BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Fifty-Three: And No One Listened
The Valuan Frigate Tempest, Enroute to the Grand Fortress
357 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Midday
Enrique du Valua remembered the clouds over Valua. When he had been a boy, Valua's thunderstorms were broken up by intermittent sunshine, the kind that warmed the fields fed by the rainshowers. The kind that lit up the stained glass windows in the palace. That had changed.
He'd seen the devastation done to his homeland by Valua's rush to industrialization and its militarization. The sun didn't shine through the clouds anymore. Valua had become a land mired in permanent, thundering darkness. Yet for all of its depressing flaws, he had come back to it in an attempt to save it. Who else could? It fell to him.
He was a Blue Rogue, but before that, he was the son of the former King Mathias. The son of Empress Teodora. The throne and the welfare of his people were his birthright, and the first did not exist without the second.
His life had always been one of duty and obligation. He had left the capital and served with Captain Vyse for it, returned for the same.
Enrique paced inside the cabin, agitated, and reminded himself why he was here and not alongside his comrades, why he'd spent last night sleeping on a cold bunk instead of in the warm arms of his beloved Moegi. Duty. His cherished Uncle Gregorio had died to save him and Vyse, buying their escape with his life, and had done so out of love...and duty. His mother had taken the throne out of duty, and that duty had been warped and twisted because of the whispers Galcian had fed her.
A knock sounded on the hatch door out of courtesy, and a moment later it swung open. The first man inside was a uniformed but armorless soldier carrying a small tray, the second was an armed guard, and the third…
The third was the vice captain of the Tempest, a gaunt faced man with a scar across his forehead from shrapnel who looked as though he would rather be anywhere else. Still, he bowed to Enrique, who despite the circumstances found himself bowing back.
"Your highness." The vice captain greeted him. "It is luncheon. The captain sends you his regards, but regrets to inform you that the fare is simpler than you are accustomed to, given your status as a - a prisoner."
The first soldier set the serving tray down on the small table by the door and lifted the lid. Enrique looked on the offered fare, and found it was simple indeed; a sandwich of day old bread, a slab of boiled pork pressed between the crumbling slices, and what looked like a mug of lukewarm and oversteeped tea beside it.
It was a far cry from the care-laden meals he'd grown accustomed to during his time with the crew, but before Polly and Urala had joined up, and even for the space of the Valuan occupation of Yafutoma, Enrique had made do with less.
"I've had worse." He told the vice captain, absolving him. The man clearly seemed relieved by that, and nodded. Enrique folded his hands behind his back and stared at the man head-on. "Have you passed my message on to my mother yet? Please, time is of the essence."
The vice captain shook his head. "No, your highness. No message has been communicated of your intentions. We've not been allowed to return you home even, not until just half an hour ago when we received new orders."
Enrique blinked, and his heart fell. "No wonder. It shouldn't have taken us this long, you've been flying in circles. So what are your orders then?" The armed guard had one hand on his stun baton, the serving soldier hadn't looked at him once, and the vice captain turned his head away. With sinking dread, Enrique realized why. "...You're taking me to the Grand Fortress."
The vice captain nodded. "We are, your highness. Until such time as a decision can be made regarding your status."
Enrique slammed a fist into the wall, which made the armed guard twitch and draw out his weapon. "We don't have time! Vice captain, every minute we waste here is another that…"
The vice captain held up a hand to forestall him. "I have been directly ordered not to listen to your words. Per the captain's directive, you are to be treated with respect, but you are still a prisoner. One who has taken up arms against his own people." The vice captain waved off the helmeted guard, who stowed his baton far slower than he'd drawn it. "Good day, sir."
They left in the same order that they'd come in, and Enrique fumed. He spun around before the hatch had closed and been locked again, and stared out the porthole into the endless dark skies of his homeland. In the distance he could make out the edge of the first of the twin watchtowers that stood out in front of the Grand Fortress wall.
"Why won't they listen?" Enrique fretted, digging his fingernails against the wall. Imprisoned in the Grand Fortress for an indeterminate length of time while his friends struggled on. They had recovered Fina's skyship, at least. Vyse and the others would take the Moon Crystals to her people, and then those damned artifacts would be out of Galcian's reach.
But Galcian would still betray Valua. He'd made too many moves he couldn't take back now. And here Enrique sat in a gilded prison cell, chafing at invisible chains and wishing he was still out there.
No. He was committed to this. He would save Valua.
Enrique would make them listen to his warning.
The Grand Fortress
358 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
His cell in the Grand Fortress was even less plush than the cabin aboard the Tempest had been. If there was any sign that his status leaned more towards traitor than estranged royal, that was the giveaway. They'd transferred him under heavy escort into the cellblock and locked him away in an isolated section, forgoing manacles. As if he would attack them. They'd confiscated his sword, for Moon's sake, and Enrique hoped he might eventually see it again. He'd snapped at the Tempest's captain that it was the sword of the heir to the throne, for whatever that threat was worth anymore, so there was a better chance it would be locked away instead of just 'lost' enroute to the evidence lockup. After that he'd been left in solitary for the entire night, and aside from a helmeted guard who stayed mute the entire time he was giving Enrique a cup of tepid water that carried the scent of sulphur and a slab of day old bread, he'd had no visitors all morning. It was closer to midday, perhaps an hour left to go if Enrique's sense of Valua's time hadn't been frazzled to uselessness during his time with Vyse, when his loneliness was averted.
His 'interrogator' declared himself as Daniel Rawlins, vice-admiral under Belleza. Enrique spared a moment to recall what he knew of the man. Not terribly much, he was forced to admit. Rawlins was the sort of loyal officer who kept his opinions to himself and served his admiral flawlessly. But he was nervous now, and Enrique couldn't help but wonder. Was it due to the depth of his loyalty to Belleza, who was devoted to Galcian? Or was it the fact that Rawlins was speaking to the presumed prince of the empire?
Probably a little of both.
"You have to let me speak to my mother." Enrique insisted, which made the uniformed officer clear his throat and tug at his neckline a little. "The safety of Valua is at stake!"
"Her Majesty the Empress is far too busy at the moment tending to affairs of state. Whatever concerns you wish to bring to her, you may voice to me."
Enrique stared at Rawlins."Is my mother even aware that I have returned?" That got another small shift in his chair from the vice-admiral. So that was a no then.
