BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Fifty-Four: Reap the Whirlwind
When Nadia Belleza had been a little girl, the father she loved died fighting the Nasrian forces attacking their homeland. That loss stayed with her. It served as the basis of her vow that she would join the Royal Navy - which became the Armada - so that she could win battles before a shot was ever fired. It was why she specialized in spycraft, why she was so good at it. Whispers carried secrets, secrets had power. Misinformation could make the enemies of Valua jump at shadows. Low-level informants on the ground in busy port towns fed back a stream of insight and gossip, giving clues to what their foes intended. She'd stalled Nasrian aggression, cemented the hold of Valua over much of Mid-Ocean, and happily aided Galcian. He offered strength and power, and she had hungered for both. The Empire had been built by his hands, after all. What had the Empress done aside from serving as a figurehead, one last vestige of the old regime? No, Galcian was the one with the strength. He was the one who would save Valua and bring a lasting peace with Valua ruling over the entire world.
Galcian had taken her to his bed once, and she was devoted to him, believed in him. She believed that what they were doing, what she was doing was all for a greater purpose. The failed hunt for Alfonso, Galcian putting down Gregorio for siding with pirates was all in service to that goal. A strong Empire, a strong ruler with her at his side. A Valua that would never again be threatened. Surely Enrique was lying. All his doomsaying had to be nothing but an attempt to save his own neck now that he'd seen which way the prevailing wind was blowing.
All of her little deals, her compromises and her mantra that the end was worth the means came crashing down around her when the Rains of Destruction fell on Valua. Of all the things that Belleza knew Galcian was capable of, she hadn't thought him capable of destroying his own country to prove a point. She thought he cared for Valua, even if he hated the Empress's weakness.
She hadn't thought that he would try to kill her.
Valuan Mainland
363 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
4 Minutes After the Rains of Destruction
Somehow, Belleza was able to put the skiff down without crashing it. Then there was just the small matter of trying to keep Enrique alive, and she hesitated and wondered why that was so damned important given how she'd been cheering for his failure and disownment only an hour before. Then she remembered that if she'd been where Galcian had asked (ordered) her to go, she would be dead by now. She'd seen where the bulk of the Rains of Destruction had been aimed at. She doubted that there was anything left of the Grand Fortress, the royal palace, or the capital after that celestial bombardment.
Enrique had tried to warn her and she hadn't listened. If she had, if she'd believed the prince instead of blindly following Galcian's wishes, would…
"Stop it." She hissed at herself, bowing over the wheel of the skiff and grinding her teeth. Her heart was still pounding out a furious rhythm and there was a lump in her throat that wouldn't go away. Over the ridge of Valua's Castellan Mountain Range, the glow of hundreds of fires burned to mark the devastation. The ever-present clouds over Valua had been blasted into smaller pieces, and weak sunlight poured through the holes made by the meteor storm. The storms had been stopped but the rising plumes of smoke and ash from the impact craters would take their place soon enough. In the valley between the Castellan and Northumbran Ranges, a dozen smaller fires were ringed around blasted out craters. Craters. "Stop. Don't think about it."
If she thought about it, if she gave into the burning in her eyes that matched the firestorm that Valua had been turned into, she'd fall apart and never pick herself back up again. As much as it hurt, she shoved it all down. All of her hurt and her grief, all of her shock, because feeling anything right now would do her no good. She needed to be numb. She needed to be unfeeling. She was a Valuan admiral.
Maybe the last true Valuan admiral now.
"First lesson of the admiralty." She murmured to herself, shoving her aching body off of the wheel and stretching her jaw out to clear the ringing in her ears. Feelings are a luxury.
Enrique was right where she'd left him, handcuffed and tied to the side of the ship. The bleeding on his head had stopped and what was matted in his hair and between his temple and left ear had clotted and gone dark.
"Wake up." She got out, trying not to panic when he didn't respond, didn't move. She swore and searched the skiff. Belleza never got into fights herself, she didn't drag around a portable emergency kit or so much as a single spell crystal. There was a kit on the skiff, a small one a year out of date crumpled in from the rough landing. She wrenched the metal open and rifled through the contents. The vial of rubbing alcohol had broken and soaked into the roll of bandages, making them useless, and the small bottle of rum was useless on principle for this kind of injury. There at the bottom of the mess was what she'd been looking for, a Sacri crystal that she prayed still had a bit of a charge in it. It did, just a tiny flickering dot of green inside of the dull, thankfully unbroken spell crystal. The expiration sticker on the front of the aid kit hadn't been lying. Belleza doubted the spell inside would have lasted another week with how weak the glow was. Hopefully it would be enough to bring Enrique back around.
Belleza couldn't use magic, she never had. Like De Loco, her skillset went in a different direction. But low-grade spell crystals like this were utilitarian enough that anyone could use them, magic or no. She cracked it open over Enrique's chest and spilled the glow of the Sacri spell out over him. It sank into his body and didn't remove his wounds or the blood on him, but he did seem to be breathing easier. Hopefully it had gone towards the worst of his injuries, like that head wound.
Moons, she hoped he'd recover from this. Or at least wake up. If he did, he could probably heal himself. The prince was capable of using magic, and it was likely he'd learned a healing spell or two during his tenure as a Blue Rogue. "Wake up!" She snapped, lightly shaking him by the shoulders. His head lolled around and she swore again, pulling out the key to his manacles and undoing the lock. He was in worse shape than she thought, and she'd have to lay him down for a bit. "You don't get to go dying on me, so get up!" She grunted as she dragged him away from the rail and tried to settle him down in the bottom of the skiff. Belleza had thought him still unconscious or she would've been more careful. His eyes snapped open when she was trying to ease him down, and then in a flash he'd wheeled them around and pinned her to the ground in an armlock with her face smashed to the wood.
And the little bastard had pulled out her dagger, if that sharp feeling between her shoulder blades was anything to go by.
Damnit, that was twice now he'd moved faster than lightning and gotten the better of her. Again, she had no choice but to go still as he breathed heavily, probably looking around at the ruins of Valua.
"Do it." She got out, trapped underneath him as she was, wincing when his knee dug even harder in the small of her back and pressed in against her spine. "Just do it already." Her arm was fairly screaming from the twisted hold he had it in behind her, and a little bit more torque would snap it. He was angry. She got that. She closed her eyes, waiting to be disabled or killed and left as a corpse in the ruins of the blighted, cratered mainland.
