Corvina was struggling to light a fire, despite knowing how.

Of course, Corvina rarely went anywhere without a servant who could light a fire for her, so she hadn’t had a lot of practice—but that didn’t mean she lacked the skill. Her uncle had taught her how to light a fire on her own at a young age, just in case she ever needed to. But now that she actually needed to, the materials just weren't cooperating. The sparks just weren’t catching the way they were supposed to.

Anne groaned as she stiffly sat down next to Corvina, dropping another bundle of small twigs and dried grass on the ground in front of her.

“After this, I never want to ride a horse long-distance again,” said Anne, rubbing her legs. “I’m sore everywhere.”

Corvina smiled a little, adding the additional kindling to the pile and continuing to strike the flint, over and over.

Corvina had been riding horses so long that nothing about it bothered her anymore, but Anne’s reaction was cute. Watching her made horse-riding feel novel again. And, of course, everything Anne did was cute, so…

“You just need more practice,” said Corvina, placatingly. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

Finally, a spark caught in the kindling and began to burn, just a little bit, but the flame quickly spread to the rest of the quick-burning items. The initial kindling was meant to burn hot and fast, in order to establish a good flame on the larger, slow-burning logs. Corvina felt confident she had done it all correctly, so it was only a matter of time before they had a full, roaring fire.

Anne was still whining, adorably. “Why would I want to practice horse-riding, when I could just keep riding in nice, cushion-lined carriages instead?”

“Because,” Corvina scooted closer to Anne, slipping her arm through Anne’s and resting her head on Anne’s shoulder. “Don’t all those fantasy romance novels you love so much feature scenes where the main couple goes on a long, romantic horseback ride through the woods together?”

Anne smiled, but it wasn’t her usual easy grin. Instead it was a little hesitant and uncertain… But of course it was. Anne had just been through a lot. And there were a lot of difficult times still ahead of them… But over time Anne would feel more like herself again, and right now Corvina didn’t really want to think about any of the bad or difficult things.

Corvina closed her eyes, nestling her face against Anne’s shoulder. The night air was still cold, and the fire was still small, but it would grow… and in the meantime Anne was very warm. Corvina just wanted to bask in that warmth and forget about everything else…

“So… where are we going, exactly?” Anne asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Corvina, refusing to open her eyes. “Just get some rest. We’ll have to get back on the road soon, once we’ve warmed up.”

“Corvina,” said Anne. There was an edge to her tone that made Corvina open her eyes and sit up straight.

“What?” asked Corvina. “What is it?”

“I want you to tell me things,” said Anne. She almost sounded angry. “I don’t want to just blindly go along with whatever’s happening anymore, and I don’t want you to make assumptions about what I do or do not need to know. I just want to be fully in the loop for once.”

Corvina was embarrassed. This was the same thing they had already fought about before. But this time she hadn’t even been trying to keep anything from Anne, not really. She just… didn’t want to deal with this right now. But that wasn’t a good excuse.

Corvina ran a hand over her face, suddenly exhausted. “We’re going to the Sacred Forest,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Why the Sacred Forest?” asked Anne.

“It’s the only option we have left!” snapped Corvina. “Eva got lost there, so we know her magic doesn’t work as well there. And Elyon told you to go to the elf city if you ever needed help, so we know we’ll have supporters there.”

“I guess that makes sense, but how will that affect the whole fake-kidnapping thing?” Anne asked. “Are we going to tell the Emperor that both of his children have been kidnapped, or what?”

Corvina really wished Anne would just drop this.

In the fire pit, the flames sputtered. The kindling had almost been burned through, but none of the larger pieces of firewood had caught at all. Corvina reached out with a long stick to poke at it, to try to keep it alive somehow.

“I don’t know what we’ll tell my father,” admitted Corvina, not meeting Anne’s eye. “Once we’re safe we can think about our next steps more. But…”

“But what?” insisted Anne.

Corvina forced herself to say it. “We may have to give up on our involvement with the rebellion.”

“What?!” said Anne.

Corvina flinched, remembering how recently Belle’s mother had called her out on not taking the rebellion seriously enough. Remembering how determined she’d felt to do better. She had been so ready to really dedicate herself to taking down her father. But then Anne had been kidnapped, and…

“Eva is one of the primary leaders of the rebellion,” said Corvina. “It’s possible that some rebels might be more loyal to you as the Saintess, but most of them are already accustomed to taking orders directly from Eva, and that’s a hard habit to change. Honestly, the best we could hope for would be to cause a major schism, and what chance will we have of overthrowing my father with two competing half-sized rebel groups who both hate each other?”

“So we’re just going to give up? We’re just going to leave that asshole in power?” asked Anne. Corvina finally glanced over at her. She really looked angry now.

But what right did Anne even have to be this upset about this? It’s not like she was offering any alternative plans.

“Why do we have to talk about this right now?” snapped Corvina. “Can’t we just have a nice moment alone where we can enjoy being together and take a goddess-damned break from thinking about things for two seconds?”

Anne didn’t respond right away. Instead, she turned to look at Corvina’s pathetic little attempt at a fire that was still struggling to ignite.

