Морган Райс - Hero, Traitor, Daughter

“I suppose if I had any sense, I’d be falling in love with you,” Felene said as she thought about the prince. He was certainly a better person to fall for than the likes of Elethe. But you didn’t get what you wanted in this life. You certainly didn’t get to choose when it came to love.

It was enough that Thanos was a man to respect, even admire. It was enough that just thinking about the kind of thing he would do made Felene into a better person.

“If not necessarily a more sensible one.”

Felene sighed. There was no point in all this trying to argue with herself. She knew what she was going to do.

She was going to Delos. She would find Thanos if by any stroke of luck he was still alive. She would find Stephania, she would find Elethe, and there would be blood for blood, death for death. Probably, Thanos would have argued for something kinder or more civilized, but there was only so far you could go in emulating people. Even princes.

Now, there was just the question of getting to Delos and getting inside. By the time she got there, Felene had no doubt that it would be a city at war, if it hadn’t fallen outright. Felldust’s fleet would probably be a floating barricade before the city, and it was a long established tactic in times of war to blockade ports.

Not that Felene cared about that kind of thing. She’d occasionally made quite a healthy profit from smuggling her way around blockades. Food, information, people who wanted to get out, it had all been the same.

Still, Felene couldn’t imagine that Felldust’s soldiers would be very welcoming to her if she were stupid enough to just charge for the city. Already, Felene could see fragments of Felldust’s fleet ahead of her, vessels strung out across the water from Felldust to the Empire like jet beads on a necklace. The main fleet had long since sailed, but they were going in clusters now, forming groups of three or four, setting off together as they tried to make the most of the invasion to come.

In a lot of ways, they were probably the sensible ones. Felene had always had more of an affinity for the people who came up after a fight to steal than for the ones risking their lives. They were the ones who understood about looking out for themselves. They were Felene’s people.

An idea came to her then, and Felene steered her skiff in the direction of one of the groups. With her better arm, she pulled out a knife.

“Hoy there!” she called in her best Felldust dialect.

A man appeared over the railings, holding a bow aimed at her. “Think we’ll take all you – ”

He gurgled as Felene threw the blade, cutting him off mid-sentence. He tumbled from the boat, hitting the water with a splash.

“He was one of my best men,” a man’s voice said.

Felene laughed. “I doubt that, or you wouldn’t have made him the one to lean out and see if I was a threat. You the captain here?”

“I am,” he called back.

That was good. Felene didn’t have time to waste negotiating with those who weren’t in a position to do it.

“You all off to Delos?” she demanded.

“Where else would we be going?” the captain called back. “You think we’re out catching fish?”

Felene thought of some of the sharks that had hunted her on the way in to the shore. She thought of the body tumbling among them now. “Might be. There’s bait in the water, and there are some big prizes in these parts.”

“And some bigger ones in Delos,” the voice called back. “You looking to join our convoy?”

Felene made herself shrug as if she couldn’t care either way. “I figure an extra sword is good for you.”

“And an extra fifty is good for you. But it looks as though you can fight. You don’t slow us down, and you eat your own supplies. Fair enough?”

More than fair, since Felene had found her way into Delos. However careful the cordon around the city, Felldust’s fleet wouldn’t look twice at her when she was a part of it.

“Fair enough,” she called back. “Just so long as you don’t slow me down!”

“Eager for gold. I like that.”

They could like what they wanted, so long as they left Felene be. Let them think that she was there for gold. The only thing that mattered was —

The coughing fit caught Felene by surprise, almost doubling her up with the force of it. It ripped through her, her lungs feeling as though they were on fire. She put a hand to her mouth, and it came away wet with blood.

“Are you all right down there?” the captain of the Felldust ship called, in a voice of clear suspicion. “Is that blood? You’re not carrying some plague, are you?”

Felene had no doubt that he would make her travel alone if he thought she did. That, or fire her ship just to be certain that no disease got close.

“Got gut punched in a fight on the docks,” she lied, wiping her hand on the railing. “It’s no big deal.”

“If you’re coughing blood, it sounds bad enough,” the captain called back. “You should go off and find a healer. Can’t spend gold if you’re dead.”

It was probably good advice, but then, Felene had never been one to listen to such things. Especially not when she had better things to do. If it had been just gold on the line, she might have done exactly what the man suggested.

“So they say,” Felene joked. “Me, I say they’re not trying hard enough.”

She let the other ship’s captain laugh. She had better things to do.

It was time to kill Stephania and Elethe.

Every day, the convoy of former conscripts made its way around the countryside surrounding Delos, and every day, Sartes found himself staring at Leyana, trying to find a way to tell her how he felt having her around.

Every day, Sartes spent time trying to put it into words, thinking of the things someone more eloquent might have come up with. What would Thanos have said, or Akila, or… or anyone else who was half in love and didn’t know what to do next?

He spent his time caught between thinking about Leyana and thinking of the things he ought to be doing. They went from village to village, passing out what supplies they had, giving back conscripts who had been taken from their homes, and reassuring people as best they could that the rebellion would not be another set of tyrants.

Every day, he tried to compose something to say, and every day, he found himself getting to the point of making camp without having done it.

“Are you all right?” Leyana asked with a smile. She’d taken to riding on the same wagon as Sartes, and Sartes had to admit that he liked that. When they made camp every night, her tent was never far away from his. Sartes liked that too. He found himself grateful that if they were to be attacked, he would be able to rush out and save her.

He found himself half hoping that someone would attack so that he could.

Was this what being in love felt like? Sartes didn’t know. He didn’t have enough experience with girls to know for sure, and it wasn’t as though he could just ask someone, because he was supposed to be the leader, and he’d learned from watching Anka that leaders couldn’t afford to be that uncertain in public. He had to be strong, so that they could keep doing what Ceres had sent him to do.

He wished that Anka were there to talk to, rather than dead. He wished that Ceres were there too. Maybe his big sister would have been able to give him some advice. Maybe she could have told him how she knew what she felt about Thanos.

They traveled down through a village, handing out food. As seemed to happen in almost every village now, people started to appear the moment it was clear that the conscripts weren’t there to attack them. Far too many looked painfully thin, starving after Lucious had burned the countryside.