Mortal Magic: Broken
The Stargazer

The late king’s funeral was arranged for the very next day and they barely managed to convince me to attend myself. They literally had to drag me out of the room until I gave up and got ready willingly. It was customary here to burn the deceased king’s body and let the hair to the throne scatter his ashes in the sea behind the castle. Since I wasn’t the next in line anymore this wasn’t my duty, but Victor insisted I do it anyway. He said that it would make him happy.

By then I had seen that even though I was the one who took his death the hardest, others were not unaffected. I may have lost my actual father and possibly a part of myself when I snapped, but Yuto had lost his closest friend, and from what I learned Victor had lost the man he grew looking up to when he was younger. My emotional fits were long gone before the funeral but I was sure that everyone could tell that it would take time to get over this. Time I didn’t have right now. When I scattered his ashes in the waters from the beach I felt more exhausted than I had ever been in my whole life.

After the funeral Victor asked to talk to us and so myself Maia and Yuto followed him to a small room that he claimed no one would hear us converse. And there he told us that the man in the responsible for the murder was hired by Lars. In that moment I almost used my master arte again and barely I held myself from summoning that different realm to overlap reality. When I opened my eyes from the concentration it took me to not act on my anger I took a deep breath and then spoke with a cold and distant voice more to myself than the others. “There is no place to hide where I won’t replace him, and when I do I’m going to enjoy killing him”.

I could sense the tension and worry around me in the air as everyone had their eyes on me ready to reason with me in case I lost it. Somehow they knew that I was unstable and with just the slightest of provocations I could turn into a madman. I assured them that I could keep myself sane until this was done, and I would do so. And then, if I was still alive and remotely myself I would work on getting better. What I never told them though was that if I couldn’t save Ashe I was going to take Lars to the grave with me after I killed him with the most painful and excruciating way I could fathom at the moment.

Victor cleared his throat after my threat and spoke again with his previous fear evident in his voice along with his worry that never faded. “From what Yuto told me you need to cross the sea and go to the eastern continent. The journey is three days by ship if the winds are in your favor but with a wind elemental magus that won’t be a problem. Then after you arrive to Whitespire the capital city of the continent you need to pass through the wilderness and a forest that looks like a labyrinth since the only way to pass through is through the numerous caves. Cutting through the trees is not an option because they are more of a labyrinth than the caves themselves. After that you will reach the ancient ruins of the first civilization to that continent and the only one to be abandoned, Blackspire. That is your destination”.

The whole time he was talking I was taking heed of his words and already counting the days it would take us to get to Blackspire. Maia seemed to have a keen interest on the two towns, especially the ancient one. “I’ve heard of the two cities. Blackspire was once the first settlement of the continent and decades after it was formed it was a city build from black marble and took its final name from the castle at the center, castle Blackspire. After for some mysterious reason the city was abandoned, and the few remaining people that lived there before moved to the coast where they made an exact replica of Blackspire from white marble and named it Whitespire”.

She seemed to be fascinated by the history of the two twin castles and that made my heart lighten a bit. Her smile was always something I cherished, especially now. “Yes the history of the two cities is extraordinary but there is another matter that I must bring to your attention. There are no ships sailing for three days due to the late king’s death”. That was a big problem. Without a ship we were doomed to fail from the very start. I had to replace a way to cross the sea today, tomorrow at best. If I stayed here longer than that then there won’t be enough time to go to Blackspire.

Right when I was about to protest Victor stopped me with his hand in the air and continued. “However you can take one of the royal ships. They are faster than the ships of the fishermen and transport ships and each and every one that leaves the docks has a wind magus on it. It will take you two days at the very least but I will need to make preparations. If all goes well you will be able to set sail tonight, in a few hours”.

