[Exalted] The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

The Port of Chanos, Chanos Prefecture
The Northern Blessed Isle

The blow drives you down to one knee, your sword held still up to ward off the next, mind racing with how exactly to put enough distance between you and your attacker to let you steady yourself. You don't get the chance.

Your opponent's shield hooks its edge around the hilt of your sword, and with an expert flick of her wrist, she levers it out of your grip, sending it spinning across the floor. Before you have time to react, you feel an unsharpened blade against your throat.

"I can still beat you without Storm's Eye," Sola says, the tip of the sword exerting just enough pressure under your chin to force you to look up at her.

"This gloating is profoundly unattractive," you lie. For all that you're deeply annoyed at your loss, your heart is racing as you stare up at her. Dressed for sparring, the supernatural breezes that whirl around her tousling her hair, smiling down at you with satisfaction on every line of her face, you're not sure you've ever seen Sola looking better.

"Oh, is it? My sincere apologies, then," she says, and you can tell she's seen through you. Still, she pulls the training sword back and lets her shield hang off her arm from one strap, offering her left hand to pull you to your feet. You accept, and only realise the trap a moment later, when she takes advantage of her temporarily dominant position to pull you into a kiss.

The days since you've arrived back in the city have flown past, a haze of farewell letters to acquaintances, overseeing packing, and hiring on a respectable minimum of guards and servants under the advice of the Imperial Residence's head of staff. Still, knowing your time together is precious and limited, you and Sola have continued to make time for one another where you can.

This includes the very last day, apparently, which sees you alone with her in the Imperial Residence's sparring room. The chamber is circular, the floor marked by a series of flame-patterned practice rings, the red walls bedecked in exotic weaponry, the space lit by sorcerous flame flickering in cinnabar sconces. It isn't stuffy or overly warm at all, however — you continue to be impressed by the design of the Fire Manse's air circulation.

Sola's arm still gripping yours, still only half risen to your feet, you find yourself briefly trapped in place by the intensity of the kiss, helplessly torn between indignation and desire as she takes her due as the victor. Then she releases you, and steps back with a laugh.

"... Profoundly unattractive," you repeat, trying to get your head on straight. Your voice is breathy enough for it to be utterly unconvincing.

"For someone who likes this game so much, you're a very sore loser," Sola says, unoffended by your performative outrage.

"Which won't be a problem, when I win next time," you say, bending to pick up your sword. "I still get tripped up by the way you use that shield."

"I've noticed," Sola says. "And, if you want to make good on that promise, I suppose you'll just have to keep up with your training without me to motivate you."

"Likewise," you say. You've picked the sword up and caught your breath, letting you make the comment prim and controlled. After a moment, though, you make yourself drop the act. "We'll have more time the next time we see each other," you say.

"I'll hold you to that, whenever that is," Sola says, she stretches sinuously. "It'll be something to think about when I'm on the road, today.

"I'll write," you tell her.

"And I'll write back if you can endure my calligraphy," Sola says. "You've seen what that's like — I'm a disgrace as a swordswoman, honestly."

You step over to a table outside the practice circle you'd been using. Verdigris, waiting there, promptly slithers up your sleeve as you pick up the ladle to retrieve a cold drink from the jade-lined vessel set there. "I'll suffer through it somehow," you say, pressing the ladle to your lips.

Sola watches you drink quietly for a moment. When you put the ladle down, though, she says: "Take care of Maia."

"I always try to," you say, a little surprised.

Sola shrugs. "I don't know what's going on with her," she admits. "She doesn't want to talk to me about it. That's fine. She just seems like she might need the help more than she's letting on."

You know she's right, although you have much more context for it than she does. "We'll keep an eye on each other," you promise.

"Good," Sola says, smiling again. "I don't know if you've noticed this, but none of the three of us are very good at looking after ourselves like that where feelings are concerned, are we?"

