Megs would not be returning to the Capital Lands. She’d vowed to never set foot in the Empire again. Instead, once the Adessian crew dropped their human cargo off in Negusto, she planned to sail south, all the way to Perrintot with Akella.
It was sweet – if slightly painful – for Tasia to watch Megs and Akella together. They had that magical sparkle of new love surrounding them that everyone could feel. It was untarnished, as of yet, by the inevitable scars time couldn’t help but create, the kinds of scars that she and Joslyn now bore between them.
“What are you thinking?” Joslyn asked, bringing Tasia’s attention back.
“You mean besides the fact that you just pinned my infantry behind the mountains again?” Tasia asked.
Joslyn only smiled and lifted an eyebrow.
Tasia sighed and glanced down at the Castles and Knights board. Playing was a way to pass the time, but she didn’t enjoy the game the way she once did. Sending real men and women into battle, too many of them never coming back, had forever changed for her how it felt to move wooden pieces about a board.
A memory flashed before her eyes. Rennus tossed a burlap sack at her feet, and Tasia knew without needing to open it what would be inside. Alric’s head. Her friend. Her general. Another life lost because of her.
“You still haven’t said what you’re thinking,” Joslyn said.
“I’m thinking…” Tasia began, careful to keep her eyes on the board. “I’m thinking that I don’t want to go back to Port Lorsin.” She picked up a wooden horse that represented a cavalry unit, moving it into a position to flank Joslyn’s infantry.
Joslyn’s eyes were on her, waiting. But Tasia wasn’t ready to meet that scrutinizing, all-knowing gaze.
“All right,” Joslyn said at last. “You don’t want to go back to Port Lorsin now, or you don’t want to go back to Port Lorsin … ever?”
Joslyn had to ask out-loud, but Tasia was relatively certain she already knew the answer.
“Ever.” Tasia finally looked up. “What good will it do, my showing up after being assumed dead for five years? Mace has remarried. He has two little boys – heirs to the throne. The Empire is stable. If I show back up…”
“If you show back up,” Joslyn said, “there will be those who want you to be Empress again – a true blood heir of the House of Dorsa, as opposed to Mace, who only married into the title.”
Tasia let out a long breath. She was exhausted. So exhausted. “I don’t want to be… I don’t want to be Empress again, Joslyn.”
Empress.The word was hard to even say. She’d never told Joslyn about the vision Grastinga had given her, the vision of what would happen if Tasia united with the undatai and pursued the quest of bringing the whole world together under her rule. Wars would end, yes, but only after many wars were fought and many more lives spent. Blood was the currency of dominance.
If Tasia ever wore a crown again, the temptation would always be there. The temptation to just reach out and –
She shuddered, a sudden nausea rolling inside her stomach that had little to do with the ocean.
“Going back to Port Lorsin doesn’t mean you have to become the Empress,” said Joslyn.
“No, but if people know I’m alive…” She met Joslyn’s eyes. “We will never live in peace. And all I want – for both of us – is peace. Haven’t we earned that much?”
Joslyn sat back in her wooden chair, which creaked under her weight. Behind her, Tasia could see Akella’s small crew and their daughters gathering to celebrate the appearance of land. Their years-long nightmare, too, was coming to an end, and the appearance of Negusto on the horizon was the first real confirmation of that.
“I think it’s best if the fact that I’m alive – that we are alive – never leaves this ship,” Tasia said.
“Never? What about Adela?” Joslyn asked. “Evrart? Mace?”
“I will miss them. Especially Adela.” Even as she said it, Tasia could feel her throat tighten with emotion. Adela, who had lost her mother, then her brother, then her father, would lose her sister permanently. Linna had told them it was Adela who had insisted she venture east to find them, Adela who had made Linna swear she would return with Tasia alive and whole.
And making Linna break that promise would be devastating for everyone – for Adela, for Linna, and for Tasia herself.
“If Adela knows I’m alive,” Tasia said aloud, “she’ll never stop looking for me. And if she knows I’m alive, Darien will know. And if Darien knows, M’Tongliss will know, and if he knows – ”
Joslyn nodded. They both knew Lord M’Tongliss too well. “He will find a way to manipulate that knowledge to his advantage, because that is the type of creature he is.”
“I want to disappear,” Tasia said, urgency in her tone now. “I want to disappear – with you – and just have a… a quiet life, for once. Is that selfish of me?”
Joslyn’s smile was wry. “The heir of the House of Dorsa having a quiet life,” she said. “Are you sure you won’t be bored within a month?”
“Not if I’m with you,” Tasia said. She nodded at the board. “It’s your move.”
Joslyn shrugged and lifted a screen from the board, revealing the troops she’d held in reserve the whole time. The cavalry Tasia had used in an attempt to flank her position was completely useless.
“Ugh,” Tasia said. “How is it you beat me every time?”
Joslyn smiled. “Because I know you.”
Tasia’s heart fluttered the way it used to, years and years ago when Joslyn used to say something like that. A few simple words that indicated so much.
“Maybe… maybe after a long time,” Tasia said thoughtfully, “I could visit Adela. Or find a way to let her know I’m all right.” She could hear her own doubt as she spoke, and it pained her. If she carried through with the plan that was beginning to take shape in her mind, she knew she would never see her sister again. Adela would live and die believing herself an orphan, the last member of her family killed by an evil force in a faraway kingdom.
One more loss atop all the other losses.
Joslyn kept her eyes on the board when she said, “Linna is never going to forgive us.”
Us,Tasia thought. She said us. That meant Joslyn was already preparing to follow Tasia’s lead without argument. She would go where Tasia went. She always had. She always would.
Because Tasia was Joslyn’s world, just as Joslyn was hers.