While on one hand, Elodie did not like that she now had enough experience to compare brigs, she supposed that this one was far better than the one she'd been kept in on the Foxtrot in the terrible night that had started this whole adventure.
Perhaps the Pirate King had thought it a kindness to place the women together—Elodie, Jade, Captain Jennings, and Keira Fleetwood.
Carina, of course, had been taken aboard her brother's ship, the Timaeus. Elodie could only hope she would be alright.
Once there and the Pirate King gone, Keira turned to Elodie and ran a hand through the red hair that they shared.
"Oh, stoirin, I'd hoped you wouldn't get all caught up in this." Keira sighed. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be." Elodie clasped her fingers around her mother's hand and gently disentangled it from her hair as she met her mother's emerald gaze with a quiet confidence. "I chose this path. I joined with Captain Jennings after he tried to take me the first time, I chose to stand against him."
"You should not have had to." Keira bit her lip. "I know how we fought before we left—I might not understand, but I know what you wanted. I wanted you to have it."
"It's alright." Elodie's breath hitched. "Mother, I met her. The Lady of Desolation."
Keira's breath hitched. "What?"
"I know, about the blessing, about her prophecy, I understand it now." Elodie couldn't help but smile as she thought of Kas, of her time aboard the Albatross. "I think I understand all of it now. Who you are, why you went with my father, why you longed for the sea all that time."
Keira moved her head back, her gaze appraising. She then nodded in apparent satisfaction. "You've changed. Grown up."
Elodie laughed. "I think I have. I have so much to tell you."
Keira smiled. "Aye, I'm sure you do."
She glanced around, and the smile fell away from her face. "I don't know how we're going to get out of this one, but I swear to you, I will get you back to Port Augustine in time for your party."
Elodie shook her head. "That part doesn't matter. Not anymore."
"Oh, pish-posh, you still want to marry well, don't you?"
"That part isn't important anymore either." Elodie felt her cheeks heat up. "I fell in love."
Keira grinned, raising her eyebrows. "Oh, did you now? If you met him aboard a pirate's ship, I just might like him already."
"He's one of my most-trusted marksman." Captain Jennings finally spoke. "I'd trust him with my life."
Keira froze. She turned away from Elodie, and looked to Captain Jennings with a longing that she shared for the sea, for things that reminded her of Felix Vance. Captain Jennings, Elodie realized, looked at her with that same deep longing.
It finally clicked into place.
It didn't erase the men that they'd loved at the same time, the conflicts they'd come into after they'd been separated by the Crown of Albion.
But what they had was deeper than friendship, than sisterhood.
How long had they loved each other so?
Elodie wasn't sure.
Looking at Jade, she could see that her friend had known.
"Elizabeth, I—" Keira stopped herself, swallowing visibly. "Thank you."
Captain Jennings said nothing, her eyes wide. She was trembling, Elodie realized.
"Thank you for watching my daughter, for keeping her safe." Keira drew closer. "After all the horrible things I said, after all I've done—"
"I'd do it again." Captain Jennings took a step forward. "I'd do it all for you."
Keira took Captain Jennings's hands into hers. "So many years have passed us by. So many mistakes. I've wondered if it was too late for us."
"Never." Captain Jennings's eyes were so full, so full of hope, of vulnerability, of standing on the precipice of despair. "Not if you want it. I hoped, against my best judgement—but I thought with Felix—"
"He isn't here anymore," Keira said simply. "It's just us. Maybe it would be different. . . but we'll never know, will we?"
"No." There was a flicker of a smile on Captain Jennings's face. "I suppose not."
"This isn't the place, though, is it?" A smirk crept up Keira's face.
Captain Jennings blinked and turned pink, as if she were suddenly aware of Jade and Elodie's presence in the room again. "I suppose not."
"I swear, when we get out of here, I will sail with you again." Keira's eyes lingered on their joined hands.
Captain Jennings smiled, a girlish and vulnerable thing. "I'd like nothing more."
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The next morning, they were all brought to the deck to watch as the Golden Drake sailed to the Cloudsgate nearby. For what purpose, Elodie wasn't sure. Was it to gloat or was there something more to it?
She was unsure, but she had to figure out some way to stop this, to save Carina and the Sea of Gales.
But how?
In the water of the clear morning, Elodie could see stone lying just under the crystalline surface in a ring. Even with the ripples of the water, the foam from the hulls of the hovering ships cresting the tide, she could see the carvings of the cloud-like runes in their swirls along the worn but not-forgotten stone.
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The Golden Drake sailed along its edge, following the Timaeus to a little islet, another sandbar really, where a pedestal awaited them. The rest of the Black-Sail Fleet was to wait back at Veracruz for the return of their Pirate King.
Elodie could only watch as Carina was escorted out of the Timaeus by a small group of Royal Guards and her brother, and as Captain Hawkins joined them with his share of the crystals.
There were far more of them than Elodie had realized. While they had managed to collect four, including the one Carina had started with, the Manoans had found seven and the Black-Sail Fleet thirteen.
One-by-one, the young king entered the crystals into the panel, twisted them, cast some sort of spell. Before long, he had the final one left—the one he allowed Carina to enter, that royal crystal she still wore around her neck.
She hesitated, and one of the Royal Guards drew a blade to her back.
Her brother placed out a hand, a caution, a warning.
Carina then did it.
She finished the ritual, added the last crystal, cast the final spell.
What came next was the blinding light, like the explosion of the Foxtrot. The all-devouring power of the sun and the sky, brought to life.
With that beam of light came the roar of waterfalls as the island of Limuria was raised from the depths, surrounded by a bubble of iridescence like the bubble-blowers Elodie had seen at mundane and magi-run carnivals and fairs alike. With it, the ships were raised too, up up up to the greatest harbor the skies had ever seen.
