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    TWENTY-SIX


    <h2 style="text-transform: uppercase">EMERYN</h2>


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    She’d always heard of the ocean’s vastness, but never quite grasped the magnitude of its width. Days were spent on the godforsaken boat despite its incredible speed. All Emeryn did was wait restlessly under the hot sun and sleep fitfully when night fell, if she didn’t count the times she spent with her head hanging over the side of the boat as she retched up her last meal.


    Being out on the water was bad enough when you could still see land and sense the ground beneath all that water, but once Emeryn got far enough from shore, the bottom of the ocean just dropped away into nothingness. Logically, she knew it was deep down beneath the waves, but the knowledge did not comfort her in the face of the overpowering helplessness that washed over her when her ability to sense the earth resulted in nothing. The emptiness in all directions terrified her, though she took care not to show it to the others.


    “Are you well, Emeryn?”


    <i>Drat.</i>


    “Fine, Tom. Just tired of sitting around doing nothing.”


    “I know what you mean. I’ve been occupying myself with healing the fish.”


    “Fish?” Emeryn asked, frowning.


    Tomford put his hand in the water. “They pass under us. Some are quite big. Bigger than the boat.”


    Emeryn yanked her hand out of the water. “I didn’t need to know that.”


    “So that’s what was happening,” Freyn mused.


    “You sensed me?” Tomford asked.


    She nodded. “Wade’s power has been blazing in my other sight this whole time. I didn’t understand what was going on when magic was suddenly being used beneath us.”


    “Injured fish,” Emeryn grunted.


    “Can’t just sit on my hands,” Tomford said sheepishly.


    Wade blinked, coming out of a trance-like state. The boat began to slow. “We’re nearing land,” he said.


    Emeryn shielded her eyes. She saw nothing but water.


    “I don’t see anything,” Tomford said. “How can you tell?”


    “The wind told me.”


    “Right.”


    “Freyn, can you sense any magic in that direction?”


    The older woman peered toward the horizon. She shook her head. “No, nothing.”


    Emeryn closed her eyes and gently quested outward with her nurture, trying to find earth. “Me neither,” she said, eventually giving up. “Can’t sense land.”


    “Just a few more hours,” Wade promised.


    Emeryn sighed and leaned back. Her stomach growled, but she had no interest in eating. Whatever she ate found its way back up within the hour. She’d been sustaining herself on sips of water to quell her hunger. If Wade was messing with them, she swore she’d feed him to the wild animals once they actually arrived.


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    * * *


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    Tomford


    Tomford stretched his power to its limit, holding the glow and pushing it toward the old man like an invisible spear. Sweat streamed down his face, back, and chest. His breath tore in an out of his chest. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t propel his power across the tiny skiff.


    “Almost there,” Od said with encouragement. “Even if you’re going about it like a dumb ape.”


    Tomford’s power slipped and the glow died away. “This is stupid,” he said.


    His own hand slapped him across the face again and Tomford growled, splashing a large handful of water up at the old bastard. Rather than soaking Od, the water hung in the air, then flew back into Tomford’s face.


    “Did you really think that would work?”


    “Shut up,” Tomford said.


    “You’re doing it wrong,” Od said.


    “How do you know? You’re not a healer!”


    “I’ve seen a healer or two in my day. Just reach out and sense me. Close your eyes!”


    Tomford gritted his teeth in frustration but closed his eyes. Like every time before it, he only sensed his own wellbeing. Perfect, of course. No healer ignored their own health when they could easily mend any wound or cure any disease.


    “Now expand it outward.”


    The impossibility of those words gnawed at him. Od thought himself so knowledgeable. He did know a lot, Tomford conceded, but not about healing. Still, he made an honest attempt at it, failing.


    “You don’t believe it is possible.”


    Tomford answered without opening his eyes. “You’re telling me to believe something I know is impossible. If it is so easy, why don’t you show me yourself then?”


