The sea was a little turbulent with continuous wind blowing, most probably a magically generated wind due to its consistency. Eiden was feeling the presence of ancient magic, friendly and protective, and the kinship was unmistakable.

"My lord, I think we are in the vicinity of the wards." a guard alerted Uncle, Eiden knew Uncle had already guessed that.

"Bring others here." Uncle ordered and stood up. The boat slowly stopped. Eiden was glad that he could stretch his legs.

"Enya, I expect you to safely dismantle the wards. Don't try to do anything else, you know how many lives depend on you." Uncle sternly ordered Eiden's mother while wrapping a hand around him. Mother's magic was tense and her eyes were failing to hide the pain. But she simply nodded and her chains fell.

Mother's stress was understandable, but Eiden thought Uncle and Esme both were tense and trying to suppress flinching. Then a horrifying thought came to him. Are they tainted by the shadows? Suddenly, Eiden started to see the pieces of the puzzle that bothered him last year, falling into place.

The shadows may rise and call

The treacherous may hear and fall

The darkness was not coming from outside. Eiden understood. Shadows only brought it forth from the hidden depths of one's own mind and amplified it. Uncle had been working in the fallen city and was very interested in the lost pieces of history. What if he had gotten contaminated?

And oh lord Azur! Papa said that he didn't want his brother to stay close to him, afraid that dark magic would affect him. Then, Evan and Esme were feeling the same. Eiden was shaken by this revelation. Were the shadows trying to take over their world and using his uncle to do their dirty work?

Uncle must have felt Eiden's sudden change in magic and his distress, he looked down. Eiden knew if any dark magic-infested shadow was here, it wouldn't like anyone knowing its plan. He looked away, watching his mother perform ward viewing and recognizing spells.

"I need to get much closer," Mother informed. According to her instructions, boats slowly moved forward, through the cleared path. Eiden wished he could tell Papa his suspicions, but Uncle was being very careful no one got close to Eiden, which made him miserable to think he was everyone's weak point.

"Oh," Eiden exclaimed as he, along with everyone else, was surprised by the sudden appearance of thick white fog, rolling over the sea. Either an illusion or mist-generating spell attached to the wards. Yet, he thought he could sense that there was a different kind of magic, a familiar feeling.

"Stop," Mother ordered the captain.

"I want to talk to Lord Stravros," Mother requested, and after a little hesitation, Uncle gave her permission.

"Uncle, I think some magical sea creatures are ahead. The fog must be their creation." Mother explained to Papa.

"Hmm..I think so too. How about we communicate with them? We can introduce ourselves and ask permission to cross." Papa looked at Uncle for an answer.

Uncle seemed to weigh their options and it was likely to be the best solution. Uncle ordered the guards to take all the prisoners, including Eiden, to the bridge cabin and not let anyone talk to each other. Eiden was very disappointed. He'd have liked to see any sentient sea creatures and try to tell them in some way about their situation.

Eiden's head was covered by a hood similar to the other prisoners, dragged to the cabin, and thrown to the floor. Eiden strained his ears to listen to what was going on outside.

"I speak to the creatures of the sea. I, Enya, the daughter of Esrion, the warden of the gate to Anyar, ask permission for a safe passage for the islet of Cora." Eiden heard Mother's clear voice, magically amplified, speaking in both old Terish and new Terish languages.

A while later, a musical voice came from far away.

"I, Kara, with the people of Kracotas, speak to the daughter of the warden of the gate. We long awaited your coming. Let us see you, and know you as the true heir."

Then, with a loud splash, he felt the magic of the speaker. Oh, similar to his friends, Eiden realized. These people too must have gained the humanoid forms from the magic that was brought to Earth. Since they were an isolated community, he guessed that they hadn't been subjected to suppression by humans.

"Greetings to you, Kara, I am Enya from Celiona," Mother introduced herself.

