When Edward opened his eyes, the world was water and ash. The sea hissed against the jagged stones, whispering of death and memory. His uniform clung to him like a second skin, torn and heavy. He tried to move, but every motion sent pain spiraling through his ribs.
He remembered only the explosion — the ship split in two, Evelyn's voice swallowed by thunder — and then darkness.
Now there was only silence.
He pulled himself up on the rocks, coughing seawater. Somewhere in the distance, gulls cried over the wreckage of what had once been His Majesty's vessel. There were no survivors that he could see. The flag that once marked his command floated half-burnt in the tide.
She's gone, he thought. The words carved a hollow space in him.
For the first time in his life, the Prince of England felt utterly powerless — not as a soldier, not as a royal, but as a man who had lost the only woman who ever made him want to be more than either.
Across the horizon, Evelyn awoke to sand beneath her palms and the sharp scent of salt in her lungs. Her head throbbed. The world swayed.
She remembered the fire. Edward's shout. The flash that tore the night apart.
When she sat up, the remains of the ship were distant specks on the water. Around her, the coastline was wild — foreign, uncharted. She tore a strip of her skirt to bandage a cut along her arm, then stared at the sea.
"Edward…" she whispered. The name caught in her throat like a prayer she didn't believe would reach heaven.
Her father's words echoed in her memory: "The sea does not take without reason."
But this loss felt senseless. Cruel.
She pushed herself to her feet, trembling but alive. Somewhere, beyond that endless horizon, she hoped he was too.
Days passed. Edward found refuge in a fisherman's hut miles inland, half-conscious and burning with fever. Tobias tended to him — the only other survivor, scarred but loyal as ever.
When Edward awoke, Tobias handed him a rusted compass, its glass cracked. "Found this near the wreck," he said. "Didn't think you'd want to lose another thing."
Edward took it wordlessly. The needle trembled, pointing north — toward London. Toward the truth.
"She's gone, isn't she?" Edward asked quietly.
Tobias didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Edward stared out at the sea, jaw tightening. "Then I'll finish what we started. For her. For her father. For the truth they buried."
And for the first time since the war began, his heart hardened with something greater than grief — purpose.
Evelyn, meanwhile, wandered through the ruins of a coastal town, half-burnt and half-abandoned. Every face she saw reminded her of someone who had lost something to the war. She found food, shelter, and at night, dreams of Edward's eyes — the way they looked at her as the world burned.
Each morning, she woke with a new resolve: to survive, to return, to uncover why her father had died for the sins of others.
She tied her hair back with a strip of cloth torn from his old uniform jacket — the last thing she had of him.
And when dawn rose over the shattered horizon, she whispered,
"If you're alive, find me. I'll be waiting."
The waves didn't answer. But somewhere, beyond the sea and the smoke, Edward whispered the same words.