“Are you guys going to lay down there all day, or would you like the get the fuck out of here?” Rezira calls down.

At the same time, Noli waves. “Kanin! It’s so good to see you! Oh I like that coat, is it new?”

“Er, yes,” I sign. “Zyneth got it for me.”

“Oh?” Noli wiggles her eyebrows.

Zyneth grabs my arm and gently pushes me to the side so I am no longer half laying on top of him. I’d have been flustered by that if Noli’s words hadn’t already achieved that.

“Getting out of here sounds like a great idea,” Zyneth says, glancing back at the other ship. Smoke is vomiting from the hole in the deck where the cannon had previously been. Fire flickers behind the shroud of black.

“Right,” I say, sitting up. “Sorry for falling on you.”

“Sorry for grabbing you and throwing you at the ground.” There’s a hint of a smile on his face, which makes me feel lighter. I still feel so tired. So shaken by what I nearly did. But Zyneth’s easy confidence—Noli’s presence—fills me with relief in a way I’m not sure anything else could. Zyneth offers me a hand, and when I take it he pulls me to my feet. Well, I’m doing most of the standing. Glass is heavy. But it’s the thought that counts. We stand there, facing each other, and for a moment, I’m overcome with an impulsive urge to pull him into a hug.

“You two seem close,” Noli observes, grinning mischievously. “Anything happen under the waves I should know about?”

And, moment gone.

Zyneth narrows his eyes in concentration at Noli’s signs, but doesn’t catch what she’s saying, or I’m pretty sure he’d be blushing.

Rezira puts a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, maybe the small talk can wait until their lives are not in immediate mortal peril. We’ll have a lot of time to chat while heading back to shore.”

“Oh! Sorry! You’re completely right. Let’s finish up here.” She unslings the bow from around her shoulder and draws an arrow in one smooth motion. Her brows knit together, suddenly serious. The tip of the arrow glows green, and she looses the shot. The arrow strikes the ship opposite, exploding into a net of green vines. They wrap around the mast and snag on the sail. Whoever’s still alive on that ship will have a lot to contend with before they’re ready to come after us.

“I’ll throw a rope down,” Rezira calls, disappearing from the rail.

Zyneth looks at me. “Can you climb one?”

“Probably not,” I admit. The rope would slip right through my glass fingers. “But I can get up there with my own magic.” A rope flings over the edge of the ship, dangling a few feet away. I gesture for Zyneth to go ahead. “Meet you at the top.”

Still, he hesitates. Should have known he would wait for me. Alright then.

Pointedly ignoring the predator, I grab the void within my control. It feels clumsy when it’s just me controlling the substance. Like trying to play an instrument through a thick layer of gloves. But I manage to wrangle it in order anyway. I focus on my joints, willing the void to lock them up. And it works—kinda. I try to levitate my glass just a few inches off the ground; it’s wobbly, but I can do it.

I nod to Zyneth. “Ready.”

He takes the rope and swings himself up as I push myself off the ground. My soul lurches with a nervous flutter of vertigo: I feel like my grasp of the void could slip, and I could drop my body at any moment. Those thoughts are probably not helping my concentration. I push my reservations out of mind and just focus on the job that needs to be done. I float slowly up toward the railing.

I’m halfway when something explodes behind me on the enemy ship. I jump—my focus falters, just for a fraction of a second.

I haven’t even started to fall before the predator jumps in, seizing our void. It tightens up all the joints and whips out a limb to wrap around the ship’s handrail for good measure. At the same time, it shoots a whip of void behind us, down toward the sinking ship. It grabs the arcana crystal still sitting on the broken deck, then snaps the gem back toward us. I mentally scowl, flinging my body the rest of the way up and over the rail in a final push. The second my feet touch down, the predator recedes, turning the void back over to me. I snatch the arcana crystal from the limb of void and angrily stuff it into my pocket. Greedy bastard.

