"Venture not into the canyon," his nursemaid said, "for it is guarded by dangerous beasts." But Titus was young, and headstrong, and the prince feared neither beasts nor man, and so he strapped on his sword and set out from the palace at sunrise carrying only a crust of bread and three small fishes in his pack…
From "A Spell to Cure Stone", The Ars Paladia, as translated by Melanie the Wise, Queen Consort of King Titus VI of House Plein.
In the days before their departure, Lena saw little of Jack. She knew he worked with Pollendina, assessing the skills of the other black mages the secretary had found around town, making sure they were well protected should the Brotherhood return for them. She would see him sometimes at dinner, or at breakfast if she rose early enough. She longed to talk to him again, to make sure he was well, but she never found a chance. Given the way he seemed to be avoiding her, perhaps he didn't want her to.
Lena herself had been busy healing people, a steady stream of visitors who came to the Quincey's house on the rumor of her presence. Most of these, she'd been able to heal, all save one the day before they left: an elderly woman dying of old age. The woman's grown son, himself a grandfather, had hugged Lena afterward, telling her he appreciated her efforts, and the two of them had cried together. The family had even come to the docks to see her off. She'd cried again as she waved to them from the ship's rail with Orin at her side.
"At least they will not wonder now," Orin told her. "Had we left Melmond one day earlier, they would forever have said, 'Oh, if only we had been able to see the white mage, our Nan would still be with us.'" Then he had patted her back and tottered away.
Jack couldn't avoid her after that, of course, the two of them trapped on the ship together, but even when he spoke with her, he seemed distant, distracted. She thought at first it was the seas that worried him. They worried her too. They worried the crew - she could feel that. The sailors were tense when the seas were turbulent, though none of them worried for their lives, trusting in the fabled luck of Syldra's Tear, the orb of the wind. Though the seas were rough, Jack used the orb to steer the winds, sometimes for hours. Lena stayed in the cabin when that happened, not wanting to distract him. She knew she distracted him, even when she couldn't feel it.
On the morning of the fifth day, as they rounded Elfheim's coast, the ship turning more east than south, she sat on the bench beside the door to the captain's cabin and she watched as Kane walloped Jack with a wooden sword.
"Ramuh's beard!" Jack almost shouted, dropping his own practice sword after he'd blocked a particularly sharp blow. "Are you trying to stove my head in?"
"You should have seen that coming," Kane said unapologetically.
"I'm trying!" Jack protested. "Reading the future in the aether doesn't come naturally to me, you know!"
"Then you need to keep working on it until it does," Kane pointed out, squaring off again. "Pick it up."
Jack growled, but he retrieved his practice sword.
The sounds of practice, of wooden swords cracking against each other, filled the air. It wasn't just Kane and Jack, but the new sailors as well. The thirteen pirates left of her original sixteen had taken on more sailors in Melmond, bringing their number up to twenty. According to Gabbiani, they could have had more - many sailors were desperate for whatever work they could find with so few ships making the rounds - but, as the captain pointed out, the Sahagin Prince was no merchant vessel and the men who sailed it had no guarantee of pay. While two of the sailors were experienced men on loan from Captain Bayard's crew, the other five were simply jobless and destitute, willing to trade homelessness for steady meals and a bed, even if that bed was only a hammock belowdecks. Redden and Orin worked with these, teaching them basic self-defense, their morning practice becoming routine.
Lena listened to the sounds of the crew, to Orin's gentle instructing voice, but she watched only Jack and Kane as they worked through a series of moves, Kane attacking, Jack blocking.
"Watch me," Kane snapped at Jack. "Not my sword. Me. Read the aether."
"Forget the aether," Thad said. "You should have seen that move coming in his stance."
Lena jumped in surprise. She'd been so focused on the fight that she hadn't noticed him coming up beside her. The boy usually spent his mornings practicing with Orin and the crew.
"Not helping," Jack said, barely getting his sword up before Kane struck at him.
"Just look at his feet!" Thad said.
"Not helping!" Jack said again.
Kane rammed his sword into Jack's stomach. Jack gasped, falling to his knees.
"Jack!" Lena cried, hurrying forward to cast Cure, but Jack waved her off, staggering up again. He threw the practice sword down, and Lena felt his frustration.
"Pick it up," Kane said.
"I'm going to steer the ship," Jack said. "Thad. The Tear." He held his hand out for the orb of the wind.
"Why?" Thad asked. "The seas are pretty calm today."
Jack raised an eyebrow at him, but he kept his hand extended.
