An hour after dawn, Minnow and the boys were still sleeping. Snapper decided to wait on breakfast until they woke. He gathered Minnow’s soiled clothes and old bandages, taking them outside to wash.

The rhythmic scrubbing soothed Snapper’s nerves, and some of the tension from recent events faded.

“Marlin!” The shout reached Snapper’s ears from outside the house. He dropped the clothes in the washtub and rushed inside, drying his hands on his trousers as he entered.

Minnow laid at the furthest corner of her own bed, good arm extended toward the two boys. Hal’s chest rose and fell with short, labored breaths, but Marlin had gone utterly still. Snapper knelt next to the latter, touching his white face. The skin felt cold.

“Marlin? Marlin? Please wake up.” Despite Minnow’s frantic cries, Marlin remained unresponsive. She wept, grasping for her son, but she could only touch the corner of his blanket from her own bed.

Snapper moved for her, crouching besides the boy’s head. He held two fingers near Marlin’s mouth, feeling for even a faint breath. None came. Snapper locked eyes with Minnow and slowly shook his head. “It’s over.”

Her eyes widened in horror. “No... Marlin! Marlin!”

Marlin did not wake from the ruckus, but Hal did. Bloodshot eyes fluttered open, peering at the ceiling above him. Snapper cautiously waved a hand in front of Hal’s face, but those sightless eyes did not track the motion. Minnow whimpered.

“Mother,” Hal whispered, breaths ragged and labored. Snapper touched the boy’s hand, and Hal latched onto his sleeve. “Great... grand-uncle... Snapper...?”

“Yes. We’re both here.” Snapper patted a small shoulder.

“I know I’ll never be a Caster... but thank you... for showing me... your magic... ”

The reedy whisper trailed off for the last time, and Hal grew still. Tears flooded into Snapper’s eyes, blurring the image of Hal’s wan face. From her own bed, Minnow loosed a high wail and curled up, reaching desperately for the two motionless figures.

When Coral arrived at noon for the daily checkup, only Minnow remained of her three patients.

Snapper sat on a rocky overhang by the coast. An unstrung fishing pole laid across his lap, but he had lost focus on the repair task some time ago. He stared out to sea, wishing the roar and crash of waves against stone could ease his worries.

Two motionless figures lay on the beach below: Hal and Marlin, each wrapped in tarps and laid out on reed rafts bound to shore by a long rope. Snapper should have conducted the proper funeral rites yesterday, directly after the boys passed, but Minnow had been inconsolable. She refused food and drink, and she especially refused to acknowledge the loss of her sons with the parting ceremony.

When Snapper checked on her at dawn, Minnow had been facing the wall by her bed, and she sobbed, “Leave me alone.”

Not one to argue with the injured, Snapper left her to rest a little longer.

As Snapper fiddled with his fishing pole, he wondered if following her wishes had been the right decision. In her present condition, Minnow did not have the strength to even get out of bed, and her recent refusal of nourishment had weakened her further. Her judgement might not be fully sound.

Footsteps approached. A throat cleared, and Snapper turned his head. It was Coral. Dark circles hung under her eyes, while her shoulders drooped with defeat. Coral’s hesitance told Snapper exactly what she had come to say.

“Is Minnow...?”

Coral nodded gravely. “It’s time.”

Snapper set aside the fishing pole.

When he arrived at Minnow’s cottage, he winced at how perfect it looked from the outside. At any moment, it seemed that the door could burst open, releasing the laughter of children and the savory scents of a family dinner.

There would be no more family dinners anymore, not when only two members of the Fisher family remained. Soon, there would be only one. Snapper hoped that the little girl might forget all of this when she grew older; this tragedy would be a great burden for such a young child to bear.

Minnow was awake, if only barely. When she saw Snapper enter the cottage, she raised a trembling arm toward him.

“Whatever happens, protect my daughter,” she begged, clutching Snapper’s sleeve. Her cold hand touched his own, and the stone pendant dropped into Snapper’s hand.

Snapper enveloped her hand with both of his own. “I will.”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Minnow’s pale face, chased closely by pain. Her hand went slack, slipping from Snapper’s grasp, and her arm fell back to the bed. Stern sea-blue eyes slid shut for the last time.

Snapper sank to the floor at her bedside, clutching the stone pendant. In the end, he could do nothing but watch as his grand-niece and two great-grand-nephews faded before his very eyes.

“Why did you leave us, O wise Sage Doctor? If you were here, you could have saved her,” Snapper whispered, voice shaky. “Was it because I offended you…? Is that why… Minnow, Halibut, Marlin… why all of them... ?”

His voice failed, and he slumped even lower against the ground.

“Such bright, fragile lives you took from me,” Snapper whispered into the silence. The world blurred through tears of grief and anger. “I should never have brought you home.”

