The Empire was at war, and there was no border.

  Oceans had become battlefields.

  North of Cape Impa, off of the Western coast, Commodore Cecelia Greta DuSonde was ready for her deployment to be over. She had been at sea for sixteen months and she knew that command was trying to juice her for all she was worth. Half a dozen enemy ships sunk, two captured, and a dozen more forced to retreat from the western seas. Speak not of the eight monstrosities they'd sin. Her little naval detachment’s record was excellent, and the problem with being such a useful implement of war was that it afforded them few breaks. The reward for a job well done truly was more work.

  She missed her family.

  Cecelia’s mother would no doubt approve of her excellent record, and she’d probably want a friendly spar or five to see how her daughter had improved. The duchess would likely win every time with cutting pointers for improvement. Cecelia had no idea how her mother was such a force of nature in her sixties, but she’d be damned if she didn’t love Verea more than her… other family.

  Her siblings, father and stepparents would all be happy to see her home safe, but she most wanted to see her younger sisters again. They'd both grown so much! Ana would come see her in a fsh and have the test fashion from the capital for them to try. She'd joke that the princess was imposing on her, but both of them knew Cecelia liked to dress up just as much. Courtly dy that she was, Ana would probably ask if she was finally looking to wed, which she wasn’t.

  Hilda was gone, sadly. Cecelia had missed both Hilda’s graduation from the academy as well as her departure to the frontier. Her mother’s st missive had emphasized how proud the youngest daughter was to have matched her oldest sister's achievements in the academy, and she knew HIlda had enjoyed thrashing her fellow students. Who knew when they’d see each other again. The western sea had no convenient ports for visits to Beacon or Thraes Hold, and the adventurer might not even visit home while Cecelia was ashore.

  “Commodore,” a voice from behind roused her from her reverie at the ship’s fore, “the privateer vessel is on the horizon.”

  Turning to face her second in command, Cecelia affirmed him, “Good. Is the Accent ready, Captain Martin?”

  “Yes ma’am. The Accid- I mean, the Accent is ready.”

  She held her humor at his slip of the tongue. A few incidents had earned one of her ships a nickname. The sailors had taken to calling the IMS Accent the Accident, and its role in her capture operations hadn’t helped, either. It certainly looked enough like a whaling vessel while disguised, so she couldn’t bme the privateers for accidentally trying to sink an armed schooner. It had surprised her when it worked three times, though. Sadly, one of their victims caught fire, sinking with few survivors.

  She tried not to think about the men and women she had personally killed and otherwise condemned to death. Her decision for when the navy asked her to join the central fleet remained in a state of deferral. Saying that she was much like her mother in her dedication to the empire had gotten her this assignment near the homefront, but she was getting too successful. The privateers were a fine enough target - opportunists endeavoring to receive a dual bounty from the Ghesi state and the vessels they plundered - but she wasn’t excited to join the central conflict of two empires at war.

  Unresolved self-loathing and resentment had brought her into the navy, but as she worked through her feelings over a decade, Cecelia couldn’t help but feel that she made a mistake. Retirement this early would be an outward embarrassment for her house, which she cared about more than she had expected to. The DuSonde family had endeared her almost two decades prior, when she was first grappling with this reality. Now that she was years older than the end of her past life, she didn’t want to burden her beloved kin.

  How many people would she kill for that, though? She pnned to speak with her mom about it soon.

  The Ghesi ship was closing on the Accent. A fourth rate ship - beyond the estimated capabilities of her unit - but Cecelia had a personal habit of making such cssifications useless. She descended to the main deck to prepare, approaching the librarian who was on deck checking the weather instruments, “What do you think, Selda? Clear skies for the afternoon?”

  The mousy academic smiled with a gleam that leaked warmth into Cecelia’s heart, “Yes, I’d say so, Commodore. If I didn’t know better. I sincerely doubt you’ll let that forecast come true.”

  “Ah,” she spoke louder, holding up a hand to channel and pying up her role, “so you don’t believe what the men on the Neilos thought? That there are predictable freak storms on the southern seas of the frontier?”

  Selda giggled along with crew in their vicinity, “No, ma'am. I’m quite familiar with the origin of this region’s strange weather.”

