The sun was sinking when we climbed the wall.

  Solstara lit up one lantern at a time. Pinpricks of yellow bloomed in windows and along streets, chasing away the worst of the smoke. The harbor caught the last light, ships rocking gently while men shouted and ropes creaked.

  We sat on a flat stretch of the palace’s outer wall. Not the highest place, but high enough. The wind was cooler here.

  Ragna lay half sprawled against me, back to my chest, head under my chin. Her new club leaned against the parapet like a loyal dog.

  “People still stare, you know,” she said, watching the streets.

  “Nah, they have better things to do,” I lied.

  Down below, a group of boys waved wooden swords around, one of them yelling, “I am Thorvyn the Undead-Slayer!” The others argued over who got to be the Pirate Prince and who had to play Kaelan and die in the mud.

  “Been a long journey, this one. But worth it, right?” Ragna asked. “We are heroes.”

  I snorted. “Yesterday I was a cursed barbarian. Today I’m a children’s game.”

  “Better than being ghost story,” she said. “Or sacrifice.”

  Fair point.

  A woman on a balcony pointed in our direction and whispered something to her neighbor. “Those are them,” I caught through my enhanced senses. “The Queen’s Stormblade and the barbarian girl.”

  Then something about “dragon” and “idiots” blurred together in the wind.

  Ragna’s shoulders rose and fell in a satisfied way.

  “Mother will like this,” she said.

  “The Chief? You think so?”

  She nodded, hair brushing my jaw. “Glory is important for Valtherians. We left island for it. Now whole kingdom shouts our names. She will be happy. Even if she pretends not.”

  “Your brother might be less pleased,” I said.

  “Draegan can chew rocks,” she scoffed in hate. “We out here saving Kingdoms, I wonder what he doing. Bastard..”

  I huffed a laugh.

  She tilted her head to look up at me. “You like it too, don’t you?” It wasn’t a question. “People calling us heroes. Not just ‘cursed’ or ‘savage.’”

  “I like not having to punch my way past a gate. As I said, this is better than being chased out of town,” I said. “And… yeah. It’s nice. Not what I’m used to.”

  “Hmm.”

  She seemed content with that answer.

  We watched in silence for a bit. A vendor in the square below had a new sign that said “Stormblade Skewers,” which made me raise an eyebrow while Ragna laughed. I’d have to try those before we left, just to see if they were any good.

  “Oi, Thorvyn. We are leaving soon?” Ragna asked after a while.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We are.”

  She didn’t tense. No surprise there. Ragna wasn’t blind.

  “Shaman Morvak last saw my mother near there,” I continued. “Nezehra hinted Ethenia has… records, being such an old Empire.” It went unsaid that I hoped those records would explain how my soul was special and what Code Grey was, the same code that stopped the System from deleting me on my first day here.

  “...You think she’s still alive?” Ragna asked.

  I stared at the horizon, where land cut into sea.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I need to find out. Even if she’s not, I think I can find her family or… race. I don’t think she was a simple human. My bloodline is more special than a typical Valtherian, Ragna. I want to know why.”

  Ragna was quiet for a moment.

  “Mothers are important,” she said. “Fathers too, sure, but… mother teaches you to walk. To swing the first club. To not burn food. If your mother still walks this world, she should see you. See you are strong now.”

  There was no softness in her voice. Just fact.

  “You’re strangely fond of Yrsa, I thought it’d be the opposite based on the frowns she sent your way,” I said.

  Ragna snorted. “Coming of Age happened, Thorvyn, I’m not a kid anymore. I can tell she just wanted me to be stronger than the rest since I’m her daughter. That’s not so wrong,” she said. “Besides… she allowed me to board your ship instead of Draegan’s. I’m grateful.”

  “Yup, that she did. Which surprised me too, honestly. That she trusted me to protect you more than your brother could.”

  Ragna snorted. “Who needs your protection, white hair? That’s not why she let me board your ship, she wanted me to protect you. Said I should watch that you don’t die in stupid way. Also said–”

  She stopped.

