Scarlet Seas

Amon drifted, enclosed in darkness. He had no sense of direction, no sense of himself, only a distant awareness of ascending.

Then he found himself in an inky murk that wasn’t quite pitch dark. He didn’t know who he was, only that he was in desperate trouble and that he had to get to the light. He seemed to be moving toward it, as if he were rising from the depths of the sea, pulled by an invisible cord.

Finally he broke the surface.

He gasped and sputtered, heaving deep lungfuls of air. His body thrummed with power. It made him shiver, sending alternating shocks of freezing cold and scalding heat through him.

Where was he?

His last coherent memory involved the other slowly peeling his mind apart, layer by layer.

She was Cassadan. She saw who I was, where I lived.

Nothing made sense. He only knew that he needed to get away from the other. He tried to stand.

“Amon! Calm yourself!”

Amara’s face appeared before him. He knew it by her sharp cheekbones and silvery hair, but her features blurred. She looked like she might fade away before his eyes. He tried to push himself up again, tried to find out if even had a body to push up at all.

Amara’s hand on his chest stopped him. Solid and warm.

So this was real, or at least a convincing approximation. He was back in Beckhead, in the sick room. Alive, though he wasn’t yet sure if all his mind had come back with him. Some of it might have slipped away from him out there in the skies above Karrakdun. That seemed a disturbingly real possibility.

It certainly felt like the mage had taken some of his mind from him. He still couldn’t make complete sense of anything.

He swore he could still sense her presence and feel her scanning through the memories at the core of him. Memories of his Cassadan mother, and more importantly of his father.

Amara warms hands came to his face, bringing him back, making the room seem more real again.

“Stay with us,” she said. “Please, Amon. Look at me and say something.”

Amon realized Lucia was standing off to the side, covering her mouth, eyes wet with tears.

Suddenly a single sob overcame him, a shuddering convulsion he couldn’t suppress. It was the realization he had failed. His one and only chance to fix this had vanished, and worse, he had inadvertently betrayed the only people who still cared that he drew breath for a second time. The first betrayal had been ending the storm, but now whoever that mage had been probably knew everything there was to know about both of them.

“Amon,” Amara said. “You need to tell me what happened. Now.”

Hot, fresh tears began to flow. He had never planned to utter any of it to Amara, let alone Lucia. He’d wanted to keep the truth inside him forever, or at least until he fixed it and the truth no longer mattered. It couldn’t hold it back, though. It came bubbling out of him and there was nothing he could to do cut off the words, even as they damned him.

“I ended the Eternal Storm,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. It was a dream. It happened by accident.”

Amara frowned, taking one his hands in her own bony fist. “Speak.”

He told her of the dream he’d had the very night the Storm had ended. Casting usually required intense meditation, or failing that, help from certain plants and mushrooms. Dream Casting was a third way, but it was a difficult and rare skill. Amara had never learned it herself, but Amon – always a vivid dreamer – had stumbled upon it by accident, Casting in his sleep a handful of times. Amara had taught him to control himself, but that night he hadn’t known what he was doing or even realized he was dreaming.

He had simply found himself flying above a storm-lashed sea, had seen a ghostly tendril of light reaching out to the heart of the Eternal Storm. In his dream he had simply touched that tendril. That alone was enough to sever it. The storm had immediately begun breaking apart, but he’d woken shortly after, found himself abed and thought nothing of it. At least until the rider arrived.

It couldn’t have been real, he’d told himself. He was hardly powerful enough to create a light rain on a summer’s afternoon.

Then Amon told her of what he’d just done, how he’d tried and failed to fix what he’d broken. He told of how the other mage had appeared stopped him, how she had tried to pry into his mind.

Amara’s eyes filled with horror at that.

Horror, but not surprise.

“Oh, Amon,” she said. “I didn’t want any of this for you. None of it.”

“You know who that was?” Amon asked. “The mage?”

“Not specifically, but I know who stands behind her. Her identity doesn’t matter, though. What matters is that she likely knows who we are. Amon, I won’t lie to you or Lucia. You both need to know the truth now, because your lives are going to change very much and it may be a long time before the three of us are in a room together like this.”

Amon’s heart bucked in his chest. Her words shattered him. How could so much have changed in so little time? What did she even mean? He’d hated his life as a thrall, but he would have given anything to go back to the way his life just a few days ago. Sitting at the fire beside Lucia, sipping thin turnip soup hadn’t been much, but he found he suddenly cared about it holding onto it very much. It hadn’t been much, but it had been something.

Too many questions swarmed his mind, but he asked the first one he could think of.

“Why would a Cassadan attack me like that?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. She must have thought I was with the Illians.”

“No, she was helping the Illians. She was there to make sure no one does what you tried to do.”

Lucia stepped closer, fury in her eyes. “Why?” she asked. “A Cassadan would never help them. What do you mean they know who we are?”

Amara shook her head. “I’ve kept this secret until now to protect us and the others, but there are some powerful mages here in Illia. Not just in Beckhead. Most of the chiefdoms have at least one or two competent mages among their thralls. We kept our network secret out of fear the chieftains had their own mages to hunt us down, and that has proven to be true. Aile and some of the other chieftains do have mages.”

