Tag: Cassandra

06. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

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.

04. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

When Lyre’s turn at the casting was over, he was replaced by the other woman elf. On the way down to my room, Lyre tapped the back of my heel with his foot and when I looked up at him, he made a short gesture with his head at one member of the crew. There were 18 men on board including the Captain, and then there was the 4 slaves as well, so I recognized each man easily but didn’t have names to go with all the faces. He was a burly man of middling height with shaggy black hair and a weather worn face, and he wore what looked like a permanent scowl. As we entered the hall in front of my room, Lyre said only, “Sarks.” I grimaced, remembering that the Captain had given me the name of the man that had assaulted the elf the night before.

I paused in front of my door. It didn’t seem right that I knew his name and not hers. “What’s her name? The one he hurt?”

“Larina.”

Instead of going into my room, I turned to face Lyre. “Where is she being kept?” The ship didn’t have anything like an infirmary, and the man that they called the doctor was actually a drunken ex-soldier with some field medicine training. He seemed to be a personal friend of Wrasker’s.

“Down in the slave beds.”

“Could I meet her?” Lyre tilted his head slightly as he studied me, but then nodded and turned to lead the way.

As we entered the area where the slave bedding was kept, Lyre checked the rest of the cargo area quickly before coming back and sitting at the bottom of the stairs leading up. I realized he was making sure we were alone.

It was the first time I had entered this area of the ship since Lyre had shown me around the first time. The hay still had the damp musty smell to it, and I wondered how healthy it was for someone recovering from bad injuries to be in a place like this. I could see that Larina was sleeping, and that the few blankets available to them were all piled under and over her. I also realized she was the elven woman I saw casting the air spell my first night on the ship – what I could see of her face was bruised, and her breathing was ragged.

The other male elf was awake when I entered. He gave me a brief unreadable glance before averting his eyes to the ground, and settled himself in a more formal position with his feet pulled up under him and his hands placed on his lap. “Please excuse my fellow for not assuming a more formal posture for you. She is recovering from being injured.”

 I shook my head. “No… please. You don’t have to be formal either. Sit comfortably. Please.” His head had been shaved recently, but the stubble growing in was dark brown, and his tattoos involved a series of striking jagged lines along the left half of his face. He made no move, except to shift out of my way as I came closer to Larina. I placed the back of my hand against her forehead – she was warm to the touch, feverish, and I worried for infection. More than that, the sound of her breathing… “I’m so sorry,” I said softly, though I doubted she could hear me.

“Silden. She was the one that cast at Sarks,” Lyre said, addressing the other elf. He kept his voice low, but it still managed to carry over to us.

Silden’s head snapped up in surprise, and seeing some gesture from Lyre he turned to look at me. “Her?” Lyre must have nodded or assented in some way, because Silden continued with, “But she’s human. How?”

I answered even though he hadn’t asked me directly. “I don’t know how. I walked in and saw what he was doing to her… and it just happened. It erupted out of me. I didn’t intend for this to happen to her. I’m sorry.” I stared down at her, feeling that it wasn’t apology enough.

Silden closed his eyes tight for a moment, and out of the corner of my eyes I watched as his hands clenched, unclenched, and clenched again. For a frightening moment, I wondered if he was going to punch me, and I tensed. He was actually very muscular, and maybe even more physically imposing than the Captain. Finally, he relaxed and sat back in a less formal position – leaning back on one hand, the other hand rested across a knee. He studied me carefully. I could see now that he had brown eyes.

“So, do you have any control at all, or are you at risk of being exposed?”

“Lyre is trying to teach me,” I said. He narrowed his eyes at me and I could tell that he wasn’t entirely convinced, though I wasn’t sure if it was about my ability or about my control. I flushed under his gaze, and turned my attention back to Larina as she drew an especially pained gasp of air into her lungs. “Is there anything more anyone can do for her? Could you heal her, Lyre?”

I started to pull his Focus out from under my shirt, but he shook his head. “Healing isn’t unheard of, but I don’t know it. It’s not an easy cast.”

“They’ve done all they can for her,” Silden said. The tone of his voice was cold and brusque. When I glanced back at him, the pained look in his eyes, the tight set of his jaw, said that he cared a lot more than his tone let on. He looked away as our eyes met.

I leaned back close to her, wishing fervently that I could do something to make her more comfortable, when a strange feeling came over me. Something like a presence. I closed my eyes and felt a cold hand brush the hair back from my face and a voice seemed to whisper to me, soft like a sea breeze. I could even smell the salt of it, and something else, like ozone. (I can show you) it said.

