Six months.
It sounded small in the head but in reality...it was a really long time. Half a year.
Liam clasped his head between his hands. He'd been gone for half a year. How was his family doing? How was Emily? How had so much time passed?
He could have sworn that a day...maybe a couple of days had passed when he left Aragon's prison. So how had so much time slipped by since then? Liam's thoughts were in disarray. That was understandable really.
No one would be fine with finding out that they had lost half a year of their life.
Liam leaned against the steel wall next to his bed. Captain Ramirez had managed to find him a cabin to sleep in, though he shared it with one of the crew members. A young lad whose name was ironically Lad. He was cheery and full of energy...a talker too.
Luckily, Lad seemed to be asleep.
He could feel the ship moving. Shortly after their talk, Captain Ramirez had decided that the worst of the storm had passed. The ship could now travel relatively smoothly. The rain was still falling and thunder rumbled on occassion but the waves were more passable.
There weren't any large overbearing waves as before.
Liam sat there, his thoughts drifting back to his time with Aragon. The first time they spoke, the dragon had appeared as though he were a god. Liam couldn't even move or breathe in his presence.
The trial had been difficult too. And scary.
The Abyss...it wasn't a place where man should ever set foot and yet it existed nonetheless. Of course what he had seen was simply what Aragon had wanted to show him. A mere a memory, but it would have harmed him regardless.
Still, after that, Aragon's menacing image had dimmed a little. What replaced it was the image of a lonely being who had been imprisoned for what must have been hundreds of years. Aragon had been the only person to ever look past Liam's weakness without flinching.
He had fought to protect him. Fought to teach him. And fought for him because...
'I am his successor' he looked at his palm and slowly clenched it into a fist.
Aragon had helped him return to Earth and had even left him the key to freeing himself from his body's ailment. Now he had to be worthy of that.
'The person who imprisoned him is most certainly connected to the Zones. Whatever their goal, they'll have to show themselves one day. And when that day comes...I need to be ready.'
He remembered the scale of Aragon's domain. That was the minimum requirement if he ever stood a chance. He had to become an Overlord, surpassing even the S-Rank. There was a problem with that though.
The only path there ran through a Hunter University. There was only one within the Federation. He had to get into Star University. That led him to the second problem.
His body was still weak. While Aragon's blood essence had strengthened him considerably compared to his past self. He was nowhere near the level of Dylan or Emily.
He needed to train. The only problem was he didn't know how.
He sighed.
'Dammit all.'
Why couldn't anything ever be straightforward?
Liam lingered for a moment then stood and left the cabin. He needed fresh air and a walk to clear his head.
Most of the crew were either in their cabins or the mess hall so the deck was clear...at least that was what Liam thought. Except it wasn't.
Sitting on the floor in the center of the deck was a lone figure. Ushanti sat with her legs crossed and eyes closed, hands resting on her knees. She appeared to be meditating. Liam's gaze lingered on her for a moment before he noticed the Aether around her begin to thicken.
Ever since inheriting Aragon's essence, his sensitivity to Aether had sharpened . All his senses had heightened. Although he couldn't suddenly pick up a scent from a mile away. Particular smells though, those could not escape him anymore.
'What am I, a hound?' he snickered.
The Aether around her suddenly dispersed. Ushanti's eyes shot open, frustration evident in her gaze. Then, as though sensing something, she looked directly at him. Surprise first. Then a scowl.
'Uh-oh' Liam thought as Ushanti stomped towards him. 'She's not gonna throw me overboard, is she?'
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Nothing really. Just thought I'd get some fresh air."
She glared at him. Liam held his breath. For a long moment neither moved, and then she sighed and turned to face the water. She leaned against the railing without saying anything.
Liam recognised her body language immediately. It was all too familiar.
Ushanti may have been a princess but she carried burdens of her own. Just like him.
He joined her at the railing. The rain had been reduced to a light drizzle now.
Silence settled between them before one of them broke it.
"Aren't you going to ask?" she said.
"About what?" he shrugged.
She gave him a sidelong glance. "About what I was doing. Or trying to do."
Liam considered it. "Honestly I don't know where to start. It looked like you were meditating with Aether but then you released it."
Ushanti lowered her gaze.
"I didn't release it. I was trying to hold it. To control it." A pause. "I just can't."
"I'm sure you'll get it—"
"That's what everybody says!" Her voice cracked slightly. "Nobody understands what I'm going through. I am the princess of the Ushari and yet I can't control my own Aether. Everyone my age does it as easily as breathing. Yet here I am."
Liam opened his mouth. Then closed it.
Ushanti's shoulders slumped. A small sob escaped her chest.
"I hear them, you know...the kids." She looked up at him with glistening eyes. "They call me Princess of Failure."
The air suddenly felt cold.
He could see a reflection of himself in those eyes. His past self and his present self. The old Liam had kept everything bottled up, isolating himself from the world. He had cared for nothing beyond his family and Emily.
He took a breath. What about the new Liam?
Dragon's blood flowed through his veins. And yet he was very much still human. Still the same coward underneath.
"It could be worse," he said, turning away. "I've experienced something similar. No...probably worse."
"How would you know?" Ushanti's lips quivered. For some reason she didn't want to believe him , yet something in his next words reached somewhere deep within her.
"Back home, having an Awakened ability is considered a great honour. But it's the usefulness of that ability that people actually respect." He took several steps forward, eyes on the dark sky. "I was born with a weak body and an ability that was of no use to anyone. So my classmates bullied me and the teachers looked the other way. As long as I wasn't visibly injured, which I never was, since my Self-Healing took care of that."
He turned back to her and took hold of her shoulders. He looked her directly in the eyes. "So Ushanti, I do know what you're going through. Because I've lived it."
Ushanti held his gaze, eyes glistening. "...And now?"
Liam was quiet for a moment, as though uncertain how to answer. Then he said:
"I guess we'll find out. But one thing is certain. I'm not going back to who I was. Someone entrusted everything they had to me and I don't want to let them down."
With that he left her at the railing and returned to his cabin.
Left standing there, Ushanti felt the wild beating of her own heart. Something in her blood felt like it was stirring. She couldn't tell whether it was his words or the look in his eyes when he made that declaration. Either way it had reached further than anything Shay had ever said to her.
She turned and walked back to the center of the deck. She sat down, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes. Her breathing exercises came slowly at first, then steadied. As her concentration deepened, the raging current within her lit up behind her eyes.
Her Aether was vast and undirected, not unlike a river in full flood, rushing with nowhere to go. This was her Natural Well.
Shay and her mother had told her how exceptional it was. It surpassed even some of the senior Warrior Maidens who had spent years cultivating their Aether and had long since formed their cores.
But vast and uncontrolled was the same as useless.
That was the problem.
Ushanti remained on the deck through the night, failing again and again. Yet as exhausted as she was, as frustrated as she was, she never stopped. Not once.
It was only when the sun crept over the horizon that she finally rose to her feet.