"That may sometimes be the case," you allow, your own smile tugging infectiously at the corner of your lip. "You should leave before you're late to your own departure. Dragons keep you on your travels."

"And you as well," Sola says. "It's not as though you're not leaving tomorrow."

You really are going to miss her.

---

The Great Coast Road,
The Blessed Isle

Unlike the last two times you made the journey to the Imperial City, you have to consider your personal effects as well as the impression you intend to make when you arrive. You don't have so very much to move in the scheme of the Dynasty, but the process of vacating the Imperial Chanos Residence still leaves you with a surprising amount of clothing, jewelry, and other assorted belongings that are too valuable to simply leave behind.

Choosing between hiring passage on a ship or going over land, you and Maia have decided on the latter. The Great Coast Road will make the trip significantly faster than a purely mundane roadway would allow, and it's both safe and well maintained. That this route also gives the two of you a lengthy journey to yourselves before you have to split up again may have also factored into consideration.

The Great Coast Road itself is a work of spectacular artifice from the Realm Before, an unbroken, self-repairing roadway that runs along the coastline of the Blessed Isle in its entirety. Subtle enchantments in the road's black, featureless surface causes all who travel it to move faster than would otherwise be possible, from lone travelers on foot to vast caravans to whole legions on the march. Along its vast length are countless roadside inns, teahouses, towns and cities benefiting from the money and trade that the Road brings in by catering to travelers of all social classes

You and Maia depart Chanos with your servants and belongings, carried East along the coast in a small procession of horse-drawn carriages and wagons, including hired guards. Attempting to rob two Dragon-Blooded and their entourage on a major road is not exactly wise, but it doesn't do to be careless, particularly when you have mortals who are under your protection.

Weeks pass by as the gloom of the Shadowed Coast gradually gives way to the White Coast, bordering the verdant, grassy hills known as the Dragon's Blanket. As a Prince of the Earth, prefectoral checkpoints are no barrier to you, and your party regularly passes by long lines of peasants waiting to show an official their travel permits.

You stare out the window of your carriage as the shoreline rolls by. The sun is bright overhead, the sea breeze gentle and fragrant. Maia sits beside you on the padded bench, curled up between your side and the wall of the carriage in a way that should have gotten uncomfortable hours ago, reading a book you strongly suspect she got from Amiti.

"Do you know what's waiting for you?" you ask her, voice quiet.

Maia pauses mid page turn. You can't see her expression, but you can tell she's thinking. "Well," she says, "very likely, a party in my family's estate to celebrate my graduation. All the other patrician families from the area will be invited, of course — some of their unwed sons will be there with instructions to pay me fawning attention. Being a sorcerer isn't a popular occupation with us anymore than it is in the Dynasty, but the patriciate does not have so many Dragon-Blooded that I'm not still a bit of a catch. My mother and my matriarch will, of course, corner me to talk about my future at some point."

Which is all entirely expected and mundane. You don't think it can be the cause of the tension that's entered her body, though. Outside, several peasant farmers stand by the side of the road, having automatically moved aside to give your group the right of way. Seeing the carriage and you in the window, all three of them immediately drop to their knees and prostrate themselves politely in the dirt. Your eyes skim over them to study the way the waves lap against the rocky shore. "Anything else?" you ask, voice very quiet.

There's a limit to the candor Maia can exhibit when you both have to worry about the driver possibly overhearing, but she's adept enough at talking around things. "I don't know. Definitely something. Maybe just more congratulations, maybe a task. Things are different for us too, now."

"You sound troubled," you say.

Maia shrugs lightly against your side. "The not knowing gets to me, sometimes," she says.

"Can I do something?" you ask.

"You're already doing it," Maia says. "I just need to—" she stops herself, swallowing whatever she's on the verge of telling you. "You being here is what I need right now. While we still have each other."

You try to force yourself to relax, and to shake the feeling that you're wasting your time together. If you're honest with yourself, it's for your sake as much as for hers.

