“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

The excited voice of the Warden boomed through the throne room and echoed off the high ceiling.

“We’ve received word from Magmalia, Majesty! Signed from the Empress herself!”

Aquina Wotar, Ruling over sea and current ruler of the Air-Water Alliance, colloquially known as AWA, heard the Warden just fine, but didn’t show it. She remained with her back to the noise, staring through the window of the throne room, until she heard the hurried footsteps falter a bit before coming to a complete stop behind her. Only then did she turn slowly, as the court etiquette mandated and treated the poor woman in front of her to the full force of her cold, calculating stare. Many people wondered how it could be possible for brown eyes to exude an icy chill, but that was, of course, only until they met the Ruling.

“Your Majesty”, the Warden started again, out of breath, but fell silent upon seeing the ruler’s raised hand.

“Name, rank and company?”. The lady’s voice was like her element - misleadingly soft, but deep and threatening at the same time.

“Aeris Tan, Majesty. Capitan Aeris Tan, 4th division of the Seniv battalion.”

The Ruling inclined her head and gave the woman another once over, before speaking again:

“Why do you wail throughout my throne room like a widower at a funeral, Lt Aeris of the 23rd Reserves?”

The Warden barely managed to contain her shock at the sudden flooring demotion and reprieve, but reminded herself quickly that if she managed to anger the Ruling over sea any further, a ruined career would be the last of her worries. For the time being she decided to remain silent and, hitting her left shoulder with her fist, bowed down in front of the lady.

“Do you believe you deserve special treatment for being a wind storm?”

“Of course not, Majesty”, the woman mumbled, her head still facing the floor.

“Excellent. I hope I should not remind you that the forces of the alliance are kept strong together precisely because each and every one of you is treated equally and justly according to your achievement or failure.” There was something rather menacing about the way the ruler pronounced the word “failure”.

“Aye, ma’am, I am here to serve”, the Warden humbly responded, citing the Code of War with a perfect measure of mathos in her voice.

“Perfect. Now please tell me what was so important, that you chose to shout it so that all of Syfis hears you.”

“Aye, ma’am!”

The woman took the offer to stand up eagerly and reached into the bag hanging from her shoulder. She pulled a small silver sphere from it and with another, smaller bow, gave it to the lady.

“Dimensigram from Magmalia, Majesty”, Aeris clarified, as she saw the black eyebrow lift on the face of the Ruling. “Signed from the Fire Empress herself. I thought it was important and…”

“You’ve played it then?”, her tone was still soft, but the former captain felt she was walking on thin ice.

“Of course not, milady!”, she shook her head, her tone crisp and professional - a trait held in high regard amongst the AWA troops.

“Then please allow me to determine whether it is important or not.”, the Ruling nodded and hid the dimensigram in one of her tunic pockets. “Is that all?”

“Aye, ma’am!”

“Dismissed.”

The Ruler watched with visible content the perfect salute and military turn the Warden did as she was leaving. Although Wotar didn’t particularly enjoy punishing her soldiers through demotions, she had unfortunately noticed that more often than not it was the stick and not the tru’ankh which proved more useful whenever respect and discipline needed to be asserted amongst the troops.

She made a few steps toward one of the pillars and touched lightly the largest wavy symbol, etched onto it. With a dull scratching sound, one of the marble slabs on the floor retreated to reveal a stone stairway, bathed in soft fluorescent lighting. She hadn’t reached the last step when the slab returned to its original position above her head, cutting her off from the throne room.

Her underground study was a lot furnished more modestly, but that’s of course exactly why she liked it so much. Her status mandated luxury and even extravagance in extraordinary quantities and a part of her understood the reason for this, but at the end of the day it went against a large portion of her principles. She couldn’t tolerate being surrounded by all this lavish comfort at a time when half of her subjects were dying out or suffering from this wretched genetic plague which was taking away their Gifts.

This was exactly why the Fire Empress’ message slightly irritated her. For years now, AWA and Magmalia were in a state of behind-the-scenes cold war. She hadn’t received any official communiques from the Old continent, let alone its ruler, since she had been sworn in as Ruling. If this was some sort of political ploy aimed at confusing or distracting her from finding a cure for her people… Well, on this other hand, the message could be that the women of Magmalia had also begun suffering from the genetic plague. She would be lying if the thought didn’t lighten her mood at least a bit.

