My Dearest Mother,

  I should be writing this letter to the Grand Majestry, but here—on this ship drifting across the black-painted waters—I can only think of you. Egypt is lost, unfortunately. I wasn’t able to protect it. I hope you can forgive me for my weakness, Mother. I really tried. I was just never cut out for fighting, I suppose. You remember the bruises I’d come home with every week from school. I loved writing and reading too much to ever think about lifting a finger against anyone.

  I won’t take it personally if you blame me for the loss of our home, but you should know I didn’t hold back. I gave it my all, Mother. Please don’t think any less of me.

  You actually wouldn’t believe it. Despite being so close to other people for these two years straight, I didn’t make any friends. You once asked me never to change. Told me you’d always love me the way I am. I guess that ended up being true.

  On this ship, I am not alone. I have two of my mates helping me get through this and deliver this letter to Kai Evergreen—the only man left in the world who could save what remains of Egypt. But even that isn’t what I really wanted to say.

  What I truly wanted to say is that I miss you, Mother. I missed you every day and night since the war began. I missed your cooking. I missed your scolding. I missed how much you begged me to stay close, to not become my own person. I didn’t listen, did I? I thought becoming a soldier would finally free me from my undesirable passions. I thought I could leave writing and reading behind—for your sake—and become Rico Quasar the Great… or something like that.

  I didn’t want to be your little boy forever. I wanted to grow up. But here I am, never going to get that chance.

  I’m sorry, Mother. I never intended to see you so early. But I can’t stop wondering if I’d rather lie my head on your lap one more time—under the stars or above them. I—

  “Rico!” a man shouted, clutching his rifle tight against his chest. He rocked back and forth despite the forced determination in his eyes.

  “Have you finished writing the letter? We need to get this delivered to the first fucking EMV that crosses our sights!”

  “Y-Yes, I have!” Rico stammered, snapping the journal shut.

  “I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die…” the woman whispered from the corner of the cramped cabin, her voice cracking on each repetition.

  “Yazida… you won’t die! Please don’t say that!” Rico rushed to her, pressing a reassuring hand to her trembling shoulder.

  Her eyes shot up to him—wide, terrified.

  Then she broke entirely.

  “Oh Rico! Please! Get us out of here!”

  “D-Don’t worry! We’re going to call for help! That’s all this is!”

  “Yeah? And just getting to this ship, we already lost three men!” the soldier snapped, yelping when a plank groaned beneath them.

  Rico gulped… then squinted at him.

  Who was this man anyway? He wore the same uniform as himself and Yazida but he didn’t remember him being with them when they first began their journey to escape Egypt.

  Before he could ask, Yazida clutched his sleeve with ice-cold fingers.

  “Rico… I-I don’t want to die…”

  “No! You won’t!” he insisted, his voice cracking. “With this letter, Yaxon Staffire will come rushing to our side! He’ll kill that evil witch for us! He—he’ll take back our home and hand it right to us with a smile! So please… don’t say things like that! We’ll be alright!”

  He lifted a shaking hand and pointed out toward the ship’s stern.

  The Egyptian coastline had disappeared entirely into the ink-dark horizon.

  “See?” Rico whispered. “We’re not in that hell hole anymore.”

  Yazida turned behind her and saw nothing. The embers of glowing orange and red and the terrible smoke in the sky had fully disappeared. The empty deck creaked, and she flinched again. She sniffled, then looked back at Rico with trembling lips.

  “Y-You promise…?”

  “Yes. With my whole heart,” he said without hesitation.

  “O-Okay…” Her breath shuddered out of her as she wiped her cheeks.

  Rico eased himself down beside her.

  “I’ll sit right here. Don’t worry. I’m going to stay with you until we reach Greece.”

  He offered her a small, gentle smile before opening his journal to the unfinished letter.

  Yazida managed a tiny smile in return—and then, very subtly, she leaned closer to him.

  Rico noticed, of course. But he didn’t flinch or shift away. He couldn’t. He knew he had to be strong for her.

  So he held still, letting her rest against him as the wooden ship groaned its way through the dark waters.

