Some part of Roskvir had always known the cannons set beneath the Tanngnjostr were a thing to be hated.

  He’d despised them when first he’d witnessed a demonstration of their sister-battery during air trials of the Tanngrisnir. Years ago, back across the ocean, when still he’d been an apprentice shipwright. The same nervous sort of disgust turned over in his stomach each time he saw them ever since.

  The distinct twin beat of their volley rumbled up through his boots, then.

  They were cowards’ weapons. He’d always known that. But in those final corridors before the princess’ chamber, he hated them more than for what it meant to hear their fire:

  That the battle was underway.

  But still, he continued to her. His legs marched onward, absent of any other plan. And the native soldier Kerauna continued to follow, perhaps unaware of the reality of their circumstances.

  Or perhaps she did know.

  He couldn’t resent her for any delay. Assisting with her aims had been a necessity. And he’d only come that far in the first place with her help, after all.

  Opening the last airlock before the final stretch of catwalk, he faced a blanket of damp silver mist. Chill as if pulled him out onto the thin metal grating, before the pressure equalized, and he began along the handrails.

  The next volley’s shockwave stung his skin as it passed. Overpressure rippled through the gray murk, thinning the clouds ahead.

  Roskvir froze.

  There was another figure on the catwalk. Coming towards them.

  His first instinct was to reverse course. But they were so long past out of time. And the figure had seen them already, anyway.

  He clenched his fist behind his back, trying to signal some warning of danger to Kera when nothing he could whisper would reach her over storm, klaxon, and engines’ roar. Even as the clouds reformed, Roskvir made out familiar features as the figure approached.

  “Ah! Kapitanleutnant!” shouted Dalgrandr, after what seemed a double-take.

  Roskvir willed himself to appear calm. He returned his old comrade’s salute, then pressed himself to one side of the catwalk, offering to let the other man pass. Dalgrandr did as he prompted, and they edged past each other.

  “Wait. Englihavt?”

  Roskvir’s heart sank. He turned back around.

  Dalgrandr held both handrails of the catwalk, blocking off Kerauna behind him.

  “You’re back already? From your… expedition?”

  Roskvir nodded, trying to find the body language that conveyed in the most blatant sense just how much he really had to be going.

  The guns fired again, and the catwalk shook. Roskvir closed his eyes as his ears popped.

  “I didn’t — when did you —“ Dalgrandr hesitated, as if aware of the impertinence of his questions, but too confused not to ask.

  “A few hours ago,” Roskvir said, half-pivoting to leave.

  “Wait a second, Englihavt. Helfden was assigned to your swift. But he hasn’t reported back to my—“

  “Debriefing, still.”

  Dalgrandr nodded slowly, then looked over his shoulder at Kerauna.

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  “Don’t you have somewhere you’re going?” Roskvir demanded.

  Dalgrandr turned back to him.

  “She’s… from the vizeadmiral’s contingent, then?” he asked. "Long time in the sun?”

  The Tanngnjostr was a huge ship. But Dalgrandr had a good memory for people, Roskvir knew. A good eye for faces.

  The cannons fired again, and the world shook.

  “Are you aware where we are? We don’t have— who do you think you are?” Roskvir spluttered.

  Dalgrandr didn’t answer. The moment dragged on, filled by the klaxon’s wail.

  “We must be going,” Roskvir said at last.

  “Aye, sir,” said Dalgrandr.

  * * *

  When Aurelia was five, and her brother Argentus was eleven, they’d learned of the succession.

  Their mother had told Argentus first, in her usual tactless fashion, thinking it might’ve been a way to make him finally behave. The lesson had the opposite effect, of course. No boy of eleven — let alone a boy already so fragile and insecure as Argentus — would’ve been prepared to learn that he might one day inherit the governance of the entire known world, if it so pleased his mother to grant such a thing to him rather than either of his sisters. Before the day was over, that plentiful excess of nervous energy was already deflecting back out of his psyche in a new form of ruthless taunting for his younger sister to endure.

  Aurelia had thus learned from her brother of the succession. And, that she’d be sent off to a nunnery once Argentus wore the golden wreath. He’d been chosen already, he claimed. So, believing him, Aurelia spent the next few days reading every book in their summer estate’s library that made mention of religion, in order to prepare for her future monastic duties.

  By the time she’d finished her research, she was of the firm belief that the gods were all dead.

  The evidence pointed in but one direction. First-hand accounts of miracles, from the era when sacrifices were actually, tangibly accepted, were found only in semi-legendary and ancient-historic sources at best. Such stories began to dry up long before even the time of Maxadin. And it was clear that offerings made in modern times were offerings but to thieves, and to rot.

  But Aurelia did not know that the gods were certainly dead, she conceded to the hypothetical theological contrarians. Evidence seemed to point that way, but it could not be proven absolutely.

  All anyone could prove, she reasoned, was that they were all either dead, or evil.

  * * *

  Aurelia couldn’t help but rehash the cosmic horror of those debates as she lay curled on the floor of her prison-cabin, oppressed by the klaxon siren’s scream.

  She thought of the city, as she so often did.

  No living god would allow that to happen unless they were evil, she thought. And no evil god could deserve worship. Those had all been standard arguments, in theological dialogues past. Sound of logic, if simple and uninteresting.

  But the abstract logic of those arguments rang hollow to her, then, as the rumble of guns shook the floor of her cabin once more.

  She couldn’t help but imagine where those guns were aimed. She hated how easily she imagined things, and the detail in which she did, and how she couldn’t stop herself from doing so.

  Facing such horrors in her mind’s eye, and hating her stupidity and selfishness and uselessness, she thus found herself convinced of a new perspective on those issues of religion.

  So she swallowed her pride. And banished any pretension that she could remain morally opposed to the entreatment of an evil god.

  It had been silly to think that, she decided. It had been a princess’ thought. A princess who lived far detached from the world of real things, who knew only what could be learned in grand libraries and estate lounges, unaware of the actual problems or responsibilities that might lie in wait outside those ornate walls.

  And so Aurelia closed her eyes, put her hands together, and prayed.

  To anything that might still be listening, evil might its nature be.

  Begging would be better than nothing, even if it was likely she begged to an empty void. If the alternative was to do truly nothing, as her people suffered and died.

  So she prayed — almost more to distract herself from the wracking guilt that resurged fresh with each shudder of cannonfire through the floor. So she could at least say to herself she’d tried something, the most she could.

  It was a short prayer, devoid of the formalities she’d heard added by priests and priestesses, as she knew deities wouldn’t care about that sort of thing. But earnest in its request.

  She asked for nothing more or ever again, beyond mercy for her people at that moment.

  And she retrieved the book of tales Roskvir had saved from the library, her last possession of any value. She dragged it to her spot on the floor, heavy as it was for her, then knelt before it, and willed whoever might listen to accept it as an offering, as she finished her prayer.

  Seconds passed filled by only the terrible wail of the siren. Dread of the next volley’s thunder crept back over her, and she considered repeating the prayer, if just to continue distracting herself. All while embarrassed at her foolishness for holding out even the littlest hope that something as ridiculous as divine intervention might’ve aided her or her people.

  But then she heard a familiar knock against her chamber door.

  "Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight

  Take me through the darkness to the break of the day"

  ABBA