  “Also said what?” I nudged.

  Ragna turned a little so she could see my face. Lantern light from the palace caught her eyes, making them more brown than green.

  “You know this already, why pretend otherwise? She told me she told you this, too. She said,” Ragna murmured slowly, “if you’re stronger than me, then you are allowed many women if you want. But if you abandon me, she will kill you herself.”

  I winced as I recalled hearing those words directly from Yrsa. I couldn’t believe she’d said them to Ragna too, being her mother and all. “Uhm…”

  Ragna shrugged like it was obvious. “Mother says a strong man is like a bonfire. People gather. Some warm their hands. Some throw themselves in.”

  “And… you’re fine with that?” I asked, a little surprised.

  Her lips curled. “Fine? I’m not fine. I’m greedy.” She jabbed a thumb at her own chest. “I want first place, you know. I want the right to say, ‘He’s mine,’ and have people believe it.”

  “Then…”

  She met my eyes again, and there was heat there, the kind that didn’t flinch. “If other women come, they come because you are strong. That’s not something to be shameful, hmm? That’s proof of your strength. Of how manly you are.”

  Yeah… in barbarian logic that does make sense.

  Then her expression sharpened. “But if you ever treat me like an old weapon you don’t need anymore, I’ll kill you before Mother does. I’ll do it smiling.”

  I began a fit of coughing, and it wasn’t an act. I was stunned. She meant it!

  “That’s why I been fighting to get stronger. So that you don’t get ideas about some skinny girl,” she turned to stare ahead with a grumble. That plan clearly hadn’t been going well. “She also said if you break my heart, she will feed your bones to the volcano,” Ragna added thoughtfully, as a threat. “So. No pressure even if I fail.”

  “None at all,” I muttered. “Good to know even across an ocean I’m not safe.”

  “Mm,” Ragna hummed. “So do not abandon me.”

  “Hello? Who said they want to go their separate ways right after landing from the ship?” I called her out, making her clear her throat. I put my arms around her waist, pulling her closer. “I wasn’t ever planning to let you go,” I said. “You’re stuck with me.”

  “Good,” she said, satisfied. “Because I like you. Back then I thought distance would be better for my growth, but… fuck, I like you lot now. So if you ran away, I would have to chase you. And then mother would have to chase me. It would be tiring.”

  I chuckled under my breath.

  Down in the street, someone raised a cup and shouted a toast to “Queen Isolde and her storm.” Laughter answered. A dog barked and somewhere a door slammed.

  Ragna gestured lazily at the palace behind us.

  “All this politics, crowns, councils… not for me,” she said. “I like hitting things. I like eating. And I like you. That enough to lead a comfy life.”

  “Same,” I said. “You saw what happened when I tried to be polite earlier.”

  “You tried to marry the Queen in front of everyone,” Ragna said. “Or she tried to marry you. Hard to tell. You flirting with her did not help,” she said. “Very stupid.”

  “You disliked that?” I asked.

  She thought about it, then shook her head. “No. It’s kinda fun. She too stiff, you know? You make her… softer. Less like stone.”

  Ragna wasn’t blind, she noticed a lot of things people thought she didn’t. I leaned back against the warm stone of the wall and let out a breath.

  Maybe the mention of another woman prompted something in her, Ragna twisted around fully, swinging one leg over and settling onto my lap. Her hands planted on the parapet on either side of my shoulders. Up this close, I could see the faint scars at the corner of her mouth from old fights.

  “You joke, I like when you do that,” she said, eyes narrowing, "Sometimes you’re too serious. Always thinking. You make path where there is no path. That is why I follow you.”

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  “I think you just like my shoulders,” I said.

  “That too,” she said, deadpan.

  I leaned in and kissed her. Slow at first. Her lips were warm and a little rough. Then she pressed harder, her weight pinning me back against the cool stone. Heat rolled through my chest, down my spine, out into my fingers. My hands found her waist without asking permission, fingers digging into strong muscle.