---

Ascending Fire, Realm Year 765,
Nearly one year, eleven months after the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress

The Port of Fallen Wing, Shogen's Rest Prefecture,
The Northeastern Blessed Isle

Despite the many anxieties that the end of your journey promises, you still experience a shadow of your usual excitement as you grow steadily closer to the region of your birth. Shogun's Rest is a relatively small prefecture along the Xianyu Coast, notable mainly for Fallen Wing playing host to a significant Earth Fleet presence.

The city itself is charming enough. With Pangu and the Imperial City relatively close at hand by sea, it receives only a fraction of the trade that they do, giving it an almost quaintly sleepy quality. In the better neighbourhoods, the streets are lined with carefully-maintained trees, giving way to a picturesque garden surrounding the remains of a Shogunate era fort that had been shattered in the early days of your mother's righteous unification of the Blessed Isle.

You arrived here late in the day the night before, collectively exhausted from so many weeks on the road. Barely paying attention as Evening Garnet arranged suitable accommodations, you had decided that you would stay in the city for an additional day, in order to give the mortals and the horses a chance to recuperate before the final leg of your journey.

This is how you find yourself standing in a market, trailed by Garnet, and two of the people you hired back in Chanos — a young man currently carrying several boxes of purchases, and a guard to walk beside him while looking intimidating. Maia was with you at first, but when you'd gone to a jeweler's shop, she'd wanted to find another, and you'd decided to meet back up afterward.

The jeweler's shop has a cramped, dusty feeling to it, and its grey-bearded owner was so effusively dazzled by your appearance in his doorway that you'd immediately allowed Garnet to speak to him on your behalf, leaving you free to suss out which small pieces might generate the most sorcerous power when sacrificed.

You'd wondered, at first, how well Garnet would fare at this kind of thing — her status as a foreigner and a freedwoman lower her in the eyes of the Realm at large. Fortunately, she has proven very adept at wielding your authority in small matters, and is sharply hard-nosed about haggling for goods or services of all kinds. There had been some lingering doubt in your mind at first when your father had arranged for her to enter your service. It hadn't taken long, though, before you could be certain that she was quite a competent handmaiden in her own right, and not merely someone who appealed to his Prasadi abolitionist sympathies.

Or perhaps you would have been similarly reticent about any new handmaiden, born out of the unconscious part of you that still knows who she was replacing.

As you examine a case of gold bangles, considering their quality using the power that Diamond-Cut Perfection had bestowed upon you during your last meeting, you find yourself listening to the two of them. You're on the far end of the shop, and you don't think the shopkeeper, at least, thinks you can hear their hushed voices.

"Sir, you are privileged beyond words that my lady has deigned to even consider such craft as this, and you would offer such an insulting price?" Garnet gives a bit of a sniff, looking at the small collection of silver jewelry you'd already indicated. "A quian each."

"I understand the honour perfectly, miss!" the man says, cringing at the accusation, "but I must make a living, you understand. I can offer a quian and a half."

There is only so far he can push, and he knows this — it would be appallingly rude to charge you full price to begin with, and haggling too hard can easily become vulgar. You're also entirely certain, however, that news of a well-dressed Dragon-Blood buying his wares will assist his business far more than the actual money you're spending in any case, so your sympathies have a limit. As do your funds.

"Very well," Garnet allows. "We will accept this price."

You consider saying something about the bangles, when you happen to glance outside, and frown. The front door of the shop has been left open to allow in a breeze and sunlight. Through it, you see what looks like a dense crowd gathering in the square outside, strangely silent. You frown, curious. "Garnet, finish my affairs here," you say, raising your voice to carry over to her and the other servants. "I will just be outside."

"As you wish, my lady," Garnet says, surprised, but not enough to question you.

