It had been a week. Seven awful, silent days. And when Zora looked south, she could still see the steeples of Dawnbreak. Five of those days had been spent with Cayd sitting in the dirt, hours away from the main road connecting Dawnbreak with Crossroads, scrawling something unreadable in the soil around him. He sat with that stupid, dusty lantern in his lap, with his eyes closed like an enraptured hoarder.

  Zora, on the other hand, spent the days alternatively looking toward the glistening sea to the south and the mountains to the north. The sea was beginning to shrink against the horizon with every step they would take northwest.

  Every morning when she woke up, Zora came to enjoy scanning the peaks for where Kraag had trundled off to. The Elder God had always captured her imagination, especially in the time since that monster haunted her dreams. Kraag was a massive force of nature, yet he just walked. He gave trade routes and major cities wide berth, supposedly because he knew how much destruction he could cause if he stepped in the wrong place. If there was one thing she could look forward to in this damned punishment from the Sun Goddess, it would be getting closer to Kraag. Maybe she would be able to see his face?

  What Zora did not come to enjoy, though, was Cayd in between his long, silent meditation periods. He was hungry for conversation and never took a hint. As they sat across from one another one afternoon around a light lunch of fruit and cheese, Cayd began his “conversation.”

  “How are you today?”

  Zora grunted.

  “Has your pendant lit up at all again?”

  Zora scowled at this one. The pendant, her gift from Tidus, was her business alone. She knew that the only reason Cayd knew about it was because of how brightly it would glow at night. Zora could hear Tidus’s voice come from the god’s tear in the small bottle of seawater whenever the light inside shined. It was, at this point, a highlight of her life. She hated that he had the gall to ask about it.

  “I think we’ll be able to start traveling properly soon. Are you ready?”

  “Cayd, I’d been expecting to be done finding your little man-friend already.”

  “I’m looking for him,” Cayd urged. “But the man we’re dealing with is not a pushover hedge-wizard. He is talented.”

  “Pff,” Zora scoffed. “Student must have surpassed the teacher.”

  Cayd laughed, which frustrated Zora even more. “In a way, yes. Though, not necessarily the way I had wanted.” Cayd paused, waiting for the inevitable “what do you mean?” from Zora.

  But it never came. The former pirate captain was picking something from under her fingernails, not listening.

  “Do you miss your crew?” Cayd finally asked.

  Zora’s response was a roll of the eyes so saturated with disdain that Zora worried she had pulled a muscle. “What kind of asinine question is that, Cayd?”

  “I’m just trying to make conversation,” the sorcerer responded with a shrug. “I’d appreciate it if you showed some effort, as well?”

  “I want to go home. Not talk to you. Nor watch you sit and fondle your little lamp.”

  “That little lamp kept you from being executed.”

  “What? It got me arrested! Had Tidus not shown up I would be dead!”

  “Boldbounty would not have let you make it into the chapel. He would have killed you. I sort of saved your life, cutting that deal with Solanna,” Cayd said. He was smiling now that he had finally gotten Zora talking.

  “Oh yes,” Zora cooed. “Thank you so much.” She showed the sun brand Solanna had cursed her with. “I appreciate your generosity, sir. Now that I can’t so much as step in a puddle without enraging the damned sun, my life is just so much better.”

  Cayd grinned. “Glad to help. In all honesty, though, I finally caught on to some leads with the Lumineer. There have been some murders in Crossroads. All seem to have hints of blue magic. I think we should start there.”

  “Zora, you can’t be a pirate any more. You need to be a detective instead,” Zora mocked as she chewed on a wedge of apple. “Gear up!”

  “I’ve never heard of someone not willing to stop a murderer before.”

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  “Even from a murderer?” Zora asked. Then she widened her eyes in mock shock. “Did you not know I was a pirate?”

  “Oh please,” Cayd dismissed. “Stop pretending to be so hard, Zora. You’re One of those ‘all for the greater good, I’ll do the wrong thing’ types of people. I can tell.”

  Again, Zora shrunk inward. “You do not know me, Gavundari. You will never know me. Ever. Now watch your words.”

  “And the wooden bridge to Zora’s heart sways in the wind,” Cayd sung. But his playful teasing stopped when he noticed the temperature around him rise. It was easy at times to forget Zora was one of the most powerful red magic users he had met. No wonder, though. She wore her emotions like flamboyant outfits.

  Zora got up and walked from Cayd, dusty puffs leapt from her heels as she moved.

