The sea journey was, as it turned out, soul-crushingly uneventful. Matt had never imagined he would ever miss the malevolent everything that was the bustle of Trensicourt, but even he had to admit that it was preferable to days upon days of fathomless blue silence. No storms arrived to slow them, and no underwater beings deigned to pay them an unsavory visit.

  To pass the time, Matt and Petra conversed. Having never been a strong conversationalist himself, he found that he greatly appreciated the presence of a seasoned icebreaker. Seeing the accommodations that Petra had recommended, Matt did not need to stretch to imagine how he may have refined his talents. They spoke about Lyrian and the Beyond, about wizardry and the development of Edomic talent. They spoke of strange races, monstrous creatures, islands and continents beyond the vast ocean. They spoke about things as mundane as cell phones and electricity, and things as grand as the birth and death of civilizations. Petra seemed to be a bottomless well of knowledge, and Matt never quite slaked his thirst for its water.

  While the shift was almost imperceptible, as the days went by, the air grew warm and heavy with moisture. The ocean spray clung to Matt’s clothes for longer than it previously had, chafing uncomfortably in his armpits and near his waistband. The unspoken social contract between him and Petra was enough for him to stay decent for a few days, but eventually they had come to an accord that it would constitute no crime to dispose of their shirts for fear of flaying their own skin.

  Another thing that helped the time pass was exercise. While Matt felt hardened from his weeks on the road with Rachel, he could not hold a candle to Petra, who exercised laps around him every day. Matt had seen Petra running laps around the longboat on their first day at sea and had taken enough of an interest for Petra to invite him to join. Since then, they had worked out every single day, spending at least an hour and a half running laps and testing themselves with a wide variety of bodyweight exercises. Matt found that, although at least a third of his body was unbearably sore every morning, the exercise helped rejuvenate him and contributed to a growing sense of belonging in this backwards reality.

  “Are you much of a warrior?” Matt asked one day, halfway through a set of squats that he was making look much more difficult than Petra was.

  Petra raised an eyebrow. “I fight with words. Are you asking whether I use martial weapons?”

  Matt assumed that martial weapons meant things like swords and bows, so he nodded.

  “I have some practice. When the climate required me to hide my identity as a wizard, I spent years striving to master assatsa. It wasn’t natural to me - not at all - but my master was unparallelled in all of Lyrian. I could hardly hope to surpass him.”

  “Assatsa?” Matt repeated.

  Petra smiled. “Assatsa is a peculiar art. It was developed over centuries by a four-armed race I sired long ago, in the realm now known as Ebera.”

  Petra seemed to want to say more, but Matt interrupted with flagrant disbelief. “Centuries? A race you sired?”

  “Right,” Petra sighed, slapping the heel of his palm into his forehead. “Sorry. Unimportant details for now. Long story short, I’ve been alive for a very long time. This race I sired was anciently threatened by human expansion, and waged a near-century-long war against the development of human settlements in their territory. It was then that they developed assatsa - an art making use of two long, curved blades known as uta and two short daggers. Being a lowly two-armed being, of course, I learned to adapt the technique. Master commissioned a pair of slippers for me fitted with iron blades on their outer edges, sharp enough to slash clean through anything short of chain mail. While I may not have four arms, I can now reliably fight as if I had three.”

  “Sounds hard,” Matt said, unable to procure a better response under short notice. “Teach me?”

  Petra laughed. “You’re not flexible enough. I’ll find you a pair of uta once we’re on land, but your best chances of surviving a fight involve hanging back and looking like an innocent bystander.”

  Matt wrinkled his nose. “That doesn’t sound very heroic.”

  “Heroes die,” Petra said, grimacing. “Don’t be a hero unless the world demands one.”

  “So I’m just here to be arm candy?” Matt asked, disappointed.

  Petra raised his eyebrows. “You’re here to make sure Trensicourt doesn’t have front-row seats to the end of the world.”

  “Yes, but…” Matt protested. “That means my entire role in all this is to not be anywhere. Wouldn’t you feel a little useless?”

  “Does a keystone not look identical to a regular cinder block?” Petra reasoned. “One does not need to commit desperate acts of heroism to save the world. One simply needs to be at the right place at the right time.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I see your point,” Matt conceded. “I’d still prefer to learn to fight. Whether I like it or not, I’m a part of Lyrian now. I don’t particularly intend to watch the quest to save it as if I were on my couch with a bowl of popcorn.”

  “You make a compelling argument,” Petra chuckled. “I’ll teach you, but be warned. You might want to take back your bravado once we encounter a real threat.”

  “You make it sound like this mission is going to be a fight for survival,” Matt complained.

  “You make it sound like you want it to be,” Petra countered.