Maybe she deserved it. That bitter thought didn't unsettle her like it should have. It definitely stung, but most of her concern went to the Lynx, somewhere to the west on border patrol.
She wondered if her crew had survived. If Vice Admiral Rawlins had survived. Daniel.
The uneven breathing from Enrique kept up a few seconds more, and then all at once he pulled away from her, freeing her arm and allowing her to move. She did so slowly, given that he still had her dagger in his possession.
"Get up." He got out hoarsely, muffled by the hum of magic. She looked over her shoulder and saw him run his free hand over his head and his body. His yellow aura was shot through with brilliant strands of green and she relaxed. So he had learned healing magic after all. She must not have moved fast enough for him, because his eyes went hard and flinty, and he repeated the command with a growl that made her shiver. This was not the boy she'd dismissed over and over again as a weak idealist. This was not the young man Gregorio had trained in the ways of chivalrous combat. He'd surprised her with his speed days ago when he snapped after the news of Crescent Island's sacking, the taking of the Moon Crystals. A different part of him scared her now. It was his eyes. There was such fury in his eyes, it reminded her of Galcian when he was well and truly furious. Galcian's fury was only ever in his eyes and the strength of his sword. She had thought she understood him, and she'd been wrong.
She'd underestimated Enrique du Valua just as badly.
Belleza got back up on her feet, blinking wildly. "You didn't kill me."
"Impulse, I suppose." Enrique threw her own words back at her, and oh how that stung. "Besides, maybe I can be a little vindictive as well. Congratulations, admiral. You got exactly what you wanted." He swept his free arm out around them, the fires and ruin burned in her eyes.
"I didn't want this." Belleza protested. It sounded weak when she said it, and she had no rebuttal when Enrique just glowered at her.
"Fuck you, Nadia. You wanted Galcian in charge, this is what happens." His laugh came out cracked and a little hysterical, and his grip on her dagger tightened. Worse, he reached down to the space next to the wheel where she'd stowed his rapier after the crash and pulled that out as well, pointing both at her in a perfect High Duelist's stance. "You've done what no one else could. You've made me a man with nothing to lose."
He wasn't playing by his code of ethics, Belleza realized. He would kill her in cold blood and probably not even care. Why should he? He'd lost his home, his kingdom, his friends, their home…
Belleza's eyes widened and she latched onto one tiny piece of information that might keep her alive. "They might still be alive." She blurted out, and to her relief, a little of the hardness in his eyes eased off. His hold on his weapons didn't slacken though. "Your - the Blue Rogues. They might still be alive." Not for the first time she found herself glad that her mind worked a lunaleague a minute when it had to. She dredged up every bit of the report that they'd gotten from Ramirez. "They bombarded the surface of the island for a little bit and then dispatched a recovery team that Ramirez led. The Delphinus was not on station and it was not fired upon, and most of the Rogues fled inside of the mountain overlooking the island basin with the wounded. Ramirez engaged with Vyse and the primary officers, but as soon as he'd slain Vyse, he forced the Silvite girl to make a trade; the Moon Crystals so she could have the opportunity to revive your captain." She swallowed hard. "After he had the Moon Crystals, Ramirez and his men left the island. They didn't shell it into powder. They didn't kill every last living soul. They left. There's every possibility that they're still alive."
"If you're trying to give me false hope to save your own neck…" He started out, and she shook her head.
"I'm not lying."
"You'll forgive me if I don't trust you." He spat at her, and Belleza looked off to the side. Right. Why would he believe her? All of her life was built on lies - the telling of them, and now, the believing in them.
"I don't have anything left either." She confessed. "I don't even know if my ship is still intact, and even if it was…" How could she ever contact them? No.
Valua was gone. Galcian had betrayed her and attempted to kill her in the same stroke. She'd chosen her side, and chosen poorly.
"Just...Please." She begged Enrique, and looked to him. "If they're still alive, if there's a chance that the Blue Rogues aren't finished...they'll need you."
Enrique stared at her for a few moments more. He didn't breathe, and neither did he. Tension stretched over a knife -
He breathed and motioned to the skiff's engine with her stolen dagger. "Get this crate airworthy, Belleza."
Spared for the moment, she did as the prince of what had once been Valua ordered her to.
Evening
There wasn't any real trust between them, but through unspoken agreement Belleza and Enrique reached a certain level of begrudging cooperation. The skiff had definitely been banged around from all of the explosions, both distant and too close for comfort, and it had taken the both of them to get the compressor and the outboard moonstone motor working again. Afterwards, Belleza had slumped in the back of the boat and let Enrique take the wheel. He sailed on in silence, taking them to the east and passing by crater after crater.
The silence was boon and blessing, because some things she needed to process and others she absolutely didn't. What she ended up fixating on the most was her ship and crew...and her vice admiral. She desperately wanted to beg or order Enrique to turn the small transport around and fly west, towards the border with the North Ocean where the Lynx had been assigned to patrol after Alfonso had taken over. But she knew Enrique wouldn't, he was chasing after his own people. And given how the Rains had targeted Valua, there was a chance that Rawlins and her crew hadn't survived.
There was also a chance that they'd never been hers, and that Galcian had subverted the bulk of them in the early stages of his coup, back when she'd thought him still loyal to her. Hers or not, alive or not, Belleza found herself scared to know. Scared to find out, to be certain.
"Damnit." Enrique uttered, and Belleza quit her woolgathering to look over at him. The prince's hands were gripping the spokes of the wheel so tightly that they'd gone chalk white, and his gaze was fixated on a smelting factory a quarter of a lunaleague ahead and off of their starboard side. "Here, too?"
"He'd want to target the industry he couldn't keep under his immediate control." Belleza explained. She paused to consider why she was even telling him this, but the answer was painfully clear.
Because Galcian needed to be stopped, and the only ones who might stand a chance now, if they'd survived, were the Blue Rogues. Who else was there? The Nasrians were defeated, their last ships a migrant force who did little more than harry ships along their border. The Ixa'takans were poorly trained primitives. The Yafutomans were insular and isolationist. Mid-Ocean was largely Valuan owned, if not outright then in trade, with only outliers.
"The bastard is unscrupulous." Enrique stated, and the craft began to descend.
"What are you doing?"
"A Blue Rogue always helps out those in need." The former prince looked over his shoulder. "And so will you."
Belleza shook her head. "We don't have time for this, your highness. Every hour we linger is another hour that Galcian has to cement his stranglehold over what's left of the Empire!"
