Chapter III

Dame Florentine

It took everything she had not to scream out into the sea of fluffy white clouds that stretched out to every horizon. She had, however, lost the battle against her now paralysed body as it clung to the bulwark, too scared to look up for the sky was closer than anyone had dared venture since the age of draconum riders; the blue so brilliant and naked, air brisk and pure. Her stomach twisted and flipped, as if she’d fall upwards should she let go and tumble forever towards the stars. Looking down wasn’t as bad. Her brain could be tricked into equating the unbroken cloud cover as a rolling plain of deep snow if she didn’t think about its complete lack of substance, and the grizzly, albeit quick, death rushing up to meet her if she went overboard.

Arcana, the energy that flowed through all living beings, that allowed for the manifestation of the users desires, could be siphoned into crystals and used as a steroid to boost a practitioners abilities. Rather recently, machinery was invented that could also use said crystals as a power source, opening the door to the industrialising of the world around them and thus allowing the miracle of a flying battleship to become a reality. Never could her younger self have imagined what the burgeoning machines of her youth were capable of evolving into.

From afar, the prototype airship aboard which they resided, the HMS Dairyman, had the hull of a brigantine, but several modifications had been made to better suit it to air travel over sea. Its hull lacked the streamlined, pointed design proficient in cutting through water and instead had a more rounded hull intended to better deflect cannon balls fired from the ground. Gone were its two masts and many sails replaced by a massive balloon of canvas wrapped tightly over a metal frame. It was fixed to the hull by a web of rigging that Florentine was convinced was never quite as secure as claimed. A canvas tube led from the balloon down into a pipe in the deck where the crew in the engine room could adjust the helium levels to control vertical buoyancy, and the massive, loud, ugly mess of pipes, cogs, pistons, hydraulics, chains and pullies that was the state-of-the-art crystal engine provided power to the four massive propellers fixed to each side of the hull in a square configuration. That provided them with movement on the horizontal axis. Each was surrounded by a metal ring with a flattened bottom, acting as landing struts should the ship need to set down on dry land.

By all accounts, it was the single most advanced piece of machinery in all Orbis, but up close its improvised, prototypical nature was startlingly obvious. Florentine looked around and saw a modified brigantine hull somewhat haphazardly lashed to a giant balloon, and it turned her stomach.

François suffered no such anxieties. He stood alongside her on the forecastle with his arms spread and a grin on his lips, sucking in a lungful of the biting breeze pricking their skin. A flock of birds skirting the cloud cover projected rippling silhouettes onto the white canvas below. “I can’t believe this actually works,” he said to the vista. Then to Florentine, “I remember reading about one of the earlier tests ending with the ship veering wildly off-course and going up in flames. My Goddess, the engineers behind this project are blessed, I tell you!”

Florentine hadn’t realised how quiet it had been until François spoke. The ambient sounds of wind and machinery faded soon into the background. “I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” she said. “How the fuck can anyone stomach this? And they expect me to believe in a time when people regularly rode draconum!”

“It’s invigorating, thrilling! We’re actually flying! Look how high we are! Even the most powerful arcanist would have trouble reaching this height!” He turned to admire the ship. “Maybe I should put in a transfer to the navy? I’d be guaranteed a post aboard an airship when they go into service.”

“Go for it. Go. Really. I wish you luck.” Florentine finally managed to peal herself from the bulwark. She tried to relax. “I think I’ll wait until they’ve had a few more years to work out the kinks.”

“Suit yourself. It’s probably better that way—don’t want a crewman who’s constantly throwing up.”

“If you don’t check that attitude, you’ll be the one cleaning it up.”

He smirked. “Aye, aye.”

King Ludwig had the engineers on the project working round the clock over the last month to get the Dairyman into flying shape for the wedding, and both families were currently hold up in the captain’s cabin enjoying lunch and whatever it was they cared to discuss. The project lead, Madelaine Juneau, had warned of the lack of stress testing since the crash, but His Majesty had insisted on swinging his mighty appendage for the sake of political points. Florentine was getting real tired of that being the reason for everything.

