The large bilander ship’s deck was covered in runes from tip to tip. You could see some of the sailor’s use of the craft here and there, so it seemed to only be there to stop the passengers from messing around, or maybe more nefarious reasons like theft and sancraft.

Even though I had no craft to my name it still felt stifling to see. I imagined the powerful crafters of Cammard not caring about the runes at all. Being able to walk free across all the lands of Atlas with just their ora and paths. Was I really going to study there?

As we coursed through the shaping waters, it was as if the boats lifts and drops worked the stress out of me. I was near the back mast on the upper deck; wrapped up in the wet winds of our sail, the salty taste of the air, the buckety swooshing of raping tides ever always around us. I smiled wide before I even knew what for.

The ship was split into two halves with a staircase to take you from the back to the front of it. Conveniently, us lowliners of the world stayed in the back and the highliners enjoyed the best of the ship at the front.

I was sat on the lowliner railing, my feet swinging free, embracing the air barefoot.

I looked to my left to see a girl carrying food from the upper deck where the kitchen was. This way the food always arrived to the highliners first, nice and hot. By the time it made it to the lowliners the steam of it had long gone.

For this reason, seeing whatever kitchen worker came from the upper deck usually annoyed me. But not this time.

Down the flank came a girl with inky black hair and something enchanting about her. I got lost staring at how the lines of her neck fell into her shoulders. She was looking back behind, talking to someone while somehow carrying five plates on each hand.

Then I heard rough laughter from what must have been shipworkers ending their lunch break. I turned a half spinback with my hands firmly on the wooden ships edge as to not fall. I saw two large fellas laughing into each-other. They were too full of rum, and too full in jest, to notice the tiny women who was about to pop in front of them.

She would fall towards the railings if they did collide and probably drop her plates of food regardless if they didn’t.

Maybe it was from staring at the boundless see for so long, or the high sun emboldening me, but I felt an urge to swoop in and save the day.

I could see it now: I would launched myself from the railing, too late to stop the men from colliding with the girl but just in time to catch her strong and gentle by the waist, with my other hand I’d catch the plates one by one, my palm jumping  left to right to receive every one of them.

And so, all this I tried.

I leapt off the railing, turning through the air. I heard, then saw the girl collide. Nearing the collision, I caught her scent, blueberry and honey, in-between the salty air and strong ale coming from the rough men, and it took me for a tack of a second, just enough time to miss catching her.

And I missed her just enough to stumble over her foot, colliding with the falling plates she launched to air in her fall.

I fell over her- not quite head over heels- and put my hands out to stop from flattening her with my weight and momentum.

I, on all fours above her, took a moment find my bearings again. When I came too, our eyes caught. Hers confused, worried, scared. And mine wild with embarrassment, but I was sure all that she could clue from them was the frenzy of my pupils.  She must have thought me mad.

Everything was timed just perfectly for the beer I was meant to save from falling on the girl to fall on my back, splashing it wide with a sounding slap.

I’d closed my eyes when the beer hit me, wincing in fear it was something worse than just alcohol dropping onto me.

I didn’t want to open them, fully expecting a scornful, disdaining, reproachful or worse of all frightened look coming from her.

A moment passed then another.

“Are you alright?” I heard a feminine tone ask.

I opened my eyes and she looked calmer now, almost laughing.

“I’m… I’m fine. And you my fair beauty?” I stammered through the words. I had tried to say my ‘lady’ respectfully, and ‘fair beauty’ flirtatiously, at the same time. Disorientated by being so close to someone with a face so worth watching (It was her nose and how it dipped so round and sharp.) the sentences mushed together.

“I’m fine my fair clumsy…” The edges of her lips full of mirth, “Do you want to maybe get up?” she asked more intrigued than annoyed.

“You better. You spilled my drink, boy. Better Get me another before I-” One of the shipworkers that I’d tried to fend her from butted in.

Then talked his partner who wasn’t so angry, still filled with warmth from the beer showing by his rosy cheeks and wide grin. “Can’t you see the lad was trying show off ‘ta that lassy over there? Give the kid a break, Crag. You were young to.” He laughed jolly. 

The cheery shipman guided his friend away, giving me a wink that the girl couldn’t have missed as he left. I grumbled internally then turned back to the girl.

“Can I treat you to a meal to apologise?” I asked innocently. I’d been stuck in the town for the last three year and there was rarely a new pretty girl.

