As we stood atop the mountain of Tithonus, surrounded by all the gazes of her citizens, a grave decision fell upon us of the Ala Estival. Poised precariously between the love for friends and own freedom, we had been asked to make a choice.

Coming to no one’s surprise, and of little doubt as to its willing nature, the first answers were made by the pair at the heart of the trial.

“I shall, Mistress,” said Acis with fervor, “whatever in life or in death you would have me, I shall comply.”

“So do I,” Galanthus followed, her voice once more unreadable.

Valerian, erstwhile ardent follower of the Goddess of Charity, meanwhile did not so eagerly accede to a contract with such an evil omen attached, “I have resolved from this day to strive once more as a follower of my old deity. Though I maintain my service to you, Ashora is my Goddess and my guidance, and it might well be that the mission you are to task us with should cross Her will. And still,” she inclined her head “Charity taught us to do the good that stands before us without halting for the evil that may follow. And on this occasion, I wish to preserve the pledge of my ala-sisters, and also to aid my pair’s blessing for that union.”

By the blonde knight’s side, Wisteria made a deep bow. “It is as my pair said, I wish to help Acis. But all the same, I have resolved to swear an oath unto your service, my Mistress, and would do your bidding regardless of your power to compel, with or without a covenant to make it so.”

“As for me,” Gladiola said, “I have naught left to my name. Not a home, nor a god, not a thing beyond the boundaries of your vessel. Whatever you wish of me, I comply. And yet...” presently, she turned to her pair, and her face took on a grave aspect of a different sort than towards one’s liege, but a sincerity beyond worldly duty. “Hortensia, hear me now: our pledge is not like that of the others. You need not accommodate your pair’s selfish desire as others of earnest pledges may do. I do not and will never speak for you. Do you renounce our pledge, you will be exempt from the matter of Ala Estival, and your consent unnecessary for this covenant.”

“And thus ever our agreement stands,” answered Hortensia. “But for all your flaws, I do not find your company unpleasant, sister of mine. Whyever would I rend a pledge for fear of a mission that might amount to no more than a ceremonial dance in our captain’s memory?” She shifted to the captain and made an elaborate curtsy and a large smile beside. “Have at it, Your Highness, I am yours to command for this hypothetical mission.”

And once they had said their piece, the matter fell on us, one whose answer was of little import, and the other’s that would have the last word of all.

And even as surely as I know my own answer I was convinced of Litzia’s. Her face was set in stone and ice. As though no more did she recall in her memory and mind the purpose of this questioning. Naught existed in her eyes now but the hated Dawn. She gave in return for the captain’s covenant only a look of disgust. And would she comply now, after all this time having conspired and loathed the captain in the safe confines of her own mind? And for my part, what right have I to grudge her the last hope for freedom by conquering a Dragon one day, though she may forsake a friend? What right have aught of us? None of them had known the life of a slave. And I who did was far too accustomed to it to lament. Her reason was singular, at once selfish, in all rightful.

“Why should I?” so she said. “Why should I consent to this madness, to this covenant that envisages only ill deeds? I have my scruples, and, to begin with, it was you who bound me to this Ala and these women, not some false sense of camaraderie. So bargain not with me by the lives of them! I shall not have it!”

Acis seemed terrified. For so short a time she had been given hope.

“Do you think so little of us?” asked Galanthus.

But Gladiola shook her head, and mayhap spoke for the rest, though she looked dejected for it, “It is her choice, Galanthus.”

“And yet she could use a good deal more tact,” chided Wisteria, “but you are not done.”

“I am not,” said Litzia savagely, “I do not bargain with the lives of you alares, but...” she shifted to the captain, her head hung high to meet squarely the bright eyes, “if it is a bargain you seek, then make it a fair one.”

So she sued for fairness from a proud goddess. And yet, even as so many times before, there was not so much as a rebuke in return. So starkly it contradicted the treatment Galanthus had earned only moments before.

“Then tell me what you want,” the captain said, not even so much as displeased or disturbed.

“I seek but what is sensible. This covenant you speak, that we may choose to partake by our own accord, there is a great flaw in its making. For however could a slave give her consent without agency?”

“Don’t you mean...” from Gladiola’s side, Hortensia uttered, her eyes widened with understanding.

