Emerion found his younger sister at the exact same spot where he had clashed with Anathema the day before.
The deck was quiet in the morning, the carnival atmosphere of previous days reduced to a few scattered passengers taking their breakfast in the sea air. Arlienne sat at the small wrought iron table with her tea, her expression one of such calm composure that any stranger would have mistaken her for a well-mannered, gentle young lady.
Emerion was no stranger.
He stood a few paces away, running through options in his head. There was no good way to explain that he had given every single coin in his purse to an eight year old boy. Before they had fled the Eastern Dawnveil Estate, Arlienne had secured a significant sum of gold and shared a portion with him.
He was now beginning to understand, in a way he hadn't yesterday, what a portion of a significant sum actually meant in practical terms.
I guess I should have only given that kid half, he thought, pressing his palm to his face. But how was I supposed to know how much money is actually 'much'?
Arlienne looked up.
Her gaze moved over him the frustrated expression, the conspicuous absence of the coin purse at his belt and she rolled her eyes with the precision of someone who has already arrived at the conclusion before the evidence finished presenting itself.
"You are zooming out again, brother. How was your beauty sleep, hmm?" she asked, her voice carrying that particular teasing lilt that managed to be both affectionate and deeply annoying simultaneously.
Emerion ignored the barb and walked over to sit across from her.
"My sleep was just fine..." he said, trailing off. He studied her for a moment, trying to find the right angle of approach. Arlienne was unpredictable a chaotic force of nature operating behind a porcelain mask of composure.
He thought about the human bombs she had deployed as a "negotiation tactic," and then her sudden decision to run away with him despite having mocked his own desire for freedom. He felt the onset of a headache just trying to reconcile her past actions with her current expression.
Arlienne's smirk widened.
She could practically hear the gears grinding.
"Are you alright, brother? You look as though you could use some tea," she said, watching him over the rim of her cup.
Emerion let out a heavy sigh. "No thanks. I prefer coffee."
"Still not fond of tea, I see. You haven't changed a bit," Arlienne remarked, setting her cup down with the ease of someone settling in for a conversation.
"I suppose your future wife will simply have to bear with your endless list of likes and dislikes."
"Well, by your preference, Pristilia would have just shoved whatever she wished into my mouth," Emerion retorted, his voice carrying a lingering spark of anger that he hadn't entirely meant to show. The memory of how his sister had proposed that political marriage still sat in him like something undigested.
Arlienne's expression didn't shift. She took another slow, deliberate sip of her tea.
"It was not a 'preference,' brother, it was the right choice for the House at that time. I will admit, however, that I was wrong in judging her character. I see you still hold some... hostility toward me for that."
"I think I have plenty of reason to be hostile. You sent human bombs, sacrificing their lives..."
Arlienne held out one hand a flat, cold stopping signal.
"I believe we had this conversation before we decided to depart. But to remind you: that move won back our territory. It worked as an element of surprise," she said, her voice rising slightly before she caught it and brought it back down. The effort of the composure was briefly visible.
In the heat of it, Emerion briefly forgot why he had come looking for her in the first place.
"You call it an element of surprise?" He leaned forward. "You know what else is an element of surprise? You."
He pointed an accusing finger. Arlienne looked at him sharply, her half-lidded eyes suddenly piercing.
"I don't know if I should take that as an insult or a compliment. But judging by your tone, I'm certain it isn't a compliment," she said. Her tea sat forgotten on the table.
The sea moved beneath them. A gull called somewhere overhead.
"Stop playing mind games with me." Emerion's voice dropped, the anger settling into something more honest. "What changed your heart so suddenly, huh? You were always our parents' favourite. You had a name for yourself, a position, value, respect everything I didn't have. So why did you decide to come here?"
The questions had been sitting in him for a long time. Longer than this journey. Longer than the argument.
Arlienne looked at him for a moment not the calculated look, not the performance. Something quieter.
"I told you at the beginning, brother. It is because the outside world is full of knowledge and unexpected things. But to describe it simply it was for the element of surprise itself. Everything out here will catch you off guard. It makes you do things you thought you couldn't, makes you feel things you've never felt, and makes you understand things that seemed impossible before," she said, her gaze direct and challenging.
Emerion opened his mouth.
Found he didn't have an immediate answer.
Arlienne pressed into the pause before he could find one.
"You still cling to the past, brother, despite the fact that we are on an adventure of our own. Also, you are on this adventure because of me. I could have easily decided to go back home and take you with me. So, in a sense, you could say you received your so-called freedom because of me."
The words landed with surgical precision.
