Jysmn’s lungs squeezed harshly inside of her, but she had been learning the passed few days to push through the pain. She remembered a time were she could not use her powers at all. Being able handed on a boat had changed that. Down in the water, she could hold her breath for more than she cared to admit. But that wasn’t the point of why she teetered around using it.

            Smoothing out her black dress, which was a single layer that Marvella had brought her that morning, she stepped out of the abandoned temple. Her hair was styled in a tight, messy bun. Marvella was not the best at hair, but Jysmn hadn’t complained.

            Her rusted cutlass, the one she had saved up to buy roughly a year ago, was extended to the Palace guard, which looked up at her from the floor.

            “We meet again,” she said, jaw clenching. It was none other than Roman. His presence was like that ghost hand was back around her mind, squeezing until she collapsed. But there was no hand, she reminded herself. “Roman, wasn’t it?”

            “Lady Jysmn Graceline,” he said, pushing himself up, swatting her sword out of his face. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but lowered her sword none the less.

            Jysmn nodded her head to the sailors and fishermen behind her, who too, lowered their weapons. Sheathing her weapon, which she knew needed serious attention and cleaning, she offered the Guard her hand. He refused it, instead, stood on his own, keeping a great distance between them.

            “What are you doing here, My Lady? If I am permitted to ask?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. They both knew how this looked. Days after the Palace was invaded and her father was murdered, she was in an abandoned temple with her friends… Who were supposed to have left days ago.

            “It’s not safe for Jys to be here,” one of the fishermen, Duo, piped up. He was the first mate of the Little Coral, and had always been fussing over her.

            “Why would it not be safe?” Roman pushed, eyes daring to wonder away from her, passed the sailors, to the woods around them. Jysmn couldn’t help but allow the flash of disgust contort her face.

            “You’re ambushing me, aren’t you?” she demanded, her voice harsh and face angry. She couldn’t help but scoff at him. Especially as his hand rested a little too close to his sword for anything to be coincidence. “You think I had something to do with the attack on the palace. The attack where my father died.”

            The words burned her hotter than any flame. Harder and more painful than not being able to breath for using her powers. Her father was dead before she got to speak with him. The third strike was forever unable to be had.

            None of her family dared see her. But from what Marvella told her, she shouldn’t take it personal. None of the other ladies in the house were talking to one another. They had locked themselves in their rooms to mourn. Jysmn didn’t know how to feel. Other than that spit of pain that she got from thinking about it.

            “I just thought I’d check out a ship that has been signed to have left the docks of the City, which should be sailing to another continent, that hasn’t left the shore,” he said, in that innocent, yet accusing, tone. Jysmn had half a mind to draw her sword again.

            “They were just leaving, actually,” Jysmn said, her voice clipped. She sent the fishermen behind her a pointed look. Her words emphasising a point she has been trying to push for the past few days.

            She couldn’t leave at a time like this. She ran from her family once, it was time to face them. Especially now one of them was dead, and there was a war.

            “Jys, think about this,” Duo pushed. They were all pushing her. Right now, she needed to see her father. For him to at least be alive, or something. She wished she hadn’t played all those games at the ball. Hadn’t ran at the docks. Instead of allowing herself to pass out and fall from a roof, she should have gone with the guards to her family. Perhaps then, she could have seen her father. She couldn’t even remember his face, or the sound of his voice, right now.

            She defiantly shouldn’t have run away two years ago. She should have just told the truth.

            “It is safer if you come with us. There is no need for you to be here if there is going to be a war going on. I say the same thing to you, Sir, get out of this continent while you can,” the Captain of Little Coral ordered the pair of them. Shoe, his name, looked older than his original forty-one years. His skin had turned a leathery orange from his time at sea, and the salt had dried it into wrinkles. His hair was white, wisping into a greying beard. He liked to mock Jysmn that he was what she’d look like in ten years.

            “I thank you for your concern, but this is my home, my family needs me,” she said, fighting back the lump in her throat. She could feel the scorching embarrassment of the Guard hearing people beg for her to flee to safety with them. Having to hear her refuse them over her family, who he had seen berate her.