A wave of dizziness rocked Amon, though he wasn’t sure he was still recovering from Casting or if it was her words that did it. The idea that Cassadan mages would betray their own people was almost inconceivable. “Why?”

“When the Storm first began we were all cut off and isolated here. Us mages only had each other, staying in touch by Casting occasionally.”

She looked down, as if ashamed, but pressed on.

“But a few years ago, we started to able to communicate with some of the Royal Mages that support King Catalus in Cassada.”

Royal Mages? King Catalus? The words were familiar. Probably he’d heard them in his life before the Purge, but he’d forgotten virtually all of his mother’s lessons on history and politics by now.

She paused again, as if whatever she was about to stay had caught in her throat, tearing at her from in the inside. She raised her eyes, though, meeting Amon’s gaze.

“The situation on the other side of the Scarlet Seas is bad. A civil war rages through Cassada as we speak. Many Cassadans have allied themselves with the Illians who were left behind. Whoever you saw up there was one of the mages who support the rebel leader, Lycus. Lycus and Aile worked together to end the storm. It wasn’t you, Amon.”

“Huh?” It was all Amon could manage to say. His mind still didn’t seem to work properly.

“But,” she went on, “you may have accidentally sped up the process. It would have toppled soon regardless. We don’t know how it happened, but the Royal Mages that dedicated their lives to holding up the Storm have been slain. You are not to blame for this.”

Amon replayed the words in his head. Dozens more questions swarmed his mind. Who were these Royal Mages and how had they been communicating? Who was Lycus? What did she mean it would have toppled without him?

He asked the one that burned brightest. “What will happen to you and Lucia now?”

“Based on what you’ve told me, there is a good chance whoever that mage was will be able to track us down. We need to disappear. Lucia and I will hide. There is a community of runaway thralls in the mountains. You can come with us, Amon, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

A community of runaway thralls was news to him as well. It raised a new slew of questions, but they would have to wait.

Amara reached out and held his hand.

Amon wanted to push it away. He wanted to keel over and vomit, but his stomach was too empty.

“You’ve demonstrated substantial power,” she said. “More than I thought you would ever have, I admit. I’ve been neglecting our training of late, but the fact that you were able to Cast all the way to Karrakdun on your own is impressive. You’ve only just reached the age when your powers are reaching their potential, and based on what you did tonight, you’re likely one of the most powerful mages in all of Illia. Or you will be, with proper training.”

Somehow that didn’t make him feel much better. He would have thrown his gifts away if it meant returning to his old life.

“Your Sleep Casting has become stronger as well,” she said, “and that’s what concerns me most right now. Likely they can use it to track you down. You may not be safe anywhere in Illia.”

Amon felt himself wilting. He knew where she was going with this. If she and Lucia were running for the mountains and there was no place safe enough for him, he’d be left on his own. The Illians might torture him before they nailed him to a tree, to learn what they could of Amara and the other mages, but he would give them nothing, no matter how hot their steel. Ultimately they were abandoning him and he couldn’t blame them for it.

“But just as important as that, Cassada desperately needs talented mages.”

She squeezed his hand harder, as if to say she hadn’t been meaning to throw him to the wolves. He found himself squeezing back hard.

“Amon, you need to be on one of those ships when the armada sails for Cassada. Odrin owes you a blood debt. He’ll take you if you ask. It’ll be risk, because the mages will be looking for you. You must cross with the war party though, and from there you must break away and find your way to King Catalus’ court. Somehow, some way, you’ll have to.”

Lucia and Amara were both staring at him now. Lucia’s eyes were wide and bright white. Amara looked on the verge of tears.

Amon wanted none of this. He still didn’t understand half of what he’d been told, but he wouldn’t have it.

“No,” he said. “It’s insane. You don’t even know what you’re talking about, Amara. There’s no way I could get onto one of those ships and even if I did, you want to send me into the midst of a war? You want me dead?”

“Think, Amon. I know this is difficult news, but you can get on one of those ships. Odrin owes you. He made a Blood Oath to your father. I witnessed it myself. If you tell him to take you to Cassada, he will. It might be your only chance to escape this place. Many among us would trade everything to have that chance.”

“If that’s true, I’ll ask him to take all of us. We’ll go together.”

Amara squeezed his hand and shook her head. “Only you, Amon.”

Amon wanted to argue, to prove her wrong, but she was right and he knew it. He wasn’t convinced Odrin would take him, let alone all three of them.

Amara cupped her hand to his face again. He looked back at her, at the only face he’d really trusted since the Purge had taken father. She’d saved his life more than once before and as much as he wanted to reject her words, he knew she’d die before letting harm to come to him. If there was any way she could protect him, she would, but no one could shield him now.

Everything she’d said was true and she’d said it because he needed to hear it.

But that didn’t change the fact that he was on his own now and he was about to cross into something entirely unknown.

Tears began sliding down Lucia’s cheeks.

“You must speak to Odrin at dawn,” Amara said. “We don’t know how long it will take for the mages and their hunters to reach Beckhead, but we have to act quickly.”