Dia’s hands were chained. Her legs were chained. Her wings were chained. She sat in a little ball curled up on the wooden bench built into the wall of the prison ship. The room was constructed from the same wood which closed into three walls and a heavy planked door with just enough of a window that she could see the guards outside.

  They were scared. Not of the beauideal, though she wished she might have been able to flutter her wings and make the Aqueenian men shiver. They were scared of the storm raging all around the ship. It had hit just after leaving Nun, and there was no telling any longer if they were going to make it. Given what might await her in Quenth, the green girl wasn’t sure if she would rather just drown in a capsized ship.

  “Check with the captain!” a sapphire fellow finally said to his amber counterpart. She saluted and trudged up the stairs to the higher deck, stopping a moment to grab the railing and slam into the wall before continuing up.

  The blue man sat in a chair bolted to the floor and hung to the arms with near white knuckles.

  They had only sent three on this ship with Dia. Had the storm not started, she expected that the whole crew would have loaded up, perhaps even the Queen herself would have joined the star on her tour to Quenth. Had the storm not surprised everyone. It wasn’t the type to come this early in the season. The little practice Dia had in magic told her it could only be taken as a bad omen. Perhaps that meant she was to die. She didn’t mind that being the case.

  Her own father did nothing as they tore her apart in court. He may have looked nothing like her. He may have missed some formative years as she scrounged on the streets. But Dia thought he at least loved her.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to pretend that killing a leader of another nation was good. She could make excuses—swept away by patriotism and the chance to make a more glorious Nun! She knew she could spin it over and over to make her not to blame, at least in her own mind. She had been doing that ever since the act.

  It was for the good of Nun! Even though doing so could have brought instant war.

  It was to support a trustworthy group, even though they had shot her when she became too inconvenient.

  It was to prove something to herself, even though she felt just as confused as before.

  Dia’s eyes began to dampen and burn, and she cursed the shackles that made it hard to wipe them free.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to pretend that killing a leader of another nation was good, but she thought a parent’s love was at least supposed to be unconditional. Not thrown away because some ugly Queen rolled in and demanded she be tried like an Aqueenian. She wasn’t an Aqueenian, not in the same sense at least. All the people in their so-called nation would spit and curse at her for being born with a simple wing.

  Dia sniffled, though she didn’t mean to, and that was enough to draw the blue guard's attention.

  “Ha, the witch is crying?”

  He didn’t speak in a manner that matched his words, barely getting anything through his chattering teeth. The ship hit a large wave and rolled to the side enough that Dia and the guard were tossed to the floor. The restraints made it hard for her to get up, so she remained lying on the wooden floor listening to the boat make sounds a ship should never make.

  The storm would really rip the ship apart. Thank Crenussal.

  She looked up at the blue man who clung to the small hole in the door with the same white knuckles that clung to the chair.

  “Look at you. Just lying there all pathetic.” He spoke like a man afraid enough to get angry, “Here we are trying to get you to Quenth. Risking our lives.” He spat through the window, but she was too far to get hit. “Why should I have to die because of you? I’ve worked hard as a guard, even got noticed by Colton the other day for how much work I’ve been putting in.”

  The man began to weep.

  “I… I… I jus wanna….” His words fell apart as the ship made a large crack. The storm was getting more relentless outside, and there seemed to be little more the vessel could handle.

  “I’m sorry.” Dia said softly, “I should be the only one to die today.”

  The blue man hissed back, “You got that right. Winged monster!”

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  Dia wasn’t sure she could get through to him, but she was still a beauideal at the end of the day, a star among them even. For all the shining, for all the frills, for all the dueling, a beauideal’s most important duty was to lift the spirits of the audience. Even if the star was feeling down, it made the job she had all the more important.

  This guard wasn’t the type she would have expected to be her last audience, nor would she have thought it would be a straightforward concert in such an awful stage, but Dia resolved herself and spun awkwardly until she was upright in a seated position.

  Her stark white Needaimus, perhaps taking notice of the change, finally looked Dia’s way as well. The metal creature had been locked in a glass dome and pushed to the corner like some forgotten unboxed purchase. Knowing very well the fate of a bad Needaimus was to be melted, it had seemed X didn’t care to look at Dia—the witch that got the Needaimus into this mess—but now Dia’s resolve seemed enough to get the creature's attention.

  An audience of two, then, she felt honored.