But she was the kind of girl who was pretty from miles away, the kind most boys had long ago learnt not to approach. Luckily I’d no chance to learn such cautionary romance. Even fools had their own charm, right?

If I had any wits about me, I would have realised then she must have been a highlander from her beauty alone, but even the fear of her father’s influence and wealth likely would have failed to detour me.

She flashed a quick smile then started to fidget. “I can’t.” She said, reluctantly.

It was hard not showing disappointment. She noticed.

“It’s my brother.” She sighed. “He’s very… protective.”

“but what’s there for him to fear? I’d imagine if anything he’d insist you go. To fully soak up how sincerely sorry I am for having ruined your ten plates of lunch.” I winked at her and she gave me a defeated smile, rolling her eyes.

She ‘uhmmed’ and ‘aahed’, deliberating on her response.

“Ok. Fine. Dinner then. Two newly formed friends enjoying a meal.” She eyed me heavily, emphasising ‘friends’.

And I laughed an honest laugh. I realised I was just happy talking to her. Food or no.

The night came quick. I fraternised with the other lowliner boys, playing card games like drouts and final, the latter being a game I’d long mastered the strategy for while at the orphan keep.

You had to play a patient game, and with its pace, most never did. By the time it was time for dinner I’d won more than enough to pay for the meal.

But the boys had honest faces, and I’d been practically brothers with them for the past week sailing to Cammard. I gave it all back, making them promise they’d help me with all the extra chores I’d need to do to square debts with the kitchen. That’s at least if the staff ever caught me stealing meals.

I snuck out two plates of buttered bread, ale and grilled Cod to the rear aft of the ship. The moon was free in the sky shining like white silver. Like sugar on coal.

She was dressed the same, in a barmaids frolick, and her hair loose.

 we talked of small things at first. The easy things like how the waves looked like warring waters, and how we’d both feared while young that the moon followed us at night.

We watched the busy work of other people of the ship. Guessing their stories and joking about what we thought good to share of our own.

It was all a subtle thing. At first, we were ever conscious of our bodies and ourselves, but despite the winds, we warmed to each-other.

“So, what’s with your brother?” I finally asked. She was humming a song I didn’t recognise.

“Nothing,” she said quick, dismissing the conversation.

I felt at unease, she was so open just a second before, I felt so close to her. And now?

Then I thought how I’d feel if someone was too insistent in asking about my family. And how we’d only just met. And how I was still dressed in my workboy clothes.

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I eased my shoulder sighing, then gave her a smile.

But still really wanted to know.

I let the conversation drift and when she asked, still wanting to foster our closeness I told her as much as I felt I could.

I told her of my father, how he raised me and my twin until we were twelve and how I wanted to know find him someday.

“Find him? Where did he go?” she asked.

“If I knew that I wouldn’t need to find him then, would I.” I rolled my eyes at her the same way she had done to me earlier in the day.

Her eyes narrowed annoyed but playful. And I continued my tellings, ignoring her expression.

Of course, I didn’t mention how he was banished, by the high court’s themselves. That would be too telling.

I didn’t tell her how he was the famous Stormmaker, one of the seven paragons of Anglae. She’d no doubt know of how he was sent away from Anglae and stripped of his crafting. She’d no doubt want to know how he even bore me and my brother when he was meant to be dead. Really, she’d with no doubt, none at all, dismiss what I said as boyish prattle to try and impress her.

“-So I spent the last three years with no parents, but surrounded by family at the keep.” I finished.

Not much else happened, but the it was the good kind of bland. We talked for what must have been hours and it hardly mattered what of. Riffing about the shape of water, what we thought of the world beyond our little Anlglae and what stories of the Ancient Ones we knew.

 “Fifteen this Octobre. And you?” she said.

I had to scavenge my brain for my birthday. I never celebrated it at the keep, always telling the other boys it was in a few months until they got sick enough of my lying to celebrate it through the years at random.

“Fifteen in a few months.” I said finally.

 “All that time and you didn’t even figure out how many!”

“Idiot.” She whispered it under her breath, but I just about heard,

I looked around noticing the stars were clearer now. In particular I looked to the dipper, an almost circle of stars with an almost triangle at its centre. At the centre of the triangle was a star that always seemed to shine brighter than the rest. It looked brighter than usually with her around.

“Where are you headed then?” I asked.

“Cammard Academy.”

My eyes went wide. I was about to tell her I was going there too.

