Remove ads

The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

View content
Remove ads
Vote closed, denouement 2 03
  • View content
    •  
  • View discussion
    • Remove ads
    Denouement 2: First Daughter 04
  • View content
    • A familiar turn of phrase: 25

    A strange memory: 12

    "You have had a busy day." Your father, fresh from sword training, considers your explanation thoughtfully, sheathing his daiklave. You catch sight of your own pensive reflection in the blue and white jadesteel of the sabre's blade before he slides it out of view again.

    "You might say that." You have found him in the small training courtyard set aside from his use. With sheer walls all around you, the door secured, and nothing overhead but rooftops and blue skies, you should have the privacy to discuss things with him unheard. Unless someone is hiding very well on the rooftops. That's not impossible, but you'll risk it.

    "Mnemon has more to offer you," Nazat says, after a thoughtful moment. "Her house is older, more established, more secure — she is not unlikely to be the next Empress even if she is far too arrogant to imagine it might ever be otherwise. It would be difficult to ever find a mentor of your craft with more to teach you than her, I would imagine." He keeps his tone carefully neutral.

    "You dislike Mnemon," you point out.

    Nazat sighs, crossing his arms. "I won't deny it. She is apparently willing to disregard our personal and theological disagreements in extending this offer to you, and I am trying to show at least as much grace."

    Considering how Mnemon had stressed your father's moral and spiritual failings and he'd just taken the opportunity to comment on her arrogance, you will admit that they're each bringing a similar spirit of reconciliation to the affair.

    Nazat picks up his earlier train of thought. "I wouldn't imagine that she is above going back on her word, under certain circumstances, but if she is offering this to you so openly, I think she means what she says. She would take you into her own household, arrange a good marriage, and put you to work. Mould you in her own image, if you prove loyal and capable. And we both know you're both of these things. If she takes the throne, you would be an Imperial Daughter twice over, although you would have many more sisters than you currently do to be compared against."

    Mnemon has had quite a few children over the decades, the fathers many, varied, and frequently later married to one of Mnemon's descendants. She famously commits half of her children to the Immaculate Order in an extravagant show of piety. However, she still has more than one daughter far older and more experienced than you, already heading their own households with their own children and grandchildren, to say nothing of Rulinsei.

    Safety to grow, for you and your future family. Political capital with which to support your Hearthmates, at need. To say nothing of your father's safety, although he has voiced no opinion on that aspect — it is simultaneously touching and frustrating, the degree to which he's clearly willing to put your needs and your future ahead of his own. Your eyes roam around the courtyard, landing on what remains of a small pillar of stone, now strewn across the sand by a series of impossibly sharp cuts. "And V'neef?" you ask.

    "As I said," Nazat says, following your gaze, "Mnemon has more to offer you. But you have more to offer V'neef."

    You nod, following him quickly enough. "Her house is younger, smaller, less established. My talents make more of a difference, and she benefits more from being seen to take in a younger Imperial Daughter. I'd have more bargaining power."

    "Yes," Nazat agrees. "She's still a rich and powerful woman in her own right, and she has many skilled and experienced Dragon-Blooded in her family — but they're former patricians, many of them former outcastes. Your marriage prospects would also aid her greatly, if you sought adoption. And the rewards could certainly be great, should she take the throne. You would be banking on her doing so, if you made this choice, and I assume doing all in your power to help ensure it."

    Whatever small good that might do, in the end. But he's right, you would. "I doubt L'nessa would forgive me, if I went against her house now," you say. You hadn't been cruel enough to reveal the depths of L'nessa's desperation, or her utter loss of composure, but your father can certainly read between the lines slightly where the very sudden nature of your second meeting is concerned.

    "Likely not," Nazat agrees. "And why should she? House Mnemon are her family's enemies. She has good reason to worry — Mnemon has hardly made her dislike a secret. It's very likely a strong factor in why V'neef feels compelled to press a claim in the first place. I don't know your school friend, but I have known Matriarch V'neef off and on since she was a girl. In her own way, she is a Wood Aspect to a fault. Her family is her garden, and she will do all that's required to defend it and advance its prosperity."

    "Do you think they have a chance?" you ask, stung by his honest appraisal, even if it's not anything you didn't already know.

    "Yes, I think," Nazat says. "Mnemon underestimates the number of enemies she's made, how many people and families would view her rise to power with fear and alarm. V'neef is young, but that's not even entirely against her favour — she strikes a much more sympathetic figure, and her supporters might hope to wield far more influence over her than they might through Mnemon. She is also an effortlessly charismatic politician and diplomat in her own right. If you did choose her, I hope that it is for these reasons."

    "What are you saying?" you ask, frowning.

    Your father sighs. He bends to pick up several small shards of the pillar you'd been examining. Straightening, he rolls them back and forth in the palm of one big, rough hand. "Speaking as your father, I don't want to see you making a decision based on what's good for V'neef L'nessa. I'd like to see you make this decision based on what's good for you. In the end, of course, you are also your mother's daughter."

    "I take it you mean in more ways than simply literally," you say.

    Nazat gives you a very sad smile. The shards he'd picked up begin to hover over his palm and slowly to slowly circle around it. It's a thoughtful gesture more than anything. "The girl has been your friend. You'd like to keep that, keep her with you. When you want something, or someone, or you set your mind to a course of action, you have a tendency to follow through, damn the consequences. Your mother is the same, at times. But you lack our Empress's shrewdness and her experience at picking the right battles — that can only come with age. You also lack her ruthlessness." He gives you a close look, then looks away, eyes following the stones orbiting his flattened palm. "That may also come with age. But I think you have the beginnings of it, when pushed."

    You hadn't killed Peleps Nalri, but her death had only served to make you and Maia closer than ever. You should still regret it. It might have been avoided. Instead of a denial, your voice grows very quiet as you say: "I don't throw people away, so far. Or set them aside when I'm simply bored of them." He must know that you're thinking of the Empress's treatment of him, at times.

    Nazat's face softens ever so slightly. "Earth can be more steadfast than Fire, but slower to move, less flexible at need. To both our detriment, I think." The topic of the Empress and your resemblance to her has clearly affected him, but he's keeping it in check more than he had the last time.

    "As you say," you reply. You're still not entirely sure how to feel about the comparison, but you can do him the favour of changing the subject. "I suppose I'll see whether or not Sesus Kasi is really just trying to catch up with a passing acquaintance."

    "Her mother is Sesus Cerec," Nazat says.

    "Yes," you say, frowning. You'd only met Amiti and Kasi's mother once, quite a few years ago. She'd been speaking to Oban at the time, and had perhaps not made as much of an impression as he had. "Is that important?"

    "I have not met the woman," Nazat says, "but I've heard her name come up more than it should, for someone who's just been a serving legionary officer most of her life. Always in connection to powerful people from her house, never the centre of attention."

    Your memory of Cerec does paint her as a quiet, grey sort of figure — for a Dragon-Blooded Dynast, surprisingly adept at simply blending into the background. Amiti does not seem to have a tremendous amount of affection for her beyond her basic filial obligation, but this isn't so unusual for young Dynasts toward a busy parent. "Is she more important than she seems?"

    "Possibly," Nazat says. He lets the stones in his hand drop to the sand again, one piece after the next. "Keep an eye out, tread carefully with Cerec if she makes an appearance. And in general while you're dealing with the younger daughter for that matter, even if you're school friends with the elder. The Spiral Academy teaches more than just bureaucratic processes."

    You're certain that Sesus Kasi's gratitude for you befriending her sister hadn't been feigned, but he makes a good point. You don't know her nearly as well as you know Amiti, and she does not appear to have her sister's guileless good nature. "I will keep this in mind."

    "Good." Nazat looks down at his sheathed sword for a moment, studying the Pure Way scripture spirally its way around around the white leather of its scabbard. "When things are slightly less chaotic, I would like the chance to see how your sword skills have progressed over the years, if you would indulge me."

    It's a very sudden change of subject, but not an unwelcome one. You've improved a great deal — you wonder how well you'd stack up to him, now. "When things are slightly less chaotic," you say, agreeing. "I suppose I should return soon, to write responses to the other letters. Assuming I don't have any other surprises waiting for me today."


    "You didn't see who left this?"

    "No, my lady," Garnet says. "It must have arrived before I returned."

    You nod, not even looking at her, your eyes still fixed on the letter in your hands. You stand over the desk in your study, your feelings in utter turmoil. You take a deep breath, and find yourself reading it again:

    To my Lady Ambraea,

    I apologise if what I have set out to do today will bring you pain. I have cared for you since the day you were born, nursing and raising you alongside ███████████████. If it is not too impertinent to say, I am proud of the woman you have become, and I am confident that you do not need me anymore as you once did. With any luck, by the time you are reading this, I will be gone, and you may not see me again.

    I thank you for remembering me after all these years, and for your wish to see to my future. I hope you find it in yourself to take comfort in the knowledge that I have left for a safe place, in the company of one who will see me there to the best of ███ power. Please do not think of this as an aspersion on your ability to protect me. My first duty must simply be to ███████████████. I pray that one day, when you have children of your own, you understand.

    █████ has told me that it won't work, but I feel I owe you an explanation, for why I am leaving you, and why I am fleeing my place here after all these years of serving the Imperial Presence. In brief:

    My██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

    █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. This is hard to credit, but it is true. I hope that, despite what ███ has said, some part of this stays with you.

    With all my devotion and regret,
    Lohna Prince's Scribe    ​

    You spend a silent, furious moment glaring at the ink stains on the page, having so perfectly obscured large swathes of the message. It had been your own fault, of course. You'd slammed your hand down on your desk, and the spill had happened before you'd noticed. The second, smaller letter is in even worse shape than the first, more or less completely illegible beyond your name at the top. Your thoughts are so scattered at the moment that, for some reason, you can't quite remind yourself what the substance of it had been, despite having read it only moments before.

    Why, then, does looking at it fill you with such a sense of reassurance? You're still very upset, obviously — the woman who raised you has apparently been roped into some kind of escape plan by an unknown party, something that could spell dire peril for her whether or not she succeeds. And it's impossible not to feel a sting of mingled abandonment and failure. Is there no one and nothing that you can keep safe, from your Hearthmates to a single slave woman, such that she'd thought this was a safer option?

    A dutiful, law-abiding daughter would have reported such an escape attempt immediately, of course. If you were confident in your capacity to shield Lohna from the consequences of her actions, you might have done so, out of simple fear for what might happen otherwise. You have no such confidence, however, and you're terrified of doing anything to directly call attention to her in a way that would invite the harsh discipline of the Imperial Household.

    You can look for her yourself, for all the good that is likely to do, and you can hope for the best. Your eyes drift back to the second letter with this last thought, and you frown at it, trying to muster its contents in your head. A phrase slips into your mind, one that feels oddly familiar on your tongue as you murmur: "Where would I be without your singular grace? Here, apparently." You can't quite place where you've heard the phrase before, but you put it quickly from your mind.

