Shining Wyrm & The Blood Immaculate [Original Fantasy/Dragon Fiction]

[MrHobbit]

The countess is dead, long live the countess!

I thought it was funny that the chapter didn't end with the revelation of Bathory's death, but that Jewel can speak languages without realizing. I think tyrant wyrms have a talent for languages. When Shialtza spoke with Pythra's father, he initially spoke archaic Kolkor before modernizing his speech as the conversation dragged on. The first interlude mentioned that tyrant wyrms can learn languages if they encounter speakers of them, I guess it meant they have a gift for it rather than it just being a neutral statement. Why would tyrants have that affinity in the first place?

Hope Jaksa is able to heal them. I thought it was interesting that Jewel seemed instinctually disturbed by the reports of Cantor's actions.

 

[Arcane Howitzer]

I get the feeling one of the reasons the Countess was murdered was so that Jaska would be available for employment elsewhere. The King did seem very interested in those bloodstarved shamblers he was creating.

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

It's been too long since I commented. I might say some comments on the intervening chapters, but not now. At present, I am curious about the whole thing with Jewel and languages. To be what the chapter ends on, rather than the revelation of Bathory's death (which even if true and permenant will surely not be the end of her presence being felt), it surely must have some significance. I've collected most of the relevent excerpts I could find here.

I didn't include flight cant/the budding viznove sign language since there isn't anything on Jewel learning it to my knowledge, and other children learning it is rooted in reality rather than fantasy. As for Jewel listening to the speech of the world, that's tangentially related, so I only included the places where it overlaps with spoken word or sorceries.

Spoiler: Wall of quoted text

Of all the Wyrms, the tyrant is the most dangerous. It is as intelligent as a man and can speak the languages of its country. It can learn other languages, if it encounters a speaker

Click to shrink...

And now she had gone entirely unintelligible and had to be held back by three of the footmen to save the particularly rude wanderer who had set up shop in the fair to sell trinkets and baubles.

Click to shrink...

Father turned to Mother who nodded and then Mother's voice filled the air with complete and total nonsense.

Was Mother drunk?

But no this was not her usual speech when she went too deep into her cups.

And furthermore it was responded to with relieved words from the Messenger which Jewel could also not understand.

Click to shrink...

Whose lips were not moving and yet was politely and insistently asking her to move her own blood, to slow it down as she would when calm and sleepy.

Click to shrink...

It was not yet clear to Jewel enough to describe what the Wizard did to be words as she understood them. But it was already clearer to her then when she had first met Euewyn.

Click to shrink...

It was rounder than any Jewel had ever heard from Tsulogothulan before. So round and soft voweled that the words were not really the same at all. But Jewel had spoken to a Wizard that could only convey meaning in autumn wind and this was so laced in the whispering of sorcery that she practically knew it before she heard it.

Click to shrink...

Jewel recalled the words that Urul had given her to speak. And she raised her head and opened her voice for them. Her tongue and throat shaped the sounds in that strange twisting fluid manner that she had heard Thurzó speak.

That she had drilled to produce correctly despite not even being quite sure where one word began or ended.

The speech of the land of Free men.

But she also spoke them in her flame, in the manner she had come to understand all Wizards could whisper and shout.

Click to shrink...

And here I could tell even my father with his talent for tongues struggled. The words were strange and sharp from those either of us knew and what ones I could also follow were archaic and bizarre in their placing.

But as the conversation passed there was a simpleing of words that the God Serpent took upon himself to be better understood.

Click to shrink...

Her voice rolled free in a clipping and solid set of words that Jewel almost didn't recognize.

Only becoming clear when Jewel realized they were the written word as spoken. The text of letters brought to sound! Something Jewel had never realized even existed.

Click to shrink...

Continuing long enough the shape and sound of the names changed, their form going stranger. The word for son slipped past Jewel's grasp to understand somewhere in the chant. But still the meaning was clear, his declaration of names always had solid foundations.

Somewhere in the midst of his words the entire herd had begun to call with the names. Not speaking but their voices rose with his.

At least Celsus' lineage was coming to a close, Jewel could feel it and all the herd grew silent.

"Who was son of most beautiful Father Minos and the blessed Mother Pasiphaë"

Click to shrink...

Given all of this, I am inclined to think that Jewel's skills of language acquesition are above average ordinarily, surely helped by her memory, but not perfect. However, just as she can hear the natural world around her, so too can she hear workings being spoken (and see them being done, but that's a matter for a different day). Workings and how the world speaks are almost certainly the same language, so it does make sense. The interesting part is that this form of speech can mingle with spoken word, which I think is what has allowed Jewel to understand the spoken words faster than should be possible.

Since we know workings can be done by anyone, particularily when it comes to rituals and traditions, that nicely explains the sole anomaly of Jewel somehow understanding the last name(s?) of Celsus' lineage. As for the case of Shialtza, since there was already some mutual intelegability to begin with, I doubt unspoken words would be needed on top of ordinary wyrmly itelect,

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

Also, it's funny to note that Jewel could understand Uloghai years ago, but since she didn't respond in kind Tsulogothulan is only learning about and being suprised by it now.

 

[Calico J]

I find it difficult to believe Bathory is truly dead, but here's hoping.

Jaksa, frankly, cannot possibly be anything but a problem, whether by accident or design. I doubt there's time or opportunity for Jewel to go flambe him and his test subjects herself, but maybe somebody could put a bounty on them.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

7.8

As he lay on the set of cushions set aside for him in his wife's bedroom Paul Nádasdy tried to sleep but his thoughts would not settle. The slow breathing of the yards upon yards of wyrm furled up in most of the rest of the room was deep. He knew Jewel was already slumbering well. As was his 'daughter' gem, curled up in her own little nest of cushions.

The closeness his wife insisted on for them had been strange, at times frightening. But as the seasons went he found it welcoming in how different it was from his own childhood. This was no hollow bedroom where he was kept sequestered and alone.

Gem would not have to creep down cold hallways to find the comfort of her mother. Even Smithson, the humorously named 'nurse knight' was not very far if he was needed.

On the balance despite how strange his married life was Paul would say he preferred it.

But the closeness of his slumbering dragon of a wife could not sooth him tonight. The news roiled in his head even as he lay there trying to bring sleep like he had learned to as a child. To still himself and bring the next day through slow breathing. But he couldn't bring dreams, and his brow furrowed with his anger at himself over it.

Why did he care this much?! Why was this keeping him up?!

Paul barely knew his mother and what he did inspired only his ire!

But now she had been slain, murdered in the most terrible of circumstances and greatest of betrayals.

Her own servants took her life while she slept.

The appropriate feeling should have been seeking vengeance, his mother's guard had broken oaths and betrayed all honor. He should be furious and raging for violence and justice. If she had been a proper mother he should have been mad with grief.

Instead his heart was quiet.

His mood was still.

But sleep did not come. He had expected when this day arrived he would celebrate. In the words of his wife "Bathory was no one's mother".

But he was denied that too.

Paul was raised by Gróa his wet nurse and Clarita his governess. He could not recall even seeing his blood mother until after he was seven. The trip to Kaeketeh had been like a ballad to him then. He had imagined that she was somehow going to be even more than his caregivers had been.

After all, if she was his real mother surely that meant that everything they had done for him was somehow a lesser expression of love and caring? That all their warmth was but a pale shadow cast by the sun that was the love of Elizibeth Bathory!

He had expected an embrace somehow warmer than the women he had mistakenly called mother on more than one occasion.