  The city’s noise blurred to a low murmur.

  She pulled back only when we both needed air, breathing fast.

  “Hey,” she said, smug. “When are we doing it? Back in the inn you said we gotta wait till the war ends...”

  “You were counting?” I asked, because I enjoyed hearing her say it.

  “Shut the hell up. We can’t be called lovers before we mate,” she said. “We’re not just tribe friends, are we? We are more. If you try to deny, I hit you with my new club.”

  “Hard to argue with that logic,” I said. Was it weird that I found it hot that she instantly tried to clear her role after the talk about flirting with Isolde? “We are more. But nah, we aren’t doing this where everyone can see us. Let’s watch the clouds for a bit more.”

  She laughed, softer than usual, and slid back down, turning so her back was against my chest again. Her head fit under my chin like it had always been meant to be there.

  We stayed like that as the sky went from orange to purple to deep blue, and the first stars pushed their way through the smoke-hazed night.

  Strangely, I couldn’t enjoy the sky anymore.

  I began to worry. So what about Isolde now?

  ****

  Isolde Point of View

  Isolde had spent the last three hours listening to grown men argue about fish.

  Two houses from the eastern quarter had come to blows in the great hall just after dusk. On the surface, it was about rights to certain docks and who could unload first. Underneath, it was about an old insult between grandfathers and the fact that one of them had backed Kaelan a little too loudly.

  The Crown did not care about their feud. The Crown cared that if they kept it up, grain shipments from Seagard would rot at anchor.

  So she sat in a lesser council chamber, with maps pinned to the walls and a long table in the center, and listened.

  “Their nets foul our lines on purpose, Your Majesty,” one lord shouted.

  “Your men drink on duty and forget which boats they’re meant to unload!” the other snapped back.

  She could feel the city under her feet the whole time. Little pulls of need and dry wells. A patch of blight in the north fields. A priest overusing a healing spell and burning his own nerves. It was like trying to focus on a single conversation while a hundred others murmured at the edge of hearing.

  Valtor handled most of the shouting for her. He leaned against the table, arms folded, tossing questions like knives.

  “So who struck first?”

  “Well…”

  “Which of you wants to explain to starving families why their food sat on a barge for two extra days?”

  Marius stood at her shoulder, occasionally murmuring a law or a precedent, sometimes explaining to her terms that she wasn’t familiar with. Yasafina loomed near the door, hand resting lightly on her hilt.

  Isolde let them exhaust themselves. Then she spoke.

  “Enough,” she said.

  The word wasn’t backed with magic. It didn’t need to be. Both men shut their mouths.

  “I’ve heard long enough, and you will share the docks,” she said. It wouldn’t satisfy either of them, but they wouldn’t have any reason to hold a grudge against the throne. At times like this, that was the most important thing. “On alternate days. Any boat with food or medicine takes priority over your pride. If I hear one more word about tripped ropes or bumped elbows, I will give all your spaces to the fishermen and you can pull your own ships through the mud.”

  Valtor’s lips twitched. Marius smiled openly, pleased with her words. The men must have decided on a judgment already, and had been waiting to see what she’d say. She had a lot to learn.

  The two lords bowed and muttered apologies. One of them looked like he wanted to say something about her being “young” but thought better of it under Yasafina’s stare. When they were finally gone, the room sagged a little.

  “Not bad,” Valtor said. “You didn’t even threaten to hang anyone.”

  “Tempting,” she muttered.

  Marius rolled up the last of the reports and stacked them neatly. “These are tiring times, Princess, since we’re trying to stabilize a nearly broken Kingdom. There will be a lot more disputes like this,” he said. “Kaelan dangled favours and punishments in strange patterns. People will test how far they can push you.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Honestly though, great job. They expected you to lie like Kaelan or swing a blade near their throat like Kaelan,” Valtor looked proud. “You performed much better. Good.”