You step, blinking away the sunlight as you make your way toward the crowd. In this, an upscale neighbourhood in a middling Blessed Isle city, it consists mostly of patricians and affluent peasants, with one or two shopworkers or petty labourers sprinkled in. There are Dynasts and Dragon-Blooded who live here, but you still very much stand out. Someone near the back of the crowd looks up and sees you approaching, and he gives a little jolt of alarmed recognition. He hurriedly bows and steps aside, dragging his briefly-annoyed wife along with him.

The others nearby quickly follow his example, and leaving you free to see what's going on without having to literally elbow anyone aside.

At the centre of the square is a patinated bronze statue of a dragon winding around a shattered pillar, an unsubtle monument to the Scarlet Empress's long-ago victory here, now half choked in ivy. At its base is a strange scene — a young, finely-dressed peasant man looking out at the assembled crowd like a rabbit staring down a pack of wolves. He clutches an ornate volume in trembling hands.

Directly beneath him, two unsmiling mortal monks finish positioning a brazier, while a third goes through the motions of lighting the fire in it. Nearby, two other monks converse, one an elderly mortal woman who carries herself with a degree of authority over the others present, the other a younger, Exalted man. The latter is small, slight, his features pleasantly but nondescriptly Wàn. The Dragon-Blood's expression is coldly serene as he listens to the older monk — his dark eyes never leave the young man, however, waiting and expectant. Although he has no physical Aspect Markings in evidence, his mere presence carries with it a faint, oceanic chill that immediately marks him as a Chosen of Danaa'd in your mind.

There's something startlingly, piercingly familiar about the Water Aspect monk, but you don't immediately put your finger on what.

As the brazier begins to burn, one of the monks leaps up onto the plinth beside the man, looking out over the crowd with a stern expression. She unrolls a scroll with a dramatic gesture, and begins to read from it: "Good people of Fallen Wing," she says, her voice ringing loud and clear around the square. You see her do a slight double take as her eyes fall on you, but she doesn't let this throw her off too badly, simply adding: "... and esteemed visitors to our city", before continuing. "We stand before you today to allow the apprentice scholar, Verdant Field, to explain his violations of the edicts of the Immaculate Order and his crimes against the Perfected Hierarchy. In recognition of this being his first such offense, and on the heartfelt request of his master, the Immaculate Order has waived further punishment on this matter."

Beside her, Verdant Field himself seems to be trying to will himself to physically sink into the stone under his feet. Public humiliation in the eyes of his peers and neighbours is the point of this exercise, however — it is not unusual to force a mortal caught with heretical or proscribed texts to destroy them in public like this, often as part of a larger punishment, as an act of repentance. You're only mildly interested in this affair, until you get a closer look at the book in the young man's hands, and what looks very much like Prasadi dialect High Realm burnt into the leather binding.

You have stumbled onto the destruction of a Pure Way holy text.

The young man takes a deep breath, steels himself, and begins to speak in a tremulous voice, clearly quoting something he's rehearsed until the words are completely automatic: "I, Verdant Field, have knowingly and in secret, harboured texts espousing heretical social practices and the direct worship of Dragon-Blooded as deities. I have erred in my spiritual and ethical duties as a scholar of the Realm, and... and in recompense, I beg the forgiveness of the Immaculate Order and of you all, and consign this document and its lies onto... onto rightful destruction."

As he finishes, he kneels, flinching away from the heat and the smoke of the brazier, hesitating only a moment before he drops the book into it. It lands on its spine in a spray of sparks, opening to reveal richly illuminated text in High Prasadi and Flametongue both — a rare and expensive volume. Quickly, the flames begin to catch.

You feel curiously numb, watching this happen, uncomfortable in a way that you're not used to. You are not a follower of your father's faith, have understood all your life that it simply not acceptable for you to be, if you expect to achieve what you'd hoped to achieve in the Dynasty. But you don't like seeing this. Watching the pages be consumed in fire, you can't help but think of your father and the way he's kept to it as best he can, even after all these decades in the Realm. The dim view that the Immaculate Order and conservative Dynasts alike have taken of him over the years, and the degree to which the favour of the Empress shielded him from this hostility.

