The heavy smell of salt clung in the air as the rickety ship rocked from the swells below. Every small change in the water made the vessel groan and shudder as if it would break into a thousand pieces, but it would hold.

  It better hold.

  Norek had taken King Godfrey’s advice and fled the tiny islands.

  Perhaps advice is too kind of a word. Commanded, more like.

  Sound advice, nonetheless. The king’s eerie, cold gaze still sent chills down Norek’s spine. A beast lay within, scarcely under control. Norek realized how much of a monster when the woman relayed the tale of how a family met their gruesome end.

  The woman.

  The thought of the blonde brought a smile to his face. He had been with women before, most of the time because he loved them on a certain level. However, Norek was jaded in those matters and no longer saw an emotion but an illusion. He’d given up those foolish notions. Still, there were times when he’d feel the call of flesh and visited brothels. Norek had been intimate with enough women to know what to do, what he liked, and what he didn’t. With her, however, the king’s gift brought about a novel experience. Norek wanted to ravish her, but she wouldn’t let him. He had never been with a woman like that before. Every culture was different, but Islander perversion horrified him at first.

  The wandering mage experienced many societies in his travels. One time in Merlul, across the Golden Sea in Cronele, he made love to a woman with his mind, their bodies never touching. While that held an intimacy, he couldn’t compare the two experiences. After commencement, his aversion diminished. Sometimes he found himself closed-minded to new encounters, but still enjoyed each indulgence.

  After they culminated their desires, he moved to dress like in a brothel, but she remained for the night. Each reoccurrence came just as fascinating as the last. At dawn, she left. When he asked for her name, a frilly giggle escaped her, and she walked out without a word. For all he knew, she could have been a whore or servant, even the king’s own daughter, but he doubted the last.

  The pounding of running footsteps sounded above. Ropes scraped as sailors hauled them across the deck. Shouted orders rang clear no matter the distance between the topside and his small, cramped cabin. Norek took berth below the crew quarters. In all honesty, Norek was closer to the ocean than topside. Below Norek lay the cargo hold, vast stores of nonperishable items and the iron tanks of drinkable water. The galley claimed its home two decks above Norek, the mess deck and the wardroom for the officers. The kaptyn resided in the next deck above, his cabin, sitting room, and sleeping quarters. Another flight of stairs took him topside.

  Each day Norek spent at sea, he practiced his Owlen skills, a dying art. Legends ago, back when Ermaeyth was riddled with prophecy, Owlen users were as abundant as Plotus users. As time wore on, the prophecies were left untended, either repressed or assumed inert, and the art began its slow death. Now, there were probably only a few thousand Owlen mages left. Of those thousands, only a couple of dozen held enough power in foretelling or battle.

  But that didn’t deter Norek. He grasped many things with his ability that he otherwise wouldn’t. When he told the king that scrying the future was difficult, he didn’t lie. However, Norek found that as he viewed his own destiny, it transpired more than not. Sometimes it altered slightly with his foreknowledge, but most of the time, it happened as envisioned. He did, however, lie about his parents. He believed they were alive.

  Many times, he scried the past, searching for the day of his birth, and was successful only once. Despite that, he remembered the woman who held him. She cried tears of joy and told him that she loved him before someone took him from her arms. Only the woman filled his orb, her face permanently etched in his mind. He never saw the vision again nor did he spy his father. He’d never scried him to his knowledge. Though he always believed his mother lived, now he was certain.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Lying in his swinging hammock, Norek tried to doze through the day but rarely succeeded from the noise, intense heat, and humidity. Fat droplets of sweat clung to his brow. His body never acclimatized to the harsh weather despite time spent on the Isles. The oppressive weather was near unbearable, and he only ventured topside during the first and last rays of light.

  The crew complained to their kaptyn, expressing fears he might be a vampire due to nightly excursions. True, Norek preferred nights when on a ship or in big cities. Seabound, the night cooled considerably, and in the city, nightlife was full of surprises, excitement, and lively entertainment—not only for the plays and stage performances but vices, too. And Norek loved his vices.

  Exasperated, Norek stirred in the hammock, reaching for the small glass orb on his night table. He shook it and blew hot breath over the surface before whispering as if to caress it awake. The globe brightened, and a fog swirled inside before revealing what he sought.

  Inside, an image of a beautiful woman he never met but his heart longed for, appeared. When the king asked him to scry Ralloc, Norek was rewarded with a glimpse of the past: his mother. Her face filled his vision and his one sacred memory. Another image of a woman appeared, too, beautiful but far younger.

  My age? he wondered.

  The second image frustrated Norek. He first scried her over two seasons ago. Sometimes she’d be clear and resolute, other times faded or incorporeal.

  Every day since leaving the Isles, he scried his future and saw the younger woman, a constant in his fate. Generally, when something appeared every day for a period of time, it was considered to be a constant. Nothing short of his or her death would change the fact that she’d show up in his life. He didn’t know her—his new constant—any more than he knew his mother. When he first scried the young woman, she manifested resolute and unwavering. Now, her image darkened to a silhouette, and he could no longer distinguish her features.

  Each scry showed the duo side by side, now the shadowed woman loomed in the distance, encompassing the glass sphere in darkness. Everything darkened by her shadow, everything but his mother. He reflected each night on this woman and in the end, only one hypothesis rang true.

  She’s going to kill me.

  It was an unsettling thought. He strived to be kind and caring and wrong as few people as possible.

  Too kind and caring, that’s why women walk all over me.

  He sighed, frustrated, and turned his thoughts away from the darker shadow and focused on his heart’s desire. She was beautiful and alluring. Driven by passion, he set out to find her. Norek discovered her name and where she resided, but would she be there when he arrived? He hoped so.

  He first discovered his mother when far from the Ralloc domain. Across the sea in a cluster of small islands—not the Isles—he trained under an ancient sect of wizardkind. Unsure of how venerable they were or who their ancestors had been, but assuming it rude to ask, he left the question unvoiced. These islands laid beyond all domains, and nobody claimed sovereignty.

  It didn’t bother him that they may not be wizardkind; on the contrary, he loved spending time with those outside his race. Wizardkind, to him, insinuated boredom. Rude, obnoxious, self-centered, quick-tempered, judgmental, an unending and less-than-important list. There were a few small outcroppings of wizardkind he did want to meet—one had been the Islanders, another would be the people from the city Stratu’Geim. His lifetime goal was to meet the Krey, the Black Tide of Outpost Dire.

  He turned his thoughts back to his mother. When he discovered her again, he smothered his immediate joy and hid it from King Godfrey. He could sense her presence through the orb, giving him a general direction, and boarded a vessel for the Golden City. The kaptyn took him reluctantly. The ship’s master studied him with wise, brown eyes, wisdom attained from years on the seas. Norek realized the kaptyn didn’t intend to take him, so he doubled the offer.

  “Any man who’s willing to pay that much for passage is desperate and running from something.”

  Norek informed the kaptyn that the king commanded him to leave and never return. More sympathetic, he agreed at twice the price.

  Norek formulated his plan by the moment. He needed to reach Ralloc and warn them of the Islander’s impending arrival. Though the ship wouldn’t take him directly to the capital, the Golden City was the closest port. From there, he’d travel across the northern peninsula, steering clear of the Vikal Mountains and the elyves within. Ralloc lay dead west.

  He let his thoughts of the long journey go and turned back to his mother. She seemed somber now, and he wondered what troubled her. His own spirits soared. He found his mother at last, and nothing would keep him from finding her and getting to know her. His heart thrummed with anticipation; his face lightened with a warm smile as he spoke her name. Foreign, but it felt so right, fitting.

  “Meristal Raviils.”