Wild Dragon of Rome 23 (Patreon)

“I can’t believe we got away—” she started, her face flushed, excited with her success as the adrenaline filled her body.

I pressed my finger against her lips, silencing her.

“Don’t tempt fate,” I warned her. “We’re not away yet. Get in the boat.”

She followed me as we waded through the sea. I arrived first, and pulled her into the boat. “Should I cast a spell?” she asked.

“No. We don’t want them to notice us,” I said even as grabbed a pair of oars, and started rowing, my enhanced strength proving beneficial. Paradoxically, the farther we were away from the ships, the easier for them to notice our magic, mostly because they wouldn’t have attributed the mistake to one of their members.

“Do you mind checking the boat and see if they left any supplies on?” I asked, despite knowing they did not. My perception was sharp enough to notice the boat was clean. There were no discarded rations or weapons that required any repair.

Just two pairs of oars, and nothing else.

I asked her to search, because I wanted to give her a tedious job that would allow her to process her most recent excitement without crashing. While Lillian was distracted by the search I rowed rapidly. Not directly to the South, which would have brought us to Gaul, but around the island, hugging the shore close enough to be dangerous.

It was not a particularly dark night, so if we just rowed away, our silhouette would have been caught.

On the other side, I had already explored the shore and saw there were no inconvenient sentries that would ruin our escape at the last minute.

It was a mistake.

However, it was an understandable one. The commotion I had created during my breakthrough had forced them into a battle with the beasts of the island, which exhausted their mages. Then, they were still assuming that Lillian was either dead, or trapped in the middle of the island, alone, with no way to escape.

And, even if we had a boat, if it wasn’t for my new strength, we couldn’t have gotten away without alerting them. We would row with our strength, which would mean we could barely travel at most two miles without using enough mana to alert them, which would mean we would still be visible to the sentries at the crow’s nest when dawn arrived.

From their perspective, there was no risk. The viability of my plan had relied on my strength, one that I could sustain far longer than any earth elemental boost could have allowed to. I doubted that even the legendary changers of the Germanic wilderness would be able to match me.

As I continued to row, I felt a movement near the boat. Undersea. “Don’t move, and don’t use any spells,” I warned Lillian even as I grabbed one of the spare oars, which was almost as thick as my arm, and ten feet long.

Not the most balanced weapon, but all that mattered was the side of the oars was sharp enough that I could drive it through the first-order fish that decided our boat would have made a good meal. I left it drifting in the water. I didn’t like wasting food, but we couldn’t afford any other beasts that it might have attracted.

I continued rowing. It took a little more than twenty minutes for me to row halfway around the island, which was more than five miles.

I thought about continuing until we were safely on the other side of the island, but that was another risk. Once they realize the attack was a distraction, they might decide to send someone to contact the sentries.

I paused a moment as I looked at Lillian, who had been watching the other side tensely. “We’re about to move to the open seas,” I alerted her. “I want you to watch the horizon and alert me if you see anything suspicious. Otherwise, be ready enough to defend the boat, but don’t cast any spell unless I ask.”

I asked it of her to keep her from panicking rather than anything. Ultimately, when we were in the sea, we had no hope of noticing the other ships before they caught us. It was not something I could solve, no matter how sharp my new perception was.

Without the elevation of a crow’s nest, our enemies would see us easily.

She paused. “I can use my magic to intimidate the beasts. The ships on the other side. They won’t notice us anymore.”

“No, let’s avoid if possible. I could feel the presence of the beasts under the sea as well. I’ll ask you to do so if it is necessary. And, we don’t know if they have any experts specializing in detecting mana. Let’s not risk it.”

Lillian looked at my sweaty appearance. “Are you sure you don’t want to rest for a while? This is not a boat that’s designed for only one person.”

I shook my head even as I smiled. “Don’t worry, we can leave right now.”

“You don’t have to push yourself too much,” she said. “I think we can afford to wait for five minutes while you rest.”

“Don’t worry. It looks like my endurance had been improved just as much as my strength. It’s nothing more than a light exercise.”

I was exaggerating a bit. Even with my improvement, using just a pair of oars to push a boat several times the speed it was designed for was not a simple achievement. I was tired, but I rather be on the mainland than in the middle of the sea, helpless.

“Really,” she said she put her hand on my back, and I felt her healing touch. If someone else dared to touch me without my permission, I would have reacted badly, but Lillian earned that right.

In more ways than one.

She frowned. “You’re lying. You’re exhausted.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not the first time I pushed myself more, and I don’t usually have as good of a reason as three ships full of mysteriously competent soldiers targeting me. Just another hour, and we will be on the mainland. Once we arrived, there’s no chance they could catch up with us.”

“True,” she said as she wistfully looked toward North, where the island of Britannia lay. “I wonder if we’ll be able to return to Britannia.”

I smirked. It was not a nice smile. “Oh, yes. Sooner or later, I’ll return, and have a nice talk with my uncle. He has some questions he needs to answer.”

“Yes, your uncle,” she growled. “I have a few questions of my own for him.”

“I understand. Don’t worry. When I meet with him, I’ll learn why they had tried to kidnap you before … before I have a discussion with him about how to treat one’s parents.” Too bad it would be the last discussion my uncle would ever have.

Then, I took a deep breath, and calmed myself down. Not because I was ashamed of my thoughts. I strongly suspected that my uncle either directly poisoned my grandfather, or allowed those mysterious men to poison him. There was only one punishment for that act…

No, I calmed down, because I could feel my heartbeat picking up. Not the first time, as my heartbeat was quite intense while I rowed around the island as well. Yet, something was different.

As I focused on my anger, the crystal buried in my heart responded by radiating more mana, immediately straining my ability to contain it further. While it was good to see there was a way to get more mana during an emergency, the last thing we needed right now was to create a pillar of mana.

Even discounting the ships, would agitate the sea beasts. And, I didn’t want to deal with a beast wave at the sea, particularly not when we were on a dinky little boat with no weapon. I managed to stop the crystal from radiating mana.

But, not before it filled my body with enough mana that I was barely able to contain it.

While I dealt with it, Lillian had been looking at the horizon. She started speaking before turning. “You just want to keep me busy, right. With your senses, I don’t need to —” she started, only to stop when she looked at me. “Something wrong?” Lilian asked.

“I’m just trying to suppress my mana,” I explained. “I don’t want to let it out and ruin everything we had handled.”

“Really, you’re already at your limit?” she asked. “Even after you let it out?”

“Yes. It reacted to my anger and radiated even more mana,” I explained. I thought about keeping it a secret, but then, I decided against it. What was a small secret among every secret we shared? I expected her to focus on the emotional response, which was why her blush caught me with surprise.

“Do you want me to help you handle it?”

I smiled, realizing exactly how she had been planning to help me.

I had to admit, such a distraction was risky while we were at the open sea, but nowhere as risky as trying to suppress the raw mana that was flooding my body. I couldn’t use it with my elemental cores ruined, but I couldn’t let it out without ruining our hard work of getting away.

“I would love to…”