Days passed once more. The Biovore corvette made great speed across the waves. With its sails bolstered by magic from Andrealphus and its front tugged powerfully along by the enormous form of Marchosias, the living ship cut across the waters like a knife as it made its way to the inner seas, where the heart of the Slaver Isles awaited.

  Even as they moved faster than Eri’s most optimistic predictions, the youth could not help but worry frantically. They might already be too late. Even if they weren’t, it seemed unlikely he could make it in time.

  Still, he did not succumb to despair, if only because the thought that he might have already lost Elen was too much to bear.

  To distract himself, he sought to understand his companion’s inexplicable bout of suicidal stupidity in joining him.

  “You realise this will have consequences, right?” he demanded. “News of this will spread. Your association with me could lead the Church's inquisitors or imperial agents to target you. You would lose your noble status. They might even execute you for heresy.”

  In the face of such dire threats, Joarris’s group looked unconcerned.

  “I mean, we are already associated too deeply with you for anyone to ignore,” Julie pointed out. “Four years together, and none of us suspected a thing? No one would ever believe that.”

  “Except we didn’t really suspect him at all. None of us knew of his true nature,” Bori complained. “Raharim even thought he was a Saint reborn.”

  “I mean, he could still be one,” Raharim hesitantly said. “He still hasn’t told us who he really is yet.”

  “What, the two Demon Archons calling him ‘King’ and ‘Master’ is not enough to tip you off?” Alvine scoffed.

  “It could be a misunderstanding…”

  “Look, it’s not too late.” Eri tried once more. “I can drop all of you off on an island somewhere along the main sea lanes. When the imperial forces pass by here, tell them I kidnapped you, or spin whatever excuse you can make. Given your Chosen status, it might buy you enough leniency.”

  “You realised that without me or Peythra, you can’t steer this ship, right?” Deyara lazily countered. Leaning against the railing of the deck, she idly scratched the crystal head of preening Andrealphus, who had reverted to parrot-size — on his own volition, no less.

  “Marchosias can still drag the ship,” Eri shot back. “Heck, I can even just ride on his back as he flies instead!”

  “Don’t be absurd. The pirate fleet will spot you from miles away, and you’ll be shot down before you even make it to Oleander’s flagship,” Joarris sighed. “Just accept the fact we are here to stay, Eri. We are not leaving you to deal with this alone.”

  “But why?” Eri hissed. “This is stupid. All of you are being stupid! I have been keeping secrets all this time — secrets that put you all in danger from the entire Empire — and your response to that is not to attack or accuse me, but to help me?”

  “Going to be honest, I was hoping you’d have a plan to get us out of trouble with the Church or the Empire after this debacle,” Bori admitted. “Assuming we survive the next few weeks, that is.”

  Eri stared at him in astonishment. “I think you are vastly overestimating my persuasive abilities if you think I can get anyone to forgive us the heresy of demonic association.”

  “Won’t be the first time you surpassed everyone’s expectations,” Julie said optimistically. “Besides, your demons are nice. The dragon let me pet his head earlier.”

  “They don’t behave like regular demons at all. They are more like… people,” Alvine added hesitantly. “They don’t act mindlessly or instantly move to violence. I’ve never heard of any denizen of Hell acting so… civil.”

  “Civil is not the word I would use. The parrot is an arrogant asshole, and the dragon is a sea-puppy with too much affection to spare.”

  The words didn’t come from anyone in the noble expedition.

  Imperial Commander Amber Valance glumily smoked from her pipe as she sat near the front of the corvette’s deck and stared into the distant horizon.

  Her hair was a mess, courtesy of when Andrealphus had squawked and pecked at her when she caught it trying to steal her pipe. Her entire body was also covered in slobber when Marchosias had licked her earlier.

  “The demons warmed up to you surprisingly fast,” Kaz commented, the dwarf chuckling lowly. He was one of three dwarves still on the corvette — the rest had stayed behind on his orders to complete repairs for the imperial ships. “Perhaps they sense kinship from the sheer amount of blood you split in your past.”

  “Lucky me,” Amber sighed. She caught Eri’s absurd stare and snorted. “Look, it’s not like I wanted to follow you on your suicide mission. Goddess knows Kain nearly burst a vein when I told him I was joining you.”

  “So why are you here?” Eri demanded. “Out of everyone onboard, your presence makes the least sense.”

  “Blame the Fox. She insisted.” Amber looked hesitant to share more. She exhaled heavily. “Besides, I have my own reasons too. Fate’s a bitch.”