    He heard Od grunt before a brilliant glow filled Tomford’s inner senses, a healer’s glow unlike anything he’d ever seen before in his life. It was weak, far more so than Tomford’s own power, but it was how it radiated from the old man in all directions, reaching far out across the water, that stunned Tomford.


    The light winked out as Tomford opened his eyes and Od let out a long sigh. His face was pale under his deep tan. “There. Healed some fish. Now do you understand?”


    “You’re a healer.”


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    “I’m not,” Od replied.


    “Obviously, you are one. You just said yourself that you healed some fish.”


    “Being able to heal does not a healer make.”


    “Huh?” Tomford asked, dumbfounded.


    Od sighed. “Before we continue, show me that you understood what I just did.”


    Tomford closed his eyes again, feeling as something had snapped into place that didn’t exist before.


    Just a moment earlier, he’d thought the concept impossible. Reaching out with your healing glow was done through physical contact. Everyone knew that. It was what he’d been told and taught. Even before that, it’d been an instinct. That first time he healed someone properly, he’d reached out to touch the injured limb to transfer the glow to his friend. Doing it any other way was unthinkable and being told it was possible was not enough for him to truly believe it. When the old man stopped telling him and instead showed that it wasn’t just possible, it was simple. Something snapped into place in Tomford’s mind.


    He pulled from his inner stream and allowed it to flow outwards. In that instant, he saw the healer’s glow for what it really was, or rather, what it wasn’t. It was not the same pool of power the hydromancers pulled their magic from, it couldn’t be. The healer’s glow was solely a healer’s power, similar but different. Something to ponder on at another time.


    His glow reached out all around him in a brilliant display of light, invisible to anyone who did not wield the same power.


    “That’s it,” Od murmured.


    Tomford reached into the air, down below the watery surface, and all across the boat. He filled with wonder. Then he reached out to the old man and nearly physically recoiled. “You’re very sick.”


    “I am.”


    “Let me heal you.”


    “No.”


    “Why not?”


    “I’ve lived a long time. Long enough.”


    Tomford released his healer’s glow. “How long?”


    “It is not polite to ask an old man his age. Let’s just say that even with my miniscule ability to heal, I’ve kept myself going for far longer than most people have the right. You need to prepare yourself for a long and lonely life.”


    Tomford didn’t know what to say. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’m going to teach this to the other healers.”


    Od scoffed. “Good luck with that. You’d be surprised how resistant to change most people are.”


    “I have to try.”


    “By all means.” Od looked away. “We’ll reach shore soon enough.”


    <div>


    * * *


    Tomford craned his neck and nodded in satisfaction. Just as Wade promised, a thin shadow appeared on the horizon. As the hours passed, it quickly grew. The Dark Continent.


    Emeryn’s smile was thin, her lips as pale as her face. The sea did not agree with her.


    Once they got closer, she let out a sigh and looked like she could relax a little “I can finally feel it. Land. Earth.”


    “There’s someone standing on the shore,” Freyn said.


    “You’re right,” Wade said. “Is it one of the growers?”


    Freyn assumed a look of concentration, then answered a moment later. “No. No magic.”


    “I thought you could only sense when someone is using their power,” Tomford said.


    “That’s what I thought too, back in Malac. Being around so many different magic users here in your world has made me realize the error in that assumption.”


    “I think Freyn is wrong,” Wade said.


    “What do you mean?” Emeryn asked.


    “Isn’t that?” Tomford asked. They were closing in on the shoreline and the person waiting for them had grown from a smudge of color in the distance to a man he recognized well. “Heradion?”


    “Juoko. He is definitely a mage,” Wade said.


    “Can’t sense a thing in him,” Freyn protested.


    The old man waved at them, both arms overhead. Tomford waved back. “How did he know we were coming?”


    “He is more than he appears to be,” Emeryn said.


    Wade held out a hand and lightning ripped through the clear blue sky and struck Heradion. Instead of obliterating the old man, it fizzled away against an invisible bubble. The edge of the shield glowed before disappearing.


    “I didn’t teach you that for you to turn around and use it against me, you buzzing little mosquito,” Heradion said, as the boat landed on the shore. His gaze burned with ill suppressed anger directed at Wade.