    "Garnet, some wine, I think," you say.

    "As my lady requires," Garnet says. Out of the corner of your eye, you see her bow, and step out of the room.


    The estate of Sesus Emeri, in the Imperial City,
    The following day

    "I saw them perform that play last year. It's still pretty good, of course, but honestly, I don't think their new lead actor is quite as talented as the last boy," Sesus Kasi says, looking back over her shoulder as she leads you through the halls of the stately townhouse. The pale silk of her dress whispers along with every spritely step.

    "I'll admit, my own education has left far less time for keeping up with the arts," you say. Then, because you get the sense that she wants you to, you ask: "Why did the previous actor leave?"

    Kasi falls back to walk more alongside you, leaning in close, a candid, almost mischievous look in her eye as she looks up at you. Despite your lingering anxiety for Lohna and your deep ambivalence over the play you'd just seen, you find yourself drawn in. "Well, the word is, he caught the eye of a wealthy Dynast and is now spending his days in luxury as a bureaucrat's consort. I don't blame her entirely — he'd definitely look pretty, adorning an estate or a bed chamber, but it is a little selfish, keeping him all to herself. He really was fantastically compelling. He sold the tragedy of the character without obscuring the depravity of the role."

    Her presence almost seems to radiate a comfortable, subtle warmth, like an exceptionally pleasant summer day. Given everything going wrong lately, and how much you keenly miss both of your lovers, and whose face exactly Kasi happens to share, you are determined not to notice that she is genuinely quite pretty. Instead, you ask: "Isn't it a little morally questionable, though? A mortal playing that kind of role?"

    Kasi laughs, managing not to make it seem too condescending. "Oh, don't be like that, The Cursed Son is a classic. Trying to get an Exalted actor everytime someone wants to put it on would be impractical, and it would ruin the effect of a sweet, innocent young man who becomes a monster while trying to deny it."

    "I suppose so," you say, although you have your misgivings. The earliest version of The Cursed Son had been written at some point in the Realm's third century, and has been deeply controversial ever since. The youngest son of a great general watches helplessly as his family falls on hard times and his love chooses another man. In his desperation to right the wrongs against his family, he steals a piece of the moon's power, becomes an Anathema, and all the good intentions he had are twisted by his monstrous nature. He ends the play with his family in utter ruin, his love dead by his own hand, and a band of heroes hunting him. In a moment of clarity, he finally casts himself off a high cliff, in the end finally doing one single thing right.

    The morality of the play has been debated viciously over the centuries, with numerous censored and revised versions having become popular at different points. The intended moral of the work is, ultimately, that the prince reaches for power beyond his station, and the resulting Anathema he becomes destroys everything he had once held dear. At the same time, the play still offers what feels disturbingly like sympathy for a Face Stealer, of all things — even with a fictional Anathema, particularly after what you saw on your first Wyld Hunt, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

    Whatever one thinks, it has always escaped being outright banned by the Immaculate Order or secular authorities, however, very likely due to having once upon a time been written by one of your mother's favourite lovers. How long will that last now, you wonder, without the prospect of her wrath falling down on a would-be censor? As you don't like the play anyway, you simply put the thought from your mind.

    "Amiti would have liked it, I think," you say.

    Kasi smiles a little wryly. "Oh, well, maybe! She only memorised Daimyo Willow Stream's entire romantic monologue as a girl so that she could recite it to herself and sigh longingly. So you tell me."

    "That does sound a great deal like her," you say, amused at the thought. Never mind that the monologue is followed by the daimyo immediately being informed of her love's abrupt unsuitability for marriage. Knowing Amiti, that might be part of what she likes about it.

    "I understand that she roped you into reading some of her favourite novels," Kasi says.

    "Perhaps," you allow, too busy looking at the flame-inspired art on the walls to entirely maintain her gaze. "There has been little enough time for leisure reading amidst all our studies." Not that you'd have thought this was the case, with the rate Amiti had gone. You had read a romance that she'd lent you, maybe two. They hadn't been a wholly unengaging diversion.

    "Perhaps," Kasi echoes, faintly amused.

    She takes you up a flight of stairs, along a hallway where high windows give a charming view of the best parts of the Imperial City. You look out at it, at the distant splendour of the palace and the monuments to the Realm's glory. The street outside is paved with beautifully engraved stones taken from the dismantled temples of a conquered southern god.

    "I hope you don't mind me saying, Lady Ambraea," Kasi says, bringing you back to the present, "but you seem troubled."

    "There is much to occupy my mind," you say. "I hope you will not take it as an insult to the quality of your company."

    "I won't," Kasi says. She stops by an open door leading to a small balcony overlooking a garden. Bees move industriously from flower to flower. "I can understand why you might be distracted. A great deal is happening at once, for you in particular."

    "It is," you acknowledge. You suspect that some manner of pitch is coming — unlike L'nessa, Sesus Kasi did actually go through with properly entertaining you ahead of it, but you know that Kasi has you here for a reason.

    "I'm sure that seeking the support of a powerful house has not escaped you as an option," Kasi says.

    "A house like yours?" you ask.

    "Well, yes," Kasi says. "There was already some preliminary marriage talk about you and my cousin, Sesus Ambar, and my family certainly won't forget that you stood by our forces in a Wyld Hunt against three Anathema. Things have changed, but maybe they haven't changed that much, in some ways."

    "I have already been approached by two other houses," you admit.

    "I'd heard," Kasi says. "Would you mind if I were direct?"

    "Please," you say.

    She lowers her voice, as if passing on a secret, stepping closer to you. "You don't have to throw everything behind the hope that one of your sisters takes the throne. There are more flexible options. There are only two great military houses left."

    Out of loyalty to Sola, you feel the urge to argue that her house isn't gone, but you recognise that it would come across as splitting hairs, under the circumstances. "And you believe this gives you—"

    You trail off as a servant rounds the corner, approaching Kasi with a serious look on her face. Kasi turns to follow your gaze, frowning slightly at the sight of the interruption. "Yes?" she asks. The servant bows low, before stepping closer to Kasi and whispering something in her ear. Kasi stiffens, a look of mingled shock and excitement crossing her face. "She didn't even send word!" she exclaims.

    You raise your eyebrows. "She?" you ask.

    "Yes," Kasi says, suddenly awkward, "I'm very sorry, I understand that this is unusual, but would you be willing to put this conversation on hold for a moment. Something important has just come up."

    "By all means," you say, genuinely curious.

    "Thank you, you're very gracious," Kasi says, stepping toward the corner that the servant had just come from. "If you would like to have a seat, our people can retrieve some refreshments for you." She nods toward a semi-circular bench on the balcony, currently some afternoon shade.

    Kasi doesn't have the chance to actually depart, however. No sooner has she started down the hallway than she stops short, eyes wide. She's intercepted by a small, pale figure still dressed for the road. Shockingly, Kasi is then literally swept up into a brief, tight hug.

    "It's so good to see you!" says Sesus Amiti, overjoyed.

    Kasi herself seems torn between an annoyed exasperation and a genuine delight, the former fueled by your presence taking away even the dubious privacy the hallway might have otherwise had. The awkwardness of your situation conquers your own happy surprise at seeing your friend enough that you elect to study the window frame you're standing nearest to — very good carpentry, you think.

    "It's good to see you too!" Kasi says, extricating herself from the hug. "Why didn't you write ahead that you were coming?"

    "Well, you don't like getting Blood Mirror messages," Amiti says. Her smile hasn't faded and she is seemingly still unaware of your presence.

    Kasi sighs. "I meant why didn't you write a letter, using paper, not sorcery to make your own blood seep out of my looking glass."

    "That would have taken longer, and I was already on my way to the city," Amiti says, very reasonably. Then in a display of shocking patience, she waits a full second before adding: "It's necromancy, not sorcery."

    You stifle a laugh. This draws Amiti's attention toward you, at which point her face genuinely lights up all over again. "Oh, Ambraea! I didn't expect to see you so soon!"

    "The feeling is mutual," you say. "I'm pleased to see you. You really should have warned your family, though." You don't really mean the chiding. It's just nice to see a familiar face who is not having an emotional breakdown and saying hurtful things about your mother.

    "Well, if I'd done that, then maybe mother would have told me not to come," Amiti says.

    "Really, Amiti?" Kasi asks, long suffering.

    "I wanted to see you," Amiti says. "It's been seven years. Letters aren't the same. And I have a few things I want to discuss with mother face to face, for that matter, and she certainly isn't going to be able to make time to come to me somewhere else anytime soon."

    "She's not going to be pleased," Kasi says, frowning.

    "Well, of course she won't be pleased, she'll be talking to me," Amiti says, unbothered.

    "That's going a bit far," Kasi says, casting a meaningful glance in your direction. "We'll continue this later." You're not offended — it's obviously a family conversation.

    "Alright," Amiti says.

    "At least sit down," Kasi says, indicating the balcony. She seems to have wholly abandoned the rest of her plans for this encounter, at least for now. "You look like you're about to fall down."

    "That's only because I'm paler than you remember," Amiti says, but there's a certain half-boneless relief as she settles herself down onto a bench.

    "I wouldn't have said that was possible before you left, but you've managed it," Kasi says. "Bring us something sweet, and something to wash it down with," she tosses off to the servant girl, who has been standing awkwardly off to one side this entire time.

    "At once, my lady," the servant says, before bowing and retreating.

    You and Kasi take your own seats — Kasi nearest to Amiti, you on the far end. It's a little uncanny, seeing them next to each other like this. It isn't so much because of how similar they look, but rather the combination of that and the ways they look completely different. As she had been when you'd first met her, Kasi is golden blonde, red-eyed, and rosy cheeked. You'd already had the strange feeling of Amiti being a version of her that had been drained of all colour, but it's even harder to shake with them actually in the same room as one another — Amiti is the winter to Kasi's summer.

    "You changed your hair!" Amiti says, looking at Kasi sidelong.

    "I would hope that I'd change my hair at least once since I was fifteen," Kasi says, rolling her eyes a little. "It honestly rates more of a mention that you haven't."

    "I don't like to think about my hair," Amiti says, shrugging this off. As it has been for as long as you've known her, her bone-white hair is kept at an unfashionable compromise length, not quite shoulder-length.

    "Yes, I know," Kasi says, sighing again. But she's smiling despite herself as she does it.

    "It really is good to see you again," Amiti says, seeming reassured by the critique more than anything. She glances at you, hastily adding: "And you, Ambraea! Although it's not been quite as long. Are Maia and Sola in the city? No, that's right, they both had to go home first."

    "They did," you say, suppressing a pang of longing. "I'll see them again soon enough. L'nessa is in the city, though."

    "Oh, I'd thought that she might be," Amiti says, "How did she seem?"