Captain Hamilton Lindsay Somerset-Powerfort ascended from the main deck, having traversed the length of the ship, hands clasped behind his back, chest puffed out, chin pointed to the sky to ensure he looked down his nose at all Orbis. An older man who wore every deeply engraved wrinkle, scar, and his salt and pepper hair with pride; he wanted everyone around him to comprehend his perceived gravitas at a glance. His uniform was tailored to his exact size, every insignia lined up with every other in precise symmetry according to the dress code, a tension in his muscles that drew him into statuesque form at all times. He made his way over to the pair with smug superiority radiating off him like the stench from a battalion of soldiers who’d spent one too many nights in the desert without a bath.

“Quite spectacular, is it not?” He gazed out over the clouds as if he were owed them. “This technology will only reinforce our status as the preeminent superpower on Orbis, and ensure the security of the sacred subjects of the Crystalline Goddess.”

“I doubt anyone will be so eager to go to war with us again after they see the full capabilities of the airship,” François said. “I can only hope it and the treaty keep the peace.”

A gust of wind swept across the deck, its howling started to sound a lot like scream. Florentine looked up, and her mind swerved from the trauma lurking in her past to the existential terror of being within touching distance of the deities in the present.

“When do you expect we’ll return?” she asked, lost in the ocean above.

Powerfort tugged a pocket watch from his jacket, flicked it open and shut, then slid it back in a single curt motion. “Late afternoon,” he answered. “In a hurry, Knight-Captain?”

“I promised my parents I’d be home for dinner.”

“How quaint,” he scoffed. “I’m sure they’ll understand; your duty to The Crown takes precedent above all else.”

“Here, here,” she said flatly.

“You’ll have an incredible story to tell,” François cut in, his light-hearted attempt to avert an uncomfortable situation. “You know you’ll have to add some sort of perilous adventure to all this for Elaine? Telling him about your day of clinging terrified to the ship while His Majesty, the senator, and their respective families have a light lunch is going to sink him—pun intended.”

The high priestess wore robes of deep royal purple with accents of white and gold that puddled around her feet and flared at the cuffs. A hood hung down around her shoulders permitting her dark brown hair to ripple freely in the wind. Having only been appointed a mere six years earlier, she was young and beautiful, and often encouraged improper thoughts from Florentine. Something about unattainable women in powerful positions stoked her fire. She straightened, hoping the green in her pale cheeks wasn’t too noticeable as the high priestess glided across the deck to admire the view from the fore.

She cleared her throat politely. “You let me worry about which details I chose to embellish about our classified, highly advanced prototype airship.”

“The only detail you need reveal”—High Priestess Marianne turned to address them—“is that the Crystalline Goddess has provided her subjects with the next evolution of her power. Crystals held no power until Alwin Chicheley earned the Goddesses blessing, and now she’s renewing her faith in her loyal subjects with this new technology.” She descended to the upper deck. “There is nothing classified about this miracle.”

Florentine heard the High Priestesses words and wondered as to their validity. All her life she’d been taught of the Crystalline Goddesses love and compassion for those who worship her, yet the so-called ‘miracles’ only ever came during times of great violence for the sake of perpetuating that violence. Was it the Goddess whose nature was contrary to what Florentine believed, or the people spreading her message that were twisting it for their own ends? The farther she climbed up the societal food chain, the more she believed it to be the latter. The Crystalline Goddess was a being of love and compassion and tolerance. She crossed her fingers and placed them to her breast, above her heart; a sign of devotion.