  Some people still had doubts, but Isolde’s actions were erasing them.

  “It’s just… I’m starting to get a headache,” she sighed.

  “And the Crown makes it worse?” he asked gently.

  She hesitated, then nodded. “It makes everything… louder,” she said. “I can feel the city worrying while I’m listening to fools worry about their ropes. But much better than two days ago.”

  The land still murmured under her feet, but this time she pushed it to the edges. And she was starting to see its good sides, too. Somewhere near the eastern gate, a child’s joy brushed her awareness like a warm spark. The girl on the crate who’d called for her.

  “You’ll learn to sort the important signals from the noise,” Valtor said.

  They shared the tired kind of smile that people did after too long in bad rooms.

  Valtor clapped her shoulder once. “I’m going to check the harbor,” he said. “Our new marquis may already be trying to sell my men better boots. You should breathe.”

  “Yeah, deep breaths,” she muttered.

  He arched an eyebrow. “You remember how?”

  She made a face at him. He laughed and left with Yasafina in tow. Marius lingered.

  “I’ll have drafts ready for you to sign in the morning,” he said. “About Millhaven and the charter, and about… other matters.” There was a lot of dirt to clean up now, reasons why her schedule was packed.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  When the door closed behind him, the chamber was suddenly too quiet.

  Maps still littered the table. Notes also lay scattered, mostly about grain tallies, militia rosters, letters from Veridian. The Crown hummed softly, like a cat sitting on her head.

  She pushed the chair back and walked to the nearest window.

  From here, the city stretched out under her like a painting. Lights in threads, streets in dark lines. Taverns spilled noise. The harbor glittered. Somewhere too far to see, a powerful group of people were laughing and drinking among themselves. Had to be Valtor’s pirate crew.

  Closer, on one of the palace’s outer walls, two shapes sat pressed together.

  Isolde squinted.

  Even at this distance, she knew them. Ragna’s wild hair. Thorvyn’s broader outline. The way they leaned against each other without needing to ask permission.

  She watched as Ragna shifted, swung a leg over him, and leaned in. The exact gesture could be misread maybe but she had seen enough kisses in old court plays to recognize the curve of a back and the angle of a hand on someone’s cheek.

  “Huh?” Her fingers tightened on the stone.

  A sharp, mean little pain stabbed under her ribs. Wasn't Ragna encouraging her to go confess to Thorvyn? What was this…? Jealousy, bright and stupid, stabbed at her heart.

  It was followed quickly by shame. Ragna was her friend. Thorvyn was… an ally. A savior. Things were complicated, and she had no right to be feeling this way.

  The worst part was that she wasn't entirely sure which of them she was jealous of.

  You are Queen, she told herself. Not a schoolgirl hiding behind a book. For a moment she remembered Zerina, shaking her head.

  The Crown pulsed, not providing any comforting thought. It just reminded her that everything she belonged to now was bigger than two people on a wall.

  She breathed out slowly.

  Part of her had known, even when Ragna encouraged her. Even when she and Thorvyn kissed in that tent. She’d seen the way Ragna’s eyes sought him first after every battle and the way Thorvyn watched to make sure she wasn’t injured during fights. The way they moved together without words. Plus they’d grown up on the same island, whereas Isolde was a stranger.

  So Isolde had always known.

  It still hurt.

  But underneath the sting, something else twisted.

  Curiosity, and a thin thread of something close to longing. Ragna’s laugh. Her reckless strength. Thorvyn’s dry comments that made her want to both hit him and laugh in the middle of horrors. The way he’d stood in front of her in the throne room today and thrown a ridiculous compliment at her without flinching. What does he want…?

  She pressed her lips together and shut her eyes.

  “Enough,” she whispered.

  The word didn’t have magic. It helped anyway.

  Down on the wall, Ragna settled back against him, their silhouettes blending into one. The lanterns flickered around them.

  Isolde finally turned away.