Just as much as you do, Burano Maharan Nazat doesn't have your mother anymore. In all the Realm, he only really has you. It's a strange and disquieting feeling for you to become aware of your filial duty to protect him as keenly as you suddenly do, so soon after you've graduated secondary school. Securing a place for yourself in the Dynasty, safety and support and power, is not merely important for your own sake. If things got bad enough, would you be able to convince him to flee back to Prasad in disgrace? Could you even call yourself a woman of the Dynasty, if you couldn't find a way to shield him from that?

"An ugly necessity, I find, but an example that must be made nonetheless," says a quiet, masculine voice by your side.

You do not jump, but it's a very near thing. You look over to find the Dragon-Blooded monk standing beside you, looking up at you with subdued politeness. If he were standing shoulder to shoulder with you, the top of his head would barely reach your nose. "I will bow to your greater knowledge, Brother," you say, choosing your words carefully.

He raises his eyebrows. "Diplomatically put," he says. He looks at you again, searching for signs of a house mon on your clothing, or on that of your servants, who have by this point left the store to stand respectfully behind you. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, my lady, but are you Ambraea?"

"Yes," you say, mildly surprised. "What gave me away?"

"I have heard a description of you before, my lady," he says. Then, as if acknowledging something embarrassing that he would have preferred not to draw attention to, he adds: "You also have a snake elemental on your shoulder." Sure enough, Verdigris has chosen to slither out from beneath the outer layers of your clothing to watch the excitement. You suppose that she does make for something of a distinctive characteristic, in addition to your looks and Aspect Markings.

"Then you have me at a disadvantage, Brother," you tell him.

"Ah, I apologise," he says, ducking his head. "I am Tranquil Depths Drown Deceit, brother of the Third Coil."

Like a block of ice dropping into your stomach, you realise why he seemed familiar to you. He has the same eyes as Maia, the same delicate nose, the same pale olive complexion. If he weren't a monk, you think that the similarities would have jumped out at you immediately. "This is a surprise. A pleasure to meet you," you say, hoping that the words don't sound as much like a lie as they taste in your mouth.

"My sister has spoken of me?" Depths asks.

"Yes," you say, and the reminder of what, specifically, Maia has told you in bits and pieces over the years makes you briefly entertain the idea of punching that smile off of his face.

You're rescued from having to give a more complicated explanation than that when Maia herself appears at your other side, two books held under one arm. You catch a flash of worry in her expression that she quickly smooths away. "Brother," she says, the familial term, rather than the monastic title. "I am surprised to see you here."

"I'm certain," he says, agreeably. "I sent word to Chanos, but I thought that you might have already left by the time it got there." He smiles at her, taking her in. "It's been years, I barely recognise you."

"You were here looking for me deliberately?" Maia asks. All around you, the rest of the crowd has largely dispersed, the chastened scholar hastening away with his tail between his legs, and the other mortals apart from your own servants giving the three Dragon-Blooded in their midst a wide berth.

"Yes," Depths says. "I am also making my way back to Incas, and hoped to meet you on the road. It seems the Dragons smile upon us, and we didn't miss each other."

Maia scans the area, taking in the smouldering holy book as well as your veiled discomfort. "It would seem so," she agrees. "You have introduced yourself to Ambraea?"

"Yes," he says, turning back to you. "It's a great honour to finally meet you. While as a monk, my first loyalty must be to the Immaculate Order, a woman of your standing sharing a Kinship Oath with my sister does her and our family much credit. As an older brother, I must be grateful."

"Any honour I give Maia is no less than she deserves," you say, pleased to at least have something you can simply be honest about. Then, to forestall more discussion and to give yourself a chance to collect yourself, you add: "Perhaps we could all speak somewhere more comfortable and private? It is very near to noon."