"Let us talk about other matters, your highness." The vice admiral said, setting a notebook down in front of him and opening it up. "Around 9 months ago, you went missing following the Blue Rogue Vyse's escape from the Grand Fortress. At the time it was believed you'd been captured as a hostage during his theft of the Delphinus and subsequent escape with his comrades. That was later proven to be a false assumption, following the return of Admiral Gregorio from his engagement in Esperanza. There is one detail about that night which continues to puzzle our intelligence analysts, though. The theft of the Red and Green Moon Crystals, which were at the time being held in a secure location that Vyse would not have known about or had the time to go after."
Enrique stared at the brown-haired man as the vice admiral waited expectantly, the two trying their best to stonewall the other. Rawlins raised an eyebrow. Enrique narrowed his. The vice admiral sighed and put a hand in his hair. "I don't even have to ask, do I."
"Yet you are." Enrique leaned forward ever so slightly, glaring at the man. "The true scope of Lord Admiral Galcian's ambitions has been plainly revealed at last and you are here to...do what, exactly? Try and lay a litany of sins at my door?"
"Admiral Gregorio's body was returned to Valua by Admiral Belleza following a meeting at Dangral which was interrupted by two factors; Alfonso going rogue and your untimely arrival." Daniel stared him down, and there was the censure and disgust he'd kept hidden before, peering in around the corners of his eyes. "His death was at your hands."
Enrique found himself blinking in shock before he slumped a little. Of course they'd lie about it. "Winston Gregorio was like a father to me." He forced the words out wearily. "In no world could I ever kill him. He died at Dangral, yes...he died giving myself and Vyse and our friends time to escape. So we could rally our forces, so we could warn them what Galcian was planning." He sat up straight again and glared back at Rawlins. "But you're the vice admiral of Belleza, and it's no secret how deeply she lies in his power. So who are you truly speaking for, Rawlins? Galcian's Armada, or the armed forces of Valua?"
Rawlins tapped his pencil on the notebook, ignoring the question on his loyalty. "Why did you join the Blue Rogues, your highness?"
If only the man knew how often Enrique had asked himself that question. He'd never regretted the decision for very long, not when doing so had gained him friendships, true comrades, to meet Valuans who remembered his father and what the kingdom had once been. And to find love.
"I joined them for the same reason that I'm here now." He told Rawlins. "To save my people."
Rawlins stared a little longer and then closed his notebook. "I'll have further questions later." He got up and moved to the door of the cell, where the guard was watching through his visor warily in case Enrique tried anything. He didn't move, but Enrique called after him.
"Rawlins." The man paused without looking back at him. "Tell the Empress that I'm here. I need to speak to her. Maybe you don't believe me, but I know what kind of man Galcian is. Do you?"
That must have hit some kind of nerve in Vice Admiral Rawlins because the man went stiff for a few seconds before he stepped through the cell door. It clanged loudly as the guard shut it, and Enrique huffed and looked out of his barred window into the stormy darkness of Valua's skies. He missed the blue skies he'd had sailing with Vyse.
Moons, he missed his Moegi. He missed everyone he'd left behind so he could try to warn Valua about the danger Galcian represented, and nobody was listening to him.
What am I doing here?
360 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
There was genius in Galcian's moves, Enrique was forced to admit. He'd had a full month to manage his coup and he'd handled it rather efficiently. Of the Admiralty's membership, Gregorio had rebelled to save his life and Alfonso had fled (Chased down by the rest of the Armada) Dangral after Galcian must have come clean with his coup. The rest had stayed loyal, but if De Loco had been on board the Chameleon in the Deep Sky, that left only Belleza and Vigoro and…
Ramirez. Of the three of them, he'd only heard of Belleza being present at the Grand Fortress. When Enrique wasn't doing exercises or sleeping or being interrogated, he thought about Dangral and the elevator which they'd been building.
What if it wasn't meant for recovering Fina's skyship? What if it was for something else and they'd missed it? Vyse had said he'd seen something in the clouds just beyond the eye of the Great Vortex during their descent, some massive looming thing that couldn't quite be seen.
Whatever Galcian's plan was, Enrique consoled himself with the knowledge that the Moon Crystals were well and truly out of play. Vyse and the others were headed for their base (If he didn't think of it as Crescent Island, then there was a chance he might not give it away by an unconscious reaction) and as soon as they got Fina's skyship working, the Moon Crystals would forever be out of Galcian's reach.
He'd been brought out of his cell and taken to one of the Grand Fortress's more lavish conference rooms today, and Vice Admiral Daniel Rawlins was already seated on one side of the long table. The man stood up as Enrique was escorted in and offered a small bow, but he stayed mute and standing after Enrique sat down. The prince wondered at that until another door opened and Admiral Belleza herself came strutting in, her uniform immaculate and her stance one of total confidence.
"Greetings your highness." Belleza smiled, and Enrique shivered. "I trust you've been well taken care of?" He hadn't been beaten or brutalized, true. He'd been counting on his former station to offer him protection, and seeing how little of it his status as the former prince bought him had made him he was more glad than ever that he'd refused Moegi's request to bring along one of the Setsu sisters as protection.
Their lives would have been ended before he'd ever stepped foot back on Valuan soil. He pushed that dark thought out of his mind and focused on the now, because he was in the presence of Admiral Belleza. The spymaster.
"Has my mother been informed…"
"The Empress has not." Vice Admiral Rawlins cut him off tersely.
Enrique growled and stared over at Belleza. "Still covering for your beloved, I see." He sized up the rest of the room, from the two guards behind him who shifted uncomfortably to the position of the doors. He knew the Grand Fortress better than his mother did, to be certain. But he doubted that he'd be able to get away a second time, especially not on his own. "He will betray all of Valua for his ambitions."
"He will make Valua stronger." Belleza argued.
"By what measure?!" Enrique snapped back at her. "Valua has made an enemy of the entire world! Whatever honor our country once had has been spent and spoiled, Belleza, and you've been complicit in it! The Empire has grown by conquest and subjugation, the homeland is poisoned and the skies have turned dark."
"And to stop now, to reverse course now would be to invite all the world to rebuild and come after us baying for Valuan blood." Belleza countered archly.
"So that's how you justify it then? That we're in too deep now, that we've invested too much to turn back or to even stop?" Enrique demanded.
