It was dusk, and the sunset had stretched lazily over the sea. Everything was drenched in a deep, rich gold. Anna paced the shore, no longer littered with broken timber and smashed barrels. The crew had done its work, and the Corona rode the tide once more. She had grown up in and out and even under her father’s ships, and she and her brothers had swum countless laps in the surrounding sea. But Anna found that she had no interest in the life she had once coveted; she could not settle for the sea or the land, and realized that she needed a balance of both. Picking up a handful of sand, she crouched down and began to shape a palace just out of reach of the surf.

She was a long way from home, now. King Iatona and his people were always like another family to her, but she had always had her own family with her during those times. Memories of her father and brothers flitted through her mind, and for once she made no effort to push them away. Land or sea, it didn’t matter to her. She could only hope they might be together again, even if it might not be anytime soon.

Lee, sent to call Anna to dinner, finally found her digging her heels into the beach, using her feet to make a moat for her castle. Wordlessly, he dropped down beside her and began to mold the sand into a long, low wall all around.

“Who taught you to make sand castles?” Anna asked, watching the sea fill her moat as the tide drifted in.

“Arholt is by the sea. Biggest port in Gareth. It’s even bigger than Quinn...though if you tell Sam, he’ll disagree.” Lee sat back, admiring his work. “There was only one decent beach near town though, so my practice with sand castles was few and far between. I think I taught myself pretty well though.”

“Not bad.”

“Well, aren’t you agreeable this evening. Not as much of a snapping turtle, for once.”

“Too tired,” Anna murmured. She moved to smooth a crooked turret, only to watch the entire castle crumble before her eyes. She let out a small gasp, and then her shoulders slumped. “The best things are always so fragile.”

“That’s true. But they’re often the strongest ones, too, depending on the circumstances.”

“What would you know about that? You don’t seem to have cared for much, in your life. Though I don’t suppose soldiers are the type of people raised to care for things. You can’t kill anyone, if you care too much for them.”

“That’s not true, soldiers care just as much as anyone. I would think that pirates were the heartless ones.”

“Well, you’re wrong there, because pirates are jolly and quite often very kind...as long as you aren’t a soldier. If you’re a soldier, well...then they slit your throat and laugh about it til morning over whiskey or a singing girl.” Anna smiled fondly, fiddling with her locket. “My father was a cruel man, but never to us. He was always kind to us, always took care to make sure we never missed a mother, never wanted for anything. He was ruthless...but he had to be.”

“And so are soldiers. Because we have to be.” The waves were coming in, breaching Lee’s wall of sand and swirling into Anna’s gradually disappearing moat.

“...you had to kill him...didn’t you? It was something you had to do, wasn’t it?” Anna looked out at the ocean, averting her eyes from his. She could not bring herself to say the words and hold a gaze all at once. “I’ve wondered, over and over again, why it had to happen...why you had to come, why everything changed. And I’ve blamed it on you, too...plenty of times, as many times as it took to calm myself at night or find sleep when all I wanted to do was cry, or scream.”

“Saying sorry...it won’t do anything. So I won’t say it. I guess...I was brought there at last, to that moment I had been chasing my whole life, and now that’s where our lives overlap. In that instant, in that second when you lost everything and I gained nothing at all.” Tears glittered on Anna’s face in the fading sunlight. Still, she turned away from him.

“He’s gone, and now...I suppose I am going home.” Anna looked down at her necklace, long grown accustomed to its weight. She held the locket in the palm of her hand, traced the twining vines engraved into its surface of perfect gold. “Home...home is something strong. Not because it has to be...I guess it just is. It’s strong enough to last through anything...so I know I won’t lose that, at least.” The sun had sunken below the line between sea and sky. A few pale stars had begun to shine, and twilight was slowly filtering through the trees. Anna’s fingers unwittingly loosed the clasp that held the locket shut, and suddenly the familiar beam of light leaped out into the coming night. Lee followed it with wide eyes, vaguely remembering the same thread of light in a battle-torn sky.

Two days later, the sailors stood waving from the Corona’s decks as Anna, Lee, and Sam bid the flower-crowned and elaborately painted monarchs farewell. Anna was engulfed in the huge arms of King Iatona, who was thumping her on the back with a tear in his eye. And then Tarami and Rakiatea draped the three in strings of red flowers, clasping their hands in the gesture of good luck.

“We will meet again, little one. Do not cry.” Rakiatea said in her own language, and Anna nodded silently. She hugged the tall Queen, who sent her off to join Lee and Sam on the ship. King Iatona thumped his spear once on the sand, and a hundred others followed. Anna leaned over the rail, waving, her eyes brimming with tears. Lee and Sam appeared on either side of her.

“It’ll be alright,” said Lee. “You’ll be here again one day.”

“We might even get shipwrecked again,” added Sam. Anna laughed, and a flower fell from the string around her neck as the men hauled the anchor in and the Corona set sail once more. “To Quinn, sailors!” Sam ran to take his place as Captain, and Anna watched as the figures of her friends receded in the distance.

Just then, Tarami let fly the pigeon she had been nursing back to health. It flew on recovered wings to Anna’s waiting hand.

There was one small storm, but they had traveled three quarters of the distance by then and in a few more hours they would reach the harbor at Quinn. Sailors and ship weathered the squall easily enough, riding out the waves that surged gray and cold onto the deck. This time, Lee knew better than to try putting Anna in a safe place; instead, he joined her in the Crow’s Nest, for two pairs of eyes were better than one and they had chosen to take on the watch just as Sam’s men did. It was Anna who caught the first sight of Quinn, not too long after they escaped the last reaches of the storm. She saw a city shining white in the strengthening sunshine, the colorful sails of yachts as they bobbed in the bay.

“Home, sweet home!” Sam cried, and the sailors cheered. Lee joined Anna in staring at the bright flags that beckoned to them.

“Quinn. Next to Arholt, it’s the busiest port here. And it’s definitely the busiest port on the eastern side, no question. All the rich merchants have warehouses and summer homes here. They take the Trade Road through the forest.”

“What is this forest? Will we be taking that road too?”

“Most likely. It’s the easiest way to get across Harnedd.”

“So many places...I can’t keep track of them all. Father never took me along for raids.”

Lee laughed at her petulant expression. “You’ll see a lot of new sights on the way to Asphel. It’s a few days’ journey, at least, and it takes us through the Great Candlewood. Most of Harnedd is the Great Candlewood, actually. The southern part, at least. To the east of the Wood is Quinn Harbor, and to the west is Asphel. Oh, but before that, there’s Kolla. We’ll take the ferry there.”

“And does the ferry go to Arholt too?”

“From Asphel, it does. There’s a ferry just for transport between Arholt and Asphel. All the rest run on a circuit that covers all the seaside towns on the Bay.”

“It sounds like this trip will take forever.........can I really put up with you that long??”