A crowd of footsteps sucked the air from the conversation. Crown Princess Lena, King Ludwig, Queen Helena, Senator Antonius, Calpurnia, Aria, and Alexander dispersed onto the main deck. The king and senator were entirely absorbed by an apparently hilarious conversation, the queen and Calpurnia went off in the opposite direction to their husbands, Aria sprinted up to the bow to lean over the edge, and Alexander went up to the helm. Behind her François returned to admiring the view, the High Priestess joined him, and Powerfort to wherever it was he wanted to be.

Florentine waited for Lena to appear, but when she didn’t, the Knight-Captain ventured into the captain’s cabin. She found the crown princess still seated at the dining table while a quartet of servants buzzed around her. Lena looked over to Florentine. The pair waited in silence until the room was painstakingly reset to the standardised layout and the staff left. Florentine closed the doors. Within the confines of the room, her vertigo eased off.

Lena stood and walked over to stare out the aft-facing window. The view appeared both perfectly normal and like they were in a dream, bobbing up and down on the clouds like a toy boat for the deities.

“I want to do it,” she said. “I’m going to do it. I’ve talked to others, put in a few discrete requests here and there.” The pairs eyes met in the glass reflection. “I just need to know if you want to come with me.”

Florentine slid round the table to stand beside the princess, as if the room had been the thing to move and she’d remained rooted. The clouds in the ships wake swirled into the shape of Elaine, who hopped, giggling and grinning, onto the back of Melissa and they thrust out their arms like birds to fly alongside them. Jeremy arced out of the candyfloss ocean, arms also spread wide, and fell in beside his son and wife. A gust of wind swept them away. All the pain in the universe was worth enduring if it meant her family lived a safe and happy life, and they always would as long as she continued her armed forces service or sought an honourable discharge. That’s the deal Florentine made to get herself out of prison, and her family out of poverty.

Now the walls of her indecision crushed her; the looming wedding on one side and her family on the other. Time had run out to seek honourable discharge before the wedding, but even then a person of her upbringing, however decorated, would never be permitted to be with Crown Princess Lena. Eloping was the only way, and that would tear away the security she’d worked so hard to build around her family.

Was her happiness, her selfish love, worth the fallout?

“I want to run away with you,” Florentine said, slowly. “I want to live a happy life with you in that cottage in some far flung corner of Orbis. I want our Sapphos. It’s what would make me happy, and yet…”

Lena turned to her, intense in her studying of the other woman’s mannerisms. “I won’t force you to come with me,” she managed to say. “I want you to, so very desperately. The pain of us being apart burns in my chest, but the decision to come has to be your own, or I’m no better than the system holding your family hostage.”

“My whole life has been devoted to the safety of my family.”

Lena bit back a laugh.

Florentine frowned at her.

“Sorry. I was thinking about small you and your gang.”

She couldn’t help herself and cracked a smile.

The crown princess took it as permission to let it all out, her laughter flooding the room. “The ASSassins!” She cupped Florentine’s cheeks and squished them. “You’re so adorable! And beautiful and handsome and smart and brave and…everything.”

Florentine’s eyes flicked towards the door as she leant in to kiss Lena, then, tasting the acid remnants of vomit in her throat, opted instead for a hug. Her anxiety disappeared and fear no longer held any entry in her dictionary. She could step off the ship and trust she was flying.

A wrap on the door wretched them apart.

“Your Highness”—it was François muffled voice—“His Majesty requests your presence.”

“Just a moment,” Lena replied. Then, to Florentine, “if your answer is yes, we leave the night before the wedding.”

And she was at the far end of the room before Florentine could reply. Lena shot her one last smile then steeled herself, pulling open the doors. Florentine was left alone with only the rhythmic creaking of the hull as her companion. Was happiness possible without giving up her family’s wellbeing? Could a compromise be found if she kept looking? Procrastination, indecision: would they finally steal away her last chance at a life she chose?

#

It was far beyond late afternoon before Florentine stepped into the welcoming candlelit living room of her parents’ house, body running on embers. She kicked her shoes off and slid them into line beside the others, dropped her jacket beside the coat hook, and crossed to the door at the far end of the room where the hushed sounds of shuffling and clinking cutlery originated. A giggle cut through the quiet as Florentine pushed inside.

