Arlienne dragged Emerion toward the dining hall where the midday meals were served. The siblings took their seats at a mahogany table the room was mostly vacant, the morning crowd gone and lunch still too far off to have drawn anyone new.
"Let's see, there are different items..." Arlienne scanned the leather-bound menu with the focus of someone conducting a genuine assessment. "Brother, do you want to try wine?"
Emerion's face arranged itself into an expression of pure disgust before she finished the sentence.
"I don't want to deal with a hangover. It would only taste bitter regardless," he said, dismissing the idea without ceremony.
He had never tried wine in his life. He held a firm general belief shaped almost entirely by the adventure books he had consumed as a child that most drinkers were either physically unhealthy or prone to mindless aggression.
The impression was so thoroughly embedded that even now, on a ship far from home, he refused to be like one of those villainous characters always depicted swirling a glass while plotting something awful.
"Then what do you want? Milk?" Arlienne asked, setting the menu down slightly. "You should really give new things a try, you know."
"Orange juice would be fine," Emerion said.
"As expected your favourite drink after coffee, I assume." She looked back at the menu. "How about some rice and steak?"
As if on cue, his stomach answered for him. The sound it produced was neither brief nor subtle.
Emerion looked at the table. He took comfort in the fact that the room was mostly empty.
"Just order whatever you want," he said, pulling the other menu toward him to give his hands something to do.
Arlienne signaled the waitress and placed the order without further commentary.
"So, brother." She leaned forward slightly, resting her chin on her hands. "What do you think our aunt is doing on this ship?"
Emerion looked up. "She is probably off to somewhere maybe something related to medical business. I heard she got promoted to head of Miravale Island's medical facilities, so perhaps she's going to another island for an inspection or a meeting."
He didn't feel suspicious of his aunt. She had always been warm and present in a way that stood in complete contrast to everything the Dawnveil household had taught him to expect from family.
"I see... it could be." Arlienne's eyes moved to the middle distance. "But don't you find it strange that she didn't mention anything about our mother?"
The question landed and stayed there.
Emerion set down his fork he hadn't picked it up yet, but the motion felt right and thought about it properly. His mother had been in a deep mana sleep for two years. When it happened, he had felt, beneath the shock, a private and guilty relief that he would not have to face her. The nation had been stunned no one could believe that Aurelith Dawnveil, of all people, had fallen into such a state. Since nobody knew her true limit for mana use, the surprise had been absolute.
She was too important to hand to an unfamiliar medic, too much of a strategic asset to let the other Great Houses know she was incapacitated. Their father had arranged it quietly Aurelith transferred in secret to her younger sister, Seraphyne, at Miravale Island, where she could be treated without the knowledge reaching anyone who would use it.
Which meant Seraphyne knew everything. And hadn't said a word about any of it.
The waitress arrived with a glass of orange juice and a steaming plate of rice and steak, breaking the silence at exactly the right moment.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Emerion asked, picking up his fork.
"I've already had breakfast," Arlienne said, sipping water. "I'm not hungry."
Emerion nodded and began to eat, turning his aunt's silence over in the back of his mind while trying to give the food the attention it deserved after the morning he'd had. He had no reason to suspect her she had even paid for the damages from the fight without being asked.
Still, Arlienne's observation sat in him like something that hadn't fully landed yet.
"Speak of the devil," Arlienne murmured.
Emerion turned.
Seraphyne crossed the dining hall with Nyxelle a step behind her, the former moving with her characteristic unhurried grace, the latter with the expression of someone who has been told where they are going and has opinions about it.
"I was looking for you two," Seraphyne said warmly. She settled into the seat beside Emerion while Nyxelle dropped into the one beside Arlienne with the energy of someone making their ambivalence known through posture alone.
"Is there any reason for that, Aunt?" Arlienne asked, her practiced smile in place. She noted, without acknowledging, the look Nyxelle was directing at her from six inches away.
"Not really I simply wanted to check on your brother's hand." Seraphyne turned to Emerion with genuine attentiveness. "Are you feeling better?"
Emerion paused mid-bite. He had been wearing the bandage all morning and hadn't thought about it once because there had been nothing to think about no pain, no stiffness, nothing. He set down his fork, turned his hand over, and began unwrapping the bandage.
The palm beneath it was unmarked.
Not scarred. Not tender. Not showing any trace of the wound that had been weeping blood yesterday evening.
Completely normal.
"Huh..." Nyxelle leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping to something genuinely puzzled. "You healed quickly."
Given the nature of the injury catching a sword's edge bare-handed a single day shouldn't have been enough. Not even close.
"Is something wrong?" Emerion asked, reading the room.
Seraphyne composed herself. The expression that settled on her face was something older than the conversation a heaviness that came from somewhere further back. She closed her eyes briefly.
"No," she said. "I suppose I should have expected that." A pause, and then, almost to herself: "I should have known you both are mother and son, after all. In my medical career, I have only ever seen two people heal this fast. First was my sister. And now you, Emerion."
