Roric stood at the edge of the damage with his hands on his hips, staring down into the jagged hole punched clean through the hull. The spear that had done it was gone now—pulled free along with the pirate ship it had tethered—but the damage remained. Splintered beams. Torn planking. Open sky visible where there absolutely shouldn’t be any.

  He scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s gonna need patchin’.”

  Paola leaned over just enough to peer down, ears flicking. “Is that… bad?”

  “It’s inconvenient,” Roric said mildly. “But not fatal. We carry repair crews and wood mages for exactly this reason. Sky pirates love harpoons. Makes ’em feel clever.”

  Below them, two repairmen were already hauling out reinforced planks while a robed wood mage knelt, palms pressed to the broken frame. The torn edges of the hull began to knit slowly, fibers crawling and twisting back into place like a tree remembering its shape.

  Roric snorted. “What I wasn’t prepared for,” he added, glancing back at the group, “was you lot.”

  His gaze lingered on Yasmin for half a second—bloodied, grinning, feral—then shifted to Ayla. There was something softer there. Evaluative, yes, but proud.

  He chuckled. “You turned out dangerous,” he said to her. “Didn’t expect that when you were knee-high and askin’ if clouds were solid.”

  Ayla huffed. “I grew up.”

  “Clearly.” He clapped a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Helios won’t know what hit it. And if this trip’s any indication…” He shook his head, amused. “We’ll be seein’ more excitement before we dock.”

  With that, he turned and headed back topside, barking orders that were already being followed.

  That left Paola, Ayla, and Evan standing near the hole, watching the ship quite literally heal itself.

  Evan edged a little farther from the opening. “So,” he said casually, “this is exactly how Final Destination starts.”

  Paola tilted her head. “Oh my god. The plane one?”

  “The plane one,” Evan confirmed. “Explodes midair. Traumatized me. Forever.”

  Paola laughed. “That movie messed everyone up. I still can’t sit under overhead luggage without side-eyeing it.”

  “I don’t even have lungs anymore and I still get anxious,” Evan said. “Flying is deeply unsettling when you know how fragile the concept of ‘vehicle’ actually is.”

  Ayla turned slowly. “What is… a plane.”

  They both looked at her.

  “Ayla,” Paola said gently, “how have we never talked about planes?”

  “You keep saying that word,” Ayla replied, brow furrowing. “I’ve only ever traveled by airship. What is a plane.”

  Evan gestured vaguely with one skeletal hand. “Imagine this ship. But smaller. Made of metal. No magic. Goes much faster. Relies entirely on engineering and faith.”

  Ayla stared at the hole, then back at him. “And if something like that happened to it?”

  “It explodes,” Paola said cheerfully. “Immediately.”

  Ayla went very still.

  “…Why,” she asked carefully, “would anyone choose that.”

  Evan shrugged. “We were very ambitious. And very stupid.”

  Ayla looked back down at the wood mage calmly sealing the breach, at the ship holding steady despite the open sky beneath it.

  “…I don’t like your world,” she decided.

  “Fair,” Paola said, then immediately lifted a finger. “Okay, but in our defense—planes are actually incredible feats of engineering.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Ayla gave her a look. The kind she used when listening to someone walk confidently toward a cliff.

  “Incredible how?” she asked.

  “They’re made of metal,” Paola began. “Really strong metal. Shaped very carefully. And the wings are designed so air pressure lifts the whole thing.”

  Ayla nodded slowly. “So. A metal tube. With wings.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And it stays aloft,” Ayla continued, “because air pushes it up.”

  “Exactly!”

  Ayla tilted her head. “At what speed.”

  Paola hesitated. “Very fast.”

  “How fast.”

  “…Very.”

  Ayla folded her arms. “And how does it move forward.”

  Paola opened her mouth. Closed it. “Engines.”

  “Define engines.”

  “They’re like, uh, controlled explosions. Or something like that.”

  Ayla stopped walking.

  Paola rushed on. “Contained explosions! Very safe ones. Mostly.”

  Ayla stared at her. “So. Your people build metal tubes, strap wings to them, fill them with passengers, ignite explosions, and launch them through the sky at great speed.”

  “…When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”

  Evan, walking a few steps ahead, called back, “It is bad.”

  Ayla resumed walking, shaking her head. “What could possibly go wrong.”