"Greetings to you, Enya, it is a pleasure to see you. We cherish the memory of Lord Esrion, his love for the creatures of the sea is well known. Please forgive me, but touch this and we can recognize you are his blood and magic." Kara said. Her voice was beautiful, like a combination of the soft murmur of gentle waves, and raindrops splashing on water.

"Thank you, Enya. I, Kara recognize you as Lord Esrion's true heir. We grant you safe passage. The fog will dissipate only along the passage. The Lord's words for us, let my heir find the way. But, answer them for the call of need. Safe Journey, Lady Enya." Kara must have done a sort of identification test.

"I am grateful to you, Kara. Thank you." Another splash. Then, Eiden heard footsteps.

"Only young master Eiden, without shackles, with magic block and wristbands," someone told the guards. Eiden was pulled to his feet, and the shackles fell, but his magic was blocked before. The wristbands were like a smaller version of shackles, packed with wards to stop any magic passing through his cryslet.

Eiden looked around as he was taken to Uncle. It was like they were passing through clouds, and the fog parted allowing the boats to go through, then connected again behind them without leaving a hint of a passage. It was beautiful and mysterious, Eiden had a sudden urge to touch the clouds, which quickly dissipated by his uncle's presence.

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"Eiden, behave yourself, I don't constantly need to remind you, do I?" Uncle asked quietly, and he nodded in confirmation. Without magic to warm himself, he had to depend on the thin shirt and jacket on him, and Eiden shivered as the chilly wind blew over the deck. It was almost late evening, and Eiden thought they might stop for the night after the fog bank. What must have felt like hours they finally crossed the fog bank and entered the open sea.

"We will anchor here," after talking with all the captains, Uncle informed them.

He was thrown to an extremely secured smaller cabin at the bottom of the Uncle's ship, only with a mattress to sleep on. Papa and his parents too must have stuffed into these types of secured lower cabins, Eiden tapped the cabin walls, yet received no response.

Probably because of being in the sea air, he was still hungry which disturbed his already restless sleep. Eiden heard footsteps outside, guards must be working shifts. Then, a click of the door unlocked. Who's coming at this hour?

A guard entered with a tray of two apples and a few cookies with a mug of tea. Eiden was surprised by this kindness of giving more food, but, who was going to question that, he thanked the guard, and finished the cookies and tea in a record time.

Much better. Leaning against the wooden planks, feeling the sea on the other side, he thought about sea people. After meeting with Clade, Cissa, and Nub Eiden learned how much broader the world was and the diversity of the different cultures had fascinated him. Probably, Kara looked like half fish, he imagined matching appearances for sea people, munching his apple, like Clade got a lizard-type tail.

What. Eiden looked at the half-eaten apple. He had bitten into something unusual. His first thought was to throw away the apple and drink the whole bottle of water. Once, he got the scare of a lifetime by biting into an apple with a caterpillar inside, a nasty prank by Evan, which made Eiden scream, throw it, and reject all the food for days.

Oh.Evan. Standing under the small magical light, he carefully checked inside the apple. The modified prank spell was to replace apple seeds with something else. Eiden found a small rolled parchment in the apple core. It was a jumble of words with no punctuation like someone tried to write with great difficulty.

Cat girl safe Rennin want her so I took first hard write dark not allow sory no help but want try dad dark try kill

The last word, letters were so deformed and smudged Eiden could only guess. His hunch was right, Uncle was under dark influence. Evan was fighting. Eiden was sure that Evan somehow changed by the trip to the shadow dimension. Eiden fought the darkness and barely won, Evan tried to fight so hard against the influence when Jake just gave in and acted upon its needs.

He was immensely glad that Nub was safe; he wished he could tell his friends that, but he hadn't seen them. Marveled at Evan's idea to use the apple to send the message, he prayed his cousin wouldn't get into trouble over this.