  #

  Kai groaned so hard he collapsed forward, letting his upper body smack onto the table with a dull thud.

  Milo stood beside him, staring in silence.

  “Your Majestry…?” Bobby ventured, squinting nervously at the heap of Grand Sorcerer on the table. “Is there… anything I can help with…?”

  “Nooooo!” Kai wailed into the wood. Bobby flinched. Milo didn’t move an inch.

  Kai finally sat upright, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair. “That accursed clown organization is really getting on my nerves!”

  “Ah. You mean the one Vix and Milo were supposed to track and destroy?” Bobby snickered. “Seems like they did a helluva job!”

  Milo turned his head toward Bobby. Face blank. Completely unreadable.

  “What?! Don’t get offended—I’m just stating the facts!”

  “No offense taken,” Milo replied calmly, which somehow made it worse.

  “And besides!” Kai continued, “That leader was last seen in Forest Park in New York. And the public wants to know who in the hell burned down nearly a mile of forest in one night—so cleanly that nothing was left but charred dust and zero magical residuals!”

  “Can’t you just blame the clown?” Bobby asked.

  “No!” Kai snapped. “And worst of all, they want the Staffire Squad on the case. HOW am I supposed to send them without—oh, I don’t know—STAFFIRE HIMSELF?!”

  He buried his face in his palms again, muffling a pained sob. “Seriously… screw that guy and his unreliability…”

  “I could call the twins, sire,” Milo offered, tone flat as ever.

  “You know what? Fine. Call them.” Kai huffed, throwing his hands up. “And Commander Wholewheat? Join Milo on this case. Find whoever did that and bring him to me!”

  Bobby tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a grin behind his fist. Milo stared directly at his pathetic attempt at professionalism.

  “R-Right away, sir!” Bobby blurted.

  But before he could even turn toward the exit, the doors slammed open and Vix stormed inside.

  “Ah, look who it is! The man who couldn’t catch one clown—”

  “Not now, jackass.” Vix jabbed a finger into Bobby’s chest without stopping, then dropped heavily into the seat beside Kai.

  “Commander,” Milo greeted with a nod.

  “Milo,” Vix replied curtly. Then, looking at Kai: “Your Majestry? We need to talk.”

  Kai blinked. “Uhh… okay?”

  Milo silently turned and walked out. Bobby looked between Milo and Kai several times, waiting for someone to tell him to stay. No one did. He muttered something unintelligible and quickly excused himself as the doors shut behind them.

  Vix let out a long breath.

  “It’s about Rin.”

  “Rin?” Kai perked up, folding his fingers together and leaning closer with a grin. “Or something happened in the Carving Club?”

  “Don’t. Don’t get smart with me,” Vix warned, pointing sharply at him.

  “I’m not! I promise!” Kai laughed nervously, hands raised in surrender.

  “What’s the matter with her? When do I get to call this mission a success? When Yaxon finally crawls out of his burrow once every blue moon to explain anything?!”

  “You and me both,” Kai muttered. “I can’t take his absence anymore either—especially after the whole forest ordeal.”

  “So that was the conversation taking place before I intruded?”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Yes.”

  Vix rolled his eyes, jaw tightening. “She’s nothing special like he thinks. She’s just… a girl with extra baggage.”

  “My, my. That would hurt her feelings,” Kai teased.

  “I don’t care.”

  Kai flinched at the sharpness of that reply. Then he really looked at Vix for the first time—dark circles, exhausted posture, the faint tremor in his fingers.

  “…Vix? Sleeping alright?”

  “Yes,” Vix replied instantly, too fast, too stern.

  “I’m going to guess… seven hours of sleep. Total. In the last week.”

  “Enough!” Vix barked, voice cracking. “I can’t keep doing this anymore!”

  “The great Commander Vix Nepton—undone by caring for a child.” Kai placed a dramatic hand over his heart.

  “She’s a demon behind cute puffy cheeks!”

  Kai chuckled. “I believe all daughters are like that.”

  “I’m not her father!” Vix shot to his feet, slamming both palms onto the table.

  “No one said you should be.”

  “The hell?!”

