It was almost midnight, and Lucian still couldn’t sleep. He didn’t see how it was possible, given the circumstances. When he couldn’t stand the hot and stifling air anymore, he got out of bed. He walked to the window, where below, the neon lights of bars and clubs played off the dark surface of the canal. The nightlife was thrumming more than usual, being a Saturday night.

  He opened the window to let in the muggy, salt-laden air that carried the beat of Latin dance music. He wouldn’t see this view for a long time, if not for the rest of his life.

  He wanted to say he wouldn’t miss it. But he knew he was kidding himself. Humanity had colonized over a hundred worlds by now. Even with that, Earth was the crown jewel and would always be humanity’s cradle. Its surface and moon, as well as the habitats orbiting the cislunar space between, held over a hundred billion souls.

  Volsung, from what Lucian understood, was remarkably Earth-like. Its sun was a G-type star, like Sol, while the planet’s atmosphere was completely breathable. The main differences were its climate, slightly smaller size, and ocean coverage. It was about the size and mass of Venus, but the main difference was that over ninety percent of its surface was either ocean or covered by its prodigious ice caps, which took up a full third of the planet. The days were long, too—fifty-four and a half hours, roughly speaking.

  It would be an adjustment to say the least.

  Laughing and hollering emanated from the canal below. He was almost tempted to head down there. It would be nice to forget things, at least for one night. But there were other things to focus on.

  Like research.

  He read every article he could about magic and mages. He had never bothered to learn about them beyond his schooling, but suddenly, the subject seemed very pertinent.

  Magic was called “meta-energy” by scientist types—that is, energy outside the realm of explainable reality. Mages were able to “stream” that energy and change base reality in ways unexplainable by modern physics. A theoretical substance, called “ether,” apparently served as a sort of bridge between base reality and the so-called “Manifold,” the source from which all ether was said to come. Ether was willed into actual magic by the mage through a process that was unclear to Lucian and his GalNet research.

  There were limits to this magic, of course. It followed certain rules, rules that were not researchable by the average League citizen. This “Manifold” was a reality entirely undetectable to normals, along with the ether it manifested.

  Of course, such power wasn’t free. Using magic was poisonous to the human body. The rate varied, but over time, a mage’s body began to rot—usually starting with the skin and then advancing to other organs and the brain. Once it reached that point, the fraying, as it was called, caused the mage to stream magic aimlessly, causing death and destruction to themselves and anyone around them. Humanity had found out what that was like during the Mage War, the rebellion led by Xara Mallis and her Starsea Mages. Though fifty years ago, it was still remembered as humanity’s most costly and damaging war, the only war to involve every single planet in the League.

  It was all incomprehensible, and what Lucian managed to piece together came from disparate sources. But he couldn’t find anything about how to stream. Was it as simple as willing it to happen? Even when he tried to search the dark GalNet for clues, the information was even more conflicting and, therefore, utterly useless.

  The only way to learn more was to make it to this Volsung Academy. His cursory research revealed it was on a small island on the north side of the planet, about a thousand klicks south of the northern ice cap. It would be cold, then. He’d have to be sure to pack his warmest clothes. Being from Miami, he didn’t own anything more than a light jacket.

  He tried to settle down to sleep, but it simply wasn’t happening. He forced himself up and went to the kitchen to make himself some decaf, only to find his mother still awake. She had a cup of coffee in hand and watched him as he fumbled in the kitchen for his mug.

  "Do you want coffee?” she asked.

  Lucian nodded. “Sure. Decaf, though.”

  She went to the kitchen and prepared it for him, while he took a seat in the armchair. When she handed him the cup, he took a sip.

  “Couldn’t sleep, huh?” his mother asked. “Me neither.”

  “What time does the shuttle leave?”

  She took a sip from her mug. “Eleven, so we need to be out of the house by seven. It’s a Sunday, so it shouldn’t be too busy, but I’d like to leave some room just in case.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Lucian always trusted his mother with the details when traveling. She had done it so many times that everything always ran like clockwork. It was a product of her military training.

  His mother straightened in her chair. “I need to talk to you about something, son. Life is harder out there in the Worlds. Go beyond cislunar space, and it becomes a wilderness. Even the Sol Worlds and First Worlds are frontiers compared to Earth. And the Mid-Worlds and Border Worlds?” She gave a harsh laugh. “League planets only in name. Out of all the First Worlds, Volsung might be the roughest. I’ve never been there myself, but it’s a cold, stormy planet. Long days, long seasons, wastelands of water. This academy place, though. It’s to the north, and there’s no transport there. You’ll have to rely on the Academy for that.”

  Lucian took another sip of his coffee. “Yeah, I saw all that.”