At least this was good news. I was sure that alone I would never replace a ship that fast and that saved me from hours of running around and asking and I wouldn’t even have the money for the trip. “Thank you Victor, I won’t forget this”. It wasn’t often that I thanked someone and that said a lot about what it meant for me to say those words. I saw the smile on Victor’s face before he spoke again. “Think nothing of it. Just promise me that you will not let her be sacrificed. I loved that girl like my own daughter; I would do anything to help her. Now, go rest. I will tell the maids to replace you new clothes and prepare baths for you and after you eat everything will be ready for you”.

I nodded my head and made for the door. They had assigned me a new room since I had so thoroughly destroyed mostly everything I could in the last one. That one was on the other side of the same corridor and closer to Maia’s even though she still slept with me. I got inside the room that was more or less the same as my previous one with the exception that this one didn’t have a mirror in it. Maybe they took it out after I punched the last one. I even asked Maia to not heal my hands and let them heal on their own pace so that I could still feel the pain when I closed my hand. She did however take the glass out and tied it to prevent infection.

I got on the bed and dozed off for a while and woke up to a knock on my door. I got up to open it and when I did I saw a maid waiting on the other side with her head tilt down and a serious blush on her sad face. “Your bath is ready”. That was the only thing she said as she waited for me to follow her. The entire time we walked down the corridor I kept studying her features, thinking they were familiar at the very least. She had a slightly dark complexion and two or three freckles on her cheeks. Her forehead was thin and complimented the oval shape of her head, and her eyes were a dark brown color that I swore I had seen before.

A few doors before we reached the chamber of the royal baths as I liked to mock call them her identity was no longer a mystery. It was her. Someone had clearly set this meeting up I was sure. Still looking at her intensely I spoke to her for the first time. “You are Nora, aren’t you”? I need not ask her of her identity, there was no mistaking it was her. She surely looked like her father in some ways. Those brown eyes were living proof of that.

She stopped mid-pace and with her head facing the floor once more she looked at me from the corner of her eyes and nodded. “You remember”. Just because I figured out it was her she assumed I remembered who she was. She was expecting too much of me. “To tell you the truth I don’t. Your father told me about you before he realized I don’t remember my life from here. He said you were a maid and you don’t look that different. I just put two and two together and figured it out”. There was no need to be gentle with the subject. I knew that deep down she knew that I didn’t remember her since I never sought her out. Lying to her would be worse than the truth.

Her face grew sadder and she raised her head and looked at me directly locking our eyes together. She went to say something but then released her breath and looked in front of her again giving up. She realized I wasn’t the boy she knew and the man I had become was a total stranger to her. The only thing about me that was still the same was my eyes, nothing else. We reached the bath and she entered with me and at first I didn’t understand. But as I started undressing it became clear. “I can wash myself Nora; I’ve been doing it for years. You can go”.

She hesitated at first but as I was not saying anything and kept undressing further she turned around and left closing the door behind her. The bath was made into the floor. A large hole taking most of the space of the back of the room covered in the same stone as the rest of the floor filled with warm water. The same trick with elemental magic was used to bring the water in from a hole in the structure and then a fire magus could have used magic to warm it. The rest of the room was plain, two benches and four buckets for washing later in a smaller hole on the floor for the water to flow away and places to leave the cloths and other objects and items.

I didn’t stay for long and after I finished and saw the clothes I was given I was surprised. They were regular cloths that one would replace in the city. I was surprised because those were exactly what I needed and not those fancy tunics I wore while I was here. Victor must have thought that it would be suspicious wearing such cloths and we wouldn’t blend in like we needed to do. He had a good mind I had to give it to him. He ever orchestrated all this in less than a day.

When the sun was about to set and we went to the city docks along with five guards to leave. The guards were vigilant all the way. They must be careful since the incident yesterday I though. On the big docks were many large ships and many more boats fishermen used. However the royal ships were quite distinguishable from the others and yet didn’t pass for more than fancy ships that any wealthy man could own.

