Emerald watched Sapphire wash the deck, his chest bursting with something akin to pride. Only a week had passed and the boy no longer needed instruction to mop the deck. He woke—on his own—and went to the task shoving excess shells and bits of gunk off the side of the ship.

Even Vin, who watched from the sidelines next to him, admitted that having an extra hand around had been beneficial to the more tedious chores. He’d always hated mopping and Dio and Jen were masters at avoiding it.

Sapphire was fitting in better than Emerald could ever have hoped.

Even the language barrier had stopped becoming too much of an issue. While he still couldn’t say anything (his pronunciation attempts were an utter disaster), he understood the basics like yes, no, and his name. It was the effort that counted, and nothing was better than seeing the boy’s head pop up in response to his name with the same eagerness and spunk he put into his work. Sapphire wormed his way into the soft spot of Emerald’s heart, with or without the Words of Set. 

Vin gave up on the Aten based insults and started calling Sapphire “Emerald’s Smart Little Pet.” With basic communication skills and the doting, Emerald could see where the accusation was coming from.

It was during those moments, he was glad Sapphire couldn’t understand what Vin was saying.

Every so often, though, Emerald went back to trying to figure out how old the boy actually was. He guessed fifty cycles, give or take, but it was always so hard to tell with that age group. Sapphire appeared to still be a youngster, but he was old enough to know manual labor tasks above basic household chores.

Sapphire knocked over a bucket of water and Emerald chuckled as the boy chirped at the mess in his own Words, whatever they may be. He moved to help—

The wind changed.

A sudden unexpected gust of cold air chilled Emerald’s arms and an uneasy sensation curled in his stomach. Emerald had felt this pull and static before on his visits to Anubis harbors.

There was no mistaking the crawl and chill that rose up on his skin: Magic.

The sensation magics drew in the air was palatable, far too strong to be a mere trick or illusion. Emerald turned to the aft of the boat, toward the source of the unnatural gust of wind and cursed. Three objects streamed through the sky, heading straight toward— 

Emerald cried out, “Sapphire, move!”

The projectiles struck the boy in the back with enough force to knock the boy off his feet. They had been drawn to Sapphire like a beacon and slammed into him without hesitation. Emerald clutched to the wooden siding as Sapphire hit the deck with a gasp, curling in on himself and body shaking. Emerald leapt over the pit’s side railing, getting to the boy as fast as his feet would carry.

Three balls of light burnt through the boy’s shirt, and Emerald could smell the burnt flesh as he raced closer. Sapphire thrashed on the wooden decking, shouting in agony and hands groping for the new wounds. Emerald skidded to his side and lifted smoldering shirt to assess the damage. Three dark burns marred the boy’s skin, tinted with a sickly purple hue that churned Emerald’s stomach.

Sapphire lurched up from the ground, hands buried his hair, tugging. The boy screamed and wriggled for a few seconds before freezing in place. Emerald caught him as he pitched forward, body limp and lifeless like a child’s doll. Emerald pulled him to his chest and held him still as Vin and the others hovered behind them. He tapped Sapphire’s cheek a few times calling his name, but there was no response. The boy didn’t take so much as a single breath, and all was still.

He looked dead.

Sapphire twitched once, an involuntary jerk and intake of breath, before he threw himself away from Emerald in a panicked scramble. He tripped over his feet, and fell on his rump. Sapphire steadied himself with his hands, gulping down deep breaths. He looked around the deck, pivoting on his waist as if the attack was still coming. He stopped upon spotting Emerald, before turning and trying to feel his back.

Sapphire’s fingers found the three burn marks, and was rubbing them when he said, “What the hell was that?”

Emerald froze, mouth open.

He understood the Words.

---

“Seriously, life, what the hell was that?” Volker patted around his clothes to make sure everything else was still intact. He couldn’t find any other exposed wounds, but his back and heart ached, pulsing in time. Volker couldn’t hear himself think with the pounding in the back of his skull. Everything burned under his skin as his veins tried to keep up with his heart, the space under his ribcage the most brutal offender. Volker’s breath sped up, “What is going on with me?”

