The ocean waters spread out before us. Nothing but crystal clear water, the sun sparkling off the surface like sprits of stars falling from the night. The wind shows its face periodically and then, we're not only greeted by the sun's warmth overhead but the mist spraying of those sparkling waters below, the surface breaking for our ship. I forgot how much I enjoyed being in the middle of nowhere with only the dark waters surrounding us. Then again, I hate not having access to my power.

Recent days have been uneventful. We've only passed merchant ships and nothing that involves the king and his preparations for war. It seems as though he's behind us now; there's not much of a chance he made it to Saebia before us. I hate to think about what we might encounter if he did make it there. Flaming streets, fleeing innocents, a dead king with his head spiked on the end of a staff.

The worst of the worst comes into my mind periodically. What if the king himself is there, sitting on the throne of Saebia, waiting for us? We can't stand up to him, not if he brought his soldiers over on a battleship that never planned to return home in the first place. He'll make us bleed; he'll make us wish we never stood in front of him and blocked his efforts at ruining the kingdom we call home.

Fears carry me into every night, wake me from every slumber, and plague me during the warm hours of the day. We have one shot at this, and one shot only. Saebia is our last shot and if the king is still considering a fight after not handing in his letter of surrender...we stand a fighting chance. Maybe not the strongest of forces, but we'll be taller than we were before.

We'll need that against immortal strengths. An army of them.

Sitting on a wooden crate on the deck of a ship, twisting my wedding band on my finger, I attempt to pile all my thoughts together into one. The gold against my skin is warmed by the afternoon sunlight and I trace my fingernail over Renit's initials. Hardly an indention, but there all the same.

No longer are we simply engaged. Barely an hour ago, surrounded by only the ship's captain and Tesha and Citlali as our witnesses, Renit and I are now husband and wife. We went into it knowing we had a meeting to hold right after so we made it quick and barely had the chance to consummate before Alaric knocked on the door to our cabin and demanded us to come to the deck.

Bren won't meet my eye. Either he's upset at me for marrying Renit, or upset that he missed the opportunity to be a witness. I asked him—he said no. He still doesn't agree with Renit being with me; he can't stand the thought we're on the same ship together. I continue to twist the band around my finger and hope it'll grab his attention somehow, but he's focused on sharpening his blade.

However long he takes to stop being pissed at me...it's a time span I'll have to endure. Sitting around us, not only Renit at my side, is the rest of our forces. The nameless faces, my friends, everyone. The meetings in the kitchens are hardly this centered, but we've gathered on the deck of the ship in a circle.

Everyone waits for who might speak first, whether Alaric or myself. We've faced a silent tug in shifting of power but I am willing to hand over Alaric this position for the time being. I don't want the rebels to look to me; I don't want them asking what I might do—this is Alaric's run to Saebia. After all the pissy fits of disagreement, he's come to terms with what we must do.

We find ourselves in a staring contest and I arch a brow. My silent demand for him to speak doesn't last long. He clicks his tongue, slapping his hands against his knees, and pushes himself off a wooden crate to stand. At least he's not fickle about it. "Listen up," he demands in his harshest tone. Every rebel standing around straightens, even myself, and I try to stop myself from being so stiff when he speaks. I still see him as my leader. "We know what our next step is, obviously. We're in the middle of the ocean, heading for a kingdom that may not wish to see us." He speaks with a smirk, splaying his arms towards the vast waters around us and earns himself a few chuckles throughout the group.

Silas sits a few people down, next to Dalis, and cracks a smile in response to Alaric's words. Half his attention goes into listening to the current conversation and the rest, it focuses on tying different variations of knots to keep his mind sane. Silas constantly needs a distraction to avoid thinking about Avalie, and if she's still alive and in Esaria, how far we're sailing away from her at the moment.

We're days away.

"It's unclear what we'll face in Saebia. It's a falling kingdom, whether the man on the throne has surrendered or not," Alaric goes on. "We have to prepare for the worst; we must consider our scouts and our spies; we must watch our backs at all times. Saebia is a welcoming kingdom—" he shakes his head "—but not to their enemies."