  They climbed back to the open deck, the wind greeting them like an old companion. The sky was clear now. No fog. No rain. Just open air and distant, drifting clouds that slid past lazily as the ship cut through them.

  They’d been flying for days.

  Paola leaned against the rail, looking out.

  The ground was so far below that forests had collapsed into texture. Trees looked like ants. Rivers like scratches of silver. The world felt quiet from up here, distant and unreal, like it belonged to someone else.

  The sails above them caught the wind with a deep, steady sound, membrane like fabric and crystal whispering together. Ropes creaked. The ship moved with confidence, no shudder, no panic.

  Paola exhaled slowly.

  This had to be worse than a plane, right?

  They’d been attacked by sky pirates. Actual, armed, flying criminals. Planes didn’t get shot at with harpoons.

  Planes didn’t do any of that.

  …Well.

  Sometimes they did explode.

  And sometimes they did get shot at.

  She glanced at Ayla, who was calmly surveying the horizon like none of this was particularly strange.

  “Okay,” Paola admitted. “Maybe my world was a little unhinged.”

  Ayla snorted softly. “You think.”

  Paola smiled anyway, letting the wind tug at her hair.

  No rain. Just sky.

  Augustus stood at the center of the council chamber and let the silence stretch.

  Theopetra had always hated silence. She filled it with warmth, with questions, with the insistence that no one voice should ever dominate a room. She stood among them as if she were no different. As if her blood were not diamond-tier, not forged from a Fallen Star line that had once bent Helios into existence.

  She should have been on a pedestal.

  Instead, she walked as if the ground beneath her feet was ordinary.

  Cleopatra had made the same mistake. Trusted too closely. Listened too well. Fell not to an enemy, but to a hand she had welcomed at her side.

  Theopetra, great-granddaughter and heir, had repeated it.

  Trusting her captain.

  Augustus did not flinch at the memory. He had already paid the price of that choice. What mattered now was what followed.

  The council spoke, as they always did. Voices overlapping, concerns layered atop one another like crystal panes refracting the same fear.

  “We’ve already commissioned a team,” one elder said.

  “They’re coming from Valarian,” another added.

  “Independent. Capable,” a third insisted.

  “They’ll arrive within a fortnight,” someone else concluded, as if that settled anything.

  Augustus inclined his head once. “Yes. You’ve told me.”

  The room stilled slightly. Not silence. Attention.

  “You expect me to receive them,” he continued calmly. “To assist them. To coordinate efforts in the search for the Queen.”

  A murmur of agreement followed.

  “You expect me,” he said, meeting their eyes one by one, “to help them succeed.”

  That did it. Now they were listening.

  At first, they had not seen him fit to rule. Of course they hadn’t. Helios prided itself on not needing rulers. On shared voices. On balance. Theopetra had let that idea rot unchecked until the city no longer knew how to move forward without consensus strangling it first.

  Many voices could be heard.

  But many voices could not lead.

  If every rope pulled in a different direction, no ship ever left harbor.

  Augustus stepped forward, boots echoing once against the obsidian floor.

  “Theopetra believed Helios did not need guidance,” he said. “She believed equality alone was enough to sustain us. That belief was… generous.”

  A few councilors shifted uncomfortably.

  “It was also na?ve.”

  The word landed cleanly. No venom. No apology.

  “We are not dying because we lack ideals,” Augustus continued. “We are dying because we lack direction. Faith is returning to our streets—not the old kind, but something hungry. Something searching. And it is searching because Helios has forgotten how to tell its people what comes next.”

  He spread his hands, palms open. Not a plea. An offering.

  “This team from Valarian will come,” he said. “They will search for Theopetra. I will guide them. Not above you. Not against you. With you.”

  Hope stirred. Small. Careful.

  “And if they find her,” he went on, “we will rejoice. We will restore what was lost.”

  He paused.

  “And if they do not,” he said quietly, “then Helios will not remain frozen in grief and indecision. Together, under my guidance, we will do what this city has forgotten how to do.”

  He straightened, voice steady, unshakable.

  “We will choose a future.”

  No thunder followed. No applause.

  But something shifted.

  A spark. A sense—not of certainty, but of relief. That someone, finally, might know what to do.

  Augustus held their gaze and let them see it in him.

  Confidence. Resolve. Direction.

  And for the first time since Theopetra vanished, Helios leaned forward instead of inward.