Chapter 5

Ellirae, on a tiny speck of an island she sat, knees pulled up against her chest, the fading sun bright over the horizon. In brilliant oranges and yellows the clouds were painted and the waves shimmered.

But none of this, her spirits raised.

Banished.

The word, through her mind it cycled. In Thalassia she was welcomed not. Her red hunting crystal was revoked. To enter the city, arrested she would be.

She sniffled and bothered not to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Even as mundane as the city was, home it was. And now, alone she was.

The sound of something, the sand it scratched, moving quickly and lightly. A Glaive Gale, over her hand it formed, and around she spun.

<Stop!> projected a red crab, his pincers in the air, clacking together in panic. <No no no! Don’t kill me. No. I hate dying. I am a good crab. Yes!>

Lower her hand she did not. Food, crabs were. But she knew not of any that could speak. Some other time, fascinated she would be.

“Go away,” she said, rubbing her tears off with the back of her free hand. She wanted not to be seen like this, not by people or crabs.

<Tskick! Why do I get the blubber faces? You people are always leaking. Yes!>

“Banished I have been!” she said, her marks flashing in anger. “Understand you would not.” Her Glaive Gale, apart it broke into fleeing sparks of light. Food the crab might be, but anything she spoke to was a thing she would not eat.

The crab relaxed. <You think you’re the first? Tck-tck-tck! That’s funny. You’re so naive. Many come before you, and many will come after.>

“W-who are you?” she asked, feeling as if this encounter, random it was not.

<My name is Mr. Seabreeze. Yes! Best Portcrab this side of Olindale’s sea. At your service, Blubber Butt.>

She huffed. “Ellirae, I am called.”

<Tck-tck-tck! That’s very good news. Yes! I am here for one Ellirae. Are you ready, or do you want to leak more? You look like you could use more leaking. And for mana, I can be patient.>

“Ready? For what?”

<What else? To port. Yes! Did you hear me about how very patient I can be . . . for mana? You have mana, yes? Let’s enjoy the sunset!>

His beady little eyes, up at her they peered. She shrugged and summoned 50 of her 75 mana. Out from her palm and into a sphere it swirled.

Mr. Seabreeze, forward he scurried, accepting the mana with glee. <So very kind. Yes!> His face, into the sphere it disappeared, and the mana shrank.

<T-t-t-t! I love mana! Yours kind of sucks, though.>

To her feet she climbed. Arms crossed, down at the crab she glared. “Mean you are. Go away.”

<Don’t be like that. I’ll eat sucky mana over no mana any day. Yes! Say, have I grown any?>

“Still small you are. And mean. And annoying. My mana, I give not to a thankless crustacean.”

<Tskick! I fixed your leaking. Yes! You can thank me later with more sucky mana. Are you ready?>

She frowned and sighed. “Fine. Ready I am. To do, I have nothing else.” Free she was to choose her own path, but the choices, overwhelming they felt.

Mr. Seabreeze, his pincers he waved, beckoning her to follow, and she did. To the center of the island they walked, no more than ten steps away from the shore on any side.

<Other me, ready?>

An eyebrow she arched, but clear it was that he was speaking not to her. Curiosity, in a spiral out from her chest, her marks warmed.

A blue line, through the sand and in a circle around Mr. Seabreeze it formed. <Come! Stand inside. Don’t look so suspicious! They are waiting for you. Yes!>

“They? They who?” she asked.

<Tskick! The ones who sent me, of course. You’ll see.>

Without a place to belong, anywhere she could go, so why not with him?

Into the circle she stepped, and the temperature dropped. The scent of the sea changed, becoming earthy and floral. The lapping of waves ceased, replaced by a musical hum and dripping.

Three times, Mr. Seabreeze snapped his pincers. Up from her toes white bubbles rushed, covering her legs and stomach and shoulders. All at once they popped, and on the island she was not anymore.

In an enormous cave of dark gray rocks she stood. Ropy vegetation, to the walls they clung, covered in purple moss and fat green jellied slugs. Overhead, a dim orange light from holes in the high ceiling lit an underground lake.

Her marks, in awe they pulsed.

Human ships—some still floating, some old and wrecked—against the rocky shore they leaned. Veetamors worked and played, talked and laughed.

And . . . humans! To ropes they were tied. Unhappy they looked, being tugged around piles of items and into ships.

At that she frowned.

“Ellirae, you must be,” a feminine voice from her side said, cutting through the spellbound effect of seeing so many new things.

Ellirae jumped.

Her marks randomly flashed.

A woman with long white hair and black fish-scale armor looked at her appraisingly. Confidence the woman had, standing upright, chin raised a fraction, piercing silver eyes.

Across her skin in a lighter shade of blue, an artful spiderweb pattern there was. And two seashell shards in each ear she wore.

<Tiskick!> Mr. Seabreeze projected. <Of course I bring the right one. Yes! I wouldn’t make such a mistake. No! So, you pay me now?>

“Aelvoralin, I am called,” the woman said, forming a sphere of mana for the excited crab. From her hand he snatched it and squealed in pleasure, projecting how sucky it was not.

“About you,” she said, “a little fish told me. A rule breaker you are? Curious you are?”

“Aelvoralin?” Ellirae asked, the name making her marks dim and flicker in fear. Talking, she was, to the leader of criminals, the leader of the Turbulent Ones. “Here I should not be. Sorry, I am to—”

“Wrong you are. And all those who came before you, the same thing they said. Ellirae, uncommon you are, willing to break rules for the greater good. That is what we do.”

“But criminals you are.”

“And you are not?” Aelvoralin asked, a slim smile adorning her lips.

Ellirae paused, her marks warming in a random sequence as she mulled that over. A criminal—a bad person—she was. But a criminal she did not feel.

The Correxium’s rules, needless they were. In fact, upset she was with their verdict! Leave their cage was all she had done, and for that they banished her.

Aelvoralin, forward she stepped, motioning to her followers below. “Our way of life, easy it is not. But in you, faith I have. Join us. The rules, break them. And one day, if worthy you prove yourself, a pet human you can have.”

Ellirae gasped. Her marks, in excitement they warmed and fluttered. A pet? Her own human pet she could have. Well then! The best bad person she would be!