Jeremy pulled Melissa back against him and nibbled on her neck while she was trying to wash the dishes, and she giggled and squealed and ground her butt back against his crotch. Florentine wished she hadn’t walked in on that, and envied Elaine’s ability to sleep through the whole thing from his chair at the small table in the corner.

Florentine left her parents to their flirtation, and went to softly pat her baby brothers head. “Flory!” He straightened, awake to full alertness instantly. “You’re back!”

Her parents flinched apart at the exclamation.

She gave his hair a curt ruffle. “It’s nice to see you, too, wee man.”

“We thought you were standing us up,” Dad joked. “Was about to have the City Guard send out search parties.”

“That would’ve been nice,” Florentine replied. “I doubt they would’ve found me though; I was riding around in the Dairyman all day.”

Elaine’s eyes widened like blooming flowers. “You got to fly around in an airship!”

“I did”—she knelt to his level—“and it was the most incredible and terrifying thing I’ve ever done. The whole thing was held aloft by a…balloon, and a crystal core powered rotary blades to make us move. We soared above the clouds like draconum!”

Her mother nudged her softly on the arm, and leaned in, lowering her voice. A mischievous air surrounded her. “How about you score me a couple of tickets for it and I’ll take Jerry Bear on a little romantic getaway to the Draconis Realms?”

“It’s a prototype, Mum. I can’t just let you and Dad use it as a”—she staunched a gag—“personal play den.”

Her father slid an arm round her mother’s waist, quite clearly squeezing her ass. “Don’t worry, my little melon slice, I’ll get your head in the clouds soon enough.”

“Okay…” Florentine let the word hang for a beat as she grimaced. “Anyway, I’m sorry for being so late.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mum answered. “We left you some food on the… Where did it go?”

“Let me get it,” Dad offered, setting off on the hunt.

“What happened on the airship?” Elaine butted in. “D-Did you get in a fight with a draconis? Was it haunted by lost souls? Did you do the thing where you swing on the rope?”

Florentine slid onto the chair beside her brother. “We were attacked by Diadochi sky pirates!” she said. “They’d come to steal away the crown princess for nefarious means! They outnumbered us three-to-one, surrounded the ship—we almost lost! But I was able to cut them down and rescue Crown Princess Lena, before we used a rope to swing to safety right before the black powder reserve exploded!”

Elaine soaked it in like a sponge. “Wow! That’s so qwackers!”

“Q-Qwackers?”

He nodded as if she was expected to just know it.

“Uh, yeah…”

“I wish I could be an adventurer like you,” he declared. “I’d travel all over the world as a hero!” And then he proceeded to mime a selection of imagined episodes complete with self-made sound effects. “And then I’d save the kingdom!”

“You can be whoever you want to be, Elaine.” She rubbed his back. “No matter what your circumstances, you can always choose to follow the path that makes you the happiest, as long as you’re willing to work for it.”

Elaine’s smile glowed like sunlight hitting the surface of a crystal.

Florentine took a moment to commit his face to memory. Was her own happiness worth that of Elaine’s, or her parents? She thought back to her own childhood when they were borderline homeless on a daily basis; she thought back to the defeated, miserable aura haunting her parents; she thought about the ASSassins, and all the times she stolen and scrapped, the gauntlet she’d put herself through as a child to do whatever she could to make her parents smile again. They’d only given up their travelling merchant lifestyle to raise Florentine in a stable environment. It was her fault they’d suffered all those years, and she had a duty to repay that. Joining the army instead of serving out the rest of her sentence so that her parents could access the armed forces benefits package and finally live happily had shackled Florentine to this life forever.

Sapphos was mythical.

A dream.

“Off to bed”—Mum stepped in—“go on, it’s late enough and you’ve said hello to your sister.”