            That, and he saw her and the fishermen as a threat. The threat to the throne. Allies to the Scrios’ that had infiltrated the Palace.

            “If you attempt to leave Iarmheid, you will be seen as suspects working for the Scriosian soldiers,” Roman said, his chest puffing up, to display his uniform he was so proud to wear. That deep, almost dark algae colour.

            Attention was once again aimed at the Palace Guard.

            “We didn’t help those soldiers into this country,” Shoe snapped, cracking his knuckles, showing the spectacular muscled hands. He would no doubt throttle the guard for opening his mouth again. He had done so to many a different guards, all around the world.

            “Then you have nothing to worry about for when we get the information from our prisoners then, do you?” Roman said, cockiness seeping in quickly, despite having been flat on his backside only moments before.

            Jysmn could feel the testosterone fuelled tension that was oozing from all the males around her.

            “You’re saying they can’t leave until you’ve run your little investigation?” Jysmn asked, returning his brute arrogance back at him. She reminded herself not to be mad at the roof incident, considering he still schooled a purple bruise on his face. They were even, for now.

            “If they say they have nothing to hide, then what is a few more days in this lovely city?” he said, sarcasm unripe for their particular conversation. Painfully swollen, dark purple bruise or not, Jysmn didn’t regret that punch to his face. “Now, as a member of the Palace Guard, I strongly request you comply to my questioning.”

            “Anything you want to know,” Duo promised. The negotiator who could keep a level head. That’s who he was. That is also why he was the first mate.

            “As long as you tell your friends they can come out now, and stop hiding behind trees,” another sailor said, his body scared and as dark as the colour of his hair. Jysmn didn’t dare look at the man, who was in his early thirties. She forever carried her silent shame of inviting him to her bed once, and being refused. There was something about his rugged, knowledgeable body that had her in frenzy. His name was Enzo, and he didn’t spare her more than glance if he could help it.

            Roman cleared his throat, waving a hand in front of him. Jysmn wondered if he used those mysterious powers to reach into their minds, or if they were positioned to understand his wave. Whatever he did, it worked, as two other Palace Guards revealed themselves.

            A large male coming from inside the temple, whose hair and eyes were so dark Jysmn wondered if he himself was royalty. And coming from behind the temple, a woman with crimson hair.

            “These your friends, lockjaw?” she asked, eyes grazing over the purpled jaw. She was proud and ashamed of the wound. She had never been around long enough to see the damage to someone she hit like that. Usually she was back on the boat out at sea faster than they could curse her name. But she was still around to see what she had done to him.

            The smallest flash of regret. It was more than a flash, but there was no way she’d admit to that.

            Roman was smart enough not to bring up her chosen nickname for him. “This is Jed and Kalila, my most trusted friends. They will help me escort you all back to our Captain of the Guard for questioning.”

            “High Lord Jedidah,” Jysmn hummed, eyes on the dark haired man. When she thought he was royalty, she hadn’t been completely wrong. He was the soul benefactor of more estates and wealth than her own late father. “What are you doing in a uniform?”

            As usual, the silent man simply offered her a nod. Acknowledging her and that she spoke. From the few times she had met him when they were younger, before his parents death, he had been silent. The words about him around court had nothing other than that to say.

            That he was mute, and that he was bedding the red haired woman.

            Kalila, who Jysmn recognised from the night at the Palace, stood close to his side. Her head was held high, her hair pinched back painfully.

            Jysmn couldn’t help but smile at the thought that Marvella had obviously not done this woman’s hair. Marvella’s skills as a maid to any woman of regency surprised her greatly. A lot may have changed about her appearance, but not her humbling incompetence.

            “I don’t see the reason for all of us going anywhere,” Jysmn said slyly. “Why don’t you question us all here? We’re all here and satisfied. If you made us all walk down to the Captain of the Guards little abode, I doubt we will be as compliant as we are now.”

            Trickster, she was being a trickster.