And he wept anew, for those words were truer than he could know.

Snapper knelt before the canoe that held his grand-niece. Behind him stood Kelp, Coral, and their four sons, all dressed for mourning. Snapper laid a hand on the side of Minnow’s canoe.

“Farewell, dear Minnow. I will bring your child to the Empire, far beyond the reach of any Liege.”

Snapper touched the corners of two smaller reed rafts beside the canoe.

“Farewell, Halibut and little Marlin. Keep your mother company.”

Crouching besides Minnow’s daughter, Snapper gently guided the girl’s hand to the first boat. Together, they returned the bodies to the endless sea from which all coastal villagers derived life.

The canoe and two rafts floated into the distance, bobbing lightly on the calm seas. Snapper and Minnow’s daughter watched until the boats became specks on the horizon.

“Come along now.” Snapper took the girl’s hand, and they set out for the Empire.

Sometimes, selfishly, Snapper wished that he had even one single family member whom he wouldn’t outlive.

A page from an old storybook drifted to the forefront of his mind. His eyes widened, and he glanced down at Minnow’s daughter. Hal might have refused his offer, but the little girl hadn’t.

The red stone pendant swayed on its string as the girl walked besides Snapper.

Perhaps his selfish wish could come true after all.

Perhaps.

Snapper came to a stop outside the high walls of the Empire’s core. Here, stone rose from the ground to touch the clouds, promising safety to all within. Atop the ramparts, a golden flag waved high in the wind. For some reason, Snapper had expected it to be silver. After shaking away the faint confusion, he shuffled forward the last few steps. His old knees were tired from the long journey between coast and central plains, but he had not dared stop long to rest, not when each moment outside of the Empire might further endanger the precious child he guarded.

The child was small; she could slide between the bars of the iron gates. Snapper could not. Nor would he ever wish to be bound within such walls. Better to live under no flag at all than under the wrong flag, as someone once said. Snapper couldn’t quite recall where he had heard that bit of wisdom, but the sentiment resonated with him all the same. The Empire’s promised shelter was not meant for him, but this child needed its protection. When she grew older, she could decide for herself whether to stay or leave its walls.

Her eyes were still closed in peaceful slumber. Snapper raised trembling hands to wrap the blankets more tightly around her small form. The knotted black string of Minnow’s pendant, with its broken stones glued together once more, trailed from one edge of the blanket, a sharp reminder of Snapper’s recent losses.

“I could not save your family. My strength has failed you. Forgive me…”

Snapper paused. What was the child’s name again? Goldfish? Rockfish? It must have been some kind of fish, following the family naming convention.

No matter. After today, she would no longer be the weak daughter of a humble fishing family from the coast. She would be more.

Snapper took Minnow’s pendant from the child and placed it on a flat rock nearby. Using another large rock, he smashed the pendant to bits. Before, cracking the pendant had allowed Snapper to access his powers. With the pendant glued back together, his ability was bound once more, albeit not as completely as before. Snapper’s plan hinged upon the fact that breaking the pendant again would restore his power.

As Snapper ground the pendant into dust, he felt warmth rush through his limbs. He envisioned the illustrations from the Sage Doctor’s manuscript. Such intricate work would require the utmost care and precision—but then again, Snapper had never been one to do things in half measures.

Scarred hands hovered in the air above the child, and wisps of power gathered in the air. Bright points of white and gold condensed from the ambient energy, joining the stars of innate power spinning in Snapper’s palms. Snow fell from the air, drawing spider-webs of frost across the walls high above, even as Snapper’s very person shimmered with heat waves.

Concentrating, Snapper wove his power into forbidden spell formations from the Sage Doctor’s ancient manuscript, tuning the child’s energy pathways to almost perfect resonance with his own. Shifting sideways, he scattered a handful of the dust of Minnow’s pendant across the child, imagining that point as a conduit for power—not to protect the child from his energy, but rather to bind the energy within her own body. Splinters of bright energy blurred and dissolved like a melting mirror, diffusing into the life below.

The child herself began to glow with heat. As light soaked into her skin, her closed eyes began to writhe with the shifting gold of the inferno.

Given this boost, the elemental power in Snapper—power that most Casters gathered through a lifetime of self-cultivation or generations of careful lineage selection—would transfer to the child in an instant. According to the Sage Doctor’s writings, these forbidden power-transferring techniques were often used on inanimate objects to create imbued relics or weapons of great power, though often at the cost of the Caster’s own life. This price was steep enough to the user that only a few living Casters knew them. Soon, that number would be one less.

“This power… I grant you… arise, and be reborn as fire.” The energy flowed from Snapper’s ancient body in a steady stream, rooting seamlessly into the flesh and bone of its new vessel. A warm radiance enveloped the child in a cocoon of pure energy.

