It had been a long journey back. Flopping into her seat at the galley table, Kaelis watched the sun as it dipped below the edge of the Bruckhaven bridge, thankful to finally be through customs and safely tucked away in port. A few moments later, Dez and Jira shuffled into the galley and took their seats beside her, both looking equally weary after the arduous trek back home.

  Sheah burst from her quarters, holding her two bags of loot and an unusually light post-job report. Brimming with enthusiasm, she made her way down the hall and fell into the chair at the head of the table.

  “Ah, back in one piece, loot firmly in hand,” she exhaled, gently placing her bags onto the tabletop. “And all without the ship breaking down after the attack! A big thank you to Dez for that.”

  Kaelis started a light round of applause. She sheepishly stopped after nobody else joined in.

  “Just doin’ my job,” Dez shrugged, looping his thumbs through his suspenders. “We’ll have to stay in port a few days, work on some repairs, but it ain’t nothin’ I can’t handle.”

  “Most excellent,” said Sheah. “Well, it’s not, but you know what I mean. Now, let us go over our findings!” She reached for the first of her bags and began to pull out its contents, setting them carefully on the table one at a time: bejeweled daggers, a silver flute, decorated pendants, a hand-carved wooden box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a treasury of ancient coinage. She continued until the whole of the table was blanketed in sparkling relics.

  “Wow, look at all this!” marveled Dez, perusing the bounty.

  Jira nodded in agreement. “Impressive.”

  “Yes, it is a splendid haul, if I do say so myself. At a glance I estimate it could bring in upwards of eighty to ninety thousand saebles, and that is after auction fees. This will give us a tremendous boost. Plus, you have yet to see our finest piece of treasure.” Sheah signaled across the table. “Kaelis, please present your acquisitions.”

  “Oh, me?” said Kaelis, quietly bracing herself for the impending uproar. Sheah was not going to be happy once she learned that Kaelis purposefully left treasure behind in favor of taking the old journal. Stalling for time, she reached into her pouches and pulled out a handful of trinkets. “Yeah, I found a lot of great stuff down there. Take a look at this fancy arrowhead,” she said, presenting an elegantly curved sliver of iron. “Can you imagine fighting the Unbound with arrows? I mean, that’d be crazy! I also found some—”

  “Not this again,” Sheah sighed. “Do you have the golden tablet?”

  “Ooh, a golden tablet,” chirped Dez.

  Kaelis played coy, pretending not to hear her. “What was that?”

  “The tablet. Please produce it.”

  Kaelis glanced aside. There was no avoiding it now. Slipping into a grimace, she slowly pulled out the leather-bound journal and softly placed it onto the table.

  Sheah stared at the book for a moment, greatly puzzled. Gradually, her confusion began to morph, rising into shock, and then anger.

  “You… didn’t take it?”

  Kaelis bashfully shrugged her shoulders. “No.”

  “What?!” burst Sheah, slapping her palms on the table.

  Kaelis waved her hands around, trying to calm her employer. “Wait!” she said. “Wait, just listen. This journal is an important piece of history. Imagine everything it could tell us about life back then. It’s literally priceless. I couldn’t just leave it there.”

  Sheah clenched her eyes and massaged her fingers onto her temples. “I simply refuse to believe this.”

  “Look, we already got a good haul,” said Kaelis. “And you never know—this could be worth a lot of money to the client. Just think about—”

  “This is not just about money!” shouted Sheah, surging to her feet. “This is about respect! I gave you a specific order. You cannot keep ignoring me! This is my ship and you’re on my crew, and what I say goes! Do you understand me?!”

  Dez and Jira exchanged a furtive glance. Quietly they shrank into their seats, disengaging from the conversation.

  “Hey, I follow your orders most of the time!” Kaelis countered.

  “That is not good enough! You may not like it, but I am trying to run a sustainable business here, and—”

  “Well, maybe you need to adjust your strategy.”

  “Would you please?!” Sheah unleashed an exasperated groan. “Lords above, I am sick and tired of everybody treating me like I don’t know what I’m doing!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you don’t! How long you been at this, a year?”

  “A year and a half!”

  “Like that’s so much better. I mean, you only decided to join me in the field like a month ago! You still don’t get that a find like this is just as important as some pile of shinies.” Kaelis looked to Jira and Dez for backup. “You guys agree with me, right?”

  Rubbing his mustache, Dez glanced up at the ceiling. “Er, well, treasure does pay the bills...” he nervously mumbled.