"For some of these people, another hour is all they'll have left!" Enrique yelled back at her. "We are landing, and we are doing what we can!"
It wouldn't be much, Belleza knew. Even this far out she could see how the factory had been directly hit. What was left was a cratered out shell with burning debris spread out all around it. The smell of burning grass and ground and cooling steel was unmistakable and terrible to behold. But Enrique didn't second-guess himself and he didn't slow. He directed their skiff to a clear spot of land as close to the factory as he could manage, grabbed as many unspoiled supplies as possible, and shoved Belleza out of the boat.
To her amazement, there were survivors. A few guards and foremen, but the bulk of the dozen or so individuals clustered outside of the still burning ruins of the factory were prisoners by their uniforms. Not a one of them was uninjured. She saw men whose heads had been bandaged with dirty, repurposed terrycloth towels. One man had lost a leg, probably from falling debris. The stump had been hastily cauterized and bandaged up with shop towels soaked in whiskey, and he lay slumped in a wheelbarrow, insensate and sweating. Most of them had burns and bruises and scrapes and cuts. All of them looked like death warmed over.
It was nauseating to witness, but Enrique didn't flinch once. He dove into their midst, giving what aid and healing he could, bandaging lesser wounds and healing more major ones.
The ones who'd lost an eye or their hearing were beyond his help. The ones missing limbs were destined for a life without them if they lived.
Belleza wordlessly followed in the prince's wake, handing over foil-sealed packets of compressed fruit and nut ration bars, desiccated beef, water from the skiff's stores. Enrique moved professionally, purposefully. His stores of magic weren't limitless and he was running on fumes himself, but he gave what he could before his power ran dry, and then used mundane means afterwards. When he reset someone's dislocated shoulder with three clean steps, her curiosity got the better of her.
"Where did you learn how to do this?" She asked him, as he resecured the bandage over another man's bicep and gave it a quick spritz of astringent. Enrique glanced up briefly from the puncture wound and raised his eyebrow, waiting. "This kind of medical care exceeds the sort of training you would have received in…" Then she paused, and remembered one of the Blue Rogues she'd interrogated back during the Yafutoman occupation. "...Ilchymis."
"Ilchymis." Enrique nodded, stepping back away from the man he'd finished treating. "There, that should last you for another day or so." Then he moved onto the next one.
They'd been there for perhaps half an hour to forty-five minutes and slipped into an easier groove of tending to the injured when the shock among the factory survivors started to wear off. Then they began asking questions of their rescuers who'd flown in. Questions that Belleza found herself unable to answer.
What had happened? Who attacked them? Enrique gave short, precise answers. A superweapon from the Old World. Lord Admiral Galcian, who'd led a coup to assume control of the Empire for himself. And once they learned the scope of the damage wrought by the Rains of Destruction, there was the question that hurt the most. Were there any other survivors? How many people were still alive?
"I don't know." Enrique had confessed, telling them that their best bet was to stay in the wilderness, to avoid populated areas that had almost certainly been destroyed. The foremen had tried to protest, but a sharp look from their former crown prince quelled their discontent. The former prisoners agreed readily with running and hiding in the hinterlands. Enrique told them he'd tried to warn the Empress and the leadership, but that he'd been stopped by agents of Galcian. Belleza tensed up and wondered if he was going to out her, if he'd let the wounded masses of suffering civilians work their grief and their rage out on her for being one of Galcian's men.
He didn't, and in fact had only one thing to say about her presence. "She saved my life." That kept one suspicious fellow from getting angry, and the squeeze on her heart passed.
As they were finishing up, the one-legged fellow in the wheelbarrow who'd stayed unconscious through the whole of their visit came to, gasping for air that didn't seem to come. Enrique rushed over and went pale after a quick examination, swearing. "Damnit. Collapsed lung. I should've...Ilchymis would've caught it. I'm sorry." He told the man, his voice cracking. "I'm sorry." Because he'd run out of magic. Because there was nothing he could do to help the man now. Everyone else looked away, gave them space, leaving the dying man and the lost prince with a measure of privacy.
The fellow grabbed at his sleeve, and Belleza's as well because she was close by, and pulled them down. "W - why?" He gasped out, choking for air that wouldn't come and worsened his condition. "Why - this happen?"
"I don't know." Belleza stammered. "I don't...I don't know."
"Yes you do." Enrique corrected her softly. "You owe him the truth. You tell him why you helped Galcian, why he did this." He looked over to her, his eyes rimmed red. "You tell him it was for the glory of Valua." Belleza bit her tongue, couldn't say it. The man's wide, pain-filled eyes swiveled over to her, looking for something. Confirmation? To accuse her?
No. In his final moments the man was just scared. Scared to die. Scared to pass on. Scared to be alone. Was his vision darkening even now?
Belleza pressed a hand to the side of his face. "I'm here. You're not alone." She told him in a quiet rasp. The man made three more choking attempts at air, seized up -
And died, exhaling his last breath. Enrique waited a few seconds and closed the man's eyelids, then bowed his head and whispered a prayer for the Yellow Moon to take his spirit in and keep him safe.
They left two minutes later, the survivors patched up as best as they could with their meager supplies. The airship rose up as the factory workers watched and waved to the prince who was chasing after help, and Belleza sunk down onto the rear seat of the skiff.
"Do you think that made any difference?" She asked him bitterly. "That they stand any better chance of surviving now that you've given them almost all of our supplies? Exhausted yourself? Risked our own lives so you could have one last chance at playing the hero?"
"They're my people, and I swore an oath." Enrique retorted, not looking back at her. "I could do no less."
It stung because Belleza had taken an oath once as well, and just like everything else in her life, she'd betrayed it. She was silent for another few minutes as they continued on and she made out the Maw of Tartas to the far north of them, now nothing but a massive hole surrounded by rubble in the wake of the Great Seal's destruction.
"Why did you vouch for me?" Belleza asked him. "You could've told them the truth, thrown me to the wolves."
"That would only prove that I was just like you." Enrique said dully. "And I'm not."
No, Prince Enrique du Valua wasn't like her, Belleza recognized.
He was better.
Eastern Valuan Continent
364 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
1 Hour Before Sunrise
As much as Enrique might have wanted to keep flying the ship on his own and remain awake for the duration, his own stay in prison had weakened him enough to make that an impossibility. Even if they'd somehow had the strongest Valuan Highlands tea available to them, as she had reminded him. Belleza was glad that she'd used the opportunity to grab a nap for herself last night, and she still had to force him to stop and sit down. He snapped off threats one after the other and when he sat down under the blanket, his sword was resting underneath his thighs in a way that would allow him to draw it out and strike lightning-quick.