Thad sighed. "Fine, but I'm going with you. I'm going to watch." He slipped the orb on its long chain out from under his shirt, lifting it over his head to pass it to Jack, and the two of them headed up the steps toward the ship's wheel.
Kane didn't watch them go. He retrieved Jack's practice sword from where it had landed, then he went to the ship's port-side railing and he leaned against it, staring toward the coast. Lena could feel it, and she knew that Kane could too, the Elfheim coast, the forests and hills just visible on the horizon. She wondered if he could feel the distant rumblings of Mount Gurgu, the volcano that Redden had told her dominated this part of the continent. She herself had only felt the quakes at night, laying in her cot alone in the cabin when all the noises of the crew and their various emotions were stilled and sleeping.
Lena went to Kane, put a hand on his shoulder. "You're too hard on him," she said.
He shook his head. "No harder than I have to be. He needs to be better. We all do." He looked toward the shore, a hint of longing in his gaze. "You feel it, too, don't you?"
She nodded, leaning her head against his arm, watching the distant coast.
That evening, the seas began to calm, and the crew calmed with them. Crossing the Mondmer, the open sea between Melmond and Elfheim's southern coast, had arguably been the most dangerous part of their journey. The crew celebrated with drink and music, but Lena and the others celebrated apart, with a meal in the captain's cabin.
"It's a straight shot along the coast, now," Redden said. He'd cleared most of the maps off the table for their meal, but one remained, and he traced the line of the coast with his finger. "Another three weeks, if the seas cooperate."
"They will," Jack said. "I'll see to it."
Redden nodded, his chest barely clearing the table. There weren't enough chairs for all of them; he and Kane sat on the short bench that usually waited outside the cabin door. Sarda sat on a stool they'd borrowed from the galley, Thad sat taller than all of them atop an overturned barrel, while Lena, Jack, and Orin took the chairs.
Orin had saved Jack's seat for him, saying he deserved a proper chair after a hard day of working the aether. Lena suspected Jack would not have sat beside her otherwise. He seemed on edge as he took another bite of the baked fish that served as their dinner. While Lena couldn't deny it pleased her to see him eating, more than that, she liked to see him without his scarf.
"I can't wait!" Thad said, bouncing on his high seat. "A whole village of mages!"
Sarda chuckled. "You'll learn a lot. And you'll teach them a few things as well."
"I will?" Thad said, wide-eyed. "But they already know everything, don't they? Jack says they have a big library!"
"There is more knowledge in this world than one library can contain," Orin said. "But, speaking of libraries, I have been meaning to ask you, master Jack, if you might know an old friend of mine. Alistair Pearl."
"Pearl?" Jack said, frowning. "Yes, I know him. He's head archivist, but I wasn't aware he had any friends."
"Yes, that sounds like him," Orin said, smiling. "He always did prefer books to people."
"Hang on," Kane said, finishing off a mouthful of food. "I've heard of him. He was in charge of the castle library, wasn't he? Didn't he cause that mess where the important books went missing?"
Orin scoffed. "Just because people didn't understand his elegant filing system, doesn't mean the books were lost! Why, if master Sims had simply asked me for assistance instead of going to the king in a panic, we could have avoided the entire scandal!"
"Who?" said Thad.
"Sims is the castle's current archivist," Redden explained. "Bit of an uproar when he took over the library. It's become infamous over the years."
"So the old one moved to Crescent Lake?" Thad asked.
Orin nodded. "Many of the mages did, back when the mage wars started, those who weren't fighters. Scholars, the elderly, families with young children."
"It was a dangerous time," Redden said, scowling. "No one knew how bad it was at first, but then a couple of hot-headed young mages - nobles, both of them - got themselves killed, and the others fled in droves."
Orin sighed. "I knew the Lukahn boy. Such a shame to lose his talent to so senseless a war."
Lena felt shock, a jolt of it from Jack beside her that made her jump in her chair. When she looked over at him, he seemed frozen in place with his water glass halfway to his mouth. "Jack?" she said.
Redden shrugged. "Perhaps his father is still alive." He turned, confused to find Jack staring at him. He cleared his throat, wiping his face with his napkin before he said, "Jack, would you happen to know if a man named Silas Lukahn lives among the mages at Crescent Lake?"
"Yes," Jack said. His face was blank, but his mind was a riot of emotion that startled Lena. "You know master Lukahn?"
"He was a lord of Cornelia once," Redden said, looking down at his plate as he speared more fish onto his fork. "One of the mage council. He's the one who prophesied the coming of the Warriors of Light."
