Haylock of the Depths was a male seafolk before his ascension. Using the power of his divine bloodline, he hunted the great creatures of the deep, and his legend grew. He was known all over the pre-Flood seas, and even the surface races heard tales of him saving ships. While he was a renowned hunter for decades, it wasn’t until he slew a kraken assaulting the now-lost seafolk city of Atelay that he finally ascended. He is known to Bless great hunters, and has not kept his Blessings to the seafolk.

-Excerpt from Wicket’s Guides to the Pantheon.

---

Kole ran through the library, out into the Dahn foyer, and then through the series of doors and halls that would take him to the administrative wing. He’d been there before when visiting Professor Lonin and knew that Zale’s mother’s assistant Kelina had an office there as well. Her position was technically just “assistant” but Kole knew she actually did all the work of running the school while Zale’s mother snuck off on adventurers and follies.

The office was second from the end, the last one being reserved for the chancellor, but Kole gave even odds that it was either an art studio or completely empty, filled sheet-covered furniture.

His unsettled worry as to what the meeting would be about almost pushed him to check, if only to delay the inevitable and give him time to think of what he needed to make up an excuse for.

Finally, Kole worked up the courage and knocked on the door.

A moment later, the door opened silently, and a deep and angry voice could suddenly be heard where before there was silence.

“Where are you going? I demand answers!”

Wow, that is impressive sound dampening, he thought Oh, right. Magic building.

He was about to laugh at his own stupidity when his brain caught up to his ears, and he realized he recognized the voice.

“I trust that this will answer all your questions to your exacting standards,” Kelina said dryly as she pulled the door open.

Kole froze, as the stone doorway swung away to reveal the face of his Uncle Jaryn, dressed in wrinkled travel clothes, still caked with salt spray from his journey.

His uncle stared back, fury not silenced as they both stood watching each other.

“Ummm, I meant to write a letter,” Kole said weakly, realizing he’d forgotten to after the ordeal with Shalin. “I did actually write it. I just forgot to send it.”

Jaryn let out a gasp, finally breathing as a tear streaked down his face. He covered the distance in a blink, wrapping Kole up in a hug. In that embrace, Kole realized how much he’d actually grown this past-sort-of 14 weeks, as he was now the same height as his uncle.

Kole shook his head, banishing his incessant inner monologue, and then hugged his uncle back, joining in the crying.

Sometime later, the two sat in the chairs of Kelina’s office, the administrator having excused herself to grant the two privacy.

Where do I even start? Kole wondered.

Part of him had imagined variations of this moment, where he would show his uncle that he’d been wrong and that Kole could be a wizard. But, then in that moment, where his only family remaining—in the Material Realm at least—before him, all he wanted to do was to sit there in his presence.

“I’m sorry,” Kole started.

“What for specifically?” Jaryn asked.

“I don’t know,” Kole said, then gestured around. “Everything. Running away, not letting you know I wasn’t dead.”

“I’m sorry too,” Jaryn said after a pause. “For everything as well. For not listening to you and supporting your goals.”

“Really?” Kole asked, not expecting that. “How’d you find out I figured it out?”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Now it was his uncle’s turn to look confused.

“Figure what out?”

“Wizardry,” Kole said, holding a hand out before him and casting the Light cantrip, conjuring a ball of light in his hand.

Then, he cast the Sound cantrip message and projected a whisper into his Uncle’s ear.

“I can do it now. You didn’t know?”

Jaryn’s look of confusion grew briefly more intense before his eyes grew wide and he jumped to his feet/

“You did it!” he exclaimed and ran over to embrace Kole once more.

After they’d both settled down from another emotional episode, Kole asked, “Why did you apologize if you didn’t know?”

“I apologized because I was wrong, but that didn’t mean you were necessarily right—you were right, it seems, obviously—but it wasn’t my place to dictate your life. I should have supported you, no matter how dumb your plan seemed.”

“That doesn’t sound like the best parenting technique,” Kole observed, pushing his welling emotions away with jest. “What if I wanted to be an excrement harvester?”

“I should have offered to buy you a shovel,” Jaryn replied, “there's good money in that.”

There was an uncomfortable pause as the two sat there, unsure what to say.

“So,” Jaryn said, breaking the silence. “Kole Teak? What happened to Kohlyn Highridge?”

Kole blushed and rubbed his head nervously as he thought where to begin.

“It’s a long story,” he said and then started at the beginning.

Kole told his uncle everything, from his initial escape through via the excrement barrels, his stowing away on the Willowboom, and his subsequent meeting of Amara.

He explained his enrollment, and brief but dashed hope that Grand Master Lonin would take him on as an apprentice, and saw genuine pride in his uncle’s eyes as he realized how exceptional Kole actually was.

Jaryn listened intently as Kole described his classes, his friends, and his progress in his own personal studies. The only thing he held back was the real identity of Zale’s uncle Tal, as that wasn’t his secret to tell, even to his Uncle.

As Kole described his friends, his uncle let out a big laugh.

“Got your first crush then, huh?” he asked after Kole had spent a disproportionate time talking about Zale’s voidyness.

“What?! No!” Kole denied out of instinct, turning red in embarrassment. But, then thought better of the poor lie.

“Maybe,” he said instead. “But let’s not make a big deal about it.”

Kole’s uncle held his hand up, performing a rhythmic twitching of his fingers in a crude imitation of the somatic component of Silence, the sign children used when swearing themselves to secrecy in Illandrios.

He went on to describe their search for Amintha, and all the weird other-realmly adventurers leading up to his apparent death.

By the time Kole got around to the final “rescue” of Amintha, his uncle was listening with his jaw agape.

“You—” he began, stumbling for words. “Silent Image! I—”

He paused to collect himself and then started over.

“I’m proud of you. Your mother would be proud of you.”

Oh, Flood! Kole thought, realizing he’d forgotten the most important part of his whole semester.

Tentatively, he reached into his shirt and pulled out his mother’s amulet—her ensouled amulet.

His uncle looked at Kole curiously for a moment before he recognized it, then his eyes bulged and he looked from Kole to the necklace.

“You have that!?” He asked forcefully. “You've had that? This whole time?”

Kole nodded sheepishly.

“Dad gave it to me before he left. He told me to keep it with me.”

Jaryn put his face in his palm and took a deep breath, muttering.

“That man.”

“She’s alive,” Kole said, handing the necklace over.

Jaryn’s head snapped up, and he grabbed the necklace, turning it over in his hand.

“How do you know?” He demanded, turning it over in his fingers, and examining it. “It looks as it always had before she Bound it.”

“Zale and her uncle can see the aura of it,” Kole explained. “They said it's still Bonded, and not to me, so it must be her.... or dad I guess.”

“No, not him,” Jaryn said, still fixating on it. “He’s got not a drop of connection to Illusions. This wouldn’t pick him.”

He looked up, right into Kole’s eyes, voice trembling on the verge of some withheld emotion.

“How certain are you that they are right,” Jaryn asked. “Not how much you want them to be, or how much your affection for this girl colors your judgment. How certain are you?”

“Completely,” Kole said, but saw that his words didn’t convince his uncle.

“Zale’s uncle is... a wizard of great renown. I’m not allowed to share his secret, but If I told you his name—if you’d even believe that—you’d trust his judgment.”

“Her uncle? This flaky mage who vanishes on a whim?”

Kole nodded.

Jaryn sat in silence, taking in the revelation that his sister may yet live until tears once more dripped down his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Kole. I’ve just been so.... wrong.”