“Orenda,” Captain Nochdifache took a step forward, “Oh… Oh you… you look so like… you look so much like my mother. I knew you would. When I first held you, I knew you would.” He turned, rounded on Tolith and smacked him so hard with the back of his hand that Orenda heard the crunching of bone, and he went teetering to the floor.

“Holy shit!” Adamaryen shouted and rushed to his side, “Yeah that’s broken. I gotta set it. I’m sorry, kid, I gotta set it. Oh my god how’d he do that with a slap!?”

He sounded panicked, and they both quivered under the might of Nochdifache’s voice as he drew something from his belt, and Orenda finally saw the thing she had often seen on the flag in action. He raised the item, long, sleek, and black, and there was an audible click as he slid his thumb over the small protrusion at the top.

“How dare you bring her out here!” He hissed, “Don’t you know this could kill her! You put her in danger! I should kill you where you lie! You people took everything else, and now you want to take Orenda! I was supposed to keep her safe! She’s all I have left! I’ll kill you!”

“Gary!” The woman called.

“I PROMISED HIM!” Nochdifache screamed, “I promised him that I would keep her safe! I knew he wouldn’t survive it! I swore to him I would keep her safe! She’s all I have left!”

Orenda felt the flame within Gareth swell, and it pushed back the sickness a little.

She tightened her grip on the doorway and said something she had wanted to say for her entire life.

“Gareth!” She screamed, and he turned to look at her again. She was sure it was his name now. “Fuck you! Fuck you and the ship you rode in on!” She shoved off the doorway and let her rage carry her past the illness, “You abandoned me! You left me among strangers! You left me to die!”

“No!” He said, “I didn’t! I swear! They were supposed to get you to Aunty Krothy! They were supposed to keep you safe! What the hell was I supposed to do, Orenda? Raise you on a ship? Leave you in the capital with Xaxac? It was the safest place! I’ve been looking for you for years!”

“You told me you would come for me!” Orenda snarled, and she didn’t understand why the sickness had faded completely. She saw nothing but red, felt nothing but the fire flowing through her, “You left me to die! Twice! You knew where I was in the library!”

“It wasn’t safe,” he said. “It isn’t safe.”

“You owe me!” Orenda closed the distance between them and grabbed him by the collar. She shook him for all she was worth, and he made no move to stop her, “You owe me more than you can ever pay! You’re the worst father in all of creation! You abandoned me with no news, with no hope, with no context or clues about who I am! You gave me nothing! And now, you’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to make that up to me! You’re going to take me to the artifact so I can kill the Emerald Knight!”

He slid the machine back into his belt, and reached up to gently, but with shocking strength, take her hand by the wrist and pull it away.

“You got… almost every bit of that wrong,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere near the Emerald Knight. We’re certainly not going back to the temple. I never meant to abandon you, but I… I did, at the end of the day, and I will absolutely spend the rest of my life trying to make that right.”

Orenda stared at her own reflection, heaving and shaking with rage, in the mask.

“And,” Gareth said, “I’m not your father.”

Orenda reached with her free hand, grabbed the mask, and it burned. It felt like touching a hot stove, and she heard him gasp, but then whatever spell he had cast on it fell away, as if he felt she had the right to jerk it away, as if he was letting her, and she did. She ripped it from his face and threw it onto the deck where it singed the wet planks there.

It was obvious why he wore a mask.

A scar split his face diagonally from one corner to the other. It was so deep and wide that it looked as if someone had, at one point, tried to cut it in half, perhaps peeled it apart. It sank far below his flesh, distorted his appearance as if it had once cut through the muscle, or maybe all the way down to the bone. It had had time to heal, but time had not been kind.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He stared at her with his golden eyes, and it was the first time she had ever seen them, ever seen eyes like her own. The first face she had ever seen like hers was twisted, broken, and horrible. She could not blame him for wanting to hide such a disfigurement.

“Orenda,” he said softly, and she noticed that the muscles in his face did not move properly with his words on the side where the scar ran down his cheek, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll tell you everything.”

