I saw blood dripping from Silden’s hand, and grabbed it, ignoring his wince as I opened his fingers to see the shards of the Focus embedded into his palm. “Was that even a spell? Did you figure out the unbinding?” I asked, pulling the shards out and letting them drop to the floor.

“Not exactly. I just tried to cast whatever came to mind first, like Lyre’s Focus was my own. Larina said something that made me think… and I… had a suspicion it might work,” Silden drew in a pained breath as the largest shard clattered to the floor. I placed my hand over his and concentrated on the healing I was able to do. As the skin on his hands began to knit back together, he looked over at Lyre. “You have to take her and leave immediately. Wrasker never intended for her to leave freely.”

I maintained my focus by ignoring the words to the best of my ability, but couldn’t stop the cold sweat that suddenly chilled me. “What do you mean?” Lyre demanded.

“After she had breakfast with the Captain, he summoned me in to cast on the mirror for him. He contacted the slave hunters in the nearest port, and explained that she had fallen out of the sky in some massive display of magic.” Silden addressed me as he continued to talk, “He doesn’t seem to think you’re a caster, but he suspects you’ve got some connection to the Empire and thought the hunters should collect you.” Silden clenched and unclenched his now healed hand and placed it on my shoulder. “I would have come sooner, but I was casting air for the sails after that, and was only now dismissed. We’re near to port now and they’ve had several hours to prepare to meet the ship.”

“They could be here by now,” Lyre groaned. He had jumped up and grabbed a large bag that already looked half filled with supplies from the chest near his bed. I looked at him in surprise as he shoved it into my hands – I didn’t know he had been gathering items as well. “I was going to sneak this off the ship for you. Nothing anyone would miss, but enough to get you started on your journey. Gather your stuff, quickly. We have to go now.” Nodding, I grabbed my clothes and the small red book from the chest and shoved the small towel on the table into the bag. I folded the smaller blanket and draped it over the top of the bag. Lyre placed a hand on Silden’s arm and spoke as I put on the belt, securing the dagger in place. “We should have gone with your plan. If we had left last night…”

The edge of his lips twitched upwards slightly, but Silden looked more worried than gratified. “I know,” he said.

“Maybe we can still get the rest of you out as well. The doctor still has Larina’s Focus – where is yours?” I said as I placed the bag on my back and slipped my knife into my pocket.

“You don’t have the time now,” Silden said, and I felt my stomach twist at the complete reversal of his previous position. Because it meant that we were finally out of time. As I finished that thought, his eyes went wide in shock, and I realized I could hear a clattering of several pairs of footsteps making their way down the hall. I could just barely make out the timber of the Captain’s voice speaking to someone, but couldn’t understand the words being said. Silden swiveled on his heel as the door opened.

For a moment, time seemed to slow down as I watched a blade bloom through his back. I felt the wet splatter of his blood hitting my face, and watched him crumple in front of me. “Hey, you’ll have to compensate me for that, that one’s valuable…” I heard Wrasker protest from somewhere in the hall.

In the doorway stood a man I didn’t recognize, dressed in dark leather armor. He stared at me impassively over Silden’s groaning, coughing figure, coppery-gold curls tumbled out from under his hood. He had once been ethereally beautiful, but standing out against the deep tan of his skin was a long pale scar – it ran across his face from the tip of his hairline to the bottom of the opposite jaw. The nose along the scar’s path had a notch in it, and the eye it crossed was a milky white. His other eye was almost as black as the pupil at its center. Both eyes were focused on me.

Lightning crackled around me suddenly – I watched the mismatched eyes widen in shock as he realized I could cast. I screamed and unleashed the jagged bolts of energy at the man. In almost the same instant, a glow enveloped Lyre and he shouted a spell and released an explosive ball of fire at him as well.

The man lifted his sword into the path of both spells – and a symbol glowed from within the hilt of the sword that somehow seemed to keep the spells from reaching him. Despite that, the overwhelming power of the unleashed energy couldn’t be fully stopped, blasting the man back through the opposite room and clear out of the ship, as well as completely wrecking the entire opposite side of the hall. I watched the splintered wood of the debris fall around us, felt the breeze of the sea sweep in through the new hole in the ship.

