“[i]No![/i]”

Redana stands and makes to leave the palanquin; Lacedo barely holds her back, on her own orders.

“Dolce— [i]Captain—[/i] what she has done is my fault! I have failed her, failed Hera, failed myself! When I thought her dead, I— you [i]know[/i] what I did! When I walked with her on Salib, she saved my life and showed her scars, her hurt, her [i]life[/i] spent being punished, punished for [i]my[/i] imperfections! And now you want— Lacedo, let me [i]go—[/i] now you want to, you want [i]me[/i] to abandon—?!?”

There is a struggle. Growling. Panting. A hushed compromise.

“I am bound in our chains,” Lacedo finally says for the room, her voice burying agitation under solemnity, under the half-memorized rhetoric of a born naval officer. “If I leave her behind again, if I let her fall, she will drag me into the dark with her. I will be unworthy of both Zeus and Hermes. I have lived with her since I was a girl, and I tell you now: she is not evil, she is [i]wounded,[/i] and roars loudest where the thorn pricks her.”

There is a silence. The curtains of the palanquin have fallen still. The shapes within can barely be seen, mere silhouettes, close together.

“Heap punishment on my head, but let us save her if we can. Lock us in cages, but set them together. Make me do penance in her name, shame and denounce me for her crimes, whatever must be done, I welcome it. Only do not make me abandon my oldest, most ill-treated friend.

“Please.”