That night, the cabin of The Azure Phoenix was lit only by a single candle swaying to the rhythm of the waves. Anne Marie sat at a small desk, holding a quill with a slightly trembling hand. Before her lay sheets of parchment that Elena had stolen from the harbor master's office.
"Are you sure about this, Anne?" Julian asked, standing at the cabin doorway. "If this letter falls into Friedrich's intelligence hands before it reaches The Hague, they will hunt us to the ends of the earth."
Anne turned, her blue eyes glinting in the candlelight. "Friedrich thinks I am just a little girl he can use as a pawn, Julian. He forgets that I have the blood of both Sekartaji and Van de Berg. If the law in Batavia is dead, then I will bring justice from The Hague."
Anne began to write in a very formal and elegant Dutch—a style she had secretly learned from her father's old books.
"To the Honorable Baroness van de Berg in The Hague,
I write this not as a relative seeking mercy, but as a witness to the treason occurring in the colony. Governor Friedrich has tarnished our family name with corruption and oppression that exceeds the limits of humanity. He hides the existence of the rightful heirs and hunts us like animals in the Jampang forest..."
The letter was not merely a grievance; it was a detailed report on how Friedrich embezzled plantation tax funds to build his own private military force. Anne attached copies of the document seals Kartika had found as authentic evidence.
Ibu Siti (Sekartaji) entered the cabin and placed her hand on Anne's shoulder. "You look so much like your father when you are angry, child. Calm, yet deadly."
"I don't want to just run, Mother," Anne whispered. "I want him to pay for every tear you've shed for these twenty years."
Elena entered carrying red wax to seal the letter. "I will send this via a British merchant ship departing Singapore tomorrow morning. They won't dare search a ship flying the Union Jack."
As the seal was pressed into the hot wax, Anne Marie felt as if she had just released an arrow that could not be taken back. This war was no longer about swords in the forest, but about words on paper that would shake the seats of power in the Netherlands.