    Awful, you don't say. "She seemed a little overworked," you settle on. "I think her mother has been relying on her quite a bit."

    "Well, she definitely hasn't been relying on V'neef S'thera," Kasi says. "Drunk in public again last night."

    "Oh no," Amiti says, "why is she doing that?"

    "Her fiancé, Tepet Kedus, died in the North," you say. "He was also her Hearthmate." It's still a pathetic display, for a woman you'd been hoping to surpass all these years, but there are at least somewhat extenuating circumstances.

    "Oh, I'd probably act out too," Amiti says, looking aghast enough to make up for your ambivalence.

    "I think you'd be less likely to get drunk in upscale brothels," Kasi says, dryly.

    "Well, I don't know what else I'd do if I found myself in an upscale brothel," Amiti says.

    "No, you'd pull out a book and read. You're too old and too Exalted now for anyone to pluck it out of your hands and throw it out the window for doing that in the wrong setting," Kasi says.

    "That's true," Amiti says, "but I don't imagine the lighting would be very good."

    Despite everything going on, it's nice to have an actual pleasant distraction, at least for a short while. "Have you been keeping busy since graduation?" you ask Amiti.

    "Oh, yes!" she says. "I got the name of a ghost who was a very famous necromancer in life. It's strange, but it almost never works out that way, did you know?"

    You frown. "That a necromancer leaves a ghost?"

    "Yes!" Amiti says, "There's a theory that the energies might draw your soul closer to oblivion. Almost all of them who can do necromancy are specters, which is fascinating. Anyway, though, she's been very helpful. I'm studying a spell to make accessing the Underworld easier without having to start opening up shadowlands, which almost no one ever likes. It's something Huwen suggested—"

    Kasi cuts in, apparently hoping to avoid the two of you drifting into a highly technical discussion of ghosts and spells. "Randen Huwen?"

    Amiti stops short, taking a moment or two to process the interruption. "Oh, yes, he's very clever about these things, and always so thoughtful. He was thinking— Kasi, stop smiling like that, you're being awful!" A rare touch of colour blooms in Amiti's face.

    "Wasn't your necromancer boy a Daha-Ai?" you ask, amused yourself.

    "The Empress struck House Daha-Ai and several neighbouring ones from the rolls before she vanished," Kasi supplies, having very much not stopped smiling when instructed to. "Dwindling numbers, and severe mismanagement of the lands they were ruling over."

    "Well, it's not their fault if Anathema showed up and decided to be horrible," Amiti says, a little defensively. To you, she adds: "House Randen was kind enough to adopt Huwen's mother and sister, and the mortal family members were part of the bargain. He's taken it rather hard, though, poor thing."

    "It's too bad you're not there to comfort him in person. I'm sure that would take his mind off things," Kasi says.

    "Stop!" says Amiti, swatting her on the shoulder. It's a token gesture, with no true anger behind it. "He's a friend. I'd still like to meet him properly someday, of course, but that's not..."

    As the two of them continue, you fall silent. Watching them gives you a strange feeling. The two sisters are obviously incredibly different, for all their likeness in voice and features, but there's a sense of genuine affection between the two of them. You can't imagine what it must be like, having a sibling who you not only care for, but feel comfortable loving so freely. Outside of possibly Mnemon and Rulinsei, you doubt any of your half-siblings have had that. It's not abnormal for the Dynasty, but your immediate family is, perhaps, a more extreme case than most.

    But surely that much is by design. from the perspective of a ruler in the Scarlet Empress's position, you're forced to acknowledge that imperial children busy squabbling amongst themselves would be both easier for her to control, and less likely to band together against her. The fact that you know this doesn't make the conditions you'd grown up in or the feelings that they had instilled in you simply vanish, however. Any more than that same knowledge has let your older siblings do the same in all their longer years.

    "... Well, there's nothing much to say about my love life," Kasi says. "One of us has to be responsible."

    "Were you being responsible with that Thunderhead girl you wrote about?" Amiti asks.

    "Extremely," Kasi says, unflappable.

    The servant arrives with refreshments amid Amiti's protests.

    The three of you enjoy some casual conversation to go along with a platter of sweets and a very nice dessert wine. Amiti's presence, and the evidence of your friendship with her, seem to make Kasi unbend in a way she hasn't in your presence before. As distractions go, it's a very nice time.

    At length, Kasi finally induces Amiti to go rest from the road — it seems like a good idea, given how little sleep Amiti tends to afford herself when she's hit on an interesting research topic. You're still a little sorry to see her go.

    Kasi watches her depart, before taking a polite sip of wine, and glancing back to you. "I brought up to you before that I was worried about her when we parted ways seven years ago."

    "Do you think your fear was misplaced now?" you ask.

    "Yes and no," Kasi admits. "I couldn't have guessed how successful she'd be at forming genuinely important connections — that you'd look out for her the way you did. It's not her fault that one of them is less valuable than it should be. I'm not trying to insult your Hearthmate, I'm just speaking practically."

    "None taken," you say, although the reminder of Sola's predicament puts a damper on your mood.

    "At the same time..." Kasi looks down the hall that Amiti had left through again. "... She's gotten very strange over the years. Well, stranger — she's always been like that. It's just worse now. Does being a sor— necromancer do that?"

    You sense that this is a serious, delicate question. "Do you understand why Dragon-Blooded necromancers are so much less common than Dragon-Blooded sorcerers?" you ask.

    "It's not my area of expertise," Kasi says. She refills your glass, which had been getting a little empty.

    You consider how to explain this to a laywoman, even an Exalted layman. "Sorcery involves harnessing the Essence of Creation, taking it into yourself, and using it to perform certain effects, which are discovered, rather than created. Powerful, but less flexible and simple than our native magic." You hold up a hand, and one of your rings gently pulls off of your finger, floating into the air above your hand, suspended there by the gemstone. "Our native Essence is not exactly the same, but it is close enough — Dragon-Blooded with the talent for sorcery are not so uncommon. Amiti did not have this talent at all."

    "What do you mean?" Kasi asks. "She can cast spells, she graduated from the Heptagram."

    "Necromancy is a separate discipline," you say. "It involves harnessing the Essence of the Underworld itself. It is difficult for a Dragon-Blood to turn their Essence to be able to do so — vanishingly few can manage this." You don't add that part of you is quite happy that this is the case. "The effects of sorcerous initiation can be dramatic. Sorcerers have a reputation for a reason. Necromancy, much more so. Did Amiti tell you what exactly she did to initiate, years ago?"

    "It was something about soulsteel," Kasi says, "I admit, I tend to skim the more technical parts of her letters. They're very dense, even with the diagrams." She seems increasingly concerned, and you doubt you're about to put her mind at ease. There isn't going to be a gentle way to break this to her.

    "Amiti has forged a small piece of her lower soul into a soulsteel pendant, and the resulting spiritual wound has formed a wellspring that Underworld Essence can collect in," you say.

    "Is that as bad as it sounds?" Kasi asks, clutching her wine in both hands.

    "It doesn't seem to have seriously harmed her. Over time, however, I feel that it has made her more distant from worldly concerns, and more fixated on her passions and intellectual pursuits. It isn't as if she doesn't feel — many things simply matter less to her than they should. It has... exaggerated her natural tendencies."

    Kasi forces herself to relax somewhat, although she doesn't seem pleased. She takes a slow swallow of wine. "I noticed in her letters, although I tried to ignore it at first. And then it's even more obvious in person."

    "She is still a very good friend," you say, "and very sweet, in her way."

    "That almost makes it worse," Kasi admits. "Her being sweet makes her too trusting, and too easily hurt when the world is cruel to her."

    You think of Peleps Nalri, and have to privately agree. "We all have our shortcomings," you say.

    "True enough," Kasi says. "I can continue to do what I can to paint her in the best light I can to our mother. Aside from that, I hope she is as lucky in her friends in the future as she has been so far."

    "I hope to continue to count her among mine for years to come," you say. It's easy for friendships to become more distant away from school, of course.

    "I'm not just worried about how she'll be treated, though," Kasi says. "I'm worried about what she might do. Where she might go. Her curiosity outstrips her sense, sometimes. I would feel better if she had companions versed enough in the occult to steer her away from the worst of her impulses."

    "I feel that you're asking me for something," you say, your voice quiet.

    "Your Hearth only has three members," Kasi notes.

    "It does," you acknowledge. You care for Amiti a great deal, if you're honest, and her talents are undeniable, if sometimes disquieting. She really would benefit from some oversight, as well. It would give you two Air Aspects, but a perfect Hearth, one of each Aspect, is an idealised notion more than a practical one much of the time. "I would need to discuss this with my Hearthmates."

    "Of course," Kasi says. "Apologies for my forwardness."

    "It's nothing," you say, taking another sip of sweet wine. It remains shockingly good, notes of blackberry and cherry exploding across your palette. You believe that Kasi is truly trying to look out for her sister's best interests. You also think, however, that convincing you to invite Amiti into your Hearth would constitute a valuable tie that she and her family might be able to make use of, whether or not you attach yourself to House Sesus in other ways. You trust Amiti, but she's not immune from the influence of the one family member for whom she seems to hold strong personal affection.

    When you finally part ways with Sesus Kasi after a further hour of pleasant conversation, you realise to your slight annoyance that the wine has affected you more than you'd ordinarily expect. Still, you manage to keep your pace measured and your gait even as you make your way to collect Garnet and be on your way.

    "Ah, Lady Ambraea, how lovely to see you."

    You had been so focused on maintaining your outward composure that the unassuming presence of the small, older woman sitting by a window completely catches you off guard. "And you, Sesus Cerec," you manage, speaking up before the pause is distractingly long. "It's been some time."

    Cerec sits in a comfortable looking chair, the book in her hands making her look startlingly like Amiti, for a moment. She shuts it firmly without bothering to mark her place, setting it aside as she rises to greet you. "I hope my daughter has kept you well entertained."

    "Both of them have," you say. Before thinking to add: "Have you been told that Amiti is here as well?"

    "I have," Cerec says, tone a little dry. "After she'd already arrived, of course. I like to think of myself as a well-informed woman, but I suppose that girl has always been impossible to predict." Then without warning, she takes a deliberate swerve. "Are you a student of recent history, Lady Ambraea?"

    "I'd like to think so," you say, your tongue distractingly thick in your mouth. Just how much wine had you drunk?

    "Well, don't we all," Cerec says. She has a small and enigmatic smile as well as Kasi's red eyes. Her shifting, smokelike hair is a strange distraction. "I hope you won't mind if I remind you — a century ago, House Sesus had several great rivals. We vied against Iselsi and Tepet in different ways. Where are they now?"

    Something about her tone sends a chill through your body. "What are you implying?" you ask.

    "I am implying," Cerec says, "that we are adept at taking full advantage of whatever circumstances our family finds itself in, and at rising to the occasion. I think we could make use of one another."

