Chapter 19 - A Brand New Deal

It did not matter at which point in my long life I had decided that there was only one person for me. It mattered that I put some distance between us. Because the Lord Father Asshole forbade any familial relations - or relations of any kind between his creations. 

It had not always been the law. 

He only forbade them when he noticed with pointed looks how Volmira doted on Ros and how Ari and I … were with each other. Laws of the universe and laws of the Assigner were one and the same in our mind. We were scarcely aware there were forces beyond his power, a dominion not ruled by him, although Vectra mentioned off-handedly some 0worlds outside of the Tripolis system that the Assigner did not command. 

But I noticed something as well and used it as best I could to build a wall between my heart and Ari's, though a lot good that did. 

Customs of creatures on Tripolis - even trading with Tripolis were as myriad as there were stars, and yet they were bound by one singular understanding - family was off limits. Mating with a brother, a sister, a cousin, an uncle - was immoral, disgusting; it bred monsters, physically and mentally impaired pups, it slowed down the progress of civilization, of technology. 

The punishments for breaking the law varied. 

Tropolitans were a people of nature, one with it, and therefore more lenient. Despite their technological prowess, they relied on agriculture and used the technology only to trade with others. They locked the ones who transgressed under lock and key.

Hunatans, on the other hand, engineers and inventors, Swarm Sphere pioneers who harvested energy from the stars, devised a far more terrible fate for those who dared to fuck in the family. 

Orlionic Collar, they called it on their planet of Hunat. An advanced, AI-driven punitive device invented by a Hunatan woman who has long since then become a legend on their planet. A neural-linked restraint that latched onto the offender's neck and integrated it with their central nervous system. 

The collar generated subtle electromagnetic pulses that interfered with the brain's limbic system, inducing an instinctual repulsion response toward any familial connection. It caused nausea, migraines, and overwhelming aversion at the mere thought of intimate contact with a relative. 

The device emitted pheromonal signals that make the wearer repugnant to others, inducing a deep-rooted psychological response in bystanders to avoid and reject them. This ensured that they become socially ostracized, reinforcing the severity of their actions. 

But the cruelest of it all laid in its … hereditary predisposition. In extreme cases, like fucking your mother or father, the Orlionic Collar remained active for multiple generations, genetically encoding its restrictions to prevent the bloodline from repeating its crimes. Children born from incestuous unions inherited a latent version of the collar, activating if similar patterns emerge in their behavior. 

If the wearer tried to remove or tamper with the collar, it delivers a sharp neuro-feedback pulse—a sensation described as "having your brain wrung out like a wet rag."

And so I thought introducing a family dynamic into the social construct of the protectors of Tripolis would jolt me into normalcy. Help me obey the Assigner's laws.

But the truth was - always would be - we were not human. We were sentient gods and rules never applied to us. And I should not have listened to the White Snake when he told me to stay away from Ari.

Because having Ari inside me was akin to a divine ascension. 

I had never understood the weight of human taboos, their brittle, arbitrary rules. I was not bound by them - Ari and I were not bound by them. We were Anchors, not flesh and blood, not fragile creatures clinging to crumbling morality. And yet, for eons, we had obeyed. A brush of fingertips, a forehead kiss in the quiet of the stars.

What a waste.

 We were more than flesh and breath—we were the foundation of this world, the pulse that kept Tripolis alive, and now we moved as one. In the high grass, hidden from the massacre the Vlachy - those that remained - were still reeling from.

That could have been us. The White Snake could have torn us apart if he really wanted. He would find a way, even when he was worlds away. 

All he needed was a pliant mind who needed to feed on the elements. To drink water, to eat the fruit of the earth, to warm their home with fire. He would find his way through the elements and settle in one's mind. 

I dug my nails into Ari's back, dragging them down the length of his spine, and he shuddered against me. He was thinking the same thing. We could have died.

The wind picked up, rushing through the trees, bending them, echoing the fevered chaos of our union. His name tumbled from my lips, and he answered in kind, his voice strained, desperate. I could feel him everywhere, his body, his breath, the heat of his skin branding mine. Every movement, every push and pull of him, felt like reclamation, like a truth that had always existed.

Forgive me, Father. But I must kill you. 

