Chapter 3: Grounded

Captain Danae Morgan watched the sun-kissed waves break upon the rocky shore below from her perch overlooking the Bloodtide Coast. As she leaned forward, a sea breeze gusted up the cliffside, carrying with it a spray of salt water. It mussed her raven-black hair and stung her tear-stained cheeks, but she didn’t wipe the tears or salt water away from her face. She hardly realized they were there. All she seemed to be able to do at that moment was stare at the constant cycle of seawater cresting and breaking on the shore while her thoughts wandered on their own.

She thought it was strange that Blake, her first mate, always disappeared after returning from a mission. Curious where she went each time, Danae asked her where she went off to, hoping to get some sort of explanation. The asura smiled, and beckoned for Danae to follow. The two walked along the beach, eventually hiking up the steep hillside of Stormbluff isle until they came to the very spot Danae now stood. As the two sat together that morning, their legs dangling over the edge, Blake revealed to her captain the reason why she came out here.

“It’s the sun,” Blake said as she smiled up at the cloudless sky. “That big ball of energy up there…and the sea, and the sky, and the birds. I like to come out here and see it all. It reminds me why we accept our missions.”

Danae flashed her a confused glance. “This all reminds you of that?” she asked, gesturing widely to everything around them.

Blake nodded. “I understand it may seem a bit idiotic to someone who has not grasped the complexities of such a highly evolved mind-“

“Watch it, Gexxa, or I’ll have you mopping up Markus’ messes down in his quarters. He has some new toys on his worktable, and I don’t want to think about all the oil, grease, and who knows what else is coating that space right now.” Danae teased playfully.

She had rarely used the asura’s real name anymore, not since her appointment on the Raven. Gexxa, or Blake, as she preferred to be called, wanted a fresh start. Her first act was to choose a new name. Considering her own past and desire to start anew, Danae supported the decision wholeheartedly.

Blake chuckled. “All right, all right. But I’m serious. Look, everything is functioning as it should. The sun is in the sky where it should be and the birds are flying like they’re supposed to. The merchants, the fishermen...everyone gets to go about their lives another day. The things we do help make all that possible. I don’t ever want to forget that.”

Danae looked down at the teal ribbon in her hand. Blake had always worn two: one tied to each bun of coal black hair. It had been her favorite color. The edges of the woven material were smudged with the asura’s blood which had now oxidized to a reddish-brown tint. She had been the crew’s only casualty during the attack on Nienna’s hall in Lion’s Arch, but it was still one too many. The Raven’s first mate had been taken from them too soon, and now they would never again hear her harmless cheeky comments about their plans, nor her rousing encouragements in the throes of battle.

She was gone.

Pocketing the ribbon, Danae finally wiped the tears and salt spray from her cheeks and made her way back down to the beach. Her spiraling thoughts drowned out the sounds of lapping water and the seabirds cawing overhead. All she could hear was the crunch of metal when the Raven went down, followed by Harrisson’s sorrowful yowl when he found Blake. Her small body had been impaled upon an exposed piece of framing pushed inward from the force of the ship’s impact against the hillside. Danae shuddered, remembering what it felt like to pull her lifeless body off of the bent metal. It relentlessly played over and over in her mind until her heart couldn’t take it anymore. She forced herself to stop walking, and that’s when she realized she had been holding her breath for quite some time. She let it out, her heart racing wildly and her lungs thankful to be emptied. Turning from the shore Danae uttered a curse. She had overshot her destination while stuck in her torturous fog.

Get it together, Danae scolded herself. She balled her fists so hard her nails almost broke through the skin on her palm. Blake wouldn’t want me like this. She wouldn’t want any of us like this. We have work to do.

Danae turned from the shore—and her thoughts—and made her way up the beach alongside a small inlet branching off of the bay. She offered a little nod to a fisherman repairing a net as he sat on a crate in front of his shabby tent. The twisted gold band representing the Order of Whispers had nearly faded away, but when she looked closely, Danae could still see it adorning the tent’s worn red canvas. The man, Kenton Castle, was one of theirs, tirelessly guarding the entrance to the Chantry of Secrets while creating the illusion of trapping crabs to sell in Lion’s Arch. He kept outsiders away, and in turn, many of their agents got to dine on crab and fish at least a couple times each week.

She followed the little inlet until the water emptied into a deep pool nestled inside Deadend Cave just off the backshore. To any civilian who happened to be strolling by, it looked like an ordinary wide-mouthed cave. But to those who knew better, and knew the way, the cave served as the front stoop for the Order of Whispers’ headquarters: the Chantry of Secrets. It was nestled deep inside the mountainous island of Stormbluff Isle, carved out under layers of dirt and rock. Even though it was a busy hub for the agents operating in the shadows, the hidden facility and the secret passages concealed their comings and goings. Keeping to the rocks along the side of the salt water pool, Danae glanced back at the entrance to make sure no one was there, and then slipped through a jagged opening in the rough cave-side.

With purposeful strides, Danae made her way along the lamp-lit passage leading to the Chantry. The dark purple feather-like panels sewn onto her long coat fluttered fervently in the wake of her swift movements. Soon after her ship had been christened the Raven’s Reach, she had the coat custom made. The Raven’s captain should have feathers of her own, she had thought to herself. She had originally selected a black leather for the feathered panels, but after serious internal deliberation, decided on a dark purple. It had been her family’s color, and even though she had given up that life to make one of her own, Danae never wanted to forget where she had come from.

