Time had stopped.

The world too along with awareness, had seemed to halt its ethereal footsteps to bow its head before resuming its eternal walk around the cracks of time. Just like a reed bowing to the wind, awaiting for the arrival of a new sire to server till the end arrived.

When thunder struck, the skies open for passage of a new hope to descend from the prayers of men. When lighting parted the earth below, it cracked the shields to the heart of those who opened their hearts for everyone to listen.

Rosalynde too, had tend her ear and lend her eyes for the truth to open her mind, but that hadn't been enough to keep her heart from climbing on the other side of the wall.

She would have been speechless, loosing it with the last words the Seekers had spared her. But she couldn't –

Another one, there was another one.

Another pretendant to the throne she'd swore to serve till her last breath.

Whatever threat Pheron Des Reslow had been up until now seemed to grow more insignificant with each passing second. The bastard on the other hand? A threat to be eliminated as soon as possible. Rosalynde held no doubt in mind on what she would have done when she would have found him.

Because she would have found him before Verity, before anyone else.

She spoke not a word as Hellenia guided they back outside, ready to shut the door on their face, gloating on the knowledge she knew she had on them.

Knowledge meant having the upper hand. An advantage to use to her heart's desire. She already had played her well – tricking her into believing her associating with the opposers to the Crown. Grey had known it from the very start, and nevertheless had deemed right to say not a word on that matter, the reason behind that unsure to the mind.

It would have led her astray, her objectives shifting without her even realizing. Or maybe because he simply had wanted her to figure it out herself.

A test to deem her worthy enough to forge an alliance.

She felt a presence sneak up to her, Cleia's shaken hand clinging to her left arm as she gripped it with all the force she had. It'd been a mistake to take her with them to meet the Seekers, but that hadn't been something she had control over.

Why full herself thought? She'd never been in charge since venturing into their domain, and she was well aware of that, she always was well aware of that. A puppet whose strings had been pulled too many times and now stood hanging from the ceiling, waiting the moment it would have been used again.

Cleia's hold on her tightened as they started ascending the last staircase, the columns of the abandoned temple the silent remark of their journey finally coming to an end.

"Silver," Rosalynde's head snapped towards the sound where Grey's voice had come from, her eyes settling on his steel counterpart – expressive and full of unspoken words left untold.

They needed to talk, but the moment wasn't now.

Madame Hellenia tried to make small talk while leading them towards the temple's exit, the malice in her voice a silver branch tipped in the water of a bottomless lake.

It took all the self-restrain Rosalynde's mind could keep a beady eye on to not snap the woman's neck with her bare weapon less hands the second after hearing those words. Straightening her gloves as a pretext to keep her hands busy with something different from the exposed neck covered with a thin band of gold, she kept faking indifference.

She kept smiling like she always did.

Like she'd been taught to.

The outside seemed to open itself in an interweave of astral colours leading them like comets tracing their paths in the upper skies. The smell of incense too was blown away instantly, replaced by the smoke and vapour coming out from the C.A.R.S, and by the stench of the excrement coming from a nearby stable on a transversal street.

The territory of the Barracks seemed to stretch endlessly, their blue tides a darker shade than usual thanks to the absence of the splendid sun.

Rubbing her gloved fingers to fight off the biting cold, Rosalynde swiftly freed her arm, making it slip in between Cleia's desperate grasp.

She stepped forward, savouring the air around them, basking in the presence of a refund sense of security. There was no one around as she assessed their surroundings, no fair maiden tending to her business, nor a single soldier on patrol.

And yet unlike her eyes were telling her, Rosalynde just knew they were still being watch, and so did Grey – and hopefully Cleia as well. The goosebumps playing on her arms raising the awareness in her body like a bell ringing restlessly to alert the soldiers of the upcoming attack. It hit silently yet left a sea of insecurity behind.

Grey seemed to care little of what just happened, his teasing smile had come back without much bother, his dimples feebly appearing as he gave Rosalynde one of his signature smiles.

"I believe it's time we part way for the time being, I'll be in touch." Without warning he went for his partners hand, gently caressing it before bringing it close to her lips but did not make his lips linger.

He just kept it close to him, barely finding the rightful reason to touch it. Just like admiring a the most precious jewel on the other side of an expositions showcase. Watching its reflections change with the change the shattered fragments of light brought with her.

So close, yet so very far away.

A sensation he would have paid the devil to feel again under his skill, eating his heart away, and not once would he have doubted his feelings regarding it.

