Journey of Flame

Chapter twenty-one

I was exhausted by the time we finally arrived at the shore near Lute. As promised, I'd used my magic to speed up our progress, but if the crew had noticed our faster pace, they didn't let on, though Bedelia had caught me swaying as I stepped away from the wheel, towards the railing.

She came over to me now, touching a hand to my forearm. "Are you alright?"

I waved her off, taking a step away, just enough to be out of her reach. "Yes, I'm fine. I just need to rest for a few minutes."

"How long were you using your magic?"

"As long as it took us to get here, so... a few hours, probably," I answered.

Her eyes widened. "A few hours? Zai, you don't need to rest; you need to sleep," she said. "To hold onto your magic that long and not need a substantial amount of recovery time takes practice. Practice I know you don't have."

I crossed my arms. "And how would you know?" I countered. "You've only known me for what, a week?"

"A little over a week," she corrected. "And trust me, I know a novice when I see one. I was one for the majority of my childhood, after all."

Alright, fair enough. Still, I said, "I can't sleep. I have to go to Lute to find Faxon a healer."

"And how far is Lute?" she asked, likely because she couldn't see if from where we'd docked.

"A few hours walk," I muttered.

She sighed. "Zai-"

"Don't try to talk me out of it. I'm going, and that's final."

"Okay, but Zai, I'm serious. If you don't sleep, you will pass out from the exertion alone," she pushed. "So at least let me go with you."

I couldn't help it. I turned away from her. "I thought you wanted to stay away."

"I do. It's not fair to either of us, and you know that, but this is dangerous. If you faint on the way to Lute, no one will be there to help you."

"I won't faint," I argued. "I'm not even that tired anymore."

She only sighed and said, "Look, I know I can't stop you, but please be careful. I care about you. A lot. And I wish we could be together, but you have this crew, and I can't take you away from that."

I loosed a breath, looking out at the waterfall spilling into the ocean a good sixty feet from here, near the front of the ship. "I'll be careful, Bedelia. You have my word on that."

To this, she only said, "Alright. Good luck out there." And that was that.

* * *

I was worried about her.

She'd only been gone for a half-hour and yet...

It was bad enough that Voss ended up cutting our lesson short. It was probably good that he did, since I could hardly focus on anything he was saying. But instead of heading back below deck to sleep like I thought he would, he stayed.

"She'll be okay," he said, offering a reassuring smile.

I sighed. "I hope so," I murmured. "She held onto her magic for a long time, and sometimes doing things like that can really come back to bite you."

"I don't know much about magic," Voss admitted, "since I don't have any myself, but whatever it is, I'm sure Zai can handle it."

"It... I, I don't remember it being something you just handle," I said, then loosed a breath. "But perhaps you're right. Zai is not me, after all."