The admiral stared down at her with cold eyes. “Just to make sure that I have understood you correctly … my queen.” He added her new title belatedly, as if he didn’t really believe in her new status. Not that she could blame him, she didn’t really believe it either. But she was determined to use it. “You want to take this ship, the only crew besides yourself should be mostly non-magical personnel, and you want to challenge Fornax?”
Lia nodded.
“And why should I go along with that plan that can only have originated in a totally barren brain?” He crossed his arms. There was no honorific this time.
“Because of the same reasons you often trusted the former queen and the former king.” She stared him down, wanting him to realize that she was able to see the future. “The thing is that Fornax needs to be stopped, and I have a chance at stopping him.”
“A … chance.” He stared back, not saying anything more.
“Yes, a chance,” she replied. So far, she didn’t have any vision where she succeeded, but she believed that there had to be a way, that she would find one.
“Aren’t you hurting your own chances by taking as little magical personnel as possible with you?” The admiral frowned heavily.
Lia shook her head, and looked past him, recalling the visions she had. “I know that the more mages I take with me, the lower my chances will get. Fornax will be able to overwhelm them before I get close enough to counterattack.”
The admiral sighed and un-crossed his arms. “Shouldn’t you at least learn more about how to direct magic, before even trying to attack him?”
“The more time I give him, the more he can prepare for my attack. You know exactly that he is capable of the same things as I, and, frankly, I don’t need finesse to defeat him, raw power will be enough.”
“You are aware that you’ll have to take at least a few donar for gravity and the jump into hyperspace?”
Lia nodded. She had considered powering several of those functions herself, but she neither had the knowledge or experience, nor the power to spare. “I want to keep them as far away from Fornax as possible, even if I have to cross the rest of the distance in a shuttle.”
The admiral averted his gaze. “The former kings and queens have avoided Fornax for a reason …”
“Well, I can’t afford to do that anymore. He will come for me one way or another, and I’d rather face him on my terms.” A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered the visions where she’d tried to hide. Had Orphelia felt the same? “I trust you’ll be able to arrange everything?”
The admiral looked as if he had bitten on something sour. Something very sour. “There is only one way to fulfill your request.”
“And that is?”
“I have to talk to the pirates.” It looked as if the sour thing had turned acidic.
Lia sighed. “They will have a few demands of their own, yes, but compared to the danger that Fornax presents, those shouldn’t be a problem at all.” She looked the admiral directly in the eyes. “Hyperspace travel will become impossible, if you loose all donar.”
“Very well, I’ll try to arrange everything, and we’ll deal with the council later.” He looked at her and then at Lillian, who stood behind her.
“I think it’s best if I accompany her,” the former queen said.
“No, I can’t allow you to go as well. You’re the last royal we have. Losing both of you would cripple the empire.” The admiral crossed his arms again. “Besides. I know that you’ve been trying to get rid of all of your responsibility. We’ll also need you to treat the affected donar that are unconscious at the moment.”
Lillian clucked her tongue in displeasure. But the admiral’s comment shone a bit of light on what the former queen had been up to, on what her plans were.
“I agree with the admiral,” Lia said, and could almost feel the indignation of woman behind her. “Now if you’ll excuse me? I will need to … plan for the coming battle.” She still had to find a way to defeat Fornax.
* * *
Lia spent the next few days mostly in the large room on the admiral’s ship. Food was brought to her, while she used her time to look into the future as well as to train her control of magic. Of Gravity. Of the air around her.
The table in the room had turned into some kind of art piece, and she couldn’t really use it as intended anymore. Plasma was harder to train, as the lighter produced only a small flame, but she didn’t have any problem with raw power. She could even create create light easily, but had no idea on how to combine it with the other magics in order to create matter. She had lowered the light intensity in the room to see her progress with this kind of magic.
But mostly she spent her time analyzing her various future fights with Fornax, considering different scenarios, like trying to blast it with the ship’s weapons before going in, or even using all her mana to attack him from as far away as possible.
And then she lost. Time and time again, she lost. Fornax had the overwhelming power of tens, if not hundred of thousands of donar. It was almost as if he had an infinite source of mana, and he managed to overwhelm her every time. Her large mana pool was still limited, after all.