I opened my eyes and I could see, like looking into her body. Feel her injuries, through some sense I never realized I had. I could sense the broken rib that had punctured the lung, the pooling of blood where blood wasn’t supposed to be slowly drowning her from the inside, the festering of the infection like a light that spread from her lungs and made her entire body glow. But can I make it go away? I thought fiercely at the voice.

And then I felt it happening as I willed it. The bones mended, the blood that was where blood shouldn’t be shifted and seemed to dissolve, the flesh around the wound pulled and knit together, the fever burned bright for a moment and then dissipated.

“What are you doing?” I felt strong hands grab me and yank me up and away, so hard that I was afraid my arm would pop out of my shoulder. I started to fall back when another set of arms grabbed me, steadying me before letting go, and then Lyre was blocking my vision as he stepped in front of me.

“Silden,” he said, his voice a warning as he put himself between us. Silden glared at me and turned back to Larina, kneeling beside her.

He placed a hand on her forehead. After a few tense moments, he looked back at me, a bewildered expression on his face. “The fever’s gone,” he murmured.

Even from across the small space I could tell that her breathing had become less ragged. But I was so keyed up for a moment, that I closed my eyes on his searching gaze. I took three very steady, very deep breaths. Then I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m… I’m not sure what happened. It was like what happened before.”

And then a different voice seemed to give a hearty chuckle, so loud that I opened my eyes and looked around in alarm. Both Lyre and Silden only looked at me in confusion. (So, the seal weakens) it purred, sending a shiver down my spine.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I think you cast a healing spell of some kind. But… it was very different than the magic we use,” Lyre said. I shook my head, confused for a moment until I realized that neither he nor Silden had heard the voice at all.

There was a brief shifting of movement that caught my attention – I looked up to see that Lyre had grabbed Silden’s hand. Silden gave him a look that said he meant no harm, and backed up a bit, showing his palms. “I…” he trailed off, looking a bit sheepish. “Thank you,” he finally said, staring straight into my eyes. I nodded, still feeling dazed.

 We stood together in silence for several moments, staring down at Larina. The bruises weren’t fully healed, but I realized that may be a good thing, because it would be obvious something had happened if she was suddenly fully healed. Silden had stopped me just in time. “So, you can cast,” Silden said thoughtfully. “And she has your Focus?” A strange mix of expressions flitted across his face as he considered the possibilities. “You should try to figure out the unbinding spell!”

“Unbinding spell?” I asked, the voices chased from my mind completely for the moment.

“No one knows if that’s even a real spell,” Lyre cautioned. “And even if it is, it’s much too soon to try it.”

“We wouldn’t have to try it yet. We could wait until we’re closer to land, and steal the small boat. Hells, we could even swim!”

Lyre did not look fully convinced. “Silden… I’ve heard as many versions of the spell as there are royal bastards in Covage. There’s no guarantee it even exists.”

“Why else are they always so careful to not let us handle each other’s Focuses? We’ve all heard rumors of slaves escaping that way before.” Silden shook his head. “I’m not saying we have to be foolish about it, but we can compare the variations we’ve heard and at least plan an attempt. This may be the closest to freedom we’ll ever actually get.”

“We would still need to get a hold of each Focus to get all of us out.”

Silden leaned toward Lyre, his voice low but fierce. “Even if only a few of us get out… even if only you get out. Lyre – if you get the chance, even if you have to leave us all behind, you should go.” I kept looking from one to the other as each spoke. Lyre looked slightly disturbed at Silden’s insistence, and frowning, he broke eye contact to glance back at the stairs.

“Is this unbinding spell exactly what it sounds like?” I asked.

“Yes,” Lyre said. “But it may not be real.” After a few moments, he said, “We should probably go.”

Once we were back in my room, I asked, “Where are the other Focuses kept?”

Lyre frowned. “I don’t know. And I don’t think you should concern yourself with it. It’s not a very wise plan,” he said. He sat on the other bed and seemed lost in thought.

“Do you really think the unbinding spell won’t work?”

He looked up at me. “It might. Every slave has heard about it. And they do take care to make sure we never handle another slave’s Focus. But… every time I’ve heard of it, I’ve heard something slightly different. And even if we do figure it out, stealing each Focus is going to be almost impossible. One of us is always casting, so there’s a high chance that not all of us will make it, unless we directly attack the crew.” He pushed himself back on the bed and leaned against the wall behind him. “Trying to free us is risky. To be honest, it may be safer for you to just bide out your time on the ship and then leave when we reach shore. Keep your head low. Make your way to the Empire, and see if they’d be willing to take you in since you can cast.”

“I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave any of you behind, not if I don’t have to,” I said. “We’ll find a way, somehow. I’m sure.” He tilted his head slightly to study me, his expression inscrutable.

