“It’s amazing.” Willem muttered through a mouthful of the J’hara. Nis’shan was the cook on this ship, although Willem had been afraid that he had earned the title from lack of competition and not through skill. He was wonderfully wrong; the roast J’hara meat was fragrant and savory. The texture was soft, to the point where it seemed to melt in the mouth like butter. The skin was crunchy and well salted, and the Vysians fought over pieces of the eye with a strange eagerness that disgusted Willem. With only six men on the vessel including himself, there was plenty to go around for everyone.

“Ya like it, don’t ya?” Nis’shan laughed, clapping Ves’shen on the back. The two had been working below deck, so they were the last that Willem had been introduced to. Nis’shan was an older man, his long hair greying at the base and his pronged beard hanging to his chest. Ves’shen was his son, younger and closer to Kes’ssan’s age. He bore a single scar along his nose, his beard not yet long enough to be shaped. “The secret’s in the sauce.” Nis’shan whispered conspiratorially, waving a bit of fish bone at Willem. “I use just a hint of mint to go alongside the black salt, and it draws out the juice of the fish from the inside. Then you’ve just got to rub some of the fat over the muscle, so that when you cook it there’s a nice sizzle—”

“Can’t ya see you’ve lost him?” Bes’sahn laughed, pointing at Willem confused face. “He doesn’t want to make it—he just wants to eat it. Like me, if you’ve to say.” he chuckled as he took another bite.

Nis’shan shook his head in dismay. “You brute; how can you possibly respect the food if you don’t know what it takes to make it?” he muttered, sucking on a bit of bone. Bes’sahn merely snorted in response.

“I respect this plenty. My stomach respects it too.” he decided, picking up a bit of fish eye and tossing it at Willem. “Here, mankai. You can use it in your dancing.”

Willem flinched as the thing rolled near him, scooting away instinctively in disgust. “What are you talking about? Dancing?” he asked in confusion, drinking some water now that his stomach had began to grow accustomed to the rolling sea.

“Y’know,” Bes’sahn muttered through a mouthful of J’hara. He began to wiggle his arms in sinuous motions, undulating his body in an utterly comical motion. “Dancing.”

Kes’ssan slapped him, snorting through his laughter. “Stop that.” he managed before turning to face Willem. “He’s talking about your spells, mankai. Can’t you make some spells, or something?”

A spell? Aye, he was a channeler, but he had never tried to use magic before; if he had been caught in Mea Vatal, the Nhysians would have burned him alive, or worse. He did not even know how he was supposed to cast magic—there certainly were no others that he could watch and learn from. He could only shake his head, rubbing the stumps of his fingers in a habitual action. “I don’t know how. I’ve only ever heard stories.”

Captain Is’shil stroked the prongs of his beard thoughtfully, picking at his teeth with a bit of bone. He picked up a loose bit J’hara skin, tossing it over to land in Willem’s lap. “Can’t you burn that, boy? An’t that what they do’n the stories?” The other crew members muttered the agreement, nodding their heads as they watched Willem in interest.

“W-well, I can try.” he stammered nervously. How the hell am I supposed to do this? Yet they were all watching him, expectant gazes in the starlight. He could only swallow a gulp, closing his eyes hard. Burn! The thought felt foolish, stupid. Yet it was all that he could think of; he had no idea how he was supposed to cast magic. Burn, you stupid thing. Burn!

His eyes were screwed shut, his heart thumping fast as he thought. His face became covered with sweat, his stomach roiling nervously as he thought it over and over. Burn, dammit! Burn! His fingers squeezed the bit of fish skin so tightly that he thought they might bleed, his arms so tight with effort that they began to tremble. Burn, you crow-cursed thing. Why won’t you burn!

Yet when he finally opened his eyes, that spiteful bit of fish skin was untouched. There was not even a wisp of smoke; it was in pristine condition. A droplet of sweat fell from his brows, stinging his eyes as he panted, throwing the bit of skin to the deck. His heart was racing, his throat raw and burning. Even his vision swam, blurring slightly at the edges.

“Ah, well,” Bes’sahn muttered offhandedly, “don’t worry about it if you can’t.” Willem heard the words, but they seemed to swim in one ear and out the other. His fingers tingled numbly, the stump of his leg throbbing painfully in its wooden cup. A sudden wave of nausea seized him, and he crumpled to the deck with a thud, his head striking the wood.

“Mankai!” someone shouted, but he could not quite make out who it was. His vision was blurred, everything appearing in twos and threes as he looked helplessly at the night sky. There were so many stars, so many of them lining that blackened sky. They glittered and twinkled with a distant beauty, and he wanted to raise a hand to touch them. Yet he knew that they were out of his reach, knew that no matter how hard he tried, they would always dance just out of his grasp.

