Page 14 of Sea of Stars

I couldn’t help but smile.

“Did he hurt you?” His voice sounded genuinely concerned. He seemed to care about my wellbeing. I wanted to believe that it was because he was attracted to me, but I was worried that it was only because I was the supposed "wished for child."

“I think it could have been worse,” I said, pointing to the image above the Iron Gates on my map. “Mortwar would whip us,” I shuddered at the memories. It had always seemed like I was Mortwar’s favorite subject. Now I knew it was because of the gift my mother and I possessed. “But I have no idea what horrors occur in other places,” I pointed to a sketch of a small knife by a human town.

“I don’t know what most of those pictures mean, but I do know what the image of the knife means.” He lifted his right arm, which revealed dozens of small horizontal scars along the length of the inside of his forearm. “Many people believe that divinare blood is full of magic. They don’t understand that we don’t all possess the power of the Moira. Their ignorance is driving our people to extinction.”

I could only imagine how much pain he’d been through. “I'm sorry, Breghton." I paused, trying to figure out the right way to word my question. "Is that what the gift of the Moira is then? Magic?" I needed to know everything that he could tell me. My mother had made the prediction about the Great Ravage and she had no visible symbols glowing on her body, yet, somehow it was all connected.

"No, not really. Well, kind of I guess. Those blessed with the gift can see things that regular divinares and other races cannot. I don't know as much as I probably should. Like I said, I don't even know how to read the language. We need to find someone who has more answers."

He looked away from me and stared back at the maps. I drew my attention to them too. Far up in the right corner of his map stood something called "Celeseth - Human Capital." I knew they had tons of small villages scattered about, but I never knew they had a capital. That probably meant that they had a leader.

There was also another small cluster of mountains to the right, the Siegarl Mountains. Even the name of them sent shivers through my body. To the right of the desert on his map stood the Verdalk Grasslands. That must have been the area Chinook flew over to get to the Azure Cliffs.

“We should try to avoid any villages that Swishel has marked. Unfortunately, my map isn't as detailed as yours.” He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “It’s getting dark, I’ll make a fire.” He stood up and walked away, staring straight ahead.

As soon as he disappeared from view, Chinook hopped over. I didn’t care that my mother was now a bird, I was just happy to have her back. I leaned in to hug her again, but she nudged me with the top of her head.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She nudged me again, knocking me to my side.

“What is it?”

Chinook’s head snapped to the direction where Breghton had gone and then back at me. Then she got down as low as she could to the ground, like she did when she wanted me to climb on her back. I heard a twig snap and looked up. Breghton was walking back toward us, his arms full of branches. I nodded my head at her to let her know I understood. I didn’t fully trust him either, but I was glad he was here.

I sat silently, watching him work. Soon the flames of the fire sent shadows dancing across his face. He pulled his eyes away from the blaze and turned to me. I quickly looked away, hoping he hadn’t seen my gaze.

“I still can’t believe you’re alive,” I said, rubbing my hands together over the fire to warm them.

Breghton touched the scar on his face and frowned. “I guess luck has been on my side. I can only imagine what it was like to live at the Iron Gates. Yet, here you are. Luck is on your side too.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it has anything to do with luck." I didn't feel lucky, I felt lost. "You spoke about my destiny. Maybe we were both meant to survive the horrors we’ve been through so that we would meet again.” He was so handsome that I couldn't resist flirting with him a little. Maybe I could get him to tell me what the Assassin’s Dagger really said.

“You’re right,” he said after a long silence. “When we first met I knew I wanted to bring you back here. I'm not sure it had anything to do with the fact that I believed you were the girl that was meant to save us. You were such a cute little thing with fire in your eyes.”

I couldn't help but smile. My girlhood crush was getting the best of me. “Well anyone would want to come back here. I can tell it used to be beautiful.” The island itself truly was amazing, and much bigger than I had expected. I couldn’t see from one end of the island to the other. I felt as though I could picture how it was before it was demolished. Breghton had described it well to me all those years ago. It had sands as white as the clouds. The gentle breeze washed over me with the thick, salty smell of the sea. The huts that remained were large, clearly designed for families to reside in together. I felt relaxed even though I didn't know Breghton very well. I could picture happiness here. This was the type of village that my parents had described. They may have even grown up right on this island. Despite the island's beauty, terrible things had just happened here, and they could have happened in the past as well. “Is this where the Great Ravage occurred?”

“No, that was on a different island. But it looked a lot like this. The people who lived here called it Shadoira.”

I nodded. The name made sense to me. It was almost a shadow of their former home. To me, though, it was perfect. “Yeah, anyone would be happy to call something like this home. I wonder what it would have been like if I had escaped with you?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot.” He was silent for a moment. "And Mahlia, it’s not that I wanted to come home just so I could show this place off to you. It was something else. We were both so young, though. How long ago was it?”

“Ten years.” I knew the answer right away, but the amount of time that had passed was startling to hear. “I can’t believe it's been ten years.”

He nodded his head. “How old are you now?”

“Nineteen.” I waited for him to offer his age, but he didn’t. I thought he might have been about a year or two older than me before, but he looked so much older now. “What about you?”

“Twenty-one. You look older than nineteen you know.”

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I turned away and looked out to the ocean. The waves crashed against the sands, but didn't glow nearly as bright as when it did this by the Azure Cliffs. I couldn’t help but feel that if I had come here ten years ago I’d be a completely different person. Or at least more similar to whom I had been when I was a kid. I had given up on my life because of Mortwar. How could I have let that happen so easily? Out of the corner of my eye I saw Breghton stand up and walk toward me. With his bandaged hand, he lifted the corner of the blanket that I sat under and joined me beneath it.

“Do you mind? It’s just so cold tonight.”

I didn’t say a word. I felt his arm against mine. I stayed perfectly still, staring at the sea in the distance.

---