  Kai blinked. Then blinked again, slower this time—as if his brain was just now catching up.

  “…D-Don’t tell me…”

  Vix said nothing.

  “Don’t tell me you tried to be her father this whole time…”

  Vix stared down at his trembling hands, black gloves flexing as the memories crashed against the back of his skull. The meals he cooked. Somehow she never once finished any of it. The curfews he enforced. Rin slowly began to defy them but he’d pretend to ignore it. The quiet nights he stood guard at her door. She never knew. The warmth she gave him that he’d never given her.

  “You totally did,” Kai whispered, equal parts disbelief and pity. “…didn’t you?”

  “And what of it?” Vix said through gritted teeth.

  “You were supposed to watch over her. Protect her. Not… play a role.”

  “Oh yeah?” Vix snapped. “And how do you know so much about my mission?”

  “Yaxon may be unreachable when we need him,” Kai said, waving a hand with forced whimsy, “but he does drop in a few words when he can.”

  Vix stared at him, blankly, unimpressed.

  “…Archas told me.”

  “AGHHH!!!”

  Vix dragged both hands through his hair, pacing in a tight, frantic circle. “THIS DOESN’T HELP WITH ANYTHING!”

  “Alright, alright—calm down.” Kai stood, offering a careful hand. “What’s so terrible about the girl anyway?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Vix snapped, “maybe the fact that she

  me to be her dad? It’s written all over her stupid puffy-cheeked face every time she looks at me and it me—in the worst possible way! I physically can’t think of important things like my other missions!”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And THEN I have actual business to take care of. Like—oh, I don’t know—finding the culprit who incinerated a whole damn forest!”

  “Right.”

  “And the moving process?! Selecting King’s Guards to secure the apartment?! Learning the language?!” Vix threw his arms up. “The language barriers ALONE—”

  “Korean was created for the people,” Kai chirped.

  “And I’m doing this twice a year, while protecting the public, serving you, serving the king, and apparently raising a child who is either destined to become Yaxon’s personal war machine or… or just a normal girl! I’m not doing this anymore!”

  Right on cue, Vix’s communicator chimed.

  He snatched it up, tapped the screen—froze—then shoved it in Kai’s face.

  “SEE?!”

  Kai squinted. The message read:

  Rin:

  Kai blinked. Looked at Vix. “…Uh… yes, I see. That is… horrifying…?”

  “No! It’s NOT!” Vix shouted. “HOW am I even supposed to respond to that?!”

  “The same way you respond to the girl at the club you’ve been talking to.”

  “Not even CLOSE! They’re TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE who care about me and—”

  Vix stopped.

  Completely froze.

  Blink. Blink.

  Kai’s grin stretched unnaturally wide.

  “…How did you know.”

  “I’ve been told.”

  “Who else knows.” Vix’s voice dropped to a deathly calm scowl.

  “Just myself,” Kai said sweetly, “and the spectator.”

  Vix’s entire aura darkened. “I will kill him.”

  “But you understand my point, don’t you?” Kai said gently.

  “No.”

  “These two people are the only ones who see you as you are—and like you that way. Hell, they might even you that way.”

  “That’s their misfortune,” Vix muttered. “No one likes me without wanting the status that comes with it.”

  “Are you sure?” Kai asked quietly. “You had no status until Yaxon claimed you.”

  That made Vix look up. Really look up. His shoulders slowly straightened.

  “You’ve made some grave mistakes,” Kai continued. “But they can be fixed. And only you can fix them.”

  Vix’s gaze drifted to the floor again. The truth hit harder than he wanted to admit.

  “Go,” Kai said softly. “Go fix them. And for God’s sake—watch her cook. Make sure she doesn’t set the apartment on fire.”

  “…Yes, Your Majestry.”

  Vix bowed, turned, and walked out.

  There was no malice left in his voice.

  Just the weight of a new, freshly opened hole inside him—one he hadn’t realized existed.

  #

  Rico wrote like a man trying to outrun death.

  Ink scratched across the page. Sketches—half-formed, shaking—filled the margins. Anything to keep his mind from collapsing under the weight of the black Mediterranean night pressing in around them.