He had expected something like how his elder sisters doted on him when they visited.

Elizibeth Bathory was none of those things.

She smiled in a way he had at first thought meant she cared for him. And she might touch his cheek or even embrace him when asked. She did not however sing to him, or speak to him fondly. At first he thought that she did love him as his mother because she also never scolded him. Always had treats for him, would indulge him with whatever gifts he asked for.

But he realized she didn't care about him at all when he was eight. He had taken a tumble while running through the halls of Kaeketeh in another annual visit. He'd broken his arm falling down the stairs! And she had been right there and looked down on him, her smile just the same as always.

The Wizard Jaksa the Red had shown more concern than his own mother! He'd spoken softly and soothed Paul's pain with a word of sorcery and then set the bone right and knitted it whole.

He'd been screaming in pain on the floor and his own mother had smiled!

That was the moment Paul realized his mother did not love him. She had no spite for him, no ill will. But she also did not care about him at all. Gróa had been furious when she found out. And then she was gone. Paul never saw her or her son again after the night he told her.

No one would acknowledge she had ever existed.

On his ninth birthday Paul mustered up the courage to face his mother over it. He'd demanded to know what happened to Gróa and Bathory had shrugged and said she did not recall. She had claimed ignorance over the woman that raised him. Paul screamed at her for it and all she'd done was raise a brow and laughed at him.

He'd said things that should have counted as treason then. He'd wished her death. Instead of rebuking him Bathory had a sword commissioned to compliment his warrior spirit.

His blood mother had not shown a single hint of fear or worry over her own child declaring he wished for her death and instead encouraged him to train for it. All with that same smile. But when Paul told her he didn't want to see her on his tenth birthday the Countess Bathory had shrugged and he had never had to visit kaeketeh again until his wedding.

Simple as that, she made the woman that nursed him as a babe vanish like she never was for reasons she could not even be bothered to recall. But stayed clear of him on a single word!

Paul as a boy had wanted his mother dead then more than any other time. He'd never been able to find out what happened to Gróa. No one dared to even hint at it. She was simply gone, not even Clarita would say a word about the woman that she had spent nearly every day of Paul's life with until then.

After that he could admit he hated his mother and though he had come to realize the impossibility of striking down the countess and the woman who birthed him in the coming years he still wished for her end. He'd imagined doing the deed himself on nights like tonight where he could not find sleep.

And now she actually was dead!

She was gone and despite how awful she was, how terrible a woman, was it not wrong to feel nothing but a strange stillness in her absence? Did she deserve as much dismissal from him as she had given Paul? Discarded by her own flesh and blood?

Did she deserve to have been stabbed, decapitated, quarted and burned to ash like the Weird said she had been?

His mother had never struck him.

She had given him almost everything he asked for, even her absence with not a word of complaint. But she had never reached out to touch him with anything close to the love and care that Gróa had. Bathory had not scolded or praised him for his failures or successes like Clarita did.

But she had done something which his nightmares haunted him with to poor Gróa. He should feel something now that he knew she was gone?

Where was his hate now? All he felt was cold and empty. Shouldn't there be satisfaction?

This is what he had wished for as a child wasn't it?

Paul didn't know, he had learned as he grew of all the terrible things his mother did to other people. More than just Gróa, women and men crumpled and bent at the thought of her wrath. He learned about her 'larder' and the women and what they became kept under Kaeketeh. She had never held back from him anything that she did. Not even Gróa, Bathory simply did not recall precisely what had been done with the woman that had suckled her own son.

But she had spared him and his sisters. She gave him a sword when he screamed in her face as a mere boy. But still his sisters were careful when they visited. Especially on the topic of Bathory even though they all lived farther away than Paul. Had husbands to protect them from her smiling wrath in foreign courts within the Realm and without.

Was this from similar indifferences and terrible disregard that their mother had enacted on them and theirs? Had she been crueler to her daughters then her son?

No one would tell Paul when he was a boy or even now as a married man.

The only one in all of Viznove that dared speak out in more than hushed whispers against Bathory was his wife, a tyrant wyrm like the ballads of the great war.

Who spoke to wizards like they were shepherds.

His wife the wyrm, who yet was sleeping there in a room with him more like a grand hall for the dimensions needed to comfortably house her. A space that seemed open and empty when she was not filling it with a mountain of shimmering scales that you could feel the warmth of like a hearth.

He could reach out and brush his fingers against her side and feel the hum of her blood and the rise and fall of her breath even though her face was settled on a pillow clear across the room. She alone had the courage to openly oppose his mother.

All others had been silenced at the terror of her cruel smile.

Well except not anymore, a conspiracy of some sort had been in play to see her murdered in her own bed. Word had not yet reached them other than by the Wizards and their mysterious circles. But he had no doubt of the truth.

Kaeketeh was celebrating. He felt like he should be there with them cheering her end.

Elizabeth Bathory.

His Mother.

Dead at last.

Yet Paul Nádasdy felt empty and still. He had thought he hated his mother as much as anyone.

So he was all the more surprised to find the tears running down his cheeks.

 

[I_S]

It's strange how the absence of an abuser can feel like just as much a desolation as the loss of any other fundamental of your life.
In spite of everything change, even good change is a death of the person that proceeded the change.

A death of the self.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

7.9

She thought they would have more time. But now her poor husband and Jewel were having to try to squeeze the work of years and many casual meetings between peers into a few days of desperate correspondence and piles upon piles of tiny written missives carried by bedraggled birds.

A dozen riders were burning through horses on the High King's way carrying doves that had just flown over the same roads the day before. Maintaining the torrent of words between the very edges of Viznove.

But all of that was only the very minimum. Here in Valasect in her simple little study writing and reading the absolutely tiny scrolls of parchment was only the start.

It had not even been a year since her wedding and Jewel was going to return to Kaeketeh.

"Ah here this one, the Baron of Ox glen assures he will swear fealty no later than the 11th of Grain Turn this year now!"

Not only her but every direct vassal of the late Countess Bathory would be traveling. Those who were now meant to be her vassals. But it was all too soon! Paul had been trying very hard to build a network of trust, promises and assurances to prepare for the day his blood mother perished. But almost none of those alliances had settled yet!

"Well that's a relief, Paul? have you found any new letters from Ostara? They wrote last it would not be until threshing turn next year!"

External to the county High King Mathias supported her. Fiebron, Thurzó and Osterwick also pledged support. Although not even Thurzó and Fiebron would be present in Kaeketeh for her ascent to the rank of Countess.

Internal to Viznove matters were less certain. Father of course would support her and from him the bonds of House Rochford promised a pledge from Marcisław of Kliatbatrn.

The other lords who had joined her in war also seemed fair odds to support her.

"The baroness Ostara just had a child Jewel. But yes I have one from her promising fealty. She will travel to swear properly after she recovers. Honestly, threshing turn might be a bit too early. Maybe best to just let her wait until debt season that year?"

But that was not all of Viznove's lords and ladies. There were those who held land bordering Magarska and the less fit for battle. Both kinds habitually paid a tithe instead of pledging arms, although for entirely different reasons. One to avoid emptying the garrisons stationed in case of attack from the south, The other for lack of a suitably martial lord (or lady).

Jewel thought that Father's place among the Fraternity of Gryphon Riders and her own camaraderie with them would at least assure that the former Countess' Gryphon Knights would remain loyal.

There were from her talks with Paul a distressingly short list among her new Vassals that could be trusted just yet.

Being Bathory's chosen heir and publicly and grandly married to her only son would help at least.