They then parted, with Grey's figure retreating like a knight wounded in battle. He lowered his head, a clean and curt nod his parting gift, and then finally turned around slowly becoming nothing more than a speck of dust lost in the horizon. The sound of his footsteps a lulling rhythm smoothening Rosalynde's agitated state of mind.

And unlike all other times, Rosalynde did not even think of averting her hand, nor wipe it clean against her sides, she just left it there hanging in the void, an unfair sensation building up in her chest.

No, now that she thought of it, she knew what that sensation was. Or maybe she'd always known how to label it with the correct word.

A sense of longing, something that deep down she'd always felt in that chasm void of emptions. It'd been forcefully shoved into a cage, like a nightingale trapped inside a golden adobe since birth.

She kept her eyes on him until he was nothing more than a dark dot against the immensity of the capital. She kept watching him, afraid that he would have disappeared the second her eyes would have roamed astray.

She did that until she decided to bring Cleia back to her home, silently escort her through the street the latter probably knew better than herself. But that was the most she could do.

And yet, something in her chest seemed to burn like a novice fire making its way towards the sky in an alloy of colours.

꧁꧂

Rosalynde days seemed to grow long and inconclusive after that damned meeting, alternating her workdays in a repetitive monologue of life. The only time when life seemed to deviate her attention was when Pharah kept her busy.

After waking the apparent heir and serving her breakfast. Steel would shut herself behind the double doors of her office, battling against the flood of documents still in need of her signature. By the end of the morning hours she'd run out of two mouths of ink.

Making her warm fountain pen twirl between her fingertips she watched the rain slide down the outside glass, deforming reality in a cascade of shards of glass.

She'd heard not a word from Grey since that day. He'd visited the Imperial Citadel once to discuss the monthly revenue income of the Crown with Lord Regulus, but apart from that, she still hadn't figured out where he'd gone too.

Carelessly crossing her legs she stretched her muscles, she took a moment or two to let the mind rest, to stray away from the worries rooting inside her mind. The crest of the Des Reslows on her imperial uniform covered by a pearl shall she'd took with her from her room at dawn before going to wake her master from her slumber, while her hair had once more been neatly combed into a crowned braid fixed on her head with an uncountable number of bobby pins.

She'd be spending the afternoon with Pharah and young Lord Yulian in the first hours of the afternoon in the indoor garden which Pharah had been taking care of personally since young age. That girl had the ability to make blossom even the most tempered blooms.

Like she'd done with herself many years ago.

"You're going to keep sulking until Pretty Boy comes back to you?" The fountain pen snapped on its own as Pharah waltzed inside the other's office, shutting the door behind her with a kick of high heels.

"I do not sulk for a boy," Rosalynde replied with her cruel smiles, throwing the silver fountain pen into the trash bin beside her desk.

"Oh you're right. It's a man you sulk for. I forget you do not like them younger," Pharah agreed without missing a beat.

Rosalynde suddenly felt the urge to throw something at her, something sharp and heavy would have been perfect. But decided at the last second to abide to the universal law of the strongest, making her gloves run impatiently in between the few silver locks that'd escaped the confinement in for of a braid.

The only reply she received came in form of laughter, the light crystal voice of Pharah lightning up the whole room as she took of her heels, neatly placing them beside the office door, looking them both inside with a spare key before turning back to face her private attendant.

"I was going to ask where you got that key. But you know what? I don't even want to know now."

"," Pharah grinned without bothering into maintaining her usual air of regal appearance, even if her tone seemed to hint something that she'd purposely left out. Straightening the hems of her lacey cerulean gown picked by Rosalynde the night before, and facing her friend she threw herself on the couch facing her private attendant.

From her angle the latter could see the white stockings coming into view as Pharah let her thighs on the sofa and her feet casually resting on the coffee table.

When was the last time you saw Hector?"

The first answer that came was heard in the form of grunt, a boar running away from the arrows of the hunted sounded without a doubt more elegant and subdued, with the IV Apostle's smile falling small as their gazes seemed to clash. The second answer – and the one Pharah had been pushing from the start came as a whisper, the unfamiliar sensation throbbing inside Rosalynde's throat irking her to no end. She didn't like the sensation, that sense of nothingness that tainted her heart whenever it could.

