Michael and the others made their way down to the docks. Michael had only seen them from palace windows over the last several days and he was looking forward to seeing them up close. He’d been anxious during the preparations, and was feeling equally anxious as he walked. He’d spent nearly the entire previous day of preparations throwing himself into everything he could to remain distracted. He mapped out all currently open rifts across the continent, trained with the royal guard for hours, ran the palace walls a half dozen times, and even helped haul the crates of supplies that were being sent to the ship onto wagons. All of that effort had resulted in a few blissful seconds where he wasn’t worried about his son, and nothing more. A part of his mind still screamed at him that he needed to be running straight to Burndan, damn the consequences, but he was managing to keep it under control. Those consequences were too dire for him to act the fool. Gods did he want to though.The docks were filled with small trading vessels and the occasional larger military ship, at least that’s what Michael assumed they were. They looked closer to something from colonial times than medieval, but he didn’t really know enough about boats to be able to tell either way. What he could tell was that the docks were busy. Men were hauling goods up and down into vessels, loud arguments could be heard between docking officials and sailors, and the narrow road that ran between large warehouses was packed. Michael hadn’t expected Old Hume to have so much maritime trade.Ollie inhaled deeply behind him. “That’s some fresh sea air alright. Why don’t we skip all of this saving the world stuff and have some beers on the beach?”“I’m game,” said Marcus. “As long as you buy the beers.”“I’m royalty, they give me my beers for free now.”“Ah yes, his highness Ollie, Lord of the ass-end plains or some such. What a mighty royal you are,” said Pyotr with (...)