  “What a mess.” She massaged her temples as if she were undergoing a massive migraine. “I remember what it’s like to be young. To feel like you’re not in control.” She looked at him for a moment, her eyes sad. “You’ll always be my son, Lucian. I don’t care what happens to mages. I don’t care about the war fifty years back. You’re my son, and I love you. I . . . just want you to know that because I don’t say it enough.”

  He didn’t want to admit it, but it felt good to hear. He wouldn’t have that for much longer, so he had to train himself to get along without it.

  Her expression became distant, and her coffee was momentarily forgotten. “Being in space for a long time affects you. It’s easy to lose hope, at least for Earthers used to a blue sky over their heads. When you’re out there, it’s tougher. And when it gets tough, there’s only one thing to get you through.” She paused as if to add gravitas to her point. “Hope. You must always hope, Lucian. No matter how dark it gets, the human spirit can push through as long as it finds a silver lining and clings to it with everything.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom. I’ll get to Volsung. I’ll get the training.”

  “You’re struggling. I can see it in your eyes. I don’t want you to lie about how you’re feeling. Hell, I’m struggling.”

  Lucian couldn’t remember the last time he and his mother had talked like this. Perhaps not ever. For the first time, she was treating him as an equal. An adult. It was strange, and Lucian wasn’t sure how to feel about it. It was what he’d always wanted, but now, he just wanted to be held again, to feel safe.

  “I just feel . . . numb,” he said. “Why me? All I know about the mages is because of the Mage War—how they almost destroyed everything. Before this, I never thought about the mages. They were a bloody chapter in a history book. They were just an inconvenience I had to go through once a year with the metaphysical.” He gave a nervous laugh. “I guess that’s how the League wants us to think of them.”

  “It’s all so carefully controlled,” his mother said. “The Worlds want them out of sight and out of mind. People are scared enough as it is with the Swarmers.”

  The thought of the Swarmers gave Lucian a chill. The mysterious alien menace had come from the unknown regions of space, beyond the Border Gates. During the First Swarmer War, they had merely sacked some science stations beyond the Border Worlds. Though it amounted to no more than a few skirmishes, Lucian’s father’s corvette had been shot down during the first wave. The Second Swarmer War came four years after that, involving far greater numbers. They were over the skies of Terminus, glassing humanity’s most distant colony. Once the Worlds had stopped bickering long enough to cobble together a fleet, they managed to drive the Swarmers away after five years of conflict, mostly taking place in the Border Systems.

  Attempting to communicate with them was useless. If they did communicate, it was only with each other, and in no way detectable by human technology. Ever since the last ships were lost to sensors beyond the Kasturi Gate leading into Frontier Space, there had been utter silence. Most people only saw it as a matter of time before the Swarmers returned, in even greater numbers than before. But over the past five years, humanity’s fleets were twice as numerous as they had been, and better equipped to counter the aliens’ tiny strike craft. Most of the fleet was based out of Sol Citadel, a central location that would allow humanity to meet a potential threat from any direction.

  Of course, other worlds had invested in planetary defenses, but Earth and the rest of the Sol System were humanity’s bulwark. If the Swarmers did return, Lucian’s mother would be deployed from Sol Citadel to meet the threat aboard the destroyer, LS Barcelona.

  “I wish none of this were happening,” Lucian said. “Why are there mages in the first place? Maybe these Talents at the Volsung Academy know. If we knew how mages emerged, maybe there would be a way to stop it.”

  She watched him sadly for a moment, seeming to think things she didn’t want to share. Lucian wanted to ask what was on her mind, but he was afraid of what he might hear.

  “Seems just like yesterday you were my baby,” she said. “Your father and I . . . we had such hopes for you.” Her eyes became clouded with tears. “I wanted to be a good parent. After he died, though, everything became so much harder. I thought the way to give you a good life was money, and the only way I could do that was by enlisting with the Fleet.” She shook her head. “All that’s for nothing now. I should’ve just stayed here with you; after all, living off basic income and whatever crap job I could find.”

  “You did the best you could, Mom. No one’s perfect.”

  She wiped her eyes. “All that’s in the past. Time for bed. We need to be up by seven if we’re to make it to the shuttle.”

  Later, Lucian thrashed in his sheets. With his current mood, all he could think of was all the bad things that had happened. One memory, in particular, stuck out to him: his mother leaving ten years ago to fight the Swarmers. It was the same day he’d been sent off to boarding school. Every night at school, he had lain awake, haunted by dreams of her death in some distant battle, wondering when her next message would arrive.

  Everything had been under control. His plans had been laid immaculately. All he’d needed was another year, and he would have been fine.

  But now, all that planning was for nothing. Everything was changing, faster than he would have ever dreamed possible.

  Tomorrow, for the first time and the last time in his life, he was leaving Earth, bound for a cold new world and an uncertain future.