“Sapphire! You’re talking!” the Captain said, his eyes wide. Volker blinked for a moment when he realized the man hadn’t used the growling language he’d gotten used to. But Volker didn’t have time to ask about that; the Captain grabbed both of Volker’s arms and shook the boy. “Those were the Words of Set! You heard them too, right? Vin?”

As the shock wore off, and his heart rate slowed to normal levels, the English that came from the Captain’s mouth was the most beautiful thing Volker had heard since he’d arrived. His pain disappeared, lost among the shock, and the strange familiarity he could hear in the voice. The English continued, but Volker only saw the Captain’s mouth moving. But it couldn’t have been the Captain—he’d been speaking in nothing but those grunts the entire time!

Volker’s hand dropped from his chest and began to clutch the floorboards beneath him. “What did you say?”

“That whatever has just happened granted you the Words of Set,” the Captain repeated turning away from Mr. Second. He stood up, dragging his hands through his loose hair. The Captain dropped back to his knees and shifted slowly to sit on the deck more completely. He looked as if all air had left his body, deflated. The Captain ran his hand through his hair again two more times with shaking hands. “Remarkable.”

“But why the Words of Set? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to suddenly know the Words of Aten?” Mr. Second glanced down, hand near the knife on his belt. Volker scooted behind the Captain to further the distance between him and the man glaring at him with a knife. Mr. Second glared at him harder. “I mean, it doesn’t make any sense why he’d suddenly know our Words.”

The Captain licked his lip. “Suddenly learning a language thanks to being struck in the back doesn’t make any sense. It’s magic. What’s it matter if the Words he learned was our own?”

“Hold—hold up!” Volker stood, taking a few steps back toward the center of the boat simultaneously. He pointed his hand back and forth between the two of them: Mr. Second standing with his hand on a knife, and the captain sitting looking dazed. Volker licked his lips. “What on Earth are the Words of Set?”

“The language you are speaking,” the Captain said cautiously. He pulled himself to his feet like Volker was a skittish stray dog ready to bolt. He held his hands up in a defensive position, before clearing his throat. The Captain clutched the blue pendant he was always wearing, and rubbed the stone as he spoke. “Vin merely thinks the Words of Aten would be more appropriate as you are a Son of Aten, and not of Set.”

“Son of Aten?” Volker said, voice laden with confusion. They were looking at Volker like he was crazy, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. Volker rubbed the tips of his fingers together at his side. “What’s that? And what’s with all these names you’re throwing around? Set? Aten? Like the Egyptian gods or something?”

“What’s an Egyptian?” the Captain asked. His hand stopped rubbing the necklace, and instead clutched the gem in his palm. He raised an eyebrow, his confusion punching Volker in the gut. “Or the ‘Earth’ you mentioned a couple seconds ago, for that matter.”

Volker smacked both of his hands into his face. Maybe he was still asleep in his hammock and this was some weird dream. “This can’t be happening.”

---

“Are you feeling better Sapphire?” Emerald asked twenty minutes later.

Vin set a cup of hot tea between Emerald and Sapphire on the navigator’s table. They had dragged the chairs into the main room to give the group more space for the conversation, though it only had the effect of making the front navigation room cramped. The steam drifted up from the tea and Vin’s eye twitched at the use of the expensive drink. They may have broken into the holiday stash, but Emerald felt the occasion called from something a tad more soothing for everyone’s nerves than cold water or warmed up liquor.

Emerald nudged the glass into Sapphire’s fingers, waiting until they curled around the cup before speaking. “You’ve stopped shaking, I noticed.”