But if Pharah were to be fooled by her own thoughts into think that she'd missed him – then she would have been insolubly wrong, because the sense of longing was a weakness that only unfortunate souls desperate for life felt as they clang onto someone in a meek attempt to spare their lives. Not every gesture got appreciated the way it should have been. Many seemed to forget that nothing was a given; that the meaning of a word set in stone was a style of life few privileged had the power to follow.

The weak had no choice expect to thrust their lives into the circle of immoral lies and vicious crimes, hoping on a power chess board to be not a mere pawn to use as scapegoat, but a rook or bishop to keep close.

"Ten days," It'd been a week and a half since his mesmerizing barrel guns had aided her morning and evenings. .

"You've been counting them," Pharah confirmed it, cautiously before biting her inner lip in attempt to chase away a laughter she knew would have not spared the other from endless sleepless nights full of regret.

"It's not what you think." Rosalynde tried to explain, but that statement only did the opposite of what she was trying to achieve.

As the latter had already rolled on the floor, accompanied in between fits of incontrollable, endless laughter.

"That's what they all say," Pharah barely managed to.

Rosalynde stood up immediately after that, rounding her desk before kneeling to aid her master into regaining control of her body, quickly latching her right hand behind her masters' back as she pushed her back onto her feet.

"Hey Rosalynde. How do you think my new sibling looks like?" Every subtle laughter, every heartful smile seemed to die with that question.

Rosalynde's smile thinned, her eyes growing cold once more as she watched Pharah escape her hold, silently moving around the room. Picking up trinkets here and there, Pharah started humming a quiet, hushed melody. Her white socks gliding on the floor like the ocean breeze gently lulling the waves to sleep.

She looked like an angel descending on earth, so ethereal, so immortal. Her corvine hair falling over her shoulders a splendour to look at from all angles.

A walking man's ultimate dream, a ravenous sinful woman to take to bed each night. A prize only one lucky bastard would have got his hands on.

"How would you like them to be?" Rosalynde asked quietly, slowly making her way towards the windows, pulling the

Pharah stopped her humming at that, sucking in her breath before an eerie chuckle left her lips.

"Dead."

A useless and powerless twin was something she had no problem in keeping in check, but a bastard? A bastard possibly male bearing the imperial blood? Someone who without even knowing had the power to shove her off the throne she'd work so hard to convey?

No, in her eyes such outcome couldn't even be given a proper name, such the hatred she bore against it had been the fuel that had made the spark burst into a bright and elegant flame.

If her sin was to have been born as a woman into a power world of men, then her siblings' one was to have been born as the fruit of their father's infidelity, trapped into a forced loveless marriage with his wife. Ah, her mother, Pharah could already taste the fury she would have brought with her if she'd ever where to find out what her husband had done – if she hadn't already found out about it.

A common parent, a bloodline bringing them close, something Pharah had no need to.

She would have never given her heart to someone, heavy orders wrapped around a band of gold her daily routine. And so the smiles filled with double senses, handshakes purposefully oblong in feeble, idiotic attempt to shake her will. Many hoped to see her break down, to surrender to the will of a man, to see her worth only in the future children she was going to bare in the future.

She was no breeding stock to be used at will and discarded with the passing of the seasons, she was no pretty doll to appease with refined gems and imported silks.

She was a woman forged by the divine to ascend the throne since birth and would have not yield her rightful claim to the throne.

Two roads in front of her, two roads with an equal ending fit for her person: Eternal glory. The gestures of her name recalled and praised far and wide. Every child, every man, every woman would have remembered her name. Chanting it as a prayer to the gods above, as a feather flowing in the wind.

That, or a swift but glorifying death sculpturing her name besides her very own ancestors. Her name carved in the ballads of the exalted heroes who gave up their lives for.

Crowned a martyr for the sake of greater good.

"Command me," Rosalynde swore, her gloves clutching the uniforms fabric over her heart, dropping on one knee.

"Command me, Pharah. Use me as you like," she would have killed for her master, she would have butchered throats and mutilated her foes if needed.

The drapes Rosalynde had seemed lower over her windows seemed to flutter as if moved by the ghosts of the past. The spectre of a man that out of all the rotten vermin running around, free of irons and full vigour who unpunished for the sins they loitered around town had been killed for Rosalynde had once thought of as for greater good.

"You sound like the knight in that tale Bishop Ferdis used to narrate when the nanny wasn't watching. You remember that? I had you stay outside the balcony for the duration of the whole lecture, my greatest friend." Rosalynde breath dropped, her eyes drying without rest as she did not deny it the used appellative.

