His rowboat hit the hull of the navy ship as he fastened the hooks.

"Angels, Archer," Lyra called from the rail, tossing down the ladder. "You cut that awfully close."

He didn't reply as he took hold of the ladder and started to climb. His feet were numb and his body was horribly cold. He wondered if he would be able to stand at all.

Reaching for the rail, he pulled himself over, feet back on solid ground. He glanced at Lyra, but she was looking at his clothes, covered in blood, his black eyes, the dried red in his hair.

Kerian stood next to her, dark brows drawn. "Who made it?" he asked.

Archer didn't fall to his knees, didn't burst out sobbing. He looked over at the remnants of the Kingsland as they sunk to the ocean floor. "Nobody."

Lyra followed his gaze, her face turning white.

"My father?" Kerian asked.

"Dead," Archer answered.

Lyra cleared her throat. "Bardarian?"

"Dead."

Lyra's lips pursed, nose flaring a little as she mulled over her next question. She said it eventually, but it came out like a whisper, "Silta?"

"Dead," Archer said. He stepped by her. Cold, callous, unfeeling. That's who he wanted to be, but he wasn't sure if he was making it. He wanted to forget everything, the smell of iron, the warm feeling of it through his hands. But I loved you.

"We need to move," Kerian said. "The navy ships are pulling out." He nodded behind Archer, where the ships from the outer port were circling, assessing their destroyed home.

"You run the navy," Archer told him, then stepped by him as well.

Kerian blinked for a moment, pristine royal manners faltering for a second. Archer didn't care to watch his reaction, to wonder about the fate of the ocean. He took the topdeck of the navy ship Lyra had commandeered, looking out at the sun rising, welcoming a new day. He wanted to demand that it stop moving, demand everyone stop moving for just a second so he could breathe. He placed both hands on the bow rail and took a deep, heaving breath in. He felt the sting of his sinuses again, felt the rise of something in his throat. He needed to change, wash off her blood from his hands, but he had the sinking suspicious that would never rid of it entirely.

Kerian's hand came down heavily on the rail beside him. For her part, Lyra had the sense to leave them be for a moment.

Kerian's brow drew as he watched the spires crash into water. On the far side opposite them, the Avourienne circled for a moment, desperation evident as they halted—either to search for what they wouldn't find or reconvene to decide on what else to do. To them, every single person who stepped off the ship last night had not returned, and now it was evident it would stay that way. As the sun came up fully over the horizon, the navy ships began drawing closer. Suddenly, the crimson sails fanned out, and the Devil's ship spun back towards the south and gathered speed, running off like an injured animal in need of recovery.

"I loved him, you know."

Archer glanced over at Kerian, watching the way his eyes scanned the scene before him. He tapped the rail, took a composed breath.

"I know I shouldn't have," the new king said. "But he was still my father in the end."

Archer looked back to the horizon, where the Avourienne had disappeared out there in the deep.

"It's hard to love someone you know isn't a good person," Kerian said. He shook his head, obsidian hair Archer's last reminder of her. "But I suppose life is hard."

Archer didn't answer, wasn't sure if his voice would work quite yet, and not from the injuries.

"You did the right thing here, Kingsley," Kerian said, a certain surety in his voice Archer wasn't sure he'd ever find in himself. "She wasn't a leader, she was a pirate."

But she wasn't just that, not to him. She was everything and more, all his broken soul could muster care for. How did he end up holding himself to such drastically impossible moral standards that he murdered the only object of his attention? Oh, he was so exhausted of himself.

He turned to Kerian. His former roommate was nothing but that to him still, and he had no issues making that clear. Silta's death would not be futile. He leaned towards him on the rail, holding his gaze with as much sincerity as he could. "Enjoy your throne," he said, voice still hoarse from being choked. "Do it right, Kip." He said nothing more, but the implications were plenty clear. My royal kill count is too high to fear adding one more to the list.

Kerian took a step back, holding Archer's gaze with that royal superiority. He turned away and headed back down to the deck, leaving it at that.

Archer turned back to the rail, realizing there was no longer any fires, any rocks, or any evidence of what had once been. It had all sunk right to the ground.

He felt Lyra come up behind him, her quiet footsteps hard to notice. She joined him at the rail with something in her hands, but Archer wasn't quite ready to look at it.

"We're going to have a navy ship lend us some men so we're seaworthy," she explained. "Kerian's getting them under control now."

"Sounds good," Archer replied.

"And then what, Kingsley?" she asked.

Archer glanced at her. "Sorry?"

Lyra held out that thing in her hands. It was a hat, smooth and leathery, curved in the same places as Bardarian's. "You've got a good name for it, Kingsley," she said.

It's a good name—nice and strong, powerful, too. Perfect for a captain.

He didn't take it for a moment. There was an endless ocean out there with an endless number of possibilities. He could go anywhere, do anything. Back where he came from, or on to something new.

He turned around, putting his back to the Kingsland. He'd leave it there, where it belonged. It would undoubtedly live in his dreams, stalking his mind, but that was the price he paid. This was the living hell of morality, something he couldn't quite define even with an infinite set of words. He wasn't sure what category he fell into, but he knew who he was in the end, knew what decisions he was going to make.

He took the hat from Lyra, turning it over in his hand. Captain Kingsley. He'd always had a good name for it.

"Where to?" she asked him softly.

Archer placed the hat on his head. Did it matter where they went? Adventure had never been about location, it had been about the people, about the experiences. The lack of planning. The rise of living.

He nodded to the horizon. "South," he said. Back where he came from, where the snow didn't fall, where the air didn't chill his face, where his skin was the same shade as everyone else's. Back where he'd never met her, back where he could escape the very thought of her. That's where he'd go.

It wasn't what he wanted, really. He didn't want to go back there, he wanted to stay here, where she felt closest. He wanted to fall backward in time, to a rooftop in Port Marcel, to the island beach, to her corner room where the seconds didn't seem to pass. Here, where he could still recall the feeling of her hands, the shape of her words, the colour of her eyes. But none of that existed on the same plane as reality.

The reality was not that she was inherently evil, and he was inherently good. The reality was nothing was so simple, nothing so black and white. Everything existed in endless expanses of grey; he just needed to find the shade that did more good than evil.

He took a deep breath, prepared to let her go, and quoted her, "Halleveire monere."

"I know what it means," Lyra offered.

Archer glanced at her. "Silta told you the translation?"

She nodded. "She wouldn't tell me for years, went on and on about how I should just know, that it goes with everything she always says. She gave up trying to convince me in the end."

Archer leaned forward. "Well?" he prompted.

Lyra glanced down, a torn expression on her face as she went to speak—but right before she did, he found himself realizing he didn't need her to translate after all. He did just know, and it did go with everything Silta always said. It was so simple in the end, a phrase she'd made up to spite her mother, to spite the rules in the form of her own little rebellion. He knew what it meant, of course.

Venture to uncertainty.