  Matt sighed and dropped his gaze. “Okay, fair point.”

  Petra sidled towards Matt, concern tracing his gaze. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel inadequate.”

  “That’s not the problem,” Matt admitted. “I know I’m inadequate, and I’m fine with it.”

  Petra sat down against the gunwale, motioning for Matt to join him. “What’s going on?”

  Matt shrugged, obeying Petra’s unspoken request. “Inadequate does not equal useless. I don’t want to be along for the ride. I want to make a difference, and I need to know that you’re willing to suspend your exasperation while I learn to do so.”

  Petra let out a strange sort of giggle. “You doubt my patience?”

  “It always runs out eventually.”

  “My Edomic has allowed me to pursue a truly unjust lifespan.” Petra motioned with his hands as if he were nurturing a small houseplant. “The true masters of Edomic possess either astronomical patience or obsessive ambition. The rest get tired of life and eventually let aging run its course. I like to think I’m on the patient side, given that I still find great joy in seeking and experiencing things like this.”

  “You do this often?” Matt asked.

  “You mean, do I accost downtrodden men from the street and embroil them in life-threatening scavenger hunts to save the world from my own creations often?” Petra laughed. “This is a new experience for me. No matter how long I live, to ask for one’s hand in friendship is more frightening than any beast.”

  The mention of beasts, of course, led Matt’s thoughts back to the torivors. “Would you call the torivors a patient venture or an ambitious one?”

  Petra’s breath hitched, and he let out a dejected sigh. “It was a foolish venture, spurred by delving too quickly into powers too unpredictable to control. It was then that I learned that Earth is not the only Beyond accessible from Lyrian.”

  Matt frowned. “You were trying to return to the Beyond?”

  Petra shook his head. “I was trying to understand why crossings between worlds were becoming less common. I still have no answer to that inquiry, though I did eventually happen across a discovery that led to our little torivor problem.”

  Petra took a deep breath before continuing, as if preparing to dive into deep water. “I believed I had found a way to create portals between Lyrian and the Beyond, and I wasn’t entirely incorrect. In fact, I may have been a bit too correct. Underneath the city, in a cistern I had spent days magically sealing in every way I knew how, I tore open the fabric that held this world together and unwittingly granted access to these… embodiments of horror.”

  “You opened a door,” Matt pronounced carefully, finally beginning to understand the true depths of Petra’s power. “Between worlds.”

  Petra pressed his lips together. “And this decision laid bare my utter folly. I had created a spell that would open the portal, but it took every ounce of power I had.”

  “Which left you none to close it back up once you had realized your mistake,” Matt inferred.

  “Exactly.” Petra rested his chin in his hands glumly. “And… I fear…”

  Matt offered Petra a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I fear that I may be making a similar mistake again,” Petra admitted. “I have not allowed myself time to research all possible outcomes of this quest. In a perfect world, I would have trekked alone to Paggatar, spent years embedding myself into its culture, customs and people, and only make a break for our quarry once I was certain the land and the people would offer me safe passage.”

  “But I was harvested,” Matt continued. “So your time was up.”

  Petra nodded. “Now or never. For what it’s worth, Matt, I am deeply sorry for embroiling you in this disaster I’ve created.”

  “Don’t be,” Matt said. “This is much preferable to being dragged around town like a petulant lapdog by Tassel and Rachel.”

  “You’d prefer to be dragged halfway across the world?”

  “Petra.” Matt stood up, then offered his hand to Petra. “You are my friend. I believed that what I had with Rachel was friendship, and you’ve taught me that I was wrong. You believe in me. You’re honest with me. You make me feel like there is something in this world to care about, and that there is someone in this world who cares about me. For that, I would give up far more than the creature comforts of city life.”

  Petra grinned and took Matt’s hand, pulling himself to his feet. “You’re speaking more and more like a Lyrianite every day. And…”

  Matt remained silent, letting Petra finish his thought.

  “Thank you. For being my friend, and for accompanying me through all this. Having lived this with you, I fear I may have gone mad had I undertaken this journey alone.”

  A radiant smile burst across Matt’s face before he could think to quell it with a softer emotion. He had no adequate words to express his gratitude for his friend, so he simply took a step back and breathed in the salty sunset air. It tickled as it passed his throat, tasting vaguely of kelp, and for once, he didn’t mind.

  “Ten laps?” Petra proposed.

  “Only if you teach me to fight afterwards,” Matt rebuked.

  Petra laughed. “And here I was, imagining you had forgotten. I’ll take that deal.”

  Without leaving room for rebuttal, Petra took off sternwards. Matt joined the chase, his slower pace proving wholly inadequate at countering the unbridled elation fuelling his strides.