*** 

Bonnie stood in the open market, a scatter of colors and sounds buzzing around her like a fevered hive. Fish lay gutted on cracked wooden tables, their scales glistening like shards of broken glass under the low morning sun. The people of Aazor moved about like ghosts draped in hunger, their bodies lean from a season that had given them little and stolen much. The Vlachy were dead, and soon, the last vestiges of them would be scrubbed from the streets, washed away like blood in the tide.

Bonnie adjusted the basket on her hip, its weight a mere fraction of what she'd have liked. She was no stranger to scarcity, but something about the way Aazor starved now made her stomach coil in uneasy familiarity. She had spent her childhood on these streets, knew the fishmonger Lester by the shape of his gnarled hands before she even saw his face. He had fed her when no one else would. Now she handed him coins, and his rheumy eyes softened, as if remembering a smaller, hungrier version of her.

She should have been paying attention. She should have felt it sooner—the shadow curling at the edges of her periphery, the weight of eyes that didn't simply watch, but studied.

Bonnie turned her head slightly, catching sight of a man moving between the stalls. His presence did not disrupt the flow of the crowd; he was a stone in a river, the current parting around him effortlessly. Sunlight touched the ends of his brown hair, setting its curls aglow with the amber warmth of late autumn. His eyes—brown, deep, and old in a way that had nothing to do with years—settled on her.

She knew better than to stare.

The man stood like a shadow in the periphery—tall, striking, too perfect to belong in a place like Aazor.

With a shake of her head, she turned back to Lester's selection, picking through the meager catch. But the moment stretched thin, like the pause before a storm, and then there he was—before her, looming. A predator that didn't need to bare teeth to inspire dread.

"Who'd you scramble for this one?" Bonnie asked, slipping into motion, moving to the next vendor as if the conversation were nothing more than a passing drizzle on her skin. Her basket still gaped half-empty. This season had been cruel to Aazor.

"I think I heard his wife call him 'Nestor' before I took over," the man answered, his voice smooth, his humor like the glint of a knife against light.

Bonnie exhaled sharply, a sound somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. She didn't stop walking. "What do you want?"

"I came to ask if you'd reconsider," 'Nestor' said, keeping pace with her. "It's been long enough."

Bonnie laughed, the sound raw, cutting. "You think my leaving you for four millennia was just me throwing a fit?"

"No." There was no hesitation in his voice. "I know you had a reason."

She stopped, finally, turning to face him fully. The weight of history settled between them like the hush before thunder.

"We are bound to others now," she said, her voice quieter, but no less firm. "I have Edward. You have Vectra."

'Nestor' tilted his head, his lips curving just slightly. "Vectra is a servant," he murmured. "And Edward is nothing more than a distraction."

Bonnie's fingers tightened around the basket handle, her knuckles pale with the force of it. The market carried on around them, oblivious, uncaring. But the sea knew. The sea always knew.

Bonnie wanted to ignore him. She wanted to keep walking, to let his words scatter like dried leaves underfoot. But 'Nestor' had never been easy to shake, and even now, with the weight of years between them, he knew how to coil around her resolve like ivy on crumbling stone.

A snake indeed.

"You're wasting your time," she said, flicking a glance at him from beneath her lashes.

"You have no idea what they're capable of."

She laughed, the sound sharp and incredulous. "The children you turned into gods?" She shook her head, a smirk curling at her lips. "When will you stop torturing them?"

His jaw clenched, frustration flickering behind those warm brown eyes. "When they fall back in line," he said, stepping closer, forcing her to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. 

She paused mid-step, something shifting in her gut, an instinct that warned her that perhaps—for once—he wasn't exaggerating. But then, this was 'Nestor'. Everything about him was shadowed in half-truths, in veiled warnings meant to manipulate more than to protect.

She finally turned to him fully. And for a moment, the weight of recognition passed between them, heavy and unspoken.

This body—this riot of red hair and untamed spirit—was not the form of the woman the White Snake had fallen in love with. But it held everything he had ever wanted still.

Bonnie lifted her chin, her voice even. "I am not helping the enemy. I am neutral. Always have been."

'Nestor' exhaled sharply, as if disappointed but not surprised. And then, before she could stop him, his hands found her hips, his grip firm but questioning. Testing.

Her basket tumbled from her fingers, its meager contents spilling onto the dirt. She sucked in a breath, caught somewhere between irritation and something far more dangerous.

He searched her face, waiting. Perhaps wondering if she would punish him for the audacity of touching her. If she would remind him, with fire and fury, that they were not who they used to be.