“If you leave on your own, on good terms with the Captain, you will leave in peace. If you leave with all of his slaves, he will contact the authorities, and we will be hunted every step of the way by skilled individuals armed with enchanted items and trained specifically to combat mages.”  

I sighed and plopped down on my own bed, laying back to stare at the ceiling of my cabin. I closed my eyes and considered sleeping. “Maybe it’d still be worth it,” I mumbled, slightly sulky.

After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Do you really have no memory of anything before the ship?”

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling again. It felt like such a small cramped space to be in. I struggled internally for a moment over how much I should tell Lyre, and said, “I remember everything about my life before now. I just don’t know how I came here.”

“Are you from the Empire?”

“No. I’m from… somewhere else completely.” After a couple of moments, I commanded the light to turn off, and the small room darkened.

If anything, it just made the space feel even smaller, and when Lyre spoke, his voice in the darkness felt close, intimate. “There are old stories. Stories of outworlders being summoned to our world.” I wondered vaguely if he could read my mind and pulled the blanket around me. “These outworlders were meant to fight off some great threat to the world. I never believed them. When you live with ordinary monsters, you leave fairytale monsters to the fairytales. But I’ve never heard your language before. I’ve never seen clothes like the ones you arrived in. I’ve never witnessed someone delivered to the sea in a beam of light. And I’ve never seen anyone cast the way you do.”

I wondered how obvious my otherworldliness was to everyone else on the ship. He was silent for a few moments, as though he were waiting for me to confirm or deny anything. When it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything, he continued, “If you are an outworlder… there is some reason for you to be here. And if that reason involves saving us all from something terrifying, something mythic… then our individual freedoms will mean nothing.” I felt a chill travel down my spine as he spoke, and thought of the voices again. Was that why I was here after all? “If the rest of you wish to make plans, I can’t stop you. But I would feel better if three weeks from now you stepped off this ship with a few coins in your pocket and simply walked away from here, to wherever you need to go. That would be the safest thing for you.”

I curled up on my side, staring into the darkness of the room where Lyre’s voice was coming from. Finally, I said, “I don’t think I’d feel safe without you with me.” On one hand, it felt deeply manipulative to say – but on the other hand, it was true. Lyre had become a solace to me in this world. I could speak and act like I wanted to save every slave on the ship, but I desperately wished for his freedom above all.

“Tell me about your home.”

And I told him everything, rambling late into the night, until I finally fell asleep.

02. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

The next morning when I woke, Lyre was already awake as well, sitting on the other bed. He had his feet pulled up from the floor and settled underneath himself, his hands rested passively on his lap, one on top of the other. He was very pointedly not looking at me. I sat up and stretched my arms out, then twisted to try to stretch my back some. I didn’t feel that bad, despite the mattress being thin and harder than I was used to. There was a bowl, a pitcher of water, and a small towel set on the table between the beds. It hadn’t been there the night before, so Lyre must have gotten it for me. I poured the water into the bowl and splashed some on my face, then rinsed out my mouth and drank some of it. It was very cold and surprisingly fresh. Drying my face off with the towel afterwards, I murmured, “Thank you,” to Lyre. He shifted slightly, but said nothing in return.

Then, completely ignoring my audience, I pulled my clothes off down to my underwear to begin studying myself. It was something I had decided as soon as I realized I could see so well without my glasses.

I had been involved in a car crash once when I was in my late teens, when a drunk driver had t-boned the vehicle I was in. I was seated on the passenger side, which was the side that was hit. Thankfully I remember very little of it or of my stay in the hospital, and being fairly young and in good health I made a quick recovery. The series of scars from that crash covered the right-hand side of my body. None of them were large or garish, but there were several and they traveled from my knee, over the hip, and up to my rib cage. The doctors had done their best to minimize scarring in the first place and many had faded over time. In truth, I hardly noticed them anymore.

They were all gone.

I stood and pivoted on my right leg. No twinge or stiffness in my hip. Most people didn’t know about the accident because I could walk fine, but sometimes I could feel the reminder of the old injury if I twisted just the wrong way when I moved.

I poured over the rest of my body. There were no scars at all. No scratches from my over-excited dog jumping on me before he had been taught to stop, no acne or ingrown hair scars. No shaving nicks, no stretch marks. But every natural feature was still in place. Most of my moles seemed about right, the small blue crescent shaped birthmark on my left shoulder was still in place. It also occurred to me that I was thinner. I had never been fat, but certain things had started catching up to me as I had approached 30.  I could see the outline of my ribs under my breasts again, and the undersides of my arm had tightened.

