North Blue.
A sea of strange etiquette and even stranger grudges.
Where vendettas lived longer than kings, and pirates wore perfume with their pistols.
The Spiteful Womb sailed low and silent.
A pleasure barge converted into a death ship.
Its sails bore silk. Its cannons were painted gold.
Selka boarded it dressed as a courtesan.
By the time they realized she wasn't, two men were missing their throats.
She found the girl in the captain's chambers.
Caged. Not chained.
White-haired, scarred, and singing to herself in a tongue long dead.
Selka crouched.
"You have a name?"
The girl looked up.
"No. Names are for people."
Selka didn't blink.
"Winter. Sister."
The girl smiled.
"That's a cold word."
"Yes. It suits her."
Back in Mariejois, I received the report.
Encrypted.
Ink soaked in vinegar and blood so only I could read it.
"Girl found. Not feral, but close. Speaks in tongues. Answers to no name. Markings consistent with Winter. Will extract."
I burned the page.
Winter waited behind me.
"She's alive?"
"Yes."
"Do I go?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you'll see her as a sister. She needs to see you as a master."
Winter didn't like that.
But she didn't argue.
Selka returned two days later.
The girl came in silent.
No shoes. No chains. Just cold eyes.
Mero offered her a cookie.
The girl sniffed it, then bit the edge of the plate instead.
Mero looked horrified.
Winter tilted her head.
"She's worse than I was."
I smiled.
"Excellent."
We gave her a room.
White walls. No mirrors.
Books she couldn't yet read.
A wooden blade. A schedule.
We did not give her a name.
Not yet.
Three days passed.
She didn't speak.
She didn't eat unless watched.
But she watched everything.
Winter finally broke.
Entered the room one night, sat on the floor, and said nothing.
Eventually the girl spoke.
"You stink like me."
Winter said nothing.
The girl nodded.
"Good. I like stinky things."
Progress.
I began compiling a new file.
Her mannerisms. Her reactions.
Her reflexes.
Faster than Winter at the same age.
Meaner too.
She bit Selka within an hour of their first sparring match.
Selka was delighted.
"Good instincts," she said, holding her bleeding wrist.
"She's already useful."
We gave her a test.
A rat. A knife. A locked door.
"Escape," I said.
She looked at the rat.
Then at the knife.
She slit the rat open, pulled the bones, and began picking the lock.
She was out in under three minutes.
I gave her a name:
Ash.
Because that's what's left when the world burns.
That night, Winter watched her sleep.
"She won't be loyal," she said.
"No," I agreed. "She'll be dangerous."
"And if she turns on us?"
"Then we remind her who lit the fire that made her."
Winter traced the scar on her own arm.
"She's not me."
"No," I said. "She might be worse."
In the lower quarters, Mero drew all three of them.
Winter, smiling faintly.
Ash, chewing on a knife.
Selka, looming behind them like a hungry shadow.
She titled it:
"My Sisters Will Burn the Sky."
I visited Garling again.
He was drunk this time.
"Children," he slurred. "They're not pawns. They're bombs."
"Only if you arm them wrong," I said.
He laughed.
"Imu knows you're playing with fire."
"Imu created the sun."
"She'll burn you first."
I stood.
"She can try."
In the highest tower of Pangaea Castle, Imu watched the stars blink.
One blinked twice.
She frowned.
"Figarland…"
The shadows at her feet twisted.
"Shall we intervene?"
She shook her head.
"Not yet. Let the child think he's winning."
She looked at the constellation above.
Then whispered:
"Stars die alone."