I’m not going to thank you for that, I snap.

The predator doesn’t reply. It’s unusually quiet.

I turn, looking for Zyneth. “Did he—”

Noli throws her arms around me, wrapping me in a hug.

I tense, momentarily panicked. Her chest is pressed against mine—her soul inches away. It wouldn’t take the predator but a fraction of a second, a moment of lapsed concentration, for it to pierce her.

But the predator doesn’t make a move. It retreats further into my mind, grumpily turned away from my focus. It’s… sulking? That’s not it, exactly, but I can make out one portion of its mind; it doesn’t intend to injure Noli. It knows her, through me. Like Zyneth, it understands that this person is different: they are meaningful to me. Useful. Allies.

Friends, I think. But I’m relieved to know she, at least, is safe. The tension goes out of me, and then the relief and warmth of the movement washes in. I slump into Noli’s embrace, wrapping my arms around her as well.

It’s the first time I’ve hugged someone in this body.

Technically, it’s the second time Noli has hugged me. But I’d been more of a receiver than a participant last time, and Noli had been so frail, her body still recovering from the coma it had been in for a month.

But now her grasp is strong, and my soul aches in the best way as I’m able to squeeze her back. We stay like that for a time, wordless; no words are needed.

Finally, she draws back. “Look at you! You’re so much more… substantial! And are you taller?”

“What?” Rezira says, signing as she speaks. “Huh. You’re right, he is taller. An inch above Zyneth I’d say.”

“What?” Zyneth repeats, his head whipping in my direction. His eyes narrow. “Was that intentional?”

I throw my hands up defensively. “No!”

Okay, yes.

The ship shifts beneath our feet, and I stumble one step; no one else does. I glance around for the captain, and find a human with brown skin and black locks at the helm. At least, they looked like a human at first glance. In place of legs, however, they have the lower body of a snake, green and brown diamonds patterned over their tail. They glance at me with gold, viper-slit eyes, then return their attention to their ship.

Check, I think out of curiosity.

[Captain Marrok,] Echo reports. [Level 41 lamia aural duelist.]

A lamia, huh? That’s a new one.

“Who’s that?” I ask. I’m signing for Noli’s benefit, but my translator also speaks the words aloud for Zyneth—charmingly without contractions. And by charming I mean aggravating.

“That’s Captain Marrok,” Rezira says, telling me nothing I don’t already know. “I’ll introduce you to them when we’re not still fleeing enemy ships.”

Looking back out to sea, I find she’s right: although we sank one and set a second on fire, there’s still one final ship in pursuit. It hasn’t caught up with us yet, but it can’t be more than half a mile away.

“Is there anything we can do?” Zyneth asks, leaning out over the rails beside me.

“Not unless you can make a ship sail faster,” Rezira says. “For now, we’re just passengers. Take the opportunity to recover. Do you need any healing?”

Zyneth hesitates. “Perhaps. Some old wounds you could look at later. I’m fine for now, however.”

Rezira gives him a skeptical look before turning to me, raising an eyebrow. “So you can speak now, huh?”

“What? Oh. My translator?” I touch the stone. I’d forgotten Zyneth had gotten it for me in Miasmere after we’d already left Noli and Rezira. That was only three months ago, but it feels like a lot longer.

“That’s so weird,” Rezira says. “I always imagined your voice to be higher pitched.”

“What?!” I cry. “No. Why would you think that? This is already a far cry from my standard manly, sultry timbre. Did I mention manly?”

“Hard to picture such a little bottle with a deep voice.” She breaks into a grin.

Oh, so she’s just teasing me. Nice to see nothing has changed.

Noli wrinkles her nose. “Translators are so unreliable. But your signs are getting a lot better! Mostly.”

“Mostly?” I repeat. “What do you mean, mostly?”

“Well, I can tell you’ve been learning some new words!” she signs, but her smile is hesitant and guilty: the whitest lie I’ve ever seen.