    A very conspicuous way to put things. "Maybe," you say, head swimming just a little.

    Cerec laughs. "Well, I won't force you to make a decision here and now — although, Mnemon is not a woman who likes to be kept waiting, so you'll need to make a decision very soon, I think. If you're interested in what we have to offer, please let me know."

    "You don't need to speak to your matriarch?" you ask.

    "I can't see why she'd be averse," Cerec says. "And Oban is entirely willing to present your situation to her in the best possible light. I wouldn't worry about it, overly much, however — you're the kind of woman who Raenyah approves of, even if you're a sorcerer."

    "I see," you say.

    "I'm sure you do," Cerec says, retrieving her book. "So nice to speak with you, Lady Ambraea. Choose well."

    With that, she departs, leaving you to mull over her words through the veil of your intoxication.


    The countryside of Scarlet Prefecture,
    Several hours beyond the limits of the Imperial City,
    The next day

    Well-ordered farmland rolls past under a slightly cloudy sky, vast rice paddies and fields of other crops stretching out to the horizon. Roadside tea-houses offer peaceful luxury for day trips out of the city, while in the distance, small villages dot the landscape in between the larger settlements. Scarlet Prefecture is one of the most densely populated and thoroughly tamed parts of the Blessed Isle, everything in its proper place. It presents a nostalgic vista to you. If you look behind you, the walls and towers of the Imperial City will still be plainly visible.

    You once again sit in a carriage, albeit this time for a much briefer trip, your head churning with the weight of the decisions you will soon have to make. Tearing your eyes away from the world outside your window, you look back to Evening Garnet, who is quietly embroidering an intricate, vaguely floral pattern onto a square of cloth. What you know of the woman — and what you don't know of her — seems to intersect with part of what's on your mind in a strange way.

    "Do you ever miss An-Teng, Garnet?" you ask.

    Garnet halts her needlework, looking up at you with surprise. There's an unusually long pause as she processes your question, as if she feels she has to answer it with exceptional care. "Please forgive me — it has been several generations since my family left An-Teng, my lady, I have never been there myself," she says. "I was born in Zhaojūn. There are many Tengese there, and in the neighbouring satrapies."

    You feel a brief flash of embarrassment, but accept the gentle correction. You never did ask. "Ah," you say. You stroke Verdigris gently, where she dozes on your lap. "But, you do have family in Zhaojūn, then?"

    "I do, my lady. A large one, in fact." She watches you as if trying to gauge where you're going with this, as if unsure of the ground beneath her, just then.

    "But, you chose to remain on the Blessed Isle once you'd been freed," you say. "Do you ever miss them?"

    Garnet's embroidery stills entirely. After several seconds, in a very quiet voice, she asks: "Will my lady be offended if I answer that question frankly?"

    "I should hope not," you say, although that doesn't bode well for this having a happy answer.

    Garnet takes an almost steadying breath. "As I said, I come from a large family. It was not a wealthy one, though. I became a slave when they sold me to a Guildsman at age twelve. As such, I do not hold a great deal of lingering affection for them."

    "Ah," you say.

    "The Zhao also put a great deal of stock in race and lineage," Garnet says. "The Tengese are not... highly esteemed in their lands. There are legal and social restrictions placed upon a freedwoman of my ancestry there. I do stand out as a foreigner here, and not everyone is always kind, but I am treated better in the Realm proper than I would be in my homeland, all the same. I would have difficulty finding a place as well positioned as this one."

    "Well, I'm pleased to hear that," you say. You suppose that a lack of filial loyalty is excusable, given her circumstances. You're not unsympathetic, and it is pleasing, in a sense, that she finds remaining in your employ preferable to other alternatives. It must be nice, though, to have familial problems that seem to have such a simple solution.

    You arrive at your destination shortly thereafter. Farmland tapers off near the state, leaving the grounds a lush expanse of green hills and well-tended forests. The building itself is relatively humble by Dynastic standards — a handsome, stone structure with what looks like a working smithy behind it. You doubt that Ledaal Shigora is doing any of her truly legendary work out here, but from the smoke that rises up out of it, it would seem she doesn't like to stay idle while attending business at the capital.

    When you arrive, you're met by a man with the bearing of a slave valet, who bows low and greets you formally. Once the driver has helped Garnet retrieve an important piece of cargo from the roof of the carriage, he leads you around the building, directly to the lady of the house.

    As you approach the smithy behind the house, you see that its extended workspace has spilled out beyond its bounds to encompass a row of tables surrounding the forge itself, intruding on the estate's humble but well-tended garden. They're laden down with plans, diagrams, and projects in various states of completion. It's a mix of mundane swords and what look like wooden and base-metal mockups of daiklaves — the latter are intricate, beautiful, and far too heavy as anything but reference points or display pieces.

    You see Shigora immediately. She's sitting on a wooden bench at the edge of the garden, dressed as though she's been working until relatively recently. This already feels like a highly irregular sort of visit.

    "You came," Shigora says, not rising or looking up. She's staring out across a row of hedges and flowerbeds, to where you now see a group of young children are playing in the distance. From so far away, it's hard to tell whether any of them are Dynasts themselves, or if they're simply local children making use of an empty field bordering a seldom used estate.

    "Was that in question?" you ask, surprised.

    "You're a very busy young woman these days, I gather," Shigora says. "My whims certainly can't rate as highly as those of a Great House Matriarch."

    "I was curious," you say, not quite denying it. Shigora's invitation had intrigued you too much to ignore.

    Finally, Shigora looks up to look at you properly. She's much as you remember her from the day you'd received the White Serpent. A short, stocky Air Aspect, skin and hair dusted with a thin layer of unmelting frost that makes her seem paler than she really is. She doesn't look anything like Ledaal Anay Idelle, but different branches of a Great House are often not very closely related. "Did you bring the sword?" she asks, a keen interest in her eyes.

    "Of course," you say. Garnet takes this as her cue. She steps forward, the heavy, lacquered box held carefully in both her arms — she's managing the weight well enough, as she'd insisted she could. Without attuning to it, a daiklave is an impractically heavy sword, but most of them aren't unfeasible for a mortal to lift, and Garnet is also simply stronger than she looks. You snap open the carrying case, lifting the daiklave out of it in both hands.

    Shigora takes a subtly steeling breath, then rises to her feet. As she does so, you catch a flash of blue jadesteel from beneath the hem of her robes where a flesh and blood leg should have been — you'd heard that a crippling injury had led to her retiring as a shikari, and it would seem the rumours are true. "May I?" she asks, approaching you.

    You transfer the daiklave into her waiting hands. She betrays the weight of the weapon even less than Garnet had, her eyes carefully running up and down the lines of the massive horse-cutting sabre. "You maintain it well," she says, sounding approving, "not all young Exalts bother — tell them that a sword will never rust and never dull, and they'll take it as an excuse to do nothing but wipe the blood off."

    "Thank you," you say, choosing to treat it as a compliment, rather than as surprise for you meeting the bare minimum of care for your weapon.

    Rather than respond, Shigora closes her eyes, stills her breath, and seems to focus on nothing but the sword in her hands. For a long moment, you all just stand there, the silence only broken by the sound of a bird chirping overhead. "Interesting," she says, opening her eyes again at last. "I've often found that a sorcerer's hand can make a blade's nature bend in strange directions."

    You're impressed that she can glean so much so quickly, but you suppose that she is the one who forged the White Serpent to begin with. "How so?" you ask.

    "The way a sorcerer views the world and the things she imagines a weapon might do are different from most Dragon-Blooded," Shigora says. "You, though, aren't so very complicated, I don't believe. A woman who wishes to act as a shield for others, and to rend apart curses and supernatural deceptions. Do you anticipate fighting other sorcerers so much?"

    "I used it to parry a spell that the Directory Bound in Crimson had cast upon one of my yearmates," you say, frowning. "I think something about its nature shifted after that." You don't add that before that, everyone's collective inability to quickly remove Simendor Deizil's curse had been both very unpleasant and very annoying. Surely that can't have made so great an impression as to have affected the nature of your daiklave.

    "That would help to explain it," Shigora acknowledges. She continues to examine the weapon in her hands, her eyes running over the orichalcum characters set into the white blade. "When Her Excellency commissioned this sword, I was of course honoured to accept her request, and for the regard for my craft that it demonstrated. She is one of the very few women in the position to truly pick and choose in such matters, after all. At the same time, a part of me was troubled. I'm sure you're familiar with my eccentricities, when it comes to who I make swords for."

    "I had heard of the oath," you admit, "that you require anyone you bestow a sword upon to swear to heed the call of the Wyld Hunt, when it arises."

    "Seldom something so formal as you're making it sound, but yes," Shigora says. "None could possibly claim to have done more to fight the forces of evil than the Scarlet Empress has. But when I was told that the sword was intended for an untested sixteen year old girl, well, as I said, I was troubled.

    Sixteen. "Do you remember what month it was when the request came?" you ask.

    "Resplendent Wood of 759," Shigora says, not even needing to think.

    You feel a strange lump in your throat. Barely more than four years before the sword had been presented to you. And, more importantly, the very month that you had finally fully achieved sorcerous Initiation. You think back to the impersonal letter of congratulations that the Empress had provided you at the time, the scant praise that you'd drunk in so pathetically. The entire time, she'd held such confidence in your eventual success that she'd commissioned such a weapon from one of the most renowned swordsmiths in the Realm. The realisation fills you with a painful mixture of relief, sorrow, and resentment.

    "What worried you so much?" you ask, trying to banish the emotions this conversation has stirred up.

    "Well, that the sword might go to a spoiled princeling sorcerer girl who would never use it for what it's for," Shigora says, "one who would never put herself on the line for the sake of anything greater than herself, or wield a sword for anything but her own benefit. I am happy enough to have been wrong." She smiles then, for the first time, subtle as the first day of spring. "To stand against Anathema and the forces of darkness is the highest calling any Prince of the Earth might aspire to. To slay one is a rare and grim privilege, let alone at such an age."

    You try not to bask in the praise too obviously, but it is very gratifying to hear her say as much. You had sometimes wondered how the creator of your sword might have felt about its commission. "I will admit, I didn't kill the Blasphemous with that sword," you say.

    Shigora tilts her head, interest sharpening her features. "How, then?" she asks.

    "I... may have crushed its skull under my boot." It sounds a little unbecoming, when put so bluntly. You had been very upset at the time, however.

    Shigora barks out a laugh, harsh but sincere. "As long as the sword cut him at least once, I'll call myself happy."

    "It did do a very good job of that," you say, remembering the lack of any resistance as it had sliced through the bone of the Anathema's arm.