  “Hey, Zora,” Cayd called over to her.

  “Screw off, Cayd,” she spat back.

  With a groan, Cayd rose and walked after her. “Look, I know we’re off to a slow start, and I know it’s a change for you. But I need you to work with me.”

  “I do not want to be here, Cayd,” Zora said sternly. “You understand that I feel kidnapped, right?”

  “You are a prisoner,” Cayd reminded her. “Look at your hand. I understand that your type has that ‘better dead than imprisoned’ garbage in your heads, but I am your best bet for freedom.”

  “Then why do you sit on your ass playing with your toys? I want that freedom, Cayd, and you want your boyfriend caught. So let us get on with it.”

  “You are being mean for no reason,” Cayd reprimanded. It felt strange, two adults talking to another like this. Adults of Cayd and Zora’s ages, especially. “Why is it a fight with you? Always?”

  “Because it’s all I do. I fight.”

  “Well give me some time and we will put that fighting to good use. But until then, I need two things from you. I need you to trust me, and I need you to finally acknowledge that I did something nice for you.”

  “What did you do? Stand up to that bitch in the sky? Wow! You showed you had more balls than a chapel of paladins.” Zora hissed in pain at the end of the remark. The brand on her was stinging in response to the curse.

  “High Sergeant Boldbounty was my friend,” Cayd asserted. “He gave me a place to stay and something to do while I worked on finding the man I’m looking for. And to spare your life, I threw that friendship away.”

  “Your fault,” Zora shrugged. “I didn’t ask you to do anything for me, much less shackle us together.”

  “You would rather I let you die on that stage?” Cayd asked. He paused, then glared at her. “No. I’m not letting you answer that. You’re not an idiot, but you are cruel. You would proudly straighten up, tell me yes, you would rather be dead than standing here arguing with me. But that is outright stupid. There is no way you regret being alive today. You may not be where you want to be, or doing what you want to do, but your heart is beating. And for that reason, you have to be a little bit grateful. A little bit.”

  Zora’s visage did not change. She was fury, etched in stone. Finally, she settled on a response. “I hate you,” she growled.

  “Nice.” Cayd turned away, nodding. “You are truly a child, you know? You look like a woman, but you’re like… five.” He started walking away, back to the circle of glyph-like notes he had drawn in the morning with the lumineer sitting in the middle of it. “Maybe four. Not older than six, though, that’s for sure.”

  Zora spun quickly away as her rage bubbled. Heat swelled around her, and she performed her emotional-mental tricks that converted that rage to worry and concern. She held an open hand out in front of her at an upward angle.

  Lightning arcs leapt around her arm and wrist, swarming up around her hand, before she let it fire off toward the noon sun. There was a crash of thunder as her spell rushed skyward. The sudden expression of emotion was invigorating and releasing.

  She turned back to where Cayd was sitting, eyes closed, breathing measured. As she watched him, Zora started to smile. “I meant it!” she cried over to him. “I do hate you!”

  “These next few months are going to surely be awful for you, then,” he replied without even looking back at her.

  In the distance, the peak of Kraag’s shell shifted, almost unnoticeably against the other mountain peaks between Dawnbreak and Crossroads. Zora watched as the mountain seemed to pause for just a moment.

  She had to have been imagining it, but it seemed like he had taken notice of her lightning bolt. But when she thought harder about it, why would this woman, with a gift from the ocean god around her neck, and a curse of the sun goddess on her arm, catch the attention of the Elder God Kraag?

  The Lumineer painted the picture around where Cayd was sitting. It was as though he was right in the room with Boldbounty as he sat with the Mother Superior in charge of the chapel they had just left a handful of days before.

  “So we have two Gavundari court magicians on The March?” the priestess asked, no way she could be noticing Cayd watching her through one of the many magical items in that chamber.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Boldbounty responded jovially. “Mister Cayd was actually the Minister of Magical Affairs, the highest ranking magic user in the entire country. Up through the Jade Lion’s War, though. He left his post after that.”

  “And came here?”

  “Not sure. The time does not add up perfectly, but I am still working on it.”

  “And who is the other one?”

  “I’ve found the name Zarraz,” Boldbounty responded. “He arrived here just after the Jade Lion’s War about fifteen years ago. He was very young. And he hid himself well. No one has been able to find him.”

  “Do you think he is that Crossroads murderer?”

  “I sure hope,” Boldbounty shrugged. “Three birds with one stone, eh?”

  “Four if you count the pirate.”