"An excellent suggestion," Depths says. "If you excuse me, I should make my apologies to my fellows, and then I will be free to accompany you both."

You both watch him walk over to the other monks, conferring amiably with them.

"I'm sorry for the surprise," Maia says, voice quiet. "I didn't expect this."

"Do you have any idea why he's here?" you ask, voice quiet.

She shakes her head tightly. "Ask me again later," she says.

"As you wish," you say. Then he's walking back toward you, and you resign yourself to a great deal more pleasantries.

---

"It is genuinely good to see you, sister," Depths says, as he closes the door behind him. Once back at the lodgings where Maia and the rest of Ambraea's party have stopped for the night, the two siblings had made their excuses to slip away, and now they speak to one other in an unused room.

"Is it?" Maia asks. She crosses the small room, closing the shutter on the window, and fiddling with the lamp on the bedside, using the process of lighting it as an excuse to avoid looking directly at him. After all these years, being around him still sends a prickle of genuine dread creeping down her spine. "I don't recall our last meetings being so happy."

"You think poorly of me," Depths says, watching her. He's making no overtly hostile action toward her, actually sounding a little wounded. He's also standing between Maia and the door.

"Do you remember five years ago, when you took me aside for training over the summer? I coughed blood for days," Maia says. Not even her grandmother has ever hurt her so badly.

"I took no pleasure in that, sister, or in the other harsh lessons I was tasked with providing over the years," he says.

"... No pleasure in it," Maia repeats, as if she doesn't know what to do with the information.

"And yet, have my lessons not had their benefits?" Depths asks. "I don't see the same scared girl I did before, the same weakness. I serve as is required, for the benefit of our family, as do we all. Duty is not always what brings the heart joy, but you have forged yourself into a weapon worthy of our house. I'm proud of you."

He seems to genuinely mean it, and it's hard for Maia to sort through the mix of emotion she feels at that. Indignation and satisfaction, in equal parts. She sighs. "You didn't come here to praise me."

"I did not," he admits. He produces a piece of paper seemingly from thin air, holding it out. "From the Voice of Dark Water."

Maia takes it from him, noting the name with a certain reluctant gravity. She breaks the seal, eyes scanning over the letter's heavily coded contents. It's about what she expected, but nothing truly terrible, in the scheme of things. The life it demands that Maia take is not one that means something to her. "Understood. I will do what is required of me. Will that be all?"

Depths seems to consider this question seriously. "The Imperial daughter," he says, "your lover."

Maia goes very still. "Yes?" she asks.

"You truly love her, don't you?"

Maia hadn't expected that. She closes the letter, carefully folds it, and tucks it into a fold of her tunic, making it disappear as easily as Depths had produced it. She doesn't immediately respond.

Not appearing to be put off by her silence or lack of confirmation, Depths continues. "I loved once, you know, in my youth. After I'd been given to the Order, but before I'd taken my vows. She was another acolyte I was training with. We never touched, but we... shared more than we should have. She learned more than she should have, from me."

Maia feels a sense of profound dread creeping over her. Still, in the spirit of morbid curiosity, she finds herself asking: "What happened?"

"We succeeded in hiding the attachment from the Order's Humble and Puissant Instructors," Depths says. "Not, however, from the family — not the parts that mattered. I still don't know which of us slipped up, but, I was informed that it was my responsibility to fix the matter. To plug the leak I'd created."

Maia takes his meaning. "You killed her."

"As I was instructed to," Depths says, voice oddly gentle, "as was necessary. Do you know why I tell you this?"

It's as if Maia's heart stops. For a moment, she's certain that he knows what Ambraea knows. That this conversation is about to explode into violence. But forces herself to relax, to be rational — if he knew, if her family knew, Ambraea would be long dead. Maia wouldn't be hearing it in veiled references from her brother. "I don't," she says.

"I bring this up to caution you to guard your heart," Depths says. "I have confidence that, should it truly be necessary, you would do your duty, as I did. I simply do not wish you to put yourself into that position."