    "Good," Shigora says, offering you the White Serpent back. You take it from her, not immediately putting it back into its waiting case. "It's easy to lose track of what matters, during a political crisis. I'm not so sentimental or naive to pretend that the politics of it all are something you can afford to outright ignore, but I trust you'll still remember that."

    "I'd like to think so," you say.

    Shigora nods, brusque and approving. "Well, then," she says, "with that out of the way, would you care to go inside? We can start over, and pretend I offered you suitable hospitality. You've come all the way out here, you may as well get a meal and some actual conversation out of it."

    It's your turn to smile. "I believe I'd like that," you say.

    It's nice to have a moment of two of quiet, before you're forced to make the decisions you know you have to,

    Article:
    Ambraea is faced with one of the most pivotal decisions of her life. With her mother gone, faced with the buildup for an inevitable war for the Imperial throne, Ambraea must seek out patronage from one of the Great Houses. There are no choices that guarantee a good outcome, or that don't involve some degree of sacrifice. Through a mix of who she is and the choices she's made, there are three strong possibilities:

    [ ] House Mnemon

    The Scarlet Empress's eldest surviving daughter, Mnemon believes herself to be the clear Heir apparent to the Scarlet Throne. By accepting Mnemon's offer, Ambraea prioritises safety and security for herself and those she feels most responsible for ahead of her over other concerns.

    In the years to come, adoption into House Mnemon reinforces some of the harder edges of Ambraea's worldview. Her conservative tendencies grow more pronounced, her adherence to the Immaculate Philosophy deepens. The mentorship that Mnemon hinted at will see Ambraea's sorcerous talents nurtured further in service to her new house — with the benefit of longer contact in a familial setting, her eldest sister is someone who Ambraea finds she respects and even likes.

    Ambraea's friendship with V'neef L'nessa will be at an end from the moment Ambraea decides to accept Mnemon's proposal. Mnemon's ascension to the throne will only come at the expense of L'nessa's house, something Ambraea knew full well when she made the decision she did. Ambraea's Hearthmates will be saddened by this falling out, but they haven't sworn an Oath to L'nessa, and will ultimately side with Ambraea.

    [ ] House Sesus

    In the leadup to the coming succession conflict, Sesus is willing to watch and wait. With its vast military strength and array of unique assets, House Sesus is well positioned to either align itself with a promising candidate for the throne, or failing that, to put forward their own Matriarch, Sesus Raenyah. By seeking refuge here, Ambraea prioritises flexibility as she makes a future for herself, without tying herself so closely to either of her older sisters.

    In the years to come, marriage into House Sesus and exposure to the house's internal culture reinforces Ambraea's more ruthless tendencies, advised by her fiancé and eventual husband, as well as Sesus Kasi, with whom she grows closer. Ambraea's relationship with her elder brother, Oban, is only superficially warm and barely familial, but he is willing to make use of her name and talents where they prove themselves useful, and to let her reap the rewards in turn.

    Ambraea's rejection of L'nessa's request puts a strain on their relationship, but the friendship does not entirely fall apart. Mnemon will be displeased at the refusal of her offer, but there are many people in the Realm toward whom she holds far more of a grudge, and is unlikely to take things beyond mere annoyance.

    [ ] House V'neef

    Despite being the Scarlet Empress's second-youngest living daughter, V'neef is already a matriarch in her own right, having benefited from the Empress's favour all her life. A popular and charismatic figure who controls the powerful and lucrative Merchant Fleet, V'neef feels she must win the coming civil war to ensure the future of her family. By seeking refuge with House V'neef, Ambraea refuses to sacrifice her friendships and her ambitions in exchange for greater safety.

    In the years to come, adoption or marriage into House V'neef will see Ambraea take on adult responsibilities and pressures sooner than would be the norm. She does all in her power to put V'neef on the throne. She will be forced to adapt quickly to the young House's eclectic internal landscape, and perhaps to find a more comfortable accord with a sister she has so far been unable to keep herself from resenting.

    V'neef L'nessa will not forget Ambraea accepting her heartfelt plea. They become Hearthmates, and their existing friendship solidifies into something stronger and more enduring. Maia would worry, but not object to L'nessa joining the Hearth. Her handlers in House Peleps understand that asking a woman not even of their own house to betray her Sworn Kin is a risky venture at the best of times, and it will limit how much they will try to use her against House V'neef. Of her own family, of course, she will make no mention.

    Mnemon will not forget this.
     
  • View discussion
    • Vote closed, Denouement 2 04
  • View content
    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Nov 16, 2024 at 12:25 AM, finished with 81 posts and 67 votes.
    Click to expand...
     
  • View discussion
    • Denouement 2: First Daughter 05 New
  • View content
    • House V'neef: 38

    House Mnemon: 19

    House Sesus: 15

    The next day

    Personal estate of Matriarch V'neef, just outside the Imperial City

    Your first surprise of the day is that L'nessa has clearly been practicing her Gateway skills when you weren't looking.

    "Honestly, Ambraea, it's like you've never seen the wounded cat gambit before," L'nessa says, as she maneuvers her elephant to take your aurochs.

    "It has been a year or two since I've played," you say, a little defensively.

    "Yes, I thought that might be the case," L'nessa says, giving you a mildly infuriating smile. Several turns ago, she had made what had looked like a fatal blunder, moving her tiger out of position on the middle tier of the board, where surely taking it would make her entire defensive formation fold. Instead, it had been the sacrificial bait for a trap that had now seen her take half of your most valuable pieces. "You should ask Sola to teach you at some point — she's quite good."

    "I'll try to keep it in mind, the next time I see her," you say. You might be distracted in more than a few ways at that point, but you can at least try. This time, the estate that you'd been invited to is anything but humble — a wood manse built in and around a stand of primeval forest, its walls of glass and green stone weaving through and containing trees and foliage. You and L'nessa sit at a shaded table in the middle of a sun-drenched veranda, the space defined by the ancient tree that grows up through the centre of it.

    In stark contrast to both Mnemon and L'nessa's excessively direct manner from before, you all seem to have decided to treat this as a purely social visit. So far, you've enjoyed a morning in your friend's company, catching up, speaking of frivolous things, and losing badly at Gateway.

    "Will you?" L'nessa asks, seeming to intuit the direction of your thoughts. "I suppose you two might fit it in between sword practice and other physical pursuits."

    "That does sound like us," you agree, trying to think of a way to salvage the game in your favour. "I've already written to her and Maia, including your offer to join the Hearth." Your tone grows slightly more serious, and you pitch your voice not to carry: "You do understand that you would be joining a kinship with me and my two lovers, I hope."

    "Well, if I survived rooming with you and Maia for seven years, I'm sure I can manage," L'nessa says, with an air of long-suffering martyrdom. "You're all very intelligent, poised women in your own right, but frankly, you really do need someone with a little more social finesse amongst you, I think — it's the least I can do to offer."

    "Yes, I can't imagine how we'd go on, otherwise," you say. Despite your mutual sarcasm, she has a point. When she isn't on the verge of an ugly emotional breakdown — which she almost never is — L'nessa simply has a much defter touch with people than either your or your Hearthmates do, and is far better at working around the stigma of being a sorcerer. Which feels particularly important, when you consider the prospect of Amiti. "You aren't worried about Maia? Considering everything." You finally move your own tiger back down a level, in clear retreat.

    L'nessa pauses over the board, giving the question serious thought. "I trust Maia," she decides. "More pragmatically, I do understand what her skillset is, and what her handlers at House Peleps are likely to want to use her for, while they have her at their disposal. But, they will understand the confines of a Hearth Oath as much as we do. Assuming she feels similarly enough to assent, they won't be able to abuse our friendship, or to ask her to harm me and my immediate family too excessively without effectively asking her to betray her oath and shatter her Sworn Kinship. Which is risky even when you're asking it of a woman from your own house, let alone a patrician you've fostered. I think it will make things simpler between us than it might otherwise be."

    "Well, I hope so," you say. You make your next move, which proves futile. Five moves after that, L'nessa says: "Oh, I've won, haven't I?"

    "So it would seem," you say.

    "Well, I certainly had fun," L'nessa says, already setting the board up again for the next person who might want to play.

    "And you're so humble in victory, too," you say, watching her work. You're only slightly annoyed — it's been too nice having a moment of genuine normalcy with her, even if that can't last, given your reasons for being here.

    "I try," L'nessa agrees. She halts over the last piece, stopping to turn the wooden tiger over in her hand. Something about her mood has shifted even before she speaks again and you hear the stiffness in her voice. "I will not be mawkish," she says, "or belabour the matter unbecomingly. And I daresay, there are practical reasons why you would choose us — I truly believe that our chances aren't so terrible as all that. But, all the same, thank you. You are a true friend."

    It really has been a week for awkward emotional encounters, you suppose. You could lie and reassure her that you're not so sentimental, that it hadn't been for her. That this had all just been the product of ambition and political calculus. Instead, you give her a small smile and say, in your driest tone: "Well, you are my favourite niece."

    Caught off guard, she descends into helpless giggling, ladylike restraint breaking in a way it seldom does with L'nessa, and for better reasons than in your previous meeting. "Purely by numbers, I suppose I should take that as quite the compliment," she says, once she masters herself.

    The two of you enjoy a long, pleasant moment like that, a gentle breeze blowing through the trees all around you, birds singing to one another in the branches overhead. You frown. "What is that?" you ask, trying to catch a sound at the edge of your hearing.

    "What is what?" L'nessa asks. But she gets to her feet, approaching the door back inside. Sliding it open, and the voices you'd just barely managed to pick up are now more audible.

    "--ould be trying to live a little more, at your age! Look at him, Argan, he's sooo serious."

    A look of mortification crosses L'nessa's face, and she takes a deep, steadying breath. "Hesiesh give me patience. The middle of the day?" She steals a glance in your direction, an apologetic look crossing her face.

    Past her, down a broad, glass-lined hallway, a small group is half-escorting, half-carrying a familiar woman. More than one of them is familiar, in fact. V'neef S'thera leans against a stocky, powerfully-built Fire Aspect woman who after a moment or two you recognise as V'neef Argan, S'thera's younger Hearthmate. On the other side of her is V'neef Darting Fish, who is awkwardly preventing her from toppling over onto Argan. Several servants hover around them, looking distinctly alarmed.

    "Is this an early morning, or just a very late night?" L'nessa asks as the group comes closer, her voice tight with disapproval.

    "Little sister!" S'thera straightens up, pushing awkwardly away from the two Dragon-Blooded carrying her. She wobbles dangerously, but doesn't fall over. Her clothing is disheveled, her dark, flower-strewn hair in disarray. The blindfold that would normally be covering her sightless eyes has fallen down to hang around her neck at some point — they're green, you note, like V'neef's. Or your mother's. "And, it's more the second one."

    "Why are you still drunk?" L'nessa demands.

    "Because I choose to be," S'thera says, smiling.