With his double-vision, they seemed like two separate layers that stacked on top of each other. He watched as they swam around each other, wanting to reach out and touch them. He could see the stars, could see each star in minute detail. They burned with a flame that was quiet with distance, yet impossibly loud in intimacy. He could feel their searing heat, scorching his skin as he touched them. He could feel the ripples of their warmth, stripping away his skin and flesh with every passing heartbeat. He could feel his own heartbeat slowing down impossibly, slowing to match that quiet, throbbing pulse of the stars. He wanted to touch them, wanted to see them burning before him.

In that trancelike state, he could feel a trickling warmth from the pit of his stomach, a tingling sensation unlike any other that he had felt in his life. It was a strength, a gentle warmth that burned up his chest to his arms. It traveled down his limbs, searing the bone with an impossible heat that should have melted his bone, and yet there was no pain. It traveled to his fingers, pooling briefly in his fingertips before traveling out. His gaze was still fixed on that starry night sky, unblinking, unthinking. He knew not what was happening, knew not what he was doing. He was merely feeling, acquiescing to his body. He was a spectator, as much an onlooker as the Vysians that surrounded him.

“Mankai…” the captain breathed in stunned silence, drawing the boy out of his reverie. Willem blinked, looking around in a beleaguered confusion. It was a moment before he understood what he was seeing, and then his breath hitched in his throat.

A thousand lights floated around him, a thousand tiny, flickering flames that danced in the air like so many sprites. Words fled him in that instant, and he gazed down at his hands. Thin strands of purple trailed out of his fingers, raveling loosely around the flames where they burned. Struck by a sudden thought, Willem lied back down in the same position that he had been in, watching as the lights fell into position, matching the stars in the night sky.

“Magic.” one of the crew members whispered, and that same thought echoed through him before a weariness suddenly ran through his bones. Magic, he thought dimly, before exhaustion made his eyes close of their own accord and his vision went dark.

He dreamed wildly, scenes shifting as if they were in a storm. He saw a man in robes with hands upraised, the lands in front of him aflame with a conflagration that reached the sky. He saw a man knelt as if in prayer, the ground around in him covered with ice as far as the eye could see. He saw a man in the midst of a downpour, his robes soaked through as he held a single outstretched finger, lighting crackling forth with the work of some maddened god. He saw a thousand other scenes of men with unimaginable power, commanding magic at their fingertips. Power, he thought. Strength, and force of will.

He saw garbed men standing before a crowd, before what seemed like a kneeling army. In one glance, they were all ghosts, spectral visages that floated with translucent light. In another glance, they were constructs of stone, fashioned with horrible fangs and claws that seemed almost bestial in appearance. Yet another time he looked, and they were ordinary men, collars fixed around their necks with strange symbols. Their eyes were dull and lifeless as they knelt, their movements machinelike and inhuman. Magic, he realized with a weakness in his heart. This is the strength of the magic in my limbs? Where the Nhysians wrong then, that I truly am a monster?

His dreams changed then; they became consumed by shadows. He saw them like a swarm of insects, like a cloud of locusts that descended upon the lands. A thousand black mites, impossibly small and finer than dust, flew through the air with a voracious hunger. He saw them land on a man in a swarm, settling over his skin and clothes until he was completely shrouded by them. He saw them eat him alive with their impossibly small teeth, his screams garbled as they crowded his throat. When they finally left, even the bones were gnawed clean.

He watched as the cloud of darkness and shadow turned to him, those insects descending upon him, and he screamed helplessly. He felt them chewing away at his flesh, felt them eating away at his veins with a thousand bites. And he could only scream soundlessly as they ate away at his heart from the inside.

Willem sat up with a gasp, his forehead covered with a sheen of sweat, his clothing soaked through. He was on a cot below deck, apparently having been carried there by the crew. Disoriented and full of adrenaline, he stood up awkwardly before staggering to the door, his head full of bad omens. What had that dream been? What did it mean? There was a part of him that screamed in terror, that howled at him to get off this ship. It was an instinctual fear, a primal terror that begged him to survive.

I need to speak with the captain, he decided. Whatever that dream had been, it was not ordinary. He pried open the door with trembling hands, his heart still racing from the aftereffects. Those monsters, he thought shakily. Those things ate me.

He stumbled into the hallway half lost in thought, uncertain of where the captain’s room even was. Reaching the first door that he saw, he opened it with a strange desperation. Yet with only the flickering moonlight that come in from the porthole, he could hardly see inside.

It was not the captain’s room, that much was clear. Perhaps it was where they kept the cargo, for there were crates stacked against the walls. As he stumbled in further, a sudden wave rocked the ship and he fell to the ground. His chin striking the wood, his thoughts were jarred by the impact and his vision swam. His fingers struck something hard that rattled, and he winced from the pain. As his vision settled he reached out and felt for them, feeling their cold touch.

As the moonlight shone down, he saw the rust that covered them—or at least, he had thought it to be rust. Yet rust did not take that color, nor that odor. This was blood, he realized dimly, and then shock ran through him. He recoiled instinctively, backpedaling away from the chains on the ground, for he saw them to be chains. He realized then their purpose: they held humans.

They held slaves.