"Fine, send word to her this is acceptable as long as a captain, relative or other representative is at least present to affirm her ties with us."

Her husband's hands were quick with a quill as he made the statement a command and then quickly rolled and sealed it with his signet ring. It was all far too soon. Jewel thought she would have years to settle these matters!

Paul had thought they would have a decade at least!

But It turned out they did not even have a full year. Bathory was dead before the end of summer! Word out of Kaeketeh was confused, few messenger birds making it free and what messages did reach Jewel and Paul spoke equal parts of unrestrained revelry and complete loss of social order. The only thing certain in the confusion was that Jewel was welcome in the city, by some rumors the populace was outright demanding her immediate presence.

Jewel was glad for the support of the people. But it was not making the situation with her prospective vassals any easier. There were already accusations that Jewel planned the murder! But even there nothing was simple, one baron congratulated her for it and promised full support, while a baroness is spreading letters that murdering Bathory disqualifies Jewel's inheritance.

"Any word from the marches either way?"

Paul shuffled through the small hillock of parchment. Message scrolls sent by doves were small things, usually curled tight to barely the width of a finger. But between Rochford and Jewel's own flocks all bearing vital news and their equal number being sent back? That piled rather high on her husband's desk.

"Yes! The last of them have officially said they will make time to Kaeketeh by no later than the 14th day of Grain Turn."

Jewel let out a breath of tension, carefully turning her head to direct it away from the small herd's worth of sheep's skin that occupied the shared desks of their mutual study.

"Then that's the last of them at least attending if not a solid assurance of fealty."

Grain turn, Could whoever had finally decided to murder the Countess not have waited until at least after The Wheat Harvest Festival!? Jewel and her husband were going to have to miss their first summer dance! It was a petty thought, brought on by the overwhelming irritation of having the entirety of the county of Viznove dropped upon her far before she was meant to.

But still it was laughable how many people thought Jewel had somehow planned this! If she had planned this it would not have happened before they finished building Paul his new pigeon tower!

If she had planned this, Jewel would have made sure she was already on her way for the annual meeting in Kaeketeh for Debt's Season!

If she had planned this, Bathory would still be alive this year!

Jewel huffed again,

If they left within the next three days that should give her time to settle whatever immediate matters required her attention in Kaeketeh. If rumor and messenger could be trusted the city would be hers regardless of the rumbling of vassals.

It would be close but that should give them a few days to prepare for the arrival of her vassals and securing of loyalties.

All of this should have been the work of years.

Carefully working with Paul.

But apparently they would have to make it happen in a few dozen days.

Jewel forgot to turn her head before sighing again. The letters blew out in a cloud of tumbling scrolls.

Paul was so overwhelmed he actually yelled at her for it.

She couldn't blame him.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

7.i

Poor girl doesn't even smile anymore.

The shining joy she greeted me with two years ago is lost to utter exhaustion and wasting.

Her episodes are so intense that it can be days before she recovers enough to do more than suckle broth from sodden squares of cloth.

Little Bathory's parents are already starting to mourn. I've seen the look before, a drawing back from her to try and make the pain more bearable when the morning finally comes that their child no longer wakes.

It is not helping the child in her sickness. Sickly and desperate for comfort she's left alone with strangers when she most wishes for her parents.

This too I have seen before.

That separation from care and comfort is as much slaying the child as the ailment itself.

In simple peasants, rich merchant and noble I've seen it land as a final blow that culls the ill as certainly as a cut throat.

The girl will surely perish and be forgotten soon.

Her parents will undoubtedly try for another and make her just a painful and slowly forgotten memory. Leave her with me to watch another child perish because everyone around her gave up that she could be saved.

She will likely stop trying to eat after that.

Stop trying to live.

I should declare her doom with calm certainty and save what reputation I can.

I should make some recommendations on how to balance the humors of their next child.

How to assure healthy blood runs true in their next offspring.

But I'm so tired of seeing children die!

The lore suggests there is a treatment that might help with the curse that plagues young bathory. If I suggest this and it does not work I will surely lose my position.

I may even lose my life.

My peers in medicine swear by it though.

That the bone and blood of a newly born infant can save those afflicted as this poor wasting child.

There are plenty of still born that could be procured for such this time of year.

But The treatments may need to be regular.

What will her parents do when conveniently dead infants are not available?

Such a price I cannot say if I could ever condone.

Yet how can I not act? When I close my eyes I still see the last time Bathory's smile slipped away.

When all that life fled from her face.

And the seizing muscles of her illness took hold and wracked the poor dear in its totality.

No I cannot let another child perish from the callousness of a family unwilling to bear the pain of their passing!

I will bring the option of the treatment to her parents.

If they are going to slay their daughter, I will have them say it plainly instead of simply letting the poor thing slip away from them.

-Excerpt from the Journal of Jaksa Djuro, Physician & Surgeon of the Household Bathory

 

[Nighzmarquls]

7.ii

She is dead.

And though I did not wield the knives which pierced her heart it is because I did not stop them she is gone.

Her blood, familiar and close as my own tells me she smiled even as her heart came apart under the blades.

The red spilled from her lips says even with her last breath she tried to laugh in joy.

But even that news sits like bile in my gut.

Makes my blood writhe against me in pain. Makes my heart clench at the mistakes I have made.

When did the smile I gave back to that frail little girl become a thing of such cruelty?

When did I go wrong?

Was it that first night?

When I could not bear to bring the blade meant to heal upon a still breathing infant's brow?

When I could not accept to take a life for the blood and bone to heal another?

Would it have been better to murder an unwanted infant to restore another?

Was it the very seed of my truth that cursed the poor girl to become the thing I made her?

The new path which let what my patient lacked be taken with no immediate harm.

Not harmless of course, oh how bloody and terrible the price ended up being.

But it was so clear then.

Why spend any more of a life than absolutely necessary?

Why waste more blood then the absolute amount required to restore the girl.

Why not have two children live instead of one?!

Was I wrong to want neither to die at my hand?

Whatever my failure was, the woman I cared for nearly all her life is dead, and yet by my own cowardice the curse does not end there.

The High King has taken those I taught in my weakness so I did not have to watch and feel the blood changing and sickening towards that ultimate and terrible apotheosis.

He will make more of my most horrific failures for vile means.

But I can make this right.

I yet have my patients, I will find what flaw in my sorcery curses them so. I will heal what I have wounded and when the panacea is found I will restore even those twisted by the High King.

Do not seek us out my peers in wizardry.

Until my patients are healed we should not be found.

I am assuredly an enemy to all of the Realm of Cantor for this but I don't care.

I will heal this wound of mine set in the world.

I will stop this bleeding pain.

-Last Missive of Jaksa the Red to the Circles of Wizardry.

 

[Zaealix]

Hunh.
Physicion and Surgeon?
That…Is revealing of much about him. It explains why he seemed so lacking in courage, but also the times when he firmed up…As well, I think why he seemed so contemptuous of ever going Weird.
That the pulling away kills as firmly as the sickness itself…Yeah.
Having said that, he's still a man cringing away from the fact that he created a monster. And I feel as though he has filled his heart with care and concern for Bathory and was thus unable to do the same for the next case, and again and again. Bah!
…Buut now that I think on it of course he's lame! One time, he decided that No, he will Not let this child die, and then so many other times he fails to muster that same care and willingness to defy tragic outcomes and be a Hero!?!
Gah! Do right by your charges Jaska! Make good of the man you were once!
Ninja's by the Red.
Hrrrmf. Too much for ya eh? Your fear and cowardice get the best of ye aye?
Protect.
Your.
Charges.
See them saved, or at least see their pain ended as Bathory's life was.

