Azurianna jumped for joy, which distracted the dark eyes of many Mahagan sailors.

As charming as her sailing outfit was, as much as Alexia loved seeing her friend so happy, so beautiful, so free, she didn't belong here. Azi was a gardener, not a fighter. They were headed into Hell and Azi would be dead weight. The image came, Azi torn apart on white sands, lions devouring her. She couldn't pay that price, not when her presence brought nothing.

For all that, Alexia wished she had been able to soften the sharp edge in her voice. She didn't want to cut her best friend, but she couldn't afford to lose her. "What are you doing here?"

Alexia watched, with heartbreak and determination, as Azi's joy was sliced to pieces. Her hands shot to her hips, stopping short of the embrace she'd been rushing toward. Her feet were rooted to the planks, her expression one Alexia had never seen directed at her. Larger than any man on the ship, the brawny woman with the vicious glare was intimidating. If it came to blows, Alexia had no delusions that she would scrap her way out of a beating.

"I'm not leaving."

Alexia tried to step back, but found the edge of the ship instead. "Azi, you must be sensible. Your part in this voyage is done. Because of you, Leoquo has a chance to help thousands of his people to safety. But it is time to leave the rescuing to those who can fight. You'll only be a liability if you come."

Celegana's Quakes! Azi looked like she would throw her into the sea. Alexia was keenly aware of the ship's edge and how easy it would be for Azi to push her over.

But the princess was more sad than angry, and she was pretty flogging angry. "You promised you would never underestimate me again. You promised, Alexia."

Alexia huffed. This wasn't fair. "What exactly do you see yourself doing while everyone else is fighting for their lives?"

Azi grinded her teeth, looking like a bull about to charge. Alexia cowered, but she wouldn't stand down. Azi was perhaps the most stubborn person she knew and changing her mind when she was set on something wasn't a task Alexia ever wanted to undertake, but she needed to save her life. Better she was angry than dead, or taken by the Celegans and used to breed future tamers that might awaken as cognitive-affectomancers.

Azi's voice cracked, but she reforged it stronger than ever. "Even if you have a monopoly on being the divinedamned hero, that doesn't mean the rest of us are useless!"

Alexia felt herself tearing at the seams. She scrambled and sputtered, trying to salvage what she had with Azi. "I didn't say you are useless, Azi! I—"

"You implied it, hero! You think you are the only one who can help make the world a better place?"

Alexia shrunk. "No!"

Sir Garrond watched with unabashed interest. Several of the Redeemed Men rushed toward the prow, but Garrond motioned for them to stay out of the way. Captain Makeba folded her arms, grimacing as the two Leverian women battled aboard her planks.

Azi jabbed her finger into Alexia's chest. It divinedamned hurt, like being poked by the horns of the bull. "Then why do you refuse to let me help! You would keep me locked in Saphirhold all my life like I'm some fragile flower! You would leave me in the vase just as Halius would you! But it is okay for Alexia Bluerose to sneak out and risk her life because she is the bloody Second Great Wizard! She is the hero and can do whatever she wants!"

Alexia snapped, her voice going shrill. "You think I like being the Second Great Wizard? You think I chose this life for myself? You think I woke up one day and said I want to be some prophesized savior!"

Azi nodded. "You've been dreaming of it all your life. A little girl wishing for the Peacemaker's powers as she obsessed over the Love Queen she was named after!"

Alexia shook her head. This coming from her best friend was unmitigated Hell. Alexia felt unseen, misunderstood. If only she could be someone else. Someone nobody expected anything from, who didn't need to make speeches, and lead the battle against the most powerful nation in the world as they tried to reduce everyone else to their horrific ways. She wished she had taken up Zander's offer to flee with him and leave everything behind. She didn't want to be here. She needed to be here.