I drew a deep breath. ‘Twas the first time Litzia had announced her enslavement in the captain’s hand to the Ala. And I was seized also by the temerity of her request. There existed no possibility that the captain would simply clear her off the mark, where she could simply compel her into the covenant using that very binding marking. So I thought. But in one regard, I was mistaken.

“Is that all?” the captain asked. There was even a hint of contained amusement in her tone. “That is an excellent point you made, alaris. So why not? It shall be done. Slaves, I have plenty to spare.”

And ere I could comprehend the captain’s sudden turn to generosity, there came a rare flash of triumph in Litzia’s closed look, even as that one time she had debated the captain to achieve a pledge with me. With that very look and that very smirk, she gently pushed me forward.

Now without delay, the captain laid her divine hand, her tapering fingers upon my flesh. Those rosie nails dug into my skin where the mark of Raiser Achaen had tainted since the day of my birth. And they gouged - gouged like sculpting hands giving life and form to stone and wood. And at that moment, something essential to my being had been taken, seized, and stolen. So that I was not so much liberated or deprived, but completely broken down and then recreated. All that had been seemed a fitful dream. All the long years groping behind the formidable inner walls of my cramped mind betrayed at last their nature - for I had never realized the prison of my own mind, a place so tight the slave cabin seemed free and wide as the boundless skies. I found then new functions to my feeble limbs; that feet once made for treading the earth now may take to the sky by a command; hands which once went slack at dusk now the muses reinvigorate with life-giving breaths; that marlinspike-wielding digits which could only mend now may weave and create, could touch on things immaterial, could soothe pain and transmit warmth. These feelings that were not merely felt but came barged in, as though in some corner unseen, a hidden window had been unbolted and revealed a light the kind of which I had never basked in, but now pulsated in every vein, coursing to every extremity to herald the advent of infinite possibilities.

Or so a prose writer of limited talent and earthly vernacular may carelessly describe the experience. In truth, it was so much more. Not even in my own memory could I ever do it justice in full, much less to relate to another. Only that in the moment, I was something I had never been before: free. And it was not the kind of freedom from chains and fetters, from tall walls and remote isolations. There is so much more than physical constraint and ancient magic of a Raiser that could bind one’s mind. But it was lifted then, as surely and joyously as thawing snow at the onset of spring. And surely, as messily. For I found myself at the end of that forced epiphany a collapsed wreck on the ground before one of the brightest beings in the universe and all the illustrious alares of the Ala Estival. But not one of them had known freedom from born slavery. Not one, except maybe Valerian, who had by one comparable experience fallen from the greatest grace to the place of the foulest sinner. So not even she may judge.

Nonetheless, I rose again on my own, without aught to act as my support. I was keenly aware that from this point on, all my actions shall reflect upon my being as a person. For no more shall I be able to blame my station as a slave for my failings? Not even my race would be an excuse, for what azure ever birthed in this sky had ever dwelled markless among man? So I stood on my two feet, slightly staggered, but remained there with a dignity newfound.

“Congratulations,” Litzia said ruefully with a bitter smile, standing nearby but seeming so far away. Her shame and torment stayed a secret and a grim truth. At that moment, I could not tell if she had complied to the captain’s covenant solely for my sake or if she had always meant to help Acis, and did but find an opportunity to gain something more from the bargain. Only that she had wholly and decidedly abandoned herself to fate by this act. The very Fate that had not once been kind to her.

“It is done,” said the captain, matter-of-factly, “And so your consent is yours. Do you give it, azure? Think not that I compel you by this generous act. To the contrary! As said your pair, only a free woman may sanction a sacred act and promise in good faith, or else what is the point of it?”

The answer stuck on the tip of my tongue. I turned to Litzia, who had an understanding look, and then Acis, who feared for the worst, and knew what must be done.

And yet, I recalled my freedom. As never before, I could exercise the right of it, could wield it to my choosing, for the first time in my life.

If, right this instance, I broke my allegiance to Litzia and the Ala Estival, my fate should be no more tied to the Daybright and her frightful captain. A different life, a different path awaited me.

It would be evil to reward Litzia’s selflessness with betrayal and to forsake a friend. But it would also be my choice - my own chosen course that naught might take from me.

Azures do not die, even as they do not live. So who knows what could become of me in a hundred years, in ages and in eons to come? Such freedom envisages innumerable existences. I could be a carpenter, a maidservant, a merchant, a dancer, a poet, a rune engraver, a Priest, or even nothing at all, wandering and living off the land. Nothing is impossible. And yet what is it among all these varied paths that I really long to tread? What is it that I really want to do?

