Her vision fluttered. The darkness around the blue sky slowly peeled apart as she felt the hardwood against the back of her head.

“You okay?” she heard. The same voice as before, except now she could remember who it was. She turned and found that kind face and striking hair, the marking soft against her skin. “It’s only been a few minutes.”

Evalyn sat cross-legged, her rifle barrel against her shoulder and buttstock propped against the ground. By now, Iris knew her guardian’s weapon intimately. It had not been fired; its chamber remained dormant.

The matter had been concluded by her own hands, or rather whatever was controlling them.

“I went crazy again.”

“Yeah, you did,” Evalyn admitted, glancing around at the bits and pieces of the decimated shed. “Destroyed Wesper’s magic along with the building it was tethered to. But that didn’t kill him.”

It didn’t. Wesper was not that easy to kill, and in a way, Iris was relieved.

“Why did you try to stop me?” Evalyn asked. She did not turn to face Iris. “Why did you tell me to wait?”

“There’s people in his Mind Palace,” Iris croaked. “I don’t know what’ll happen if I kill him.”

Evalyn’s eyes narrowed, and she gripped her gun’s barrel tighter. Iris watched her, a worrying realisation dawning on her.

“Why did you shoot.”

“….”

“Evalyn, why did you shoot?”

“Because Wesper is dangerous. You can’t beat him without killing him; that sort of stuff only happens in fiction.”

“But those people in there—”

“Don’t exist, Iris. No names, no date of birth, no family or lives outside his Mind Palace. Wesper is god to them. If he treats them as nothing but domesticated animals, then they can't be more than that."

“But you can’t say something like that!”

“I’ve killed real people for what I care about, Iris.”

Evalyn finally looked at her.

“I’ve killed people with friends, family, memories and ambitions for what I love. I’ve killed hopes and dreams, people who may have changed the world, all for my own gain.”

The kind face was not so gentle anymore. Iris was well aware of her guardian’s life, even sharing it in part herself. But when said so plainly, like the light in her hallway that revealed ugly truths, her words did not sugarcoat anything.

“If we somehow saved those people in there? What do you think would happen to them? Geverde and Sidos are not large countries, and there’s no telling how many are in there.”

She racked the bolt of her rifle backwards and removed each bullet one by one. “Both countries combined can take no more than half a million refugees a year. Yet for all we know, we could give them double that in an instant.”

She pocketed the bullets in her trench coat and lay her rifle on the floor.

“If he were to have that many, then those who can’t be cared for would be expelled. They’d end up in poverty, probably on the slave trade in the end. What can you say we’ve done then?”

Iris could say nothing. Evalyn could see it. After a battle usually followed a moment of vulnerability between the two, but a cold tension froze any sign of affection from either. Evalyn looked like she wanted to say something, materialise the festering thoughts into concrete words. But what could be said could never be unsaid.

Their eyes met, and Evalyn gave a wry smile that lasted no more than a second. “If the chance ever arises, we can only hope the number is manageable.”

Evalyn would forever confuse her. The self-proclaimed hypocrite, whose capacity for cruelty was unimaginably vast, was still somehow human. The hope that she could save even a fraction of the life she took remained somewhere in her autumnal eyes. Killing for herself and for her own life, never looking for redemption yet wishing she could attain it. No, that wasn’t right. A woman like Evalyn wouldn’t believe in redemption.

But if Iris found herself with her finger on the trigger, could she keep to her wish? Or would she follow her erasing of the F.S.A. with the destruction of their purpose?

“Where’s Alis,” Iris blurted, the thought returning to her clouded consciousness as fast as her anxiety.

“Check your ring.”

Iris raised her hand to her face, and the needle pointed directly left. She turned and found him, bloodstains down the side of his head but otherwise unharmed.

“Must’ve been struck hard, so he’ll have to be checked for a concussion.”

Iris sat up and licked her thumb. She held his head in one hand, and with the other, she wiped away the dried blood. She kept on going, clearing his skin of blood as though she was healing some wound. She could hear breathing, but she wanted to hear him talking like he had before. She wanted to hear him talk again.

“Iris.” She felt Evalyn’s hand caress her head. “I’ve checked him. He’ll be alright.”

“He’s just trying to help people…why does he have to get hurt.”

“He has to get hurt because he’s saving people. He’ll get himself hurt, and he’ll get others hurt. That’s the cost of trying to do what he’s doing.”