Worse, he kept staring at her through his lidded eyes, drowsing yet refusing to give in.
"You really should get some rest, your highness."
"Around you?" Enrique questioned her, and Belleza sighed.
"Look. On this tub, the flight to Crescent Island will take us another three days. That's if we fly nonstop and if the currents are in our favor so we're not going through headwinds. A skiff like this wasn't made for speed or long voyages. We're going to have to take shifts here." He glowered under his heavy eyelids, but Belleza knew he saw the reasoning behind it. He just hated it. "It does me no good to kill you." She went on impatiently. "Don't you understand? If there's a chance of stop…"
She cut herself off and closed her eyes.
"Stopping Galcian." Enrique finished her sentence. "You want to stop him." The question went unsaid.
"He destroyed Valua." She replied. "That wasn't...he wasn't supposed…" Moons. "It wasn't part of the plan. At least, the one he told me."
"Are you surprised he'd hide his true ambitions from you?" Enrique asked drowsily.
"No." She said, and let out a little bitter snort. "Considering what Alfonso and Gregorio did after he brought us all to Dangral and announced his plan to divest the Armada from the Empress's control...no. I guess I shouldn't have been." It hurt to admit, but it was like lancing a boil. She felt a little better after saying it, after purging it from her thoughts. The grief of it faded for anger and she looked back at the weary prince. "He's not the only one who could keep secrets, though."
"Oh?" Enrique murmured, blinking rapidly. "Like what?"
"Vyse." Belleza found herself saying, admitting it. "He's with…" Enrique sat up a little straighter, and his eyes steadied. Alert and waiting. "...The two young women who went with him. Fina the Silvite, and that redhead Aika. They're his lovers. And, I suspect...they're all together."
"Hm." Enrique's mouth quirked up a little, and her stomach lurched. Enrique knew it already, his smile confirmed it. "How did you figure that out?"
"It was during the Yafutoman occupation." Belleza explained. She was perhaps a touch curt but then she'd just found out her big secret wasn't quite a secret after all. "I was interviewing all the crew to try and get a read on what you and Vyse and the others might do after escaping the trap in the palace. I ended up looking in on your staterooms as well. Yours was well kept, by the way. But in the captain's cabin, where Vyse was staying, I found brown hairs on the pillows. As well as red hairs...and blonde." Even now, she remembered how Fina had reached for Aika's hand and glared death at Vigoro when they'd met in the harbor. Not the touch or the rage of a friend, but something more. At the time, she'd dismissed it, because how could two women love each other that way?
"Hm." Enrique mused, finally closing his eyes.
"And you knew this already."
"Believe it or not, I very nearly challenged Vyse to an honor duel for his actions. I thought him a disloyal blackguard, seeing the both of them separately. I was...a little shocked to learn the truth."
"I can imagine." Belleza said dryly. Such a thing, a relationship that extended equally between two women and one man was unthinkable in polite Valuan society. It was even more taboo in Nasr. "And you condone it?"
"They're my friends, and they love each other with an intensity and a level of trust that humbles me still." Enrique told her, his voice cold again. "Who am I to say that their love is wrong? Who is anyone to dare tell the three of them such a thing? With all that we faced, I found myself glad that they had each other. To be a support. To share in their burdens and their fortunes." There was something mournful there in his tone, Belleza realized. Longing. Lovesick longing.
"Were...Was there someone you had?" She asked hesitantly. Her intelligence about Enrique's attachments to the crew was far less thorough, and in spite of the situation, she found herself suddenly craving that secret. Ever the spymaster.
Enrique's eyes finally slid shut, and his face relaxed.
"I did." He confessed. "And I left her to save Valua. If I've lost her…"
He went quiet.
Something made her speak then, offer one last sentence. "She's still alive. She's alive." Maybe he believed her, maybe he didn't. And maybe he was just too tired to care and the reassurance hadn't worked. Enrique still fell asleep, his breathing soft and slow and steady.
Belleza didn't know what girl, what woman could have caught Enrique's eye among the rabble of the crew. But she found herself hoping that she still lived. He'd lost enough already.
They both had.
Crescent Island
365 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Early Evening
They flew the ship continuously, and the winds were at their back for the whole of their voyage. A side effect of the disrupted weather patterns after Valua's destruction? Unexpected divine favor? It didn't matter. They were on half rations the whole time, and the sight of Crescent Island revived them both. Enrique was bolstered, at least up until they got close enough to begin to make out the buildings on the island's surface.
Or the lack of them.
Belleza set the skiff on on the nose of the island, next to what remained of the flagpole. "I hope they left some supplies here." She thought aloud. "The engine's close to running on pebbles now."
"One thing at a time, Belleza." Enrique shook his head. "Look for survivors first."
She'd only heard about the Sack of Crescent Island secondhand, but she could see that the reports Ramirez had filed had been accurate. A large building at the foot of the flagpole's slope might have been the barracks at one point. It was rubble now. The building near to it on the southern side of the island was nothing but burned down timbers and a charred stone foundation, but if she had to guess it had been a pub before. The rest of the island's surface was the same way. There wasn't a once-standing structure that hadn't been affected by either direct cannon fire or the fires afterwards.
"Blue Rogues!" Enrique shouted, wading through the ruins. "Someone! Anyone!"
Belleza followed in his wake, moving slower and looking at everything with a more critical eye. Enrique kept shouting out for anyone still on the island. Belleza saw how the debris had been cleared here and there as they'd looked for survivors, or for bodies.
Enrique stopped shouting as they moved closer to the mountain. Belleza looked up after a few seconds and saw him over next to one of the entrances, where there was a fine stone monument next to…
The prince fell to his knees, right as Belleza placed it. Graves.
"Oh no." She uttered, and ran after him. There were five wooden gravestones placed behind freshly dug up earth next to the greater one, two bearing the emblem of Gilder's air pirates, three emblazoned with the emblem that Belleza had seen flying on the Delphinus's banner when they'd captured the ship during the occupation.
Enrique traced a trembling hand over the surface of the three graves belonging to Blue Rogues, whispering something. Their names, maybe. Belleza looked at them. Gutierrez, Timmons, and Izmael.
"Who were they?"