The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion. She saw Jack's eyes widen as Redden's comment sank in. Then she felt his anger. His eyes flashed white, replaced momentarily by a corona. A chill swept over her as if a snowstorm had risen and died in the space of an instant, and then time sped up again, rushing back with a terrible crash as the glass in Jack's hand exploded in a shower of glass and ice.
Thad cried out at the noise. On Jack's other side, Kane cursed, rubbing a scratch on his forehead where he'd been hit by a flying shard. No one else made a sound.
Jack hunched over his left hand, the one that had held the glass, clutching it close to his chest, and Lena could feel his pain.
"Let me see," she said gently, reaching out for him.
His right hand flew up, striking her hand away. "Don't!" he cried, his voice harsh and raw. He stood so suddenly that his chair toppled over, and then he left, throwing the door open with such violence as he fled that it bounced against the wall and slammed shut behind him.
She stared at the door. So much pain… Her hand stung where he'd struck her, but it was nothing compared to what she had felt from him.
"Lena?" Kane squatted beside her, patting her cheek to get her attention, and she had no idea how long he'd been speaking to her. "Are you alright?"
"He was so angry..." she told him, feeling stupid for it. Surely he had seen.
"Do you know why?" Redden asked, standing by his son.
"She's not a mind reader, father," Kane said, rolling his eyes.
She shook her head. "He's hurt," she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, to say what she had to say before the tears took hold. "The glass… He's cut."
"Yes, I gathered," Redden said, pointing at the remains of the drinking glass on the table, where red blood mingled with the rapidly melting ice.
She gasped when she saw how much blood there was. She tried to rise, but Kane held her in place. "Don't," he said. "You're barefoot."
"He needs help," she said.
"I'll go to him," Redden said, already moving toward the door. "All of you stay here."
Lena nodded.
Sarda slipped off of his stool, squatting down to pick up the glass. It seemed like so much, more than one cup's worth, but some of it was ice.
"Lena," Kane said, cupping her face in his large, warm hands. "Breathe."
She nodded, forcing herself to take a deep breath. "You-you're hurt." She reached out, gently running her finger over the scratch on his forehead, Curing it. She thought again of the blood on the table, the sudden, sharp pain she'd felt. It was not the cut that had hurt Jack so. This pain had been deeper.
Her breath shuddered around the sob she tried to suppress, but then Kane wrapped his arms around her and she couldn't hold back the tears anymore.
PART IV: Burnt in the Heart
He checked the middle deck first, but the table where the mage usually studied was empty, and there was only one other place Jack could be: hiding in the dark. Redden grabbed the squat lantern from beside Jack's stack of books, lighting it with a muttered spell as he circled around to the stairs that led down to the hold.
Jack sat in the floor, his back against the bulkhead, his knees bent and long legs drawn up close. His scarf had been off for the meal and he hadn't bothered to replace it, so Redden could clearly see the grim line of his mouth. He held his left hand awkwardly in his right.
"Do you need a draw?" Redden asked.
Jack shook his head. "A momentary lapse. I'll be fine in a minute." He frowned as Redden flopped down beside him, setting the lantern down.
"The girl says you've hurt yourself. Let's see it." Redden held out a hand, but Jack didn't move.
"It's nothing," Jack said.
Redden scoffed, grabbing Jack's wrist and pulling at his arm. "Don't be a fool, boy. There was too much blood on the table for 'nothing'." The mage struggled against him at first, but seemed to give up after a moment, going limp and letting his head fall back as if it were too much bother to hold it up.
Redden squinted at the injured hand. It was a sizable gash, right across the heel of Jack's palm, and quite deep, still bleeding freely. Redden peeled the glove off to view the cut more closely and was surprised when two of the fingers came off with it. The skin of Jack's left hand was more scarred than the skin of his face. His pinky and ring finger, the worst of it, both ended at the first knuckle. The glove was apparently stuffed to hide the deformity.
Redden funneled a Cure into the injury, hoping Jack didn't notice his hesitation. As the spell did its work, he said, "I take it you know Lukahn after all."
Jack sighed. "There's no love lost between us. It's… it's amazing how very thoroughly one person can ruin your life."
"How do you mean?" Redden asked.
The mage snorted bitterly. "Being a Warrior of Light? It's not the first time I've been the subject of one of his prophecies."
"Oh? And what else are you prophesied to do?"
"Destroy the entire village."
Redden looked into Jack's eyes, thinking the boy was joking. Dark mage or no, that didn't sound like Jack at all. Jack looked back at him, completely serious. "My, you do keep busy," Redden said, carefully keeping his face blank. He saved our lives in that cave, Redden thought. Tapping into the power of the earth like that, when he could have just Teleported himself out and left us to die.