            There was no way she wanted to be anywhere near the Palace at a time like this. Not to mention, she had the upper hand. Lord Roman and his extinguished friends were in her court. Their questions would never be as prodding as the Lord Captain. And it would probably get him in trouble.

            “I don’t see why not,” Roman said, clearing his throat almost awkwardly. She didn’t miss the way he flinched, trying not to press a hand to his back. She had sent him flying backwards. He missed the staircase completely, and thumped down here in the dirt. The evidence of that move stained his perfect Palace uniform.

            “So, we should all go back inside?” Duo proposed, gesturing to the temple behind him.

            Jysmn had nearly thrown up the too-sweet apple jam she had been eating when Shoe told her this is where he wanted to meet. The word of Lady Jenny had haunted her for days.

            Out of everything the crazed seer could have told her, she chose to speak nonsense.

            If she had just looked, she would have saw the attack. Could have warned somebody and her father would be alive. But now she hadn’t spoken to her father in two years and it will never stop getting longer. Even though she came all this way to see them, her family.

            They hated her. He died, hating her.

            She had managed to sour her own mood. Roman gave his two friends the nod, directing the collection of people back inside the temple. “My Lady, please come inside like everybody else,” Kalila said, as if Jysmn were a child.

            But Jysmn heard the challenge. The Guard was proving that she wasn’t better than anybody else here. Jysmn was a little deflated that she had easily forgotten their exchange a few nights ago. With her head held high, Jysmn brushed passed her and into the temple.

            “We plead innocent to what happened at the Palace, none of us had a hand with what those Scriosian pigs did to your King,” Shoe said, on behalf of his crew. Jysmn offered them a sad smile. “I want you to know that, kid, we would never but you or your family in harms way… Well, unless we’re out at sea.”

            The older man patted her gently on the hand as he took a seat on one of the old chests laid out. Sections of the floor and roof were missing from the temple, but overall the structure remained strong.

            Brave children and others used to sneak up here a lot years ago, those visits had grown less frequent after a young girl went missing after venturing inside the temple. They had deemed that their constant invasion was punished by the Goddess Amari. Of course, neither Jysmn or the fishermen headed that warning.

            Even if, according to Lady Jenny’s sights, was linked to Jysmn. Or had something to do with some long forgotten sword. The thoughts made goosebumps sprout along her arms and hair stick up on the back of her neck. It crept her out to no end. The thought that maybe, just maybe, Lady Jenny had been speaking a shred of truth.

            But the Gods and Goddesses were just legend.

            Not only did their powers make sense, but the fact that they were somehow looking down on them from high above, made no sense. She knew it couldn’t be right. They controlled their own actions, their lives were lead by chance, not by what the Gods and Goddesses decide.

            Because they didn’t plan for the High Lord’s daughter to run away to become a fishermen. According to those heavenly beings, she was supposed to wear those hideous dresses and save her virginity for her husband. Jysmn couldn’t even remember who her first time was. All she knew was that he had been paid for by the Captain, as a gift, after saving his life from a pirate. The whole boat had gotten drunk and hadn’t woken up until very late the next day.

            “Then why are you still here?” Roman asked. He and his friends refused to sit down. Instead, they paced around the sides, keeping an eye on everyone. It made them unsettled, especially as they blocked the exits.

            Jysmn let her eyes meet both the high born Palace Guards. This wasn’t supposed to be their job. They were supposed to be guarding royalty, not gallivanting around the woods. The thought, once it crossed her mind, made her put a hand on her cutlass’ hilt.

            “We called Jysmn here, to convince her to come with us. You’re country has some big war going on and it is no place for her. We are offering her to sail away, somewhere safe,” Shoe said. “I mean… My Lady.”

            The title made her almost gag. Once they had found out her birth title, it had taken months for them to stop calling her that. And even longer to get them to stop holding it against her.

            “I can’t leave, my father has died, the King is sick, and there is to be a war,” she defended. She couldn’t just leave again. And there was a chance she got to fight in a war. To prove herself once again as more than a common Lady to be waited on. A sailor, a fishermen, and a soldier. That was what she wanted now.