Belleza stared at him. "Even the Empress knows this to be the truth. The vassal states of the Empire and the nations beyond are like wild Huskras that we hold by the ears. The moment we let go they will all turn around and savage us." She held up a hand when Enrique made to respond. "Enough. I did not come here to have a moral argument on the use of military force with you."
"Why, then?" Enrique spat the question out.
"You are in a bit of a legal blind spot according to the VCMJ." Belleza informed him. "As a member of the Imperial -" ROYAL, Enrique corrected mentally, "-family, you would not be subject to most of our regulations. However, the actions that you have taken during your absence are grave. Treasonous." She drummed her fingers on the table. "Grand theft of Valuan military property, namely the flagship Delphinus. Aiding and abetting the enemy, on several counts. Taking up arms against Valuan military personnel both during the Second Grand Fortress escape, then at the Battle of Esperanza, and during the Siege of Yafutoma. The murder of Admiral Winston Gregorio."
His rage hit a tipping point and Enrique shot to his feet, pounding the table. "I did not murder him! Galcian did!" He jammed a finger towards her and hissed when an iron hand clamped down on his shoulder and held him back from leaping across the space between them. "You will not heap that false claim on my soul, Belleza!"
Belleza's face had gone calm, then cold, and was positively glacial now. She didn't respond with fire and fury as he did. "Regardless. You face a long list of charges for your actions this past year, your highness. For the sake of your mother and because of your status, I have come to offer you a plea bargain." She fell silent then and waited with a raised eyebrow until Enrique allowed the guard to gently push him back down into his chair. "I would advise you to listen closely and to consider your options carefully, my prince."
She was playing at something and it put him on edge. Maybe if he'd been fed more than standard prison rations his head wouldn't be quite as fuzzy, and he'd be more focused. That was probably why his food was so sparse. They wouldn't starve the crown prince of the empire, but Belleza would gladly leave him hungry, distracted, and irritable if it meant a chance at getting him to trip up and reveal his secrets.
She interpreted his silence as acknowledgement and pressed on. "The wisdom of your actions has thrown your competence as a future ruler into question, not only among the Admiralty but even to your own mother."
"Who you still haven't seen fit to inform of my return."
"At this moment, I'm not speaking to the crown prince of the Empire." Belleza countered. "I am speaking to Enrique du Valua, traitor to the Empire and its interests. All of your crimes and actions were taken during your time serving as a Blue Rogue under the most-wanted air pirate on Valua's bounty board. The deal is this. You sign a written confession to your crimes. You renounce the Blue Rogues. You tell us everything about your former comrades, up to and including the location of their hidden base. In exchange, you will be remanded to the royal palace under the authority of the Empress and placed under supervised parole."
Enrique blinked. To sum it up: Sell out his brother in arms, his brother's two wonderful lovers, his own beloved Moegi, and every Blue Rogue who served under them. From the Esperanzans who even now looked to him as the second coming of his long-deceased father, to the Ixa'takans and Nasrians whose trust had taken him forever to earn. Give up the home that they had spent so much time building up as a hidden stronghold, betray the whole of the cause and perhaps even lose the Moon Crystals to Galcian's mad ambitions. All to spare his own neck and be subjected to a gentler form of life imprisonment. A gilded cage was still a cage, and what good could he do any of his people as a prince kept locked away from view?
Galcian wouldn't lose any sleep over his death, he knew that. It wasn't a great stretch of the imagination to parse out the course that would follow, now that Galcian's coup was in full effect. He would sequester and marginalize the Empress and Enrique, slowly turn the people against them, and in time…
In time, when the world was primed, get rid of them entirely. The Armada no longer served the Empress. And the Empire would not stand long with two rulers.
"Your agreement isn't worth the paper you would print it on." Enrique told Belleza coldly. "I see now I was a fool to think I could save Valua from Galcian's madness. Not while you're here poisoning the minds of everyone and hiding the truth of what really happened on Dangral. What is still happening. I am a Blue Rogue, and if there is any hope for Valua, it is in the Blue Rogues fighting on. So no. You will get nothing from me. I have fought and bled alongside Vyse and the others, I will never betray them." Enrique huffed and smiled, feeling dizzy and gleeful. "You will not find them, and you will not find the Moon Crystals."
Belleza blinked a few times, then sighed and nodded. "Well. I was compelled to ask. But you're wrong, Enrique." Belleza stood back up and shook her head. "We know exactly where to find your friends. As we speak, Ramirez and elements of the 6th Fleet are at the eastern border of the continent, bound for their location."
Enrique blinked, and wondered if his face had gone pale. No. No, they couldn't have…
"Ramirez will see the Moon Crystals returned to our hands soon enough. As for your friends on Crescent Island, they will cease to be a concern to the Empire soon enough."
Enrique didn't snap. He wasn't the sort to lose control. He was a swordsman, a duelist trained in the art of combat by the best that Valua had to offer, and knew full well the importance of restraint.
He was perfectly in control of himself when he took one deceptively steadying breath and leaned forward as if to slump, resting his hands on the edge of the table. The slightest lapse would have cost him a precious moment that Belleza and Rawlins could have used to realize his intention and prepare. The move, a leaping lunge onto the table with one leg and then across the table with a snap of the other brought him into range of Belleza before she could do more than blink and tense up. He used his momentum and wrapped his hands around her neck, holding her as their combined weight tipped her chair back and slammed her into the floor. Enrique rolled off of her, snapping a hand to her waist and pulling out her dagger before he jerked her up into his arms and pressed the naked moonsteel to her throat.
The two guards finally snapped out of their shock and made to move, but Rawlins made a strangled noise of panic that bled into a single word. "Don't!"
Enrique breathed heavily, his free arm crushing in under her breasts and against her ribs to constrict her lungs. "Why shouldn't I?" He rasped, and bared his teeth at Rawlins. "You heard her!" Moons. The 6th Fleet, sailing for Vyse's stronghold, no way to warn them. He should have been there with them! At least then, he could have done something, even if it was just to…
"Please!" Rawlins begged. The agony in that word cut through the rage burning through the captured prince, and he searched the vice admiral's face. He didn't see the concern of a man looking out for his superior. It felt like something more.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't open her throat right here!" Enrique yelled at him, and the two guards in the room twitched. "When she chooses to threaten me, gloat over the impending deaths of my friends and my beloved, and argues that I'm damned anyways!"