Is my freedom something given to me, rather than something I earned? The question opened in him like a wound. He thought about the blast. Pristilia's cell. Alec's hollow laugh. The sword going through him.
He gritted his teeth.
"The end doesn't justify the means. Perhaps I have what I want and you have what you want, but what about the losses people suffered because of our desires?"
he asked. The anger had shifted into something more genuine a real question, not a weapon.
"I have said this before, brother you cannot be 'good' for everyone at the same time. Besides, if I hadn't been there that day if I had been late that psycho would have ended you. You were badly hurt,"
Arlienne said. The mockery in her voice was light, but underneath it something else was present something that might, if you looked for it, resemble concern.
Emerion took a slow breath.
"Thank you... I said thank you that day, and I meant it. But Alec went insane, his uncle was injured, and people lost their lives in that blast. That isn't a good thing." He moved his hands through the air in a sweeping gesture, as if physically measuring the weight of the losses.
Arlienne watched the movement.
You are learning, brother, she thought, though she kept the thought off her face.
"Every Noble House is at war with the others. Casualties will happen no matter how much you try to avoid them,"
she said, her tone softening by a precise, carefully measured degree. "Alec is at Miravale Island receiving treatment, his uncle is safe and now holds a strong position in our House Council. They helped you, and the favour was returned. In the end, you don't need to burden yourself."
Emerion felt it the weight of her words settling over him like something designed to fit exactly. The anger that had been driving the conversation began to lose its footing. He felt like a bull that had been expertly guided away from its charge by someone who had done this before and knew exactly where to stand.
He recognized the feeling.
First Pristilia. Now her.
And then, as if the recognition had dislodged something, a different thought surfaced entirely.
"What about Pristilia, then? I used the Zaltreign spell against her she probably knows exactly who I am now. What is your plan for her, anyway?"
Arlienne's eyes lit up with the particular brightness that appeared when something had been anticipated and has now arrived on schedule.
"Well, she has already escaped, I am sure of it."
"Escaped?" Emerion straightened. "How? She was in a mana sleep, and her general was bound by your spell!"
"My spell was destined to be broken by her general, I expected nothing less from a Lagrimor Knight. Once he escaped, he would naturally take Pristilia with him. There is no chance of her revealing our identity or accusing us of being clones now," Arlienne said, her voice carrying the particular
satisfaction of someone describing a plan that worked exactly because it appeared not to be one.
Emerion sat with that for a moment.
The anger had dissipated almost entirely, replaced by a strange lingering relief and the faintly uncomfortable awareness that his sister had been several moves ahead of all of this from the beginning.
Then his stomach spoke.
The growl it produced was not subtle. It was not brief. It filled the available silence on the deck with complete confidence and then continued slightly longer than necessary.
Arlienne looked at him.
"You are hungry... why haven't you eaten? It's almost noon," she said, glancing at the high sun.
Emerion looked away. The tips of his ears had gone red.
"W-well... I gave my money to charity."
A beat of silence.
"I expected as much during this journey." Arlienne's voice was impressively composed. "How much did you donate?"
The red spread from his ears to his face.
"All of it."
The composure lasted approximately one more second.
Then Arlienne laughed full and genuine and completely unrestrained, the kind of laugh that doesn't care who hears it. Emerion stared at the middle distance and wished the deck would develop a convenient opening directly beneath his chair.
"It's so funny! You are so foolishly kind, brother! Haha! But thankfully, I kept the majority of our shared funds with me. Rest assured, you won't starve. Now, let's get you some food," she said, standing and grabbing his arm before he finished deciding whether to protest.
Emerion hung his head and allowed himself to be dragged, avoiding the eyes of every passing stranger with the focused determination of a man who has accepted his circumstances.
In the small infirmary down the corridor, the silence had been sitting for a long time.
The three boys hadn't moved much. The shock of the morning had settled into something quieter and heavier the kind that doesn't announce itself, just sits in the chest and makes everything slightly harder than it should be. Every time the silence got close to comfortable, one of them would think about that night in the valley, and it would start over.
"What should we do, My Lord?" Ryuuken asked finally. His voice came out rough, like something that had been held in too long.
"I don't know..." Anathema replied. His face was stone. His eyes were somewhere else.
Rui looked at his hands on the bedsheet, then at the door, then at Anathema.
"In a direct confrontation, I don't think we can beat him easily," he said flatly. "I felt it yesterday he was holding back a lot during our fight."
Ryuuken's fist connected with Rui's face.
The sound of it was sharp in the small room. Rui's head snapped sideways and he sat there for a moment, absorbing it with the expression of someone who had calculated this response as a possibility and filed it under acceptable.