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In some ways, Elodie supposed she should have expected the appearance of the lost city of Limuria. She had seen Manoan ruins before, the columns built into the foundation of mansions and townhouses, their cobblestones left to fill the gaps in the roads and sidewalks, the steps re-purposed for the ones up the baker's shop or so.
This was nothing compared to the splendor of Limuria.
She could see it all together, the arches, the open sky-lights, the columns, the circular buiildings and pavilions with rings of runes painted into the floors with golden paints, the dangling blue crystal lanterns from around every door way and intricate glass panels in every window. The traces of such architecture and stylings she'd seen in the pink house in New Aubrais had been a mere ghost.
However, Limuria wasn't as it was in its prime. While it had been untouched by the ocean, wrapped in spell-craft, the plants were free to proliferate as they pleased. Moss covered the doorsteps, ivy dangled from the archways, vines curled around the columns and entangled with the lanterns, as palm fronds and thickets broke out of those intricate windows.
Whether there were animals, too, Elodie was not sure. She saw no sight or sound of such things, but where wilderness thrived, often its creatures did too.
If they were there, they evaded the people.
Elodie and the rest were taken with the parties of the Timaeus and the Golden Hind, perhaps more to keep an eye on them than anything else. Perhaps Captain Hawkins thought it a mercy, or a means of persuading them to his side. Still, she was helpless, with two of his enforcers flanking her and the other crew members of the Albatross alike to prevent them from conspiracy or all other means of resistance.
Not that she entirely minded, if at least for the chance to see the city that this whole adventure had revolved around.
All the marble roads led to the platinum-topped towers of a magnificent palace, which was risen like a temple high above the land by the great stairs of a ziggurat. The palace and its shining spires branched off of the great ziggurat like the branches of an ancient tree.
It was there that they were all led. But not up the proper stairs, as Elodie expected. Rather, they were led to a set of carvings deep in the base, a hidden doorway that with the activation of King Alcor's crystal, opened itself to the exploration party.
The inside was just as magnificent as its outer shell suggested. As they rose through the hidden passageways in the base of the ziggurat, the guards peered through every room of finely-carved furniture and rich tapestries, each step quicker, unsatisfied by what they found within.
They emerged above, where the corridors opened up to column-lined ones in the sky, providing a splendid view of the city.
They continued up and towards the center of the palace, to where the hallways closed again. The searching became more frantic, until they came across a room with double-doors. One of the soldiers, the one Elodie recognized from Rainbow Harbor as General Archenar used his own crystal and a spell to break the doors open when they refused to do so for the soldiers.
She expected the soldiers to peer into the room, then hurry them all along as they had every other room they'd encountered. But not this time.
They stopped—this had been the room they were looking for, Elodie realized. The throne room.
It was large, with a dais and a throne upon it, and a large stained-glass window upon it. However, the stained-glass had been broken through by the encroachment of vines, which spiraled around and developed into thicket, filling most of the empty space.
King Alcor approached the throne. Made from platinum with a circular halo for the head-rest and painted with golden runes in lines imitating the rays of the sun, it was perhaps simpler than the illustrations of the thrones used by the kings of Albion and Cartagena and far-off Oyeshima. But there was regality to it, regality that even the encroaching wildlife respected. For though the vines had broken through the glass and made thickets in the room, the ancient throne of the House of Eldora was left untouched.
King Alcor's long bronze fingers brushed against the arm of the seat. But he did not rush to take it. His lips moved, but what he said, Elodie could not comprehend. With the reverence in his eyes, perhaps it was a prayer or devotion of some sort.
The throne room wasn't their final destination, however.
"We should check the core," Rigel suggested.
And so they all continued on, through the winding corridors to a central chamber not far from the throne room.
This central chamber had to be what the entire palace was built around. There were other doors leading into it, with several white marble pillars holding up the roof, and a ring of steps leading down into its center. There a Manoan crystal hovered between the floor and the ceiling, unlike any that Elodie had ever seen.
For one thing, it was so large, a mammoth of stone that Elodie could not believe had been harvested at some point. Manoan crystals were generally so much smaller than that. It was brighter, too, she decided, but there were shadows of dappled darkness on it, places that were shaped like the arcane runes Elodie saw in the spells that Carina cast, the ancient Manoan magic.
Beyond that was something else, though. Something that could not be seen or heard, it was not something you could touch.
But it was something you could feel.
Oh, how Elodie felt it.
There was something about it that felt as ancient as powerful as the seas, as divine as the heavens above. It was the thrill and terror of a storm, it was the witness to the beauty and savagery of battle, the glint of a beautiful blade, of the starkness of blood on white gauze.
It called to something primal, it sang to how she felt standing on the prow of the Albatross, how a sword's hilt felt in her hand, the exhilaration of wrath when she'd pinned Kas to the temple floor in the temple of the Aurora Isles. She could feel all of that and so much more, if she reached for its power, if she called out to it as it called out to her.
Elodie recoiled from the thought, and it was then that she understood.
This was the heart of Limuria. This was what protected it, kept it all alive and preserved for the return of the Eldora Dynasty, for the return of an empire slumbering through time.
Staring at the heart of Limuria, Elodie ached for her blade that the Lady of Desolation had bequeathed to her. This was the arcane power that was not meant to exist, this was what she was born to destroy.
But before she could make a plan to even try to get her sword, to try and fulfill her destiny, she was pulled away with the other captives of the Black-Sail fleet. She could only look back in futility and hope and wish with all she had that someday, she could come back to finish the job.