No point in speculating - the dimensigram was in her hand and the terminal on her desk was on. “Let’s see what the old fire witch wants from Us”, Wotar told herself and placed the small sphere on the pod. The projector, attached to the terminal, came alive with a muffled click and in the center of the study, in front of the desk, a silhouette came into view, which was quickly coming to focus, as the machine rendered the visuals from the device.

Wotar had never seen Tyrannis Pyre, apart from some ancient flatgrams her mother had shown her. Her mother, the previous Ruling over sea and lady of AWA - Aquina Liquitt was an alumni of the Global Military Academy, together with Tyrannis, before it got destroyed during the last Big War. Wotar had grown up listening to Liquitt’s stories about the time spent in the Academy with the future Fire Empress. How they smuggled in booze whenever they had the chance, how they gambled on forbidden card games till dawn, how they slipped away to go to the Recreation Isles to sleep with as many of the working boys as they could grab at a time… She remembered as a girl dreaming about one day having such a loyal friend to share in these amazing adventures so she could tell stories to her own daughters about one day. Yet, whenever Wotar would ask what happened to ruin the relationship between her mother and the Fire Empress, Liquitt would change the topic.

Now, as she was seeing her on the dimensigram, she had some idea as to why. The image of the woman, which was slightly flickering in the middle of her study, was regal and magnificent, yes, but there was something extremely aggressive about it, almost animalistic. From the large scar, starting at one of her temples, and ending somewhere in the middle of her cheek, one could assume the empress entered battle with a lot more eagerness than strategy. Most likely, this same injury was responsible for her blind right eye, which stood dead, white and unmoving on her face.

“Your Majesty”, the dimensigram image spoke, with a barely visible nod, which could have just been a standard flicker of the projector. “I will start by clarifying that I have no intent of wasting your time with pleasantries, as I have no doubt my health does not concern you in the slightest, as neither does yours concern me.”

Well, at least she was sincere, if nothing else. And completely right, too - the only reason Wotar would feel anything, hearing the Fire empress was sick, would be that with the lack of an heir to succeed her, the next ruler of Magmalia would come from the Earth nation. Which would mean immediate preparations for war in AWA, for she would not be a true daughter of the House Aquina if she let those fanatics ruin the minuscule social progress which was achieved on the Old continent, to replace it with their archaic fantasies of a traditional matriarchal society.

“I trust you will understand correctly why I turn to You and not my countrywomen of the South.”, Tyrannis’ recording continued. “The matter which concerns me is too delicate and too intertwined in their own interests and thus I would beg you treat this with extreme confidence.”

Wotar felt her brows furrow at her forehead. Tyrannis Pyre was begging her… Well, ain’t that something new. Only the years of military discipline and training stopped her from reaching for the fast forward button.

As if sensing her thoughts, the image of the Empress took a deep breath, as though she was preparing to enter alone in battle with a thousand soldiers and was trying to convince herself there was no other way, but to just do it.

“At the end of my message you will see a few stills of a young, 16 year old boy.”, Tyrannis went on, although the strain was still noticeable in her tone and expression. “This is my son - prince Pyre Fye. As of 15:38 hours local time of the previous fifth day of the week, he is considered missing. We have of course begun an extensive search of the territory for anyone, fitting his description, but I have reason to believe he is no longer on the continent. “ She fell silent a moment, as though debating whether to go on, but then said. “Help me find my son, Aquina Wotar, and should you succeed, you have my word that I would do everything within my power, to quell this ridiculous unease between our two nations.”

With another quiet click, her image faded from the projector. In its stead, the fine figure of the prince popped in front of the desk. Wotar thanked the Goddess that there was no one around to witness her reaction. “He is just a teenager”, she admonished herself. Although he was pretty tall and well developed for his age. Nevertheless, it took her a few more minutes of staring, before she mustered the willpower to turn off the wretched machine.

She circled around her desk, sat down and rested her chin on her intertwined fingers. By Kriya’s demons! This was not good at all… If the Earthlings, whose princess was hoping to become the next ruler of Magmalia, through her marriage to the prince, got wind of any of this, war would come a lot sooner than AWA was prepared for it. She needed to act now… But how?