“Boo! I don’t wanna go to bed!” Elaine stamped his feet and planted himself on the chair. “I want to talk to Flory!”

“It’s okay,” Florentine reassured him, “we can talk again in the morning.”

He frowned at her. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay!” He jumped up to stand on the chair. “I’ll go to bed!”

Elaine hopped over the back into a deliberate, albeit clumsy, roll, and ran off upstairs.

Her mother took his place, and levelled an all-too-familiar look at her daughter. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “And don’t try to deny it; a parent knows.”

Florentine considered excusing herself somehow when a plate of freshly reheated dinner landed in front of her, and her father sat down on the other side of the table, giving her the same look.

“What’s bothering you, Bean?” he asked.

Florentine tried to swallow the lump welling in her throat. “It’s the wedding,” she said, voice shaking. “Lena—Her Majesty—wants to elope from the wedding with me…and I want to elope with her, and we’ve talked about it together for years and we’ve been having an affair and Alexander is in on itandwhoknowshowmanyotherpeopleandwe’rerunningoutoftimeandIwanttogobutdon’twantoleaveyouanddisgraceourfamilyandjeopardiseElaine’sfutureandthelifewe’vebuiltandthere’snomoretimeleftandIreallydon’twanthertogetmarriedand…” She continued to ramble for a few more minutes after that, but it only got increasingly incoherent from there, and didn’t show any signs of coming to an end until Mum placed a hand on her shoulder.

They sat in silence for a while with all the tiles of a mosaic laid out on the table in front of them. Florentine felt like a child again, seated in front of her parents unable to take their cajoling looks and spilling her guts about anything and everything she’d done that she thought she might be getting into trouble for. She’d gotten better at being selectively honest with them about some of the gnarlier stuff she’d done as she got older, but this was too big to contain, and opening the valve just a little caused it to shoot off and loose the flood of anxieties boiling within. She felt so silly. Only her parents were capable of stripping her down this way.

Dad sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’s quite the conundrum,” he remarked, “but you never were one to do things in half measures.”

Mum leaned forward. “You’ve considered—”

“—the consequences of my actions? Yes, yes, I’ve been contemplating them for years.” Florentine sighed, deflating. “Eloping isn’t the part I’m worried about. Lena has already decided she’s going regardless of my participation. If… If I go with her, I’ll be dishonourably discharged and charged with treason, among other related crimes. Being discharged in that manner alone is enough to have my armed forces benefits stripped from all of us. They will ostracise you from Dawn Stone society and destroy Elaine’s chance for a stable life. I accepted that offer all those years ago for you, to atone for all the trouble I put you through.”

“Oh, no, Bean, you didn’t put us through any trouble.” Her mother reached out to tightly squeeze her hand. “The universe can be cruel sometimes. No-one could’ve seen the health issues cropping up right after you were born.”

“Don’t blame yourself for that,” her father added. “You can’t keep living your life trying to redeem an imagined slight. We never blamed you for any of it. Even after you joined that gang, we were never overly harsh on you because we knew you were trying your best to help out—and you did, for a long time.”

“I only wish you’d opened up sooner,” Mum once again picked up. “Lending a helping hand to those you care about is an admirable way to live, but living entirely for others isn’t living at all.” She sat back, her posture becoming that of parental authority. “Eloping with Her Majesty is a huge commitment and, quite frankly, I can’t really wrap my head around it. You and Her Majesty are in love and want to run off together. You’d be hunted for the rest of your lives. Where would you go?”

Sapphos.

“I don’t know,” Florentine replied. She dropped her head into her hands and groaned. “If only we’d committed to this earlier instead of dancing around it for so long, we could’ve planned it all better. But that’s not the path we took, and now it’s now or never.”