  Her chambers felt too big when she stepped back inside. The ceiling was too high, and the walls too far apart. The table was still a mess of parchment and ink. A note about a border fort whose captain wanted more men than she could spare.

  She crossed to the opposite window, the one that faced east.

  Outside, the dark line of land broke off into the open sea on one side, and the calm rustle of grassland against the wind. Somewhere past the grassland, far beyond the horizon and storms and other people’s troubles, lay the Ethenia Empire in the west.

  The only superpower on the continent that could go against the Erebian Empire, and that was what they had been doing for centuries. Isolde recalled maps in the library that drew Ethenia into a large and proud shape. Those maps couldn’t do it justice; Isolde had studied in Ethenia’s Waybound Academy, and she knew how grand it truly was.

  An empire of Demi-Gods, laws, scholars, and strange courts. According to many, the current Ethenian Emperor could split the continent in half if he truly wanted.

  Thorvyn would go there and Ragna would follow. Borric might too. Despite his new title and responsibilities, he might want to go see his daughter there. They would chase dragons and ghosts and questions she couldn’t even begin to frame.

  While she… she would stay. In this tiny kingdom, ruling over its problems.

  She set both hands on the window ledge and let the Crown’s sense stretch outward a little. Solstara answered. The fields around it answered her, and the Blighted Reaches shivered at the edge of her range. Somewhere in the ocean, something brushed her awareness thin and quick, and then slipped away before she could grasp it.

  “Go, then,” she murmured to the night. “Chase your ghosts. Ask your questions.”

  She suddenly sensed a presence behind her, turning to see her brother without surprise. He chuckled as he stepped inside the room. “You don’t look surprised, you knew it was me?”

  “The Crown knew,” she said. “It recognizes stuff. I thought you were going to the harbor?”

  “Well,” he said cheerfully. “I came to ask. The court aside, how are you?”

  “Tired,” she said. “Annoyed. Hungry. Take your pick.”

  He came to stand beside her at the window, following her gaze to the water first, then lowering it to the wall where two distant shapes still sat.

  “Ah,” he said. “That too.”

  She didn’t reply.

  He watched a moment longer, then tapped his fingers lightly on the stone.

  “You made quite a speech today,” he said. “The marriage line, the ‘godhood’ remark, the whole ‘not just a barbarian’ bit. Half the court nearly swallowed their tongues.”

  “I noticed,” she said dryly.

  “Do you regret it?” he asked, pointing his chin at the sight ahead. She thought about it.

  “No,” she said finally. “I knew before I opened my mouth that something was… happening between those two. I said what I said anyway. It was true.”

  Valtor’s mouth curled in a small, pleased smile. “Good answer,” he said. “Regretting honesty out of embarrassment is a waste of time.”

  “Marius thinks it was reckless,” she said.

  “Marius thinks breathing too loudly in front of nobles is reckless,” Valtor snorted. “He’s not wrong, but still. We are not here to play safe little games forever.”

  He looked at her sidelong.

  “After my failures, I chase freedom now,” he said. “Doing a terrible job of it, given I’m standing here again, but it was fun while it lasted. You have a Crown now, so it’s harder. But… that doesn’t mean you have to chain every feeling you have. If you want something, Isolde, be wild. The world is already trying to tame you. Don’t let it.”

  She frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re welcome, sister,” he said.

  He pushed off from the ledge.

  “Eat something,” he added over his shoulder as he walked to the door. “Oh and sleep at least once before the next crisis. Queen of Thalassaria or not, you’re still my little sister. If you collapse in the hall, I will laugh first and help later.”

  “Such a dear brother,” she muttered.

  He waved a hand and left.

  Silence settled again.

  She turned back to the table, to the maps that marked Thorvyn’s future. Her heart could ache later. For now, the kingdom needed a Queen more than a girl on a balcony.

  The Crown hummed, steady and patient, as Isolde Thalasson picked up her quill and went back to work. And yet, even as she tried to focus, she kept wondering what her brother meant.

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