VIOLENT TIDES (gxg - editing)

36

The Reyngal castle gardens were entirely indoors. Enclosed by delicate glass walls that let in the brilliant sunlight, it was a sanctuary of lush green foliage and bright exotic birds that made it their home. Fully grown trees reached up for the highest corners of the transparent ceiling, and the walking paths were bordered by flowering bushes. Butterflies were everywhere, though Ainsley couldn't imagine how they had gotten here. Perhaps the queen bred them, or collected the chrysalises.

Either way, it was a sight to behold, and it proved to be exactly the thing Ainsley and Gael needed. After saying goodbye to the pirates, who would dock the Finch at a coastal town nearly a hundred miles away, they had spent the night and the next morning trying to relax despite the imminent threat on the horizon. Ainsley could barely unwind—at any moment, she expected to see a messenger or guard bringing news of the battle ships that would surely appear on the horizon before long.

Gael, however, seemed determined to calm Ainsley down.

The two sat hand-in-hand in the gardens, warm sunlight brushing their faces and shoulders. They were in clean clothes given to them by Mirali, and after bathing and spending the night under clean bedsheets, it was hard not to relax at least a little bit. Nathe had spent the morning entertaining young Mavis with stories of the titans, giving Ainsley and Gael a chance to be alone.

Ainsley looked down at their interlocked hands, admiring the way they seemed to fit together perfectly, like maybe they had been made to hold each other. The sound of birdsong filled the air. Gael used her free hand to lay her brilliantly-coloured quill pen against the surface of the white stone table they sat at. Greenery crept around the legs of the carved benches.

She was writing to her family. Ainsley knew that much.

She had spent the last two hours here in the garden with Gael, watching her compose the letter, script shaky in some places. Occasionally, she would release her pen and press the knuckles of her hand into her opposite palm, soothing the tremble of her fingers, or stare up at the tangling branches above them and leave her sentence trailing and unfinished on the paper. Finally, though, she passed the sheet to Ainsley.

"Can you read this for me before I have it sent?"

Ainsley dropped Gael's hand to take the paper, blinking against the way the sunlight glared off of it. She read the words slowly, pausing at certain phrases to brush her fingers against the drying ink. The letter was long, but certain sentences seemed to jump at her and wrap their fingers around her throat.

"Please forgive me" and "I wish I could promise I'll see you again."

Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them away so she could continue reading.

"A bigger cause than me" and "something worth dying for" and "this may be where it all ends, one way or another."

And "I love you even if this is my only goodbye."

She took Gael's hand once more and squeezed it. Gael was crying, quiet tears rolling down her cheeks and splattering dark against the rough stone.

"They'll be proud," was all Ainsley could say.

—
The clatter of metal against metal filled the near-empty courtyard.

It had been over a month since Ainsley had wielded a sword rather than a cutlass, or, on rare occasions, Gael's pistol, and her skill—or lack of it—showed. She and Luca had taken on sparring with standard arming swords they had borrowed from the soldiers, who were the only people left in the city. All of the civilians had been evacuated, and the queen was planning to take her daughter and son and leave the next day. It wouldn't do to let Ackerley get his hands on the country's monarch and heirs.