  Jira nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And everyone’ll pay fer gems and such. Dusty journals, maybe not so much.”

  Kaelis felt her jaw drop out of her head. “But—But—I can’t believe this,” she stammered. She cast Jira a look of betrayal. “Even you, Captain Sirroza? I thought for sure…”

  Jira just averted her gaze.

  Kaelis stared at the crew, mouth agape, completely beside herself. A slush of words boiled in her mind, and yet she couldn’t seem to articulate a single one of them. “I mean… okay, yeah, it might not be worth much,” she finally managed to admit. “But—but history, it teaches us to be better people, and… Think about society!”

  “Kaelis,” Sheah sternly started, returning to her chair, “I have tried to be patient, but if you truly wish to remain a part of this team, then you will need to learn that ‘history’ is not a viable prize.”

  Kaelis shut her eyes and heaved an enormous sigh—she thought maybe this crew could be different, but in the end they were after nothing but money, same as all the rest. “This is just… so typical,” she whispered, excusing herself from the table in a huff. She grabbed her scattered findings and stuffed them back into her pouch. “Well, I just think there’s more to life than just digging up jewels for a bit of coin! The client clearly thinks so. Why else would he send us to a place like that?” She scooped up the journal and waved it in her teammate’s visionless faces. “I bet you this whole haul that when he sees a historical find of this caliber he’s gonna flip his lid!”

  “He won’t care,” Sheah stated.

  “Oh yeah? How do you know that?”

  “I just know it.”

  Kaelis threw out an accusatory finger. “You said you didn’t even know who the client was!”

  “I do know!”

  “You do?”

  “Kind of!”

  “Then how do you know he won’t love it?”

  “Because I just do!”

  Kaelis slammed her palms against the tabletop. “How?!”

  Sheah winced, something snapping inside her. “Because there is no client, okay!” she yelled back, matching Kaelis’s explosive energy. “There. Does that make you feel better?”

  Kaelis blinked—what did she just say? She and her teammates all stared at Sheah with puzzled looks, each struggling to process this sudden revelation.

  “…What?” Kaelis breathed, lowering into her seat once more.

  Sheah adjusted her glasses and sat up straight. “There is no client,” she repeated. “I made them up.”

  “Wait… Huh?” Dez asked, bewildered. “But how’d you know where we was supposed ta go then?”

  “I got a tip.”

  “A tip?” probed Jira.

  “Yes.”

  The Captain leaned in, her brows sinking with concern. “From who?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it does,” said Jira. “The only person you saw that day was the broker. Was it him?”

  Sheah sheepishly twisted her curled hair around her finger. “…Yes, it was him.”

  Kaelis stiffened upright in an instant, a wave of hot dread seizing every fiber of her body. Glancing over, she caught sight of Dez and Jira’s equally distressed faces, only confirming her fears.

  “He told me about this job,” Sheah continued, “and about how another crew was setting out to explore those ruins, but we could beat them to it if we moved fast. And so I thought—”

  “He broke the code?!” Kaelis sputtered.

  “Well, he did mention a code, but—”

  “Whoa, hey, we can’t be pullin’ jobs for no rogue broker,” Dez rattled with alarm. “There’s strict bylaws against that sorta thing.”

  “What?” said Sheah, taken aback. “But the handbook never explicitly stated—”

  “Article two section one-A forbids disloyalty to our fellow members, an’ that means pretty much in any way. If someone finds out we schemed to undercut another crew, we could all get kicked right outta the Union. And without it there ain’t no goin’ back out there, not unless yer aimin’ to get a visit from the fixers.”

  Sheah frowned. “…Ex—expelled?” Slowly, her face drew long, the gravity of her choices finally sinking in. “But—wait. That’s not… I—”

  “Mmph…” Jira grumbled, tensing her eyes shut.

  “I can’t get kicked out of the Union!” Kaelis cried out, flailing her arms. “Being an expeditioner is my life! What am… what am I supposed to do without it?”

  “Hold on, we ain’t sunk yet,” said Dez, anxiously rubbing his mustache. “We can figure a way outta this. Heck, maybe we oughta just come clean?”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Jira shook her head. “There’ll be a hearing,” she said, scowling at the hassle of it all. “It won't look good for us.”

  “Sure, but it'll look a whole lot worse if we get found out.” Dez pinched his brows together. “Maybe I could try callin’ our rep, keep it on the sly…”

  “This can’t be happening…” Kaelis whispered, hands glued to her head. While her two teammates debated solutions, she turned her sights back on Sheah. Her deceitful employer was sinking deeper and deeper into her chair, a look of abject dismay shriveling her face. At once, Kaelis’s shock and fear focused into a pinprick of anger. She hunched over, shaking like a boiling kettle—How could Sheah be so careless?

