The Scrollrunners

Epilogue

After several days at sea, Talibah thought that her father, Aristarchus, would have become accustomed to the choppy waters on which the boat bobbed up and down. The general greenish tinge to his face and his frequent dashes to the side of the ship proved otherwise.

Talibah was standing at the bow, where a proud figurehead of a phoenix spread its resilient wings above the waters. She was gazing at the deep blue ocean over which the sun hung like a sconce in some great cavern when her father returned after abruptly excusing himself yet again.

"Are you sure you're all right, Father?" She asked as he rested his forearms on the railing beside her, breathing heavily.

He shook his head wearily. "I will never get used to this. Good thing we're almost to Cyprus. I'll feel better when I can see land."

Talibah gave him half a smile. It was hard to bring herself to do even that when all she could think about with each passing moment was that she was drifting farther and farther from all she had ever known.

"Speaking of Cyprus," Aristarchus continued, "I have an idea that you might like. In fact, I imagine you'll love it."

"Oh?" Talibah raised her dark eyebrows, her black eyes sparking with the faintest of lights.

"I would like to open a school when we get there. A school for anyone who wishes to learn." Aristarchus said, turning to face his daughter, hope in his still-green face.

Talibah stood up straighter and pushed her tangled, unkempt hair out of her face, that spark in her eyes getting brighter.

Aristarchus went on. "And I would like for it to be your school. Run by you—and you can teach as well. If you'll have me, I can help with the teaching, too. How does Talibah's School of Learning sound?"

Talibah laughed for the first time since her last day in Alexandria and scrunched her nose at the name her father had come up with—they'd have to work on that one.

But she smiled anyways, her black eyes shining as the embers within her slowly ignited once more. She looked out at the powerful, mysterious sea that led to the rest of the world she would soon come to know and began to plot.

I already did the whole forbidden secret classroom in the knowledge capital of the world thing... how hard could running an entire school on a distant island be?