She smiled. The nostalgia in it was complicated.
Emerion tensed at the mention of his mother. He had assumed fast healing was simply what happened when a skilled healer treated you. The implication that it was something he carried something inherited sat in him in a way he didn't have words for yet.
Arlienne said nothing. Her eyes had gone very attentive.
The moment shifted as a man with a grey mustache entered the dining hall.
The Captain's gaze swept the room and settled on their table with the particular quality of someone who has arrived at a predetermined location and is performing the appropriate amount of surprise.
"Ah-- I didn't expect to find you here, Lady Seraphyne," he said. His voice was smooth. His expression was completely composed. Arlienne registered both of these things and filed them.
"I guess unexpected things happen in life," Seraphyne said warmly.
The Captain chuckled. "It does indeed. But I've come here for business and a request." His eyes moved to the siblings.
Seraphyne read the room without appearing to. "I see. Nyxelle, come we'll speak with them later." She rose gracefully. Nyxelle followed, casting one last look at Arlienne that communicated several things simultaneously.
Arlienne watched her aunt leave. Watched the door. Then turned back to the Captain.
"What kind of business and request do you have, Captain?" she asked, her voice shifting into something professional and slightly cooler.
"First I promised you a refund for the misbehavior of my staff." He set several papers and a pen on the table. "Fill these out and you will receive it."
Arlienne looked at the papers. The handwriting and layout had the hurried quality of something assembled at short notice, but they bore the official company symbol. She began to fill them out without comment.
"It's quite a lot of forms for a refund," she said, her pen moving. "I didn't expect you to keep your word after the fight between my brother and Anathema."
"Words coming from the mouth of someone in my position have consequences," the Captain said. "If I turned back on my own words, I would set a bad example for my subordinates."
Arlienne chose not to comment on the concept of consequences being offered by a man whose subordinates had recently grabbed a passenger by the collar.
Emerion finished eating and began to push back his chair.
"There is another thing," the Captain said. "The request regards you, sir."
Emerion stopped. "Request regarding me? What kind?"
"There are some people who wish to have a conversation with you." He clapped his hands.
Two figures entered the dining hall.
Both Dawnveil siblings went still.
"Relax, guys. We just want to have a chat," Ryuuken said, his usual cocky grin firmly in place. Rui followed a step behind, his expression considerably more composed.
"Ryuuken," Emerion said. The name came out like something he had stepped on.
"I see you remember my name. Should I be honored?" Ryuuken smirked.
Rui pinched him without looking at him.
"Can you explain, Captain, why you brought them here?" Arlienne asked.
Rui spoke before the Captain could answer.
"Our Lord wishes to have a conversation with your brother. He felt he went too far during the fight. He expressed his regrets and wants to have a chat."
The table absorbed the words in silence for a moment.
"So you used the Captain as a mediator?" Emerion said, his brow furrowing as he turned the shape of it over, looking for the edges.
"I find it hard to believe someone like Anathema expressed regret," Arlienne said, her voice thoughtful. "But then again he was so desperate to save you both from my brother's blue flames yesterday. I assume he has emotions despite his reputation."
Ryuuken's expression flickered. "He... was?" He had assumed it was the Captain or Seraphyne who had intervened. Rui moved smoothly past the moment.
"So do you accept the request? We will stay here. You would have a private conversation."
Emerion hesitated. The Captain placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I think you should go, young man. Holding a grudge can be very unhealthy. I'm telling you this from personal experience."
Arlienne looked at the two guards, then at the Captain, then at her brother. Her expression weighed something.
"I guess you should give it a try," she said. "It will be a private chat. I don't think he would do something stupid."
The peer pressure had a direction and Emerion felt it from all sides.
"Fine," he said. "I will go."
A light moved briefly across Ryuuken's face quickly contained, but present. Emerion noted it and decided he had already committed.
"A wise choice," the Captain said. "My officer is outside the dining room. He will take you."
Emerion nodded and walked out, still turning the edges of it over in his mind. The guards staying behind was the one thing that kept him moving forward rather than back.
The officer waiting outside was the same one who had grabbed Arlienne's collar on their first day. He was noticeably more respectful now the Captain's displeasure having apparently conducted itself thoroughly downward through the chain of command. As they walked the corridor, Emerion noticed a poster on the wall a music and light show, the mature blonde girl from earlier pictured on it, the performance scheduled for that evening.
He was still looking at it when they stopped.
"Please, come on in," the officer said.
Emerion looked at the door. The sign above it was unmistakable.
Control Room No Passenger Access.
"This is the Control Room," he said.
"I just need to take something from inside. It would be rude to leave you in the corridor. Come in," the officer said, his tone remaining carefully respectful.
Emerion thought about it for a half second longer than was useful and walked through the door.
It closed behind him. The lock engaged from the outside with a sound like a full stop.