I didn’t feel like I wasn’t in my body. But I also felt better than I had in years, and all the detritus and evidence of time spent living seemed to be missing. I wished I had a mirror so I could see if my fillings were still in my teeth, and I absentmindedly rubbed at my jaw as I thought about it. And there were other things. Unseen things regarding my health…

My eyes focused on what was in front of me. Lyre was still sitting on the bed, very still, staring at the ground. He seemed to have a little bit more color in his face for once. I wondered if it would have been more appropriate for me to dismiss him first, but I wasn’t sure what the protocol was. I dressed, putting on the clothes I had been wearing as I slept. “I guess you could show me around the ship now,” I said.

He frowned slightly, then held his hand out. I stared blankly at his open palm. For a moment, I wondered if I was supposed to tip him. Then he spoke softly, and I realized I couldn’t understand the words. “Oh!” I fumbled around my neck, grabbed the leather strap and pulled it over my head to hand the black stone over to him.

After the glow from the spell faded, Lyre handed the stone back and I carefully placed it around my neck again. “What did you say?” he asked.

“I said I would like to be shown the ship.”

We spent the next half hour briefly visiting each section of the ship. It wasn’t a large ship, but I did take my time examining things out of sheer curiosity. Down below decks there was a sleeping place for the slaves. There were three other slaves on the ship, two women and a man. The women were both present and asleep, sprawled on thin blankets and hay that had a damp, musty smell. Beyond their bedding area was the cargo hold where crates were piled with fabrics and spices from a place called Walsam. Lyre seemed a bit fidgety when I considered opening some of the crates, so I decided against it.

Above that was a storage deck full of supplies for the ship and crew – weapons, food, drink. There were two cannons, one on each side of the ship, and supplies for the cannons stowed close to them. “Do you ever have to use them?” I asked.

“We’ve been attacked by pirates a few times. We – the mages – are a pretty good deterrent once they realize we’re present. But we have had to use the cannons before.”

“Is it not common to keep mages on a ship?” I asked, trying to remind myself that pirates were not a thing to be reasonably excited about.

“Not entirely uncommon, but the Captain has sought out mages capable of… very dangerous magic.” I didn’t ask what kind of magic that would be. It was also hard to get Lyre to talk for very long on any subject – he answered all of my questions directly as I asked them, but didn’t seem keen to give full lectures.

Next was the deck of the ship. The first thing I noticed as we emerged into the sunlight was that the tattoos on Lyre’s skin shimmered. They actually looked almost beautiful, with a slightly iridescent quality to them, looping up into a pattern of leaves and flora that stood out starkly against his pale skin. Lyre pointed toward the aft of the ship – the Captain’s quarters were right under the wheel, and above the guest quarters where I slept. On occasion they would take passengers, though they weren’t exclusively a passenger vessel. On the fore side of the ship were the crew quarters, though Lyre only gestured to them and did not take me down into them.

As Lyre pointed out these areas, Wrasker spotted us from where he stood near the wheel, and called out to us. “Cassandra. Come have some food, lass.” I could see that the other male elf was casting the wind spell from there as well – he was hard to miss, being even taller than the Captain, though slighter in frame. Wrasker descended the stairs quite agilely for a man of his size and led the way into the room where I had been warmed the night before. There were a few other crew members present and eating, but the captain waved them away and they left, looking at me curiously and whispering amongst themselves. I smiled stiffly at them as they passed.

The captain offered me what they had been eating – a bowl of soup, with what seemed to be fish and some kind of root vegetable almost like a potato in it, and a few pieces of a very hard bread. I softened the bread in the soup and ate. Everything was very salty, but I was hungrier than I had realized and happily drank the broth down in large gulps. I cupped my hand around the bowl as I ate, enjoying the warmth.

Glancing around, I saw that Lyre was standing back by the door, hands clasped in front of himself. “Did you have a good night’s sleep?” Wrasker asked, seating himself at the table. There were several papers and a map on it now. I couldn’t understand any of the flowy script on the pages – the written word was just as incomprehensible to me as their spoken language.

I swallowed the soup in my mouth and nodded. “Yes, I did. Thank you for rescuing me. I’m not sure what I would have done if you hadn’t been nearby. I was very near freezing to death.”

“Indeed. The sea is unforgiving. You were lucky that we were able to find you as quickly as we did.” He paused for a moment. “The light that helped us spot you. That was an impressive display of magic that landed you there. Could mean that someone might come looking for you.” He studied me carefully as though my expression may give away some truth that I wasn’t willing to voice, but I shrugged. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what any of it meant. “Regardless, I’m not apt to toss a woman out to her fate in these waters, but the quarters we have you in are usually reserved for guests. Paying guests.”