  Above him, the stars shimmered—so bright, so clean, that the sea became a perfect mirror. Sky reflected into water, water into sky, and for the briefest moment he almost forgot where he was. He recorded the beauty—every fractured thought—into his journal. It steadied his hands. Barely.

  Yazida had fallen asleep on his shoulder, her breath trembling against his sleeve. Exhaustion had stolen her consciousness entirely; even his movement didn’t disturb her. He carefully eased her down, letting her rest against the wooden planks of the deck.

  The other soldier—still shaking, still muttering—manned the radio near the helm, cycling through code after code.

  Static.

  More static.

  And then, more static.

  He repeated the urgent SOS again, the highest alert in wartime protocols.

  Not a single response.

  Rico felt a shiver crawl from the back of his neck down his spine—slow, deliberate.

  He turned his head toward the front of the ship.

  The soldier was hunched over the radio, bathed in faint red light, his face ghostlike and smeared with exhaustion.

  They were at least four hundred kilometers from Alexandria. Far enough to be safe—by any sane measure.

  So why wasn’t anyone answering?

  Rico swallowed hard. He gently laid Yazida onto a folded tarp beside him, brushing a curl of her hair away as she instinctively curled into the warmth.

  He stepped to the railing, peering over the edge.

  Just water. Ripples from the ship’s movement.

  Then—

  A ripple that didn’t originate from the ship.

  A faint widening circle… as if something vast had disturbed the surface far beneath.

  Rico’s blood turned to ice.

  “S-Sir…?” he called quietly, never taking his eyes off the water.

  His voice cracked. “Where are we?”

  “Huh?” The soldier yelled back over the wind. “What do you mean, where are we?”

  Rico didn’t answer. His gaze lifted upward.

  The sky was changing.

  The black canvas above them shifted—slowly, subtly—into a deep, bruised violet. A color no sky should wear. A color that belonged to curses, not stars.

  He gasped.

  “The hell’s wrong with the sky?” the soldier muttered, noticing it too.

  Rico’s voice barely escaped his throat.

  “…Sir. She’s here.”

  “The witch?” the soldier barked. “Th-That’s impossible—we’ve been moving at flank speed this whole ti—”

  Rico’s heartbeat punched his ribs.

  “Sir…” His voice trembled. “She’s found us.”

  The sky deepened—purple sinking toward black—until the stars themselves seemed to pulse like beating hearts. Then several flared white-hot, swelling into painful brilliance.

  “SHIIIITT!” the soldier at the helm screamed, wrenching the wheel. “Brace for impact!”

  The first star-lance hit.

  A needle-thin column of light sliced straight down from the heavens, severing one of the masts like a twig. It didn’t shatter—

  It disintegrated.

  Dust, instantly swallowed by the unnaturally calm air.

  Another star brightened.

  “GET DOWN!” Rico shouted, shoving Yazida to the deck and throwing himself over her—

  —another beam stabbed the hull inches from his leg, carving through wood like it was soft fruit. The ship lurched violently to the side.

  But the water didn’t react.

  No spray.

  No waves.

  The ocean remained perfectly, impossibly still—like a sheet of polished obsidian.

  Rico felt his stomach twist. That wasn’t real water. It couldn’t be. The world was wrong—suffocatingly wrong.

  Yazida woke up screaming underneath him.

  The third soldier—the one muttering beside the helm—shouted, “We need to move! We have to move!” His voice cracked with hysteria. He jerked the wheel back and forth. “Why isn’t it turning?! Why isn’t it moving?!”

  Rico scrambled across the tilting deck, grabbing for the railing. “We ARE moving!”

  “No, we’re not,” Yazida whispered, her voice hollow with terror. She was staring at the horizon—

  At the frozen horizon.

  Rico followed her gaze.

  The stars’ reflections on the water did not ripple.

  The waves did not shift.

  Their ship—despite its groaning, despite its keening hull—was perfectly stationary, caught in a painting pretending to be an ocean.

  “…oh gods,” Rico breathed. “We’re not sailing. We haven’t been sailing.”

  Another star flared.