 

[Calico J]

Yeah, Jaksa just didn't have the fortitude to handle the fact that life can be cheap and the world is cruel, especially in a medieval society. Not that I blame him for his reaction to that or his determination to change it, but by the time you're considering murdering one baby to save another, you should have the self-awareness to realize you've become the problem not the solution.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

8.1

Adelyne could make a run for it.

Duck into the crowd and slip between the kneeling figures and bowed heads and be off down a familiar alley in a moment.

They were walking down streets she had grown up on. Cobbles familiar to her toes even through the thicker shoes. She'd not even been gone a full year. She recognized the crowd, even with their faces lowered. Although she was not sure how many would recognize her.

Adelyne was no longer thinned by hunger, she was now dressed in better cloth than ever before in her life. Supposedly these were servant garments but they were spun and woven by the Shining Wyrm of Viznove herself! Adelyne had heard how much of a price that went for in Kaeketeh even before she was taken as bondage.

She could make a run for it and live for a good while by selling the clothes off her back.

Her simple dress with its house Rochford colors was probably worth more than most of the finery the nobles wore in midtown. With how hard Wyrmspun cloth was to come by. The villagers in Rochford and Valasek were loath to give up on what skeins and bolts they had of it.

It was honestly one of the unstated benefits of the Lady Jewel's household. Everyone who served her had just that much more comfort.

Coddling warmth in winter's chill and cool breath in summer's heat. A ransom in treasured cloth given to a criminal held in servile bondage. Adelyne could try to flee the duty and obligation she had found herself in.

But only if she was a complete and total idiot!

Her lady and bond owner was a Dragon. The Shining Wyrm of Viznove and by the feel in the air here on the street of the neighborhood she had grown up already the countess of Kaeketeh. People now knelt as Jewel passed, like they had when that fiend of a woman first introduced the Shining Wyrm of Viznove to the city. But unlike how they did to the bloody countess the people of Kaeketeh now knelt with smiles! At least here in gate town she was already their lady and liege.

Adelyne would be the first to admit she made for an awful maid. She could see the looks the others gave her when she struggled at things even the looming dragon could manage! A beast so large as the Lady Jewel had no business having so fine and delicate a touch with thread and wool as she did!

But if that was the work set too her Adelyne would do it. Her mistress was a terrifying beast with a voice that sank into your bones and declared all it touched as belonging to her. Adelyne would be an absolute idiot to try and flee.

Nevermind that she knew it would be hopeless, Jewel could smell her out from the air and skip and bound for longer than Adelyne could run.

"Who told them to bow to me like this?"

Yet for all the absolute dominance Jewel had over her the Lady of Valasect and now assuredly Kaeketeh was the softest and gentlest creature Adelyne had ever met!

And with the question open in the air like that from her lady the once thief could not stop herself from answering, voice only steady for the practice she had with speaking to the dragon. The tremble had finally come loose even if the primal impulse for it remained.

"I don't think there is a soul born of Kaeketeh that would need to be told to bow to you today, Lady Jewel."

Adelyne had learned to tell when Jewel was exasperated, even when she was wearing her 'noble mask' the trick was to look at how the scales along her neck shifted, the subtle tension of muscles underneath them and precisely how stiff the hairs of her mane were. It was amusing to comment with the other staff of the manor how much their lady resembled a cat. But such words were only ever dared when said wyrm was well and truly outside of the manor, preferably on those days she flew to visit her family in Rochford.

"I see"

Said the wyrm who Adelyne was only half sure had not somehow enchanted her and everyone else in the city. The terrifying Weird Tsulogothulan said things that suggested it could have happened after all!

"Well as this is liable to be the day I claim my title as Countess of Viznove I cannot argue their showing of fealty is unwelcome. Smithson?"

The Nurse Knight straightened in his saddle with the dragon's daughter settled in front of him. Already attentive and ready to receive another order from his liege. Adelyne tried not to think of how such an obvious crossing of man and beast had occurred.

"Please see to it that the city knows that such a display is not required of them except when they are presenting themselves to me in court. Have criers sent after we settle into the manor."

The man that Adelyne was almost certain had the absolutely most impossibly massive balls in the realm acted incredibly differential. She was pretty sure his gonads were wrought of the hardest iron. And for it she could hold nothing but respect for Smithson and his bravery, it was one thing to be a dragon slayer. But the Nurse Knight had obviously bedded one considering the way he dotted on the lady's so-called-immaculate daughter.

And there Adelyen went, failing to avoid thinking about the providence of the wyrm child again she was absolutely shit at that.

Still it was hard to not have one's mind wander to try and ignore the way that people she had shared a fish stinking alley with were kneeling down at her feet. Men she knew were too old to be prostrated like that with their knees still doing it gladly with quaking calves.

And worst of all, like it had when Jewel had first come to Kaeketeh the voice of the city had been silenced. Not by a roar, not even by an utterance, but the heavy sensation of Jewel's mere presence settling over the city and its populace. The simple arrival of their countess had rippled from the gates and the news alone had stilled every voice. Adelyen saw a babe who should have been squalling, silent and wide eyed in awe at the wyrm.

Held by a mother kneeling with her head bowed.

Adelyne could not help but stare as they walked past the all too quiet crowds of a Kaeketeh in reverence to its new liege and lady. To a countess that most assuredly was welcomed. The way the babe silently stared with wide eyes at a dragon that by looks of it had never once been seen in this one's memory.

But somehow even the babies knew to be still and attentive.

The river lapping at the docks and the slight rattle of boats and creaking ropes felt far too loud as they made their way through a city that was so incredibly familiar and yet so utterly and disturbingly quiet.

Adelyne could remember the last time such a stillness had fallen.

A roar had sounded out from the sky and sunk deep into all of their hearts. A sound which blood and bone seemed to recognize as assured doom.

Adelyne remembered where she was.

How both her and the man she had just relieved of his coin purse were frozen together that day. How when the stillness and quiet that followed finally broke she had simply handed the purse back to him and he had just nodded to her.

And now here the silence came again, she had heard there had been celebrating before their arrival. There had absolutely been some looting. Adelyne knew for sure there were some fat fucks she would have turned over if she was still here when the Countess' dead body had been torn apart and burnt.

But by the time that Jewel and her party were through the gates the city was silent.

It felt like some terrible sorcery had been cast. Even the midtown fops in their finery were not even whispering. Some of them looked rougher for wear than usual. There were black eyes, split lips and soot and blood in their clothes. But even here a stillness followed Jewel.

Over the next bridge came the first sign of noise and movement and something other than kneeling difference. The gate was closed, and one of the Countess' former men was standing on the wall above.

They were still dressed in her colors and the bathory banners still hung high.

But Adelyne saw the wood of the gate had dents from heavy impacts. There was char on it and chips in the stone and even blood on the bridge. Soot and char from fires that had been set at its base.

The rest of the city had looked more or less the same for its quiet, maybe some missing windows.

But here at the gate it looks like some terrible fury had been unleashed.

Adelyne came to a stop beside her Lady.

The combined footmen of Rochford were arrayed behind them.

A gryphon lord, two apparent knights, two captains of the guard and a sizable portion of the staff of two households.

The Shining Wyrm of Viznove and her husband.

And Adelyne.

The voice that still rang in the hearts of a city called out to the guard of the gate.