    "Cousin," Darting Fish says, his eyes very wide as they fall on you, "we have a guest."

    S'thera seems to take a moment or two to process that. "Oh. Who is it?"

    "A pleasure to meet you again, V'neef S'thera," you say, as though this is a normal way to meet someone. "And you, V'neef Argan. Darting Fish."

    "Likewise, Lady Ambraea," Darting Fish says, seemingly even more embarrassed than L'nessa. Argan simply nods. Under the circumstances, you can't find it too rude.

    S'thera freezes up, her drunken mind a little slow to process what's going on. Then several more flowers bloom in her hair as she floods her veins with cleansing Wood Essence, purging the toxins from mind and body. She stands up straighter, and when she speaks again, it's in a clearer voice. "It has been some time," she says, a little embarrassed herself now.

    "Six years," you say. "It left an impression."

    S'thera laughs at that. "Oh, I'm sure," she says. "I remember that sparring match. You were very determined for your age. I've been curious to test you again ever since Kedus told me how much you'd improved." A shadow clearly crosses her face as she says his name, her smile dying again.

    "Yes," you say. "Perhaps another time. I was very sorry to hear about Tepet Kedus."

    "A lot of people were," S'thera says, "he was well-loved."

    "Sister, may I have a word?" L'nessa asks, giving S'thera a hard look.

    "Ah, I see L'nessa is still intent on being the adult in the room," S'thera says to you, mock-apologetically. "Yes, fine." She claps Argan on the shoulder. "You should go get some rest, Arg."

    "Yes, for the next time I'm roped into coming to help find you," Argan says, voice incongruously soft for a woman of her size. She gives the rest of you a slight bow, and then leaves the room.

    "I'll speak to you again soon," L'nessa tells you, struggling to keep the indignation out of her voice.

    "Yes, don't let me keep you," you say.

    L'nessa and S'thera depart in a different direction from Argan, leaving you alone with Darting Fish, give or take a servant.

    "I'm sorry you had to see her like that," Fish says, voice quiet.

    "As am I," you admit. "I hope you've been well since I saw you last?" You take a seat on a padded bench by the wall, and after a moment's hesitation, Darting Fish follows suit.

    "Well enough," Darting Fish says. "I've been keeping up my research, although I might be going to sea in another year or two — my mother has been speaking of purchasing a fleet commission for me sooner than we'd expected."

    "A lot of things have been happening sooner than expected," you say, quietly.

    Fish gives a small chuckle at that. "Yes, I'd imagine that's truer for you than most," he says. "I shouldn't complain."

    You idly spin one of your rings, feeling a faint sorcerous connection between the jewelry and the dragon scale worn against your skin. "It looks as though what we discussed the last time we saw each other might be relevant after all," you say, "depending on a few factors." If you marry into House V'neef, the boy whose mother your father had already started negotiations with would be an obvious choice, unless V'neef has other plans you're not aware of.

    "Ah, you're here to speak to the matriarch," Fish says, "I'd been wondering. I... suppose that would be the simplest course of action, if you were marrying into the house. I can't imagine my mother would object." It feels as though he's withdrawn slightly, an almost troubled look in his oceanic eyes.

    "You don't seem altogether pleased by the thought," you say, tone cautious.

    Fish hesitates. "Well, you're a very accomplished and intelligent woman. And still a far better match than I have any right to hope for."

    "And yet?" you ask him, tone quiet. Verdigris slithers out from your sleeve, her smooth, metallic form twining around your hand.

    "You would think me childish," Fish says, not quite meeting your eyes. He follows a squirrel's progress as it scurries up and around a nearby tree trunk. You don't say anything, waiting to see if he'll elaborate. You'd felt a remoteness when you'd spoken to him before, and you'd like to have it out in the open, if at all practical. Fish takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "I had... always hoped for, not a love match, obviously, but a marriage to a woman who could come to care for me someday. As a man, not just as a friend." He still can't quite bring himself to look directly at you, clearly regretting having given voice to this.

    You do not say what comes immediately to mind, that this does, in fact, seem exceptionally childish to you. It's also not something you'd ever be able to provide — you'll have your duties to your husband, of course, but such affections are certainly not among what is actually required of you. "I see," you say.

    "I realise it's an overly romantic notion," Fish hastens to say, "not something I'd overthrow marriage negotiations over. I meant what I said — you are a fine woman, and I would be honoured if a marriage to you is what my house decides for me."

    "Yes, of course," you say. You hadn't taken him for that much of a silly boy. He'd still make a relatively comfortable match, assuming he can get over such notions. "I would, of course, not be so overbearing a wife as to deny my husband his own companionship, within reason," you say. Ideally a boy, but it doesn't always work out that way.

    "... Yes," Darting Fish says, his expression closing again, "I had thought that might be the case."

    "I hope I'm not interrupting," says a voice from behind you. You turn, finding yourself looking up at none other than V'neef herself.

    You swiftly rise, offering her a polite bow, even as Verdigris vanishes back up your sleeve. You're aware of Darting Fish following suit. "Matriarch," you say, "lovely to see you again."

    "And you," V'neef says. She gives Darting Fish a gentle sort of smile. "I hope you don't mind my stealing my sister away from you for a time."

    "Of course not, Matriarch," Darting Fish says. "Good day, Lady Ambraea. I am happy to have seen you again."

    "And you," you tell him, giving a small nod as you allow yourself to be drawn away. She begins to lead you down the hallway, and you fall in beside her, the two of you taking a leisurely stroll.

    "I hope L'nessa has kept you well entertained this morning," V'neef says.

    "Very well, Elder Sister," you say. "She simply had to step away to have a conversation with S'thera."

    V'neef doesn't quite allow herself to grimace but you get the sense, briefly, that she would have liked to. "Yes, I had been told that S'thera had been retrieved," she says. Then very pointedly changing the subject, she asks: "If you don't mind me asking, has your father been well? It has been some months since I've spoken with him, in the midst of everything else going on."

    "In good health, I think," you say. And obviously nursing a broken heart, you don't add. "He speaks well of you."

    "Oh, does he?" V'neef asks. She takes a right turn out of the hallway, directly onto a paved garden path. It brings you into sight of the manse's outer walls in the distance. "You know, the first time I can remember meeting your father, I was nine."

    "Oh?" you ask. This would place the event several decades before your birth, very soon after your father had arrived on the Blessed Isle.

    "Yes," V'neef says, "I was serving as our Empress's cupbearer at formal meals, at the time — a fascinating and educational experience, if occasionally more than a little stressful."

    "Yes, I can imagine," you say. The reminder of how your mother had elevated V'neef to positions of honour from early childhood stirs that familiar feeling of petty envy, but you find yourself drawn into the story regardless. Your father has never spoken about this time as much as he has his life in Prasad.

    "He was at the Empress's table that night, as well as Crown Marshal Azure Raven among others," V'neef says. "It was also their first meeting, I believe."

    "I can't imagine that went well." Azure Raven is a famous war hero throughout the Realm, and a constant presence at court, serving at the Empress's pleasure and coordinating the Realm's grand military strategy along with the other Crown Marshals. Or she had been, you suppose, before she'd lately vanished or fled into hiding. It's a strange thought, after so many years of her and your father being so publicly at odds.

    "Well, it did from a certain perspective," V'neef says, smiling enigmatically. "Although it didn't seem that way at first. Azure Raven spent a great deal of the dinner expounding upon the weakness and foreign decadence that had destroyed the discipline of the Prasadi legions, which she had heard second or third hand. Your father endured this in admirable silence."

    "He just let her say all that without a word?" you ask.

    "Yes, quiet and placid as anything," V'neef says. "She didn't consider what he might have done in Prasad before coming to the Realm, beyond him being the rani-satrap's son — he wasn't even consort yet."

    V'neef has taken you on a route through the garden, winding through dense shrubbery alive with songbirds. You're now ascending a curving flight of stairs that take you back into the manse proper.

    "What changed?" you ask.

    V'neef leans in closer to you, as though imparting a mildly scandalous piece of gossip, rather than a story that had occurred so many years before. "Oh, well, our Empress, who had not shown any sign that she'd been listening prior to that, deigned to glance over, and asked him if it were true that he'd been a dragonlord in the Burano Legions. He said yes — and I will never forget this — added 'my experiences differ in several ways from the Marshal's, but I would never presume to question her expertise on such matters.' The Empress laughed — the Marshal did not. He then spent the next hour, at the Empress's request, regaling the table with a fascinating story about the first military campaign he'd gone on."

    "I'd always wondered why Azure Raven hated him," you say, not entirely able to fight a smile away.

    The hallway that V'neef has taken you down is quieter, narrower, lined with a collection of curious Western artwork set into regular alcoves in the stone of the wall. Sorcerous lights that look uncannily like globes of captured fireflies hang from the roof overhead, casting the space in a warm, green-tinged light. Finally, she stops at a doorway at the far end, sliding it open, and stepping inside, clearly waiting for you to follow.

    Something about the mood has already shifted as you step inside and close the door behind you. V'neef's bearing subtly shifts toward something more serious than the idle talk from before. You're in a study, an elegant desk set up at one end. The walls are made almost entirely of glass and, despite the room being so close to the centre of the manse, surrounded on three sides by lush greenery. It takes you a second or two to realise that it's been built into a vast terrarium, sunlight trickling in from up above, tropical jungle flowers and trees flourishing off of the manse's energies, sealed away from the outside climate behind glass and stone. V'neef crosses to the desk, but doesn't sit behind it. Instead, she reaches for the lid of a crystalline sweet dish sitting there. "I must say, Ambraea, you have accomplished some truly impressive things since last we spoke," she says.

    "You're kind to say so, elder sister," you say.

    She lifts the lid, revealing the dish to be full of candied almonds. L'nessa's favourite sweet. "On several occasions over the years, our Empress spoke highly to me of your academic accomplishments. I think she would be very pleased. Would you like one?" she asks, even as she selects her own almond.

    Your mind reels at the sudden swerve in the conversation, and you don't immediately answer her actual question. "She said this... to you?" you ask.

    "I imagine more often than she did to you," V'neef says, her smile taking on an infuriatingly sympathetic tilt. "She has always been an expert in withholding well-earned praise just enough to make one desperate for it."

    You force down your initial reaction to this coming from her, of all people. Instead, you try focusing on the point just over her shoulder, where a vine-choked stone pillar is visible through the window in the terrarium. V'neef still has enough context to guess what you might be thinking, though.

    She puts an almond in her mouth, chewing it thoughtfully. When she next speaks, her voice has taken on a quiet, strangely melancholy tone: "I won't deny that our mother gave me more than most could expect. She heaped accolades onto me from a young age, was incredibly permissive with me throughout my childhood, gave me every opportunity I could have desired when I became a woman. Many of our siblings could claim to have earned their ascensions in blood — I was given the luxury of earning mine in ink. I didn't lay low a corrupt house, or weather years of assassination attempts, or win any great victories on the battlefield." She gives you a strange look as she adds: "... or lead my Hearth on a Wyld Hunt that slew three Anathema before I graduated secondary school. I simply saw my opportunity, and pressed my claim to a Great House. I understand why women like Mnemon or Berit might resent me for it."