The crate moans underneath Renit when he leans back against the deck wall of the ship and crosses his arms over his chest. His hair catches in the breeze over the side of the ship and sent in a disarray, the dark strands flowing about around the hard lines of his face. My husband. The man sitting at my side is my husband. He wears the golden band around his finger with pride. "We need to go into this with more than just our eyes," Renit says. "We need to prepare something that'll sway the king in our direction and keep him from killing us on the spot."

Alaric raises a finger. "Number one: avoid titanium. If we have access to our powers, Saebia won't stand a chance at stopping us."

"That's not our—"

"Number two..." Alaric interrupts, and Renit turns a deadpan stare in my direction, thoroughly annoyed. His eyes bug out of his head and he puffs out his cheeks in a deep breath. I bite back my smile and swallow my words to avoid either mocking their dislike towards each other or the way Renit can't stand to be interrupted. "Number two, we can't meet with the king without information, a presentation, and thorough pleading."

"We need to offer something in return." Renit's words are quick to avoid interruption again. He might toss Alaric overboard if the silver-haired man pacing around the circle speaks over him without a care. "The king of Saebia will not hand over forces willingly if his kingdom, a dying kingdom, is not offered something."

Alaric stuffs his hands into his pockets and rolls his neck as he considers. But it's me who speaks next. "We can't offer him anything right now," I divulge. "What we can offer is something for the future. It's true his kingdom is dying after the war; his people may rebel after the loss and attempt to take him off the throne and fight to save what's left of their kingdom. We can offer him hope."

Waving his hand at me to continue, Alaric puts one boot in front of the other.

"We're doing this to remove the king from the throne, correct?" I raise my brows in question and receive nods and mutters throughout the group. "We can offer him that. We can offer him an alliance after that if he helps aid the rebellion. We offer him trade, safe passage, soldiers for future wars—everything. We offer him the strength of an alliance with Esaria, one of the strongest kingdoms on this side of the world."

"And if we lose?" Alaric asks.

The surrounding group silences themselves and all attention goes to me. They're waiting for my answer.

I sigh through my nose. "If we lose...then none of us will be alive to see the aftermath, anyway. An alliance won't matter." My eyes dart to Renit's, but they fall to the floorboards of the deck. His mouth quirks to the side in disappointment—these are the last words he wants to hear right after being married.

"Then the plan isn't done yet," Silas chimes in. His voice startles me, the pure authority in it, and he stops knotting a rope together to look at all of us. "Our plan has to be so tempting that the king of Saebia can do nothing other than accept it. We have to brainwash him into believing it's the right thing to do."

A few stares go to Binx, sitting on a crate and picking the dirt from his nails with a knife. At the heat of attention on his face, he slows, eyes raising to view those around him. "I think the stakes are too high for this," he says. "We need something more than an illusion. We need truth for this."

"He's right." My defensive words carry over to everyone in the group and some are annoyed, some agree. Most don't care for Binx still. "We're not going to determine the future of our kingdom on an illusion, a forceful tactic at gaining allies. If we're to find a safe, livable future for Esaria, we must do everything right."

Silas huffs a laugh. Nothing I said was funny. Everyone holds their breath, waiting for what he might say; waiting for the outburst that deems him unsafe to have on board. But his words are simple, and they are more like the crown prince than anything I've heard over these recent weeks. "I suppose my presence ought to do some good." Dalis smirks at that. "Having both princes begging for his help should draw the attention we need. Royalty to royalty, the king of Saebia has to respect that."

"What doesn't help is that we have the king's third hand in our presence," Alaric mutters. I roll my eyes, throwing my head back in annoyance, but don't let his words get to me.

"If he's a wise man, it won't hold sway," I defend.

Binx gives me a look like that isn't true. "To be fair, you are the one that killed his men and declared yourself the victor in that war."

I narrow my eyes at him and say, "I didn't know what I was doing, illusion boy." My words say enough. After all, he was the one that put me in that position. If it wasn't for the illusion, my original thoughts would've been there and although the king was still using me for his own desires, like killing and winning wars, I would've had some control over what I was doing.