Sighing, she leaned back in bed and thought about her friend. “What should I do?” she asked the Orphelia in her mind. The girl in her imagination looked sad, but seemed to say something. Maybe they were just encouraging words that her imagined friend didn’t even believe herself.
Lia wiped the tears from her eyes and closed them for a moment, exhaustion from training so much with her magic pulling her down into the darkness. When the darkness faded, she was back at the gate. The gate she had seen so very often in her dreams.
The planets around her shone with their respective lights, drowning out the light that had always been present at the door. A door that suddenly stood open. Lia stared at the two crystalline wings that had refused to even budge before, but right now it stood far enough open for her to slip through. When had that happened? Since when did they stood open?
The other side was just a mirror world. There were the same glowing planets in the space around her, and she somehow knew that they were connected to the ones on the other side. Connected through the now open door.
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Everything else was the same as always, only that there was no trace of the snake, or of any dark mist. And there was also no trace of her friend.
Orphelia. She had gotten a last gift from her friend. It had been that moment when her door was flung open and she was suddenly able to use magic. But how? How had Orphelia been able to do that for her?
Omor had told them that there was an eleventh color, a magic that allowed someone to change whether someone could use magic or not. But … if Orphelia was really connected to Fornax, then that would mean that he had succeeded, didn’t it? If that was the case, then why did he need her? It didn’t make any sense.
“I won’t let him win! I won’t let him get you.” Her friend’s words echoed in her mind. What if he didn’t want her mana, but her body? What if she was what he had wanted to become, but couldn’t? If he’d possessed her like he had with everyone else, then …
The shiver that ran over her spine was mirrored in this world. The ground shook slightly and ice bloomed on the wings of the door. A cold wind blew through it, and Lia hugged herself.
Then she heard words in the whistling sound the wind made: “Close the door.”
Lia looked slowly up to the crystalline wings of the door. Could she really just close it, and then she would be free? Or was this … Her eyes became wide as even more puzzle pieces fell into place. If she really was what Fornax had always wanted to become, then …
She concentrated on the door, on the crystal wings opening further. The ground below her began to glow, the frame of the door shone and then the double wings of the door started to move, leaving a glittering afterimage behind that quickly faded. The further the door opened, the easier it became for her to move them … But the planets around her didn’t shine any brighter than before. It was almost as if she didn’t use their magic at all.
The doors stopped when they were fully open, and the glow of the frame and ground faded. But wouldn’t that mean that everyone with a door had the eleventh color? She touched the cold ground and saw her reflection, her eyes shining like those of fictional gods in comic books.
“Your mana is just an entangled mess of strings,” she heard Eclaire’s exasperated voice, and shortly after Impera Joy’s words followed: “Usually people with large mana pools only have access to one color.” What if she really only had access to one color? A color that wasn’t really a color, because it contained all other colors? What if the eleventh color was simply … white?
Somehow it all made sense. You could mix just a few colors to have something that resembled white, but was still missing some colors. The light of artificial light sources was still different from the light a sun emitted.
With her shift in perspective, the light of the planets faded, and they were replaced by suns on both sides of her gate. Light blinded her and she protected her face with her arms.
Groaning, she realized that she was back in her bed and the lights in her room had started to shine at full power. She fought herself upright. “Lower light intensity,” she demanded from the room’s computer.
The light got less bright, only for the computer to tell her that, “you have one important message from Admiral Horologii: Please meet me on the bridge. The preparations have been completed.” It seemed as if she didn’t have the time to check, whether her new insights would give her the edge she needed.
Lia fought herself to the mirror in order to make herself presentable – something expected from her now, and she stopped as she stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes glowed. The same as in her dream at the gate. Even her hair seemed to have a glow of its own, similar to the one Orphelia had had, just with a different color. She shook at the memory of her friend and took a while to get her thoughts in order. Then she closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on putting her own door back to where it was before, hoping that that would normalize how she looked.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked like before.
“Please reply to the admiral that I need a few more minutes, then I’ll meet him.”
“Acknowledged,” the computer answered.
“Wish me luck, Orphelia,” she told her mirror image, then moved back to the bed and concentrated. She had to see at least one vision of her future, now that she had changed like this.