“What are you holding back?” I ask.

“Your accent,” Rezira answers when Noli doesn’t. “It’s like you’re some country bumpkin.”

“Country bumpkin!” I splutter. “What—but—you two live in the country! And what do you mean, accent?”

“It’s just little things,” Noli signs. “Your hand doesn’t twist with the word ‘cry,’ see? And your elbows are too stiff.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I watch carefully and try to see what she means. “My book didn’t mention that.”

Rezira grunts. “That explains it. Got it in Miasmere, did you? The best ones will be found in Valenia South.”

“Next time I’m in an eastern city, I’ll make sure to look for books specifically from the south,” I say dryly. But I’m making mental notes on what Noli and Rezira do, even as they speak. They’re right. Some of the signs I learned are a little clunky. I’ll work at.

I guess now, I’ll have a lot of time to work at it.

A strange, whirring sound grows in intensity. I tip my head. “What’s—”

The water beside our ship explodes in a fountain of water. Everyone ducks.

“Incoming!” Rezira cries.

Captain Marrok bares their teeth—fangs, I note—whipping around to look behind them.

“Get down!” they sign at Noli. “Canonfire.”

Crap. “We’re still in their range?” I mean, I guess the answer to that is obvious. I just thought they were too far away!

“On the bright side, at this distance, the likelihood of hitting us is very low!” Noli signs, even as she crouches on the deck.

“Assuming they don’t have spells to assist with the aim,” Rezira adds.

Another whizzing sound cuts through the air, and another eruption of water explodes nearby—only a few feet from the ship.

“I think it’s safe to say they have homing spells,” Zyneth says.

The captain releases the helm, vanishing behind the quarterdeck as they race toward the back of their ship. A moment later, a yellow wall of light begins to climb into the air from the back of the ship.

“What are they doing?” I ask.

“Creating an illusion,” Rezira says. “That should help us slip away from the enemy ship.”

The light slowly creeps into the air, beginning to form the impression of a dome. At the same time, another shot whizzes by, shattering a portion of the spell as it narrowly misses our ship and crashes into the water in front of us.

“I don’t think we’ll have time to wait for it to complete,” Zyneth says.

He’s right. Each shot has been closer than the last; the next one could sink us. We can’t just wait for whatever illusion the snake-person is weaving to finish: especially if each shot crumbles a portion of the spell and sets us back. We need to stop the attacks and buy them some time. I race up the quarterdeck, sprinting to the back of the ship.

Captain Marrok is there, eyes narrowed in concentration, hands sketching out runes and lines of a giant spell circle as light flows into the air above them. I try to gauge the distance between us and the enemy ship.

They’re closer than they were even a few minutes ago. They must be moving at top speed, while we’d been at a standstill and are only now regaining momentum.

I could slow them down. After what I just did with the other two ships, I know that with the predator’s help, I could do some damage.

The worry is, I might do too much damage. If our minds merge again, I’m not sure I can keep the predator from killing someone—especially if Zyneth isn’t there to reel me back in.

But what other options do I have? My Attuned elements can’t even close half the distance.

Zyneth and Noli appear at my side.

“What are you thinking?” Zyneth asks. “Any ideas?”

“Can your lightning shoot that far?” I wonder. Though he largely just uses it on his knives, I saw him release a condensed shot once before. At me, specifically, when the predator had me in Emrox.

“Theoretically,” he says. “But practically, no. I can create it, but not guide it: once it leaves my hands, it does what it pleases. At this distance, the lightning would likely fork off into the water before reaching them.”

I look to Noli. “What’s your range with your bow?”

“With magic to double the range of each arrow, I would still only reach halfway,” she admits.

“Does this ship have cannons of its own?” I ask, looking around. It’s much smaller than the pirate ships, though, and the answer is apparent from the empty decks.

“We don’t need to fire back,” Zyneth says, rubbing his chin as he thinks. “We just need to deflect—or as the captain is doing, disguise.”

