Azyriah listened to the belching of the heaters as they came online, choking up fresh sand. She could empathize. When she awoke, each morning, there seemed to be sand from gods knew where, coating every surface within the ship. She knew the strain was great on the engine and did maintenance every day, but she often wondered when the day would come that it finally conked out. There was only so many repairs even a sturdy engine could take.
Aurra Kell had been raised on problems: trained to face them, work them out logically, but these hadn’t been the sort of cares she’d anticipated. Growing up privileged on Arvor, she’d never imagined this life as even the most remote of possibilities, but it had happened. Since then, she’d stopped taking anything for granted. Even the familiar hull of the ship that served as both shelter and transportation.Â
Patting the plating familiarly, she turned towards Avaena and stood up from where she’d been seated in the captain’s seat. She detested the news she bore. “Lady Tark confirmed the rumors. Caressa Harand is with child again.”
Seating herself opposite Avaena, Azyriah felt suddenly quite old, as if time itself were tangible and had worked its way into her bones. “She’s carrying a son.”
Azyriah didn’t wish any particular ill on an unborn child, but neither did she wish the ill that child’s existence could wreak upon the Empire. It was as dangerous to Avaena as she was to it and, though distant cousins, they were also born enemies - like it or not. Azyriah had known from the start that the rumors probably weren’t coming from nothing, but there had been the hope. The existence of heirs could only help Aram in securing his line which was the opposite of what Azyriah wanted.
“The other child died,” she added, softly. She’d been sorry to hear the news, at the time, for the sake of the mother and for the fact that it had been only a baby, but politically, the death had destabilized House Quasar. It had been good news, if tragic. (Azyriah suspected the death had been the primary impetus for marrying Leck - or, in case, had she been Aram’s steward, that is what she would have advised.)  “Who’s to say what will come of this one.” Afterall, no one knew better than Avaena just how perilous it was to be born to an Emperor.
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