"Hey." He turned to the door. "Open the door." He knocked. Silence from the other side. "Fine if you won't open it, I'll------"
He felt the presence.
He moved.
The sword passed through the air where his neck had been and he spun to face the room, his blood already running hot.
Anathema stood before him, sword raised, expression carrying the specific quality it always had that flat, evacuated calm that had nothing gentle in it.
"Anathema." Emerion's hands began to glow blue. "So it was your plan, you cheap--"
Anathema swung again. Emerion dodged, the blade missing by a margin thin enough to feel.
"So you aren't in the mood for talking, huh?" Emerion's palms brightened. He set his feet.
And then the melody arrived.
It came from somewhere behind Anathema soft at first, almost too soft to register as anything except the ambient sound of the ship. Then it took shape, and the shape of it was a voice, and the voice was doing something that voices weren't supposed to be able to do:
"Drift away from the world of the waking,
Leave the burdens that keep your heart aching.
Close your eyes where the shadows are deep,
Oh, restless soul, surrender to sleep..."
Emerion's eyelids moved without his permission.
The exhaustion arrived all at once not gradually, not building, just present, as though it had been waiting somewhere inside him for exactly this invitation and had accepted immediately. His vision softened at the edges. The blue glow in his hands dimmed.
"What's happening"
The thought dissolved before it finished. His knees met the floor and then the floor met the rest of him and the room went dark and quiet and complete.
Two figures stepped into his fading vision before it went entirely blonde hair, familiar faces, standing beside Anathema.
Then nothing.
"You two can leave now. I can handle the rest," Anathema said.
Riruka's voice stilled. The melody ended.
Ririyen stood beside her sister with her arms crossed, looking at Anathema with an expression that was not the expression of someone receiving an instruction.
"Leave?" Ririyen said. "I guess you are not in a position to order us, Anathema."
He looked at her. "What do you mean? Your Captain made a deal with me. You have to obey."
Riruka laughed.
It was a light, unhurried sound not mocking exactly, more the laugh of someone who finds the situation genuinely funny in a way they're willing to share.
"Oh, my sweet Anathema." She tilted her head slightly. "Every mother teaches their children not to trust strangers, yet you believed our Captain so much that you didn't even take an Oath of Echoes from him."
Ririyen smirked, crossing her arms.
The words landed in Anathema's chest with the specific weight of something he should have calculated and didn't.
"If you don't obey, you will pay with your lives!" He raised his sword.
Riruka began to sing.
This time the melody was different slower, heavier, carrying something underneath the beauty of it that the first song hadn't:
"The journey is long and the path is unknown,
To find who you are, you must go on alone.
Meet your fate in the dark of the mind,
Leave the sword and the anger behind.
Sleep... sleep... find the truth in the deep..."
Anathema felt his eyelids pull downward. He gritted his teeth and pushed back against it the weight of the song pressing against nine years of trained discipline and swung at Ririyen.
Riruka moved between them.
The blade caught her right shoulder. She hissed a sharp, controlled sound and pressed her hand against the cut, blood seeping between her fingers.
Anathema drew back for the second strike.
"You want to sleep, right, right?" Ririyen's voice cut through the room bright, sharp, a complete tonal departure from everything that had just happened.
She clapped her hands and bounced on her heels with the energy of someone who has decided this is the move and is fully committed. "You don't have the strength to hold a sword, right, right?"
Anathema looked at her.
The sword slipped from his hand.
He stared at it on the floor. His fingers wouldn't respond. The exhaustion that had been pressing against the edges of his resistance found the gap and poured through it all at once.
Riruka's voice returned gentle now, the finishing note of the song arriving like a hand closing a door:
"Sleep..."
Anathema's legs went. He hit the floor beside Emerion and lay still, his chest rising and falling in the deep rhythm of someone who has stopped arguing with their body.
The room was quiet.
Ririyen looked at her sister's shoulder. "You okay, big sister?"
"I'm fine. I'll need to hide this during the performance tonight," Riruka said, pressing the wound carefully.
"You always think about the business," Ririyen said, her voice dropping into something softer. "Think of yourself too."
"Don't worry." Riruka looked at the two unconscious figures on the floor for a moment. "Let's leave them. The officers will take care of it."
She walked out.
Ririyen stayed for a moment longer. She looked at Emerion the silver hair spread against the floor, the bandaged hand, the expression of someone who had been genuinely trying to do the right thing up until the moment the song reached him.
"I didn't wish to do this to the silver haired boy," she said quietly, to no one in particular. "He seemed like a kind person."
A pause from the doorway. Riruka's voice came back, softer than usual:
"Our fates were sealed to do such things that day. Now, let's go."
Ririyen looked at Emerion for one more moment. She bowed slightly, genuinely, with an apologetic quality that had nothing performative in it.
Then she followed her sister out, and the door clicked shut behind them, leaving both boys alone on the floor of the Control Room with the ship moving steadily beneath them and the sound of the ocean outside.