I nodded again. “I understand. I’ve never spent any time on a ship… that I can remember,” I added the last bit belatedly, recalling at the last second that I had claimed to remember nothing about my life the night before. “But I’m willing to learn what I can to help pull my weight around here. I fully intend to repay you for your generosity.” I wasn’t sure how I’d manage that beyond being helpful. I wasn’t even sure how helpful I could be. I felt butterflies churn my stomach as I wondered how long I’d have to serve on the ship to earn my way. At some point, I’d have to try to find out more about the world I was in – how I might have come to be here. And most important – why I had come to be here. As Wrasker said, someone could be looking for me. I needed to know enough to know whether I wanted to be found or not.

But I wouldn’t be able to do that without money or knowledge, especially if I needed magic to be able to communicate with anyone here and couldn’t read the language. “Well, I don’t intend to collect immediately. Settle yourself in, take a few days to relax and gather yourself. Then we’ll start you on some basic tasks. We’re at least three weeks out from our destination port – four, if the sailing isn’t smooth. From there, we’ll give you some coins and set you on your way, and consider ourselves even.”

I nodded, happily surprised that my tenure on the boat wouldn’t be overlong. “That’s… more than fair. In fact, it’s quite generous. Thank you, Captain.”

He stood. “For now, you’ll still have use of Lyre, as he can cast the spell for you, and he can chaperone you while you are on the ship. I don’t expect anyone will mistreat you, but my men rarely have women working alongside them.”

“Oh? I thought two of your elves were women?” I blurted out without thinking. Then I realized that they might not even think of elves as people and felt a bit of indignation at the thought. Then the Captain’s next words made the pit of my stomach drop completely.

“Well… women they aren’t allowed fair use of,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“I… I see.” Although I had suddenly lost my appetite, I forced myself to quickly finish my soup and dismissed myself. Without waiting for Lyre, I made my way to my quarters, refusing to look anyone in the face as I went, feeling utterly disgusted with everyone on the ship. I closed the door behind me and ran my hands up my face and through my hair as I processed what I had just been told. And so casually at that.

The door bumped into me as Lyre attempted to enter the room, eliciting a slightly startled “shit!” from me. I stepped back to let him in. He entered, and closed the door behind him, then stood in front of it. I stared at him for a long moment.

He glanced up at me briefly before averting his eyes again. “Don’t worry. As the Captain said, you’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of it. No harm will come to you while you are under my protection.”  He must have seen the concern on my face and assumed that I was scared.

I couldn’t even think of the words to explain that I wasn’t really terrified for myself. That I was disgusted by the practice of slavery. That the casual dismissal of these slaves being assaulted made me feel physically sick. That I was frustrated that any fuss I made might be immediately laughed off, or worse. That I was at the mercy of the Captain and the crew because I certainly couldn’t walk off the ship in the middle of the ocean in protest. I thought again about how quickly I had almost frozen to death in the water. Instead, I made a weird, strangled throaty sound and plopped down on the bed. I slipped my hand over to the edge of the mattress. At least the knife was still there.

I spent the rest of the day stewing in my frustration. At one point I did snap at Lyre to at least sit on the bed, which he did obediently. As it grew dark, he said, “On.”

The lamp on the table flared to life. I stared in fascination. I realized that the light was steady and not flickering – there was no fire. I sat up from the bed and moved closer to the lamp, placing my hand on it – it generated warmth, but nothing dangerously hot. Opening it, I could see that there was a stone seated inside, glowing brightly. “Is this magic?” I asked, poking at the stone cautiously.

“Yes. It’s been enchanted for common use – so that those without magical ability can also benefit from it. If you want it to turn off, you have to say off.”

Curious, I said, “Off.” Nothing happened.

A strange series of expressions flitted across Lyre’s features, what I think may have been confusion followed by realization followed by amusement, but then he had carefully controlled his face again and said, “No, you have to say ‘off’ in the elven tongue. If the language spell is translating everything for you, that distinction doesn’t come across, I suppose.” And then he said “Off” again and the light dimmed before dying completely and left the room in darkness. I tried to focus on how “off” may have sounded different or distinct in each time it was pronounced, but my brain couldn’t pick it out. The language spell translated everything perfectly.

“And to turn it on?”

“On,” he spoke again. The stone’s light grew until it lit the small room entirely.

I sighed. “I guess you’re going to have to turn my lights on and off for me then,” I said, feeling a little annoyed. I pulled my knees close to my chest, wrapping my arms around them as I stared at the magical light. To some degree, all I wanted to do was pout some more, but having spent the entire day doing nothing but that, I was finally sulked out. No – none of this would do. If I was here in this world, I’d have to be able to function in this world. “Tomorrow morning, before you cast the spell… teach me the words.”

“As you wish,” he responded.

