I hear their voices before I round a thick stack of crates starboard the deck. It's her, I can tell my sister even by the back of her silhouette. Her wild dark curls, the same color as my own straight locks, cut short from travel. She's wearing a ceremonial dress bathed richly in all sorts of Aridian dyes. Her limbs, throat, ears, and head are adorned with jewelry. The kind of jewelry that means something to our nation and our people. A lump forms in my throat, and it is painful. I missed her initiation ceremony, the chance she'd been given to prove herself to our people as their next monarch.
Of course, I'd had the feeling my family's dangerous soul magic would backfire on her.
"Amora," I call, my voice thick in trepidation. I come out from behind the crates as Bastian tends to hauling in the anchors.
My sister turns, and I see her face crumble in astonishment and shock. "Merin? How, why...you're here?"
Our reunion went as well as my expectations allowed. There were crushing hugs, giant crocodile tears, and too many blubbering questions.
I pull back and wipe her tears and my own. "You look like a queen," I tell my sister. "The queen I always knew you were going to be."
This sends pain through her expression and she looks away. "I don't know about that, Merin. The soul magic, I went too far. My people are afraid - "
I squeeze the tops of her arms, making her look at me. "You will have another chance to prove yourself, I just know it. That's why I came to get you out. I wasn't about to let you waste away in jail for something you couldn't control."
Amora blinks, looking from me to Bastian. "How did you know? How long have you been sailing with this pirate? Does Aunt Kalea know you're not on Valuka right now?"
I giggle at her string of questions, knowing very well how confusing this all must be. "A vision came to me; it was the strongest pull of magic I'd ever felt. Even after mastering my fire - "
"You mastered it?" She jumps to ask the question, looking down at my hands, the burns that scarred down my legs.
Bastian clears his throat from the helm, pausing in his preparations for our departure. "Mastering it would be an extreme overstatement."
"I only set fire to the ship once," I remind him with a snap to my own words. He rolls his eyes, but keeps quiet. Bastian is a lot of things, but he isn't a fool. I turn back to my sister with a sheepish shrug, and give her a little show of flames dancing around my fingers. "Valuka was good to me...but I had to leave. I thought I would find myself in my magic, that once I controlled it, I would have a purpose. But - but - "
"Father raised adventurers," Amora says, understanding the deep yearning for freedom in my eyes that reflect the light in hers. She jostles me, smiling in happiness on my behalf. "You're the one who got away."
"I've been sailing with Bastian for 3 months now." There's a hitch in my voice and Amora nods her understanding. She'd taken on the responsibility as Visidia's next monarch; I had been the younger sister who couldn't master a magic as destructive as fire. I'd needed a way out, and when Aunt Kalea suggested I train in Valuka where fire magic is taught and mastered, I jumped at the chance.
My need for escape had been more than just to control my fire. Father had tied me down to a nobleman's son from Suntosu. A fortunate marriage, they said; a union that would be for the good of the kingdom. Even in Valuka, Aunt Kalea pestered me with lessons on how to be a good wife, a good mother, and a good princess of the kingdom.
Nothing felt freer than sailing the ocean. Nothing gave me such purpose than the sea spray ripping through my hair or the taste of salt in my lungs. I'd grown strong and fierce and wild in my time away from Arida - away from Father and his plans to make me a royal good wife. I found myself on the horizon where the sun meets the sea. Looking back at Bastian, I'd found a life-long friend as well.