"As if his whole family isn't scary enough, you're making him out to be even more of a monster now!" Ryuuken's voice came out thick with frustration and something underneath the frustration that was closer to fear.
"But it's true," Rui said, rubbing the side of his head with a resigned sigh. "He had already figured out both of our abilities. If we encounter him head-on again, he might find out Mui's abilities as well."
The temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.
Anathema's eyes moved to Rui. The look lasted perhaps two seconds. It didn't need to last longer.
"I told you not to call me that," Anathema said. The warning in his voice was quiet and absolute.
Rui closed his mouth.
The door creaked open.
The groan of the wood was the only announcement. A man with a thick grey mustache stepped into the infirmary, his captain's stars catching the light, his expression carrying the specific quality of someone who has made a calculation and arrived at a conclusion he is confident about.
"I have a proposal for you, Anathema," he said, his eyes finding the fourteen year old raven-haired boy and staying there.
Ryuuken stepped forward immediately.
" Who are you ? What makes you think our Lord would accept any proposal from a peasant like you?" His voice had the edge of someone who is three seconds from making the question rhetorical.
"Even if it were worth listening to, our Lord has been advised to rest by the healer," Rui added, his tone colder and more measured.
The Captain looked at them both with the patience of someone who anticipated this and finds it unremarkable.
"That's a shame. I am the Captain of this ship." His eyes moved past them to Anathema. "I thought Anathema might have wanted to get back at that silver haired boy. It would be a true disgrace if the Anathema of House Corvus were simply defeated by a peasant."
Ryuuken's jaw tightened. Rui's expression hardened.
Anathema's hand came up and settled on both their shoulders simultaneously light, but definitive. They stopped.
"What is your benefit in this?" Anathema asked. His tone gave nothing away. His eyes gave the Captain exactly the examination he deserved.
The Captain's smirk deepened. In his mind, the trap had already closed.
"I am just an employee, despite my position," he began. The lightness dropped out of his voice as he continued, replaced by something rawer a hatred that had been sitting somewhere and had decided now was the moment for air. "A slave is a slave, no matter how much you dignify them with fancy names or titles. This ship was damaged because of that fight. The owner will surely blame me or worse. I want my revenge on that silver haired boy."
Anathema watched him without expression.
"You could have gone about this another way," he said. "You could have approached him instead of coming to me. Either you were rejected by him, or you are playing a double game."
"Well, it's obvious why you would suspect that," the Captain replied. Something performed appeared in his voice a sudden, convenient passion. "But I have always preferred supporting the underdog."
"Underdog." Anathema repeated the word. Let it sit. "So you know I am at a disadvantage." His eyes didn't move from the Captain's face. "I think I should end you first."
The Captain raised both hands not in surrender, in presentation.
"My apologies if my words have upset you, Anathema. But I offer you my help." He turned toward the door and clapped his hands once. "Come in."
The door opened.
Two girls stepped into the infirmary.
One carried herself with a mature, contained steadiness the expression of someone who has learned to keep their face arranged for difficult rooms. The other looked noticeably more rebellious, her jaw set, her eyes moving around the room with the sharpness of someone who has been brought somewhere against their preference and wants that noted.
They were clearly siblings. The same bone structure. The same blonde hair. The same quality of people shaped by the same circumstances arriving at different responses to them.
Anathema recognized them from the deck confrontation. He said nothing.
"They are my slaves," the Captain said. "Ririyen and Riruka." He said their names with the casual ownership of someone referring to tools. "With their abilities, you will surely defeat the silver haired boy." He paused, letting the offer breathe. "If you think I have any intention of betraying you, or if you find some scheme you are free to end them. You can even take an Oath of Echoes from me."
The room held the words.
Ryuuken and Rui didn't speak. They were watching their lord.
Anathema's eyes moved from the Captain to the two girls. Riruka stood straight, her expression giving nothing. Ririyen stood slightly behind her, her jaw still set, her eyes finding Anathema's for a brief moment before dropping.
He thought about the Oath of Echoes. He knew what it cost. The Captain was offering his most valuable assets and binding himself with a contract that couldn't be broken that was either genuine desperation or a trap sophisticated enough that he hadn't found the mechanism yet.
"Explain their abilities to me," Anathema said.
Ryuuken and Rui glanced at each other.
"Does this mean you have accepted the deal?" the Captain asked.
Anathema looked at him with the particular expression he reserved for things he found beneath detailed response.
"Just know that we will both have our revenge," Anathema said.
The Captain's smirk settled into something satisfied and permanent. He had expected this to be harder. The fact that it hadn't been should perhaps have given him pause.
It didn't.