"Open the gates for your countess, For Jewel of Rochford, Valasect, Kaeketeh and Viznove"

For just a moment Adelyne thought they would refuse. The pause was long enough.

But wisdom won that day.

The Gates Opened.

 

[Aabcehmu]

Oh, good! It would have been rather inauspicious if Jewel had to blow the doors off her own castle on her first day as countess.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

8.2

Jewel stared down at the men.

All seven of them had been stripped to only some worn trousers. They each sported bruises and cuts days old by the color and scabbing. One of them had an eye swollen shut and purple.

The one ahead of the other six met her gaze with a calm that was matched by his fellows. But there was also an ease to each of them. In spite of the shifting care they favored one side or another from injury they were not men who were broken by their assured death.

The space that had once been occupied by Bathory's chair and all the other chairs and table against this wall had to be removed. Jewel occupied far too much space for any but the throne that had been so long empty to be remain. And even then it had to be moved forward on her right so she could more comfortably lay her coils there in comfort and grace. Paul took his place as her husband and count, occupying his father's seat.

He was still not tall enough to fully fill the space meant for a larger man.

Jewel and Paul sat alone in judgment. Her Father could not be here, showing too much difference to him in this matter would undermine Jewel's still nascent authority.

The Countess of Kaeketeh had to attend to this matter herself.

She had not actually heard enough on the road to expect the men were even imprisoned, let alone that they awaited judgment. But then again Kaeketeh ahead of anywhere else in the realm except maybe Rochford was more assuredly Jewel's then any other territory in Viznove. And there was no court better suited than that of the Countess of Viznove to judge them.

Still loath as she was to wish death on anyone, Jewel had felt a tremor of frustration to find out that the complications to her inheritance would not even wait until the rest of her vassals arrived to declare their fealty.

Bathory's captain of the footmen turned to the men, men he most assuredly trained and knew in person. His face held blank and his voice betraying none of the fear wafting off him.

"You stand before your Countess, to be judged for the betrayal and murder of your charge and honor bound liege. Who you seven openly consorted in the slaying and subsequent violation of the body and soul of the late Countess Elizabeth Bathory."

All seven men kept their eyes straight ahead, in that firm stillness Jewel had always seen the Countess' men maintain.

The bearing that but for their lack of armor was matched by the guards that mingled with Jewel and her father's own men. There was fear coming from them, but honestly far less than Jewel expected given their death was assured.

Beaten and bruised but at peace. What stink of terror there was to them was more lingering than fresh. Days old at best.

Jewel needed to clear her name of any involvement in this matter. She could not afford not to. But As the final law of the land beyond the High King himself Jewel had no one but herself to forbid her curiosity.

If she was to decree their deaths there was one question that burned to be answered before it was lost forever.

"Your fate is sealed, you have forsworn pacts with stars above and mortal law both. But before you are judged I would know. Why did you slay the Countess Bathory? Why doom yourselves so?"

Two of the guilty men shifted uncomfortably, their fear sparking higher.

One of them seemed almost surprised but it was their leader who spoke.

"Too long have the daughters of Kaeketeh gone missing in the night! Too long since my sister never came home! It has been twelve long years since that night but the vile fiend is finally dead! For the vengeance of my family I'll gladly suffer any doom!"

The one who had jerked in surprise tried to speak up. He was muttering something.

"W-what, b-"

One of his fellows shoved him off his feet with a hiss to shut up.

"Be Still! You will all be sharing the fate of my judgment! Nothing you say here will absolve you of that. You have spilled the blood of your sworn lady!"

Jewel spat the words with all the authority she had practiced for her entire life. Drawing on the lessons from the war and practice with Mother.

She waited for them to continue but none moved, not even the guards. The guards who were barely breathing. The silence of the feasting hall turned courtroom festered til it was smothering. Finally it had dragged too long for Jewel.

"Please to your feet, and come before me, you are each owed to speak for yourselves."

The other six shuffled away from their fallen comrade as he struggled and then finally got to his feet. The entire display slowed by the shackles on ankles and wrists.

But he was already speaking as soon as he was up to his knees.

"They told me! they said you'd approve! That we were doing you a favor! That it was good and righteous work! The Countess was a vile woman! This was Justice!"

Jewel glared at the man, for speaking what she was thinking, what she could with barely a glance see was held as true by far more than the seven before her. The tension in their captain's neck and jaw spoke volumes.

The rising stink of fear from nearly half of the footmen and guard of Kaeketeh in the room settled a suspicion. She couldn't even disagree with him truthfully, and she could taste the agreement from others there. But a newly risen Countess could not afford to reward guards for slaying her predecessor!

Besides!

Jewel had not wished this to happen at all!

And yet how many terrible things had this stopped? How many were saved from further filling the now empty 'larder' beneath Kaeketeh Keep?

The city was hers, word had already reached her that there was not a single person in Kaeketeh who wasn't openly celebrating the death of the old countess. There was already word that these men were being cheered as heroes.

Not exactly their names, but already the story had grown to legends that entailed at least three instances of terrible magic and fierce battles.

Jewel was the law of this land, she should be able to make any judgment she wanted.

But it was all too soon!

Paul, her father and mother all were very clear in this. She lacked support from all her lords and vassals. She lacked assured allies and though she might be able to lay waste to one or two armies Jewel could only be in one place.

Most importantly she did not want to do that!

A rule born in war and bloodshed echoed the terrible stories of the Tyrant wyrm of old.

Jewel refused to have her first act as countess be the bloody subjugation of her vassals and conquering of their land.

The room had fallen silent. Paul rested a hand on her coils and gently stroked against her scales. Letting his fingers drum lightly as he passed the ridges of her larger ones. Near the mane on her spine.

These men by law had to suffer for betraying the compact with their lady, for defying oaths made to the gods that they would protect their countess. To satisfy and assure her vassals and allies that Jewel did not in fact enact the countess' death. They had to answer for that betrayal publicly, but at the same time Jewel could not call it justice.

Not when they had killed that awful woman and her evil.

And how was it fair that these seven should suffer alone when Jewel could smell far more than them was complicit in the countess' death?

That thought struck like a bell in her head.

There had been more evil in Kaeketeh than just Bathory!

Jewel turned to the Captain Bathory's Guard, the silence had truly dragged as she worked over the infuriating problem in her head. Trying to pry open the puzzle like she would one of the simple and now much yearned for disputes on the simple shifting of a fence line.

But she felt a solution of sorts, a feeling like a rhythm and a music that she could follow into a dance.

A way out for her and all of them and more.

It made her tone suddenly light.

"Captain, for matters of proper recompense and glory to you the rightful protectors of Viznove and her late grace the Countess Bathory. How many of your loyal footmen perished in the taking of these traitors?"

Confusion caught the captain and long trained obedience did the rest of the work.

"None of the footmen perished that night my Lady."

Jewel raised a brow in surprise.

"Oh! How fortunate, then enlighten me, how many other conspirators were felled in the capture of these surviving seven?"

That got the captain to shut up and go stiff, glaring up at Jewel, she could practically hear his head trying to churn up the lie he was going to tell her, could smell the stark new terror and hear his heart pounding with it.

The lead traitor spoke up in the silence offered while his former captain tried to find a way out.

"There were no others then us seven, we guarded her chambers that night alone, then snuck into her room and it was we seven that stabbed her through the heart, cut off her head, arms and legs and then took a part each to the courtyard and saw her burned to ash."

Jewel hummed and widened her eyes in fake surprise, she did as she had learned from mother and Paul. and perhaps just an unsavory bit from the late countess herself.