The boy tightened his grip on the cup in a way that sent needles into Emerald’s chest. Sapphire’s comfortable little world had collapsed on him again, against all odds. Understanding what everyone was saying should have been a relief, not make him jump at every sound and twitch like he hadn’t been living with them for weeks. Sapphire took a gulp from the cup in a way that he couldn’t have possibly tasted the beverage with how fast it went down his throat. He wiped the side of his mouth, sleeve clutched in his hand.

Sapphire asked, “Why do you keep calling me that?”

Emerald crossed his arms on the table. “Calling you what?”

“Sapphire.”

“Oh,” Emerald said. Sapphire had answered to that name for so long now, Emerald thought the boy had figured out it was his name. The boy’s accusing eyes narrowed, and Emerald shifted in his seat. He tapped the table, eyes drawn to the ‘Emerald’ script around the boy’s neck. “It was the name we gave you.”

“Volker Frost.”  Sapphire sat up straighter, the tips of his toes scraping the floor from the height of the chair. “That’s my name.” 

“Well, Saph—Volker Frost, my name is Emerald, and this is my second mate, Vin.” Emerald chose to ignore Vin’s well timed scoff at his introduction as he sat down a second cup of tea. “And I’m the Captain of the ship you’re on.”

“I figured that much,” Sapphire said, twisting the cup in his hand. “Even when I didn’t know what you were saying, I noticed everyone always seemed to do what you told them.”

Emerald rubbed his finger on the raised pattern on his clay cup. He watched the boy fidget in place. “So you really couldn’t understand what anyone was saying before?”

“Not a word. I was just happy the people here were so nice.” Sapphire slunk in his chair, his fingers rubbing the back of his neck. He flinched when the tip of his index finger brushed the tattoo line. “For the most part.”

Emerald winced, and averted his glance to the wood grain on the table. The skin under the tattoo was still red around the edges; the script on unhealed skin aggravating the tattoo into a late recovery. Emerald tapped his own neck with his index finger. “I do apologize about that.”

“It’s okay,” Sapphire said. 

He took a slower drink from his cup, his face wincing when the liquid hit his tongue. He forced the drink down and Emerald tried not to laugh. It seemed his intended treat was too bitter for the kid. He took the vase of water from Vin’s tray and poured a bit in Sapphire’s cup to dilute the strong flavor. 

Sapphire smiled. “Thanks, and it’s not your fault. I just wonder what I did to make them so angry, but we should be able to straighten it out now, right?”

“Not that it matters much,” Vin muttered, collecting the water vase again. He straightened with a start, and smirked before snapping his fingers. “I got it!”

Emerald set his own glass down after a warm mouthful of the bitter tea. “Got what?”

“I was wondering why his Words belonged to Set instead of Aten, but it makes sense if you think about it.” Vin pulled Sapphire’s collar  farther down, and poked at the tattoo around his neck. Sapphire slapped him away and scooted his chair closer to Emerald. Vin held his hands up in defense, backing up to the other corner. The self-satisfied smirk never left his face. “Whatever magic granted him Words must have recognized your ownership, and given him the Words of his Master! In this case: The Words of Set.”

“Master?” Sapphire looked between the two. His eyes were wide and full of youthful ignorance. If he didn’t speak the language, not knowing the customs or culture either was probably a good bet. Emerald exhaled. It wouldn’t be pretty to explain when Sapphire asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Whatever your story turns out to be, I’m starting to buy the Captain’s theory you’re not from around here,” Vin said. He reached his hand out and traced out Emerald’s name engraved on the boy’s skin. Each tap of his finger garnering a flinch from Sapphire. “Because you’d have to be from out of this world to not know what that ring around your neck means.”

---

Master Nile laid on his couch, unmoving for the past full day. Oils worried for his health, clutching an uneaten tray of food under the white gloves covering his ebony fingers. The loss of the items they had worked so hard to gather was his master’s breaking point. Oils himself honestly could have cared less about the artifacts, that is, if they didn’t mean so much to his precious Master Nile.

