The sinking sun warmed Rina's face as her feet pounded the stone esplanade. She darted through the crowd, navigating a group of swaggering sailors. They drank from pints of beer as they beelined for a group of whores sashaying in a rainbow of low-cut silk dresses, flashes of long, pale legs revealed with each step.

A sharp cry jerked her attention to a group of dockworkers heaving a pile of cargo on a ship. A crate at the top of a stack tilted, then toppled off, falling to the street with a crash of splintering wood and a tumble of gold. More shouts followed as the leader scolded the men.

No street urchins raced in to steal the gold, and Rina smiled. It was safe here. The people were content with what they had, and Mai, he would bring this to the Denese too.

Instinctively, her hand went to her chest, this time for the crystal sewn there. It bumped into Fin's, and she found the pendant even hotter than before. He must want her to hurry.

She picked up her skirts and raced again, amber lights streaking about her, this time navigating a cluster of families crying and hugging their loved ones.

By the time she reached the Crystal Queen, she was sweating and panting and cursed the past sedentary months. She recognised one of the sailors, Nathan, and called out to him.

Nathan paused and dropped the parcel he carried. He leaned over the railing, and furrowed his brows, then he turned behind him and shouted to someone she couldn't see. "Nah, it's that Denese girl the Capt' was so fond of," he said. Chuckles followed, and Nathan's body shook.

Rina clenched her teeth. "Is he in?"

Nathan faced her again with an expression of surprise. "You're a demanding one, aren't you?" His lips quirked, and he shook his head. Rina thought he muttered, "Just like the Capt' likes," but couldn't be sure. Nathan bent down and picked up his parcel, wrapped in oilcloth and rope, still shaking his head. "He ain't 'ere. Left an hour or so ago." Nathan cocked his chin, and Rina followed the direction, to where a cliff just west of the city rose, circling the far end of the bay.

Fin's words echoed in her mind. "Every town and city I visit, I find myself a place, so that as much as I move through this world, I always have a home."

She twirled Fin's crystal, and the stone pulsed. Yes, this would be where he would go. He must be waiting for her.

She put her back to the sailor and hurried the rest of the way down the pier, sweat running down her back. At the end, she slipped out of her shoes, letting them dangle from the tips of her fingers, and jumped off the last stone slab into the soft sand.

She closed her eyes. Waves lapped the shore as the sun penetrated her eyelids. She opened them again to find footprints in the sand.

The footprints ended at a goat track leading up the edge of the cliff. Slipping her shoes back on, she hitched up her dress, stepping around spikey bushes and foliage. The wind picked up, blowing her dark waves across her face, and she flicked them back. Her calves burned.

A soft voice was the first thing she heard. Pausing, she listened. Fin—it was Fin!

She hurried, soon reaching the top of the cliff. She stopped. A man's silhouette sat near the cliff edge, sitting under a date palm, back to her. She knew those shoulders. The crystal pendant was so hot now, and it thrummed against her skin. Come, it said. She did, tiptoeing toward him, hands fanning through a spurge bush.

The murmuring continued, and she smiled, remembering how she'd teased him for talking to himself on the journey here. How he told her it was a way to survive the lonely seas.

She was almost there. She made out the outline of a picnic basket, the neck of a wine bottle sticking out, glowing like blood in the light of the late sun.

Something pooled low inside her at the thought of being with him again, letting him take her before the sea. She'd surprise him. Approach silently as a wraith, wrap her arms around him and whisper in his ear. Her toes curled at what she'd say, at what she'd do.

A twig snapped under her foot.

Fin spun. Instead of playful purple eyes, horror washed across his face. He shoved at something she couldn't see. Had she come too early for the surprise?

"Rina, what are you doing here?"

A bolt of light flickered across her vision. She forced out a laugh. "What am I doing here? I got your note."