  Joarris’s group was staying out of a strange sense of camaraderic obligation — a fact that made Eri equally mortified and moved to learn. Dulcina was the same, compelled by familial affections. The knights of House Elathion and Dervaine followed their lords, holding fast even in such tenebrous circumstances.

  The elves and the dwarves confounded Eri with their continued partnership. They didn’t even look the least bit conflicted by Eri’s heretical development. Their unconditional aid, however invaluable, worried Eri, for the Elder Races should have more reason to resent demons than even humans.

  But Amber? Amber was an Imperial Commander. Her loyalty to the Empire, combined with her hatred for demons — and by association, Eri — should have compelled her to capture or kill him, not join him on his ill-fated ventures.

  “Kain will be joining us with the full imperial fleet once repairs are complete. Since I’m here risking my neck for you, my men will have no choice but to help you now, despite their distaste,” Amber snorted. “Good thing your dwarf pals decided to leave behind the majority of their numbers on the island; otherwise, the fleet will take months to rejoin us rather than weeks.”

  “Our paths and yours are joined for the foreseeable future,” Peythra said from the side. “Even if you cannot understand why yet, you should at least take solace that you need not do things alone.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “We will not leave you be when you need us, little brother,” Dulcina said. “Even if you believe we will.”

  Eri wanted to argue, but the words sparked foreign thoughts filtering through his mind.

  Why, exactly, did he always think to do things alone?

  His plans, his crafts, his powers… In the past, he kept everything hidden. He thought it was the best. The only person he had ever wholly confided in was Elen…

  And Elen left him, in the end.

  He had been alone, revealing his thoughts and goals to others only when the situation forced him to. Somewhere along the past four years, devoid of his closest confidant, he got used to it — the solitude and his distrustful nature that festered despite being surrounded by those who would listen.

  It was self-depreciating. Especially now, despite some of his worst secrets revealed…

  There were people still willing to risk their lives to aid his selfish cause.

  “... Thank you, everyone,” he said quietly.

  “Finally. Though you were going to mire in bullheaded stupidity for the rest of the trip,” Deyara huffed. “But touching as all of this is, we still need a plan. Blindly charging into the pirates’ fleet is going to kill all of us.”

  “Don’t suppose anyone here has any suggestions?” Bori asked.

