I turned him over so that he was face-up on the wooden floor of the ship’s deck and checked his vitals. He wasn’t breathing and was cold to the touch. Luckily, one of the first spell groups that Seika had taught us during her classes was first aid. This group consisted of everything a novice spellcaster could do to take care of someone until a healer reached the site, including the removal of water from lungs.

Before that point, I hadn’t thought that I would ever need those spells but Seika had made a point of us repeating them and memorizing them perfectly. I couldn’t understand the logic behind this, but I kept up her tradition even after I began teaching the classes. And thank The Divine that I did.

Name : Clear Lungs

School of Magic : Evocation

Verbal Components : 8 words

Somatic Components : Simple

Material Component : None

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 1,100

Range : Touch

Casting Time : 6 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : A spell specifically aimed to remove water or poisonous gases from the lungs of creatures. The process takes effect instantly and the removed substances are teleported outside of the creature’s lungs instead of exiting the way they came in so as to prevent further damage.

I started chanting the 8-word incantation rapidly and repeatedly, keeping my hands on his chest. Healing spells always carried the biggest Divine Mana cost and I was grateful I had as much as I did at this moment.

After four or five repetitions of the spell, Kai started breathing again, and so did I. I shook him and he opened his eyes. Now that I knew he was safe, my panic quickly turned into anger.

“What were you doing up there, damn it?” I screamed at him.

“Why do you care?” he said as he squirmed away from me on the deck. “You don’t talk to me, you don’t look at me. You don’t care whether I live or die.”

“That’s not true—” I started.

“Liar!” he interrupted me. “You don’t care about me. If you did, you would have listened to me when I tried to explain how this happened. You would have asked how I felt and you wouldn’t have assumed that this was something I wanted to happen.”

I was taken aback. “Kai, I didn’t—” I tried to explain myself.

“No, you didn’t, Myriam.” His tone of voice changed from loud and angry to quieter and trembling. He looked on the verge of the tears. “You think I wanted them to die? I don’t even remember doing any of this. The last thing I remember was that guy hitting you and me trying to reach him. To get him off of you.”

He was right. Ι’d never asked for his side of the story. I was so focused on us reaching the other side of the Endless Sea that I hadn’t given him a chance. I thought that this would teach him a lesson, but I never thought a child his age would think of ending his own life.

“I woke up here,” he continued, his voice even softer now, “among all these bodies. And since then, over the past days, you’ve treated me like some kind of monster.”

“Kai, I honestly didn’t—”

“I was aching for a kind word all these days,” he continued and I could see tears now running down his cheeks and dropping on the wooden deck. “But you proved day after day that you don’t care about me. You’re all I have left. How could I continue living knowing what I did? Knowing that I’m a monster. And worst of all, how could I live with you hating me?”

He now fell down on all fours and burst out crying. Immediately, I felt guilty about how blind I’d been. I was so stupid to think that Kai, the boy that I practically grew up with, would ever be capable of such a heinous act. And instead of focusing on him, even if that meant floating adrift for a few more days, I just ran around trying to operate the ship.

Now, more than ever, it was clear that this was undoubtedly the work of some kind of magical power that acted through him. Kai was unaware of what he did during the liturgy and was shocked to find himself among all those bodies on the ship. By The Divine, I had called him a butcher in the moment when he was most vulnerable and terrified.

“I know this wasn’t you, Kai,” I said in a reassuring voice, and pulled him into my arms. “You are not responsible for this.”

He tried to push me away, but I locked my hands behind his back. After a few seconds, he stopped resisting and leaned into me, crying even harder.

“I’m sorry Myriam,” he said, his voice muffled by my robes. “I just wanted the pain to stop.”

“I’ll help you make the pain stop,” I responded, tears running down my cheeks now as well. “I’ll make sure that this… this power never takes control again. We’ll find a way to get rid of it.”

“You really think we can do that?” he asked, and for the first time in a long time, he looked at me with a glint of hope in his eyes.

“We’ll do everything we can,” I started saying, more determined than ever, “to get rid of this power, whatever it is. Together we will do it.”

He didn’t say anything, but rather gave me a hint of a smile, just before he hid his face in my arms again. We remained in our embrace for several minutes until the light I had created with my spell finally faded out.