But no punishment came. Only the ghost of her breath against his lips, warm and inviting in the cool sea air.

"I don't want to lose you again in yet another pointless war," he murmured, his fingers tightening at her waist, pressing her just enough to feel the heat of him.

Bonnie's expression didn't soften, but her hand did, lifting to cup his cheek, her thumb grazing over the sharp line of his jaw.

"Then make peace," she said simply, retrieving her basket and turning on her heel—walking back toward the very people he wanted her to abandon.

She had barely taken three steps when his voice chased after her, curling around her spine like a whisper of the past.

"Sibelle," the Assigner said, his tone both weary and amused. "I need your collars."

Bonnie glanced over her shoulder, eyes flashing with something wild and untamed. Then, without breaking stride, she flipped him off.

***

The Vlachy people—what remained of them—were picking up the pieces, their movements slow, drained. Too many ghosts hovered over them now, unseen but felt in the brittle silence, in the way no one truly laughed anymore.

Near the center of the camp, Soileen had finally soothed her children. They huddled close to the fire, their small faces pressed against her side, their fragile sleep an uneasy truce with exhaustion. The flames danced low.

Even the elements have given up on this place.

Bonnie set the three fish down on the grass and crouched, pulling out her pirate's knife, its worn handle warm against her palm. 

She slid the blade into the first fish's belly, gutting it in a swift, clean motion. Red hair spilled over her shoulders, falling into the firelight in wild waves, damp from the sea air.

"Where are Ari and Mila?" she asked without looking up, voice even, careful.

Soileen didn't answer right away. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, glancing toward the distant cliffs. Then, with a knowing sigh, she said, "Where do you think?"

Bonnie snorted, shaking her head. "Idiots."

The fire crackled as she reached for the next fish. "Salacia is bleeding the port. She's turning the fish away." Her fingers tightened on the knife, her frustration spilling into her grip. "The people are scrambling."

 "Salacia sees herself as queen of both the oceans and the islanders," she murmured, adjusting the blanket around her children. "She will not send a great wave to swallow us whole. She has no interest in ruling over ruins."

Bonnie's knife stilled for a fraction of a second before carving forward again. "Then what does she want?"

Soileen's lips curled into something wry, bitter. "She will use Areilycus' pure heart and Milada's pride to claim the dragon's heart."

Bonnie exhaled through her nose, shaking her head. "They never will."

Soileen's gaze held hers, unflinching. "No," she said, quiet but firm. "She will not."

Not they.

She.

The fire crackled between them, its warmth barely reaching Bonnie's bones. She worked in silence, gutting the last fish, her fingers slick with blood and seawater.

Soileen watched her for a long moment, her gaze sharp as the wind rolling in from the ocean. Then, with a slight tilt of her head, she asked, "And what of you, Bonnie?"

Bonnie flicked a glance up before wiping her knife on the grass. "What about me?"

Soileen's smile was slow, knowing. "You come and go like the tide, but you never speak of where the waves carry you."

Bonnie huffed a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "I go where I'm needed."

"So you're needed now?"

Bonnie didn't answer immediately. She reached for a handful of salt and rubbed it into the fish, her fingers pressing firm, methodical. "For now."

Soileen shifted, adjusting the blanket over her sleeping children. "And after?"

Bonnie shrugged, her red hair slipping over her shoulder. "Depends on the wind."

Soileen studied her, waiting, perhaps, for something more. But Bonnie had never been generous with the truth, not when it came to herself.

Soileen sighed through her nose. "And what of Edward?"

Bonnie's hands stilled. The firelight cast shadows over her face, making her expression unreadable, but when she finally spoke, her voice was steady. "He's asleep."

"Asleep?"

"By the lake." Her lips twitched in something too soft to be a smirk. "He'll wake when he's ready."

Soileen considered that, then nodded. "And you'll be there."

Bonnie's fingers curled around her knife again. "I'm always there."

Somewhere in the distance, the sea churned against the rocks, restless and endless. Bonnie listened to it for a moment, then exhaled, shaking off whatever weight had settled in her chest.

"You ask too many questions," she muttered, reaching for a cloth to clean her hands.

Soileen only smiled. "And you give too few answers."

"You have known me long enough." 

"You love Edward, but he does not love you," Soileen said. "And yet you aid him in his insane quest to bring back the king."