I curled up on the bed, and turned to face the wall. I closed my eyes. I was going to have to stop letting my own sensibilities carry my attitude and get used to this world. I would have to start with learning what I could to earn my passage on this ship, and learn the languages of this world. That would be the first step. And once we made it to port, I’d figure out my next step from there. I steadied my breathing and forced myself to clear my mind. “Off,” I heard Lyre command the light, could feel the room darken from behind my eyelids. Soon I was asleep again.

01. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

The sudden shock of being fully submerged in freezing water woke me instantly. I almost gasped, but as the salty water filled my mouth, I managed to snap my mouth shut and hold my breath. For a terrifying span of seconds, I wondered which way was up. I forced myself to calm to stillness and waited for my natural buoyancy to pull me in the right direction. It seemed to be working, but the seconds stretched unnaturally long as my lungs began to burn, and I thrashed desperately towards what I hoped was the surface.

My face broke water. I gulped hungrily at the sweet, crisp air.

I was never the strongest swimmer and I needed some moments to orient myself, so I relaxed, allowing myself to float on my back. My mind grasped at the last things I could remember. I had boarded my flight home after visiting with my father and his new wife. Did the plane crash? I couldn’t see any signs of a wreck nearby, and besides… I was flying from Ohio to Nevada. We shouldn’t have been above the ocean. Or at least, what I assumed was the ocean. I stared up at the undersides of dark clouds stretching across the sky, but despite the stormy appearance the water was calm. The confusion I felt was physically dizzying for a moment, and I closed my eyes against the vertigo that threatened to overwhelm my senses.

None of the questions I had were going to be answered quickly, nor would they solve my current problem. After several moments and three deep breaths, I had calmed myself reasonably enough and shifted back to treading water so I could take in my surroundings. I turned in a full circle to see if I could see something – animals, boats, land – anything. To my surprise, there were lights – close enough to give me hope, and they appeared to be moving in my direction. Tentatively, I shouted, “Help!” but it came out weakly, so I cleared my throat and filled my lungs and shouted again, much louder this time. I thought I could hear shouting in the distance.

I grasped desperately at the rope that was lowered into the water for me. My limbs felt clumsy and leaden as I wrapped it around my waist and positioned it under my armpits, my fingers so numb and frozen that maneuvering the rope into place seemed to take longer than it should have. Just as I wondered dully how I was going to manage the strength to pull myself up, I was instead yanked bodily from the water. At the other end of the rope were several men, and they easily pulled me up and over the railing, where I immediately slumped to my knees on the floor of the wooden deck. I couldn’t bring myself to stand. My mind felt foggy from the cold, which shocked me to some degree because I felt I hadn’t been in the water long enough to be so affected by it.

Someone wrapped a blanket around me quickly and lifted me bodily and I was taken inside. A cast iron stove stood on one side of the room and I was deposited on the floor near it. Normally I would have been appalled to be picked up and carried anywhere, but the heat wafting off the stove drove most other thoughts from my mind. I moved close to it, almost close enough to touch it, desperate for the warmth it emanated.

Soon the noise died down as the group was ushered out of the room, leaving me alone with a tall barrel-chested man, with a thick black beard streaked through with gray. He wore a baggy blue shirt that laced up the front, the sleeves rolled up, the color faded from sun and salt water. I stared at him blankly as he began to speak, wondering how addled my brain had been from the freezing waters because none of his words were making sense to me.

I shook my head, attempting to clear it. Frowning, he spoke again, and I realized it was a completely different language that I was hearing, and not one that I recognized at all. I responded this time with, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” I half hoped that he would recognize English, but he only frowned harder and tilted his head. He walked across the room slowly, grabbed a flask from inside a cabinet of some sort built into the other corner of the room, and then walked over to hand it to me. He was very slow and deliberate in his movements, and when he spoke, he spoke in a calm soothing tone. I couldn’t understand the words, but I did understand that he was trying not to appear threatening.

I accepted the flask and opened it, sipping cautiously at first. Whatever it was, it was strong and I almost coughed, but the flavor was sweet and the burn of the alcohol was warming. I took a harder pull from it before handing it back. He chuckled appreciatively and slipped it into his waistband.

A moment later another man entered. This one was not as tall or wide as the barrel-chested man, and he wore very plain tanned robes that looked almost like a long tunic or a simple toga. From under his clothes and climbing up his neck were a series of intricate tattoos, that rose to just under his ears and along the right side of his face and around his head in delicate designs that seemed to frame his features. He had short cut silvery blonde hair and very pale skin. He kept his eyes trained on the floor as he approached me.