He felt his Cure resolve, and he turned Jack's hand in the lantern light, checking his work. "It's healed," he said. "It'll leave a scar as it is, though. You could have Lena look at it; she might do a better job."
"It's fine," Jack said, flexing his remaining fingers. "I'd rather not show her… this."
"Healers see worse things," Redden said, tossing Jack's slashed glove back to him. "I think I have some gloves in the bottom of my pack. I don't know if they'll fit you, but they might do until you can buy another pair."
"Thank you," said the black mage.
"You're wearing my name, lad," Redden said, pushing to his feet. "You're my responsibility."
Jack looked up at him, his mouth quirked in a bemused expression. "I thought that was just a ruse while we were in Melmond?"
Redden shrugged. "It's a good name, lad. You need one. You keep it," he said, mussing the boy's hair before he left, leaving the little lantern behind.
She didn't ask him. The emotions she'd felt from him at the mention of Lukahn's name had been so strong, so overwhelmingly negative, that she feared bringing it up would only hurt him more. He no longer joined them for meals. Instead, he stayed on the quarter deck, near the ship's wheel, steering the winds for them while the pirates steered the ship. Lena kept away, wondering what he was thinking, what he was feeling as they drew closer to their destination, but she didn't ask. She tried to give him space, following his lead, waiting for him to come to her, and tried not to be disappointed when he stayed away.
She stayed on deck most of the time, watching the water as they sailed, and she began to feel at peace as the days went on. She would stand at the railing, feeling the spray, smelling the salt, feeling the confidence of the crew, their joy in a life lived at sea.
One day, clear and sunny, she stood with her eyes closed, breathing deep, until she heard shouting from Leo and Kane, the sounds of running feet racing toward the rigging ropes. "You old coot!" Leo yelled. "Come down from there!"
"And put your pants back on!" Kane said, climbing up after him.
Lena heard Sarda's cackle from above. Shielding her eyes against the sun, she looked up, spotting the old man in the crow's nest. He laughed, waving when he saw her below.
"Miss Lena!" he called, pointing off the starboard bow. "Look! Look there!"
She went to that side, looking over and down to see a pod of dolphins racing the ship, leaping and laughing in the waves. She smiled, reaching her senses toward them, feeling their joy. She knew people, even some white mages, who claimed that animals didn't feel the same emotions as human beings, but how then did they explain dolphins?
She viewed them through her soul sight, and they had auras, faint as an animal's aura always was compared to a human's, but they had them, pale splashes of color among the splashing blue sea. She folded her arms, leaning on the rail, and watched them.
She sensed Jack behind her then, but she didn't turn. Those last days in Melmond, she had felt what he was feeling. He had been slowly opening up to her before they'd made their plans to leave, but then he'd closed himself again like slamming a lid on a box.
Now, he still kept his emotions tightly locked away, but she felt the tentative edge of them, and she knew he was ready to try again. She waited, watching the dolphins, her smile deepening when Jack came to stand beside her.
He didn't speak, but she felt his curiosity, faint as a dolphin's aura, and she pointed toward the happy creatures. Jack leaned forward, and she heard a quiet, "Oh..." She felt his fascination.
They stood that way, side by side, for more than an hour.
Days passed, and for Jack, they were almost happy ones. He still steered the winds, but the seas were unexpectedly cooperative; the task no longer took more than a few hours each morning and evening. In between, he found he had more time to himself: time for his books, for lessons with Thad, for practice with Kane. Time for Lena, even if he did have to draw from Redden or Orin to manage it.
He sat in the hold, in the dark, his head leaning back against the bulkhead as the aether surged through him, colors flashing across his aether sight, filling the spaces he hadn't realized were empty with a brief euphoria. He breathed, muscles losing their tension, feeling normal again. The euphoria faded quickly, and in its place, Jack felt his usual shame.
Beside him, Redden stretched out his legs, his breathing sounding pained to Jack's ears.
"I'm sorry," Jack said.
"Don't be," Redden said.
"I am," Jack insisted. "Every time."
Redden muttered the spell word for fire. A light flared in the dark, Redden's pipe, which glowed as he puffed it to life. He breathed deeply, and the smell of tobacco smoke filled the hold. He took another drag, holding the pipe in his teeth, speaking around it. "We're at what? Two days between draws?"
Jack nodded, then realized Redden couldn't see it. "Yes," he said. "I can push it to three before the chills return, but it grates my nerves."
"In Melmond you could push it to a week or more."
"I know," Jack said. "Before that... Before Elfheim, I'd gone years - literally years - without doing it. I... I can't remember how."