I supposed only time would tell. There was no real rush to ascertain right away. The while, I shall do what my heart thinks is right. Litzia needed me. Acis needed me. And then there was Thea. So I resolved myself.

“I, Aster of Ala Estival, pledge-sister to Lizia and your faithful servant, vow to follow your bidding should the ordained day come, Mistress.”

That done, the tensions in Acis broke as though by a surging wave. And seeing how my indecisiveness had shaken her, I knew I never had the heart to betray her in the first place.

“This is not good for my heart,” said the white wyverness tremblingly. “But aha! It is you, Aster, whyever could I doubt someone so pure!”

And so we were made to kneel before the captain. Her voice again echoed the whole mountain to resume the joyous occasion. The covenant was secretly made, for naught but we and the captain’s officers knew of its existence and the bargain involved. The dawn needs no ritual to bind us, but the moment each of us once more affirmed our willingness, a faint light imbued our body, and the pact made for a yet undetermined day lingered in the back of mind like a nagging thought, that would go on to be subtle but insistent reminder.

As for the ritual for which we had passed a trial in the dark to attend, not the captain but her monks ascended to perform the procedures as the sun rode high on the heavenly course. Garlands of summer flowers were placed upon our brows and many hymns sang, as well as songs and dances by all the performers who had gathered for the day. Players of viols and flutes and harps filled the mountaintop with tales and deeds of past Anemone alares. Then there were the praises, the expressed love for Aurora, for the people here loved her, and she was their patron goddess.

In all, it was a festive event for all the people of Tithonus.

By noon, the admission of new alares was done, and now we stood officially as servants of the Dawn. Each of us doubtless had her own motives and reasons to be there. Some were proud of the fact, some merely accepted it as something inevitable. Of Gladiola and Hortensia I knew the least, but they seemed satisfied with their current place. Acis and Galanthus belonged on the Daybright, one bound to the vessel and her captain, one born to serve as her apostle and warrior; but to be sure, they did not care for it, but a place they could spend forever more with each other was all they needed. Wisteria was like Acis, born into the Dawn’s service, utterly loyal to it. The Loredan wyverness sought now a new life along with her chanced pledge-sister Valerian, who perhaps had found for herself a new purpose to replace all that she had lost.

Litzia, ah, Litzia. I felt sorry for her. She was the least disposed to be on the Daybright. It was not her will to serve the captain but the mark’s. And yet for the time being she must. I did not see how she would ever succeed in her attempt to overthrow the captain and earn her freedom again, even without the covenant that would bind her should that unlikely deed come to be.

And then there was I. It was my decision to serve here, for ever I had thought of the Daybright’s crew as family. Who knows what the future may hold, but for the time being I shall stick with this dysfunctional family, along with all my new and old friends, my Ala-sisters and Thea.

When all was said and done, and the ritual drew to a close, the captain declared to all:

“So it is written: from this day you serve me and mine, alares. Much do I expect from you and your service, so do not fail me!”

And all the people, the citizens and the crew and the alares gave a cheer. But she was not done.

“And from this day, I receive the alaris Acis back to my embrace and my hall. No more shall past misdeeds burden her, for all of which I now declare paid in full. Her line I hereby pardon, and the Veniers shall be restored as once more my apostle. Let it be known! And all that was theirs the Veniers’ heirs may inherit in full.”

In among the crowd on the mountaintop cries of joy were heard. It was Satia, Acis’ mother, and her retainers. I wonder if this was not the captain’s intention all along, and she never sought to punish the Venier so harshly in the first place but only to weave a complex pattern of Fate unto this day, when we were forced into a covenant of her liking. But mayhap I suspected overmuch, and it was already aplenty to celebrate the fortune of my Ala-sister and friend, who was greatly moved by the generous act.

Still, Aurora went on. And this last declaration was not least, for all it implied of the future and past.

“Rejoice, and rest well, my servants! For we shall set sail again once the hold is filled. My course shall be to Emathion, capital to the Empire that has long crossed me!”

Emathion! Emathion! I shuddered to the core. That name which had entered my ear so recently. The one whispered by the mouth of that villain in the deserted garden to Litzia. Back then it had struck me as a bad omen that an agent of the empire could predict the Daybright’s course. But now it occurred to me that it had not been they who foresaw the captain’s move, but quite the contrary.