  Reaching her other hand out and tousling Selda’s hair, Cecelia smiled at the woman’s protests when several locks began to stand on end. “I’ll have to hope we're the only ones expecting a Tempest, then.”

  Enough of the crew on deck had started paying attention that her antics were met with widespread ughter. Morale flew high, despite the darkening stormcloud above.

  Their quarry suffered several unfortunate and highly improbable lightning strikes as well as a trio of barrages from the Accident before surrendering to the boarding crew of her personal frigate, the IMS Tempest. It took several hours to arrange the CWV Mogami’s transfer into the hands of the empire, and Cecelia retired to her quarters afterwards with dinner and a bottle of her favorite cognac in hand.

  Well, this world’s equivalent, at least.

  Selda joined her shortly, bringing a letter along with the magically guided bird that had delivered it. Duchess DuSonde employed a court mage capable of sending letters anywhere that Cecelia would find herself, and if she didn’t know the depths of the family coffers, she'd worry about the extravagant cost. While searching her desk drawers for her letter opener, Selda struck up a conversation, “You know, Celia, there’s no need to py up the crew like that every time. Half of them already think they have heaven and earth on their side with your presence.”

  “Yes, well…” Cecelia briefly tried to think of an Imperial nguage equivalent to kayfabe, “one could say the morale helps me just as much. Aha!” She held up her ornate little bde, “let’s see what the duchess of Sondervand has to say today.”

  “It’s nice to see you in such spirits. You used to be so…”

  “Bitter?” Cecelia suggested as she scanned the letter.

  The librarian sighed, “Yes, that’s descriptive enough. You were hiding your anger at something that you never expined. At least not to me.”

  Celia chuffed at news of Hilda’s entanglements before pausing to reply, “Maybe someday, Selda. It was a deep wound, and now that it’s healed I’m hardly sure what to do anymore, let alone who I am without a uniform.”

  Selda’s look of pity hurt just enough that Cecelia returned to her letter. “If you’re so unsure of yourself on nd, I’m right here to help you, dear. Out of the possible assignments from the academy of magic, I wasn’t excited to spend years at sea assisting the navy, but you’ve made- Celia?”

  Commodore DuSonde’s brow puckered in concentration as she finished the letter, scanning each sentence twice to ensure she wasn’t misreading her mother’s words. “Sorry, Selda… I need a moment to think.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Holding up a finger, Cecelia considered what she should do. What she would do. She wanted to offer the support that she never received. Two months was too long to wait, though…

  How many of her own sailors had she lost in sixteen months? She was good, but she wasn’t the only commanding officer with a magic trick up her sleeve. Lightning strikes from knots away were powerful, but cannonfire made equals out of most people.

  “Selda, did you also hear from the crew of the Mogami that privateers are being discouraged from raiding near Cape Impa?”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard from them. It might be an easy tail end of our assignment out here. Why?”

  She tapped her fingers on the desk for a moment before making her decision. Producing stationery and a pen, Cecelia considered what to write as she spoke, “I’m going to end our deployment early, Miss Turner. There’s no reason for us to dawdle out here if Ghesi ships are going to start avoiding us.”

  As Celia started writing carefully, Selda expressed her confusion, “What? That’s not really why we’re returning, though, is it? What did your mother say, Celia?”

  Cecelia paused to speak, “There’s… an emergency at home. I don’t know how to help, but I think I know more than anyone else at the estate does. Um…” Looking up at Selda, she had a thought, but didn’t want to presume, “I don’t know the specifics of the situation, yet, but I’d appreciate your help, Selda. If you’re willing. You’re the smartest woman I know, and this,” she gestured at the letter, “is not my greatest area of expertise.”

  With a sardonic look, the librarian asked her, “Didn't you just say you know more about this than your whole family?”

  “I think that, yes.” Celia nodded, “but it's a rare thing… have you ever heard of a potion that can turn a man into a woman? Maybe a spell?”

  The mage pyed with her braid while she thought, “You know, I haven’t. It must be a difficult process. You’d think that sort of thing would be common if it was easy.”

  “You’d think.” Cecelia agreed, “maybe everyone tries to go about it wrong.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  A surprising number of things had worked with Cecelia’s previous understanding of physics. Sure, there was magic and more in this world that produced impossible phenomena, but electricity worked the same, so why not hormones?

