The whithered scrap of paper lay still in Ammer's limp hands. Answers. That is what he wanted.

A breath away from despair, he glanced down at the aged parchment in his grasp once more. Still blank. Desperate, Ammer brought the parchment close enough to his eyes so that it brushed the tip of his nose. He could not find the slightest mark of ink anywhere. In a rage, Ammer groaned, crumpling the parchment into a ball.

Ready to toss the useless parchment into the forest, Ammer paused. Surely this was not a trick of the light, he had seen something on the paper.

Anxious, Ammer spread the parchment out once again. He could not believe his eyes. There, scribbled upon the parchment was a map. The markings were crude, but distinguishable. A dotted line led from his own home to a faraway land, across the Northern Sea. A red circle had been drawn around a rough sketch of a palace.

Ammer's heart thumped wildly in his chest. He knew what the map led to. His father. His father was alive.