  A beam stabbed the deck where Yazida had been sitting seconds before. She screamed and rolled, her palms scraping raw across splintered planks.

  The soldier at the helm ducked as a beam tore through the wheel behind him, splitting it cleanly in two. “She’s toying with us! SHE’S TOYING WITH US!”

  "JUST RUN!" Rico shouted, though there was nowhere to run. The attacks were coming from every direction and no direction simultaneously.

  The soldier at the helm picked up his rifle and fired at any star that began to pulse too brightly. It was useless. The moment a star reached its peak glow, a spear of light slammed downward, punching clean through the deck.

  One beam struck the hull—

  A deafening crack—

  Water gushed in.

  “Shit!” Rico grunted, nearly losing his footing. He looked up just in time to see a star positioned directly above him—

  He rolled aside at the last possible heartbeat as the bolt carved a perfect hole where he had just lain.

  “Yazida! Keep moving! Don’t stop—”

  But she didn’t reach him.

  In the middle of her sprint toward him, a beam shot straight through her sternum.

  A hole—clean, silent, smoking.

  Her body jerked once, eyes widening, lips parting in the smallest, broken gasp.

  “YAAZIDAAA!!!”

  Rico caught her as she fell, sliding to the deck with her weight cradled in his arms. The ship groaned and splintered under them, but he barely registered it.

  “Yazida! Stay with me! Stay with me, dammit!” His voice cracked. His hands shook. “I promised you wouldn’t die today. You hear me?! You can’t—don’t make me break my promise—Yazida!”

  She didn’t blink.

  Didn’t breathe.

  Her mouth remained parted in a frozen half-scream—

  Her final moment on this planet, and she died in terror. Her face was etched with it.

  Rico pressed his forehead to hers, sobbing into her silent face.

  “DAMN YOUUU WIIITCHHH!” he roared into the purple sky.

  Stars brightened overhead, mocking his fury.

  “Sir! STOP FIRING YOUR STUPID FUCKING GUN! IT ISN’T WORKING! WE NEED TO ABANDON SHIP!” Rico shouted toward the helm, barely coherent through his grief.

  No response.

  “SIR?! SOLDIER!!!”

  He scrambled to his feet, nearly slipping on the ruined deck, eyes fixed on the helm.

  But the soldier wasn't there.

  Not even his shadow.

  Not his rifle.

  Not a drop of blood.

  Nothing.

  Like he had never existed at all.

  Rico froze.

  A tremor passed through him—

  Then another—

  And slowly, a smile crawled across his lips.

  “Heh…”

  His breathing hitched.

  Then he chuckled.

  Then cackled—

  Laughed wildly into the open air as the stars rained death in slow, cruel arcs around him.

  “I get it…” he said, voice cracking through hysterical laughter. “I get it now…”

  He lowered Yazida gently—almost tenderly—to the deck, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek.

  Then he reached for his notebook.

  With steady hands—far steadier than his mind—he tore out the letter. Folding it once. Twice. Then seven precise times until it became a neat paper airplane.

  A shrine to hope in a hopeless place.

  “I’m coming home, mother…” he whispered, tears rolling freely now, unchecked and unimportant.

  Above him, the sky peeled open.

  A colossal purple magic circle unfurled—three times the size of the ship—its runes shifting like open eyes.

  Rico stared into the glow.

  Then he threw the airplane.

  It soared upward, slipping between the cracks of Minerva’s domain.

  And the next instant with a roaring boom—

  The ship, Rico, Yazida, and every piece of wood still clinging to existence—

  were reduced to violet ash.

  Down on one of Alexandria’s empty night beaches, Minerva lounged in a striped beach chair, sipping from a coconut as calmly as if nothing in the world were happening. She wore oversized sunglasses—despite it being the dead of night—and twirled her wand lazily between two fingers.

  A soft violet shimmer danced along the shoreline, the sky returning back to black.

  “Hmph…” she sighed, leaning back and kicking one sandaled foot playfully. “That was kinda fun.”

  She giggled, tapping her wand to the coconut, chilling it instantly.

  “Maybe I’ll get to play with you some day…” She said smiling brightly at the white coconut.