“So that’s where it all went, huh.” A stern voice interrupted. We looked behind us, away from the stars resting above the sea, and back to the ship. The voice was of the Cook himself.

I looked to the cook, then looked to our plates, then back to the cook with fear.

But when I looked back his expression had changed.

“Lady Clearday, what are you doing here? I can guide you back to the mast with the other highliners immediately. Your brother would work a storm knowing you were stuck with such-” the cook looked me up and down with persecutory eyes, “Filth.”

The Chef ushered her away and I was left alone. They faded into the darkness of the ship, then my eyes began to furrow. ‘Lady Clearday’?

Then I realised I truly was and idiot, and maybe a filthy one at that. I had never asked for her name.

Try to find her the whole of the next morning but fails. Has to spend the entire day cleaning, at night there’s a performance from one fof the nobles son’s from the rich half of the ship. As he stumbles out of his cabin he sees her imfatuated with the song, and he can’t deny they play well. Something felt uneasy seeing her like that. He turns back to clean away his emotions.

The next day was the final day on the ship and would mark an arrival to the ports of Cammard. Everybody was in a warm mood, some of the older boys had managed to sway their highliner counterparts to join in a game of bet and Rouke, the lowliner boy I was closest with, tugged me along.

It wouldn’t have been fair for wagers to have been set as per the normal rules of bet, those being that all bets are showably backed by the bet-maker and matched by whoever was being bet. Us lowliners would be risking livelihood from losing what the highliners would consider breakfast.

So instead, what was on the line here was more valuable than three good meals and a house to eat them in. Sheer pride.

“Bet. Longest one handed handstand.” It was the fourth bet so far. We’d decided to play with everyone around. The first bet was just holding of breath. Some kid fainted and others gave up too quick so they were disqualified.

Then came wrestling. We each assumed a push up position, facing off against another boy of similar build and whoever lost then and there, being forced crashing down by their opponent tugging at their wrists, was disqualified. That left say a third of initial players.

Thirdly was simply a tournament of rock paper scissors. I’d like to say I use some sort of trick or wits to win, if there was, it was not of my knowing.

This all resulted in the spectacular situation of me ending up adversing, one on one, against a regal looking boy with golden hair and an easy privilege about him. His name was Alexander.

I was light and wiry but every fibre of mine was rung tight from hard manual labour. On body strength I should have had him beat, he was just a highliner from Cammard after all. They were soft folk with everything provided for them, the only exception being those of the academy, Cammard Academy being one of the top three in the country. Yet even with that some entrants all but paid their way in.

I planted my left palm firmly on the ground, just that was enough to draw teases from some of my fellow worker boys of the ship.

It was a myth that left hands were cursed. But that was an excuse that they all used to explan why they didn’t train it. Father never gave me any training, but he did make me and my brother ambidextrous.

“A nightmaker’s bastard?” laughed the highliner boys.

I ignored the taunts, there was nothing actually wrong with using your left hand, but from the way people treated those that preferred it, it might as well be. I managed to lift myself up onto one arm, the rest of my body, suspended in mid-air. It took twenty five seconds before I started to strain from the taks and wobble, before falling I pushed of the ground onto my feet, shaked my body trying to move my blood flow back to normal and beckoned for Alexander to proceed.

He smiled slight, the kind you used when you saw a child perform to you something they had learnt.

Then he begun to mirror my movements, setting one arm down firmly to press the ground, jumping his feet to the air. The veins of his forearms coming out clear and strong. I realised he was much stronger than he looked. Too strong for a Cammard boy. I entertained the idea of him being from the academy but dismissed it. Crafters couldn’t be that common.

Alexander started to strain around the ten second mark. It seemed I was going to win. Each second his form broke more and more till he was near tipping over. Then, with a whirl of blue light out of no where his entire left hand turned traced and cloudlike.

16…17…20.

He launched himself from his hand, higher than I had done. Everyone’s mouth was agap including, I realised, my own.

“That was…” one of the lowliners trailed.

“Craft” I muttered.

I’d never seen the stuff in real life. Barrington had only a few highliners. All crafters were highliners, but not all highliners were crafters.

Highliners made less than ten percent of the population and of that still maybe one in a hundred was a crafter. And less still a skilled one.

The eyes of the other lowliners glazed over in fear and admiration but not my own. Mine turned to ember.

“That’s cheating.” I said firmly. I’d never even seen magic before, and I truly was amazed by it all. But…who cheats in bet?

“We never agreed it was.”

