After the Storm

In the aftermath of the storm and Vel’s undeniably supernatural effort saving the whole squadron, the power-balance aboard the ships markedly changed. There was no ignoring that something not explainable by conventional means had taken place, and no denying that he had been at the center of it.

Fortunately, no one had asked him about what exactly he had done and how. The crew aboard his own vessel seemed to be far too in awe of him to dare any such thing. And judging by what limited interactions he’d had with people from other ships since led him to believe the situation was much the same there.

Only two people had been given an account, a quite detailed one at that, of what exactly had happened. One was obviously Dina, because Vel trusted her and she deserved to know. The other was Fal, as Vel had hoped his magic teacher might be able to give him some insight into what he had done and how it had even been possible. Sadly, the mercenary seemed to be quite awed and bewildered by the whole thing himself.

“I have never heard of anyone using tempestuous magic to impose their will upon a storm before. I don’t think controlling or manipulating natural storms has ever been considered a possibility. Some writings refer to frightfully powerful practitioners conjuring up a storm cloud or two, but no such thing has been done in living memory.”

Fal had gone on to theorize that the control aspect may have had more to do with Vel’s other powers rather than his tempestuous ones. And that, perhaps, him having access to both those and mind magic was key to achieving what he had. He stressed that this was all conjecture and guesswork though.

For his own part, Vel couldn’t help but wonder if it was down to neither. He was The Heir, and The Unbound seemed to be associated with storms to varying degrees. The Vashkai name for him was Stormlord, after all. And had not Seph said something about the first Heir conjuring up whole storms? He dearly wished he could ask the old man about this.

Vel had gotten the distinct impression that his aunt wasn’t sure how to handle this new development yet. She’d been avoiding any longer meetings with him in the days since, he suspected that was because she was unsettled by his new status among all the crews, including her own crown-loyal ones.

For his own part, Vel was carrying on as he had before it all. With one exception. Even after the storm had gone, he had retained his newfound ability to summon and manipulate the breeze, and he was making good use of it. He’d struggled a bit at first, but in the days since his mastery of the power had grown at an incredible rate. Where at first, keeping it up for an hour once a day had been his limit, he was now able to keep 2-to-3-hour long tailwinds going multiple times per day. Between that and their beautiful undersea guides, the squadron was finally significantly gaining on their quarry.