I immediately dropped to my knees, pushing pieces of wood off of Silden’s body. His eyes were wide and he was gasping and pale. I placed my hands over his wound and I tried healing him but felt so disoriented and unfocused and his blood seemed to be everywhere, too much blood to lose and still live, and I was shaking so hard, with adrenaline and terror and panic. I felt fingertips brush my shoulder. (Calm) a voice commanded in my ear. I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths, and focused. Silden had freed Lyre. I couldn’t let him die. I felt the wounds begin to knit under my hands.

I could hear Wrasker cursing in the hallway, then sounding shocked. “Lyre? How dare you, after all these years,” but his voice was cut off suddenly with a low whispered word from Lyre. Then Lyre’s voice rose, the echoey quality practically causing the words to boom as he commanded a storm of blades. I couldn’t see it from where I was, but I could hear the sound of metal scraping metal and clunking into wood and the screams as it cut into flesh.

I stood as I finished healing Silden, and stepped forward to see Lyre leaning down over Captain Wrasker’s body. He pulled an iridescent gem, carved into the shape of a bird, from one of Wrasker’s pockets and held it in his hand. He glowed faintly, but frowned after a moment and glanced at me. “This is Silden’s Focus, but what he did for me didn’t work.”

I turned back to Silden, who had sat up. He had a hand over his bloody robes, and he was paler than normal, but he was alive. Our eyes met and he nodded a brief wordless thanks, before saying to Lyre, “I think a slave has to do it. It’s the tether and the Focus not being correctly matched that breaks both.” Lyre immediately turned and ran down the hall of bodies. Silden stood, and I reached out to help steady him. He looked at the hole in the ship. “That hunter’s not far, and not dead. Neither of you have time for this.”

I gripped his arm, hard. “We have to make time. They’re not just going to let you live after this. We’ll all get out.” His expression was grim. We heard another explosion from above us. I tapped the straps of the pack and the hilt of the dagger to make sure they were in place, like I used to tap my pockets checking for the holy trilogy of the modern world (phone, keys, wallet). Ignoring the Captain’s body, I started to make my way down the hall, glancing back to make sure that Silden followed.

In a game, a blade storm spell usually summoned ethereal or magical swords to strike at people. It looked like the blade storm spell of this world had instead actually pulled all the swords from the sailors’ hands and sent them spinning indiscriminately down the hall. Some were stuck into the wood or had fallen to the ground, covered in blood, but others were also lodged into bodies – some, I realized, still coughing and groaning and reaching weakly for me as I passed. I felt a wave of horror and guilt wash over me for a moment as I stared down the hallway, seeing detached limbs and disemboweled stomachs and deep wounds, everything soaked in blood, blood pooling, blood dripping, and I froze, wondering if I should help someone. But then I saw Sarks – met his eyes as he reached for me, quietly saying “Please.” Maybe the rest of the men in the hall were innocent, maybe they didn’t deserve this. But seeing Sarks at least hardened my heart some, and I continued out of the hallway and into the open air of the deck.

As Silden stepped out onto the deck behind me, his own jagged tattoos lifted from his skin and shimmered as they dissipated into the air. Glancing around, I could see that the explosion had blasted a hole into part of the deck, and taken out a corner of the Captain’s cabin, and one of the sails was crisped at the edge and still smoldering. We both looked up to see Junel standing near the wheel, her hands dripping blood from the shards of Silden’s Focus. “We’re not going to get all of us out of this,” Silden said quietly, grimacing. “You shouldn’t have freed me,” he called up to Junel.

She smiled at him, as radiant as the sun. “I think I’ll do as I please for once,” she said. Then she turned to where Lyre stood, holding the first mate by the collar of his shirt. Lyre handed her something, which must’ve been her Focus because she glowed suddenly as he dropped it into her hand. The man lifted out of Lyre’s grip, crying out and blubbering what sounded like a plea for mercy. With a casual wave of her hand, she flung him into the ocean.

Then Lyre and Junel turned together to walk down the stairs, passing us as they made their way to the crew quarters. Silden and I watched them go for a moment.

“Go get Larina,” Silden said, seeming to rouse himself from his thoughts, “Let her know we’re leaving now.” And he turned to make his way into the Captain’s cabin. I was curious about what he was after, but I wordlessly nodded and made my way down below. From the crew quarters at the front of the ship I could hear the splintering of wood and the screams and shouts of the remaining sailors.