Rawlins raised a hand up and Enrique pressed the dagger deeper against Belleza's neck, hissing in warning. Daniel's face turned so ashen that Enrique wondered if there was any blood left in him at all. The arm dropped back down, and the vice admiral didn't speak. He just shook his head, never looking away. And that's when Enrique saw it. The vice admiral wasn't looking at him.
Rawlins was looking at her. The sheer lunacy of it made Enrique snort, because Belleza wouldn't feel the same way about him that her vice admiral felt about her. She had eyes for only one man, and Galcian loved nothing but power.
But damn if he didn't see the grief and the feeling of helplessness in the man's eyes and wonder for a moment if he had ever looked the same when Moegi had been in danger. Belleza let out a moan but didn't fight him. A sharp blade pressed to the neck was a very clear signal.
"Rawlins." Enrique heard himself saying. He blinked twice and then kept on. "I will have your word, as an officer and a gentleman. You will contact my mother directly. You will inform her that I am alive and being held prisoner here in the Grand Fortress, after surrendering myself to the border authority. And you will tell her that I have come to deliver a warning to try and save my people." Rawlins swallowed visibly and nodded. "Say it."
"I will deliver your message."
"Directly."
"Directly." Rawlins echoed. "Please."
He was weak and he was tired, and Enrique cursed that even here at his most desperate with the fate of his fiancee and everyone else still unknown, he was still bound by his ethics. By the code of honor that Uncle Gregorio had raised him to live and fight under.
He should have killed her. All of Arcadia would be better off without the scheming spymaster pouring poisonous lies into the ears of everyone around her.
Enrique instead let the dagger fall away from Belleza and stepped back, allowing her to slump to the floor and struggle to keep herself up on her elbows. The guards started forward and Rawlins barked at them.
"Tend to the admiral. Get her to medical." He ordered.
"But sir, he just…" The first guard started to argue, but Rawlins shook his head, and they followed the orders, warily keeping their helmets pointed at Enrique as they bent down to pick up Belleza and hoist her up for the walk to medical.
Vice Admiral Rawlins walked up to him slowly and held his hand out. "You didn't kill her."
"You gave me your word." Enrique reminded the man dully, and looked at the open palm for a few moments more before placing the dagger's grip in it.
"I will do as you have ordered, your highness." Rawlins said, breathing easier now that the threat was over with. "Come on."
"Back to my prison cell, then?" Enrique mused. Rawlins nodded, and the two walked a slow path back in the direction of the elevators which would take them to the cellblocks.
"She'll never love you." Enrique told the man, in the burdensome silence. "Her heart belongs to another."
"I know." Rawlins agreed wearily. "But I can't change how I feel, Prince Enrique."
Enrique thought of everyone on Crescent Island and wondered if he would find himself the last of them. Vyse and Aika and Fina and Moegi and little Marco and all the others…
"Neither can I." He replied, and held back his tears.
361 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Vice Admiral Rawlins kept his word. He did in fact send notice to Enrique's mother that her son had returned and was in residence at the Grand Fortress, being questioned for his recent actions. Enrique knew this because Rawlins returned just before lights out to inform him of Belleza's recovery and to deliver a letter from Empress Teodora, marked with her Imperial seal. The missive was short and to the point, and after the revelation of Belleza knowing Crescent Island's importance regardless of his aid, it was another gut punch that Enrique couldn't quite cope with.
Perhaps a day or two in confinement will help to cool that addled brain of yours, my son. I shall send for you in time, once you are not quite so insistent on these lies of yours.
The Grand Fortress found itself abuzz with energy the next day for a reason that Enrique hadn't been able to foresee; Admiral Alfonso had, by some miracle, smuggled himself into Valua and reported to the royal palace, bypassing the Grand Fortress entirely. Given that Alfonso had 'left' Dangral Island shortly before (or during) the infiltration which led to them taking the schematics for the Deep Sky refit and Gregorio's subsequent death in covering their retreat, Enrique found it a miracle. So far as he'd known, Alfonso's smaller fleet had been pursued and chased down by Galcian's forces. The fortunate ones had likely defected from Alfonso to join Galcian's coup. The unfortunate ones...well. Enrique knew too well how Alfonso treated his subordinates when it was a matter of preserving his own neck. Vyse had angrily informed him of how the demise of Alfonso's first vice admiral at his and Aika's first meeting with the admiral of the 1st Fleet had colored their perception of the man. How many more of the unfortunate men who'd stayed loyal to him had died? If he'd been forced to sneak into Valua...Chances were it took the lives of the rest of them to do it.
It changed little for him, stuck in his cell as he was. There was very little to do that wasn't basic calisthenics and running through his duelist's stances with an imaginary rapier, so he was left to stew and to wonder if his mother might treat the news of Galcian's betrayal from Alfonso with more credence. Of course, Rawlins hadn't vowed to tell the Empress of Galcian's betrayal, only that her son had returned with a warning to save Valua. Devoted as the man was to Belleza, Enrique couldn't help but think that Rawlins had shaded the news slightly so that his mother would think him mad and deluded. Still, whatever else was happening in terms of shifts in power, it was Vice Admiral Rawlins who returned two hours past the dinner bell.
"I thought you might want to be informed of recent developments." The man said quietly, leaving Enrique on his own side of the bars for a change. He stood a healthy distance back from them as well, just outside of the range Enrique could reach if he tried to lunge and risked dislocating his arm to stretch out for him.
"Has Belleza been deposed and arrested for her role in Galcian's treachery?" Enrique demanded.
"That's not what I've come to tell you." Rawlins replied. "The attack on Crescent Island occurred late last night." Enrique stiffened. Oh, Moons, no. "Following a bombardment of the island's surface installations, Admiral Ramirez defeated your Captain Vyse in battle. Their little base will likely have finished burning to the ground by now, and the five Moon Crystals in their possession have been retrieved."
His knees felt weak, and Enrique gripped at the bars. Vyse. Fina. Aika. Moegi.
"Galcian has the Moon Crystals?" There was no getting around how awful he felt just now. Rawlins shook his head, unwilling to divulge more. He wasn't the kind to gloat, Enrique knew, but for once he wished that the quiet and loyal vice admiral was. What was really happening out there? Had the Blue Rogues survived, or had Ramirez slaughtered them all? Was there enough of a conscience in Galcian's right-hand man to spare the life of his fellow Silvite at least?