Noli shrugs helplessly. “I don’t have anything that could stop a cannonball.”

“Me neither,” I say, mentally scrolling through my list of spells. Void Whip, Elemental Dowsing, Elemental Radar, Refraction, Location, Glow, Displace…

“Wait!” I realize. “I do have something!”

I grab onto the railing for stability, and will all of my void out from under my coat. The shadowy blobs swirl into the air before me.

Rezira blinks. “That’s new.”

I divide the void in half, mentally stretching each portion as wide as I can possibly make them. I feel the predator watching over my shoulder, curious, but it doesn’t interfere. Great, because I really don’t want to deal with it right now.

Each volume of void becomes a giant black pancake in the air behind the ship, nearly completely obscuring our view.

I activate Displace.

[Displace Activated,] Echo says.

I wait, hoping they’re big enough. Hoping they cover enough of the back of the ship.

“What’s this?” Noli asks. Not unnerved by the sight of so much void, but merely curious. “Is it a barrier?”

“No,” I say. “Like Zyneth said, we don’t have to stop the shots if—”

Another whizzing sound thunders toward us. I tense, hoping it won’t just tear through the void like tissue paper. One shot erupts in the water next to us. The other—

A pane of void crumples as it’s struck by the cannonball, wrapping around the projectile like fabric. Instead of breaking out the other side, however, the cannonball vanishes, bursting out the second one the same instant. The second pane of void crumples in reverse, momentarily stretching out behind the shot like a tail of a comment as the cannonball rockets back toward the enemy ship. Then both portions of void slowly unwind themselves and ripple back into flat sheets once more.

[41 points of Mana extinguished,] Echo reports.

The shot strikes the ocean a hundred feet away, sending up a spray of water behind us.

I sag with relief. “...if we can redirect them.”

Noli throws her arms in the air. “That’s amazing!”

“Very clever,” Zyneth says, though he appears as relieved as me. “Can you tip that second one up? Try a forty-five degree angle. The returned shots will carry farther.”

I do this as Rezira plants her hands on her hips. “Not half bad.”

“Takes a bit of mana, though,” I admit. Looks like each shot is about 40 mana, based on their size. That means I can do another seven or so before I’m out of mana. Unless I use the arcana crystal, that is.

Another shot fires our way, again absorbed and redirected by the Displace spell. This time, the return shot goes a lot further; it doesn’t get anywhere near striking the enemy ship, but it’s closer to them than it is to us.

After that, the firing stops.

“They must be wary of having their own weapons turned against them,” Zyneth observes.

“Oh, thank the gods,” I say. I won’t have to worry about using the arcana crystal afterall.

“Will that be enough to slip away?” Rezira asks, looking up at the shell of magic that’s slowly weaving over the ship.

Noli looks to Captain Murrok, who’s still concentrating on their spell. “It might take a few minutes more,” she signs.

“It better be a good spell,” I say. “They’ll catch up to us before too long.”

Zyneth leans forward, eyes narrowed. “Something’s happening.”

We all look. The water around the ship’s prow has turned white and churning. There’s movement along the sides of the ship, too, objects surfacing and dipping beneath the waves.

“Oars?” I ask.

Noli squints. “No. They’re fins.”

I look to Zyneth and Rezira; both of them appear grim. They’re expecting another fight.

I don’t think we can handle another fight right now. Zyneth’s worn out, Rezira is a healer, we’ll need the captain to keep sailing the ship—that leaves just me and Noli in prime condition to fight, and I’m not sure I’d even call my condition prime.

With the arcana crystal, I could destroy them. But that would require leaning on the predator, and neither of these things are something I want. I need time to digest everything. I need time to hash everything out with the predator and make sure I don’t put anyone else’s lives in danger. Mostly, I just want time to spend with my friends without having to worry about anything life threatening.