"Oh I see! So what poisonous drought or working of sorcery did you bargain for to put all the guards on watch to sleep so you could enact such a blatant act of treason in the Capital and Seat of Viznove?!"

The captain's eyes widened and he took a step back, his hand going to the sword at his side. There was a shift among many of the armed guards wearing the colors of Bathory.

More than half.

But the rest were looking around with shock and surprise much as the Rochford men did.

Murial was already taking position in front of Paul.

Good, her husband would be secure if this came to bloodshed. God's blessing or no.

The leader of the traitors laughed, dry and cruel.

"They didn't get ensorceled or drugged or even particularly drunk. We seven carried her bloody pieces to the courtyard and we burned her on a pyre set by us ahead of time. They looked away as we carried her cursed flesh and stained ourselves in her blood."

He spat at the captain of the guard's feet. Who now had apparently fully realized what was at stake.

Jewel for her part took on another questioning, curious, innocent tone.

"How strange, that hardly sounds like the acts of loyal, upstanding or dutiful guards holding to the vows you so completely betrayed. Why didn't you escape if none interfered?"

The seven men were smiling, not joyful smiles, they were cruel grins that knew their future held misery. But that had seen the opportunity to drag others down into the dark rotting pain with them. They smelled like the soldiers Jewel had seen cut open at the belly that still fought to kill their enemies though death was assured.

"Oh we did not try to escape good Lady Jewel, when the fiendish woman was burned to ash come the dawn we surrendered to the good captain to await your justice. It's strange actually, I could have sworn I saw quite a lot of them standing with us around the pyre and cheering."

There was a slight lilt of mock surprise and wonder at the circumstances in the tone as he spoke of it to her.

The captain of the Bathory Guard was gawking, he was gaping at the unarmored, bruised and battered man. Finally after Jewel watched the comical display for a good while words finally found their way free of the man's lips as he bloomed into pure and unrestrained panic and fury.

"LIES! The traitor lies and seeks to drag others into the doom he's rightly earned! He-"

Jewel interrupts with her softest most penetrating croon.

"Tells every word true as he knows it."

Jewel looked around at the Kaeketeh footmen. She saw arms preparing to draw swords or brace spears.

"Unlike you."

Her declaration had silenced the captain's growing rebuttal with a choked off whimper.

Jewel surveyed the room and saw it was mostly full of cowards.

She saw the hands that had dragged hundreds of women into the Countess' clutches knowing full well what it would entail.

She saw craven brutes who had not even the bravery to stand here with the seven of them before her. Who stole and took from those that would soon have everything of them further taken.

A Countess had been murdered by her own household guards. And that was not even the gravest of their crimes.

To Secure her position Jewel had to pass judgment on those responsible for a noble's death.

But in that moment Jewel saw a chance to enact True Justice. And as soon as the thought finished forming she could feel the words rising from her throat.

"As the Countess of Viznove and Lady of Kaeketeh I pass Judgement on the traitor guards of House Bathory."

The footmen rallied, they were moving to turn on her, on each other, on the guard from Rochford who were already withdrawing to encircle Jewel. Falling into position with either Muriel or in the familiar positions they had taken with Jewel during drills.
"On all who have turned their eyes from the evil and vile acts done before them."

Her voice was singing and echoing off the air and stone of the Keep and as each word landed she saw the men of Bathory stumble.

"On all who saw and knew betrayal of the oaths of nobility and fealty and did nothing."

And then the weapons began to fall from shaking hands.

"On those whose hands took life they should have guarded."

Strong men collapsed to their knees as they gave startled anguished gasps.

"For every trespass against innocence, for every year stolen, for every drop of blood tainted."

She spoke the words and though they might sound like she said them for the vile woman who was dead and burned Jewel could only think of Adelyne and the thing that could have been made of her.

Of the things that yet still existed out there somewhere partly because of these men!

"I judge you guilty of all acts vile made under the shield of your complacency and cowardice."

Not one of Bathory's guards was not curled up in shuddering tremors upon the floor. Even the seven sacrificial traitors convulsed before her. And she could not see it as anything but just.

"I declare your penance shall be to live and suffer every year stolen under your watch or by your hand."

Jewel felt it ringing out of her throat like the flame of wyrm doom.

She felt the stones drawn close to watch every utterance and the very air humming to her words. She had risen up to fill the room, her wings extended to surround all the men who had lived long years in the Countess' service and then had the gall to look the other way and let her perish now!

The world which always was there close and attentive and comforting to her now listened as Jewel called out to it.

And then something inside her twisted and Jewel toppled into a heap, the constant current of wyrmflame that ran through her body suddenly bursting free and clear. Twisting out in a coruscating lashing of bands which struck every single one of the late Bathory's men in the feasting chamber.

Their voices rising into the shrillest screams before all the world turned black around her.

The last voice she heard was that of Paul and Murial yelling her name.

 

[Calico J]

It's really good to see the minions get called to account. Just following orders, like hell; it wasn't Bathory out there hunting people down in the streets, it was you cowards that made the whole system work.

 

[Zaealix]

She was the head that gave the orders.
Yours were the hands that fulfilled them.
And I think Jewel just bound them to suffer in service until they have paid back the pain they caused.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

8.3

Jewel woke up in the feasting hall. Because of course she did. Only Gem got to wake up comfortable and safe if she fell asleep in strange places. Her Wyrm body's bulk was an intractable weight of muscle, bone and scales without the support of her flame. No one in Kaeketeh could have moved her if they wanted to. She was hardly even in a different position from when she fell.

But at least some one had brought pillows and gotten a few of them under her head.

Speaking of Gem she was also here, curled up and still asleep enough it made the rest of Jewel groggy and slow.

Paul was absent but she could smell he had been here, the sun was just starting to rise and its light through the windows welcomed her tenderly. The sound of the river outside also murmured and spoke to her. With a timid gentleness that was appreciated for how drained she felt.

Even the stone of the feasting hall were soft and careful with her in their usual exuberance, the welcomes tempered by what was not exactly concern but an acknowledged frailty in her. Something Jewel could not deny she felt deep in the core of her body. Her flame felt stretched thin and low in a way she had not experienced for years.

Not since her very first flight had anything left her so utterly exhausted. Never was Jewel's inner fire ever so low.

As she stirred, every movement brought a strange ache that had nothing to do with her muscles. She actually felt quite well rested if not for the dimness of the light within her.

She woke as Gem, and in that there was a new strain as well. Normally she was overflowing with the gift of her flame for her smaller self. But although not really a strain it took focus to push enough of her inner fire into her smaller self.

What should have been almost effortless was now a drag on Jewel's attention in order to fill out what had been lost in gem's flesh to the hours of sleep. The effort inspired a desire for air and Jewel breathed deep, and then yawned. Two voices echoing each other, one high, sharp, small and guttural, the other resonant and all consuming, rattling the windows and her smaller self's bones.

Before Jewel could even finish closing her mouth from that wet humidity arrived.

The scent of silt and rotting eggs under mud followed and the upwelling of black mire pooled in the middle of the feasting hall just a bit before the pillows Jewel had woken up on.

As was custom Tsulogothulan wrought themselves together in burgeoning strands of flesh made as much of mire and muck as water. Bones that were at once branches and reeds weaving through flesh and skin that was both black mud and pale tissue that these years Jewel now recognized as the skin between a fish's scales.

"My Lady and Countess Jewel, Apologies for arriving well ahead of even your break fast but your father, family and household insisted that I assure them of your health and wholeness after yesterday's events in court."