Her doubts and anguish spewed out, uncontrollably and irrevocably. "I love helping people, Azi, and I will never give up on anyone who needs me. But it is so hard. Every divinedamned day, I wish that I could live a normal life. I wish that I didn't have to force myself to be someone I know that I will never be. Every day I must put on the mask and pretend to be someone other than the scared, shy, weak person that I am. Because I'm not a hero." She cried. "I'm not. I wish I could live a quiet, peaceful life where my greatest responsibility is to love the people closest to my heart. Every fucking day I wish that it was somebody else who was given my powers and the responsibilities they put on me. I can't go one single degree without fear of what my failure means." She felt the doll at her hip, but resisted reaching for it. "I can't sleep without remembering everyone else who pays the price when I can't be perfect. And I—I—"

The tears came too hard to keep going, unbroken. But Azi's hands still on her hips, Alexia couldn't stop. "The price is so high. So high, Azi! Even when I succeed, even when I do everything that I can, the price must still be paid. I wish I could be someone else instead of the bloody hero people need me to be. But the Divine care not for what I want. I'd give them to you if I could, but I can't. I don't know why they chose me, but I will play my role the best I can and hope that it will be enough. Play yours too, Princess Azurianna Sapphire. Go home. Before you pay the price."

Hands on her hips, her height still towering high, Azi's voice hit like a boulder being hurled by a giant. "My role is to be on this ship, welcoming the Mahagan and providing whatever care and encouragement for them that I can. My role is to support Leoquo, so that he doesn't have to face the Celegans alone. My role is to help you, because you're held together by a fraying strand and I'm not going to leave it up to Tripsy and Dust to keep you from snapping. I'm staying."

Alexia groaned. She wouldn't get anywhere with this rockhead!

Leoquo rushed between them. He extended his arms to keep them from crashing into each other. "Listen! Both of you!" He looked at Azi first. "I want you here." He swallowed heavily. "I need you here. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, will have to go through me."

Azi lowered her hands off her hips, and took a deep breath, before smiling at him as if he were Prince Perfect.

Leoquo rotated on Alexia, his outstretched hands on her shoulders. "Please understand. I know she is a precious treasure to you. I know you want to protect her because you love her. I—" Leoquo closed his eyes and his breath came out slow and heavy. "I cannot do this without her. She is the strongest person I have ever met and she is worth more to our expedition than all the pearls in the sea."

Azi stood by him, hand on his back. His words split Alexia in two. She surrendered, giving Azi over to the man she'd love in a way Alexia would never know while also praying that he'd be able to give it back to her.

"I agree with your assessment of her worth, and I respect your authority aboard this ship, Emir Leoquo. I understand why you want her here, but I cannot agree."

Sighing, she saw Azi shaking her head, those big blue eyes of hers fierce. Alexia hated seeing that pointed at her, but it was preferable to seeing them staring vacantly, never seeing her again. Azi held her ground and she held grudges.

Alexia turned from them, hiding her tears. She sat with her legs hanging out over the prow, leaning on the rail for support.

"She'll come around," Leoquo said, his voice hushed. "She just wants you to be safe."

"Nobody is safe until we stop the Tamers," Azi said.

"I know. I'm glad you're here, Azi."

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Her voice softened. "Me too. Is there time for a tour before we sail?"

"Believe it or not, I'll have nothing but time once we sail. Makeba and Chikondi like me out of their way."

"Then, for their sake's, I'll be sure to get in your way," Azi said. "Teach me how to sail."

"It would be my pleasure. First, let's go make sure Admiral Bluvein is ready and the lessons can commence."

Several of the Redeemed Men approached the prow, offering comfort—Erlos, Nico, both Jonahs, Simon, Jem, Bam. Alexia sensed them looking at her differently, treating her with fragility, their voices softer, their postures almost leaning away. She felt stupid for lowering the curtain and exposing so much of herself. There was a reason why one avoided such things. Instead of idolizing her, they would see her as weak. Neither were comfortable for her, but she'd rather not make them worry. They left her quickly, realizing by her one-word responses that she didn't want to talk.

Soon, only Garrond remained at the prow with her. To Alexia's astonishment, his lips weren't flat, but slightly upturned. For him, he might as well have been beaming from ear to ear.

