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Fiona sits at the big round table in the center of the mess with the others, a poor imitation of the dining room we had on the Naiad. A cup of tea is clasped in her small hands, which are still blue at knuckles from her close encounter with the void. Ryker and Nereus sit on either side of her, with Orion beside Ryker and Kye beside Nereus. I don’t think any of us will ever be able to get enough of touching her; we’ve been crowded around her ever since she stumbled into the hatch at the bottom of the abyss.
I still can’t believe how close she came to annihilation, nor can I believe the story she told. About Yrsa, and the pool of Elixir at the bottom of the world.
Orion doesn’t remember any of it. As far as he knows, he passed out in the throne room and didn’t wake up until they were back on the Wrath.
I toss fresh ingredients into a stew as the others sit at the table and drink their tea, no one speaking as they decompress. The battle was just the first step in the recovery of Homeworld; there are a million more things to do, alliances to build, relief efforts to embark on. The palace is in ruins at the bottom of the chasm, and perhaps it’s for the best…because it’s time for a new queen to make her imprint on this world. A queen that isn’t Merati.
Kye’s head jerks up at the sound of a chime from the cockpit, and he glances down at his comm. His brow furrows, and he takes a deep breath before he looks over at Fiona.
“What is it?” our queen asks, her voice so tired and timid that I fear she might break.
“Cressida,” he says. “She wants to meet with you.”
“Send her through to the cockpit,” Fiona says, placing her hands on the table with a sigh. “I’ll talk to her.”
“No; she wants to meet in person,” Kye says. “You up for it?”
Fiona groans. “Well…no? But I don’t think I have much of a choice, do I?”
Nereus rubs her back, giving her a soft smile. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he says. “You are in charge around here, after all.”
She snorts, shaking her head. “Mm…no. I should go. But do I have to get dressed?”
She’s wearing nothing but a black shift—which I’m sure Nereus would have thought entirely inappropriate a year ago—but he doesn’t seem to care now.
“I think you’ve earned the right to wear whatever you like,” he says. “Not only the queen…but the savior of Homeworld.”
Kye grins. “Don’t start talking like that or it might go to her head.”
—
She gets dressed anyway.
We have to support Fiona as she insists on going to her chambers, on putting on a blue gown that once belonged to the last queen of this planet. I know she’s doing this because it’s important to Nereus; the prince had big plans for how she would make her grand entrance for her first official visit to Homeworld as queen. She stands in front of the mirror as we undress her, taking off first the mantle, then the cuirass of Queen Nerissa’s armor.
Fiona winces as Orion kneels at her feet, resting his face against her abdomen to examine where a piece of debris cut her. His breath puffs out against her skin, and I feel the way it makes her tremble, even when she’s this exhausted.
They’ve been through something together.
We all have.
Fiona groans when we take off her leather armor, unlacing the cords to free her bruised flesh. Nereus braids her wet hair, still grey with silt from the Atarys Abyss, while Ryker and Kye press kisses to every cut and every blemish. The armor is ruined; Orion isn’t wrong to merely cut it from her in places where it would hurt to take off.
And then we drape her in ocean blue, a plain dress the same color as Homeworld from space. Gauzy and light, it pools at her feet like sea foam, and I resist the urge to kneel before her like Orion.
She has something of the divine about her.
Of Yrsa.
Perhaps she saw the goddess in the abyss after all.
Fiona looks at all of us in the mirror behind her, arranged around her in something like worship. She inhales deeply, and I can see that it hurts her, but she’ll recover–she has each of us supporting her, and will have the finest physicians in the galaxy at her beck and call.
“I’m ready,” she says.
I believe her.
So we guide her toward the hatch, then off the ship at the dock to the old state building. There’s no throne left for her to sit upon, and Lamia left her crown behind at the bottom of the ocean. So I don’t know exactly what Cressida is planning as we’re guided by Triton’s royal guard into a nearly empty amphitheater, Fiona held protectively between us all.