"You're on edge," Redden said. Through his aether sight, Jack could see him shrug. "We're more than halfway to Crescent Lake by now. The one place you didn't want to go to. That, and working the aether for days on end. It's taking its toll."
"I'm not sure that's it," Jack said. "I've read the book, Astos's book. I still don't understand all of it, but it says..." He sighed. "It changes me. Drawing from another living thing, it changes the way my spells work. I can feel it. It's subtle, but now that I know to look for it..."
Redden nodded, puffed his pipe again. After a moment, he said, "And this change, is it good or bad?"
"I don't know," Jack said. "I try to pay attention, to study the effects as it happens, but to truly get to the bottom of it would require me to draw from more people, more often. I... I doubt I could ever ask that of myself."
Redden nodded again, but he said nothing. He stretched, made to stand. He recovered quickly from these draws now, far quicker than Jack himself did. He patted Jack's shoulder as he shifted past him toward the stairs. "You'll have to tell the others eventually," Redden said, as Jack had known he would. He said it every time.
"I know," Jack told him. That was as far as their conversations about it ever went. Redden never forced the issue; he didn't seem to think it was his place.
When he emerged from the hold minutes later, he found Lena where he'd left her, sitting on her cot in the captain's cabin with the Ars Paladia in her lap. Thad sat at the table nearby, notes and papers spread before him along with a pair of Leifenish dictionaries and a single large, heavy inkwell with a broad base. Lena smiled as Jack came through the door, but Thad didn't even look up from his book - Jack's book, he noticed, the High Leifenish one from Pollendina. Thad couldn't read it, but he'd taken to studying the diagrams. The boy was rapidly growing beyond the lessons available in the basic Adepts Grimoire that Matoya had given him.
"There you are," Lena said. "I tried to carry on without you, but I feel silly reading to myself."
"Looks silly, too," Thad said from the table.
"Oh, I'm sure she could never look-" Jack started to say, just as Lena stuck her tongue out at the boy. He chuckled. "I take that back."
He sat on the cot, scooting so that his back was in the corner and his legs stretched across the thin mattress, and Lena moved in beside him so that he could see the book over her shoulder, so close that he could have put an arm around her if he'd been bold enough. Sometimes he was. Now, though, he didn't have it in him, the shame of drawing from Redden still fresh in his mind. "Alright," he said when they'd made themselves comfortable. "Where did you leave off?"
"He's just gone to the canyon," Lena said, pointing to a paragraph near the top of the page. It was several pages past where she'd been before.
Jack nodded. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned his head back against the corner, and closed his eyes. "Carry on."
She began to read aloud, sounding out, in slow and careful Leifenish, the story of when Titus met Griever. He listened as Lena's soft voice led him with Titus into the canyon where the vicious cockatrice had taken roost. There, Titus met the little lion cub that would become his faithful companion. The cub begged Titus to help, his tribe having been turned to stone by the monster. Using a spell, Titus restored the cub's father, the Moomba chieftain, to flesh, but he could not cure the poison of the cockatrice's bite. The chieftain, knowing his death was imminent, bid his son farewell, then ran headlong into the cockatrice's lair, mortally wounding the beast before his body became stone again.
Jack listened, only occasionally helping Lena with her pronunciation as he enjoyed the story, the experience of being read to. His mother and father had read him stories just like this. Later, Iris had read to him, even Cedric a few times, though, granted, they had done so in common speech. Iris had been the one to introduce Jack to the stories of King Titus. Cedric had thought they were silly. He'd favored histories, real ones, stories of battles fought and won. Jack had learned of the Fall of Leifen from Cedric. He'd learned of the Knights of Bahamut from his father, the gods from his mother. Different people, different stories, and yet here they all were, gathered together in one volume: folk tales, myths, histories, all jumbled together in the Ars Paladia, with white magic the only common thread between them.
"Onidi-tela... nas-gi-asgaya," Lena read, "a isu-gi tela-datsi-"
"Chladatsi," Thad muttered from the table, his pronunciation perfect.
"Hush you," Jack said, but the boy's correction had Lena stumbling over her words now, attempting the uncommon sounds.
"Ch-chela-datsi, Moomba a... ani..."
"Anilasdala," Jack said, without opening his eyes. He knew the story well.
"Ani-las-dala, Gu-revera," Lena finished. And behind him walked the lion, last of the Moomba tribe, Griever.
"Very good," Jack said, opening his eyes now. Lena was still looking down at the book, at the illustration of Titus and Griever leaving the canyon together. She traced the lines of the little orange cub with her finger. "What is it?" Jack asked.