The barrel-chested man was speaking to him as he came close and knelt to leave a pile of clothes and another blanket near me. Then he turned back toward the other man. Something was exchanged between them – a smooth black stone hung on a leather strap. Then he turned and faced me, the stone clutched in one hand that he held before him, the other hand gesturing as he spoke. His voice was clear, stronger than I had expected it to be from his demeanor, and the words sounded very different than the language I had heard so far – more than that, his voice took on an eerie echoing quality. He made direct eye contact – his eyes were a pale gray-blue, but for a moment they took on a fluorescent hue. A light shimmered around me.

I froze in place, unsure of what was happening or what to do about it. As the light dimmed and vanished, the barrel-chested man stepped closer. “Can you understand me now?” he asked.

I felt a shiver run down my spine, this time not entirely from the cold. I steadied myself by clutching the blanket around me tighter. “Yes,” I said, forcing my voice to be stronger than I felt.

He nodded, and gestured to the clothes. “We’ll leave you to some privacy. Get dressed, and then come find me on the deck.” I nodded. I looked back up at the man that had cast the spell, or whatever it was, but he had returned to staring demurely at the ground. As they left the room, the black stone was passed back to the barrel-chested man.

I stared at the door for a moment after they left, wishing he had left the flask behind as well. Then I stood and picked up the clothes that had been left for me. I try to dress as comfortably as possible when I go on long trips, so I was wearing leggings and a tank top under an oversized sweater. The sweater was heavy with cold water and I was glad to pull it off, letting it thump to the ground. I had been wearing slip on shoes, but they had been lost, either into the ocean or before, but I did still have my socks. I peeled the wet clothes off, and when it became clear that there wasn’t any underwear on offer in the pile of clothes, wrung out my underwear and sports bra and socks and held them as close as I dared to the stove. I did the same with the tank top, which was a light enough material that I figured it would dry quickly as well.

I wasn’t sure how long I would be given to dress, so the underwear was still damp as I slipped it back on, but at least nothing was soaked through as badly as it had been. I also pulled the tank top back on. The tanned breeches they left were simple, and actually fairly close to my size though still a bit too large. They buttoned on the side, and I found a folding knife on the table that I used to improvise a new buttonhole to close the pants a bit tighter. The shirt was red and baggy and much too large – it had been meant to lace up the front, but the laces were missing. It wasn’t that big of an issue with the tank top underneath, at least. I wrung my hair and my other clothes out as best as I could, then wrapped my damp clothes in the blanket that had first been given to me, which was also fairly wet at this point.

Wrapping myself in the new blanket and pulling my socks on, I started to leave the room. I glanced briefly at the little knife I had used to improvise the buttonhole, wondering if I should take it with me. After a moment of indecision, I folded the knife and slipped it into the waist of the pants.

It looked a little lighter outside now. The sails were billowing and the ship was moving along at a clipped pace. Glancing up, just behind the wheel I could see another individual dressed in the same tanned robes as the pale man. She held a hand out to the sails, and was enveloped in a faint glow, with wisps of light dancing around her. Her hair was also shorn very short, and I could just barely make out a series of tattoos along her temple and jaw that wrapped up around and came down low on her forehead.

She was the source of the wind, I realized.

The barrel-chested man was standing up near them, leaning against the rail. He waved a hand at me as he saw me emerge from the cabin. I walked up the stairs to where he was. “Allow me a proper introduction,” he said as I approached. “You’re aboard my ship, the Crimson Yeller. My name is Karl Wrasker, and I am both owner and captain of this vessel.”

“I’m Cassandra Murphy,” I said. “If you don’t mind, Captain… where am I? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a language like the one you spoke.”

He raised an eyebrow and studied me for a moment. “Could say the same,” he said, then continued with, “You’re lucky we were near enough this stretch of water as it is. Some say it’s a cursed stretch of ocean. Almost impossible to navigate without an elf to fill your sails,” he gestured at the glowing woman.

“Elf?” I stared more closely now. Sure enough, the tips of her ears came to gently upswept points. I turned to peer around and caught sight of the man that had cast the spell on me earlier, standing a few feet back from the Captain. He had been studying me curiously but as I turned to look at him, his eyes quickly averted, and he was staring at the floor once more. His ears also came to points.

“Yes, but no worries – these aren’t Empire elves. They’re properly tethered.”

“I… I see.” Tethered? Were they prisoners or maybe even slaves? “I don’t suppose you saw anything in the sky before you saw me?” I hoped the question didn’t sound too unusual in a world where there was magic.

“We saw a light, which is why we drew so close to where we found you. It was quite a flash – lit up the whole sky like dawn and then channeled straight down into the water. May have been something that delivered you to that spot.” He studied me again, very pointedly staring at my ears which he seemed to decide were suitably rounded. “Were you a prisoner of the Empire?”