"Please!" Enrique screamed the word out. "Take me to my mother! I have to talk to her! All of the world is in peril! Whether they're used for his coup or they're used for Valua, it doesn't matter! The heavens will open up and the Rains of Destruction will come for everyone!"
"Doomsaying, your highness?" Rawlins hummed dubiously. "I would have thought such a thing was beneath you." Then he turned around and walked off.
Enrique slammed his forearm against the bars with a clang and screamed to mask the pain from it. "You have to let me out of here! Damn you, Rawlins! I have to warn her! RAWLINS!"
One of the guards outside the cellblock slammed the thick iron door shut with a loud clang that echoed in the mountain stone, and Enrique slumped to the floor weeping.
He didn't dare shut his eyes, even as they blurred with tears that quick blinks never seemed to get rid of. Enrique was already imagining his home burning with the bodies of everyone he loved and cared for going up in ashes.
Enrique hadn't been there to save them, and now it seemed he couldn't even save Valua.
He was nothing more than a traitor and a madman in their eyes, and his pleas fell on deaf ears and hardened minds.
363 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Morning
Somehow, Enrique managed to keep time while he went forgotten aside from sparse but regular meals. It had been a full week since reaching the Grand Fortress, and longer still since he'd left the company of his allies on his fruitless mission to warn Valua, when the guards came in to cuff him and told him that he had been summoned to the royal palace.
He made for a miserable sight, mussed up and bedraggled and wearing the same clothes that he'd been in ever since the Tempest picked him up. All of his life he'd had the lesson of 'keeping up appearances' and looking immaculate as expected of the crown prince, but in the face of everything that had happened and everything he'd lost, it just didn't matter. He just didn't care.
The train ride from the Grand Fortress to the station closest to the royal palace was silent and awkward to the guards, who shifted from foot to foot and occasionally coughed. The railway, mounted into the side of the tunnel the Grand Fortress guarded and the shelf of the mountain range that encircled the Valuan capital eventually slid them past the Upper City and its dazzling lights. The train brakes squealed to a halt about two minutes later and deposited them at the Royal Imperial Station, a lavish affair with gilt-edged archways and painted murals in the ceiling. Enrique stared at the marvel he'd wondered at as a boy and only felt sick now. How much blood and stolen treasure from other lands and islands in Mid-Ocean and beyond had it taken to pay for this opulence? For the comfort he'd grown up in and taken for granted?
Maybe the guards escorting him thought he shut his eyes out of shame for what he'd done. He wasn't about to correct them. He doubted they would understand that his shame all came from external sources.
At long last, he was brought into the throne room. He was reminded of how once, long ago, he'd stood in nearly this exact spot and decried the brutality of the Sacking of Nasrad. He'd been dismissed out of hand as a churlish, petulant boy by his mother. That last travesty, that last dismissal had been the catalyst of his boiling dissent and the resolve for all that he'd done after.
Perhaps his mother expected this to be a repeat of then, but Enrique didn't. She would damned well listen to him today. He opened his eyes and corrected his posture, standing as tall and as proud as he ever had.
Moons...Father, if you can hear me, give me the courage and the wit for me to say what I must, and give my mother the wisdom to hear me.
Admiral Alfonso was standing at the bottom of the red carpeted steps, the Empress sitting up in her seat and looking particularly sour-faced. The Royal Staff was leaned up against the back of her throne, and a familiar rapier, ensconced in its scabbard, rested across her lap. At the other side of the stairs, Admiral Belleza looked even grimmer than his mother did.
"So. Our son returns to us. There are a great many things we would have you answer for, but perhaps we should first inform you of certain changes." Teodora gestured to Alfonso. "Our loyal servant Alfonso has returned to us in less than ideal conditions to warn us of a dark plot at the heart of our Armada. We have promoted him to Lord Admiral in the place of Galcian."
"A misunderstanding, my Empress, as I have said before." Belleza argued. "We have only received word yesterday of Ramirez taking hold of the Moon Crystals which were formerly in the possession of the Blue Rogue named Vyse. Galcian has not moved against you and is not. Dangral Island is merely an extension of your Imperial will, a guard station for a new and necessary mining operation which seeks to take advantage of the riches lost in the Deep Sky."
"As you have said, yes." Alfonso huffed, flipping his hair back. His uniform was freshly pressed but clearly borrowed, a little looser and more ill-fitting than Enrique had ever seen on the man before. "And why should Her Imperial Majesty believe this fabrication of yours? What justification do you have for the sheer amount of ships and men stationed around Dangral, the strange orders for redeployment of Armada forces? The lies that were spread about me and the 1st Fleet, when I alone have remained loyal to the Empress?!"
Belleza made a casual gesture. "It is no great secret that the Blue Rogues remain the greatest threat to the Empire's continued health and prosperity. Vyse and his allies have stymied operations in Ixa'taka, blunted the annexation of Yafutoma, and attacked and made off with valuable supplies and resources from Imperial military installations around Mid-Ocean. Dangral's location in the Silver Sea is right in their backyard. Surely Her Imperial Majesty would see the logic in placing a strong defense around a most vital asset in its nascent stage? After your loss of the Moonstone Mine in Ixa'taka and the routing of yours and De Loco's forces there, a little precaution to prevent their interference is warranted, Alfonso. Especially since Gregorio…"
"Galcian killed him!" Enrique snapped, cutting the duplicitous, lying woman off with all the fury and command that his tutors and his experiences had instilled in him. "Do not dare repeat the lie that I, or Vyse, or anyone else killed the man I loved as a second father!"
The outburst saw Alfonso looking almost sympathetic and Teodora raising an eyebrow in surprise. Belleza seemed utterly unfazed.
"We find ourselves in a very strange position." Teodora ground out, sounding particularly bitter. "Everyone comes to tell us a different story. Who speaks truth? Is it Alfonso, our most loyal and devoted Admiral who risked life and limb to bring the news of Galcian's scheming? Is it our prodigal son who made off with the Moon Crystals and placed himself under the authority of wanted criminals? Who took up arms against his countrymen and his birthright out of delusional sympathies? Or is it Belleza, who tells us that all of Galcian's moves are but misunderstanding seen in the worst light because Alfonso harbors greater ambitions than his former role as Admiral of the 1st Fleet?"