"Gutierrez and Timmons...They joined up at Esperanza." Enrique said, sniffing once. "Izmael was one of Gilder's before he joined up, him and Brabham. This was...this was supposed to be their retirement job." He ground those words out and dug the heel of his palm into his eye. "Damnit. DAMN!" The scream came hot and angry and unexpected, and he whirled on her. "Gutierrez and Timmons, do you have any idea what their life was like before Vyse came to them? They'd been abandoned! Forgotten by Valua after my father died! Did the Empire ever make their lives any better, in the 20 years they were left to rot on the edge of the world? Do you think that the Empire will make anyone's life better now that Galcian is in charge?!"
Belleza almost snapped back at him, but held off. She wasn't in her mid-20's anymore, and getting emotional had never been her move. He'd only feed off of any irritation she threw back. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and spun around, weaponless but prepared to face down an attack anyways.
No attack came, and she found herself looking at a very old Yafutoman man in a strange hat standing at the far entrance to the mountain's interior, watching the both of them with narrowed eyes. He leaned on a walking cane, but his posture reminded her of a swordsman, even slouched as he was.
Enrique cried out a strange name, Reeyu Con, and raced towards the old man. A Blue Rogue, then. A friendly, at least to Enrique. Belleza followed Enrique at a slower pace, listening as they spoke in Yafutoman. Enrique was more fluent by far in their tongue than she was, and the speed of their conversation meant she missed every third word or so. Still.
"Others?" Enrique begged.
"Safe. Left...ship." The old man answered him. "Vyse and...women with Gilder left...Silver Temple."
"But the Moon Crystals...taken by Valua."
"Fina hoped...Elders...what to do."
"Ryu-Kan, know...Moegi?" Enrique demanded, and the old man nodded.
"Safe." Then the sharp-eyed fellow looked past Enrique to Belleza, narrowing his eyes. "Who is she?"
"Valuan admiral. Galcian betrayed her. She saved me." Enrique explained. "Why...you still here? Why not go...others?"
"Can not leave my...work still not finished." The old man gestured. "Come inside." He turned around and trudged for the northern cave entrance, and they followed him. Belleza walked in closer and whispered to Enrique.
"What was his name again?"
"Ryu-Kan." Enrique said. "He's a blacksmith we picked up before leaving Yafutoman airspace. He is a master weaponsmith who lived in seclusion."
"How'd you convince him to join up?"
"Vyse did." Enrique said. "He gave the man one last challenge to take on. He doesn't speak Low Valuan, but there are enough people on the crew who spoke Yafutoman that it's never mattered."
"So why did he stay if everyone else left?" Belleza asked. "I thought I heard something about his work?"
Enrique huffed. "He couldn't leave his forge. That's all I'm telling you." The prince reverted to Yafutoman after. "Is there food and water? We...most of...to others suffering."
"The inside is mostly...I will bring you some." Ryu-Kan replied.
Crescent Island Interior
There were cold sandwiches and dried fruits, and Ryu-Kan had a sizable pot of green tea that refreshed Belleza but did nothing for her fatigue. Much of what had been stored in the hollowed out mountain must have been transferred to the Delphinus before they abandoned the island, but there were traces here and there of what had once been. Opposite of Ryu-Kan's massive forge were the remnants of a medical laboratory that had undoubtedly been the domain of Dr. Ilchymis du Argas, because there were pieces of equipment which had been left behind due to their size or fragility. It was much the same in the other areas that Enrique and Ryu-Kan allowed her access to.
Belleza thought of perhaps a half dozen ways to start the conversation, but they all rotated around the same general idea of "This must have been a sight to see before-" which would have only made Enrique and the sole remaining Blue Rogue button up entirely. Although there was some argument for whether or not Ryu-Kan was a real Blue Rogue or simply an artisan they'd brought on board. Given how his massive forge couldn't have ever conceivably been installed on a ship (The fire hazards alone!) Belleza could see an argument for either route. Ryu-Kan thankfully spoke up and spared her the trouble, pausing in his hammering and his bellows work to look over at them as they finished their meal. "Prince." He began. "Captain left something. In mountain cabins." Then he looked to Belleza. "You will help me."
"Verily? Aid in what?" Belleza wondered, her own Yafutoman the more archaic she'd first learned from the primer made by Ramirez. Ryu-Kan gestured towards his forge, where a great crucible simmered atop a blast furnace.
"He's an old man, Belleza. He needs all the help he can get, and you're available." Enrique told her.
"And what are you going off to do?" She questioned.
"Didn't you hear? Vyse left something for me up in the conference room." Enrique said. He waved one last time and then headed deeper into the mountain.
Ryu-Kan barked her name out to get her attention and shoved her in the direction of the crucible. As he did, he put on a heavy apron of reinforced leather, and thick gloves and goggles. He handed Belleza a full facemask with tinted glass."Feed fire. Melt metal."
"Obviously." She said to herself, slipping the mask on. It dimmed the whole room but it kept her from blinding herself, so close to the white hot glow of the furnace. She worked the elaborate bellows until the fire roared under the hanging crucible and the pot glowed. The chunks of strangely shimmering ore sitting in it sank deeper into the growing vat of smelt. Belleza had never taken to the construction side of the business, but it was clear that whatever material the Yafutoman was working with, it wasn't normal. She knew regular steel and she knew moonsteel, which allowed for a person with magic to channel their strength through a weapon. It didn't even seem to be whatever alloy Enrique's rapier had been forged out of.
"What this is?" She asked finally. Ryu-Kan gave her a look, and Belleza winced as she realized she'd misaligned the sentence construction. He got the point anyways.
"Singing metal." The blacksmith said. "From deep down. We make cleaner."
"Cleaner?" Belleza wondered, blinking a couple of times before she caught on. "Oh. Impurities. You're trying to separate the metal from its impurities." Not that she knew the Yafutoman word for it, but Ryu-Kan must have seen the recognition in her eyes and understood that she'd caught on. While she worked the bellows and brought it up to temperature, he finished preparing several molds made from a strange material she'd never seen before, some kind of a metal that had a chromatic sheen of its own. "What's this?" She asked, gesturing to one of the molds that would make a long and narrow brick.
"Ah. Bluheim." He said, and Belleza's brain stuttered out for a moment.
"You're telling me…" She pointed at the mold again, "...that's made of parts from a Gigas? The Blue Gigas?"