He let her go, reached down and picked up the mask, and turned to look at Tolith.

“Fuck it,” he said, and in one motion, faster than Orenda thought he could move, he drew the thing from his belt, clicked the top into place, squeezed the trigger below, and the deck rang with a loud boom like the one Orenda had heard when the stairs exploded.

Tolith was screaming when her ears stopped ringing, and clutching the side of his head where blood pooled from between his fingers. Adamareyn was screaming too, and trying to pry his hands away so he could heal it, and both of them were glowing from every crystal around them, muttering spells as quickly as their lips could move.

“Gary!” Bella chastised.

“No!” He said to her, and Orenda saw now, without the mask, the intensity of his anger, “He brought Orenda out here! Brought her onto the open sea! Brought her to me! You know the Emerald Knight is chasing me!”

“You could have killed him,” She said.

“I only took his ear off,” Gareth argued, and marched over to where Toli still huddled on the deck. He grabbed him by the hair with his free hand and jerked him so that he was forced to look at him, at an angle so that he could speak into his good ear.

“Look at me, boy,” Gareth said, “Look at my face. The Emerald Knight gave me this scar. I survived that. You never had a chance.”

Toli was crying, sobbing with the pain, and Gareth seemed to think that would impede his listening ability, so he shook him by the hair. Adam still clung to him, as if he could protect him, as if he could do anything.

“If you ever do anything to put her in danger again,” Gareth said, “I’ll kill you. I’ll cook you alive and feed you to the monsters of the deep. I’ll destroy you. Do you understand me?”

“She… she wanted,” Toli said, and Orenda was amazed he had the courage to talk back, “She wanted to find you. She wanted to come. I’ve never hurt Orenda.” He narrowed his eyes and added, “You have.”

Orenda saw Gareth’s back shudder as he stood.

“Tie your ship to ours,” Gareth said, “Don’t try to run. If you try to run I’ll blast it apart.”

Orenda hated this man, and opened her mouth to tell him so, but she was cut off by Anilla, who had apparently come running up the stairs.

“What’s going on!?” She asked.

“A halfling?” Bella asked, “Are you from the north?”

“Yes!” Anilla said happily.

“So am I,” Bella told her, “You’re a long way from home.”

“Orenda,” Nochdifache unfurled the carpet and set it on the deck, “Come with me. I’ll… I’ll tell you everything. I’ll… I need a drink.”

Tolith hissed in pain as Adamayern ran a piece of cloth over his ear, and Orenda saw that it was destroyed. Even with the flesh knitted back together it was half the size it should be, and she doubted it functioned at all for actually hearing anything anymore. What was that thing? What had Gareth done to him?

“I’ll watch them,” Bella said, as if ‘watching’ the four crewmembers was nothing, as if there was no chance they could ever overpower her. She took a step closer to Orenda, then another, and her eye softened as she looked at her. She pulled her into a hug so fierce it suffocated her, as if she was afraid to let go, and Orenda wondered if that was what it felt like to be hugged by a mother.

“Oh, Orenda,” Bella said softly, “How I’ve dreamed of seeing you, alive and well and grown. Your mother would be so proud of you. We have to tell Xac. He considered you his child, too. Go with Gary. He’s not a bad person, he’s just made a bad impression.”

“The dragon?” Orenda asked, confused.

“What?” Bella pulled back and looked at her, “No, with Gary- Gareth. The dragon’s name is Draco, and he isn’t a dragon, not really. It’s a long story.”

“Oh,” Orenda said, and felt stupid for not figuring that out earlier. “And you’re… Bella?”

“Yes,” she said, “I’m your aunty.”

Orenda looked over her shoulder at where Gareth stood on the carpet with his mask in one hand and the other outstretched for her. She glared at him, did not take it, and stepped onto the carpet. The seasickness was completely gone as she felt it heat under her bare feet, and when they rose into the air, she felt like she was once again on land.