"Your Majesty, you will see the truth of Galcian's loyalty soon enough." Belleza argued. "It takes time for a ship of the Armada, even our newest and most powerful, to make the flight from Crescent Island over the whole of the Valuan continent to the Capital. When Ramirez places the five Moon Crystals in your hands, you will see that your suspicions were misplaced." She shot a dark look at Enrique. "No one knows your mind better than you, your Majesty, and none here would dare tell you how to think. Let the evidence and your wisdom speak. Your son has fought against Gregorio's 2nd Fleet at Esperanza, fought against the 3rd and 4th Fleets in Yafutoma, and fought our soldiers at Dangral. Lives have been lost and blood shed because of his young and unsteady heart, and that is on record. Alfonso was put in charge of recovering the Silvite Fina a full year before and lost her because of his own incompetence. He was demoted for it and reassigned to Ixa'taka where he failed in his objectives a second time. He would say anything if it meant he could regain his lost position, and now he sits as your temporary Lord Admiral." Belleza ticked off a third finger. "Of the three, who has been your most trusted commander, the strong right arm who has helped you guide Valua out of the storms these past two decades and turned a struggling kingdom into a strong and prospering Empire? Who has never failed you before, carried out your will and your wishes flawlessly? It is Galcian." Belleza met Teodora du Valua's gaze with confidence and strength. "Galcian, who serves you still."
Enrique had known just how deadly and capable Admiral Nadia Belleza was, but this...this was undoubtedly her masterstroke. Wide-eyed, the still handcuffed prince looked between Belleza and his mother, incredulous when he saw the Empress's eyes soften and go distant as she thought it over.
As she let herself begin to believe in the lie that Belleza must have been spinning for days now, and still spun even in the face of Alfonso's return to power.
"It is true that Galcian has never failed us before. It is also true that a great many things regarding the events at Dangral are still unclear." Teodora murmured, looking between the three of them. "There has been no word of the 2nd Fleet since Gregorio's passing, and that too is troubling." That made Enrique blink and wonder. The 2nd Fleet, missing? Not folded into the existing chain of command around Dangral, or returned to the Grand Fortress? Not seen by any of the Valuan patrol vessels that sailed around the Empire? Could they have been destroyed in the same coup that saw Alfonso's 1st Fleet either turned or smashed? "Yes. Up to this point, Galcian has always served the Empire, and our own will, admirably."
Enrique's heart stuttered. No, she couldn't be thinking...she wouldn't. But he could see it in her face, for he'd spent countless hours presiding in court and learning his mother's faces and tics. She was going to give Galcian the benefit of the doubt. She would hinge her actions on it.
"Do not do this." He said quickly, and the chains between his wrists rattled slightly as he stepped closer to the stairs. Belleza snapped her arm out to keep him from advancing up them, and he was left to stare up at his mother, trying to hold his strained sanity in check as he pleaded.
Pride in Leadership, that was the Valuan family motto and creed. Saving Valua was what he'd come here to do. Saving Valua was all he had left.
"You cannot trust Galcian. You cannot give him the benefit of the doubt, mother." Enrique pressed her. "Ramirez has the Moon Crystals, but he will not bring them here! He will take them to Galcian, and then they will be used to power some ungodly creation of De Loco's. Dead the man may likely be after he fought us in the Deep Sky, but De Loco's madness undoubtedly lives on. And the moment those Moon Crystals are used, it will not matter who uses them, you or Galcian! The heavens will punish all of Arcadia for our hubris! If Valua is to survive, you must act now! You must declare Galcian a threat and mobilize what is left of the Armada who is loyal to you to stop him or all is lost!"
"You continue to speak of doom and wild-eyed warnings, Enrique, but an Empress or Emperor must not act out of fear or in haste." Teodora told him coldly. He could tell there was a shift in her mood, because she stopped talking in the royal 'We' for more informal address. "Your judgment has been sorely lacking as of late. I brought you here to give you the chance to beg forgiveness for your sins. There shall be punishment for what you have done, but were you to be more contrite, it would reflect well on your character."
And oh, how that mental slap burned. It burned through what little self-control he had left. "You fail to see reality!" Enrique snapped back. "I left to save Valua from itself! I came back for the same reason! Have you even bothered to leave this palace and take a good, hard look at what our country has become? You must not have, because you could not be so hard-hearted otherwise if you saw the pollution and the poison our people and our lands suffer under! You are no ruler like father was, you're nothing but a pale imitation who gave up control to a power-hungry madman…"
"Silence!" Teodora thundered, her face almost as purple as her dress as she stormed down the steps and slapped him across the face. He flinched but moved with the blow to reduce the sting, which kept him on his feet as his face was spun to the side from the power of that hit. "You foolish, addlepated, delusional boy!" She hissed into his face. "I know more about the reality of rulership than a spoiled prince who ran away from it ever could! Do you think it has been easy holding it all together?! Do you think I had the time to mourn for my dear husband after he was killed? That I had any time at all to grieve when all of Valua turned and looked at you and saw a child as the only legitimate heir?" Enrique worked his jaw and blinked his tears back as his mother's legendary cruel composure shattered. "Oh, if you only knew the infighting and the positioning that the nobles did in the wake of your father's passing. They all expected me to fail, and if Galcian had not been there to aid me, I might have. If I had not been strong, if I had not become the iron woman that you so despise today, there would be no throne for you to inherit! You dare accuse me of being a poor ruler, Enrique? You stupid boy. Were I a poor ruler, the kingdom would have collapsed and you'd have been nobody, the heir to nothing. What have you done with your power and your privilege? You have made war on the very Empire that I and Winston raised you to rule over!" She had his sword and scabbard gripped in her off-hand, and she drew it out with a glare, staring at the shine on the blade which came from the materials used to forge it. "You think me weak and facile? You think me needlessly cruel and callous? You are a stubborn and empty-headed boy and I have coddled you for too long. I am the Empress of Valua, and I have made a mighty Empire out of the ashes! All the world shall bow to My Glory! Galcian included!"
Enrique du Valua could only stare in horror at the wild-eyed woman before him. He tried to think back and remember if there had ever been anything of the softness and the maternal love he'd seen in Dyne's wife Relena and Centime's wife Carol in his mother. Had she ever smiled and told him she loved him as those wonderful women had to their own children, real and adopted? Had Teodora du Valua ever had anything to offer him but cold instruction and halfhearted pats on the shoulder?
