All of a sudden, the carriage stopped. One of the guards opened the door while another tossed a satchel at her feet. Kaelen already knew what was in it: two weeks' worth of rations, and the water flask.
While the guards had their back turned, the carriage driver pushed a scroll into her hands, rolled in twine.
"Tha--" Kaelen's words were silenced by the driver sharply shaking his head.
She quickly shoved the scroll into the satchel and gave him a grateful look. When Kaelen blinked once more, the driver had his eyes on the ground.
No one was supposed to look at an elemental-less mage.
The guard gruffly pulled her by the arm.
"Out."
She felt his hand leave bruises, but didn't argue.
Kaelen's feet were in sandals--the same ones the servants wore when they ran errands at Aqualis. She stepped down into damp soil that smelled like rot and iron.
Mist curled around jagged coral spires. Pale thorn-vines grew in gnarled spirals, and Kaelen watched as their barbs twitched with the fierce breeze.
The Sea of Thorns.
Some borderland this is. I can't believe such a place existed. It's like the world neglected this place.
Before the carriage door closed once again, a guard hesitated. She saw the small window of his helmet was up.
He wasn't supposed to look at me. They're trained not to see the exiled.
But he did. Young. Dark-eyed. Jaw too tight. His armor was too polished—fresh from the academy.
"You won't last," he said softly. "None of them do."
The other guard barked and smacked the back of his helmet.
"Silence!"
The window that gave him sight snapped shut with a clang.
But the young man didn't flinch. Not until the door slammed and the wheels groaned into motion.
It was the only scrap of kindness Kaelen was shown.
And a guard spent it to tell her she would die.
+
Confused and uncertain, Kaelen followed the cracked path deeper into the mists. It was like time never passed there, and each breath she took tasted like ash.
Ravens circled overhead, like they were excited for her to fall. They were larger than her head and their wings longer than her arms. They watched her every move like she was a timid church mouse.
They felt like judges instead of birds.
Eventually, Kaelen found her new "home."
It looked more like a tipsy house to her, since it was built slanted to one side. Moss and coral rot decorated the outer walls, and its roof sagged like a snapped neck.
One wall looked like it was ready to collapse.
The interior wasn't much better.
There was a shattered basin, a mat half-chewed by vermin, and deep claw marks were etched into the stone floor.
While something lived here once, it hadn't done so peacefully.
Kaelen couldn't believe this was her new reality.
Once, when I was seven, I refused to sleep on a healer's cot because the mattress sagged.
Mother made me stand in the tide for two hours as punishment. "A little discomfort humbles the great, sea bunny." she said.
"She'd be proud of this place." Kaelen said aloud.
She spent the rest of the day unpacking the satchel onto a low wooden table. It was the only piece of furniture that looked semi-decent in the hut. Inside she found:
Six days of dried lotus root
Six days of sun-dried abalone
Two days of dried fish
A cracked flint
A faded gray robe (no sigil)
The exile scroll
A vial of unblessed water, in case the gods decided to pity her and grant her a blessing.
There were no blades or torches.
Nothing to protect against intruders. They really did leave her for dead.
Kaelen huffed.
With how quickly they disowned me, this is quite generous. Either someone pitied me or I disappointed them politely.
She couldn't stand looking at the scroll a second longer. The hearth was made of stone but thankfully, still had enough ashes to cover a small fire. Kaelen held the scroll over the hearth and sparked the flint.
A little flame hissed, like it was embarrassed to be there.
She stared as the parchment curled and blackened, the fire twisting in her ocean-blue eyes.
If they wish to forget me, so be it. I'll start first.
+
The hut had probably been serviceable once. Kaelen saw a spring behind it--and she was being generous with the name. It was a pond choked with weeds, the water thick and dark like spoiled oil.
She doubted anything was alive in there.
Still, she grabbed the mat and knelt. The water stank like dozens of dead bodies had been thrown within. Kaelen held her breath and whispered into it:
"I am still Kaelen. No matter what they say."
No answer.
"I tried."
Silence.
"Why didn't I get an element?"
The water stayed still.
But the reeds shivered—without wind.
I stood.
The water didn't respond, but something definitely did.
The midday sun shone high in the sky and she felt the sweat bead down her gray robe. She was unafraid.
Instead, she knew for certain that the land wasn't dead.
"The sea might have abandoned me...but you are listening." Kaelen whispered to the blades of dried grass. Perhaps she had been born into the wrong clan?
Maybe she did have an elemental gift?
+
Now that she'd seen the state of the spring, she wondered if the flask of water was for washing. In Aqualis, all of the water flowed sweet and clean--baths had never been difficult for her.
Either I adjust to this new life, or I perish. And mother didn't raise a quitter for a daughter.
Inside the hut, near the cracked wall, a word was carved over and over into the stone.
Almost.
Someone scratched it by hand, dozens of times. Some were shallow, and others deep. Another person tried to erase the marks, but failed.
Scratched by hand. Dozens of times. Some shallow, some deep. Someone tried to erase them, but couldn't.
Almost bonded.
Almost chosen.
Almost remembered.
Almost enough.
She picked up a piece of charcoal from the ashes and wrote beneath it:
Never.
+
After dusk, the air around the house thickened. Heavier than mist and treacle. It smelled like breath caught in a dying throat.
Kaelen took her mat out and sat cross-legged on the broken floor. She tried to do what she was taught:
Inhale and find stillness.
Exhale and release memory.
Inhale and draw from your inner light.
Exhale and release negative emotions.
Nothing came.
No heat.
No warmth.
No calm.
Instead there was a lot of static.
Like lightning crackled underneath Kaelen's skin but had no idea how to escape.
Have you forsaken me, Dear Elyria? Are my prayers not enough?
Do I not flow to your liking?
+
The next morning, Kaelen dipped a finger into the spring again. Just to see what would happen.
It burned, and she held her finger gingerly.
If only I had a poultice...Kaelen bit her lip just thinking about the different ways the nurses had healed with herbs and alchemic reactions instead of mana.
If only mother allowed me to learn from them.
The Queen Mother had tolerated the nurses presence. She knew they were important, especially when the healers had to rest.
"My daughter is to be the greatest healer in Aqualis. Not a mere nurse!" She'd said, spitting out the last word like a sour plum.
"There's something wrong with you," she murmured to the spring.
+
And then she heard a stick snapping beneath a mysterious weight nearby. Kaelen ran inside her hut and grabbed the closest thing to a weapon--a burned stick from the hearth.
It was splintered and useless, but better than nothing.
The sound came again.
Rasping. Dragging.
Not footsteps.
Claws.
There was a low growl from outside the wall. Wet and guttural. The kind of sound made by something that didn't care whether its prey begged or screamed.
Kaelen crouched low, her heart thrashing against her chest. Something inside of her was trying to get out before it could be eaten.
Her grip on the stick tightened until it cracked. A sharp splinter slid into her palm, but she didn't dare let go.
"If you're here to kill me," she whispered, unafraid. "you're late."
The wall creaked.
Something brushed against it—slow, deliberate.
A single scrape across the doorframe.
Sharp. Precise. A message, not a mistake.
Kaelen stayed frozen and her breath barely moved. She could even hear the very sweat from her brow move down her skin.
And then there was silence as the thing retreated.
It felt familiar, like the quiet in the temple pool.
The silence that answered nothing, and made me believe I wasn't an elemental failure.
Kaelen's hand trembled and the remnants of stick dropped. She winced as the splinter tore across her palm. Blood slid down her fingers and hit the stone floor.
And glowed.
Blue.
Faint.
Alive.
The sea didn't answer.
"But something else just did." Kaelen said out loud.