She twisted her neck as far from him as she could. The divinedamned arse took pleasure in her pain. She looked to Saphirhold, hoping that Halius would come get her.

She didn't know for how long, but she dissociated, her mind leaving the moment and venturing into the past to relive other moments of regret or into the future toward impending doom. She nearly fell over when the horns blasted throughout the harbor.

Thus, the sun at its apex angle, twenty-three ships set course for the Mahogany Isles, leaving Sapphirica behind. Halius and the Bluerose had secured several cognitive-affectomancers for the coalition fleet. Zafrir's wind was conjured all around the port as they channeled it for the sails of the Sapphire fleet. Alexia should probably get up and do the same for Sea Lion.

But when she turned around she saw Theos already bearing the responsibility. So, she sat, her thoughts drifting away from her as she watched the sea with glassy eyes.

When Garrond leaned on the rails beside her, Alexia gave a startle, a shiver running down her spine for more than the chill his sword brought. She shifted away from him and his icy blade, hoping, for once, that he would stay silent. In this moment, she never wanted to talk to him again.

When he spoke, it was like being submerged into cold water. "We are going to have to discuss changes to your protection plan."

Alexia closed her eyes. She was exhausted. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about the dangers ahead and how Redeemed Men would die for her. "Not now."

Garrond managed to withhold any irritation he felt. "Look around. What do you see?"

Alexia felt her words at a rational level that couldn't break through the emotional clutter that clouded her perception. "Beauty. Vast, open, and endless. I lose track of where the ocean ends and the sky begins."

Garrond grunted and shifted away from her. Alexia wasn't upset. In this darkened mood, it felt affirming to have her expectations met.

He looked out over the water. "I cannot remember finding beauty in anything."

Alexia cocked her head toward him. She wondered what a life without beauty would be like. It was an existence antithetical to hers. She fired away questions, trying to understand what that existence was like. "You have never found anything or anyone beautiful? You have no lost loves or hidden infatuations? You have no special place in your heart?"

Garrond shook his head. His voice was as emotionless as ever, but he spoke more slowly, as though it strained him to maintain his carelessness. "Never. I've never loved a place for how it looked. When I look out over the water, all I see is a tactical threat."

Alexia turned to him. Her compassion made him the center of her world, pushing away all thoughts of Azi, or the expedition, or her own self-doubt. "Your life is devoted to the protection of others. You're a soldier, always on duty. It makes sense that terrain is measured tactically rather than aesthetically."

When Garrond made no reaction to her attempt at understanding him, Alexia tugged at a thread that she had contemplated all morning. "Is that as true for people? You've never kept a secret infatuation or lost a lover?"

Garrond twisted his neck. While Zander's eyes were warm and loving, these blue seers were chilling. The slightest smirk crossed his face. For Garrond, this might've been the highest height his amusement could scale. "Never. I don't have some sob story about how your father stole my woman. I've never even spoken to Ione Heron."

"Oh."

Well, Alexia could toss that thread into the ocean. She glanced around. The forecastle was clear, except for them. Sailors were working the ship or conversing, their Mahagan expressiveness making it clear the kind of interactions they were having even if their accented voices didn't carry to the ship's prow. Theos was channeling Zafrir, powering the sails of Sea Lion. Erlos and a few Redeemed Men kept a watch on her, from a distance. Azi and Leoquo chatted on the quarterdeck, the emir giving her a demonstration of how the wheel operated, beside a frowning Makeba. Azi's face was so close to Leoquo's, the love plain even from this far away. That still hurt, maybe more now that Azi might resent her. She tried to numb it with thoughts of Zander, but he wasn't here and that was entirely her fault. Unlike Garrond, she'd harbored secret infatuations and a lost lover.

She returned her gaze to Garrond, seeing him with new eyes. A man who didn't love, who couldn't see beauty in anything. The Temple hated those with inverted desires most, but Garrond would likewise be judged for his lack of desire. Her body wracked with emotion, contemplating taking a leap of faith to return his vulnerability.