There was no way to discard the message and Eiden didn't want to keep it either. So, he took a deep breath and ate the parchment with the rest of the apple. The second apple was bitten carefully and checked the core, but it was a normal apple. Eiden tried to think about a way that could help them to escape, finally exhausted, and fell asleep.

He was taken to the deck early in the morning, and they were getting ready to depart. He spotted Evan but Evan didn't give any helpful clues for fighting the darkness. Eiden's sensitivity to magic was also limited when his magic was blocked and probably that was the reason he couldn't sense the influence of shadows in his uncle, even when they were in close vicinity.

After the fog bank, Mother said the wards mostly need a lot of magic to unravel, because of their complex nature. They were designed for someone magically powerful to figure out the way, and their whole morning was spent slowly advancing the boats through an unseen maze of restrictive wards.

Just after lunch, Mother announced that they were encountering an illusion which was a heavily crowded area of floating icebergs to the horizon, with no space to move a boat.

According to Mother and Papa whose consultation Mother sought, some of them were supposed to be real and some of them were illusions. The only way to know which was which, find the combination that was required to clear a path and shatter the illusion that hides the island. Papa confirmed the island was close by, therefore this must be the last obstacle before reaching the islet of Cora.

Uncle ordered a few guards to get in the water with a small boat from his ship and ride through the icebergs and find if there were any hidden magical items or ward anchors that could be removed, to dismantle the illusion.

However, the guards were unable to locate any, and they also complained that the icebergs might randomly change positions because they felt like they had passed the same iceberg in different locations.

"Cousin, I don't think the guards could locate whatever it is. It's possible that they better respond to my magic rather than theirs."

Eiden was so bored without anyone to talk to and nothing to do, in the gloomy darkness which was creeping in. He was dozing off when Mother finally asked Uncle permission to locate them on her own. Eiden wasn't interested as he knew that if anyone could find something here it would be his mother.

Luckily, due to extremely cold weather, he was given a warmed fleece blanket, and he cuddled up with that, yawning and only opened one eye to see Mother talking. The constant lull in the boat was like sitting in a giant cradle, and Eiden didn't bother to listen to their conversation anymore as he closed his eyes to go to sleep.

Eiden wasn't sure he actually was asleep or in a lucid state when he was roughly shaken to wakefulness. He blinked sleepily suppressing another yawn, looking at the guard, while he was taken somewhere. Oh. Mm. Why?

He looked back and forth at his mother and Uncle.

"Eiden, you're going down there and I want results. I don't care how long it takes."

Eiden's mind was still half asleep and he didn't realize what Uncle asked. Hearing an annoyed hiss and a growl, he turned around to see that Cissa and Clade too dragged by the guards, and were thrown to the floor by Uncle's feet.

"Err...What's going on?" Eiden turned to Uncle and Mother.

Mother looked dismally at Uncle, who added some enchantments to the wristband he wore before, which allowed Uncle to keep Eiden's magic in check. A guard held Eiden's hand when Uncle fastened it.

"Eiden, you know, I have no use for these creatures. A tiny change of heart I detect, every small change in your magic is going to be their death sentence. Understand?"

Now, fully awake, Eiden realized that Uncle was telling him to dive into the ice-cold sea and look for something only Azur knows what, after a whole bunch of guards had searched for that for hours with a boat, still returned with empty hands. He gulped first looking at his hand, then his friends, and turned to Uncle and shocked Mother.

"What kind of things do I need to look for?" he asked dejectedly.

"Star, it seems one or more icebergs are holding the key to remove the illusion. Try to let your magic sense them, okay? Because it's familial magic, you will feel them if you get closer." Mother helplessly looked at the ocean where hundreds of large icebergs were floating.

"Okay," Eiden shrugged. He had done underwater diving a few times, but it was all for fun. He felt a bit scared as he looked into the rapidly darkening night, and Uncle shrugged off Mother's pleas to wait for the Morning.

"If he doesn't find anything, then we wait for the morning," Uncle said firmly with no space for arguments.