Out of sight of Karendas, Lightsail plied smooth waters. Schools of fish swarmed around shallow shoals, between which Lightsail wove. Below, multicolored reefs hosted rainbows of life, visible through crystal-clear water. As Lucian watched the waterscape pass, he realized Volsung was a planet humanity had not yet spoiled. The air was fresh, salt-laden, with not a trace of smog.

  "There are some cabins aft,” Khairu told them both. “You can put your stuff there. Get some sleep if you want.”

  Lucian claimed a cabin near the stern of the boat. There were four bunks, so Lucian took one of the bottom ones.

  After depositing their bags, he and Emma returned to the helm to find Khairu no longer there. Instead, she stood at the bow, holding whatever weapon she had hidden in the harbor.

  It was a thin spear, about two meters in length, which had to be incredibly lightweight judging by the speed with which she handled it. And with that spear she simply . . . danced. There was no other way to describe it. As Lucian watched her practiced movements, it was as if she were fighting an imaginary army. His breath caught as light shimmered along the length of the spear. Emma gasped when streams of electricity flickered up and down the shaft, collecting toward the point in a bright orb of energy. Khairu never slowed her movements. She knelt, leaped, sliced, and stabbed, flowing like water. The spear crackled with each sudden movement, brimming with electricity.

  They marveled in silence. Khairu’s movements seemed to make the spear build up energy. After fifteen seconds or so, a fork of lightning lanced from its tip, extending at least five meters.

  It was the first time for Lucian to see magic streamed by a real mage . . . just a taste of what could be coming.

  “What is that weapon?” he asked.

  Emma stood quiet for a moment. “I . . . think it’s a shockspear. Mages use them in battle, as far back as the Mage War. Their electric charge can pierce energy shields, and it’s powered by . . .” She swallowed. “Well, the mage.”

  Khairu did a few more graceful spins, though her movements were now slowing down.

  “Are we going to learn that?”

  “I don’t know.” She gasped when Khairu jumped onto the railing of the boat, lifting a leg and balancing. This was as the water got choppier and broke upon the bow, making the move even riskier.

  Emma and Lucian rushed from the bridge to help, but Khairu did a graceful backflip, falling slower than she should have. It was hard to tell whether that was Volsung’s slightly lower gravity or . . . something else.

  The electricity dissipated as the spear shrank into itself, no larger than a wand. She placed it inside her robes.

  “That was amazing!” Emma said. “How did you do that?”

  “Practice,” Khairu said. “And patience. If you are accepted, you will learn, too.”

  Lucian wondered if Khairu was just trying to show off. She went right back into a training routine, this time with no electricity. He and Emma might as well not have been there.

  She practiced for what felt like hours, long after Emma and Lucian had gone inside to get relief from the hot sun.

  “This day has been so long,” Lucian said. “It’s still as bright as when we left Karendas!”

  “According to the clock, it’s only early afternoon. That makes evening about ten hours away.”

  It had gotten windier, too. Gusts slammed the starboard side of the boat, though the skies were still clear. Lightsail was practically flying across the water, leaving the shoals on the far southern horizon. According to the map Emma had shown him, there was no trace of land between here and Transcend Mount, just thousands of kilometers of open ocean.

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  “I wonder what a storm would be like out here,” Emma said.

  “I don’t want to find out.”

  “You’d think that because Volsung is cooler, it would be less stormy. Less heat means less precipitation and energy in the atmosphere, after all. That’s not the case, though. Volsung’s ocean is so vast that there’s hardly anything to break up the storms as they race around the world. Usually, they don’t run out of power until they hit the mountains of the Ostkontinent. And the Vestkontinent is so flat and boggy that they blow right over it. By the time they’re said and done, most of Volsung’s hurricanes dwarf any cyclone Earth has ever produced. If this planet didn’t have seasons like Earth, it would be practically uninhabitable."

  “You’ve done your research.”

  “You never know when knowledge might come in handy.”