"I," Alexia closed her eyes, knowing that if she walked this plank, it could drown her. But it could also help her swim in these distant waters. "I'm in love with Azurianna. I've been in love with her for as long as I can remember."

Garrond's eyes widened, his mouth opened.

Alexia shook, aware that this could be grounds for her to be branded anathema, to be hated by the vast majority of Leverians. Yet, Garrond's face, immobile as it often was, didn't show any hints of judgment. Merely surprise.

"I think she is the most beautiful, inside and out," Alexia whispered. "And nobody knows that I feel that way. Except you."

"Not even the princess?" Garrond asked, voice low.

Alexia shook her head. "Especially not Azi."

He at least had the courage to speak his thought. "You are anathema?"

Alexia had never confessed this aloud. It made her hurt in ways she could never have imagined, admitting this to someone else. It made her feel exposed, naked and ugly, before somebody who could deem her entire existence a blemish to society. "I am."

She looked at him, gauging his response. His face contorted before settling into what looked almost like sympathy. "Why tell me, of all people?"

"Why do you think?"

Garrond grunted and hmphed. He looked out over the tactically threatening ocean, leaning on the railing. "You love those they say you cannot and I cannot love those they say I should."

"My life is in your hands, Sir Garrond. I want you to see who I am, whether you hate me or not."

She clutched the railing, awaiting his judgment. Quiet lingered between them, broken by the sounds of a working ship cutting through the water. She watched Garrond's tactical disadvantage, trying to see it through his eyes. Meladonite, though immensely lighter than other metals while being profoundly sturdier, was still more dense than water. If he fell over, he drowned. If she fell in, he'd have to deal with that. If he took the armor off, he would be exposed to the dangers of whatever Tamed assaulted them as they approached the Mahagan shores. The ocean also concealed its threats, meaning even a moment of complacency could cost lives. Seeing through his eyes, it wasn't hard to miss the beauty of this endless blue.

Lost in her reverie, it was a surprise when Garrond broke the silence. "I've never cared for the Divine Thirteen or the ones that think they know what they'd believe. Nothing matters to me, except for how I will protect you." He put his gauntleted hand on her shoulder. "Love whoever you want, as long as you follow the safety plan."

His acceptance of her inversion altered her perception of everything. She was not naked and ugly. She wasn't something wrong. Though she believed in her own convictions, that love was love, no matter if it was a woman for a woman, having one person see and say that this was okay, caused a shift that moved tectonic plates within her soul. She was still afraid of how people would react to her hidden truth. She wouldn't volunteer those secrets to just anybody. Yet, having said this to Garrond, she felt waves of relief from holding back the tides all her life. Though his delivery was cold, Alexia felt the first buds of warmth between them. Whether they would blossom or be killed by the cold, she didn't know. She chose to hope but not expect.

"Thank you, Garrond."

He shrugged. At the sight of her smile, he turned away, leaving her grinning.

"Thank you for seeing me as more than Eron's daughter."

Garrond pushed himself off the railing. "I'm going to see how well your Redeemed Men watch for your safety while I formulate a revised protection plan. Don't look too far ahead." He pointed down to the waters just beneath the prow. "Tamed could jump up at any moment. Eyes open, Alexia."

Soon, she was surrounded by several of her guards. All of them seemed hesitant to approach her, so she welcomed them in with a smile and a few kind words. Her heart felt lighter, knowing there was a possibility that Garrond was beginning to see her with new eyes. Her anxiety blew away in the breeze and a calmness settled over her like a clear sky and serene ocean.

"Watch this," she told her men.

Alexia closed her eyes and saw the beautiful ocean in her mind. Dalis's energy surrounded her, far more of it than she had ever felt. She communed with Dalis and merged her heart with the water deity's. Alexia saw the direction she wanted the ocean to go, and she shaped her will into reality.

The currents shifted, the entire armada speeding forth, every ship moving thrice the speed it had moments ago as the water propelled them toward the Mahogany Isles where they would challenge their fate.

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