  “Why didn’t you tell us?!” Kaelis suddenly shouted, glaring at Sheah with the fury of betrayal.

  Sheah said nothing. She just continued to sit there, her unfocused eyes flickering back and forth, her breath quickening by the second.

  “Sheah!”

  Still, she did not react.

  “Answer me!!”

  With that, Sheah finally snapped. She threw back her head and screamed, her voice cutting through the room like a gunshot.

  “BECAUSE I’M BROKE!”

  Her words lingered for a moment before a deafening quiet settled over the room. Kaelis and the others all stared at their employer, stunned and awestruck by her explosive dismay. Croaking out a breath, Sheah dismally shrank back into herself, her gaze sinking to the floor.

  “Because I’m broke…” she whispered. “It has just… been so long since we’ve had a paid job. I didn’t… I didn’t know what else to do…”

  Kaelis crossed her arms, not having it. “So what, you thought you’d just collude with a broker, break Union rules? Is that it?”

  “That was not my intent!” Sheah insisted. “Kartsen, the broker, he is my uncle—my mother’s brother. When I told him of my plight he… he offered his help. He mentioned it was frowned upon, yes, but I did not… I did not realize…” Sheah lowered her gaze in shame. “I should have known better. It felt wrong, but I… I was simply so… so desperate, and I worried that, if you knew of my dire straits, then… then you would look for work elsewhere. And I can’t afford to put a brand new crew together, not from scratch, not again.”

  “Oh, come on, how can you not afford it?” scoffed Kaelis, refusing to feel sorry for her. “How’d you even go bankrupt, I thought you were an heiress or somethin’? What’d you do, gamble it all away?”

  Jira shot Kaelis a stern look. “Vintra, please.”

  “Why?” she shrugged back.

  “You don’t know?” said Dez.

  Kaelis softened somewhat, darting her eyes around. “Know what?” she asked. “There’s something to know?”

  “I…” Sheah uttered a sound, drawing her teammate’s attention. Swallowing, she diminished into her seat, her gaze fixed on the table. “There was… a landship accident,” she croaked. “My parents, they… And without them the factory went under… After all of the debts were settled, there was almost nothing left. I couldn’t afford to attend the academy anymore, and so I… I…”

  Sheah paused, collecting her scattered words. “…I refused to let tragedy steal my future,” she said. “All my life, I’ve only ever known landships and antiquities. For years I dreamed of one day combining that knowledge, of making something of myself… And then after what happened, it became my one way to… reclaim my life… So I poured every last dime I had into obtaining this ship, fixing it up, forming this company. It is now everything I have left in this world. And if I lose this too… I don’t… I don’t know what I’ll do…” Her voice tapered off into a whisper. “I am just… so sorry for putting you all through this. Truly I am…”

  The room sank into silence once more. Kaelis sat stunned in her seat, unsure of how to respond. “Sheah… I…”

  Reaching over, Jira placed her hand on top of Sheah’s and looked into her reddened eyes. “It’s alright,” she soothed with a tender pat. Dez offered in his hand as well. Sniffling deeply, Sheah nodded her head with gracious thanks.

  Kaelis looked towards the Captain. Falling still, she decided it was only right that she follow her example. She rubbed her eyes and sighed, releasing her frustrations.

  “…What team was on this job originally?” she asked after a breath.

  “Oh, um, a pair of youthful, moneyed sorts,” Sheah replied. “Uncle Karsten assured me they would neither notice nor care of this trickery.”

  “Rich kids, eh?…” Kaelis fiddled with her earring. “Okay, I can work with that.” She leaned back in her chair. “Listen… Tomorrow we go and turn this stuff into your broker uncle, get paid, and then we act like none of this ever happened. Yeah? No one ever has to know.”

  “Do… Do you mean it?” Sheah whispered.

  Kaelis nodded. She polled the rest of the team. “How’s that sound?”

  Dez rubbed his mustache. “Hm, it don’t sit so well with me, hidin’ this from the Union… But I spose it’s better than sellin’ out yer uncle an’ gettin’ us all tangled in a tribunal.” He finally nodded. “Okay, sure. Like it never happened.”

  Jira grunted in agreement.

  “Okay.” Kaelis clapped her hands, issue resolved.

