The sound of skin slapping skin was heard in the belly of the Jericho, followed a beat later by Aria’s triumphant cackle as she threw her hands in the air and leaned back like a champion celebrating her hundredth flawless victory. “That’s ten in a row!” she declared, all the pride of a world-class general wrapped in the body of a gleeful gremlin. “Face it, old man, you’re cursed at this game!”

  Kaiser, who sat next to her with one eye twitching and his fingers still frozen mid-‘rock,’ was visibly suppressing the urge to break the walls of the dragon. His jaw was clenched, but not from anger, but a deeply buried frustration that he couldn’t quite put into words, a part of him that simply refused to accept losing at something so stupidly simple.

  “No tactics, no power and no logic,” he muttered under his breath as Aria prepared for the next round, still bouncing in her seat. “This game is just chance.”

  She leaned forward, fingers already raised in preparation. “It’s not chance. It’s instinct. You gotta feel it. Let your soul speak through your hands.” Her expression turned comically serious, like a sage teaching ancient martial arts. “Now. Rock, paper, scissor—shoot!”

  Another round followed soon after.

  “SCISSORS BEATS PAPER!” she roared with a victorious grin so wide it nearly split her face in half. “Eleven for me, zero for the grumpy old man!”

  Across from them, Elsie had gone uncharacteristically quiet. She had pulled one leg up into her seat and was hugging it, her chin resting gently on her knee. Her eyes weren’t on the game anymore. They were on the two of them—watching the strange, almost familial rhythm they had fallen into. The way Aria leaned into the chaos with such warmth. The way Kaiser, as blunt and composed as he usually was, kept letting his edges soften when she was near. A part of her, the one not buried under jokes and smiles, couldn’t help but wonder what exactly this group was turning her into.

  And then, against all odds, Kaiser won.

  It wasn’t a glorious victory. It wasn’t even a confident one. His hand simply came down in paper, and hers in rock, and for a second, they both just stared at their fingers like neither of them understood what had just happened. Then Kaiser let out a sharp, satisfied noise that was somewhere between a grunt and a short-lived growl of triumph. “Finally!” he said, but a bit louder than he intended.

  The sound cut through the room like a snapped rope, jolting both Mia and Ivan awake. Mia blinked rapidly, eyes adjusting to the glow of the metal around them, while Ivan groaned and rubbed at his face with the back of his hand.

  “Some of us need sleep, you know,” Ivan grumbled without opening his eyes fully. “Last night was hell, and today wasn’t much better.”

  Mia huffed, softer but equally annoyed. “Seriously. One peaceful moment is all I ask for.”

  Kaiser didn’t even blink. He folded his arms like a disappointed teacher and said, “If you two were stronger, you wouldn’t need rest after such a mild training session.”

  Ivan flared up instantly, but Mia was faster. She yanked his sleeve before he could start barking again and whispered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, “Don’t feed the fire.”

  Aria was still giggling beside Kaiser, her head nearly resting on his arm as she tried to stifle the sound with both hands. “He screamed like it was a victory in battle,” she whispered. “That was incredible.”

  Elsie watched the banter with a slow, quiet smile curling at the edge of her mouth. It wasn’t like her usual grin, wide and devilish and unpredictable. This one was smaller, warmer, like she was trying to hold something back. She turned away from them after a moment and looked out of the reinforced glass window that lined the side of the room, and that made her eyes widen slightly.

  The sun was low in the sky, turning the desert gold. Shadows stretched across the dunes, and far off, sharp rock formations jutted upward, pale and jagged like old bones.

  Elsie nearly rose from her seat in awe, but the moment her body shifted, the powerful momentum of the Jericho tugged at her to the right, pressing her halfway back into the seat. She grunted, gave up, and instead pointed wildly at the horizon. “WE’RE HERE!” she shouted. “That’s the Valley of Mordis!”

  The name got everyone’s attention. Even Mia sat up straighter.

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  “It’s the last stretch between Orlogolog and the capital,” Elsie continued, eyes shining. “Once you’re through Mordis, the Walls of Liberation are only a few hours away! Probably even less if you're riding something like this beauty.”

  The others all leaned slightly toward their own windows now, and sure enough, the jagged sand ridges grew sharper with each passing second. They weren’t like regular dunes—these looked more like half-buried monuments, petrified bones of something older than memory itself.

  Mia murmured, “How did we get here so fast…”

  Aria turned toward Kaiser, excitement bubbling in her voice. “Do you think we’ll see the capital by nightfall?”

  Regulus’s voice came over the comms with that familiar smirk tucked behind it, like he knew exactly what he was about to unleash. “As much as I’d love to be optimistic and say yes,” he began, stretching the syllables like a storyteller stalling for dramatic effect, “I doubt we’ll reach the capital by nightfall.”