“Let’s go back to the captain’s cabin,” I said, as we pulled ourselves back from hugging. “And let’s get you back to your normal color.”

He nodded.

Thus, we retreated to the captain’s cabin and I recast the minor metamorphosis spell that changed the color of his skin, hair, and eyes.

“What about your hair, Myriam?” he asked me, once his skin was completely transformed. “Don’t you have a spell to grow it again?”

“I think I’ll let it grow itself,” I replied with a smile. “I kinda like it short anyway. Don’t you? Why waste the mana.”

“Well, yes, it’s nice,” he replied hesitantly. “It’s just that I am not used to it yet, I guess.”

I wasn’t used to it yet either in truth. There were so many times during the past few days that my anxiety crippled me and the one release I had—pulling my hair— was no longer available to me. But this way I was forced out of my comfort zone. My hair would serve as a reminder of how careful I should be and how dangerous people can be.

Kai had now put a map onto the big wooden desk in the middle of the room and was examining it closely.

“This map has the route that we are supposed to be traveling on,” he said, as he followed a line on the map with his right hand. “There are numbers every now and then as well.”

“This must be the number of traveling days,” I concluded, after taking a closer look at the map. “Probably so that they know when they need to change directions.”

“Considering how many days we’ve been traveling,” Kai said, as he counted the days, “we’re probably quite close to the south side of the sea.”

“We should see land again in a day or two,” I agreed, as I pointed to what I thought was our position on the map. “I know it wasn’t in our immediate plans, Kai, but I don’t think there’s a way for us to return to Elysia now.”

“I think you’re right,” he replied, but I was happy to see that the fact did not seem to trouble him at all. “I guess we’ll have to find a place to live on this side of the Endless Sea.”

“It’s not so bad if you think about it,” I began. “Having no mana is the norm here. I can easily pose as manaless, but we would have problems if you had to pretend to have mana had we decided to stay in Elysia.”

Kai replied with a smile. “I can’t wait to get there.”

I didn’t know what we were going to do with all the bodies on board, neither did I have any clue what sort of funeral rites pirates performed. What I did know was that I wasn’t going to leave the ship adrift—firstly, because my preservation spell would gradually fade and the bodies would decompose on a ghost ship, and secondly, because if we made it close to the coastline and abandoned ship to reach land, chances were that the currents would lead it to a reef or rocks, damning the dead to the fate that I had tried to avoid by preserving them.

There was, of course, the possibility that somebody would find the ship, but that had its own pros and cons. On the one hand, the people who saw the ship would also see its black pirate sails and may attack it on sight. And if they boarded it, they would find the magically preserved dead bodies of people who died by magical means, which might have grander implications than I could imagine.

On the other hand though, it could be that people who found the ship adrift, would board it and give a proper burial to the dead. They might even subsequently use it for a good purpose.

In the end though, I had to admit the possibilities that something could go wrong were too high and Kai agreed. In the end, I decided to perform a version of our own people’s funeral of fire and water.

The funeral rite was typically performed on the waters of our river Strymon but in its absence, the currents of the vast sea would have to do. I knew that it would be easy to set a big body of wood on fire, but having it burn completely while on water could prove challenging, especially without a flammable solution at hand.

I thought that pirates like these would probably have had some barrels of flammable liquid case of naval attacks but I didn’t want to go to the lower decks any more than I wanted to send Kai back down there. For this reason, I thought best to stick to the best fire-based spells I could remember.

“We also need a way to escape the ship,” I said.

“What about the bodies?” Kai asked timidly, in a way that suggested he wasn’t keen to touch that subject again.

“I have a plan for the bodies,” I replied, not wanting to include him in anything related to the bodies any more than was absolutely necessary. “But we need to find a way to jump ship before we get too close to the land.”

“But if we’re not close, how are we supposed to reach safely?”

“That’s what we need to figure out,” I replied. “If we get too close, we might be spotted by people of Leka An, or betrayed by shallow reefs.”

“Bring me my Carta Magica,” I said, giving him a task that would help me, “and let’s consider our options for a bit.”

He put the big book on the cedar desk that belonged to the pirate captain and we both took chairs to sit down in front of it. We went through my spell repertoire and tried to decide on our options. I first thought of what I wanted to achieve and wrote down my goals in order of importance.