Evalyn pulled Iris into her chest and hugged her gently. “It’s not that I don’t like him. I just don’t want you to become his collateral damage.”

“I want to help him.”

Evalyn chuckled and squeezed her shoulder.

“Help him when you’re strong enough to guarantee your safety. Then I’ll allow it.”

Iris closed her eyes, grateful she could feel her mother’s warmth for the moment.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“And put the ring somewhere else. Some other finger.”

“Why?”

“That one’s reserved for marriage.”

“Speaking of marriage, aren’t you married sir?”

“We weren’t even talking, Officer, who the hell starts a conversation like that?”

“A maintenance crew buddy and I were talking about marriage certification. I'm thinking of popping the question soon.”

“Oh, congrats,” Elliot said, patting the young pilot on the shoulder from the back seat. By now, a routine exercise for Elliot and one of his students, Flying Officer James Crowley, took place above the ocean. Roughly thirty klicks from Excala harbour lay the edge of Geverde’s territorial waters. Although ordinarily a Navy pilot’s domain, Special Operations had clearance to train for and operate in a variety of situations.

The young pilot chuckled through the radio set in his helmet; a clear violation of communications etiquette. Yet Elliot’s students all shared such a lax respect for the rules, at least in his presence. His own disobedience had no small part to play in it.

He would teach a generation, much to Elvera’s despair.

“So I was wondering, sir, how did the process go for you?”

“Uh…how do I explain?” Elliot pondered. “You know how marital contracts used to be a little more serious?”

“Soul binding contracts, yeah…you didn’t use one of those on your wife, did you?”

“…it’s really not as bad as it sounds—”

“Sir!”

“Listen! My god, you kids!” Elliot scolded, hitting the pilot across the helmet. “Desperate times called for desperate measures. There wasn’t any other way to guarantee her happiness.”

“Was this during the war, sir?”

“Yep.”

“Ah. I’ll take your word for it then,” he said, going silent. "Even if she doesn't seem like the type of woman who needs that sort of help."

"Call it meddling on my part then," Elliot huffed. The pilot laughed.

Elliot side-eyed him. He could hear the uneasiness over the radio in his helmet.

“Make sure your ass doesn’t have to do the same. Be a good boy, and go to the town hall and pick up a certificate, and don’t spread any rumours.”

“Aw, come on sir.”

“I will pull the eject lever.”

“Shit….”

“…that was pretty serious. I was joking—”

“No, look at that.”

Elliot craned his neck and tried to peer over the aircraft’s wings.

“Angle it a little; I can’t see over the wings.”

His student did as he asked.

“…you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Those aren’t ours. What do we do, sir?”

“Turn it around. They’ll see the red wing stripes and know it’s a training aircraft. Just stay calm and turn it around.”

Elliot watched keenly as his student eased on the yoke and reversed their heading.

“Call it in.”

Crowley pressed a button on his radio panel, switching on his communication with the Steel Whale.

“This is Officer in Training James Crowley with Senior Captain Elliot Maxwell. Does Steel Whale ATC, copy? Several unknown Navy class vessels spotted along Geverde territorial waters. I repeat, several unknown Navy class vessels spotted along Geverde territorial waters.”

Iris found herself again eavesdropping from the living room. Laid out in front of her was an unfinished worksheet from a literature textbook, yet her pen had not moved for a while.

“They’ve refused the existence of an entire fleet, only saying it was a battleship and two frigates returning from a routine exercise,” Elvera explained from Evalyn’s office desk, sifting through a stack of documents. As they spoke, the Magicopy continued to vomit one after another.

“If they’re not denying a battleship, then they want to show off,” Evalyn concluded, sitting beside Elvera. “What’re they saying about the Wesper incident? He said it was for a job; it could’ve been the ambassador.”

“Can’t have been. The bureaucrats we’re working against are just as flustered as ours. Would’ve been someone else in Vesmos, probably higher up the military chain of command.”

“Either way,” Evalyn sighed, standing up and stretching, “we now have both sides blaming each other and fucking warships on the border.”

“It’s a game of attrition. Whoever breaks under pressure first loses.”

The two women went silent, fermenting in their thoughts.

“Marie, I’m going to use the telephone if that’s all right. I want to check in with Elly.”

“Sure,” Elvera said, standing and walking to the door. “I need a break anyway.”