"Poor Griever," she said. "I never knew how he got his name. He must have been so sad."
Thad scoffed. "It's only a story. It isn't real."
Jack shook his head. "No, Titus and Griever were both real. That's well documented."
"A talking lion?" Thad snorted. "Come on."
Jack shrugged. "Yes, well, that bit's probably a stretch. But Titus was a real king. The stories about him are somewhat exaggerated. This one's meant to manipulate your emotions so that you remember the spell he used."
"Yeah, but what's the point of the spell? It didn't work."
"That's part of the moral," Lena said. "Titus went off unprepared: only a boy, with so little training. If he'd done his lessons instead, he would have known how to cleanse the poison."
Thad looked at her skeptically, counting his counter-arguments off on his fingers. "If he'd done his lessons instead, Griever would have been dead before he got to the canyon. And Titus wouldn't have known which statue to heal, so the chief couldn't have killed the cockatrice, and Titus would have died too."
"No!" Lena said quickly. "No, he... That is..." She trailed off, confusion writ plain on her face. "That can't be right."
Jack chuckled, and his chuckle earned him a poke in the side. He shrugged guiltily as Lena frowned at him. "Sorry. It's just that I've had the same thoughts about some of these stories, the same questions. They don't hold up well to literary scrutiny, I'm afraid."
Lena sulked, clutching her book protectively in her lap, like a mother soothing a child. "Well, I still like them."
"As do I," Jack said, putting his arm around her at last, giving her shoulders a light squeeze. "Please, continue."
She smiled and began the next story, of Dagona and Leviathan, which Jack knew was her favorite. He closed his eyes again, holding her as he listened.
And so he drew closer to her, just as they drew closer to Crescent Lake. The days seemed to pass too quickly. He couldn't get enough of her company. They read together, they dined together. She clung to his arm, or held his hand, and more than once he thought about pulling her close and kissing her, but he never did, too shy, too scared, too delighted with the prospect to rush into it. She smiled when she was with him, seeming to know he was thinking it, not seeming to care.
But his emotions tugged at him harder as the days went on, until they were two weeks out, then one week, and then three days, and Jack could no longer suppress his dread. He spent that day away from Lena, on the quarter deck, steering the winds. If he had to go back to the Lake, let it be sooner, he thought, let the waiting end, and he sped them along until the casting exhausted him.
He went to sleep without dinner, without drawing from Redden or Orin though he was long overdue for another infusion of aether, and he woke before sunrise, troubled by nightmares. It wasn't his mother he dreamed of, or the marilith, but the people of Crescent Lake, Master Lukahn and Tylen Stokely and Lady Stagg at the forefront of a great crowd. They stood around him, hating him, telling him what a nuisance he was, cursing his existence. Master and Mistress Randell were there, agreeing with them. Even Iris. And his friends - Lena, Kane, all of them - stood by, listening, and Jack knew that eventually they would join in.
He woke in his hammock belowdecks in the dark, and he could feel the other passengers around him, his friends and their crew. Their auras seemed to tug at his own, begging him to take, take, take, to feed the hollow in his soul. He groaned, pulling his aura in tight around him, closing it off to the best of his ability. He tried to calm himself, but his emotions stirred to froth. They bubbled up, escaping his tenuous hold on them, chilling the air around him, and he got up, taking the stairs to the main deck before he could freeze the entire crew.
He was alone topside, more or less. A couple of sailors were awake, one in the crow's nest, one at the ship's wheel, and Jack could sense them both, but neither called a greeting to him as he went to the front of the ship. The eastern horizon ahead of them was gray, the aether dancing in anticipation of sunrise. The night had been cool, the summer's fading strength no match for the sea breeze, and Jack shivered, trying to cast a warming spell. He could manage it sometimes when he was like this - drawing from Redden and Orin more often had given him more control, even when the aether rioted around him - but he wasn't successful at it now. He sighed, staring toward the sun's first light, trying to think warm thoughts.
At least Orin wakes early, he thought. He wouldn't have to wait long for the draw he needed.
But it wasn't Orin who woke first. He felt Lena clear across the ship, felt her move in the captain's cabin where she slept, and he wavered, wondering if he could face her in his current condition or if he should flee to the hold. He wondered if he could make it back to the stairs and down without her noticing, but he wavered too long.
She crossed the deck toward him. Normally, she would have come to his side, but she must have felt his discomfort for she stopped a few feet away. He could feel her waiting uncertainly behind him, just out of arm's reach, and her blue aura tugged at his awareness, offering peace from his inner turmoil. He breathed deeply, calming himself as much as he could before he turned to face her.
