Chapter Text
The sea was swallowing her, and Leonor’s scream dissolved beneath the waves.
She reached for her mother’s hand, slick with seawater and slipping fast—her fingers brushed only air. Small hands for a girl barely ten years old. The overturned boat bobbed beside her as the current tugged her down, salt stinging her eyes and her lungs burning with cold.
“Mama!” she cried, her voice broken and swallowed by the storm.
A small boy’s pale face surfaced for just a moment—eyes wide with fear, mouth open in a silent scream—and then vanished beneath the foaming dark. Their mother surged after him, kicking through the chaos, her shawl trailing like seaweed. One desperate look over her shoulder. One last command:
“Stay there!”
So Leonor did.
She clung to the side of the overturned boat, her fingers aching, breath coming in gasps. The water rose and fell beneath her like a living thing.
Her mother disappeared beneath the waves.
One second. Two.
And then Leonor let go.
She dove, arms flailing in the wrong direction, lungs screaming for air, heart splitting with panic. Something—someone—brushed past her, but she couldn’t see through the dark.
Then silence.
The water was still.
Empty.
Cold.
She was alone.
Suddenly, a rough hand gripped her arm, pulling hard against the relentless pull of the sea. Gasping, sputtering, Leonor’s eyes searched the darkness to find a boy no older than sixteen, wild-eyed and determined, hauling her upward through the waves.
“Leonor!” he shouted, his voice urgent and fierce as the storm hammered around them.
The ship’s deck scraped against her palms as she fought to steady herself. The young man’s arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her fully aboard. Leonor collapsed, coughing and shivering, salty water pouring from her hair. The young man knelt beside her, his breath ragged but steady as he wrapped his arms around her.
From nearby, a voice rang out sharply: “Prince Tobias!”
Tobias froze mid-step. His head snapped toward the sound, and before anyone could speak again, the crew surged to the ship’s railings, peering into the churning darkness. The storm lashed at their cloaks and stung their eyes, but no one looked away.
“Throw a line!” someone ordered, already reaching for rope.
Leonor turned, blinking through the rain, her breath still ragged. For a few moments, all she could see were frantic movements—boots thudding on soaked wood, ropes being pulled, shouts half-lost to the wind.
Then suddenly, as if something had shifted in the air, everything slowed.
A hush fell over the deck as a different voice, sharper now, cut through the storm.
“Prince Tobias,” it said—disbelief and urgency mingling in the words.
Tobias stepped forward, his expression unreadable. When he turned, his eyes landed on Leonor, standing just behind him—unexpected and steady.
“Take Princess Leonor away,” he ordered sharply, nodding to a maid nearby without hesitation.
The maid stepped forward and, lowering her voice to a soft hush, said, “Come now, Your Highness, quickly.”
Leonor shook her head, eyes wild. “No! I don’t want to leave!”
“Hush now… you must obey your brother’s command.”
Leonor made brief eye contact with Tobias—his eyes glistened with unshed tears, but his jaw was set.
The maid reached for her arm gently for the second time. “Come this way, Your Highness.”
As they began to move, Leonor’s panic erupted. “Send out the lifeboat! We must inform His Majesty the King!”
As she neared the end of the ship, somewhere near her, the lifeboat was lowered into the sea. As the knight pushed off through the tempest, racing to deliver the news to King Alric, she wrenched free and bolted toward the far end of the ship, heart pounding in her ears.
“Princess Leonor! Come back!” the maid called after her, voice rising over the storm.
But Leonor didn’t stop.
She turned sharply and ran across the rain-slicked deck, back toward her eldest brother, Prince Tobias. He stood motionless, his soaked cloak clinging to him, eyes fixed on the two bodies laid gently at his feet. His face was pale, his eyes red with tears—but his jaw was set with the quiet strength of someone fighting not to break.
Leonor’s steps slowed. Then she stopped.
Beside the bodies, the royal apothecary, Hakurei, knelt in the rising water, her soaked sleeves clinging to her arms. Her hands shook as she pressed them firmly against the Queen’s chest—once, twice, again—muttering counts under her breath. Then, with a broken gasp, she turned to the tiny form cradled in the Queen’s arms and began again, her movements urgent, hopeless.
Her gaze dropped—and locked on the first: a woman, pale and still, arms wrapped around a tiny, lifeless infant.
The world fell silent.
Leonor’s breath caught.
Her knees buckled at the unbearable truth.
On the deck beneath the storm-dark sky, she froze—then a raw scream burst from her throat, swallowed quickly by the wind and crashing waves. It echoed through the storm, only to be swallowed by the wind and the waves.
Across the storm-tossed deck, Tobias turned sharply at the sound. His eyes found hers—wide, stricken, uncomprehending. He moved instinctively, as if trying to shield her from the sight, crouching slightly to draw his soaked cloak over the still forms.
But it was too late.
She had already seen.
A part of her shattered then—silently, completely, never to return, for the night had taken everything she loved.