He couldn’t bare to see his Master Nile like this much longer.

Oils had been purchased as a gift to Master Nile during the middle of his 36th cycle. A child became responsible for the care of a toddler barely out of his swaddling clothes at a mere eight cycles. Not that this was anything unusual. Unlike their neighboring countries, Anubis had developed a differing slave system. Specifically, the fact that one could be born into the system, instead of being punished into it.

Perhaps not a well looked upon exception, but accepted none the less by their neighbors for fear of lost trade.

In Oils’ case, a murderous father had an affair with a slave girl next door whose only crime was being born to two serial killers. He never knew quite what he saw in her, but the results spoke for themselves. As any other child born to slaves, he was taken from his parents and sorted into a special school for training. Children who grew up as slaves sold for a much higher price than their rebellious adult counterparts. They were considered less of a risk, and they were far more suited for servitude.

In the end, Oils only knew his parents by name and occupation.

He had served two other Masters before he was approached for purchase by Nile’s family at the young age of fifty-two cycles. Oils had been hesitant at first, his previous two homes baring nothing but memories best forgotten, and wondered how much worse his situation could get. He was told that he was a birthday present to the child of the household. Oils expected the worst in a spoiled brat, but the household was rich and had a mansion with far more rooms to hide from masters with sticky fingers. Oils was handed the child one week after he had settled into the home, the small body warm and squirming in his arms.

Oils was smitten.

He dedicated himself to taking care of this child. Friend, brother, parent, slave, servant—the role didn’t matter. Even the boy’s horrid parents were nothing compared to the blessing his little master gave him.

Master Nile was Oils’ everything, whether right or wrong.

The man laid sprawled out on the couch, covering his eyes with his hands. Oils clutched the tray tightly enough that the soft silver bent. He would fix this. Nile clutched the box that had caused so many of the man’s problems over his lifetime close to his chest. Oils would fix this. No matter what it took, or what he had to sacrifice.

“Oils,” Nile said, gazing up at the ceiling. His wide and open eyes were wet, the tears catching the light off his white iris. He turned on the touch, opening the empty box. “What did I do wrong?”

Oils knelt beside his master, and placed a hand on his back. He rubbed it soothingly, like Nile was a little boy again. He had merely lost a toy, and Oils would find it for him. Whether stuck in the garden bush outside his window, or halfway across their world, nothing ever changed. Oils gripped his arm, and smiled. “Sir, take this as a good sign.”

Nile looked up at him, his eyes glimmering with a single speck of hope. “A good sign?”

“Yes. Clearly something resonated with our three treasures. They heard a calling and fled to their lost brother!” Oils spread his arm out, the sleeve on his long robe swishing. He placed his hand over his chest. “That means that the heart has to be here in our world again, doesn’t it? Your summoning spell was a success.”

Nile sat up, so that Oil could place his hands on the man’s knee. His master moved the open box to his lap, and rubbed his fingers along the edge of the wooden box. “So you’re saying, if we find the heart…the other three items should be there as well?”

“Yes, and I feel if you were in your right mind, you would have come to the same conclusion. So please, pull yourself together.” Oils pulled his Master to his feet. He took the box that was causing him such pain and closed the lid in a swift movement. Oils placed it on a back cabinet. “You’ve worked too hard for this to give up now. Not when it’s so close.”

“Awfully kind words for someone who called this my greatest folly in the past, Oils.” Nile glanced to the side, a small smile decorating his face.

“Maybe I like your follies,” Oils said, earnestly. He pushed the tray toward his Master. Food would do his stomach and constitution well. He couldn’t appreciate the work Oils would be doing if he was lost to hunger and exhaustion like a fool. “They’re the biggest part of you, Sir.”

“You’re good to me, Oils.” Nile lifted his fork and dug into the side dish of cold vegetables. He spoke around his bites. “So let’s go hunt down that stone!”

“Of course, sir,” Oils said. He knew exactly what needed to be done.