And that was all that either needed to say. She turned on her heels and walked towards the waiting boat. Sailors threw their cigarettes into the sea and took up their oars. The old man straightened as she approached.

She had looked up at him before her journey. Now she towered over his gnarled and bent form.

“Master Henrigh,” she said, affecting a false smile. “How good it is to see you again.”

“My Lady,” he rasped and bent at the middle, his cane supporting him. “You’ve grown into such a beautiful image of your mother.”

He lisped horribly and lied shamelessly. Her mother was raven-haired, short and stocky, with a pinched face that seemed to sneer at every aspect of the world. Whereas Catharina herself was ashen-haired, tall and lean. Yriea had remarked on many occasions that she’d have a pretty smile if she ever bothered to actually show it.

“That is kind of you to say,” she lied. “I admit I was expecting one of my brothers to greet me.”

“Matters of state keep them all occupied.”

Whoring, drinking, and petty squabbles with the lower lords of Aztroa Magnor, more likely. If one had deigned to come, the others would’ve devoured his stake on the land.

She refused the helping hand the steward offered and climbed down into the boat. The sailors inclined their heads and muttered, “My lady”.

Henrigh joined her.

“The sooner I see the back of this filthy land, the happier I'll be,” he ventured as he lowered himself onto the bench opposite her. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to live among animals for so long.”

Catharina looked beyond the old man, above his shoulder, and met Yriea’s gaze.

Tears shone in the midday sun and the aelir’rei made no real effort to hide them.

----------------------------------------

“Get the louts back on here,” the captain bellowed as both Catharina and Henrigh climbed on board. “If they ain’t back by anchor up, they can go native.”

Captain Pascal crossed the deck, his wooden leg going thunk with every step. Seasons and the sea had been kind to him as he was still as spry and imposing as Catharina remembered. He remained broad of shoulder and thick of arm, wearing the blue and gold uniform of the Valonia Holding. Only streaks of grey in his black mane and beard seemed to have marked the passage of time.

Once next to her, he removed his plumed captain’s hat and bowed, favouring his bad leg.

“Welcome back aboard, Lady Catharina of Aztroa Magnor. It is an honour.”

“The honour is mine, captain.”

“How long until we can leave?” Henrigh asked as he hobbled across the deck. No sea legs on him, even after a trip as long as this.

“We’ve got everything we need, master steward. Men aren’t accustomed to being denied the shore after so long on the water, but we serve as instructed.”

“Good. The sooner we leave this vile shore, the better.”

Catharina watched him hobble away, no doubt to hide from the sun. He even wore his steward clothes fitted for the cruel weather of the mountains. Sheer haughty spite probably kept the man upright.

“Coot,” Captain Pascal said under his breath. He turned to her and smiled more genuinely now that they were alone. Blue eyes twinkled as he regarded her fully. “It does a soul good to see you safe and hale. I almost didn’t trust your first letters.”

“I knew you for wise, captain. Else I wouldn’t have written. You did not write that you’d captain the ship retrieving me.”

“I had no chance to. It took much effort to arrange it and by the time it was a certain thing, the letter never would have reached you.”

“I understand. I assume my family’s doing?”

“Wisdom is in rare supplies nowadays.” He inclined his head towards the escort ships further out. “Your steward brought more than twenty men-at-arms with him, as if he expected to have and fight his way to you. Maybe the cruel aelir would refuse giving you up.”

That got a wintry smile out of Catharina.

“No doubt. Stubborn as I’ve known him. Would’ve expected a trip across the Divide to help with his disposition.”

“He never deigned to leave his cabin. I believe my men and I offend his particular sensibilities.”

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He led the way to a door just on the side of the captain’s quarters. The cabin was about an arm’s span shorter and narrower than her room beneath the Olden tree, but had all the comfort she’d need. A narrow cot. A reading table. And a large trunk dominating one wall.

“Clothes, as you required,” the Captain explained as she set down her case by the bed. “Fit should be good, I’d say. Had the seamstress follow your instruction to the letter.”

As much as she’d grown accustomed to the simple dress of the aelir, it would not do for a trip like this. She had known her time was drawing to an end a long time before the request to return had arrived, so she’d made plans and written letters.

“The rest?” she asked without looking at the Captain darkening her door.

“As requested.”

She was left alone, the door closing with a soft click. In the trunk she found exactly what she had asked for. Trousers and boots, a vest for the warm weather of this side of the world, thicker blouses for when she’d reach Amaranth. And the seamstress had been blessed with enough foresight to pack for her everything else that would be essential.

