Calris stood alone on the deck of The Crimson Tide, looking out at the full moon’s light dancing across the obsidian waves. Night was beautiful on the open seas, even if the sight always made him uneasy. He had possessed an overactive imagination since childhood and he couldn’t help but see horrific monsters in his mind’s eye, unholy monsters circling his pathetically flimsy wooden vessel, savouring the kill before striking in a storm of destruction and gnashing teeth.

It didn’t help that sailors, the only people more superstitious than soldiers, told stories of fleets in ages past torn apart by giant octopuses and colossal whales with fangs instead of baleen. Calris told himself they were just stories made up to scare the young Crows and ship’s servants, but he knew at least some of the old stories were true. After all, the day he and Ban had come across one of those legends was forever marked upon his face.

And now I find out someone was fucking around with ancient magic just next door.

Calris’ feeling of unease had increased since they put out from port, and he found himself scratching at the new scar on his side, phantom pains still giving him grief though he knew the silvery skin was all that remained of what may have otherwise been a fatal wound. One such pain had seen him unable to sleep tonight, hence why he was up on deck. He sighed and hung his head. The hope the salty breeze might clear his head had been futile.

Instead, he kept stewing in his doubts, an unfamiliar and unpleasant new feeling. Assassins with magical trinkets. The Guild Master with his fingers in every pie in every major city in the known world. Mages who called storms of fire upon their foes, and ancient magic that could annihilate armies and rip continents in half. And there, at the centre of it all was an innocuous little block of metal of unprecedented and unknown power.

The same little block in the cargo hold below, which he and Ban and the others were to protect? They were some of the finest fighters in the world, but they were still only human. They had no business getting mixed up in all of this.

And yet, Calris couldn’t shake the feeling from Ferez’s tower. That maybe he could close that chapter of his life for good, instead of stuffing it down into a box in the depths of his mind. If he just followed the path illuminated by that little cube. Footsteps behind him pulled Calris from his thoughts.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Ferez asked as he walked up to the railing beside the young marine.

“Not really. You?”

“Not really. I hate travelling on boats. Maybe something about floating on large bodies of water makes me nervous,” Ferez said as he snapped his fingers, calling a ball of flame into existence. “Opposite elements and all that.”

He chuckled, then clenched his fist, and the flame snuffed out.

“Also I’ve almost drowned a few times. It’s a story. A couple, actually. Anyway, are you scared?” he asked.

“Of course not! But I have to admit, all… this,” Calris said, gesturing at nothing in particular, “is a bit beyond what I’m used to.”

“You seem to be a very talented fighter, Calris. You have less reason to fear conflict than most.”

“True, I’m a badass, but I’ll put it to you this way; in battle, there’s an element of chance whether you live or die, but you still get a pretty good say in the matter. If you are faster, stronger and better than the other guy, your odds are good. If your mate next to you is good, your odds are great. But if someone hits me with a fireball so hot the ground turns to glass? I’m fucked, and there’s not much I can do about it.”

“I understand. But remember, I’m the one throwing fireballs, and I’ve become quite adept at avoiding collateral damage over the years,” Ferez said, giving Calris a reassuring smile.

“I didn’t mean you, Ferez.”

“Oh, Politis? Do not fear. I will deal with him when the time comes.”

“I was talking about Jasmine.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Ferez sighed heavily and turned his back to the sea, resting his elbows against the rail. He was silent for a long while, the night wind blowing his faded red hair about his face.

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“She won’t do that again. I made sure she understood the error of her actions.”

“And I bet she never disobeys you, right?”

“Ha! All the time. It’s why my hair is going grey. But she knows when not to push it.”

Calris silently regarded the waves, just enjoying the company as he watched the moonlight flicker on the sea’s surface. He had a question he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure how to broach it.

“So, what is it between you two anyway?” he finally asked, deciding the direct approach was probably the best with Ferez. “You seem more like father and daughter than master and apprentice.”

Ferez shifted his weight but remained silent. Calris turned to get a better look at the mage’s face and found an odd, strained expression, a mixture of anger and sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Calris said quickly, “it’s none of my business, I shouldn’t have pried.”

Because, of course, he managed to hit a raw nerve within a few seconds of talking.

“No, no, it is quite alright, Calris,” Ferez replied. He took a breath, a war of emotions playing across his face. When he spoke again, his voice was different. Grave and low.