He couldn't remember such a time. If there ever had been, it had ended when his father had died. She was a product of her suffering and of Galcian's tutelage, Enrique realized with a bleakness in his heart. Teodora had never been warm, but the cruelty - that, she had learned from Galcian. She had hardened her heart, become paranoid, given in to the darkest urges to build an empire out of strength. She had given Galcian unlimited power to carry out her will - his will, Enrique placed it.
"You…" Enrique started, paused. Started again and shook his head. "I don't think Father would recognize you, mother." He was tired, and hungry, and exhausted, and that weary sentence made her snarl lessen and her eyes widen. "The Valua you rule over is not the Valua he died defending. I'm glad he's dead, because at least he doesn't have to witness the monster you've turned into. What you've turned his kingdom into."
Teodora finally snapped at that, screaming wordlessly as she slapped him again and drew his sword back. Enrique's eyes went wide, too stunned at the prospect of what she was going to do to dodge. The two admirals at odds with each other reacted instead, Alfonso grabbing Teodora by the shoulder and the wrist to hold her back and Belleza grabbing the scruff of Enrique's shirt and pulling him out of stabbing range. As Enrique stood horrified that his mother had almost killed him, the Empress didn't stop screaming.
When she did finally give out, it was only to catch her breath and fume. She dropped Enrique's sword and scabbard onto the ground, kicking them both in Belleza's direction.
"Get him out of my sight." She growled, as Belleza knelt down to recover the weapon and stow it back safely in its sheath. "You're ashamed of being heir to the throne, you little bastard? Fine. Admiral Belleza? He wants to be a Blue Rogue so badly, let's have him suffer the punishment for it. A week of hard labor in the moonstone processing plants to the north ought to make him a little more grateful for his blessings." She kept breathing hard, her face a rictus of purpled fury as Alfonso finally let her go and begged forgiveness as he bowed deeply. Teodora didn't bother responding to the man, she just kept staring at Enrique until she couldn't stand it any longer and whirled on Belleza. "Are you DEAF, woman? I told you to drag him out of here!"
Belleza offered a crisp bow. "As Her Imperial Majesty commands." She said, tucking Enrique's sword through her belt before dragging him off by one arm. The pair remained mute for the duration of the escort out of the throne room, and through much of the palace, and Belleza only spoke once they were in the outer corridors.
"My ship is temporarily assigned to continental border patrol while this little 'crisis' is in effect." Belleza told him coolly. "We'll have to make do with a smaller runabout for our trip to the refineries. But I'm certain you're used to roughing it, Enrique."
"What, you aren't saying 'your highness' now?" Enrique asked, his mind still scrambled and grasping for purchase on anything happening to him.
"I'm fairly certain you were just disowned." Belleza remarked with a shake of her head. "All you had to do was keep your head down and you'd have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. No matter how much I emphasized your treason, she refused to entertain the thought of sending you to true punishment in the Grand Coliseum." They finally exited the palace, and Belleza clicked her tongue, not slowing up for an instant as they made their way to the royal boatyard. "If I had known all it would take to get her to become that unhinged was to let you shoot your mouth off, I could've plopped you in front of her days ago."
She had tried to kill him. His own mother had tried to kill him, Enrique finally processed that horrifying thought with an ugly sense of detachment and let out a wet, unsteady laugh.
"Why didn't you let her run me through?" He asked Belleza.
Belleza shrugged. "Couldn't say. Impulse, I suppose." She replied softly, and her face hardened. "Besides. You'll suffer more this way, and after all the trouble you've given us, I suppose I'm a little spiteful."
Another barb. Another reminder that Belleza was wholly in the pocket of Galcian, that her loyalty to Valua came second to the man she would see leading it.
And his mother had almost killed him.
Valuan Mainland
Enroute to the Northern Moonstone Processing Refineries
Two hours into their flight, Belleza must have gotten tired of the utter silence coming from Enrique's side of the skiff. He'd spent the first hour still coping with that last encounter with his mother and the second bouncing between worry for his friends and a growing feeling of utter defeat.
"I still don't understand why you bothered coming back." Belleza remarked. It wasn't the first time she'd said something to that effect, but this time she bothered to look over her shoulder at him. Before, she'd more or less been fine with talking to herself.
Enrique shifted in his seat as much as he could, given that his wrists were still cuffed and chained to one of the carabiner hooks on the side of the small boat. He glowered back at her, not wanting to give her the satisfaction that he'd been seriously wondering the same question himself.
Maybe...maybe if he'd phrased it differently. Given his mother ironclad proof that Galcian's plans were…
But what proof? Transcripts of Valuan deployment orders given over the wireless telegraph? Belleza could probably argue around it with the same silver-tongued skill that had allowed her to twist Alfonso's claims enough to make his mother doubt them. And doing so would have tipped their hand. ("Yes, we can in fact listen in on all of your presumably secret correspondence!") No.
What other evidence could he have brought that would have changed her mind? More importantly, would any evidence at all have survived? As soon as he'd surrendered, his sword and his gear had been confiscated. Belleza would have made sure that anything deleterious to the story she spun for the Empress would have been destroyed.
No matter which way it was examined or sliced, his mission to warn Valua of the danger had been doomed.
"If you had stayed with Vyse and the others, there may have been a chance you could have helped them put up more of a fight." Belleza went on. "What was the point of this? The Empire will endure, Enrique. Valua will endure. It will merely undergo a change in leadership."
"Do you think he'll love you?" Enrique countered bitterly. "Do you think your little intrigues, your loyalty means anything to him?"
Belleza was a master at schooling her features, but that one stung. It showed in a momentary twitch around her eye. "Galcian will reward those who side with him."
"And yet he sent you here, away from his side."
"Into the eye of the storm, yes." Belleza replied. "A necessary move. Who else could hope to keep Teodora appeased and the situation defused until it was time to act? Vigoro? And even if De Loco had survived his fight with you all in the Deep Sky, he would have been utterly useless for it. No. He sent me because he can trust me. Because he does care about me."
"You think I was lying?" Enrique asked her. "I told the truth in there. Whoever uses the Moon Crystals does not matter. They will court their own destruction and the destruction of everything else. The heavens will not tolerate another abuse like in the Old World. The Rains will fall again and…"
And he stopped when Belleza made a face and laughed at him. "...What?"