“I don’t know. I… don’t remember. I don’t remember anything about my life at all.” I glanced away, hoping he wouldn’t catch the lie. I wasn’t sure how to explain that where I was from, there was no such things as elves or magic. The description of the light that he gave didn’t sound like the fireball of a plane crash at least. I wondered what had happened to the plane, or to the other passengers. I wondered what my mom would think when I didn’t arrive in Reno safely. I stared up at the billowing sails, lost in thought.

“Well, you’ve had quite a night, and it’s barely morning yet. If you need some sleep, I’ll have Lyre show you to the guest cabin. It’s not a large ship and we rarely take on passengers. I’ll have him stay with you while you’re aboard – I think he’s the only elf we’ve got that can do the language spell.  He’ll have to recast it each morning, and he can show you about the ship when you wake.” Wrasker gestured to Lyre, who stepped forward obediently.

“Thank you, Captain,” I mumbled, tilting my head forward in acknowledgment, then turned to follow Lyre.

“Wait… you’ll be needing this.” I stopped and looked back. The Captain was holding out the flat black stone. I reached out and grabbed the leather strap that held it. “That’s his Focus. He’ll need it for casting, just make sure you take it back immediately after each spell, and don’t let any of the other elves touch it.” I nodded, and slipped the leather strap around my neck. It hung low enough to disappear under my tank top, and felt almost warm against my skin.

Then I was led back down and below the cabin I had been taken to warm up in. A small hall separated two smaller rooms of similar size and build. Inside there were two beds, each with a trunk placed at the end, and a small table set between them. A lamp sat on the table, glowing brightly. I laid my damp clothes out on the trunk to dry, and hung the damp blanket from the end of the bedframe, then sat on the thin mattress, pulling the dry blanket around me tighter.

My mind attempted to digest everything from the past hour. I felt that certainly I must be dreaming. I ran my hand over the blanket wrapped around me – it was soft, old and worn but not yet threadbare. The sounds of the deck were dampened here, but the ship creaked as it swayed on the ocean, and the occasional voice drifted down. I felt that these were details I would never have noticed in a dream.

After a few moments, I realized that Lyre was still in the room and standing at the door, his eyes trained on the floor, his hands clasped in front. I stared up at him, studying him in the lamplight. Slavery. That was something hard to digest. Disgust and pity and anxiety churned my insides. “You don’t have to stand like that.” Nodding, he began to sit on the floor in front of the door. “No! Don’t do that!” I cried out, probably louder than necessary. His head snapped up to look at me in alarmed confusion. Our eyes met briefly, and then he immediately focused his gaze back down on the floor and started to stand again. “I just mean… you can sit on the other bed.” I gestured toward it.

I felt the heat rising up my neck as he paused for a long moment before obeying me. With a flash of anger, I realized that of course slaves probably weren’t used to being invited to sit with their slavers. It all seemed awful. I was in a world with magic and elves, and they were slaves. And I had no idea how I had come here. I had been on a plane. What had happened to the plane? To the other passengers? Were they in this world too? Or did the plane get to its destination just fine without me? What were my parents going to think when I didn’t make it home? Would my mom keep my dog and continue to take care of him? When I didn’t show up for work in a few days, would I lose my job? My apartment? I was on a ship, in a strange world where likely no one spoke my language. I had a slave assigned to look after me.

I leaned forward and placed my forehead in my hands, feeling exhausted and sick, like a million centipedes were crawling over every inch of my insides and eating me alive. I forced myself to clear my mind. I could change none of this in the moment. I took three deep breaths. I realized how bone tired I felt.

Looking up, I caught Lyre staring at me curiously again. His gaze dropped immediately. Well, there’s something that’s going to annoy me quickly, I thought. I moved my hand up to my face to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose, or maybe remove them before sleeping – a gesture that felt so natural that I didn’t consider it until my hands touched nothing. No glasses. Frowning, I ran my hands down my face again, then pulled them away. Of course, there was no way my glasses would have survived through anything that had happened to me.

And yet…

I looked up at Lyre again, squinting slightly though there was no need. My vision isn’t the worst, but even at this distance I shouldn’t have been able to make out the details of his tattoos, or the pattern of the wood grain behind him. And yet I saw it all in perfect detail.

Like I didn’t need glasses at all.

“Huh,” I said. Then everything about my situation crashed down on me again, but instead of letting the anxiety build I started to laugh. I couldn’t help myself. Everything about this situation was utterly insane. Lyre frowned, but didn’t look up at me. “Well, what the fuck?” I murmured to myself, and then lay down on the bed, turning to face the wall of the cabin and pulling the blanket around me. From under the blanket, I slipped the pocket knife between the mattress and the wall, then closed my eyes to sleep.