Wanting all that is nice, but we still need a solution. I slip my hand in my pocket, hesitantly tapping a finger against the arcana crystal. Is this the only option we’ve got?

“It’s gaining,” Rezira notes.

“Could you use your Light Beam?” Zyneth asks me. “It was rather effective on the last ship.”

That’s an understatement. “That was with the arcana crystal powering it,” I say. But I’d need the predator to channel the energy for me so it all doesn’t go straight to my soul. “I don’t know if… I don’t want to use it.”

Zyneth grimaces. “I see.”

But I can’t let my reservations endanger the lives of everyone else here. What if this is the only solution? Though I’m not sure I would even be able to aim it precisely enough, given the distance.

Aim.

Aim.

I spin to Noli. “Can you hit a moving target?”

“Of course!” she signs. “I learned to hunt in the forest, and let me tell you, animals do not like to stay still when you’re shooting arrows at them.”

“What’s the furthest range you can manage?” I ask. “With magic to help.”

She looks out to sea, closing one eye and holding a thumb up before her. “A quarter mile would be my limit.”

“Their ship is still a little more than that away,” Zyneth notes.

Rezira grunts. “Not for long.”

“What about hitting one arrow with a second arrow?” I ask. “Could you guarantee you hit it?”

“Guarantee? No.” Noli considers. “But I’d give it a ten to one chance.”

“If you’re hitting a target we already have access to, I could improve that chance,” Zyneth says. “I could carve a homing spell circle on the target arrow that would draw the other arrow in.” He tips his head at me. “What do you have in mind?”

I hold up the arcana crystal. “One shot to end the fight.”

He raises his eyebrows, though Rezira and Noli seem confused.

“We’ll need to move quickly,” Zyneth says. “Noli, your arrows, if you would.”

Perplexed, she hands two over. “What will that little stone do?”

“Cripple their ship, ideally.” Trying very hard not to think about my plan, so as not to clue the predator in, I take Noli’s hands and put the arcana crystal in them. I intentionally angle my glass so the predator doesn’t see this happen. “It’s up to you.”

It takes a few more minutes for Zyneth to finish his spells, and for Noli to prepare her arrows. As they do, the enemy ship draws ever closer. I know we need to wait until they’re within Noli’s range, but it’s still unnerving to watch the vessel creep steadily closer—too close, it feels like.

When everything’s ready, Noli tests her arrows’ weight. “Everyone ready?”

We all nod. I pull my void back into my coat, providing Noil a clear view.

“Alright then.” She grins. “Let’s see what teamwork is capable of.”

She holds the first arrow up to her bow and draws back. She points the shot high, so it will have a long arc to fall through. She waits. Adjusts. Then fires.

She whips the second arrow up to her bow the moment the first one vanishes into the sky. She aims lower this time, and waits. In the sky, I can see the small fleck of black reach its apex and begin to descend. She looses her second shot.

We all watch in tense silence.

The two arrows collide mid-air, right above the enemy ship.

The arcana crystal strapped to the first arrow explodes. Red light erupts from the fractured crystal, enveloping the ship. The shockwave hits us seconds later. The enemy ship’s mast crumples, and wood splinters across the deck. Fire breaks out. The vessel lists to the side, where a hole has been carved out of its hull.

The predator startles as it realizes what I’ve done. No! The crystal. Our power! How could I throw that away?

Because you wanted it, I think. And you’d use it to hurt people.

The predator’s shock becomes anger. That was ours! Ours! I can’t destroy our things!

I can and will as long as you pose a threat.

The predator scowls, prowling around the edges of my mind. It doesn’t understand why I would do this.

No, I think. You wouldn’t.

Rezira, Noli, and Zyneth watch in silence as the burning ship begins to sink. That’s three ships sunk from the power of that crystal. No one should have the ability to wield such control over the fate of so many lives. I’m glad it’s gone.

Rezira is the first to stir, letting out a breath. “The power of teamwork is terrifying.”