As she crossed into the antechamber, she glanced over at the world globe rotating silently up on its platform in the background. It served as the Order’s Threat Assessment Board, indicating draconic and other supernatural threats on a larger scale. It loomed in the background, watching over the Order’s members going about their duties. She stopped to admire gigantic sphere with its blue illuminated lines and circles networking their way across the continents. It was then Danae noticed how quiet it was in the Chantry today. The foot traffic was low, and the chatter was at a bare minimum. She had seen the missives filed between her orders from the Preceptors. The jungle dragon had awoken in the wake of Scarlet’s attack on Lion’s Arch, and the Order had intended to send a number of their agents to assist the Pact—and to make their own assessments. She just didn’t expect for them all to be gone so soon.

Eyes immediately snapped toward the ship captain as she passed by a small group of agents huddled around a table filled with charts. She could feel their gazes burning into her, and their whispers wormed their way into her ears, but Danae did her best to ignore them. There was no time to waste on their opinions and speculation. The attack had just happened yesterday, and there was no doubt in Danae’s mind the Order of Whispers would be putting plans into motion to deal with the situation. She had to get ahead of it. She had to put herself, and who was left of her crew, in an opportune position to be a part of those plans.

“Preceptor, can I have a moment of your time, please?” Danae asked before pulling back one of the heavy tapestries serving as a barrier for Halvora Snapdagger’s office.

The mature charr glanced up briefly before returning her attention to a stack of missives from operatives in the field. “Why are you here, captain? You and your crew should be recuperating.”

Danae shook her head. “My crew and I rested last night. We need to be out there going after the Byrnes. We need to stop them before-”

“Before what, captain?” Halvora interrupted. She abandoned the messages and turned her full attention to the woman standing before her. “Before they get too far out of reach? Before you can exact your revenge?”

The Preceptor’s comment caught Danae off guard, and she had to steady herself against the flood of emotions threatening to burst through. “That isn’t what this is about. We have a job to do.”

“We do,” Halvora replied firmly, “and we cannot afford to let vengeance and revenge drive our response. We cannot let this get personal.”

Unable to control her anger any longer, Danae slammed her fists down on Halvora’s desk. “Personal? All due respect Preceptor, they took one of my crew from me. They shot down my ship. They hurt my friends. Please, tell me how this didn’t become personal as soon as those two self-serving nobles set out on their crusade for a weapon they were never meant to have.”

Halvora snarled as she lunged toward Danae, stopping herself just short of the startled woman. She bared her teeth as a warning as she stared Danae down with her heterochromia eyes. The rough sound of the charr’s claws digging into the hard wood filled the starkly quiet room.

“I will consider the severity of your response as a result of the duress you’re currently under. I acknowledge you lost much last night, and you want them to pay. But your friend was never meant to have it either. No mortal was meant to wield a godly weapon. This is why the Order must get our hands on the blade, remove it from the playing field, and stash it away for safekeeping.”

“Please,” Danae begged, “help me get my ship in the air. Let me and my crew go after Nienna and her friends. I can talk to her and convince her to let me return the blade safely to the Order.”

“You are not going.”

Danae felt as if she had been socked in the gut. Letting go of the Preceptor’s desk, she stumbled back, her visage twisted in agony. “What?”

“Your feelings are compromised, captain. Not only that, but your relationship to Nienna Valar has you compromised as well. I can no longer trust in your ability to serve in this mission. You are grounded.”

The words echoed in Danae’s ears and tore at her already broken heart.

Halvora stared at Danae for a long time before her hardened features finally softened. The muscles in her muzzle flexed as she clenched and ground her teeth. The Preceptor felt sorry for the airship captain, but she’d never tell her outright. She had an image to uphold and a world to protect. “I have known you since you came to us as a lost cub. It took some time, but you eventually found your purpose. You found it on that ship—with your crew. I know what it’s like to lose a part of yourself and to desperately want to right the wrong visited upon you, but I’m sorry, I cannot let that happen with this mission.

“Preceptor, please-”

“We cannot lose sight of the bigger picture here. I am well aware of your rough relationship with your human elitist world, and I have no doubts your feelings are edging into your already clouded judgement. If I let you go out there, I cannot trust you won’t go straight after the Byrnes, risking our mission, and getting yourself or your crew, killed. I cannot in good conscious allow that to happen.”

Danae straightened herself as she fought to keep her composure. “Then I suppose that’s it then,” she uttered bitterly.

“Not quite,” Halvora said as she straightened herself behind her desk. “There’s still the matter of your colleague, Quint Blackwell.”

“What about him?”

Halvora glanced down at her desk, a low growl rumbling in her throat. “In the wake of disobeying orders, he stole something from me. Lately, I can’t help but wonder where his loyalties truly are. If you know where he is, I would appreciate it if you told me.”

Danae did her best to keep her expression neutral. “Quint disappeared after the battle, and I have no idea where he would have gone. Preceptor, I can assure you I’ve always known him to be loyal to the Order and to Tyria.”

“Best intentions do not explain his treasonous actions of late,” Halvora snarled. “He will be found with your help or not, and dealt with accordingly.” She paused, studying Danae for a crack in her façade that might give her away, but the woman’s expression was solid. Realizing the captain wasn’t going to break, she decided to end the conversation. “Dismissed.”

With a nod, Danae immediately turned on her heels and strode out of Halvora’s office, throwing the curtain aside as she passed.

The Preceptor watched the airship captain leave. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she always knew Danae would be another complication she would need to deal with in some form or another. She had just hoped it wouldn’t be now. Uttering a disappointed growl, she glanced over her shoulder toward a figure who had been waiting silently in the shadows behind a veil of invisibility.

“Follow her. She’ll eventually lead you to Quint, I have no doubt. If you find him, bring him back. If he gives you too much trouble—kill him.”