  “Is someone in your family looking for one? Why?”

  “If I say, you must keep it a secret.”

  “Cici, please.” Selda had an unamused expression. “Are we not friends? Let alone fellow musicians. Did you forget that I published your compositions? Without attribution. Like you requested.”

  “I wasn't the one who wrote them,” Celia insisted quietly.

  “Then why did I find no record of them during our st leave?” Selda pushed, “No hints of a lost style from the Balreli era like you told me. What I did find was barely comparable!”

  After a gravid moment, Cecelia asked, “Have you ever wished to be a boy, Selda?”

  The academic woman pondered upon it, “Not really. Maybe in a certain sense? Men aren't dear enough to me to want to be one.”

  In a certain sense? Celia set it aside to make her point, “Some people find great dissatisfaction with their gender. It's best to help them become who they desire to be, otherwise the discontent can ruin them.”

  “Ruin who?”

  “Kirk, my youngest brother. He was trying something awfully foolish in an attempt to acquire that potion.”

  “I see… How is that an emergency? Can’t he wait?”

  Regarding her friend, Cecelia slowly began to expin, “If you were to start growing a man’s beard today, how soon would you want it gone? Kirk will already be desperate. Besides, six more of ours died today. Even our cleanest engagements take a toll.” She huffed, “I think I’d like to see the rest of my sailors make it home this time.”

  Selda quietly watched as Cecelia began to write again. After a minute, her hushed voice broke the silence, “Are you going soft, Celia?”

  After another silence while she finished writing, Cecelia looked Selda in the eyes, “I don’t know that I ever wasn't soft. I might have just ignored that part of myself.” Shrugging, she looked over the letter, “Can you send this letter back to my mother for me? I think I need to get drunk.”

  With a half-pained, half-amused look, Selda nodded, “I can, but I’ll tell you again as I do every time; drinking like that is a terrible habit of yours, commodore.”

  Cecelia folded the letter with a small, sad smile on her face, “True. You know, maybe I’ll tell you why I was so bitter, Selda. Not now, but soon.”

  Selda smiled back, “I’d like that.”

  They both retired for the night, with Selda promising to send off the bird.

  In the morning, Cecelia was roused by a panicked captain, “Commodore DuSonde, ma’am! We have an emergency!”

  With a groan from her awful headache of a hangover, Cecelia started reflexively dressing for battle stations, “What’s the threat, Captain Martin!?”

  “Ma’am, I…” the man seemed at a loss for words, “there’s a beast in the sky, south of us. It might be a dragon.”

  Cecelia frowned, still dressing, “Might? How could you not know if it's a dragon?”

  He spoke with grim concern, “You should see it, Ma’am.”

  Minutes ter, Celia ascended to the deck, bleary eyed and fuzzy headed with Captain Martin following. Turning her eyes southward, she spotted the thing and was subsequently unsure what she was looking at. The distant sky was split by… something. A crooked, uneven line came from over the horizon, ending in the air at the head of a winged creature that seemed to be a dragon. Thankfully, it wasn’t heading toward them so she produced her scope to look closer.

  She recalled seeing an old tapestry depicting the sky split in the same fashion during a visit to the imperial museum. The curator had told her that the faded white triangles on the edges of the line were intended to be teeth. Cecelia assumed that was what she was looking at now. An endless mouth cutting open the sky, unbound by the body it was attached to.

  She barely managed assemble a sufficient curse in Imperial, “Je- Fucking… Mother of all that’s holy. Someone fetch Miss Turner! She’ll want to see this. Captain Martin!”

  “Ma’am!”

  “Bring me the hailing fre! We have an urgent report to send home.“

  As she heard him dash off, a soft voice spoke up from behind her, “I’m already here, Commodore.”

  Finally looking away from the godbeast, Cecelia handed her librarian the scope, “Of all the things I never thought I’d see.”

  Taking her own look, Selda hummed in discontent, “I can’t say I’m pleased to witness such an ill omen, even if no one else has seen it in eight hundred years. What are you going to say to command?”

  “There’s nothing much to say. ‘Heaven-Slit Maw sighted. Flying west, south of Cape Impa.’”

  “Going home looks more appealing by the minute.”