"Oh, you poor, poor fool." Belleza chided him. "You think the heavens will punish us for using the Moon Crystals? Who spun you that yarn?" When Enrique didn't answer, Belleza huffed. "It was that Silvite of yours, wasn't it? Fina? Well, we have a Silvite of our own and he was more than willing to brief those of us who were smart enough to ally with Galcian about the truth. We don't have to worry about the Rains of Destruction coming for Valua, you see. Because that power is not necessarily indiscriminate, and it most certainly isn't handed down as some sentence for wrongdoing by divinity on high." Galcian's spymaster allowed herself a smirk. "The Rains? It's a weapon, one made by the Silver Civilization and used on every other Civilization in the Old World. They buried it in the Deep Sky and put a lock on it. A lock that Ramirez and Galcian will soon disable."
Enrique's throat seized up on him as those callous words tore into his already battered worldview. A weapon.
The Rains of Destruction were not divine punishment but a weapon. A weapon locked by...The Moon Crystals.
"Oh, fuck." Enrique whispered. Dangral. The elevator. De Loco's submergence engine modifications. Galcian's coup had begun in earnest once the goal of that ancient and terrible power was in sight. This was so much worse than the heavens punishing the world for using the Moon Crystals and the Gigas. If it was a weapon it could be controlled, and if Galcian controlled it…
He wasn't sure why he looked up just then. It wasn't as though the skies over Valua ever really changed. The clouds just grew lighter or heavier as they filled with rain and built up or discharged their storms. Belleza had blind faith in Galcian because she was attracted to him, loved him if the woman was capable of that emotion. Enrique had fought the man, studied strategy and warfare and tactics under Gregorio. He was a duelist raised to rule and to lead, and he knew how Galcian fought. He knew how Galcian would act here in the final phase of his coup. He believed in power, absolute power. The concept of joint rule was beyond him. He didn't believe in loose ends, either.
Enrique saw it before he heard it. A fiery object punched through the clouds, moving so fast that it burned a hole in the cumulus formations and allowed a thin ray of unfiltered sunshine to come through. The scream of its descent sounded seconds later, right as it impacted into the continent. The noise of the hit was tremendous.
"Hm. Moonstone drop." Belleza said.
"No." Enrique shook his head. "It's an attack."
The red-haired admiral huffed at his assertion. "You're grasping at straws now, Enrique. Trying to get out of me taking you to your new prison?"
Enrique kept his eyes on the clouds as the last bit of his heart broke. He was so tired and beaten down that he watched it happen with a sense of detachment. Partly because he didn't want to believe it was happening.
Five more meteors came shooting through the storms over Valua, and when he looked up through the holes they'd burned through the cover, he saw the Yellow Moon glowing brightly. Ominously. Angrily.
Belleza startled as the noise of those five meteors caught up to them, gasped when they hit the side of the looming mountain range to the south of them that rose up like the collar of a cloak around the unseen capital city. Enormous blasts of stone and terrible fireballs were thrown out where they hit. "It's...it's not." She insisted, a little more heatedly than before. "That's not - it's just a meteor shower."
"You were never anything more to him than a warm body who could tell him things." Enrique said, tired and calm on the outside. Screaming on the inside, screaming like the chunks of yellow moonstone that came hurtling down on the land and cratered it. "When he was done with you, he sent you here. To lie for him. To fool the Empress while he put the finishing touches in place. To die, when you'd outlived your usefulness."
"You're lying. You're lying!" Belleza snapped at him, her voice louder than the thunder, whirling about from her place at the wheel and fixing her angry brown eyes on him. "He wouldn't! He loves me!"
He wanted to laugh. Enrique mustered a sad smile and a shake of his head instead as the thunder cracked the sky. "A lifetime of duplicitous words and espionage, and you can't see the biggest lie in front of you. You only saw what you wanted to see of him, Nadia." He was limited by his chains, but he gestured skywards. "The Empress, Valua, the Grand Fortress? All a threat to him. What does Galcian do to the things that threaten him?"
He didn't have it in him to raise his voice, so he didn't know if she even heard him over the rising noise of the apocalypse. Just like he didn't know if she was saying anything back when her mouth moved or if she was beyond words. Unable or unwilling to say the obvious. To believe it. Enrique didn't say it for her, the answer to that question. He knew.
When there was a threat, Galcian didn't let it linger and he didn't try to disarm it through peaceful means. Before he'd ever been the Lord Admiral, he'd been an enforcer, and then he'd been Teodora's enforcer. There was only ever one response to threats.
He crushed them.
Then there was no more time for words as another meteor fell, and then another. And another, and then a half dozen more, and then the sky was full of falling fireballs, the bulk aimed at the capital and the royal palace and undoubtedly the Grand Fortress, but there were others that were aimed elsewhere.
Enrique didn't have a map. He didn't have flags telling him where the Rains of Destruction were aimed, but he knew where the critical installations around the Valuan mainland were. He knew the targets Galcian would aim for if he was trying to utterly destroy any hope of a Valuan resistance to his rise to power.
The Rains had come without any warning, without any chance for people to scramble for cover or run to the hills. Every strike thundered and shook the earth like the largest of shells and bombs that the Grand Fortress could fire. Even at a distance, the punch of displaced air from the blast waves slammed into his chest and rattled his heart. The meteors fell faster now, what had been piecemeal before had become an endless bombardment that annihilated the clouds and caused lightning to flash in angry and discordant spirals and twisted lines in the sky. Those blinding bolts of power struck at the meteors as they passed through or splashed between the dissipating patches of cloudcover, only adding to the deafening noise that overwhelmed everything.
Nobody listened to me, Enrique screamed in his mind. Or maybe he'd shouted it for real, but it was impossible to tell. Belleza gripped the wheel of their tiny boat and swerved in hopes of avoiding the kicked up clouds of debris that seemed to close in on them from every direction, the blinding lightning and the crash and explosions of detonated moonstones that slammed wave after wave of superheated air pressure against them. It kicked the skiff around like a leaf in the wind, and tied to the side of it, Enrique could do little but brace and hope for the best. It wasn't enough. An impact much closer to them detonated and sent the skiff tumbling, and his head smashed into the side of the hull after his shoulder screamed from a hit of its own.
No one listened, he cried in his mind, a man who had lost everything.
Pain and darkness enveloped him, and he surrendered to it.