“It was left hand only, not left hand and sorcery.” I was getting wierd looks from the other lowliners. This was not the way to talk to a highliner, and more yet a crafter. Then I realised something.

“How did you even use craft, I thought the ship was covered in runes to stop that?” something bad was nibbling at me. The anglaean blonde hair, strength far from what you’d expect from a normal highliner, the craft…

“If you’re strong enough the runes don’t matter.” He responded. Not smugly either, it was just another fact for him.

The other highliners, who had been much less shocked by the display of magikery, started to laugh again.

They were looking down on us lowliners, I thought. Alexander didn’t even consider me competition, not even from the start. I grew even more irritated.

“If you’re an honest man, you’ll realise I won that bet and that you should try getting better at phrasing challenges.” He continued.

My teeth were all but gnashing.

I wanted to grumble at him, but he was right. But I couldn’t settle at ease with the injustice.

“Good game then lad. We’ll be off, still need to pack.” Alexander signed off with quick sentences, like dusting off your hands after a little bit of labour, we were just a small part of the days inconvenience to him, I thought.

I was going to learn the craft too. He had no right to act as though I was below him.

“One more,” I tried pushed, “Otherwise people will just think you won by cheating, why not come down to my level and beat me without craft.” I put on my best acquiescing smile.

I could see him maul over the challenge in his head. He looked back at the other highliners fidgeting. He knew no one would actually think he won. He didn’t lose but he didn’t win either. He might just take the challenge. Pride.

“It’ll even be your choice for the challenge.” I added.

He deliberated for sometime more.”Fine.” Alex smiled a winning smile ,the kind to capture crowds. “ No magic, no tricks, no interefering.” He started. “We’ll make a contest of strength again too, then it’s sure who was actually stronger, leave nothing on the table for debate.” He pointed up, at the mast of the ship.

“That’s the challenge.”

I looked up at the towering mast confused. It was high enough for shifts in the air to grab you, high enough for a twist of the ship meaning for broken bones. Then I looked around to see everyone’s incredulous faces, even the highliners. And I questioned whether I should have challenged him at all.

This might not have been as good an idea as I thought. But I’d was pretty sure I was stronger from before, I wouldn’t even have to reach the top. If we went at the same time or marked spots, he’d quite below me, there’s no way either of us would get to the top.

So the challenge was on. We set up either side of the mast. It’s circumference more than either of us could even get half way past with our hands wrapping around it. We’d be forced to grip with our finger tips and shuffle upwards, trying our bests to not fall.

“Go!”

One of the older highliners shouted and we sprung to action.

I took a strong lead, using techniques I learned climbing trees in the forests with my dad and all the sneaking around the keep.

But he stayed hot on my heals and we got ever higher.

We reached around half mast and the winds felt wilder. The wood felt slippier.

The people below looked so small. If I fell those little lines, those little limbs attached to those tiny faces had no chance of catching me. Really apart from Rouke I doubt any of them would even consider to try. I strengthened my mind, sinking into the climbing, try really hard to forget there was a ground at all. To forget falling existed.

Then the wind growled, tugging at me, and I was made more aware of grounds and the absolute truth of landing on them than I’d ever been before. I looked to Alex for help but he didn’t look at me, his eyes firmly looking up towards to top of the mast.

I should have given up then. Alex was completely unaffected by the wind, almost magically so. I should have realised something.

But I hated to lose. And I was the one to beg the challenge. I grit my teeth and slid my left hand higher up the pole, now hugging the mast in a death like clinch with my fingertips burying into the oak.

But the wind noticed this. The wind grew meaner, whirling and squealing at times. It wasn’t loud mind you, nor was it that obvious on sight. But at the altitude it was a tornado.

My hand was out mid reach, aiming for one rung higher when the air’s yanking tugged me back. About to crash down back first I screamed at Alex who was just about an arm’s reach away from me. I looked to him, hoping, hoping, hoping, he’d reach me in time.

But his hands were tight to the mast. And if he heard me, he didn’t let me know.

And then I looked to his palm which were fading blue. A magical, magical blue. But so faint you might think it only dancing winds.

I thought it was the end, all from a stupid bet. I may have been screaming along my descent, but at least I myself didn’t hear it. All I heard was the earie sound of speed and fear, signalling I was about to crash.

But then small, light, thin hands came under me. Just a bit higher than I expected the hard mahogany decking to be. I caught a whiff of the air before I fainted. Yes fainted. It was blueberries and honey.