* * *
Admiral Horologii looked past her to the captain’s seat. “The fall captain of the pirates has agreed to take command of the ship for this mission …”
“… because the empire doesn’t have any captain that isn’t a mage,” the pirate supplied helpfully with a smile from below his mask.
“Thank you, admiral.” Lia nodded at him, and then at the fall captain. “I assume we can leave immediately?”
“As soon as the admiral and the last mages have left.” The pirate captain looked at the people before him. Some stared back at him, eyes narrowed. There was probably some distrust there, while others were curious as to how this had happened.
“I have a request before I depart.” The admiral bowed his head slowly. “Please demonstrate to the crew that you are, in fact, our current queen.”
“I understand.” She lifted the lighter Orphelia had always had and lit a flame. The flame then shot upward and formed into a thin bird made of fire. A pheonix. Then she let go of the lighter and held onto it just with her magic, allowing it to float to the center of the bridge. “I am a young and inexperienced queen, but I hope you’ll support me nonetheless.” She took a deep breath, reciting the speech she knew she’d have to make. Even though she knew it had been coming, and that she could sway the crew’s hearts with it – at least in part – she was still nervous.
“I need to correct a folly that one of the earlier kings of the empire made. I need to take revenge for my friend. I need to protect the empire, and her people. I need to do this for all of you, and you are the only ones that can help me with this. I recognize that the only people that can help me are those that have been born without mana or the ability to manipulate it. I value you for what you can do despite that lack of magic. I value you because of your ingenuity, because people like you invented the many machines and appliances we all take for granted today.” She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. “That’s also why I will fight for equality for all of the empire’s people.”
She made a promise to them, even though she wasn’t sure, if she could keep it. There was still a possibility that she wouldn’t be able to return from her mission, that she would die on the broken planet after exhausting all her mana. But she now knew for certain, that she could defeat Fornax, that she could throw his door shut.
The crew was silent for a moment after she ended her speech, then someone began to clap, and more and more people joined in. They probably didn’t believe that she could keep her promise either, but at least they appreciated that she recognized their hard work.
Lia walked toward the lighter and took it out of the air, cutting her strands of magic.
“Thank you. I will be leaving now and wish you the best of luck.” The admiral nodded at her and left the bridge.
“Nice speech.” The pirate captain smiled. “Even I believe that you’ll try, but I fear that this is a suicide mission.”
“Then why are you here?” Lia walked back to the spot next to his chair.
“I guess it’s because no one else can do it.” He shrugged. “And because I feel that I owe you, or rather your friend.”
“Thank you for coming.” Lia didn’t turn back to the rest. “And yes, there is a high chance I won’t come back,” she admitted. “But I’ll do my best to make sure that all of you can return.” Only then did she turn around to face the rest of the crew.
The pirate captain didn’t answer, but after several silent moments passed, he removed his mask. A man with short brown hair and brown eyes looked up at her, his face clean shaven, but his skin showed signs of age. It was hard to estimate the age of people older than her, but she would say that he was almost fifty years old.
“Why are you removing your mask?” she asked him.
“Because you deserve to know, who I really am.” The smile on his face was mirrored in the minute wrinkles around his eyes. “I am Roger Hawking.” Then he offered his hand.
“Lia Selena Eo,” she answered and took it.
“Shouldn’t you be a Saggitarius?”
Lia shook her head and looked back into the room. “I haven’t been adopted yet, and I am proud of where I come from. If I hadn’t grown up on a moon, I’d probably have a different view of everything.”
“Well said.” The captain nodded in appreciation and turned to the crew. “You all know me already. Some fear me, some respect me. But for this mission I hope you all just follow me. We have a duty to get our queen to her destination and help her in every way we can.”
The people nodded without saying a word.
“Has the admiral left the ship already?”
“He’s currently leaving in a shuttle, captain.”
“Good. As soon as he is a safe distance away, move toward open space.” He closed his eyes. “Then jump into hyperspace and locate hyperspace beacon U1E. We’re going to kick some old king’s butt!”
Lia had no idea why that got cheers from the crew, but she smiled nonetheless. Neither helped against the dread she felt deep in her stomach.