  “We have a few options. All of them are risky as hell, and given our speed, we only have a few days left before we make contact with the first pirate scouts,” Amber said resignedly. “I would recommend we start planning; otherwise, we will find ourselves at the bottom of the sea before the end of the week.”

  ~~~

  The strategy they all eventually settled on was subterfuge.

  A head-on confrontation was immediately off the table. Their corvette was powerful and fast for its size, but there were far too many pirate ships sailing within the Slaver Isles for them to outgun or outrun in every encounter. While they might successfully destroy or evade the first few patrols, eventually they would get caught and surrounded before they even make it within sight of Oleander’s flagship.

  Stealth was a more plausible option, and they briefly discussed the idea. The magic provided by the two demon archons added a lot of advantages. Andrealphus could encase the corvette in crystals that reflect light, rendering it virtually invisible to distant ships. Marchosias, meanwhile, could take to the skies and swim underwater while carrying a small team on its back or in its mouth, along for a strike force to board the corpse-dreadnought while the corvette waited some distance away.

  The idea carried great risks, however. Oleander’s flagship would likely employ more exotic threat-detection methods. They could not account for every possible magical countermeasure, and the moment they were found, Oleander’s dreadnought would tear them to shreds before they had a chance to get in close.

  That meant the only way they had to even board the ship was if Oleander willingly let them.

  “We are going to lie our way into them letting us onboard the corpse dreadnought?” Amber asked sceptically.

  “We know from our reports that the Pirate Lords have close dealings with the Duskcrowns,” Peythra stated. “Lord Oleander, in particular, is well-known for his predilection for exotic specimens and corpses, particularly those of Elder origin. He often receives shipments of bodies from the Duskcrowns — payment for his continued cooperation, we suspect.”

  “That’s foul. What does he do with them?” Joarris asked uneasily.

  “He’s a necromancer, as well as a self-proclaimed scientist,” Amber shrugged. “When I fought him briefly before, he kept ranting that he wants to, and I quote, ‘create a new sapient race of immortal undead, united regardless of origin or species’. All in all, a complete and degenerate nutcase.”

  “But a powerful one,” Lauren said. “His dreadnought, the Despoiled Canticle, is said to be the reanimated carcass of a massive leviathan creature moulded by the Second Demon King themselves. The weaponry on it is the unholy union of Hell, Undeath, and Elder magic combined.”

  “Oleander himself is no slouch, either,” Amber added. “He’s an Emerald Core, which means he could fart at you, and the gas would be strong enough to instantly kill most of our Chosens on this ship.”

  Bori looked at Amber in disgust. “Do you have to phrase it like that?”

  “I’m more impressed that you fought him head-on and survived,” Joarris said. “According to our reports, you once boarded his vessel before and faced him in single combat to buy time for your fleet to retreat, a few years ago.”

  “Yeah. That was way back during the opening moves of this cesspit of an invasion. The Coalition’s inexperience with the seas costs a lot of mistakes,” Amber exhaled. “Oleander’s a threat, but he has a few weaknesses. His Emerald Core is less than a decade old, so his mana still fluctuates a lot. He is also using most of it to maintain control over his undead dreadnought. I would place his strength closer to that of a matured Sapphire-Core Chosen than an Emerald, but make no mistake. He’s still a massive threat.”

  “Can you kill him?” Eri asked.

  “Maybe. If we get him alone, or if you can hold off his hounds from me long enough to stab him with my blade,” Amber said, patting her sheathed sword.

  “Hounds?” Dulcina asked.

  “His undead creations. Freaks and monsters, all of them. But they are fast and strong, and a lot smarter than they look. Oleander has a ton of those circus fiends all over his ship. A confrontation inside the dreadnought is not suicidal, but I won’t recommend that course of action. Even if we somehow manage to board his ship without a naval battle, our best bet for everyone getting out alive is still to avoid a fight with him entirely.”

  But that was assuming, of course, that the corvette could even get close enough to the dreadnought without suspicion in the first place. The expedition needed a way to trick Oleander’s fleet into allowing them passage to the dreadnought, presumably under the guise of them being envoys from the Duskcrowns bringing a shipment of bodies to their Lord.

  “How are we going to do this?” Bori asked uncertainly. “I doubt his fleet is going to just let us sail straight to him without at least checking on us first.”

  “That’s the crux of the problem with this plan. We don’t have any idea of how the Duskcrowns operate, or how we should go about disguising ourselves as them.” Amber took a pull off her pipe, her nervousness showing. “Don’t suppose anyone here has a Duskcrown agent in their pockets we can interrogate?”

  Everyone turned to look at Eri. More specifically, they were looking at his shadow.

  Cedric poked his head out. “Don’t look at me! I was just a grunt, and I haven’t been in the Slaver Isles for years!”

  “But you were still once part of your organisation, and you were ‘created’ and trained within their facilities in the West,” Eri said. “You must have some information, at least.”

  “Well, yeah, but it’s definitely not enough to bluff our way through!”

  “It’s a start,” Dulcina said. She turned to the twins. “I hate to ask you two this, but during your time in captivity, you claimed you were conscious the entire time, even though you weren’t in control of your bodies, correct? Is there anything you know that can help us?”

  Peythra shuffled uncomfortably. Deyara was the one to answer. “We’ll share what we know. Just don’t expect us to share every sordid detail of what we went through. From our ‘experience’, passing ourselves off as the Duskcrown should be possible if we avoid a close inspection. The organisation is secretive to the extreme. I doubt their pirate ‘allies’ even really know much about them. The problem is that the Duskcrowns would often use an in-between liaison to manage their meetings.”

  “A liaison?” Joarris asked.

  “Hm. Heard about this before. Supposedly, the old noble houses in the West would work as an intermediary for both sides,” Amber grunted. “Families like the Ophelium, the Halsworn, or the Inmedias… Traitors with Saint Bloodlines who chose to turn their backs on the Empire during the Great Collapse a hundred years ago.”

  “Dulcina and Joarris are of noble blood. Assuming they put on a convincing show, maybe that will be enough to pass inspection?” Julie suggested.

  “There’s magic capable of checking a person’s bloodline origin. Not saying for certain the pirates will have it, but it’s a risk,” Amber countered.”The most foolproof way would be for us to procure ourselves a kidnapped noble, one with authentic blood ties to any of the traitor Houses. And since I don’t see anyone here that could pass off as one of them, I say we’re screwed. Unless one of you has been hiding a sample of their blood or body part in your drawers.”

  This time, everyone in the expedition turned to Deyara.

  Eri coughed into a fist. “Um, do you still have it?”

  The half-elf smiled cruelly. “Don’t worry, I don’t leave home without it. Give me a moment. I’ll fetch the head.”