We stopped in front of moderately average sized ship. There was nothing unusual with the ship, the only difference it had from the others was that this one had more sails and no weapons on it. The absence of cannons served most likely to reduce the weight on the ship and maximize its speed. What really caught my eye though was the fact that the bowsprit of the ship seemed to be a carved boy with his left hand over his eyes looking at the horizon. “This is the fastest ship we have at our disposal, the Stargazer. It is not built for offensive use but rather for travels, exploring, and of course mapping”.

I was having a slight difficulty believing that this ship was used for mapping. Surely there must be maps of the whole world already. My disbelief did not go unnoticed and Victor continued with a chuckle. “Yes there are probably many maps for many parts of the world, and surely one that depicts every part of it. But that doesn’t mean that’s all there is to it, we have found many places that never made it to a map and many of them look like ruins from the old age”. I was sure that this had already piqued Maia’s curiosity and I saw her wide smile in the mention of the ruins. She was hopeless in that aspect of her character.

“Anyway, the crew is ready and waiting to depart. On board apart from the standard crew to pilot the ship and the captain there will be our best wind magus to ensure that you will have the most of what the winds have to give. They are instructed to return immediately after they drop you off at the docks of Whitespire as to not raise suspicion. When you are done have a magus send message to me and I will arrange transport then”. After I deal with Lars and save Ashe would I want to return to this continent? We lived on the eastern one before but there was nothing there for us anymore. Our home was burnt to the ground and we didn’t have anything here either. Maia would want to return though.

I simply nodded and he waved us for us to board the ship. This was my first time boarding one so I wasn’t exactly prepared for the rocking of the ship after I stepped foot on it. And neither was I prepared for all the hard stares I was given. Even after Maia and Yuto came to view the eyes were still focused on me. It wasn’t unexpected of them to know about us, or me more specifically. Most of the city knew by now that a new master magus had risen to his potential and I was informed I was the youngest magus to attain mastery of magic in the age of eighteen.

I ignored the stares and then one of the men came closer to us. He was big like most of them but he was clearly different from the others. He carried an air of authority so I knew from the start that he was the captain of this ship. His skin was dark brown and it looked like it was shining under the sun with all the sweat covering him, even his entirely bald head was shining. There was an ink branding that Yuto told me were called tattoos when I asked him that covered the right half of his neck like black vines or something that came out to his right forearm too, and he was wearing a set of golden earrings. He was wearing light clothes, his sleeveless shirt mostly unbuttoned and gauze pants as to not constrict movement. Mostly everyone was wearing something similar except for the two women on deck that had their shirts buttoned and one or two men that were not wearing shirts at all.

“I see our company has arrived. And for once the rumors are true; your hair truly is silver like the moon. My name is Claudius and I’m this ship’s proud captain”. His voice was rough and fit his huge bulging figure perfectly as one would expect. On his own he was someone that would normally inspire fear just with his towering body. The way he spoke though made him sound gentle and compassionate and that was something I would never expect at first glance. “Now that you are here we are ready to leave. For the duration of the journey you will be sleeping with the rest of the crew below deck. You are allowed to wander anywhere on the ship but you should not obstruct our job ideally. That is basically all you need to know for the two days to pass”.

He came closer to me and gave me his hand to shake which I did. His grip was tight and had I not been prepared for it, it would have likely hurt my hand that was still healing. “Welcome aboard gentlemen. And lady of course”. With a big smile he left us and started giving orders to his crew and that was when Victor spoke up again. “I’ve known Claudius for many years; he is a good man and will get you to Whitespire safely. Here, this is for whatever expenses you may encounter”. He gave Yuto who was closer a big pouch filled with coins that I could hear hitting one another from here.

“Take care of yourself Victor, until the next time we meet”. They shook hands and Victor got off the ship and then the men on the docks took the floorboards that we used to board. It took us half an hour to make all the necessary preparations and depart and as the city of Starkhaven was slowly getting further and further away I couldn’t stop looking at the central continent. This could be the last time I see these lands again for a while, or maybe the last time in my life. Leaving that place to go to a place where my demise would be the most likely outcome proved to be harder than I thought after all.