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. _