She opened her case, took out her tools and laid them on the cot. In their place, with infinite care, she stowed the dress and shut it away.

When she walked out of the cabin, she felt renewed in trousers, vest, and thick-soled boots. Sailors were in a frenzy of activity on deck, rolling down barrels, tightening rigging and hoisting up the anchor. Captain Pascal ran a tight ship and it showed in this crazed display of order. Men, fresh from drinking on the shore, were already getting the sails up, working as if they had just gotten out of bed.

They would be underway before the sun even kissed the edge of the horizon.

She went to the railing and dared one more look back to Diolo. There was Yriea, still on the pier, Briar and Onyx, still as statues, guarding her. They would remain until Yriea could no longer see the ship probably, stubborn as she was. It twisted the knot of loss inside her.

“A show for the other degenerates of this land,” the hoarse voice of Henrigh declared as he joined her. “Does the aelir wench believe she impresses with this display?”

“Did you enjoy that?” Catharina asked without prying her eyes away from Yriea’s still form. The chaos around her blurred to a background hum as she uncoiled and extended her power. It wrapped around the tips of her fingers and reached out to the steward.

“Pardon, Lady?” He feigned well his ignorance. Her power caressed him and he flinched back, ever so slightly, like dodging a gnat. In a heartbeat more he was well in her hands.

“Was it Mother’s idea? Or yours?” she asked, probing him further.

Yes, that triggered something. A lie tried to push to the fore of his thoughts but she smothered it back with no effort at all. His tongue wouldn’t help him this time and she’d waited for this moment for far too long.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Deeper she went into the electric maelstrom of his mind. What else was there? Revulsion. He abhorred her, like a bad smell that he was forced to endure. Nen stank to him, and so did the Lady. She toyed with this sensation, making his face scrounge up.

“You had me tested. Was it my loyalty you were worried about? Or my skill?”

It was so easy to read him. The ways in which he reacted spoke more of him than anything his tongue could conjure up, and he was so terrible at hiding what he truly was. Probing a child of the aelir would pose more difficulty than him.

She’d been in awe of him, once, of this decrepit bastard plaguing her household, whispering secrets that were not his to whisper. He always knew. He and her mother constantly schemed and plotted and planned. She’d found him infuriating and intimidating all at once.

But she looked on him now with different eyes and was less than impressed. A surge of power smothered his meagre defiance and any attempt at lying. It was an easy thing to do and Catharina felt no compunction to be gentle. What she wouldn’t give to really hear his thoughts, follow along with his panic, and help it grow.

For now, getting the truth would suffice. She pressed harder and his tongue loosened.

“You were here for ten whole years. We had to be certain you hadn’t started running with the beasts. The family should always come first.”

“And are you satisfied, master steward? Is my presence here confirmation enough for you?”

The aelir’matar had once remarked that her power was too coarse for what she aimed to learn, too human and blunt. Oh, she had potential beyond what most could claim in the Dominion, but to make a scalpel out of it rather than a club would require a very particular, willing and dedicated whetting stone.

Yriea had cried tears of blood right alongside her as they sharped against each other. She had been stalwart, unwavering, a true scion of her name, never once cursing the rough suffering Catharina had inflicted with her clumsy use of the power.

“Do you know that she will be punished?” she asked before Henrigh could muster his battered will. She would’ve been angry if not for the roiling undercurrent of panic seeping into his thoughts. And fear. Yes, that would do nicely. “Your request to the Protector was granted. She’s failed her task of seducing me to stay. She knows this. The aelir do not take kindly to failure, nor to insult.”

A twitch of the finger and Henrigh was on his knees, bloody foam bubbling from his lips. She burst blood vessels in his throat and lungs. Not enough to kill him, but enough to send him into spasms. He tried to speak but she locked his jaw in place. Now it was her turn to speak, and his to listen.

“She will be stripped of her aelir’rei status and turned over to some vassal as a penitent servant, the lowest caste. Even I would have had power over her. Maybe even an elend. She will need to work and earn her way back into her own home, all for the sake of your test.”

Henrigh clawed at his rebellious throat. She allowed him the pathetic panic only for a moment before she really pushed. Every muscle in him locked up. She held his heart in her fist and stilled its frantic beating for long enough to send her message.

Sailors stopped and watched the lesson she was administering.

“Call her beast again, master steward, and you may not like my disposition. I am not my mother and you are very far from Aztroa Magnor.”

She opened her fist and withdrew her long-sharpened scalpel, leaving him a twitching, vomiting mess on the deck.