  She took a deep breath and began her song. An old Aqueenian tune. Solemn and melodious, different from the poppy tracks she normally sang. Even the most dedicated fan might be surprised to learn she could sing classically.

  “O’er the mountains the trail never end/ Yet we march it all the same/ Her body lay dead, it may never mend / Yet we still carry her name.”

  “What are you doing? Stop it. Stop it!”

  Dia continued to sing. It was a simple folk song. The type every mother and father sang to all their children. Every Aqueenain knew it, even Dia, though her mother and father were Netzian.

  The man continued to cry until he started to thrash and weep, screaming that Dia shut up. Perhaps he knew she was trying to comfort him in the end, and it made him hate her all the more for it.

  She continued her song, and the man opened the door. He smacked her across the face, blasting her back on the floor, but she continued to sing the song—her voice like an angel trying to drown out the deadly storm and tearing wood.

  The blue man fell to his knees, trying to wipe away tears from his eyes. Dia continued to sing, though the side of her face burned with every word now. She sat up so that her face was in front of his. He sputtered something through his weeping, but it was not clear.

  The star continued singing until she felt her own tears begin to flow.

  How easy it was to forget the simple joy of making someone else happy. It was why she became a beauideal in the first place. Before she was the top star, she was just Dia Mond the beauideal, there to make the fans forget for a moment whatever misery they had suffered in their day.

  How easy it was to get lost in fame. How easy it was to get lost in the belief that she had to “save” Nun. She was a fool. It was no wonder her father no longer loved her.

  The guard wiped his tears away. “I’m sorry.” He said softly. In another time, Dia would have confidently declared how she got a new fan. Her last fan. She put both hands—cuffs made things so difficult—on one of his shoulders and just nodded.

  From above, the amber guard shouted down.

  “We just sprung a leak port side, taking on water fast! Get your gear on and get up here!”

  The blue man pushed her hands off his shoulder and grabbed them so swiftly the beauideal couldn’t react. Seconds later, they made a clunk on the wooden floor. The ones at her feet soon followed.

  “You should at least have a chance.”

  The man moved to her wings, but stopped. He was unwilling to touch the cursed wing, or even the mechanical one. She didn’t blame him for it; even the most hardcore Aqueenian fans still felt a little queasy by them. It wasn’t like she could do much flying in the storm anyway.

  The man looked like he was about to say something else, but the ship finally gave up the ghost. A huge tear rippled through, followed by a crack like some reverse of the thunder and lightning outside. The floor split between them, and Dia knew she was running out of time. She shattered the glass ball with a kick, and her Needaimus quickly bonded to her arm.

  “No, you should just run!” Dia cried to the creature.

  Run where? X replied coolly.

  Seconds later, she was underwater. How it even happened was a mystery, but chunks of the ship were sinking all around. Dia kicked her legs as hard as she could until she broke the surface. Rain peppered her face so intensely it hurt, and a wave soon shoved her back under. She emerged again and looked all around.

  The blue fan was trying his best to swim as well, but in the swirling darkness of the storm, there was no telling where anywhere safe could be. She locked onto a board and latched on. It could barely manage the star’s weight, but it was enough.

  She kicked with all the strength she had left until her legs began to burn. The distance in the rough torrent never seemed like it could close, but she managed to get close to the blue man. She grabbed the collar of his uniform, and he latched onto the board. Together, the two were too heavy.

  Dia shouted over the storm. “Live! And sing that song to your kids!” Before he could reply, she let go of the board, and the raging seas took care of separating them. The blue man’s cries were drowned out as another wave pushed her back under the water.

  I’m not too keen on dying today. X said in her head. Dia rolled her eyes. Needaimus were such demanding creatures sometimes. She kicked again and broke back above the surface. The deluge wasn’t giving up any time soon. She soon was sucked back under and had to scramble back to top.

  Dia felt her strength beginning to fail. It was too much to fight the storm. X would have to get over the idea of dying. The star's vision began to blur, but there was still enough to see one last shot—a mast, or what remained, thrashing her direction. Every ounce of power left went to making it to the fragment of the ship, and she clung on until the weakness finally beat her. Dia wrapped the arm with X around a protruding section, and the Needaimus half unbonded from her arm to drill itself into the mast. Short of Dia’s arm ripping off, she wasn’t going anywhere. She let exhaustion finally win, and everything went black.