Ryu-Kan shrugged. "Part Gigas. Part magic steel." By the Moons, the man had worked up how to construct a brand new alloy out of moonsteel and Gigas remains. And he was using it as a mold for whatever this singing metal was? "Need strong mold. Would melt sand. Burn wood. Crack stone."
At least she knew what Enrique's sword was made out of, Belleza realized faintly. Ryu-Kan looked over to the crucible one last time and nodded with a loud hum. "It is ready. Now we pour." He had Belleza back away from the bellows and he cut the flow of oxygen to the moonstone coals, then he worked a chain, gently sliding the crucible away from the furnace along a suspended rail track mounted up into the ceiling.
When it was over the first of the molds, Ryu-Kan pulled on another chain and the bucket tipped, pouring the white-hot contents of the melted metal down into the long channel. It bubbled and hissed, and he held it there until the entire mold was filled. Then he tipped the bucket back up for the trip to the second mold. He repeated the process again, sweating madly the whole time, and the crucible dribbled out the final trickle of melted metal from its interior.
Ryu-Kan guided the empty crucible back towards the furnace and locked it into position short of the fire, then removed his goggles and sighed. "Done. Now we wait. Two…." Some unit of time of his, she assumed.
"What are you making this time?" She mused, and Ryu-Kan looked over to her curiously. Belleza removed her facemask and repeated the question in Yafutoman. "What you make?"
"Ah." Ryu-Kan hummed thoughtfully, smiling a little. "I make weapons. Famous for swords. This...these…" He gestured to the molds, and she blinked as she began to see a lighter, ashy residue gather at the top of the cooling red-hot metal where it could be easily scraped off. "...My great work."
Belleza stared at the two cooling bars of 'singing metal' in the molds and wondered what Ryu-Kan would consider his 'great work.' He was a swordsmith who'd already unlocked how to make weapons out of moonsteel and Gigas remains, the Superweapons of the Old World.
What would this singing metal be capable of?
366 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
They actually allowed Belleza inside of the underground part of the base for one simple reason; it was the only part of Crescent Island which still had bunks. She had food and water and shelter where in the days of her and Enrique's escape from Valua, they'd had little to none.
The next morning as the sound of hammering and forging rang out from Ryu-Kan's smithy inside of the mountain, Belleza found herself invited by Enrique to walk the surface of the island and sift through the rubble. Invited may have been the wrong word for it, but the prince didn't threaten her. He just had the look of someone who expected his wishes to be followed.
She didn't see a point to the task aside from making her feel worse about everything, and it enraged her that he was so calm about it all.
"Tell me, Belleza. What's your plan from here?" Enrique asked her, as they dragged a charred piece of timber off from the remains of the barracks. Belleza gave him a look after they dropped it off to the side.
"Why are you asking me?"
"Do you plan on running back to Galcian after this?" Enrique clarified. Belleza glared at him and he shrugged, as if he hadn't just proposed a particularly stupid idea. "I didn't think so, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. So what will you do?"
"What can I do?" Belleza murmured, brushing her hands off. "I don't even know if my ship is intact, if my crew's alive. The rest of my fleet would have been folded into Galcian's command, but the Lynx came with me back to Valua when…" She hesitated, but finally spoke truth. "...when Galcian told me to obfuscate the coup."
"Hm." Enrique squatted down to grab the next piece of debris, and Belleza grabbed the other side of it. It was lighter than the previous one, but they kept to a steady pace. "If the Lynx survived, would your vice admiral and crew side with Galcian?" He asked, right before they put the damaged piece of frame down.
Belleza didn't move back to the ruins. The question was one she didn't have a quick answer to.
"I don't know." She said honestly, staring out at nothing. "Vice Admiral Rawlins knew about the coup, but...I didn't know that Galcian planned on targeting Valua. He wouldn't have either." Unless he'd been turned by Galcian in the weeks between her reassignment back at the Grand Fortress and the apocalypse of three days ago. Maybe she was just overly paranoid, but it was a possibility. "Assuming that he didn't…" Would Rawlins have gone looking for her? Would he have tried for the bombed out ruins of the Grand Fortress, the craters where the capital city once stood? The rubble of the royal palace?
"I don't know." She finished, shaking her head. "If they survived, I don't know what they would do. And even if they had, I couldn't get a message to them." Belleza finished, snorting wryly. When she looked up she expected to see the prince rolling his eyes or looking disappointed.
She didn't expect the cool, considerate look he had fixed on her. "What?"
"Just...thinking, Belleza." Enrique said, stirring himself from his thoughts. He raised a hand to his forehead to shade his eyes and looked to the north for a bit. It was the second time he'd done that, the first being right as they'd come out to get to work.
"What are you looking for, anyways?" Belleza asked him. "You think a Valuan ship's going to come out this way?"
"A Valuan ship, no." He said, smiling. "But that ship? Yes."
Belleza turned her gaze north and saw a small ship on the horizon. Or rather, a middling ship still some distance away. It wasn't the Delphinus, but another vessel of Valuan design.
"You stole another ship?"
"Well, to be precise, Captain Clara and Captain Gilder stole it." Enrique said, perfectly at ease. "But the Redoubt has been a good ship for resupply and transport. It tends to attract less attention than the Delphinus."
"The Redoubt." Clara repeated dubiously. A Courier class frigate, it had gone MIA nearly nine months ago after a raid on Jormee Base, along with several of the sky rift engine upgrade kits. "Well. Good for you, I suppose. I take it that that's your ride out of here, then?"
"Mine and Ryu-Kan's, yes." Enrique confirmed with a hum. "Crescent Island is compromised, after all."
Belleza huffed. Of course. "And I get left behind. Or marooned."
"Marooned? No." Enrique shook his head. "We'll refuel your skiff, it can get you back to the Valuan mainland at least. If you decide to head that way."
"What else is there for me to do?" Belleza asked him wearily. "I have nothing now."
"Really?" Enrique cocked his head to the side. "Well. You may have nothing to lose, then. But ask yourself this, Belleza. Do you have anything to fight for? Or, perhaps, anyone?" He waited three heartbeats, then gave her a nod and walked off. "Think about it." Enrique called out behind him, then headed for the cave, shouting Ryu-Kan's name.
The Redoubt parked itself off of the northern side of the island. Enrique waited patiently on the ground while one of the Blue Rogues put down a gangplank, and smiled and waved afterwards when several older sailors came running down, shouting his name.