"Do you think I need the reminder?" Maia asks.

"We all need it, at times." Then, he actually reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder. She only flinches a little — there's no sign of malice behind the touch. His expression has real sympathy in it. "In a kinder world, I would be free to simply be a good monk, and a better brother than I have been. And you would be free to simply be that woman's lover and Hearthmate. Or, as simple as it could be, between two Dynasts. Remember who stole that from both of us. From all of us."

Despite everything, Maia's mind can't help but run down that familiar path. What life would be like if she'd been born into a better world, a correct world, where the great crimes that had been committed against her family had never occurred. She would have arrived at the Heptagram as a woman of House Iselsi, an equal to her classmates, someone worthy to stand beside her lover. Not to be looked at by the world as little more than Ambraea's plaything or bed warmer. The Great Houses did steal that from her long before she was born, through murder and theft and all manner of betrayal. They all deserve to suffer what her family has ten times over.

Even as that familiar ice creeps over her heart, however, she finds a crack where there hadn't been one before. The memory of Proud, brave, loyal Sola on her knees, weeping in Ambraea's arms in the rain. Of how she'd shook with grief even as Maia's own arms had gone around her. Whatever House Tepet's many crimes, had Sola deserved that grief? And when Ambraea aligns herself with a house, as Maia knows she will likely need to for her own survival, what then? Her family has never been encouraging her association with Ambraea out of benevolence, after all, even if Ambraea has fallen outside the strict interpretation of the Vendetta up to this point.

"I know my duty," Maia says, feeling like she knows nothing of the sort.

Depths withdraws his arm, but he nods at her. "I have every faith that you do."

---

Late in the evening, after all the meals have been had, after you've been forced to endure endless smalltalk with Maia's brother, you find yourself waiting up in the bedroom you've been given for your stay in Fallen Wing. The room is large, plushly appointed — the best that the roadside inn has to offer, given to you at an appropriate discount to someone of your station. Most nights since you've started this trip, you've gotten used to Maia either having slipped into your room ahead of you, or seeming to appear soon after. The needless infiltration is a game that amuses you both, and it isn't as though anyone else you're traveling with thinks that Maia is staying the night in her own bed.

Tonight, though, she very pointedly knocks at your door. "Come in," you say, easily sensing who it is.

Maia slips inside, and closes and latches the door behind her.

"Why, exactly, is he here?" you ask. You sit by a window overlooking the street, watching Verdigris swallow her dinner. Only the tip of the unfortunate rodent's tail still protrudes from her unhinged mouth.

Maia stays where she is on the far side of the room, leaning against the doorframe. The fading light from outside casts her face into shadow as she shrugs off your question. "It's like he said earlier," Maia says. "He's also traveling back to Incas, and wanted a chance to see me, and to talk."

"To talk." You fix her with a skeptical look. After a few moments, she relents, her body language getting smaller, more tense.

"He also passed something on. Instructions. You don't need to know what about." Her tone isn't resentful or threatening, but genuinely concerned for you. "He expects to travel with us. He is my brother, Ambraea. And it would be rude to refuse a traveling monk like this without cause."

You rise, leaving Verdigris to digest her feast on the tabletop in order to look out the window, at the rooftops beyond, at the moon creeping up over the Inland Sea. Without cause, she says. You try to tamp down your reaction to those words. "I see."

In your peripheral vision, you're aware of Maia hesitating, then coming toward the centre of the room. She stops there, not yet going all the way to you at the window. Furniture smothered in overwrought textiles stands between the two of you like a wall. "You're... angry?" she asks, surprised.

"Of course not," you say. "However could I be. Without cause."

"Why are you angry?" Maia asks, taking your refusal for confirmation. You can picture her expression perfectly in your head, her slight frown, the wide, confused set of her eyes.