Jewel shook her head to try and clear some of the fog but even that felt odd.

"I believe I am hale, Good Sorcerer Tsulogothulan, but I am confused... and drained... my fire is lower now then even when it was after the war."

Tsulogothulan nodded at that and their eye finally emerged to fix on Jewel's face with a softness of worry. With the official business settled the tone of office as her Father's court wizard fell away to be replaced by her friend's concerned reassurance.

"I'm not surprised that you have needed to pay some cost. We can add another act of a major working to the list and if I am not wrong it fully realized as your first curse upon a mortal's flesh as well. Word of your Judgment is already well and truly cast to the winds of all Kaeketeh and should be well on its way to the rest of the known world by tomorrow."

Jewel tried to work either of her heads to the task of following through on that but she found neither up to the task.

"Come again?"

The sigh was a familiar one, Jewel had apparently done something astounding to the Weird but she could barely even recall exactly what it could be. There had been the Countess' footment, their captain had tried to sacrifice Seven of their number for the guilt of all of them.

But after that? Jewel remembered nothing certain, just a feeling of clarity of her conviction that there needed to be justice and that she had seen enough of death.

Tsulogothulan sighed and then stared at Jewel with that one deeply strange and far too large eye.

"All but a dozen at most of the guard of Kaeketeh have suffered some degree of your curse. The worst of which struck those in this room with you but threads of the working bled soon after from those until it reached nearly every single man who ever wore the Countess Bathory's colors. Retired or otherwise!"

The Weird of the bog placed their hand on her coils and patted gently.

"That is over seven hundred targets! It would strain the waters of my domain to have done half of what you accomplished yesterday Jewel. And it would have been nowhere near as neat and gentle as you managed! You are more than owed to feel some exhaustion from that."

Jewel blinked, that was certainly more than she remembered being in the courtroom. But it still did not answer the slowly emerging question that came loose in her head.

"I see, but can you tell me what precisely it is that my curse, or enchantment or whatever actually did?"

That seemed to stall out her friend's thoughts on the matter. Leading to an even more intense full body boggle as they stared Jewel up and down. Eye roving all over Jewel's scales and then for some reason scattering to trace the rest of the room.

Come to think of it Jewel could feel a strange mingling of her own Wyrmflame and the more common fauxfire sort of pooled and writhing in the room.

Her friend's voice cut through the settling fog in her head.

"You can't tell?!"

Jewel shook her head, a bit slowly. Everything still felt almost gummy and blinking was not helping. Neither was shaking actually. Another yawn built up and crawled out of both of her throats.

"It's the first light of dawn Tsulogothulan! I feel more exhausted than I did after fighting the battle that won a war. I honestly and truly cannot remember most of what I was even doing before I passed out!"

Her friend blinked slowly then sighed again and patted at Jewel's neck where it met her shoulders.

"It's best if you just see it for yourself."
Jewel's stomach rumbled, both of them.

"Fine Tsulogothulan, but not until after breakfast. Let the kitchens and staff and everyone know would you?"

Then she was struck by another window rattling yawn breaking free. Eyes clenching shut as the rest of each face took up the task of opening as wide as possible on both her heads.

And by the time Jewel opened her eyes her friend was gone.

 

[MilitantBird]

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! You shouldn't skip it, no matter how busy you are or how many hundreds of people you laid an eldritch curse of judgement upon last night.

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

Tyrant Wyrms are named as such for a reason, it would seem. I have seen people on the other sites this is posted to compare her to the actual divinity, which is certainly apt but they also couldn't be more different. It would seem that the stars are more subtle in what they do, mostly controling fate for lack of a more general term. Meanwhile Jewel has the capability to imbue any action of hers with wyrmflame such that it is set in stone.

As for what Jewel's done now, at least she isn't one for collective punishment. Wanting to avoid undue harm to others is not a bad thing, and at least some of those effected will reform themselves due to this curse. However, retributive justice has issues, namely that it only considers that a wrong has occurred, ignoring everything else. At least the guard is not a position meant for societal good but rather maintaining order, and so probably attracts those who don't mind doing dragging criminals off to some fate they don't return from.

As to what exactly that judgement is, while some theories have appeared on the other sites, I'm not fully convinced by them. While she does bring up fealty and obligation alongside physical harm to others, that is only to specify who is being judged. Were someone to have served under Bathory, but not did not know or tried to do something upon realization of those wrongdoings, they would not be cursed. The actual punishment is only this,

"I declare your penance shall be to live and suffer every year stolen under your watch or by your hand."

Click to shrink...

"Every year stolen," can only mean the the blood(? essence? life force?) taken by Bathory to sustain her life. Whether they are counted by how long she lived or how long those drained would have remains to be seen. Forcing them to live is comparatively much more clear, and may well be some limited imortality. As for the suffering, if the screams before Jewel fainted are anything to go off of, it likely involves pain. After thinking through this, Jewel's wording is quite clever. Even knowing that the implied reading of punising those involved in Bathory's death is incorrect, it took some time for me to suss out the actual terms of her curse.

On to the mechanism of her curse, I am particularly struck by the following line,

But she felt a solution of sorts, a feeling like a rhythm and a music that she could follow into a dance.

Click to shrink...

I knew something was afoot with that line, considering how every one of her major workings has involveda likening to music and dance. If this navigation of court politics and passing of judgement is like the cases of her learning dancing, spinning, and weaving in how performing a working is fundamentally tied to how she does these things, that is truly terrifying. Considering how the world reacted here, and has reacted in the past to her, wizards, and weirds, I think that is the key in determining how workings ... work. While wizards give the world instructions, Jewel weaves her wyrmflame into the world such that her working is made from it. It wold seem that weirds still speak to the world, but also can pull upon their truths in a similar way to how Jewel pulls upon her flame.

With respect to the latest chapter, while I can't approve of putting a cliffhanger before your longest break between chapters of the week, it is such a perfect character moment between the two that I don't mind too much. Whatever may have happened it feels as though Tsulogothulan and Jewel never changed since the weird first started instructing her.

 

[roots lord]

This is not a cliffhanger, it's a breakfasthold

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

I was rereading from the beginning again, as one does, and realize that more details of magic were covered explicitly than I thought. Book 1, chapter 6.ii is relative,y thorough in how mortal, and to a lesser extent godly, workings work. I can't commit the time to do it all at once, or promise that I will even finish, but this realization has bothered me enough to start making an informational post cataloging the broad strokes of what happens in each integer number chapter (part? volume?) as well as every interlude so that it's easier to refrence.

As for the rereading experience, it is wonderful to be able to pick up on more forshadowing, and realize smaller details that went unnoticed in my prior reads. My favorite thus far has been finally figuring out how and why Jewel coming to terms with her capabilities growing faster than those of her brother happens where it does. Just like the household left without elders could be better helped by instruction teaching them how to work better independently, rather than simply having those already more capable take care of it like Silvertounge reccomends, so too would it be better for Alexander if instead of directly taking on his work, she helped him become more capable in it.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

8.4

Breakfast was annoying.

Although Jewel was now technically countess it was still the same cooks and staff who worked the kitchens of Kaeketeh. Dariusz, Hożanka and their children had stayed with his mother instead of continuing with Jewel immediately.

He was a freeman and thus not hers to command and even if he was a servile Jewel had agreed he should spend time with his mother. but it did mean that no one had remembered to tell the kitchen not to prepare their usual over indulgent offering of berries and sweet cake levels of opulence for breakfast.