"I wish Neptune was here," Bonnie said. "His bitch wife would not be so bold in her actions." 

Soileen let out a pitiful chuckle. "It all begins with love, doesn't it." 

A breath of wind stirred the embers, sending sparks into the night air. Bonnie made a soft sound in her throat, neither a laugh nor a denial. "You have no idea." 

Bonnie picked at a loose thread on her sleeve, letting the answer settle between them.

"What do you know of the White Snake?" 

Bonnie shrugged. "Not much. Only what Mila told me. And Edward. He's not all powerful like they say though, is he?" 

"No," Soileen said. "No one is all-powerful. But he is as close to it as one can get." 

"Our fight is not with him and yet, we were roped into it." 

"Depends on what you mean by 'our.'" 

Bonnie leaned back on her elbows, stretching her legs toward the fire. "I fight for my own reasons."

Soileen's eyes darkened with something close to sympathy. "Edward, then."

Bonnie's jaw tightened. "I'm loyal to him. He gave me purpose when I was drifting through the wind like a leaf." 

Soileen didn't press further. She only nodded, pulling her children closer against her side. "A long time ago, he fulfilled a request uttered by the Vajda. The first of our people to unite the scattered tribes. Jung was his name. I wish he had never summoned him from the fire, that demon." 

"What did he ask of him?" Bonnie asked. 

Soileen dared not repeat the request. It cursed the tribe, it cursed Valorian and Tripolis. 

It cursed Areilycus and Mila. 

***

The fire from the night before had died to embers, but the scent of charred wood and the ghosts of whispered conspiracies still clung to the air. And then, as always, Mila and Ari arrived—silent as shadows, their clothes disheveled, their hands still brushing in the space between them like a secret language. They had been hiding, plotting as they always did, their lips stained with grass and wine and … who knows what else.

There were not many Vlachy left. The thought settled in Bonnie's gut like a swallowed stone. The mighty people who once ruled the tides and whispered to the waves had been reduced to whispers themselves, dwindling figures scattered like driftwood in the storm. And yet, Mila—impossibly defiant Mila—stood at the center of their ruin, her spine straight, her eyes burning. 

"It's time," Mila said, "Queen Salacia will have her legs."

A hush fell over the camp. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Soileen, the last witch of worth among them, lifted her chin, her dark eyes flashing like onyx struck by moonlight. "It's a mistake," she said, "To give Salacia dominion over land is to invite disaster."

"She will not have dominion," Mila countered. "She will have purpose."

"She will have wrath," Soileen corrected, crossing her arms over her chest. "And what then? When the sea rises to claim what is hers, when the land splits beneath her fury, will you still be so certain?"

Bonnie exhaled, feeling the weight of the conversation settle onto her shoulders. The Vlachy were desperate, their once-great empire reduced to a scattering of survivors clinging to the edges of history. And Mila—Mila, with her reckless courage and her eyes full of war—was willing to gamble their last hope on a sea queen with too much power and too little reason.

"We need an army," Mila pressed, her voice firm, unshaken. "We need someone to stand up to the Assigner. To hold the line until the little dragon grows its wings." She cast a glance at Bonnie then, a flicker of something unreadable in her gaze. "Until Bonnie is ready."

"I will give Salacia legs," Soileen said. "But under one condition."

Mila lifted a brow. "Name it."

"You," Soileen said, stepping closer, her eyes burning like dark coals. "You will be the new Vajda."

***

The hidden beach near the Gulf of Aazor was not a place of peace. It was a mouth, a jagged, yawning thing where the sea gnashed its teeth against the rocks, coughing up foam. 

The wind screamed like a wounded animal. The sand felt sharp beneath their feet, gritty with crushed shells and forgotten bones. Bonnie stood at the edge, her pulse hammering against her ribs as she watched Soileen step forward, her thin arms raised, her mouth twisting into the shape of ancient, dangerous words.

The witch's voice echoed across the empty beach: 

"O drom anglal, o drom palal—

Ruvla, baxtale devla, saste man!

Puven an i paani, len an i phuv,

Salacia—chorav o jivipen, del amen o mol!"*

Her voice rose and cracked like lightning hitting a brittle tree. The waves shuddered. The water pulled back, hesitating.

Then it surged forward with a roar, crashing against the rocks and spiraling into impossible patterns—circles within circles, spirals within spirals.