You let out a sharp exhale of breath before you turn away from the window, and she flinches away from your face. You regret that instantly, and try to school your features into something gentler. There are several ways you could answer that question, but you discard most of them over the course of several seconds. What you say instead is simply the truth. "I hate him."

"You've never met him before!" Maia says.

"I don't need to have met him!" you say, voice coming out as a hiss to avoid yelling. You cross over to her, weaving your way around a stool. She stares up at you in alarm, but doesn't pull away. "He hurt you," you tell her, surprised by the genuine venom in your voice. "You're terrified of him. Of course I hate him."

Maia looks up at you for a moment, a strange expression coming over her face, half wondering, half despairing. "You know what I am. What I'm meant for. Sometimes, I don't understand how you can think I'm worth that."

You reach out, your fingers stroking her cheek as gently as you can, despite how much you want nothing more than to storm out of the room and hit Tranquil Depths Drown Deceit very hard. "No matter who or what you are to anyone else — to your family, to anyone — you are also mine to treasure. To protect, when I can. When you'll let me. Of course it's that simple."

Maia closes her eyes, leaning very slightly into your touch. When she replies, it's very quiet. "Thank you."

She stands like that for several minutes, neither of you moving, the fingers of one of her hands raised to lay overtop yours. Then Maia opens her eyes again. "There's something else I needed to talk with you about," she says.

"What is it?" you ask, your heart sinking. Whatever it is, she's not eager.

"You know that eventually, before too long, I will have to go to the Peleps household that fostered me. It's part of our contract."

"Yes," you say, "I know that."

She steadies herself, as if in preparation for something difficult. "When I do that, it might be better if I just... keep my distance for a while. From you."

You recoil, your hand dropping away. Maia seizes you by the wrist before you can pull entirely away from her, though, looking at you beseechingly. "Please don't," she says.

"Was this him, too?" you ask, your mind immediately going back to Depths.

"No," Maia says, "no, this is just me. Things will get complicated soon. Especially if you end up with V'neef. I don't want to be used against you anymore than I can help, I don't want to cause problems for you. I love you, I'm still your Hearthmate, that isn't going to change. It's just... safer if we have some distance, for a time."

You don't know how to respond to that, your mind reeling from the thought. What she's saying makes a certain practical sense, but you don't like it. You can't lose her too, not after your mother and, and...

"I'm not leaving you," Maia says, her voice quieter, softer. She steps closer to you, letting go of your wrist to reach up over her head and take you by the face with both hands, gently tilting your gaze down to meet hers again. "This won't be easy for me either, but... you're mine to protect too, aren't you?"

"I am," you say, reluctantly.

She visibly relaxes, clearly having been worried at how badly you'd take this. "I'm glad you have Sola," she says. "That you both have each other. You'll need each other, I think."

"What about what you need?" you ask.

"Just..." Maia swallows a lump of something difficult, then starts again. "Just, wait for me. I don't care if there are others, I've never cared about that. Still, just, please wait for me?"

"Only if you promise to come back," you say, realising that you're already resigned to this. You've made it clear to her that, at least in private, within the confines of your Hearth, Maia is your equal. That means trusting her to make her own choices at times, even when they're painful. You can't try to do otherwise now without being a hypocrite, as much as part of you wants to forbid this, somehow. To keep holding her as closely as you can.

"I swear," Maia says, "I will always come back, for as long as you want me."

"Good," you say. "That's... good." Then you put a hand around her back, and lean in to kiss her. You try your best to put everything you feel for her into it, as much as you know she already knows.

This trip suddenly feels like it wasn't nearly long enough.

Article:

Soon enough, Maia will be away in Incas Prefecture, and you will be in the Imperial City again, seeing your father. Many things will occur there, in the coming months, and you will make decisions that will change the course of your life, without the support of your Hearth. That isn't all that happens, though.

When next you see someone you used to know, what will she be in the middle of doing?

[ ] Breaking a heart

[ ] Undermining a marriage

[ ] Ruining a friendship