Minor blessings that Jewel's appetite was so ravenous she could mostly ignore how rich and over flavorful all of it was. The sensation of eating until her belly was full and yet still not feeling recovered in her flame was disquieting though.

Gem's tongue enjoyed the candied meats in a way that surprised Jewel. The flavors that were overwhelming to her wyrm senses were simply pure joy to her spawn's.

But with the fast broken and everyone present Jewel felt the matter needed to be addressed.

"Now since apparently this is something that must be seen to be understood, can someone bring one of the afflicted footmen before me?"

Which created its own confusion as no one among her or the original Kaeketeh staff seemed certain of who exactly should make that command a reality.

The confusion and awkwardness continued growing until Jewel had enough.

"Murial, can you please see to it?"

And with that her captain was up and ordering the keep's staff and at last everyone could jump to the proper order of things. Still the delay grated on Jewel's tired and still slow mind. If this is what the price was every time Jewel performed a major working she was inclined to swear off ever doing it again!

It was not a terribly long wait, but eventually the woman that Muriel had ordered off returned, guiding what for all appearances was a younger girl. Only a little bit taller than Gem, wrapped up in a footman's undershirt with the sleeves bunched up around too short arms.

Jewel stared at the obviously small child then looked over at Muriel. Her head still felt foggy and before the thought even entered her head the words were loose in the air.

"I thought I asked for one of the afflicted footmen, not some child Muriel."

Everyone else just stared at Jewel, Muriel actually startled.

The moment dragged on for several breaths before Adelyne burst into laughter. Drawing everyone's attention to her, which eventually stilled her outburst with a nervous pettering off.

"What!? She's obviously joking! Right?"

Jewel squinted at Adelyne then back to the child in an oversized shirt who was glaring rather intensely at her. There was even a trembling of rage in the small frame. It was the barely restrained wroth on that face that finally connected her staggered thoughts. Realization at last dawning on her.

"My Working turned the Countess Bathory's footmen into children?"

But instead of anyone nodding or confirming her question Jewel got even more confused stares. Muriel was actually a little slack jawed in shock!

Adelyne proved her fearlessness and total lack of decorum by actually speaking.

"Wait? She's serious?!"
Muriel gave herself a shake and then spoke gently, in the tone she once used as a governess.

"Jewel... That is not what children look like."

The Wyrm boggled, then looked back at the child. But everything was right as far as she was concerned.

It was a small person with a slightly outsized head for their body, wide if currently incredulous eyes. The nose and mouth were smaller than an adult's, the face was clean of any prominent hair. Maybe it was a bit on the side of a babe but hardly out of the ordinary.

The scowling short figure was the spitting image of a young girl. With a careful sniff just to be sure she confirmed that the smell was exactly correct for one too.

Jewel after staring at the figure before her finally turned to Muriel.

"What do you mean? this is exactly what a child looks-"

The room was full of faces and more importantly beating hearts and sweating skin that proved there was not a person in the room who agreed with Jewel. The urge to raise her wings back and crane her neck in shame grew terribly but showing how suddenly shocked she was felt even worse. Gem's face was blazing hot in a way she knew meant she was shame faced.

Adelyne, as she was, could not fully contain her laughter now and was only left in the room by the mortified confusion of the rest of the Kaeketeh Staff.

But finally that had apparently been enough for the figure that no one (but Jewel) thought looked like a child and she strutted forward, voice rising, straining to be menacing, angry, anything but light and delicate.

"Y-you, you wretched, star accursed worm!"

She shoved off the poor woman that had been holding her. Moving with what should have been a far too slight and small frame to overpower an adult and marched up to Jewel.

"We did you a favor! We put you and your beast fucker of a husband on that throne! We put that fiend to the torch! I called up for volunteers on who would take the blade to her heart and pay the price for that! You OWED US!"
The tiny figure was shaking with fury, the face was twisted awfully, brows furrowed as hard as they could, lips bared back to show tiny little teeth. Hands clenching so hard the muscles stood out sharp on them before the sleeves finally came loose to fall over and obscure them.

"All you had to do was just kill some poor bastard saps too stupid over their thieving sisters or some whore they were pining over to know what was good for them! You worthless scaly beast!"

The little voice was going raw as she screamed. Spit was flying.

"We did you a favor and you cursed all of us!"

Jewel's foggy mind snapped clear under the barrage. Under the recognition, the scent, it was a child, it was a girl. But more importantly it was still familiar.

The urge to arch her neck and wings was suddenly smothered.

Jewel would show no shame to this thing.

"Owed?"

Her flame dampened all morning rose, sparking and sputtering higher, filling out more. Straining to envelope all of her flesh.

"You Think You are Owed!?"

She lowered her head to glare at the thing which apparently despite all appearances to Jewel looked nothing like a child.

Well that was fine actually, she agreed this was not a child. She remembered the scent now.

The Captain of Bathory's Footmen.

"Is that right Captain? You think you are owed more than this?!"

She could not fault the bravery, even as he once was the captain would not have measured up to Jewel. A mere man in some light maile and getting on in age.

And now diminished to hardly larger than Gem. barely past a toddler in size.

But still he stood as tall as he was and tried to stare her down.

"You should have been giving us a medal for doing away with that fiend!"

Jewel drew close enough to kiss the little face that had once had a sharply cut beard.

And she whispered softly enough only the little ears in front of her would catch despite the utter silence that filled the room.

"If that was your only crimes I would have."

Which got a sneer from the youthful face before her.

"Crimes?! What crimes!? What possible crime could deserve this sorcery?! This mutilation and castration!?"

Jewel glanced at Adelyne, the clarity that had suddenly come, the pulse of her wyrmflame, only half as strong as it had been yesterday still made clearer just what had been said in her working.

When she saw that the false child (once captain) had looked to Adelyne and recognition finally sparked, the wyrm spoke again too softly to be heard by any other but him.

"How many? While you served the Countess? How many lives did you drag into her pit?"

The former captain tried to strike Jewel, a tiny fist carrying hardly any force at all. It hit Jewel clear on the nose and amounted to nothing. She didn't even need to shift or flex a muscle under the blow.

"We did our duty!"

The shrill voice filled the room, the spittle did land on Jewel's scales this time. She had to squint in fact to avoid getting it in her eyes.

Jewel drew back from the figure while peering more carefully, feeling the eddies of her own Wyrmflame and how they had settled into the room.

Drained, empty, barely more than the faux fire. But there was a shape and meaning.

An intent and an echo of what she had declared would be so.

This time Jewel spoke fully and loudly for all in the room.

"You betrayed any right to your duty and dishonored any defense in loyalty when you conspired to murder your liege and countess. If you had done this with righteousness you would have stood before me proudly instead of those you abandoned to suffer the full weight of your dishonor."

Jewel glared down at him.

"As I was indisposed after the enacting of your penance let me state what I could not when balancing the weight of your crimes. Your cowardice and dishonor has no place in my guard or footmen, no place in service to Kaeketeh or Viznove."
She drew her head back to a height so it settled just below the chandelier.

"You have received precisely what you are owed for your crimes. You and all who have felt the touch of my justice are now free."

Jewel released even more of the usual careful effort in her throat.

"Now Begone."

Only after the thing that looked like a child (to Jewel) had fled from the room did Paul's voice rise up from his chair, making Jewel cringe and curl her neck in having forgotten he was there.

"Well. Onto other matters then my dear wife?"

 

[I_S]

Did she turn them into small young women ?

 

[RyubosJ]

Looking forward to a PoV chapter from anyone else who can explain why they don't look like children.