“Are you out of your mind?!” Kevza hissed as they ran through the hall of the isolation cells. “What if someone catches us?! Or realizes it was you?”

            “That implies anyone knows this is happening,” Natavali said, the illusion of the guard lying over the top of his visiage becoming blurry at the edges as they rushed.

            “It can’t be long until they come to check on me,” he countered. “What happens when they see someone let me out?”

            “They won’t.” Natavali paused, looking around the corner and pulling them both out into the sea-scented night air, continuing down the steps as far as they could before turning back into the last row of the isolation cells. “If they come, they’ll see a perfectly fine suppression cell with a perfectly fine you, sleeping like the bored prisoner you are.”

            “And if they come in when I don’t get up? Or if it fades out? Even you can’t hold an illusion forever!”

            “There won’t be time for that. As horrible as it sounds, with everything happening tonight I would be surprised if they came for you at all.”

            The firelight danced along the dark stone, casting dizzying shadows all around them as they rushed, the movement and the speed of their running leaving Kevza dizzy and slightly nauseous. He hadn’t thought this was how the evening was going to go at all…

            “Hold up,” Kevza said, tripping along behind him, tugging back and slowing his steps just long enough to get a proper breath. Lord and Lady, he’d gotten stiff and clumsy from sitting in the cell for so long. “What do you mean? What’s happening?”

            “Kevza,” Natavali said, pulling him along behind the last support pillar of the empty room and shoving him through a hidden crevasse the alchemist hadn’t even noticed was there. “Just trust me for a while.”

            The other side of the long, narrow, gap opened up into another set of stairs, the dark stones speckled white with salt where the water sprayed up against the steps carved down to the frothing bay. Kevza couldn’t see the other set from where they stood, perfectly hidden under the jutting lip of the cliff.

            “What is this?” he asked, trying to see where the dizzying, winding steps ended as they wound down between thick stone slabs rising from the water. “I never knew these were here…”

            “You weren’t supposed to,” Natavali said simply, once again grabbing his hand and pulling him after his own hurried steps. “Come on.”

            They raced as fast as was wise down the slick levels of rock until they were level with the sea, one of the wide, black boats the Coven used for sea training bobbing with two figures waiting at the end of a short, water warped dock at the end of the strip of rocky beach.

            “Kevza!” Danae called, her face thin and pale compared to what he remembered at their last meeting.

            “Hurry, boys, hurry,” Zatelia called, waving them closer.

            In a shower of small golden sparks, Natavali’s disguise faded away, leaving him in a brown patterned overcoat, the simple black of his underrobes showing underneath.

            “What’s happening?” Kevza asked again.

            “Get in the boat,” Natavali ordered, half pushing him in before starting to unravel the ropes tying up the small craft. “Mother, did you get everything?”

            “Everything is as it should be,” Zatelia assured him, putting a heavy leather satchel in Kevza’s arms and pushing him down into the boat again, where Danae was waiting, looking just as confused as he felt. “Come, there is no time for you to dawdle.”

            The bottom of the boat had a few bundles tied in a group and a line of waterskins, and that Kath patterned blanket from Natavali's rooms, all swaying as the force of the waves grew fiercer with each passing moment. Whatever they had planned, it didn’t look like they planned on them coming back any time soon…

            Natavali jumped down into the boat, rocking it on the water as he looked up, holding out a hand for his mother.

            “No,” she said, shaking her head.

            “You must come with us,” Natavali said, his brow furrowing.

            “I have my own purpose here,” she said, taking the last of the small bags she had and placing it in his hand instead. “You must go.”

            “Mother-“

            “I have seen it,” she said, a sad smile pulling at her lips and tears pricking at her eyes. “Where your journey leads now, there is no place for me.”

            “Shra’ma,” Natavali said, his voice cracking. “Please.”

            “You must be brave, Shra’Li’Li,” the woman said, kneeling on the end of the dock to place a kiss on her son’s head. “As long as the golden rays rise, I am always with you, no matter where you go.”

            Although Kevza couldn’t see his face, the stuttering of his breath revealed the quiet sobs he and his mother shared as they bid one another farewell.

            “I love you,” he whispered to her softly.

            “And I love you, my son,” she answered, kissing his head one last time before reaching out and placing a hand on the body of the boat, pushing it away with him, where they were quickly carried away on the rougher waves, a trail of pale, yellow light carrying them farther with each passing second.

            “Remember what I have told you!” she called over the water. “Remember what you have to find. You protect them, Shra’Li’Li! You must! You make sure that boy makes it!”

            “I will,” Natavali called back, his tears now dripping plainly down his face for all to see as he took up a place across from Kevza, picking up an oar. “Come on, row, we have to go.”

            “Natavali what’s happening?” Kevza asked again, an air of desperation entering his voice.

            “We have to go,” Natavali said again, matching his tone, pulling them away with the tide and well out into the stormy gray water. "We don't have time."

            “Go where? What’s all this about?!”

            “Mother had a vision,” Natavali said simply through his tattered breaths.

            Just as Kevza was about to demand a better answer, he caught sight of the great black silhouette of Domen Keep against the night sky, and felt his words die on his lips as several small scores of lights appeared in its visage.

            With the glowing stain of fire eating up the distance, Natavali kept rowing, leaving Kevza to join him in tears.

             “This isn’t the end,” Natavali continued, his gaze growing determined even as tears tracked down his face. “We have a lot of work to do.”