She smiled, wrapped in her white robe, hood down, hair wild from sleep. "I felt you wake up," she said quietly. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," he said.
She shook her head, but her smile remained. "That's a lie."
"Yes," he said. "Forgive me."
"You know I do," she said. "Nightmares?"
He nodded.
"Do you want to talk about them?"
He shook his head. "I don't think I can." He shivered, the cold welling up inside him, and he whimpered, trying to press it back down.
She took one step toward him, then she waited. He considered running away, but he found he wanted her warmth, the comfort of her touch, more than he feared what would happen if he lost control. He nodded his permission, and she stepped to his side and put her arms around him, looking out at the blush of the sky.
Her aura pressed against his like a velvet caress, and to his surprise he found the urge to draw from her fading. Her presence soothed him more than it rioted. When had that happened?
He stood, watching the sunrise, with one arm around her, and he found his other hand wandering toward his coat pocket, where the little shell rested that she had shown him that day outside of Matoya's cave. He'd almost forgotten about it during their time in Melmond, but he'd found the little conch there the day he'd put on his coat again. He hadn't mentioned it to her, somewhat embarrassed to admit that he had kept such a small and silly thing just because she had handed it to him. She hadn't meant it as a gift at that time, but he had taken it as one, not the shell itself but what it represented: her kindness, her friendship, the way she spoke to him without hatred or fear.
"Hmm," he said, considering. "My lady, the spell you made. I think I've come up with a name for it."
"Oh?" she said.
He nodded. "How do you feel about 'Shell'?"
"'Shell'..." she said, looking up at him with her shy smile. "I like that."
That smile... He thought again about kissing her. Not here, he thought, not now. He couldn't trust himself. Her aura was so tantalizingly close. He couldn't trust himself not to draw it in, to drink it like nectar. Would she hate him then? He didn't know. He didn't want to know.
Jack changed. Lena noticed he ate less as their journey wore on, bringing them ever closer to Crescent Lake. She noticed the way he flinched whenever the village was mentioned by name. Maybe I'm imagining it, she thought. Or maybe it was something inside him that she was feeling. He didn't avoid her though, not like before. In fact, if anything, he seemed to cling to her, to need her in a way he hadn't let himself before.
"I think they beat him," Thad said. It was the day before they were meant to arrive, and Jack was steering the winds again. She and Thad sat at the prow together, working through the mending. The former tailor's apprentice was far more skilled at the task than Lena was.
"Beat him?" she asked incredulously.
The boy shrugged. "Why else would he be so scared of them?"
She wanted to ask him about it. She would have asked him about it, but he was still steering the winds long after nightfall.
She woke before sunrise to a gentle shake from warm hands, and Jack's blue eyes glinting out of the darkness. "My lady," he whispered. "I'm sorry to wake you, but I wanted to show you something."
"Hmm?" It was early - so dreadfully early, still dark outside the sternward window of the ship, with only a hint of dawn at the edges - but she could feel his excitement, and that jolted her awake, for he'd been so careful with his emotions these past few days. "What is it?"
"Something in the village," he said.
She rubbed her eyes. "Village? Have we arrived already?"
He smiled. "Last night."
"Alright," she said, yawning.
She shooed him from the cabin long enough to slip on her brown tunic and her white hood. When she stepped outside, the sky was blue-gray, sliding into dawn. She saw that the ship was indeed tied off at a small and tidy dock, where Jack stood waiting for her, wearing both his coat and his blue scarf. She frowned at that, for she'd been getting used to seeing his face more often than not, his crooked smile when Kane cracked a joke, the soft grin he seemed to reserve only for her. She sometimes forgot that his scars were considered unsightly. Even the crew was growing used to his uncovered face, as more than once he had removed his scarf for some meal and forgot to put it back on immediately after. He was always embarrassed when he realized it, shyly covering himself again, and Lena was embarrassed too, for it never occurred to her to remind him.
He was covered now, though. The smile hidden by his mask was betrayed only by his eyes. She focused on his emotions, and she felt his excitement again. She wondered what this place that he had so loudly protested returning to could hold that would cause such anticipation. "We have to hurry or you'll miss it," he said, taking her hand in his and leading her down the path.
They crested a rise, and before them lay the eponymous lake, curved like a sliver of the moon, and she could see the village of Crescent Lake nestled in that curve. They walked the tree-lined path, a cool breeze off the lake carrying the sound of birdsong. The trees gave way to houses, and the houses to shuttered shops as they reached the town. The straight path from the docks split into village streets, meandering off in all directions, but Jack led her confidently on, turning here and there until they came to a large, open square with a fountain at the center.