  Cyclones and hurricanes on Earth had long been things of the past. Even with global warming, by the late 23rd century, solar shades targeting a developing storm could stop them before they ever became dangerous. A hurricane hadn’t made landfall in decades. Even the floating cities of the Caribbean were safe.

  Volsung didn’t have the infrastructure of Earth. While humanity had done much to tame the planet, being one of the First Worlds, it had a long way to go. Infrastructure would come in time, but for now, Volsung was dangerous and wild. A lot of the luxuries Lucian took for granted simply didn’t exist here. There wasn’t even a planetwide GalNet network. As soon as they were a thousand or so kilometers out to sea, his slate would be all but useless.

  He retrieved it to see no message from his mother. That had him worried. He hadn’t spoken to her in over two weeks. With Emma’s money, he could send another message, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  When Emma went to take a nap, Lucian headed to the stern to watch the sailboat’s wake. Karendas was long out of sight by now, tens, if not hundreds, of kilometers behind. It was shocking how fast Lightsail was going. The ship’s many sails caught wind from every angle, adjusting to the slightest deviation.

  Lucian wanted to stay up, but he realized he was fighting a losing battle. When he passed Emma’s cabin, she was already sprawled out and snoring. He went to his cabin, lay down, and closed his eyes.

  When Lucian awoke, he headed to the stern just in time to see the sun sinking below the eastern horizon. The blood-red drop cast the ocean’s surface in a fiery hue. So slow was Volsung’s rotation that it took the sun over half an hour to lower under the horizon completely. Once completely set, the surface of the water still glowed with phosphorescent light.

  Something was shimmering down there, creating its own light. The water couldn’t have been more than ten meters deep and was so clear and smooth that he could see right to the bottom. The wind had calmed, producing a still surface broken only by the wake of the boat.

  In every direction stretched kilometers upon kilometers of glowing, multicolored reefs. Among them, schools of fish shone with radiance. Electric eels teemed among coral towers, entire cities of biomass. The reef, at points, even poked above the water in small atolls. This would have been dangerous if left to human navigation, but the vessel knew exactly how to weave around them.

  As night fell, the entire scene glowed with ethereal beauty. Beneath the surface of this alien ocean, Volsung’s true heart thrummed. He closed his eyes, enjoying the silence and fresh, salt-laden air.

  At the sound of footsteps, Lucian turned to see Khairu, the tail of her gray cloak thrown by the breeze.

  “Take care of any last business,” she said. “We’re about to lose GalNet signal.”

  With that, she turned to leave.

  Lucian opened his slate to compose what could be his final words to his mother. He could only take a moment to reflect, as he wasn’t sure how much time he had.

  This might be my last message for a while, he began. Where I’m going, they don’t have much in the way of technology. They won’t even have GalNet signal. I should be arriving at the Volsung Academy in a few standard days. It’s been a long journey, but something tells me it’s just the beginning. He paused for a moment to compose his thoughts. I wish I had the data to send you a vid, too. It’s beautiful here. Thank you . . . for everything. Without you, I wouldn’t have made it this far. I’ve learned a lot about myself recently. And I don’t say this often, but you were right. I can’t do this alone, but I’ve learned it’s okay to ask for help. I’ve made a friend, and hopefully, I’ll find others like me at the Academy. Just know that everything is okay over here and I’m not alone. I love you, Mom. And please . . . stay alive.

  Lucian couldn’t risk the time to refine the message any further. He sent it off, allowing for a generous network fee to ensure it made it without a hitch. To his relief, it confirmed within seconds. A few days from now, that message would arrive on her slate in Alpha Centauri.

  Lucian went to the galley to rummage for food, finding some biscuits and fish dip. It wasn’t much, and not his usual fare, but at least it was something.

  Afterward, he went straight to bed, careful not to wake Emma as he passed her cabin. Khairu slept in the cabin opposite Emma’s, her retracted shockspear half a meter from her hand, the size of a small shock baton. Though the Talent slept, Lucian had the feeling she was quite aware of her surroundings and could be up and ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

  Lucian crawled into his bunk. The lapping of water and the creak of the ship’s wooden hull lulled him to sleep.