I didn’t have to go all the way down. Larina was standing at the foot of the stairs, her blue eyes wide as she looked up at me. “What’s happened?” she asked, her face pale, causing the yellowing of the bruises still on her face to stand out starkly.

“We’re getting out of here,” I said, gesturing for her to come up to me. She rushed up the stairs. As she reached me, I placed a hand on her shoulder and focused briefly on the healing spell, watching the bruises dissipate. She smiled and continued up past me. I paused briefly at the supply hold to put my hands on the first few rapiers I could grab and the crate of old clothes.

As I reached the top of the stairs, Larina turned back to look at me curiously. The tattoos on her face were gone. At some point while she had ascended the stairs, she had also obtained her freedom. I also realized it had gotten very quiet on the ship. “Why did you grab those?” she asked.

“I’m hoping there’s enough here to improvise a normal outfit for one or two of you. I’m guessing the robes mark you as slaves as much as the tethers?”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. Silden had already readied the small boat, lowering it to the ocean below. He was standing, casting his eyes about, a frown on his face as he gestured for Larina to go down to the boat first.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

“Hunters work in teams of three, but his boat was empty. Why was he alone?”

Frowning, I cast my gaze around. I realized we weren’t far off from land – in the distance, I could even make out a city with several ships sailing to and from its harbor. I shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t think I was going to be any trouble to take in? They didn’t know I could cast, and I’m sure they didn’t expect any of you to be freed,” I said, dropping the crate and blades down to Larina and making my way down as well. This smaller boat also had a sail on it, and I unfurled it and prepared for us to leave.

“I’m going to see what’s taking them,” Silden called down, sounding impatient to be gone, and he disappeared from view. I glanced around nervously, staring out towards the city, wondering how long we had before someone came to investigate the smoldering ship with holes in it. Silden couldn’t have been gone for more than a matter of seconds when I heard footsteps on the deck above and turned to look up into the black and white eyes of the hunter.

Larina cried out in surprise as she saw him, leaning back into the boat in fear. He slipped up onto the rail smoothly, prepared to jump off of the ship and down into the boat with us, his sword drawn and ready. I started to stand with a hand on the dagger hilt, the other outstretched, wondering if I could blast him back with a strong enough gust of wind… but just as his feet left the rail, Silden was there again. He appeared behind him, grabbing the back of his armor. With a growling wordless yell, Silden bodily flung him back and out of my sight. I saw a flash of light and heard the sound of something cracking wood. Nervously, I placed my hands on the hull of the ship as I heard the scuffle above continue. Then I heard the sound of Junel’s and Lyre’s voices joining Silden’s, and desperately wished I could see what was happening.

I heard Junel’s voice, louder and more commanding than I had heard it before, simply shout, “Go!” and Lyre was suddenly where the hunter had been, jumping down into the boat. Silden was moments after him. A glow rose up around Lyre as he flung his hands at the sail, commanding the air to fill it and sending the small boat rocketing across the waves, almost like being on a motor boat.

“What about Junel?” I asked, panicked, as Larina took to the more practical sailing matters, guiding the boat away from the ship and towards the shore, south of the city, where a forest nearly met the side of the ocean. I could see that tears were starting to slide down her face.

Silden grimaced. He was standing, looking back at the ship. “She’s not coming. She’s going to hold off the hunter and try to give us a head start.” He sat, and placed his hands on each of my shoulders.  “She’s making the time we need.” I wanted to argue, and my mouth opened but no sound came out. I watched the bright flashes of a series of quickly cast spells, saw the ship catching fire, the smoke rising above it – it was already so much smaller, so distant.

As we neared the shore, there was an explosion – a large one. I realized that the barrel of gunpowder must have finally caught blaze. I watched the ship begin to keel into the water, could see other ships and boats making their way out from the city to investigate or help. Larina grabbed the crate, splashing into the shallows, eager to be away. Silden grabbed the rapiers and followed her, glancing back at the ship with a pained expression on his face.

Lyre gently placed a hand on my elbow. I nodded, jumping out of the boat to follow, trying not to look anyone in the face as I hoped that at least the hunter had been taken out as well.

There was nothing we could do now but run.