"Oh," she said as she heard the sound of water, only a light trickle. The stone was milky white. By the gray dawn she could see the intricate carvings circling the outside, fish and mermaids and cresting waves. She stepped forward, wanting to inspect them up close, but Jack tugged her hand back, holding her in place.
"Wait for it," he said.
Then the sun rose. The light crept over the tops of the buildings that made up the square, chasing the line of their shadows down, and when the light hit the fountain, the trickle became a spout. It flowed to life in ripples and sprays that danced in patterns.
Lena gasped. "Jack!"
He chuckled. "Do you like it, then?"
"Jack! It's gorgeous!" She pulled her hand from his, stepping closer, and he let her go this time, though he did follow her.
As she knelt before the fountain, running her hands over the carvings, he said, "The earth mages shaped it, but the water mages enchanted it. The stories say it took a score of them forty days to get the spells in place. They renew the spells at the Midsummer festival every year. I'm sorry you missed that."
"So am I," she said, wondering what the ceremony must look like. She stood, slipping her white hood from her shoulders and kicking off her shoes.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Playing in it, of course," she said, stepping over the side. The water was brisk, churning from the fountain's movements, but not so cold as to be unpleasant. She splashed the water in her face, washing away the last dredges of sleep, and she sighed.
She turned back, but Jack was still where she'd left him. She caught him staring at her legs and she loudly cleared her throat. His eyes snapped up to hers. She held out a hand, beckoning him to join her, but he didn't move. "Are you just going to stand there?"
"It seems best," he said, and again she could detect the smile behind his scarf, "since playing in the fountain is expressly forbidden."
She dropped her hand. "What?"
He pointed. "There's a sign over there and everything."
"Jack!" she gasped, her tone scolding.
He laughed out loud.
She felt his amusement, felt it completely. It was such a truly unguarded moment for him, the first she'd felt from him since their time in Melmond.
"Come on, then," he said, stepping closer, offering a hand to help her from the water, the laughter still dancing in his eyes.
She splashed him. She felt his confusion and surprise, and she laughed herself, delighted in the emotions, in him, in the feeling that in this moment, he was genuinely with her.
"Now you've done it," he said, climbing in after her. Before she could react, he'd caught her up in his arms, an enfolding hug as he lifted her from her feet and hauled her directly beneath one of the huge sprays, soaking them both.
She shrieked and sputtered, quite undignified, but she could feel his amusement still. Happy.
"Do you yield?" he asked, laughing.
"Never!" she said, water cascading over her head.
He laughed.
Soon the spray died down as the pattern moved on. The two of them were still holding each other, dripping wet. Lena didn't know when Jack had set her down again, but she stood on her own two feet. She pushed back from Jack's embrace, just enough that she could look up into his eyes. "Oh, Jack, you're soaked through." She reached up to pull his wet scarf off, but he tilted his head back, shying away from her. She stopped, her hand hovering there, but she didn't pull away from him.
"Hold still," he said. His eyes lit up and a blast of air hit them with the force of a gale, blowing them dry.
She laughed at the trick, but still she reached up, resting her fingers against his cheek just above his scarf. This time, he didn't shy away. "You don't have to hide it all the time," she said softly, pulling the cloth down. She kept her gaze up, looking at his blue eyes, but then she realized his eyes were locked on her mouth, and the emotions she felt from him were a jumble of happiness, confusion, and desire.
She laid her hand flat against his cheek, her pinky tracing the line of his jaw. He leaned down, closer, closing the gap between them...
And then someone out in the square called his name.
Author's Note: 2/9/20 - And here we have the beginning of Part IV, only two days late. Sorry about that - I was a little slammed with other real life projects.
NaNo was good to me this year. I made a lot of progress on a lot of chapters. They're still very much in NaNo shape, need major editing, but you can't edit chapters you haven't written yet, right?
One of the things that's different about Part IV is that, in place of flashbacks, you're going to see more side stories. Since our characters are going to be spending more time with their books, learning about the world and its history, we'll be reading bits of those stories with them. You've already seen hints of Saint Ffamran and the Knights of Bahamut. Here we learn about King Titus for the first time, and his faithful companion Griever, a lion of the moomba tribe.
Okay, so bear with me here: Personal Headcanon time. Red XIII was a moomba. Yes, the things from FFVIII. Orange creature, red mane, looks like a lion, unique to the Final Fantasy universe. Maybe moombas from VIII are lions in the same way a poodle is a wolf, I don't know. I've always held that they were tame, mutant versions of whatever Red XIII is. What do you think, readers?