"My note? I don't know what—" Something distracted Fin, and he turned from her, hissing words she couldn't discern, his shoulders bunching as if he tried to hold something down. A second voice hissed back, and there was rustling. The slip of rocks.

Rina froze. "Fin—what's going on?" Another flash of light.

"Nothing, Rina. Can you just—I didn't expect you yet. Would you give me a—"

A female voice cried out. "No, I can't take this any more!" she said and scurried out from behind him, all long limbs and dark hair sprouting from a cloud of purple cloth. The scent of lavender. A beloved face.

Rina opened her mouth, but nothing came out. A shard of ice slid between her ribs and began to twist its way inwards.

Tears rolled down Martha's cheeks. Those eyes. Those enormous brown eyes pleaded with Rina. Martha stepped toward her, mouth quivering like she was fighting as hard as Rina was to speak, one arm stretched in a placating gesture—treating her like she were some wounded, dangerous beast.

Fin rose, trailing Martha. "We can explain," he said.

The ice shard moved deeper. Rina shivered as flares of light moved through the air in a frenzied dance.

Martha turned back to Fin and shook her head. He went still. "Please, Rina. We didn't mean to—"

The words were lost on Rina as she noticed something. Something vital. Something that wedged the ice-blade into her heart with all the strength of a sledgehammer pounding a chisel into a rock. Harder. Deeper. Rina convulsed, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It couldn't be. It couldn't!

"Rina, look at me."

Trembling, Rina opened her eyes, hoping and praying her mind played tricks on her. That it was the light and shadows cast by the evening sun. That the world would be right again. And yet, it wasn't. Those elegant fingers still rested on a curved stomach, no longer hidden by a loose robe or high-cut dress.

Martha's words came back to her: "I met someone..." "He's leaving soon..." "I would do anything for him, Rina. Please understand that..."

Rina's heart shattered, sparks flying across her vision, brilliant as the dying sun.

Martha had known. She knew. She knew, she knew, she knew!

The ground slammed into her knees. As her body crumpled, she breathed in the bitter, gritty dust. Her forehead met the ground, and her arms wrapped around her stomach as her body heaved, sob after wracking sob.

It couldn't be. It wasn't. They hadn't.

They had. Damn them, they had.

Damn them!

A hand pressed against her back. Her body eased, and she exhaled a tremulous breath. That hand had loved her. Soothed her. After her parents died, and her aunt and uncle had been caught up with their own miserable lives, that hand had wiped away her tears and tucked her in at night. The hand moved, and arms encircled her, pulling her face from the dirt and into an embrace.

Martha's heart beat rapidly. The ridge of the crystal sewn over Martha's diaphragm pressed against Rina's cheek. Rina moved to touch her own and flinched as it met Fin's pendant.

"How long?"

Martha stiffened. Rina felt her friend shake her head.

Rina inhaled and held her breath, the air becoming a hard tight ball in her chest until she couldn't stand it anymore. "How long?"

"Please..."

"Tell me!" The world crackled.

"Martha, let her go and come here," said Fin, an edge to his voice.

Martha's chin bumped the crown of Rina's head, nodding. Rina gripped Martha's arms, not knowing if she wanted her friend to stay and comfort her, or if she wanted to tear her apart.

"Now!"

Martha cried out Rina's nails dug into her skin. They raked through flesh when Martha jerked away. For a moment, the ripe bump of pregnancy brushed across Rina, and she sensed a second heartbeat, fluttering like dragonfly wings.

Martha staggered away, twin red claw marks down her arms, eyes wide with disbelief and... was that disgust?

Rina stared back. Was Martha the victim now. How did that happen—she was the wronged one, wasn't she?

"How long?"

Martha flinched, but said, "Since my journey here."

Rina tilted her head, locking her gaze on Martha and holding her eyes. Her voice came out strange, as if from another place, another spectrum. "You knew, didn't you—about me and him?"

"I—We..."

"The truth. You will tell me the truth."

Swallowing, Martha inclined her head. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "It was the only..."