It was Binx that made me hate every ounce of the world around me and made me wish for the chance to destroy it all. Hate turned my heart black, and like something that's been burned, time is required to chip away the char to recover the true nature underneath.

"It might help to have you there," Bren speaks for the first time since we all sat down. Still, he won't look at me. After taking an arrow for me and helping me throughout childhood, I think he expected more. Expected me to marry someone else, not a banished prince responsible for Arego's demise and the killing of my parents. "Silas, too. The fact that you two are no longer underneath his control proves there's a chance to save what's left of the kingdom before the Marron bloodline starts too many wars to keep track of."

"Well put," Alaric compliments. I scowl. Their kiss-ass relationship doesn't stop behind closed doors. They are like father and son, but to a heightened level that makes others cringe. Coddling. They coddle each other. Leaders tend to do that.

Takata, from where she's resting her shoulder against the mainsail, clears her throat. It's come to the point that when she does speak, everyone stops to listen. Even I have underestimated her knowledge on the subjects of war until I remember she's been part of it for so many years that she's one of the highest-ranked in the forces. The fact that she's here now, with us, is a huge enough step to our operation that I hope there are more like her in Saebia.

"That doesn't answer the question to what we're going to ask for," she says. "What exactly are we asking from Saebia? Immortals, mortals? What?"

I'd completely forgotten about that. "That's still up in the air," I sigh, rubbing at my temples. "But there's no time like the present to figure that out."

"All right." She shrugs. "How about this: we don't ask for his strongest immortals in the kingdom. We ask for numbers—whatever he's willing to provide to us."

"That's foolish," Alaric retorts. "We need immortal strengths."

"True." Takata jabs a finger in his direction. Maury, forever silent, remains at her side and surveys the entire deck carefully. Like an unmoving boulder, he's always watching Takata. "But if we go in there and immediately ask for his strongest immortals, the king of Saebia won't take kindly to that. We ask for what he's willing to hand over and in return for that, we'll receive the alliance he's searching for to restore his kingdom.

"Realizing he wants this alliance for his kingdom, he's more likely to hand over his strongest forces without us having to ask for it. This is mind play, and it's the truth bordering on illusion. But I don't see how else we can go about it." She scratches at the back of her head. "We need numbers; not necessarily strength."

The entire group considers her words carefully. They're wisely put, and truer than we've allowed ourselves to believe. It's a slap to the face; her take on things. We completely failed to think about all aspects of this mission and that—what we're offering—is one of them.

Alaric scrunches up his nose. "You really think that will work?"

"The king of Saebia is a willing man," Tesha grunts. She examines her nails out of boredom and flashes Alaric a similar look. "If we offer this alliance at the chance to save his kingdom, there's a strong chance he'll take it."

I forgot her past with the kingdom of Saebia. Being a sniper in the war, serving the king of Saebia, gives us inside information that I didn't think was accessible in the first place. She's our only link to the kingdom, and it's possible that not only my presence along with Silas's will restore the faith in that willing man. Tesha will, too.

The meeting doesn't last long after that. Alaric goes through further questions with a fine-tooth comb and once we're done, I receive an apology from Bren after he grabs my arm and leads me to a quiet part of the deck. He's happy for me, wishes all the best, but warns me to watch my back around the Marron bloodline. They've schemed for years, and Renit's hands are so coated in blood that no amount of soap and water will remove the terrors of his past.

I don't care. Part of the reason why I love him is for those faults. He overcame them, regrets them, and wishes to make a better life for himself. Never will I fault him for his past; the same as him not faulting me for taking the potion willingly and becoming the king's third hand.

We have plans to form, alliances to make. But for now, I curl up in bed against Renit in our small cabin and breathe in the scent of his rain. The beginning of a storm is brewing and it's not only coming from the witch laying against my back, his hand pressed against my stomach and his face hidden in my neck. It's coming from our operation and the storm, like Renit's, will be unruly in force.