The Legend Of Black Eyes

"You look different," Raiya said. Her eyes narrowed to slits, as though she suspected something.

"I"ve been trying to a.s.similate my Fragment," I said. "It"s not easy to understand time, you know."

She snorted. "You don"t say," she said. "I"ve been trying to understand it for years now."

"Oh right, you were known as the time witch the first time we met," I said.

"It"s not like I threw the practice out the window," she replied. "I just had more pressing matters to attend to." She immediately fell silent after that. I saw her clench her fists so tight her knuckles whitened. She didn"t take my grandfather"s murder of her demon companion very well.

"If you want to talk about it…" I said but was immediately cut short with a murderous glare.

"There"s nothing to talk about," she hissed at me. "Where"s the mistress of the house?" she asked, completely changing the subject.

"Probably still sleeping," I said. "I"ve been here since dawn."

"Diligent," she commented. "I like that. So tell me, what have you understood about time?"

I had to say something at that moment that wouldn"t give me away. I looked at the witch, trying to formulate the perfect answer that would both get her to listen to my proposal, and have her forget about pestering me with questions.

"Time is a fickle thing," I said. "It"s like playing with fire. Manage it poorly, and it"ll bite back."

"That"s a pretty generic answer," she said. "You don"t sound like someone who"s closer to achieving full a.s.similation."

"Show me a time spell that you can easily perform," I said. "I"ll show you what I"ve learned."

"Alright," she said, putting both hands on her hips in a challenging motion. She looked around her, spotted a vase then went to collect it.

"Try to imitate this," she said.

She dropped the vase and broke it into tiny pieces. Then she collected the pieces in her hand and concentrated her essence into it. She mumbled a spell I wasn"t familiar with, but one whose effects I knew very well. She proceeded to rewinding time to the moment at which the vase was intact. The broken pieces flew then stuck to each other in an orderly fashion. Soon enough, the vase was back to its initial state.

I had to hand it to Raiya though. I could rewind time, but I could never rewind it for just one object without affecting the world around me. In other words, I traveled back in time for a few seconds or minutes, depending on the amount of essence I could afford to spend.

However, as soon as Raiya finished casting her spell, I walked beside her and took the intact vase from her hands. I activated my senses and followed the residual energy from her spell, reigniting it. The spell activated again, and the vase slowly turned into mud, then into clay dust.

"How about that?" I asked.

"You can see the residual energy in the air?" she asked, astounded.

I was pretty proud of myself. The witch who has always looked down on me was now amazed at what I could do. I didn"t really think before I spoke. Before I knew it, the words I fought so hard to contain came rushing through my mouth.

"I wouldn"t have done it without you," I said, beaming.

"Without me?" she asked.

My heart skipped a beat then. My pride and happiness turned to shock and anger. I could have rewound time then and pretended that conversation never happened. I could have just given her a generic excuse and then proceeded to telling her about my plans to thwart Stalwart.

I didn"t though.

There was no escaping the truth. Raiya would find out sooner or later that I could travel through time farther than anyone else she"s ever known. So I decided to tell her the truth, while hiding the fact that Stalwart resided inside my Fragment.

That alone, was a mystery I had yet to solve.

"Why don"t we go to a place where we can speak in private?" I asked her.

Raiya shot me a suspicious look but obeyed all the same. We went near Elsa"s training arena, far from guard rounds and unwanted eavesdroppers.

"Raiya," I said after taking a long breath. "You taught me how to see residual energy."

"When did I do that?" she asked.

"For me, that would be yesterday, or a few hours ago? I"m not really sure," I answered. "For you, that would be the day after tomorrow."

The look she gave me then was unforgettable. Her jaw dropped. Her eyes widened. She was even speechless for a little while. She looked as though she was about to have a heart attack. I stood there, waiting for her to recollect her thoughts, and it took her a pretty long time to do so.

"How many times have you traveled through time?" she asked.

"Including the times I had to rewind a few minutes due to stupid mistakes?"

"No," Raiya said. "This doesn"t count. You only change your immediate future. It"s a game of luck then, nothing that would anger Minsec."

"Then I"ve only done it once," I said. "We were training. We spent two days trying to see the residual energy. When I did, however, I could see the time energy, flowing all around me. I absorbed a tree"s energy, almost died, only to be saved by my own Fragment."

"That"s something you must never do again," Raiya warned. "You don"t know what it"s like to anger Minsec."

"I thought Minsec was in deep slumber," I said.

"And there"s a b.l.o.o.d.y good reason for that," Raiya hissed. "Have you told anyone else about this?"

"I wasn"t even going to tell you," I said.

"Good," she said. "Minsec had stopped gifting the fragment of time eons ago. It"s a mystery why you of all people have received it."

There were too many things I wanted to ask her, but that would involve exposing my grandfather. He was trapped inside the Fragment, sure, but he also had the power to summon me inside. I didn"t doubt his threats, nor did I want to be tortured for ten years in a blank s.p.a.ce. I"d lose my mind before losing my life.

"Mystery apart," I said. "My accidental trip through time comes with its advantages."

"Did you learn anything about Stalwart?" Raiya asked.

"Some," I said. "I"ll need your help convincing Elsa and Hilda that we"ll be walking into a deadly trap."

"Without saying anything about time travel," Raiya commented.

"Exactly," I said. "And I have the best idea to get their minds on track."

"Spit it out," Raiya said.

"Stalwart"s using Osgar to lure us into a trap," I said. "We need both Osgar and the legendary helm to get to Milogac, right?"

She nodded.

"How important is the helm, exactly?" I asked.

"Milogac is called the isle of legends for a reason," she answered. "It always changes locations. Some say it"s on the back of some giant turtle. Others say it has its own conscience, so it wanders around the oceans, impossible to locate using conventional methods. The only way to locate it is to use a helm made from Gummtree, a type of trees that only grow in the island."

"What does the ghost captain have to do with this then?" I asked.

"Having a helm made out of Gummtree isn"t enough," Raiya said. "There"s a reason it"s called the isle of legends. Every ship that sailed toward Milogac, despite having a Gummtree helm, has never reached the isle, except for a few chosen."

"The Ghost Captain," I said.

"More like captains," Raiya replied. "Ghost captains have dark ties to Milogac. They"re only destined to sail to that island. If they ever try to go anywhere else…" she put her thumb down, "their ship sinks. Everybody aboard the vessel dies, except for the captain that led them to their doom."

"That explains the name," I said. "Does this mean there"s another Ghost Captain somewhere we don"t know about?"

Raiya nodded. "Good luck finding one," she said. "I doubt even Utar can find him. You"re lucky you b.u.mped into Osgar when you did."

"What would happen if we used the helm to sail without the ghost captain?" I asked.

"Many people have tried to reach the island without the ghost captain," Raiya answered. "Their ship would usually drift in the sea for days, only to be found months later with a broken rudder and skeleton crew, literally."

"So we can"t get to Milogac without Osgar," I mumbled.

"I"m afraid not," Raiya commented.

"And now he"s a prisoner in Hartwell"s Fort," I said.

"Is that something you found out in the future?"

I nodded. "And I think I have a way to retrieve Osgar and the helm without falling into Stalwart"s trap," I said, grinning. "All we need are your amazing tracking skills. We"re going to find Lord Bodrick and convince him to give up the helm."