Bonnie felt the hair on her arms stand up. Magic, raw and untamed, scraped against her skin. It wasn't the pretty kind either; it was the kind that left bruises.

She remembered this magic all too well, cursing her and turning her into a beast.

Soileen's eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. Her voice cracked like glass:

"Salacia, phuv, paani, trajo!

Kames te kerav amenca!

Dik! Av si amenca! Av te lel o kangheri!"*

The sea answered. The spirals collapsed into a single, towering column of water that shot skyward. It hung there for a moment, gleaming like a frozen vein of glass. Then it shattered and rained down in thick sheets.

And from the center of that water, she came.

No longer the hag of the deeps, no longer the sea-warped creature with barnacled skin and a tail like a twisted root. She walked now, walked—bare feet pressing into the wet sand, each step leaving behind shimmering, iridescent traces of seawater. Her skin was the color of polished driftwood, smooth and glistening. Her hair tumbled down her back in thick, seaweed-dark coils. She wore a dress of foam and pearl-thread that clung to her legs, legs she was testing like a newborn fawn learning what the earth felt like beneath it.

She was beautiful. And terrifying. Like the ocean on a calm day: pretty on the surface, but ready to drown you if you got too close.

She had never seen the bitch look this much like an ethereal.

Mila stood beside her twin, Areilycus, whose hands hovered over her shoulders like a shield, like a tether. His face mirrored hers: sharp, expectant, wary. He shifted the dark green cloak in his arms, and when Salacia stepped from the water to the dry sand, he moved forward and draped it over her shoulders.

Salacia's dark eyes flicked to him, her lips curving into something that might've been a smile. 

 "Well," she said, voice thick like honey drawn from deep, wild hives. "You kept your word."

Mila stepped forward, her boots sinking into the wet sand. "We're ready to double down," she said. "We'll give all your people legs. Every nereid that still swims in the deep. If you swear loyalty to us."

Salacia laughed. A guttural, rolling sound.

Well, she might look beautiful now, but she is still laughing like a gremlin.

 "And why would I do that?" Her gaze turned mocking. "I don't give a sea rat's ass about your wars. All I want is Edward Kinsley's blood. The Assigner's not my problem."

"Isn't he?" Mila's voice was soft. Dangerous.

Salacia's laughter died, strangled in her throat. Her jaw tensed. Just slightly. A crack in the armor, small but unmistakable.

Mila stepped closer. "You're afraid of him," she said.

The words hit like a harpoon to the chest. Salacia's pupils shrank. Her fingers twitched against the cloak's edge. The sea behind her seemed to stir uneasily, waves folding over each other in nervous submission.

"You poured down acidic rain on Aazor and you diverted the fish from the fishing grounds to slowly starve the population, but it is nothing compared to what your magic could have done. And yet you did not. You don't seem the type to hold back. Unless someone told you to." 

The silence stretched taut, thin as fishing wire. Bonnie, standing just behind Mila, felt her heart ricochet against her ribs. The ocean, vast and eternal, never feared anything. But its queen? Her fear was palpable.

"Afraid?" Salacia hissed. Her shoulders squared. "The Assigner cannot reach my realm." 

Mila smiled. "He just tore through our camp hidden in my brother's body and killed almost everybody." 

Salacia's lips parted. A moment of hesitation flickered across her face. Her eyes drifted toward the restless waves, where her kingdom still waited beneath the surface, untouched and unchallenged. Safe.

But fear was a powerful thing. And revenge? Revenge was stronger.

She extended her hand. The sea still glistened on her skin, running in rivulets down her arm. The saltwater didn't fall; it coiled like snakes around her wrist, swirling and shimmering in defiance of gravity.

Mila clasped it. The moment their palms touched, the air crackled, and the waves roared as if the sea itself was screaming its approval—or its fury.

"We have a dragon, Salacia," Mila said. "And we all want to use her for our noble cause of love." 

Salacia opened her mouth to protest but Mila raised a hand. "I know you love your husband still. We can make a dragon. I can make a dragon," Mila swore.

Bonnie tried to hide her surprise. Of course she didn't know how to make a dragon, it was not magic that could be taught. Dragons were created, yes.

Just not the way you think they are.

If Salacia were to see through the lie, she would kill them - well, not the Sensitives, no, but the rest of 'em. And Bonnie grew rather attached to her new body.

The wind howled through the hidden cove when Queen Salacia agreed to the Anchor's proposal.