“I found her before her tenth birthday,” he said. “You know of Talent? The source of a mage’s power?”

Calris nodded. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Well,” Ferez continued, “we can sense it, in large amounts. The average person doesn’t have enough to register, but imbued Resonance Ore and other mages we can… ‘detect’, in a manner of speaking. It’s how we find children with the gift of magic to bring to the colleges. The greater the latent power, the further away we can sense them. The mage who found me sensed my Talent from the outskirts of my city. A distance of about a mile, give or take. I sensed Jasmine from a day’s sail away.”

Calris whistled. “So, she’s more powerful than you are?”

Now he didn’t feel so bad about how easily she had knocked him out.

“Not yet, but one day she will be. Though she is but an apprentice, still learning how to draw out and use her full powers, her abilities rival those of most Adepts. She will be a force to be reckoned with one day,” Ferez chuckled. Though he smiled when he spoke, he still looked sad.

“When you found her, where was she?”

“In chains. Caged. I do not know what happened to her parents. She has never told me outright, though I suspect they sold her into slavery. The things she endured in that place…” Ferez faltered as he wiped away the tears streaming down his face. “I took her away from there. Brought her with me back to The Six and began teaching her magic until she was old enough to take the entrance exam. I’m the only family she has.”

“I see.”

Calris felt guilty for having judged her. He couldn’t imagine it, kept and abused by slavers. And being sold by her own parents? Her demeanour made a lot more sense now. Calris resolved to be nicer to Jasmine from now on. Or try to, anyway.

“The slavers…” Calris asked, “what happened to them?”

Ferez’s face twisted into a snarl. “The world has forgotten their existence. Not even their bones remain to fill unmarked graves.”

Calris smiled. “A happy ending, at least.”

A small smile crept onto Ferez’s face. “I agree. The world is a better place without them, though not many would consider the deaths of hundreds of men a good thing, regardless of circumstance,” he replied, a curious expression on his face that Calris couldn’t quite figure out.

“Sure, but not you or I.”

“Indeed not, Calris, but it makes me wonder, why do you fight?”

The metaphorical whiplash almost snapped Calris’ metaphorical neck.

“What? Why do you ask?” he replied, guarded.

“The life of a soldier, while exciting, is dangerous and often short. Few would willingly choose it. Battle, pain, death. These are things most people fear and shy away from, to the point they would prefer not even to discuss it. And yet, here we are, celebrating the deaths of so many men, even as you bear the phantom pain of your own near-fatal injuries. So I ask, why do you fight?”

Calris stared at Ferez, trying to read his face as he mulled over the question, but he was inscrutable. It wasn’t something he had given much thought to, if he was being honest.

He left his village seeking adventure, and he’d found it with the marines. He also happened to be damn good at fighting, which was a definite bonus. But more than that, he enjoyed it. Not the killing per se, he was no maniac, but the combat itself. The adrenaline coursing through his veins as he matched steel against steel, pitted in a life and death struggle that the stronger walked away from. It was a feeling he couldn’t put into words, so he settled for “because I’m good at it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“No, ‘for king and country’ or ‘for my brothers in arms’? No lofty ideals of justice or empire?”

“None whatsoever.”

Ferez stared at him for a long moment and scoffed, then pulled back from the railing and walked to the ladder. It was not the reaction Calris had been expecting.

“That’s it?” he called after the mage. “No ‘disappointed dad’ lecture?”

“None whatsoever, Calris,” Ferez called over his shoulder.

“Why?”

Calris couldn’t help but ask. Not that he cared, of course, but he was surprised by the mage’s indifference. Or that’s what he told himself.

“Because I do not believe you for a second,” Ferez said as he disappeared into the hold.

As he left, Calris leaned back against the railing and folded his arms across his chest. What did Ferez expect from him? That it was some, ‘impulse’, born from intense introspection that made him fight? Or a desire to make the world a better place? His village was a shitty place, and he had no trade or skills with which to make a living there.

Soldiering had been his best option, and so he’d taken it. There was nothing more to it than that. He shook his head and followed Ferez into the hold, heading for his bunk, which was easy to find in the dark courtesy of Ban’s snoring. Climbing into bed, wincing as the scar tissue pulled in his side, he laid down, breathing deeply as he stared at the roof of the cabin. The ship rocked gently, a steady, soothing motion. Even so, he suspected sleep would remain as elusive as before.