    With a strange sort of feeling, you realise that the stone pillar, beneath layers of vines and moss, bears the weathered mon of House Iselsi. You are standing in a manse originally built by Maia's family, gifted to or purchased by V'neef when she became a house founder. "Do you?" you ask.

    "Of course I do," V'neef says, "I'm not a fool. And neither was our Empress — she understood what kind of a target she was putting on my back. But it was expedient to raise my house up as she did, and it pleased her to favour me so publicly. And what if it made Mnemon and House Peleps hate me in the process? She was free to protect me and my house for as long as it suited her to do so. And in the long run she could always use us hating each other, one way or another."

    "I have recently thought something similar," you admit, the words pulled out of you reluctantly. There's a long, lingering silence, before you ask: "Why are you telling me this?"

    "I suppose because I wanted the opportunity to speak to someone else who, despite everything, misses her the way that I do. Am I wrong?" V'neef asks.

    As much as your half-sister recounting the many gifts and honours that the Scarlet Empress bestowed upon her causes that familiar clawing resentment to stir in your chest, you can recognise the position V'neef was put in. Would you have said no out of some principled stance if the most powerful woman in the world had offered you what she had to V'neef? Obviously not, nor would any of your other siblings. You weren't wrong when you'd told L'nessa that your mother had loved you, but the Scarlet Empress had been a woman who loved selfishly, and only ever on her own terms. That doesn't mean you can make yourself stop missing her, anymore than you can simply make yourself stop disliking V'neef. "You're not wrong," you admit.

    V'neef nods, leaning one hand against her desk as she regards you. "I have always appreciated that you have never let your personal distaste for me affect our dealings, or your friendship with L'nessa. It struck me as very mature, at the time."

    You don't waste too much energy on being dismayed that she had seemingly known your feelings toward her all along. L'nessa had been one thing — you'd been roommates as well as close friends, after all. V'neef having been able to tell from the beginning is a little embarrassing. "I didn't think so," you say, in the spirit of similar candor. "The dislike I felt always seemed... petty. Childish. Unadmirable. Something that I wish were beneath me. Of course I tried to ignore it."

    V'neef nods, not displeased by that answer. "And so, you're here to ask something of me. You do understand what it will entail?"

    "Yes," you say, "you mean to become empress."

    "The survival of my house depends on it, so I must," V'neef says. "Once I start down this road, however, I won't be able to take it back. Nor will you, if you throw in with me in this way. Whatever Mnemon might have told you about destroying my house not being her primary goal."

    "L'nessa told you I said that," you say, wondering how much of that conversation she'd conveyed to her mother. Surely not the worst of it.

    "She did," V'neef says. She pauses momentarily, then with an air of almost morbid curiosity, she asks: "What exactly did our elder sister say on the subject?"

    "That she is 'not Ragara,'" you say, voice very subdued, "and that we should all be more grateful."

    The words seem to hang in the air for a moment. V'neef stares at you, her eyes widening just a little, as the full subtext sinks in. Slowly, she crosses to the other side of her desk, and takes a seat. "I see," she says.

    A troubled silence stretches between you for several seconds. Finally, V'neef breaks it again, returning to her earlier train of thought with some slight effort. "I cannot give you the kind of blithe assurances that Mnemon may have."

    "I know," you say. You'd thought long and hard about this, before you'd made your decision. The words come surprisingly easily to you now. "Mnemon looks at me as an object of pity. Something to reach out a hand to, a helpless girl in over my head, and I should be thankful to receive such grace and generosity. If I accepted her offer, if I met her expectations, I believe she would have kept her promises, shaped me into a daughter of her house, in all that entailed." An edge of steel enters your voice as you continue. "I want more than that. I'm not satisfied with her charity, or the role I'd likely have within her house."

    "Ambition, then," V'neef says. The look she gives you is appraising rather than disapproving. It isn't as though she were unfamiliar with it herself.

    "And," you admit, "L'nessa has been more of a sister to me than anyone has, these past seven years. I don't want to throw that away or make her my enemy."

    This would not have been the right thing to say to every matriarch, but V'neef softens slightly at the mention of her daughter. "Then she is lucky in her friends," she says. "And more than simply in her friends soon, I gather. Assuming your Hearthmates have no objections."

    "I have no reason to believe they will," you say, "but yes, that is my hope."

    V'neef nods, letting her voice take on a more serious note again. "Are you prepared to fight to put me on the throne? To heed my wishes and to do all you can for my house? This will not be brief or easy."

    "I am," you say, standing up a little straighter.

    "Are you prepared to one day swear loyalty to me as your Empress?" V'neef asks. "You are tying your future to that eventuality."

    The thought is still, on some level, galling. That is not a helpful impulse. You draw yourself up to your full height, and deliberately cast aside your reservations as best as you can. "If you are prepared to stay true to me, I am prepared to do the same, and to give you all that I have. On my honour, in Pasiap's name."

    "Good," V'neef says. "I will likely need you to say as much again more formally, and in public, but more than that can wait until after we decide on the details. Please, sit down." Belatedly, you sink into the emerald-upholstered chairs nearest to her desk. "I'll send for tea," V'neef decides. She reaches for a cord on the wall that is presumably connected to a bell elsewhere in the manse. "I believe this may take some time."


    Weeks later

    City of Lord's Crossing, Lord's Crossing Dominion

    The Central Blessed Isle

    Three years ago, Tepet Usala Sola had stood in her elder sister's office and looked down at the proud soldiers of the Third Tepet House Legion preparing to muster out. Row upon row of women and men clad for war, the standards bearing her house's colours, the officers mortal and Dragon-Blooded both. Now, all gone. The great courtyard stands empty, the entire shogunate-era fortress left eerily silent beyond a mere skeleton force. The absence of those who had once manned it lies heavy on the air, the summer sun bright overhead a mocking joke.

    The office of Tepet Usala Sumara is still as grand as it had ever been. Dragons are carved elaborately into its walls. Its furniture is centuries old, antique wood adorned in gold and jade filigree. Directly behind Sola, behind the imposing desk from which Sumara had once worked, a banner still hangs bearing the mon of a dead legion. Sola hasn't been able to make herself look at it.

    Sumara is dead. Sola doesn't know the details, but enough of the still-confused reports she's heard from Futile Blood agree that the Third Legion had held the centre, and when its lines had finally broken, Sumara had perished. Sola doesn't know exactly how, anymore than she knows the exact fate of either of her other elder sisters.

    The mood among her surviving kinswomen in Lord's Crossing is exceptionally bleak, the shock of their losses still not having quite worn off, everyone waiting for news from the Imperial City. For over a week now, the grandly named Council of the Empty Throne has been in tense negotiations, attempting to agree upon a course of action for the Realm in the Empress's absence, and the exact division of the former Imperial Legions. And legions are what House Tepet desperately needs.

    Sola reaches into the inside of her tunic, drawing out a folded letter. Snapping it open, she skims the contents again, savouring the sight of Ambraea's serious, workwomanlike brush strokes. It had been full of news, serious and minor, as well as an affectionate aside that had at least cheered Sola up. Ambraea is a deeply loving and passionate woman, in her own way, but she is not a poet.

    Left alone as she is with reminders of her grief, Sola misses her Hearth more keenly than she expected to, Ambraea's stoic intensity and Maia's quiet practicality. She wants to hear their voices, to confide her worries in them and to try to do the same in return. She also wants to shove Ambraea into bed for a day or two to make up for lost time, but it feels disrespectful to dwell on such thoughts here of all places. Like dishonouring a tomb.

    Someone clears their throat behind Sola, and she whirls around on one heel, eyes wild, Storm's Eye already several inches out of its sheath before she sees who it is, and stops herself.

    "The stories claimed that that sword sharpens the senses of its wielder," the woman standing beside Sumara's desk says. "Either the stories were mistaken, or you are particularly distracted." She's powerfully built, dressed in military garb, with very dark skin and braided hair shot through with verdant green among the black. Sola recognises her almost immediately.

    "Quartermaster," Sola says, too flustered to present her best manners. She hastily tucks Ambraea's letter back away. "What are you doing here?" Tepet Corino, supreme quartermaster of the Tepet Legions, is the highest ranking survivor among their house's military. Or the highest ranking survivor who hadn't vanished into the rural Blessed Isle to play at being a drunken hermit, but Sola can't think about Tepet Arada without a suppressed fury bubbling up inside her, so she does her best to put him from her mind.

    "Well," Corino says, her voice deep, musical, and bone dry, "I had been looking for Tepet Usala Sola, when I noticed that someone had broken the lock on the general's door. How fortunate that one thing seems to lead to another, cousin."

    Sola doesn't look at the open door, although a twist of guilt stirs in her stomach. It hadn't been her best decision, but she had needed to see this place. "Did you need something from me, Quartermaster?" she asks.

    "Yes," Corino says, "but I also need to fulfill an obligation." She motions the two figures waiting out in the hall forward.

    The servants walk in, carefully negotiating a large, cloth-wrapped object between them. With some effort, they set it down on the desk — it's heavy enough that they look visibly relieved at being rid of their burden, although the desk holds firm. One of them lifts up a smaller wooden box that had been balanced on the object, and sets it to one side. Sola stares at them with blank confusion.

    "Is that what I think it is?" Sola asks.

    "Please, check for yourself," Corino says, stepping to one side expectantly. The servants bow, and do the same.

    Sola steps forward with a strange feeling of trepidation. Beneath its covering, the object is a large, slightly domed disk. As Sola reaches a hand toward the blue-and-white cloth, she notices that the object exudes a deep arctic chill. With annoyance at her own cowardice, Sola forces herself to stop hesitating, grabs the cloth, and unfurls it from the object.

    As Sola had both expected and dreaded, what lays beneath is a thunderbolt shield of sky blue jadesteel. A thin layer of unmelting crimson ice is frozen onto the surface in an irregular pattern, the arterial spray of a behemoth that one of Sola's ancestors had slain millennia ago. Beneath it is the mon of the ancient Shogunate gens that had eventually produced Tepet himself, its simplified mountain a precursor to the aniconic symbol that her own house bears to this day.

    "You're giving this to me," Sola asks, frowning. "Why?" Sola's mother had taken the shield North with her, and as far as Sola knows, she had died with it on her arm.

    Corino is exceptionally grave as she answers. "Matriarch Tepet Usala willed the shield, Bloodrime, as well as many of her other worldly possessions, to the care of her eldest Exalted daughter."