            “You’re a fishermen, you belong out at sea,” Shoe urged, his bright blue eyes wide in urging. Begging that she got back on the boat and followed them out at sea.

            “I’m not going to runaway, not again,” she said, the same stubborn fire burning inside of her. Truth, the threat of war hadn’t been what scared her off the first time, but it was almost as bad as what had. It was time to face that part of her she had been shoving down with the memory of all the high born people she grew up with.

            Roman cleared his throat, obviously unamused to be interrupted from his questioning once again. Only the guards seemed to care about that. Jysmn spared the Lord an annoyed look. His interruption wasn’t met with warm stares.

            “You’re telling me, that you signed your boat off three days ago, but ported over here just to talk with Lady Graceline?” he asked, bringing them back on to topic. Not that it was a welcome topic. “To ask her to flee with you, so short after the attack on our Kingdom?”

            “Your Kingdom,” Enzo corrected. “We are not from this Country.”

            “But she is,” Roman urged, holding the gaze of the beautifully savaged older man. Jysmn mocked an eyelash flutter to Shoe, his on-again off-again lover. He narrowed his eyes, but the smirk assured her he held no ill intent.

            “She belongs to the ocean now, daughter of some Lord and Lady or not, she no longer has a land who treat her as property,” Enzo growled, defending her, despite their lack of personal connection. He rarely spoke, especially not on behalf of her. But he had forgiven her slip up all those years ago. She was insanely thankful for it.

            “She is High Lord and High Lady Graceline’s daughter, she isn’t some common Lady,” Roman argued.

            Jysmn smiled, shaking her head in amusement. The knowing look she sent the other sailors made a few of them take seats. Palace Guards had easily ruined prides. And were quite easy to rattle up into an argument.

            “There is never anything common about a Lord or Lady,” Enzo fired back.

            “The soldiers aren’t here to argue about titles, Enzo, he was just accusing us of attacking the Palace,” Shoe said, interrupting the standoff between the two men.

            His addition to their conflict was not welcome nor taken lightly. His words coated the air in sourness, almost trumping the tang of rotting wood. Jysmn couldn’t help but swallow a nervous lump in her throat.

            Because they were being accused of sparking the war, in having something to do with the attack on the Palace.

            Jysmn knew they had nothing to hide. There was no way they could fit soldiers on their boat, she knew there were no soldiers on their boat. The sleeping space had been cramped enough, she would have known if there were four dozen Scrios soldiers thrown in there with them. It was not possible. She wouldn’t have helped them into the Palace of her family, of her friends. She definitely wouldn’t have let them all die on her watch. But they had. Still, she hadn’t been the one to put them in danger.

            Perhaps Lady Jenny’s prophecy had been somewhat right, just ill interpreted. Perhaps the sword she saw in Jysmn’s hands was realty just an omen of war. The war that had been sparked that very night.

            Being reminded of her old governesses prophecy sent painful shivers down her body, making her zone out momentarily of the conversation. The Goddess Amari was one of the ten old Gods who once walked the land not too long ago, apparently that they one day grew bored of their mortal forms and took to the cloud cities, watching over the land of humans and guiding the way of mortality. Amari had been told in tales of being beautiful, and always with her famed sword, Waterfall.

            She led an army of women, they were the predominant warriors before Yaland had its name. Amari had gotten her goddess powers from being born by the waterfall in the mountains, and was raised by two swordsmen lovers, who raised her as their own, as they could have no children.

            Leading the rebellion, which liberated Yaland from its once invaders, she lived a long life of epic adventures.

This was the origin story Marvella had once told her, from a book she read in a library. Lady’s had no place in reading or hearing stories like that. It was many years ago, all she could remember was the basic outline of the story, and a short haired blonde girl animatedly whispering to her under a table cloth, hiding from Palace Guards.

Jysmn didn’t think Marvella would do something like that now, though.