Their faces showed absolute relief, and the way they swarmed the prince, slapped his back, shook him to make sure he was real and actually there only cemented Belleza's take. They were jubilant that Enrique was alive and returned to them. She was a little puzzled why they kept calling him 'your highness' and 'the prince' like they were Valuans until she placed them. They'd all come from the Esperanzan contingent that joined up before the Dark Rift.
They were all former Valuans as well.
The relief Enrique felt at their presence was nothing compared to what he showed at the next two Blue Rogues who came to the rail. Here, Belleza found herself stunned. From her spies, she'd known that there were a few Yafutomans who had joined up with the crew, all of them women. They'd been observed in Nasrad by her informants who loitered around the docks disembarking from their runabouts. But now she saw how one stood back a step from the other, a sign of deference and lower status giving way to higher, and took in the appearance of the first. Well kept hairdo, a lavish dress not meant for physical activity, it all screamed nobility.
Or royalty, Belleza faintly realized when she placed where she'd seen the younger woman before. For all of a few minutes anyways. The princess of the Yafutoman Empire was there.
The Princess of Yafutoma was a Blue Rogue.
"Moegi." Enrique said her name like it was a prayer. She had been composed and immaculate before that. After, she broke out into a sob and raced towards him, falling into his arms and peppering his lips and his face with kisses.
"Don't you ever -" she kissed him, "-ever, leave me again. Do you hear me?" Another kiss, feverish and ruined by her tears. "Do you know how much I worried?!"
She didn't stop until Enrique hugged her tightly and pressed his forehead to hers, pinning her in place under his eyes. "I'm alive. Moegi, I'm alive. I promised you I would come back to you, didn't I? Right?" She bit her lip, whimpering and nodding a little. "I'm home." He finished, and they fell into each other.
Another set of boots tapped up on the deck, and Belleza looked up to see the former Lieutenant Artours of Esperanza looking at the scene with faint amusement. "Right. Should I assume that you're going to be busy for the next few minutes, your highness?"
The prince and princess separated long enough for Moegi to give Don a glare that could set grass on fire, and for Enrique to smile a little. "Don, I believe that Ryu-Kan's finished all the tasks he required the blast furnace for. Have the men help him in packing up everything else for our flight out."
"Aye, sir." Don's eyes shifted over to Belleza and narrowed, no love lost for the Valuan uniform she wore. "And what're we doing about her, then?"
If Belleza wasn't used to subterfuge she would have missed how the other Yafutoman woman still stationed up aboard the ship wasn't bringing a hand up from her waist just to rub at her collarbone. She was putting her hand in reach of a concealed weapon somewhere inside of her shirt. The admiral went very still and looked between the Yafutoman woman with the hard eyes and Enrique.
Enrique was settled where they were not. "She will be remaining here on the island. She is not with us, but...in a sense, I am alive because of her. I would see that debt settled. I do have one thing to show her before we leave, though." He took Moegi by the arm and gestured for Belleza to join them, walking up the gangplank. Unsure what Enrique intended but trusting he would uphold what he'd said, she followed the prince and his...his princess.
The Redoubt was a courier frigate. The Blue Rogues hadn't done much to modify it, aside from equipping the forward hold with a larger hatch so it could carry bulkier equipment instead of mailbags and the odd supply crate. Enrique led them towards the bridge, which had her blinking.
"If you're taking me to your maps table, I'm a little confused. I was under the impression that you didn't want me knowing where you Blue Rogues were holing up after Crescent Island."
"We don't." Enrique said, giving her a flat look over his shoulder. He stopped just outside of the hatch to the bridge and had her wait outside with Moegi while he went in, presumably to clean the place up and remove any evidence of where the Redoubt had come from. It was about thirty seconds of silence and shifting, with Moegi giving Belleza a wary side-eye. Belleza found herself at a loss for anything to say to the young woman whose kingdom she had overthrown for Valua's gain. Moegi, similarly, had nothing to say back to her. Awkward silence beat out awkward small talk.
Enrique opened the hatch and beckoned them to come in, and Belleza made it about two steps before Moegi hissed out his name and followed it up with Yafutoman spoken so rapidly that all of it sailed over Belleza's head. Something about secrets?
"She's not going back to Galcian, beloved." Enrique answered the Yafutoman princess, and Belleza looked to see what had caught Moegi's attention. There was another surprise that left her faint. But really, she should have seen it coming.
A wireless telegraph unit was jury-rigged up to the top of one of the bridge consoles. It looked a little different than the ones equipped on the ships of the Armada, and there were some extra switches, but there was still a tapboard that gave it away.
"You've been listening in on our transmissions." Belleza accused him.
"Yes." Enrique confirmed, not hedging or denying it in any way. "It's how we knew you were up to something at Dangral. For all the good it did us." He sat down at the station and powered up the unit, but didn't reach for the tapboard. He pulled out a journal chained to the console and looked back at her. "You told me that you weren't sure if your crew would stay loyal to you or join Galcian. That you didn't know what you would do, because you couldn't get a message to them. And signaling in the open is inadvisable. Right now? Galcian controls the airwaves. He's been broadcasting a signal to rally all surviving Valuan forces to the Silver Sea and swear loyalty to him." Enrique flipped open the journal and displayed a message receipt from two days before, showing just that. Belleza flinched, and Enrique set the telegraph journal aside. "But the thing is, there's an opportunity for you to send a message to the Lynx. To your vice admiral, and your crew, so they'll know that you're alive."
What he was offering was...Belleza blinked and stared at the last surviving member of the royal family, strong and steady.
"Why are you offering me this?"
Enrique closed his eyes, considering the question. "You know, Vyse's message told me how you found Crescent Island. Spies, ferreting out the information from Komullah's sailors. Komullah showed up the morning after Ramirez raided them. Vyse and the others could have told him and the Nasrians to go to hell, especially because good people died from their foul-up. But he didn't. Vyse gave the Remnant Fleet one last chance to prove themselves. He's a last chance sort of a man, with a side of pragmatism."
"...The Nasrians have been running interference."
Enrique's lips quirked up. "Yes. And since I'm a Blue Rogue also...I'm giving you another chance too."
"To do what?"