Snapper pushed the child forward those last few inches, sliding her under the gate and into the safety of the Empire. Thus spent, Snapper collapsed outside the walls of the Empire, one hand outstretched to his young charge.

The child slept on.

Snapper woke in a pine forest. A kind face hovered above him, pressing a wet cloth to Snapper’s brow. It was the Sage Doctor, who looked worried and relieved at once as Snapper pushed himself upright.

“I live?” Snapper croaked, not quite believing his senses.

The Sage Doctor upturned a bucket of water on Snapper’s head, providing further confirmation to the latter’s senses that he was, in fact, alive. Snapper squawked under the deluge.

“That was very foolish of you,” the Sage Doctor admonished. He placed the empty bucket upside-down upon the ground and sat on it. “If the Liege’s men had caught up to you before I did…”

“She was my charge. I needed to protect her,” Snapper protested, wiping water from his face. A breath and a thought lifted the water into steam.

Snapper frowned at his hands. Hadn’t he given his power to the child? The transfer should be complete and permanent, if he had done the spell correctly. He should not be breathing, much less Casting.

“It… didn’t work,” Snapper whispered, sagging against the tree. Had his efforts all been for nothing? Without the power of a Caster to mark her as useful in a society of Casters, one mere child abandoned at the gates of the Empire might easily be overlooked.

“The transfer worked, insofar as it passed on what power you held at the time. While you slept, you recharged,” the Sage Doctor explained. “One might say, ‘you gave the pond but not the river.’ Sages draw energy from the very fabric of the universe; our current stores may fluctuate, but the rate of influx never varies. In contrast, the child’s energy will be as finite as her lifespan.”

“Finite?” Snapper sat up, alarmed. In trying to help the child attain power, had he inadvertently doomed her?

“More finite than ours, in any case. By human standards, it should be several lifetimes, if she is frugal with her energy expenditures.” The Sage Doctor frowned. “Sages are not the same as Casters. Our power is not meant for their hands. The consequences of your gift may be… catastrophic.”

Sages and Casters were not the same? Sure, everyone knew that, but what did it have to do with Snapper? Did the Sage Doctor mean that Snapper was not a Caster, either? Impossible. Manipulating elemental energy as he did was the very definition of a Caster. Only the mythical Chosen One, the most powerful elemental in the world, had risen beyond the ranks of ordinary Casters to claim unspeakable powers. Snapper’s Casting ability might exceed that of his opponents at unpredictable times, but he was definitely not on the level of a Chosen One. He simply hadn’t learned to control his own strength yet.

The Sage Doctor turned away while Snapper thought. He had seemed preoccupied with digging through a bundle of wrapped herbs and miscellaneous tools, but he now held a thumb-sized glass tube with a shiny metal tip. A few drops of glittering liquid swirled inside, suspended in clear fluid.

“A mortal gifted the flame of the sages—it is not wise. You have doomed her to a path of power exceeding purpose. A path like our own,” the Sage Doctor mused, tapping the side of the tube.

Snapper frowned. There must be a misunderstanding here. The Sage Doctor kept talking about sages, but the only one present was him. Frowning, Snapper said as much. “Good doctor, you are the wise sage. I’m just Snapper the fisherman.”

The Sage Doctor glanced up, eyes sadder than any Snapper had ever seen. He seemed far more upset by Snapper’s simple words than intended.

“I know. You, without purpose; me, without power—it is better this way. Better for the world if we do not interfere.” The Sage Doctor pressed one hand to his own chest as though to soothe an old wound. The small tube gleamed between clenched fingers. “Forgive me, brother, but this was the consequence of your own choices.”

Not knowing how to fix the situation, Snapper patted the Sage Doctor’s shoulder.

“There, there…” How else could he reassure the Sage Doctor? He neither bore a grudge nor remembered any injury done to his person; no misdeed existed to be forgiven.

The Sage Doctor’s hand closed over Snapper’s wrist with a grasp like iron. His other hand held the tube like a pen.

“Forgive and forget,” the Sage Doctor whispered in a language older than time, a language that Snapper nevertheless understood. The Sage Doctor’s hand shot forward faster than Snapper could react. Metal pricked his neck, and he gasped as coldness bloomed beneath the skin.

Red light blotted out his vision, and the ground spun away.

Snapper was falling…

The Marshal was falling…

Falling…

Floating…

The fish awoke in a fishing net, spitting saltwater onto the wooden deck of a sailboat.

“What is it? Trout? Snapper?” a voice croaked. A dark shape appeared against the blue sky: two legs, grasping hands, and a broad sun hat.

“Sure looks like one,” said another dark shape, and both voices chuckled. The nets slid aside.

The second speaker offered a hand to the fish.

“Alright there? Up you get, Snapper.”