The world smouldered. That honey the sun had trickled over the world now snapped and sizzled. Flares of energy sparked through the air. Across the sky. She could reach out and hold one if she wished. Consume it. Slam its raw molten power at the traitor she'd called her friend. Her sister.

"Liar."

"No. Please. Rina, I'm your friend. I love you. I am so sorry. I thought it was just a flirtation—"

"Enough!" Rina swept her hand through the air. There came thwak of something hitting flesh and Martha fell back against Fin, hand cradling her cheek.

Rina examined her nails—the caked-in red. Her mouth already watered at the thought of that metallic taste. Darting out her tongue, she licked, then moaned as she sucked.

Martha blanched and whimpered. Fin hissed through his teeth. "Stop this, Rina," he said. "You've made your point. You've made your gods-damned point."

"And you've had your fun with both of us, haven't you, you bastard! Did you tell her? Did you tell her about what happened between us before you left again? While she was waiting for you in her rooms that night? Did you?"

A stricken expression sliced across Martha's face. "Fin?"

Fin chuckled, a forced, strained thing, like an anchor dragged across the seafloor. "She lying. I lost my mind a moment and kissed her. That's all."

"Lying, am I? Check me if you want, Martha. I know you can. You'll see I'm no longer intact."

"Don't listen to her, Martha. I love you. I wouldn't do that." Fin's words were strained. His expression twisted. "Look at her!" he spat. "She's demented."

Rina stepped toward Martha and Fin. He tried to pull Martha back, but Martha shoved out of his grasp, face tear-streaked.

"Do it," Rina said.

Martha held Rina's eyes a moment before she reached out her hand so that it hovered before Rina's midsection. She closed her eyes, concentrating. Warm energy seeped into Rina, into her loins, testing and probing, and then withdrew again, leaving her cold, empty and barren.

When they opened, Martha's eyes were hollow things, as was her tone as she said, "She tells the truth. You claimed her."

"No. Don't listen to her tricks."

Rina reached beneath her robe. She found Fin's crystal one last time, the stone thrumming at the touch. She ripped it from her neck by the chain. The crystal shot toward Martha so that Rina had to grip onto the chain, until it dangled above Martha's palm, spinning. The air rippled from it in molten waves. Did Martha see this? Rina wondered. Martha didn't seem to. She let Rina lower it, and when it touched her skin, she flinched, then became still as a blade of grass frozen by winter frost. Her eyes glazed like marbles, a wash of green moving across them the way the green moved through mage fire—all the while the fine chain clinked on the crystal as it looped upon itself.

Martha's skin paled. She seemed to fade, the way a reflection in a pond did beneath the rain. The tendons in her throat tightened. Her mouth worked a few times before she spoke, the words forced, alien, and yet eerily calm.

"I swear, it wasn't meant to be like this," she said and folded her fingers over the pendant.

Her body shuddered. She spun on her heel, walking to the cliff with rigid steps, like a marionette, until she was there, at the edge, and Rina didn't know if it was fear or anticipation that sent the thrill through her veins.

Fin leapt, grabbing Martha. She thrashed in his arms as he dragged her away.

And then she screamed.

The shriek stabbed into Rina's mind, feral and inhuman, with the sharpness of a stiletto. She bent over and covered her ears, but she couldn't keep it out, all she could do was curl up in the dirt and wait for it to end.

She didn't know how long it lasted. Too long. She couldn't think past anything but the pain. Gods it hurt.

It ended with an abrupt silence, followed by a thud from far below.

★☾●☽★

A/N: Thank you for reading! 

Okay, so this was intense. Traumatic. It does have a purpose in the plot. I assure you I am not trivialising what has happened. But, if you feel that it is not explained enough, or too abrupt, or even like I am trivialising what happens to Martha, please, please let me know. I have already had invaluable feedback from two of my online friends that I have taken on. 

Jas oxox