  “…Thank you, everyone,” Sheah squeaked. “And again, I… I am so sorry.”

  “Really, it’s fine,” said Kaelis, watching Sheah wipe the drops from her eyelashes. At that moment, studying the regret and gratitude on her comrade’s face, she could suddenly see a different side of her. Sheah really was just a normal girl doing the best she could. And for Dez and Jira to stand by her, despite everything she’d done and everything they had to lose, it filled Kaelis with just an ounce of hope. Maybe this team wasn’t just out for money after all…

  “And… I’m also sorry,” Kaelis mumbled at Sheah. “About ignoring your orders, not takin’ that tablet. I was caught up in the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the company. Or you.”

  Sheah smiled and nodded gratefully. The room turned quiet for a beat.

  “…I still wish you would have taken it though…” Sheah mumbled.

  “Lords above, I said I’m sorry!” Kaelis groaned. “You’re actin’ like we can’t get something for this journal.”

  “She’s right,” said Dez. “I bet we can score fifty saebles for it.”

  Kaelis scoffed. “Oh, come on, it’s worth more than that. I'm tellin' ya, collectors are gonna go nuts over this. The insight it has could be worth a fortune to the right person. Here, I’ll prove it to you!” Swiping the journal from the table, she stood and cracked it open to the earliest entry. “You'll see,” she said, shooting the group one more cocky look before diving in. “You’ll see…”

  The group sat back in their chairs, waiting to be impressed.

  “First entry. Ahem—” Kaelis cleared her throat and began to read the finely drafted text, pontificating in her grandest, most theatrical voice:

  “‘I do not know what day it is. Three moons have passed since the war’s end, and the cataclysm. In that time I have managed no rest, no moment of meager sleep. Blessedly, my brethren remain beside me to share in my weariness, for I doubt I could endure these trials alone. We have come to a stop, here at the city’s edge, only to find that our hopes of escape have proved to be yet another fractured dream. A great storm impedes us now, swallowing the very sky, snaring the mountain pass in a savage wintry grip. I should have foreseen such aberrations. Fool that I was to believe there would be no consequences’…”

  Kaelis paused and looked up from her reading. “Okay, okay, interesting…" she commented, thinking over the history of the region. “Sounds like this journal is probably from a soldier or something. They mentioned a war, which, given the time period, would probably make it the First Egaellean War… Weird for this book to end up that far east, though…”

  Sheah pursed her lips. “Yes, riveting.”

  “Oh, hush.” Kaelis lifted the book and read on. “Ahem—

  “‘We cannot afford to rest here long. Even now I can hear them, rasping in the dark, stalking us from the rooftops. They favor the night, leaving me to count the dead upon each new morn. I have seen them with my own eyes now—abominations, their forms indescribable, their cries maddening. One I even recognized: a boy from the stables, his tattered uniform hanging now from a shuffling, verdant corpse. It shackles my heart to think that not a fortnight gone these monstrosities might have been mine own kin’…”

  At once, something clicked in Kaelis’s head, something she couldn’t quite place.

  Maybe this entry wasn’t about the First Egaellean War.

  Jira leaned in closer, drawn in by the words on the page.

  “Uh—‘They are too numerous to fight,’” Kaelis continued, “‘And so we are left with little recourse. We must pierce this gale and brave its fury. Our only hope now is to travel south, to the lands once pictured only in dreams. We must abandon this place, this ruined city. The Archmother is dead, it cannot care for us now. All we can do is see what lay beyond the fog.’”

  “Did that there book just say ‘Archmother’?” asked Dez.

  Kaelis’s hands began to tremble. Strange creatures, a ruined city, the Archmother—it couldn’t be. Reading rapidly, she dropped the theatrical tone altogether, growing more passionate and excited with every passing line.

  “‘We have reached an accord with the survivors—tonight we rest, and upon first light we set out. Captain Vera of the Archguard has volunteered to lead the way, and she has asked that I join her side. I have been tasked with chronicling these events, to chart our course through the storm and beyond, so that our stories will live on for those who might see brighter days. I will not let her down. I will not let the world down, never again. Asier, my friend—I will keep your memory alive, the way it deserves to be. I pray for us all.’ Signed King’s Tribune Arlen Oreleah…”

  Kaelis lowered the book and stared out into nothing, the walls and lights melting around her. She sputtered there, speechless, a gridlock of tangled thoughts crashing through her head. It couldn’t be real…

  Dez ran his hand through his thinning hair. “So, I don’t quite foll—”

  “Do you know what this means!” Kaelis shouted, all of her words spilling out of her at once.