She exited the office, closing it behind her with a quick smile at Evalyn. She exhaled, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. Her eyes met Iris, and she grinned wryly. “You sure you don’t need rest? Surely Evalyn will let you off the hook today.’

“I’m just bored, and designing armour isn’t going anywhere.”

Elvera walked over and stood behind Iris’s chair, resting her arms on it. “Still having trouble?”

“Yeah.”

Elvera rustled Iris’s hair and smiled. “You’re always so serious.”

She floated to the kitchen, opened the FrostBox, and began to search its shelves. “I know how important it is to plan ahead better than anyone,” she said, dragging a half-unwrapped bar of chocolate out of the fridge. She snapped a block of four from it. “But there’s a difference between planning and overthinking.”

She tried to snap the tight block of four but struggled, even when bringing her full strength to bear.

“Iris!” she chirped, throwing the chocolate at her. Iris could not see it until it was too late for her hands to make the distance. Her hair dissipated, and a purple wire caught it instead. The wire snapped the chocolate and tossed one half back the way it came.

“What were you thinking just then?” she asked, throwing her half into her mouth.

“Nothing.”

“What about when you were fighting those Vesmos thugs?”

“That I needed to protect Alis.”

“And what about yesterday?”

“That I…that wasn’t me.”

“Well, what were they thinking?”

“I don’t know. They were angry and wanted everything to die.”

Elvera nodded, circling back around to the dining table. She took a seat next to Iris and faced her. No matter how casual her manner of speaking or how pastel her skirt and t-shirt were, a glint of authority never seemed to leave her face.

“There’s a level of trust you need to put into anything to make it work, you know?” she said, brushing her black hair over her shoulder.

“Elliot said the same thing. Said I need to trust that I can control it.”

“Easy for him to say,” Elvera chuckled. “Best damn pilot south of the Chain Ridge putting his trust in that fighter with that crew? No offense to him, but he’s quite lucky in that aspect.”

“He said that too.”

Elvera crossed her arms and pondered. “Thing is, Iris, I’ve worked with assholes before. The gung-ho kind and the limp di—…weak-willed kind. Whether it be with a raised voice or forced kindness, either way, it’s always been quickest to put my own foot forward.”

Knowing her philosophy made Elvera’s demeanour all the more understandable. Iris had never seen Elvera in her element, but she was more than convinced Elvera would trounce at commanding an operation.

But asserting herself against another human was easier to picture than asserting herself against…that. Whatever that was.

Stepping forward. Was it really that easy?

The door to Evalyn’s apartment swung open, and she waddled out, scratching the back of her neck and grumbling.

“What did he say?” Elvera asked.

“There’s rumours that the Navy is being put on high alert. Standoffs on the high seas, apparently.”

“Where’d he hear that from?”

“Navy pilot he met on an exchange. They’re sending scouts in the air every hour now.” She walked to the kitchen and filled a glass of water. “Stuff like this is how wars start, Iris. We have to start thinking what’s going to happen to us if the worst occurs.”

She swigged the water and placed the glass down, her hand ruminating on the action. “We need to figure out how to get you out of fighting.”

An uncomfortable weight draped over the room, gently squeezing Iris’s throat.

“Why would Vesmos be doing all of that?” Iris asked.

“To raise tensions, intimidate us into thinking twice,” Elvera answered. “Common tactic in strong-arm negotiations.”

The pieces didn’t match no matter how Iris turned them.

“Why is Wesper trying to catch Alis now?”

“What do you mean?” Evalyn asked.

“I thought they sent ambassadors and ships because they couldn’t get him back quietly. Why is Wesper still trying?”

Evalyn’s face perked up at Iris’s revelation. “If they wanted to overwhelm us through negotiation, why would they muddy the waters with a kidnapping in broad daylight?” she mumbled.

“It’s got to be war,” Elvera butted in. “If Wesper's working for Vesmos, their main tactic to retrieve Alis is still Wesper. They know they can’t force us to negotiate with guns we already match, so they haven’t been trying. Whoever employed Wesper wants Alis back, but whoever sent the ships wants to use it to provoke war. A divide in the Army and Navy, perhaps?”

“Either way,” Evalyn said, slumping into a chair across from Iris, “it could mean that Wesper's failing will deter his employer from trying to get him back. If the Experimental Weapons whatever gives up, then the Navy has no excuse to stay.”

She leaned forward, eyeing Iris with an intensely bitter sincerity. “It could mean that killing Wesper could mean stopping the escalation.”