"To see who you are when you're not acting like Galcian's loyal little bitch." Enrique said bluntly, his good humor evaporated far too quickly. "You're a spy, Nadia. You're the spy. I think that you trained your vice admiral well enough to cover for you in your absence. That you've likely worked out a code that would be gibberish for anyone else but the two of you. So here's what you're going to do." He handed her the telegraph journal and a pencil. "Write down whatever message will tell Dan Rawlins that you're alive and here on Crescent Island by yourself. I'll transmit it, hopefully Galcian will think it's nothing but gibberish, and you'll be safe enough here for however long it takes the Lynx, if it survived, to come and get you. If they don't show up, you still have the skiff." Belleza took both, stretching the chain as far as it would go, and looked at him again. "We'll make sure you have enough food and water, and moonstones, for a week's provisions and flight. But once we leave you here, you're on your own. Just like Komullah…"
"You want me running interference." She inferred.
"I believe you call it indirect warfare." Enrique corrected her. And he wasn't wrong. Outright attack? Not her thing. And she owed Galcian more than a little payback now.
She quickly scribbled out a message containing all the coded phrases that were exclusive to her and her vice admiral. There were fully fourteen ciphers she'd used in her career as the Valuan spymaster both to send and receive information from her informants and agents, and her push for need-to-know meant that she'd only ever informed Galcian of a few of them.
The Lord Admiral turned tyrant had never known about this code, much less the style of it. It was something she'd uncovered while rooting out black market operations a decade ago, and converted for her own use.
Went skyfishing at the old stream. A Kite Ray slipped out of my net. Need to find a new place, this one's fished out.
Enrique took the journal back when she finished and squinted at the message. "Really?" He asked.
"Old stream- Valua. Kite Ray, me. 'Slipped out of the net' means I'm alive. New place means I'm not where I was last reported. Fished out means I'm somewhere that was attacked recently." Belleza explained. "If the Lynx is still intact, and if Rawlins and the crew have been trudging around in Valua, they'll know I got away to someplace off of the mainland." She shrugged. "Crescent Island...Daniel should figure it out."
Enrique nodded. "Very well." He set to work on the tap board, and got the message out in full in under three minutes. Afterwards, he powered down the unit and stood up. "It's done, your message is sent."
All that was left, then, was the waiting. "So now what?" Belleza asked.
"We pack up and leave. You remain here, to stay or to go." Enrique explained. "And you try to make better choices."
"You make it sound so simple."
"Nothing about this is simple." The prince sniffed. "But, to break it down, we'll put you to sleep so that you won't know where we're going."
Somewhere north, Belleza thought but didn't say. Of course, there was the chance that the Redoubt had tacked north in a roundabout flight to mislead her, and they were instead headed south. Or east.
"Are you going to put something in my drink?" She asked.
"No." Princess Moegi shook her head, and reached a hand inside of her voluminous sleeves. She pulled out a spell crystal and held it up for examination. "With this."
It was...blue magic. Yafutoman, very rare. The few blue moonstones that had been available in the empire had come from the boundary of the Great Stone Reef in Ixa'taka, so blue magic had been nebulous and prized. To the princess, it must have been a trifle.
Enrique took it from his girlfriend and nodded at Belleza. "You will not be harmed." He promised. "Anything to say before we do this?"
He was giving her a chance for any final words. Any final requests. But what could she say that wouldn't ring as hollow platitude, in the face of the ongoing tragedy of her own making?
"Thank you. For sparing my life." She settled on, and Enrique smiled.
He squeezed the spell crystal in his hand and the blue light of the spell inside of it glowed brighter as it was freed. Belleza's eyes grew heavy, and she slipped into darkness.
When she awoke on a bedroll in a collapsible tent on the island's surface who knew how much later, they were all gone.
369 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
The base on Crescent Island had been cleaned out. Ryu-Kan's forge and blast furnace were still present, but all the supplies had been moved away and it was cold the day after she woke up. Wherever they were headed, the Blue Rogues had taken everything that wasn't nailed down with them.
Long ago, she'd patrolled the whole of the Delphinus and interviewed the captured crew to try and understand Vyse. In what remained of the rubble and the still intact underground, she found herself walking around to try and understand the Blue Rogues as a whole. But unlike in the Delphinus, there were no homey touches left. No little pieces of personality to indicate the people who'd called this place home.
True to his word, Enrique had made sure that the skiff she'd used was repaired and refueled. There was more than enough food and water especially with the pond nearby. They even left her a change of clothes and a bar of soap. She could have left at any time. Gone to try her fortunes in Nasrad, or made for the Valuan hinterlands. But she stayed, waiting to see if the Lynx would come for her. If Daniel had survived at all.
It was time with nothing to do but recover, and think. And grieve. She'd been holding herself together on a shoestring's sanity first to keep Enrique alive, then to get him to the Blue Rogues. Survival had kept her from facing everything that had happened, but now…
Now, she wept for Valua. She screamed at the heavens for what Galcian and Ramirez had done. She screamed at herself for not seeing what everyone else (Enrique, the Blue Rogues, Gregorio, Daniel) had known all along. She contemplated just...ending it. If she stepped off the side of the island and let the Abyss take her, who would care? Did anything matter now, after the shattering of Valua and the breaking of the world? She was poison, and it had all been for nothing. Her career had been based on the idea of sparing any child the loss of their parent due to war as she had lost hers. Galcian's idea of peace had undoubtedly created countless orphans.
Enrique wanted her to fight against Galcian's nascent empire, just like Komullah. The idea had merit, hopeless as it was. But she was tired, exhausted.
Maybe it would be better to just...leave. To disappear, let the world and its struggles pass her by. She knew how to hide, how to disguise herself, to build up a false persona and sell it. She also knew of places that Galcian could care less about. Places he'd never think to look for her, even if he suspected she was still alive. She wouldn't be happy, but maybe she didn't deserve happiness after everything. Daniel would be better off without her, anyways. She was no good for him, for anyone.
She hated the thought of Galcian winning.
On the third day of her exile on Crescent Island, all of her ruminating came to an end as the decision was made for her. A ship was flying in fast from the west, and when came in range she made it out as her own. It was alone.
Packing up her meager kit and moving to stand beside her skiff, Belleza watched as the Lynx detached a small transport that flew down towards her. When it got close enough, she saw Vice Admiral Rawlins standing at the bow of the craft, looking down at her with nothing but relief and longing.
Foolish, foolish Daniel.
More fool, her, for not seeing the truth when it could have changed things. Belleza sighed as the transport touched down and packed her shattered heart away. There was nothing left of her but poison now. Everything else had been hollowed out for empty purpose.
Belleza allowed herself a rueful shake of her head and dismissed the last shredded dreams she had left. "Maybe in the next life." She muttered, as Rawlins stepped off of the boat, shouting her name.