Dad had sat back, taking a wider view of his daughter. “You don’t need to feel shackled to us, Bean,” he told her. “We’re proud of your service in the armed forces and the way you were able to turn your life, and ours, around through sheer force of will. No decision you’ve ever made was stupid or ill-considered. Reckless, maybe, and sometimes misguided,” he added, “but never without the purest intentions and strongest resolve. All this talk of running off with Her Majesty is a bit beyond the realm of my imagination, but you’re the one who’s been serving on the army these last years and you’re the one who’s built that relationship with her.” He tapped a finger atop her left breast. “Only you know if this is what you want.”

“I…” Florentine sat back, staring at the dancing shadows on the wall. “I…want to be with her. I want to have the freedom to choose my own path, for the first time in my life. I need to go with her, be with her. But—”

“Don’t say anymore.” Mum’s demeanour relaxed, warmed. “We’re older and a little worse for wear, but your mum and dad can take care of ourselves, and Elaine. We have friends and a support system that we didn’t when we first arrived.”

“And we won’t hesitate to throw you under the carriage if they come calling,” her father quipped with a wink. “We didn’t know a thing, and are just as horrified and disappointed as everyone else,” he said with mock innocence.

Florentine choked out a sharp laugh, tears washing her cheeks. “Thank you—both of you.”

“You carried us for a long time, and it’s only fair to help you find your own happiness.”

“Even if it involves a little treason,” her mother said. “But if Her Majesty is running away regardless, it’s better to have you by her side than not.”

Laughter pulsed from deep in the pit of her stomach, letting go and breaking down to ugly crying, snot bubbling in her nose. Sapphos would be real, and she had command enough of her life to point it in that direction, filled with love and warmth. No longer would she have to defend the system that deceived her into killing civilians, protecting a royal family whose decadence and opulence was built on the toil of the commoner, and she’d never have to wear another dress uniform for as long as she lived. This is what she wanted.

Florentine enveloped her parents in a huge, crushing hug as she sobbed into their shoulders. The demands of her job left little space for genuine vulnerability. That unwavering dedication to the duty of her country and parents had blinded her to the inherent misery in her life, until the one mission that earned her the prestige she now held thawed her out.

They sat for several minutes holding their daughter until her tears ran dry and her cries quieted, then for a few minutes more. Florentine sat back, wiping her swollen, stinging eyes on the back of her sleeves. She took in the image of her parents, older yet healthier than she ever remembered them. All of her hard work had paid off—for that, she could be proud. There was one thing she had to do before she left, but that could be saved until later. For now, she took the fork into her hand and stabbed one of the sausages, biting a bit off the end and savouring the smoky taste. The anxiety born from worrying about her parents was so engrained in her that it would never fully go away, but her parents reassurances and encouragement had soothed it enough to lock in her resolve.

After dinner, she excused herself and went upstairs to her old bedroom—now used mostly as dusty storage for surplus materials her father kept on-hand for his shop. Buried amongst the cavalcade of boxes and sacks, spare raw materials and tools, unsold stock and clutter long since forgotten, was a scuffed and faded wooden box of childhood belongings she’d left behind when she went off to the army. She took the key from her pocket and popped off the padlock. One item stood at the forefront of her focus, an item she’d acquired from the war: a singed teddy bear. She’d found it in the smouldering remains of a communal hall she’d helped burn down near the end of the war. She turned it over in her hands, thumb stroking the rough charred fur of its cheek. There wasn’t much left of the people inside afterwards, but she knew the bear belonged to one of the scared civilians seeking shelter within. One day, maybe, she’d come to terms with what she did, but it wasn’t likely to be any time soon.

 Florentine made one final stop before she left: Elaine’s bedroom. And, as suspected, she found him sitting up in bed, huddled in close to a lantern so he could read. He tossed the book when he saw her and leapt into her arms. She hugged him so close and tight for a long time knowing it may be the last time she’d ever see him. A prayer for his health and safety formed in her mind and she asked the Crystalline Goddess to shine her light down upon her family.

Florentine knew this was the right path.

Her answer was yes.