They come, slowly.

Faces she recognizes, faces she doesn’t. Some of them are her people, some of them are from other courts. All of them are here for Isra, all of them her friends and followers.

Morrighan is there, bowing to her and it feels strange and wrong, but she smiles when the Warden congratulates her.

She tries not to listen to the words spoken to Isra, though they stand so close together. She tries to let the sound of the sea and the sound of the crowd drown them out. Antiope does not want to be a bystander to their sorrowful goodbyes, to their hopeful well-wishes.

Antiope does not want to hear the sounds of breaking, and missing.

She does not need more reasons for her voice to sound like staying, when Isra must go. She will go, regardless, despite all their voices.

It is in her eyes, when everyone has said their goodbyes and Isra turns toward the sea and her ship. They go to it and they board it, and Antiope can see all of the woman remaking herself. She has felt that before.

She wants to stand there forever, when the ship disappears past the horizon, and wait for it to return, but instead the striped woman turns toward the gathered equines with eyes as deep and dark as the sea.

And Antiope steps into the crowd, like a beacon, like a guiding light, and begins the ascent with them back into their city.

“Speaking.”