For her, only her, she would have only had one friend for life.

Someone who she knew would have never given her up – someone that would have never abandoned her to the darkness beyond.

Her redemption, her rope for salvation.

The brightest star of all firmaments and beyond.

"Just like I made you hide under the bed on the day Haywire stormed into my room accusing me of treason. A feeble but smart excuse to get me out of the way." Rosalynde recalled another episode, the hand over her heart sliding to the ground, the knuckles hidden by the fabric tumbling aimlessly to the ground.

Everything, nothing, day, and night seemed to be one as Pharah's arms delicately surrounded Rosalynde tensed and awaiting for, closing the gap as the latter quietly raised her head, embracing her friend with all she had.

"You know, sometimes I think that you're just going to leave me," Pharah whispered, that sentence earned a unapproving laughter by her personal attendant.

"Why do you think that?" Rosalynde asked with the kindest voice she could make, but the usual coldness had remained, chained deep in between her words. But Rosalynde knew why she dreamed of that, for she did it too at times, when time seemed to stop at the passing of seasons, thinking of how she could have given her master the greatest gift she could ever give her.

Her own life should have been enough.

"Don't leave me."

The Apparent Heirs' grip tightened around the other, afraid she would have turned to dust the second her hold would have softened, her voice laced with the both her and Rosalynde's buried emotions. Pharah had become the bearer to both their humanity, the red string of fate merging them as one her very own body and mind.

She would have never given up, for herself, but most of all for the trust her greatest friend had decided to gift her. For everything they'd weaved thought the years had been the proof of their rebellion against the patriarchal world the Rowlian Empire seemed to stand and thrive on.

"I won't," unless a greater cause wouldn't have pushed her towards the God immensely revered by the Helian Church.

"Liar, you like to lie on things like this. I should have grated you the surname Prevaricator of Truth, had I known in advance this annoying vice of yours." Rosalynde's smiled grew soft, breaking the embrace to pinch the collarbone of her friend.

They would have done it together. That was, and was always going to be, their promise to each other.

"To the future we forge, to the heavenly stars extinguished by the lesser lights," their motto, their forever oath.

But that moment was long short, as the anticipation of someone stepping in front of the 4th Apostles office, a heavy round of knocking unveiling the uncertainly behind the hidden noise. Pharah jumped back on her feet, bumping with her head under Rosalynde's chin as she brought her hands to cover her mouth from the shriek so close in getting out.

"I shouldn't be here," Pharah whispered-shouted to her friend as she looked around for a place to hide with her cumbersome gown.

"What do you mean: you shouldn't be here? You said you were bored when you first came here!"

The look that Pharah gave her as she tiptoed around the room to seek out a decent hiding spot was enough to make Rosalynde swore out loud.

"Who is it?" She prayed to her lucky star it wasn't someone bothersome enough and with enough authority that could order her to step out of the room.

The knocks coming from the other side of the door stopped all of a sudden, a heavy pause filled with questions "Sternstorn. May I come in Rosalynde? Or should I pass later when you're less full of imperial matters?" Her lucky star had decided to betray her it seemed.

The knocks coming from the other side of the door stopped all of a sudden, a heavy pause filled with questions "Sternstorn. May I come in Rosalynde? Or should I pass later when you're less full of imperial matters?"

Her lucky star had decided to betray her it seemed.

"No need, my Lord." And she was already at the door twisting the key in its designed locked as she intimated nothing else but silence as Pharah crawled under her desk, the hems of the gown creating a slight rustling as she tucked every last layer of fabric under her behind.

Just in time too, as the door opened without posing an ouch of resistance. The strong and elegant figure of Lord Regulus Sternstorn stepping under the doorway as he slowly made his eyes calmly roam around the room, a ghost of a smile appearing on his lips as he blatantly approved the renovations Rosalynde had brought to the room.

"It looks like you've settled into Haywire's office quite nicely." He stated quietly without taking a single step forward. His periwinkle eyes settling on the desk for a brief number of seconds before finding the 4th Apostles' gaze once more.

"I have indeed, yes." They were in decent terms the Smiling Dame and the King of Cards, and that trust was valued as he asked her to take a walk with her.

She then obliged, dropping into a perfect curtsey as she led him out of her room, away as possible from where Pharah originally was.

"Come, there is much I need to discuss with you," a clear order. They needed to talk with all their cards facing on the table.