    Wade grinned and jumped off the boat, a thick rope in his hand. “That was just my way of saying hello and showing you my progress at the same time. Not bad, right?”


    “Why are you here?” Emeryn asked once she’d scrambled out of the boat and onto dry land. Her legs wobbled under her.


    “I have my reasons.”


    “And those are?”


    Heradion scratched at the side of his nose and pursed his lips, looking over each member of their little group, his gaze lingering a little on Freyn. “I’ve come to understand that the Halvgudar might play a part in what is to come. Since you’re here, I assume you are here for them as well.”


    “Will you show me some more tricks?” Wade asked.


    “You might implode if I do.”


    “Oh.”


    “Can you kill Taera?” Emeryn asked.


    Heradion sniffed. “You don’t want to kill Taera. You’ll need her.”


    Tomford was the last to disembark from the boat and he helped push the vessel onto the beach while Wade guided it with the rope. Once they’d secured it, Tomford turned to Heradion. “What are Halvgudar?”


    Heradion waved for the group to follow. “I have a camp set up nearby.”


    As they walked, the old man answered Tomford’s question. “Halvgudar are powerful beings connected to the Primes. This includes Taera and the others you thought of as gods.”


    “What is a Prime?”


    “A Prime is a force of the universe. There are five of them who balance and bind each other in a pattern that keeps all we know from unraveling. Their essence creates the flows of magic.”


    “You’re a lot more forthcoming this time around,” Tomford noted.


    Heradion chuckled. “You might need the information now. Either way, Maydian has been kept in the dark for long enough, I think.”


    “Wyndemir is a Prime?”


    “The Prime of Chaos,” Heradion confirmed.


    “You said there are five. Who are the others?”


    “Chaos, Order, Life, Death, and Elements. Each of them possesses a flow of magic that branches into many smaller avenues. Some intersect while others don’t.”


    “My healing is from the one called Life, I assume?” Tomford asked.


    “Correct.”


    Emeryn broke into the conversation. “But all magic in Maydian is elemental.”


    “Is it?” Heradion asked, glancing at Tomford.


    “Hydromancy and healing aren’t the same,” Tomford said. “Od says hello, by the way.”


    “Love that crazy old bastard,” Heradion said. “He taught you a thing or two, then?”


    Tomford nodded.


    “Very well then. It always amused me how the Vatners thought healing and hydromancy had anything in common. Why do you think Anea tried to exterminate the healers? She fancies herself a god of water, even if she’s not actually one of Elemental’s Halvgudar.”


    Tomford’s head spun as he tried to make sense of all the information. “Wait, are you saying Wyndemir is here because of Taera and the others?”


    “The Prime couldn’t care less about his children. And no, before you ask, they are not Chaos’s literal children, but they were created from the Prime’s essence.”


    “If they’re not human, then why do they look like it? Taera has taken over my mother’s body,” Emeryn said, sitting down on a fallen tree next to a smoldering fire. They’d reached Heradion’s camp.


    “Because we assume that’s what they’re supposed to look like,” Tomford guessed.


    Heradion’s eyes widened a little, and he nodded. “Very good, Vatner. That’s true for the Prime, at least. The Halvgudar can assume any form they wish. With few restrictions. They are, however, not able to possess someone’s body.”


    “Taera did,” Emeryn insisted.


    “No.”


    “Yes,” Emeryn said.


    Heradion gave Emeryn a tired look. “She might have looked like your mother, but they cannot possess another being. Your mother is either dead or tucked away somewhere. Taera, as you very well know, likes to keep a cult-like following and tamper with her subjects’ minds. What you saw was nothing more than smoke and shadows meant to increase her hold over the Kin.”


    Emeryn frowned but fell silent, grappling with this new piece of information.


    “Any other questions?” Heradion asked. “I’m in an informative mood today.”


    They all fell silent for a long while before Freyn straightened to ask, “What are you?”


    “You should all rest now,” Heradion said, answering her searching look with a wink.