“You’re saying, that if we were to search your boat right now, there wouldn’t be a single trace of Scriosian soldiers?” Roman asked, his tone filled with a condescending rage that was choking him back. Jysmn couldn’t help but feel like she could laugh at the way the sailors had riled him up easily.

“That is what I have been saying this whole time,” Shoe said, eyes alight in mischief. Much like the Sea Goddess Oceana.

“Isn’t Palace Guard School missing you right now, lockjaw?” Jysmn huffed, rolling her shoulders. She hadn’t taken it upon herself to sit down, like the others, who knew that this interrogation was going nowhere.

Roman narrowed his blue-ish eyes at her, unimpressed. “Why, do you have something to hide?”

The pure challenge in his tone is what made Jysmn feel that swelling of magic in her chest. Threatening to surface and steal away her breath, or worse, put her in a state in which she didn’t know if she was breathing or not. Jysmn pushed it back down like the saliva collecting in her mouth.

“I speak on behalf of everyone when I say, we have nothing to hide, especially not me,” she said, voice firm and that deep voice seeping in. The bellow of a sailor. She could take the guard, and with the help of her friends, the other two too.

“Then you wouldn’t mind if we searched your room here, then, do you?” he said, light eyes darkening in the dim light.

Jysmn had no control of the smile that jerked her lips. “Is that an invitation?” her sly comment was met with cheers of her friends and very genuine laughter. She had missed this over the passed few days. People encouraging her, liking her, talking to her, laughing with her. Making sure no one saw the flicker of her eyes, which for all she knew, were tearing up.

Roman, on the other hand, didn’t find it funny. His filled out cheeks had gone impossibly red, even all the way to his forehead and ears, and he blinked in surprise. He was both ashamed and at a loss for words. It only made them laugh harder.

“That is not what I meant,” he finally said, regaining his person, able to defend himself. With one look for encouragement from his friends, he was met with betrayal. Kalila had spit flying from her mouth in an attempt to hold back her laughter, and Jed wouldn’t meet his eyes, practically swallowing his lips in hope of not laughing. “I assure, my Lady, that is not what I meant. I am doing my job. Now, if you will please show me to your boat, my companions and I would like to continue this investigation.”

Showing himself out the abandoned place of worship, Roman stopped at the door. He made a very aggressive gesture to outside, an indication he wanted them to lead the way.

With one look, filled with amusement, Shoe gave the order for them to follow him. Everyone but Jysmn muttering themselves as they shuffled out of the temple, making their walk down to the beach.

It wasn’t that she was nervous about what the Palace Guards would find, but the tug she felt.

Gentler and not her magic, Jysmn found her eyes wandering along the back wall, behind the dais. Made of stones and wood, an offering table left with old, forgotten things and… A painting of Amari.

The sight made her stomach churn. But still seeing it, made her light headed. She didn’t care if she looked supicious by cooperating with every wish of the Palace Guards, she just did not care. Lady Jenny’s words still snipped at her bitterly from every corner of her memory.

Jysmn’s eyes trailed to the glorious painting on the wall. It had chipped away considerably over the years, leaving a faded design of what it used to be. Still, it was unmistakably Goddess Amari.

The sailors had told her that in their mortal life, and quite possibly still in their life in the clouds, the two Goddess of women and sea had been the best of friends. As Oceana took in traumatised women, and gave them a new life beneath the waves. They tended to the ocean and hunted the humans on the surface, loving the ocean much like Oceana. That was probably why this place was built on the cliff.

Amari had golden hair that flowed like water from her head, adorned in her locks were faded pink roses. Her eyes were closed, head bowed as she held Waterfall in her hands.

The sight of the sword made Jysmn’s head swirl.

Waterfall was an almost blue-white, or had been once, but was now a duller colour. Its hilt was like the cresting of a waterfall, foaming detail that accented up the handle, even to the grip. Sitting in-between the hilt and the blade was an impressive sapphire, which looked like a small pool of water embedded in the hilt.

Compared to the whole abandoned temple, the scariest thing wasn’t the creak of the wind going through the beams, or the scuttling of something in the shadows out the corner of her eye, it was the fresh cut rose on the dais.