  “What does it mean?” inquired Sheah.

  Jira leaned forward. “This isn’t just some old journal.”

  “I’ll say!” Kaelis squealed, vibrating with rabid excitement. “This is a chronicle from one of the tribunes of the God King! From just after the Sundering!”

  “Oh… Oh my,” said Sheah, raising her brows. “So… that means it is quite valuable then, yes?”

  “Psh. Uh,” mumbled Kaelis, dumbstruck by the obviousness of the answer, a wide smile plastered on her face.

  Jira grunted, impressed. “It’s a great find.”

  “A first-hand account of the Sunderin’…” said Dez, blithely stroking his mustache. “I betcha every museum and collector in the Empire would throw a fit tryin’ to get their hands on somethin’ like that. I take it back—we play our cards right, and we could be swimmin’ in saebles!”

  “Oh, how very exciting!” proclaimed Sheah. “A stroke of good fortune after all!”

  “Yeah, well, this thing ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘til I’ve gotten a chance to read through it a few times,” Kaelis declared as she dove back into the text.

  “If you must,” said Sheah. She tapped her cheek in thought. “Hm. I wonder if Uncle Karsten will be able to auction this piece without divulging the circumstances of its acquisition. We may need to be discreet when arranging a buyer…”

  “I know a guy from the Thieves Union who could help us out with that,” said Dez. “And I hear he’s in town…”

  Kaelis’s attention drifted away from the conversation as she eagerly skimmed through the journal’s many pages. Each entry was densely packed, not only with writing, but with illustrations, charts, and diagrams. She circled back to one of the earliest entries and studied it fervently.

  At once, her pupils dilated, her smile faded into open-mouthed awe. On the page, drafted in fine black ink, was a map—a thorough drawing with clear landmarks and a detailed legend, depicting a dashed line traversing south across a field and through a maze of stone, leading away from the outlines of a city wall. She flipped ahead. There were more drawings, detailing more routes, each winding their way down, until finally emerging through the southern edge of a wall of storm clouds.

  Kaelis stared at the page, her arms quivering, her face draining of color. “No…way…” she whispered in astonishment.

  “What?” asked Dez. “What is i—”

  “We can’t sell this!!” Kaelis loudly declared.

  Sheah waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, come, Kaelis, we must.”

  “No, you don’t—This journal, it’s not just…” Kaelis sucked in a breath. “It’s a map.”

  “A map?” Jira asked.

  “Yeah. A map.” Kaelis leaned in for dramatic effect. “Through the Forever Storm!”

  At once, the entire crew reeled.

  Jira shot up straight. “What?!”

  “Come again?” asked Dez.

  Kaelis shook, unable to contain her elation. “It shows the way the first peoples took through the storm. The way back into Ama-Lasria!”

  The team all exchanged utterly stupefied looks.

  “What?” said Dez. “Ama-Lasria? The Ama-Lasria?”

  “The Dead City itself.”

  “Am I misremembering, “ Sheah asked, “or is Ama-Lasria not supposed to be filled with fabulous riches?”

  “Riches, fame, glory, you name it!” Kaelis flailed her arms around. “Ama-Lasria, it’s the ultimate prize. This journal… This could be the greatest single discovery of the last thousand years… And I found it!”

  One by one, her teammates sank into their chairs, flattened by the weight of this new revelation.

  “Ama-Lasria…” Sheah speculated. “A find like this could certainly elevate the Redland Runner above the other expeditionary companies.”

  “Come on, think bigger!” encouraged Kaelis. “We got a real opportunity here, a chance to do something truly great. Not just in this lifetime, but for all lifetimes. If we get to Ama-Lasria, then our names will go down in history, immortalized for all time in the amber of the ages!”

  “How very poetic,” noted Sheah.

  “Thanks, I have my moments.”

  Dez rubbed his mustache. “Immortality, eh?”

  “Think about it. We do this, and we’ll be remembered as the greatest expeditioners who ever lived!” Twirling around, Kaelis excitedly basked in the journal’s splendor, flipping through its every page with glee.

  “Hm. I’ll be,” mused Dez, turning towards Jira. “Ain’t that somethin’?”

  Jira stared out into space in disbelief. “Aie…” she whispered.

  Dez chuckled to himself. “Hm. Betcha them rich boys would be mighty steamed if they heard about this.”

  “Oh… certainly,” said Sheah, appearing distressed at the notion. “They would be most cross if they were to find out… Most cross, indeed…”