  A few groans echoed from around the room, until he casually added. “But… we will reach someone special.”

  That changed everything.

  Elsie let out a squeal so sharp it nearly tore through the metal of the Jericho, but she caught herself, visibly clamping her hands over her mouth and gripping the seat with a giddy tremble running through her shoulders. Mia’s head snapped up, already alert and focused, her previous drowsiness gone like it had never existed. Ivan was on the edge of his seat, practically vibrating with excitement, and even Aria, who had been sneakily trying to tug on Kaiser’s sleeve just a moment before, abandoned the effort to sit up straighter, her entire posture shifting like she was preparing to meet royalty, which, in truth, she was.

  There was no need to say her name aloud. It hung there, unspoken but known, and Only Kaiser didn’t share their enthusiasm. His brow furrowed, and he leaned forward slightly, a crease forming between his eyes as he glanced around the suddenly jubilant chamber. “What could someone like her possibly want with us?” he asked, his voice calm but flat, like a pebble tossed into a boiling sea.

  Aria recoiled with all the indignation her small frame could muster. “Don’t ask that!” she snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at him like he had just insulted the very concept of hope. “Be grateful! She wants to see us, and that’s all that matters!”

  Elsie threw her voice in too, practically bouncing in her seat again. “When someone that important calls for Kaiser, Kaiser shouldn’t ask why—Kaiser should only ask when! Or how fast Kaiser can get there! Or how much cake Kaiser should bring!”

  Kaiser didn’t flinch. His voice remained firm, steady. “I’ll still ask. What does she want from us, Regulus?”

  Elsie opened her mouth again, possibly to accuse him of being a heartless golem with no sense of grandeur, but Regulus cut her off, laughing warmly, that familiar echo of armor shifting in the background. “Easy now,” he said, clearly enjoying the chaos. “He’s not wrong. You all deserve to know at least the basics, though Lady Celestine had asked me to keep the finer details sealed until she can speak to you herself.”

  The room leaned forward as one, hearing every word the man spoke.

  “She wants to work with you.”

  And when those words left Reguluses mouth, the reaction was explosive.

  Ivan gasped so hard it sounded like he had been punched in the stomach. Aria let out a noise between a shriek and a gasp and began clapping without realizing it. Mia was frozen, processing the weight of those words, her lips slightly parted in quiet disbelief. Even Elsie had both hands on her face, muffling a string of delighted curses in a dozen different dialects.

  Kaiser, however, sat still.

  There was a flicker behind his eyes, a single thought that flared like a match and then burned slow and quiet. Connections. Resources. A noble house with deep ties to the very spine of this world. Celestine’s reach could open doors he hadn’t even known existed yet. Money. Influence. A foot inside the power structure of this world’s hierarchy. And most of all—information.

  If anyone knew where to find Sabel Stoorm, it would be someone like her. A wicked smile slid across his lips, slow and sharp, the kind that could split stone if it had intent behind it.

  The others caught it, mistook it, and immediately assumed the best.

  “You finally get it!” Aria beamed, pointing at him again, this time in celebration.

  “See?” Ivan leaned back and nudged Mia, who didn’t return the gesture but was clearly pleased. “Told you he wasn’t all brooding.”

  Elsie grinned ear to ear, resting her chin on her hand. “Took him long enough.”

  Kaiser didn’t respond. He just smiled, the same way wolves probably smiled when they found the scent of blood on the wind.

  Regulus then added, “She’s not just royalty. Not just a name in a song or a title passed down like a worn-down crown. Lady Celestine is the light the Southern Liberatorium rallies around. A tactician, a symbol and a hell of a Liberator.”

  Mia nodded slowly, more to herself than anyone else. “She’s the one who ordered the evacuation during the Quay Collapse. They say she saved over ten thousand lives with only six words and a raised hand.”

  “And she fought alongside the Seventh Hope during the Syndicate War,” Elsie whispered, stars already dancing behind her eyes.

  Aria leaned forward in her seat, fingers tightening around the edges of it. “And she’s going to meet us? All of us?”

  “She asked for it,” Regulus confirmed. “By name.”

  The Jericho rumbled beneath them, the engines humming like a heartbeat beneath steel skin. The sands of Mordis Valley stretched endlessly outside the viewports, but now, they no longer looked like dunes. They looked like the steps to a throne.

  Kaiser remained quiet, eyes half-lidded in thought. He didn’t care for royalty. He didn’t believe in saints. But if this woman had truly stood next to the ones the world called divine…

  Even monsters stopped to listen when legends called their name.

  And this “Lady” Celestine had just spoken his.

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