But her expression wasn’t angry anymore. It was thoughtful, and maybe a little bit sad…

“I know how you feel…” said Anne. “But I think there are a lot of things I’ve been ignoring for too long. I can’t just let myself be carried along by the tide anymore. It feels irresponsible. I still don’t know what I should actually do, but just running away doesn’t feel right.”

Corvina felt her own anger falling away. None of this was Anne’s fault. It was just a bad situation all around.

Corvina took Anne’s hand. “I’m sorry… I wish I had better answers for you. Once I’ve had some time to rest and recover, maybe I can come up with a new plan. I don’t want to just abandon our goals, either. I was just starting to seriously think about our next steps when I heard that you’d…” Corvina closed her eyes and turned her head away, but she held onto Anne’s hand still. “I do want to improve things for the people. I really do. But there’s no point in building a better world if I can’t share it with you.”

Anne didn’t say anything, so Corvina cautiously looked back at her, looking for a reaction. But Anne was looking at her with a complex and unreadable expression on her face. For once, Corvina genuinely couldn’t guess what she was thinking.

This time, Anne was the one who broke eye contact and looked away. “Well… what about Belle and the others, back in the city?” she asked. “Aren’t we putting them in danger by cutting ties with the rebellion?”

Corvina let out an annoyed huff. Anne wasn’t wrong, but…

Corvina got up and reached into her pack and quickly pulled out some parchment, a pen, and some ink.

“You brought all that with you?” asked Anne, incredulously.

“Just because I was in a hurry doesn’t mean I was going to leave unprepared…” mumbled Corvina.

After setting up the equipment, she quickly scrawled:

Ulrich,

Urgent change of plans. Tell the Bastards’ Club to cease all activity with our recent new friends and to lie low until further notice. Potential danger on the horizon.

Stay vigilant,

Corvina

Then she roughly folded up the paper and lifted her skirt to retrieve her dagger and her hidden powders.

After putting the smallest possible pinch of green powder on the pathetic small flame, Corvina pricked herself with the dagger.

Anne, who up until this point had been watching with quiet fascination, suddenly leapt to her feet. “Corvina, what the fuck are you doing?” she asked.

Corvina ignored her and let one drop of her blood fall onto the flames before speaking the incantation:

“Send this unto mine uncle, blood of my mother’s blood.”

Then she held the paper up to the flames. It took a moment, but once the edge of the letter caught fire, it burned quickly.

“There,” said Corvina. “I sent them a warning.”

“But how—?”

“Alchemy,” snapped Corvina. “Now let’s go.”

“But the fire hasn’t even gotten started yet,” said Anne, weakly protesting.

Corvina sighed. “I think the fire might be a lost cause,” she said. “And we can rest more fully once we’ve reached the Sacred Forest. There’s still a risk Eva could catch up with us before we get there, so we can’t afford to waste too much time.”

Anne sighed, warily eying the horses. “Fine,” she said.

As they rode away, a slight drizzle started up, completely extinguishing the last of dying embers.

Across the empire, in the capital city, Ulrich Vend stood in the crowded back room of a tavern, surrounded by a group of toughs.

The situation was clearly engineered to intimidate. The small, low-ceilinged room was too full of too many people and too much smoke from the spitting fireplace, making the atmosphere feel oppressive and claustrophobic. The whole room was a threat.

But Ulrich was not easily intimidated. And he was very familiar with these tactics.

“I told you assholes I’m not going to cooperate with you,” growled Ulrich.

“We don’t even need you to do anything,” said the guy standing in front of Ulrich. He was a thin and wiry man with fading purple hair and a receding hairline. “All we want is for your agents to occasionally… look the other way in regards to our activities. Everyone knows you control the underground around here, and we’re not asking you to give up any of that power. We’re just asking you to share the wealth a little. We are family after all.”

Ulrich didn’t back down. “Just because I remember you as a snot-nosed little brat who would show up at my birthday parties just to scream and cry that you wanted presents, too, doesn’t mean I owe you anything, Gautbert.”

Gautbert was visibly grinding his teeth, clearly trying not to rise to the provocation. But Gautbert had never had much patience. “Nevertheless, we are family. Surely blood means more to you than simple time spent together, yes?”

“You’re barely my second cousin,” said Ulrich.

Gautbert looked like he was about to explode, but just before he started shouting, there was a sudden flash from the fireplace that took everyone by surprise.

A folded up piece of paper appeared in the air above the fireplace and began fluttering its way down through the air, towards Ulrich. He tried to reach quickly, pushing Gautbert out of the way in his rush to get to the letter first.

But he was just barely too slow. A perfectly manicured hand snatched the paper out of the air just before Ulrich could get to it.

Ravenia smiled, turning the paper over in her hand. “You claim to want nothing to do with us anymore, but I see you still make use of our family’s old secret method of communication.”

“Screw you,” said Ulrich. He tried to snatch the paper away from Ravenia, but she easily dodged him and signaled for her grunts to hold him back while she read the letter.

Her smile turned into a grin as she glanced through the contents.

“Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider your position, brother?” she asked, holding the letter up to Ulrich’s face. “It looks like you may soon be in need of some new allies.”