said you couldn't see your own. I thought you'd like to know it's blue."
She smiled. "Blue? Like-" Like yours, she'd been about to say, but he interrupted her.
"Like the sea."
He left without another word. She stood in the corner, staring at the door, but then turned to look out the ship's window again at the morning sun on the very blue sea, and watched with wonder as a fern of frost on the glass melted in the summer heat.
END OF PART II
Author's Note: 10/21/16 - At this point in the game, having acquired the magic key from the elf prince, you sail back to Cornelia and use said key to unlock a treasury where you find the TNT you can give to the dwarf Nerrick who uses it to blow up the pass so you can (finally) leave the Aldean Sea. It's unnecessary to the plot, so I'm skipping it. Let's go to Melmond!
As I mentioned two weeks ago, I'm going to have to cut my update schedule drastically. I'm writing as fast as I can, but I'm still so, so slow. I considered taking a hiatus until I finished a bunch of chapters and then posting them weekly again, but I don't want to make people wait however long that might be. So, going forward, instead of posting weekly, I'm going to post monthly. I feel terrible about it – I love knowing that people are out there reading and enjoying this story, and I hate to make you wait, but that's the kind of time I need to continue producing these (longer and longer) chapters at the level of quality I want. I'll update more often if I find myself several chapters ahead. Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo once said, "A delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad."
This is my first real work of fiction, and for all I know it may be the only one I have in me, so, by God, I'm going to do it right. You can keep reading it here on the first Friday of every month. Look for the next chapter November 4, 2016.