    Sola is quiet for a long moment, still staring at the shield. When she speaks, her voice is very small. "I have three elder sisters," she says, refusing to understand.

    "We all have fewer sisters than we once did," Corino says, her deep voice oddly gentle.

    Sola nods. "How?"

    "You'll need to be more specific," Corino says.

    "How did they all die? You were there," Sola says, not able to tear her eyes away from Bloodrime. "And you have the shield — it would have gone to Forita after mother died."

    Tepet Usala Forita is, was Sola's eldest sister, a Sublime Armiger who she had greatly admired, but scarcely known. As an Armiger, Forita had dedicated her entire life to the mastery of and communion with one of House Tepet's most powerful ancestral artifacts. She had spent her days in emulation of the great hero who had once wielded that weapon, a warrior mystic famous for having practiced brutal, solitary asceticism. In her many decades of service, Forita had fought legendary duels, slain monsters, and won great battles. If Bloodrime had fallen into Forita's care, she would have treated it with all the reverence it demanded. Any Sublime Armiger would have.

    "She left it and the other item here in my care before Futile Blood," Corino says. "Perhaps I should have guessed what she was planning — I didn't know her well, however, and I was distracted. I didn't see it, but she and several companions mounted a suicide charge directly at the Bull of the North's honour guard."

    "And she died, and that monster is still alive," Sola says, too numb to feel the anger that she knows will come in time.

    "Alive, yes, but he might wish it otherwise," Corino says. "Your sister stabbed him with Fellshard. What reports we've had out of Plenilune say that he's bedridden, with his witch struggling to keep him from worsening. The poison in that sword will be trying to eat him alive from the inside out." Out of the corner of her eye, Sola sees that she's smiling grimly.

    "It's something," Sola admits. "Fellshard?"

    "Lost," Corino says. "I don't know what the barbarians did with it."

    Farita would have hated that more than her own death. But, at least the other heirloom that had been entrusted to her had made it back to the Blessed Isle. Slowly, Sola moves her hand the scant inches to touch the freezing surface of the shield. She feels a moment of bone-aching cold, but as she focuses on attuning Bloodrime's essence to her own, it subsides. "Sumara and Varana?" Sola asks.

    "The general died protecting her legion's standard," Corino says. "Some say she was overwhelmed by two dozen Icewalkers, others that she was slain by a barbarian outcaste who had thrown in with the Anathema. I can't swear to what is true, other than that she was brave to the end. I'm less certain about what became of Verana when the Second Legion broke. She was with the baggage train, and was simply never seen again after the battle. One of her Hearthmates has told me that he felt her die, however." There is a pause, as Corino says, "I worked with Verana for many years. She was a friend."

    Sola had met Tepet Usala Verana, quartermaster of the Second Tepet House Legion, on several occasions. She had always seemed like a brisk, competent woman, but never unkind to Sola. "I would have liked the chance to know all of them better," she says. They should have had many years for that, now that Sola was a grown woman.

    "I imagine it's so," Corino agrees.

    "Mother, Farita, Sumara, Verana... and now it's just me," Sola says. She takes her hand off the shield, looking at the box that rests on the table beside it. It bears the mon of Matriarch Usala's personal household. She thinks she knows what's inside of it. "What did you need to speak to me about, Quartermaster? You said you wanted something."

    "Yes," Corino says. "I have been organising a ruling council to lead our house, before we decide on a new Matriarch."

    "You must be in the running for that," Sola says. "Who would even be left to oppose you?"

    Corino shrugs the suggestion off. "In time, perhaps. Under the circumstances, we don't have time to play politics or squabble amongst ourselves about the matter. You would be in the running, I think, if you were a few decades older. Or maybe even still, if you weren't a sorcerer. Wielder of the lost blade, Storm's Eye, and hero of a three-Anathema-hunt already at your age — matriarchs have been made with less, at need."

    Sola grimaces. She should be grateful for her youth and disrepute, then.

    Corino continues. "I would like to convene the council at the Pagoda of Blood and Pearls."

    "Mother's personal manse," Sola says, frowning at the box.

    "Yes," Corino says. "Yours, now. Optics matter, with such things. Leading from the same place that she did will give some sense of continuity. We desperately need that."

    "I don't imagine I could stop you even if I said no," Sola says.

    "Do not be childish," Corino says. "As you've said, you are Matriarch Usala's only surviving daughter. I would like to cooperate, for the good of the house."

    "Because optics matter," Sola says again.

    "Yes," Corino says, an edge of annoyance coming into her steady voice, "and because I served your mother all my life, and doing well by you is the least courtesy I can provide her. And because our house does not have so many promising young scions from prominent bloodlines left."

    "Yes," Sola says. She flicks open the gilded hinges of the box, lifting the lid to reveal a nearly fist-sized red pearl held within: The Hearthstone for the Pagoda of Blood and Pearls. As she takes it in her hand, she feels the power it radiates, dark and cool. "Very well," Sola says. "If you need my permission, you have it. I apologise for being short — this has been a blow, and we're already on edge from waiting for news from the capital."

    "Oh, we've had news," Corino says, an exceptionally bitter note coming into her voice. "The houses have decided on the division of the Imperial Legions."

    "And?" Sola asks.

    "We are to receive one. Cathak and Sesus, of course, are taking four each, on top of their House Legions."

    "... Which one?" Sola asks, her hand tightening around the Hearthstone. Fortunately, it is more durable than a natural pearl would be.

    "The 40th," Corino says, smiling mirthlessly.

    A legion of infamously low repute, and a known dumping ground for criminals and black sheep of all kinds. "Is this a deliberate insult?" Sola demands, her anger finally breaking through in earnest.

    "On the part of some," Corino says. "For others, we simply have no power to demand better anymore, and giving it to us would come at their own expense. The Cathak representatives actually argued that we should be given none at all. They are also blocking our preliminary efforts to raise new house legions."

    "This is the famed Cathak honour?" Sola asks. That Sesus wouldn't hesitate to kick a rival when they were down had never been in question. From Cathak, it is somehow worse.

    "So it would seem," Corino says. "We have precious few friends, powerful enemies, and a legion and a half to our names. It will be bloody work to keep this house alive, for all of us."

    "... I understand," Sola says. She brings the hearthstone to Storm's Eye's pommel, where a conspicuous hollow is left in the orichalcum. She snaps it into place, and the magic of the blade keeps it there, the entire sword seeming to pulse once before quieting again. Sola can already tell that somehow, the addition of the stone doesn't affect its balance at all. "I will do as my house requires."

    "Good," Corino says, "we can't afford otherwise."

    Sola will have a great deal to speak to her Hearthmates about, by the time she sees them again.


    Erona Family Estate, Incas Prefecture

    The Eastern Blessed Isle

    The young man is easily twice Maia's size, rendered awkward and clumsy in his words by the obvious fact that he finds her terrifying.

    "You studied at one of the Outer Coil schools?" Maia asks him, trying to coax him into ordinary conversation, while they're both here wearing their best clothes.

    "Well, I mean, um, yes!" he says, blushing like an idiot, for some reason. "I graduated from the Flowering Vestibule last year." What is his name, again? White Thyme? Some kind of herb. The Vestibule is part of the small constellation of lesser secondary schools that cluster around the Spiral Academy, teaching similar subjects to mortal Dynasts, mortal patricians, and the occasional poorly positioned Dragon-Blood.

    "What did you specialise in?" Maia asks.

    "Um, well," he swallows, "well, the Vestibule, it specialises in finances, and... and..."

    Maia tunes him out. She stands in her family's own garden, the night sky clear overhead. Music drifts on the air, and all around, guests talk and laugh and enjoy the entertainment. It's slightly on the extravagant side for a patrician family like the Erona, but an Exalted daughter graduating from one of the great secondary schools of the Realm is not something that one gets to flaunt every day. Even if the school that Maia has graduated from is inauspicious and worrisome.

    After so long in the company of Dynasts, it's always slightly jarring for Maia to find herself back among the patriciate, where her status as a Dragon-Blooded is a sufficient point of distinction to overcome even the stigma against her being a sorcerer. People look at her with a mix of wariness and awe, and there are a conspicuous number of unmarried patrician men from Incas and the surrounding prefectures, notions of marriage in their parents' minds, if not always their own.

    Unlike her visit to the palace several years ago, Maia has also been able to eschew the more feminine pieces of finery that her mother had attempted to press upon her. She isn't a child anymore, and Maia's mother is dramatically less fearsome than her grandmother. This leaves Maia dressed quite similarly to the young men she has been obliged to talk to. She doesn't think that's entirely helping matters with White Dill, or whatever his name is.

    Regardless, this is not working. Maia glances around, settling on a pair of vaguely familiar teenagers, close enough that addressing them is excusable. "Saya!" Maia calls. The young man cuts off with an air of mingled dismay and relief. Erona Saya, nineteen and looking surprisingly adult in a new dress, gives an obvious start, but doesn't hesitate, a tentative smile on her face as she approaches.

    "Hello, cousin, I'm surprised you recognise me," Saya says, bowing to Maia. "It has been..."

    "Seven years, almost exactly," Maia says. "It's good to see you." Her eyes snap over to Saya's companion, a young man near Saya's age. After a second or two, she guesses: "Erona Naias?"

    Naias looks very pleased to have been recognised. "Yes," he says. "You seem well, cousin." He seems distinctly more nervous than Saya had — Maia had known him less well during their childhood. He has changed dramatically over the years, and now appears to be attempting to grow a beard, with a surprising amount of success for Maia's family.

    "Well enough," she says. She looks to her original companion, who has fallen silent. "This is White Thyme," she says, guessing at the correct name with all the confidence of someone who doesn't actually care about Thyme's opinion. "Have either of you met him before?"

    They have not — although, it transpires that Naias is attending one of the other Outer Coil schools, giving Thyme something to genuinely speak to him about. Maia is so pleased when she's able to quietly extricate herself from the boys' conversation, that she's entirely willing to entertain Saya's questions about the Wyld Hunt that Maia had participated in with her Hearth the previous year.

    She is approached by several other boys before the night is out, but fortunately none of them are quite as hapless as the herb boy had been, and she's able to enjoy herself well enough. It's the kind of night where Maia can simply pretend that her family is an ordinary patrician family, for a short while. She could use the distraction from the thought of the news that Ambraea had sent her. News that Maia had tried to convince herself that she had been prepared for, given its necessity, despite the sleepless nights it has been giving her.

    In light of that, some normalcy in the form of a garden party isn't bad.

    That is, until the wee hours of the night come around, when most of the guests have departed or been sent to bed, and Maia's mother appears at her side. "Maia," she says, her voice even in a way that Maia doesn't trust.

    "Yes, Mother?" she asks.

    Erona Maidal is a mortal women in the full grip of a graceful middle age, a mid-ranking Thousand Scales bureaucrat most notable for having successfully borne two Dragon-Blooded children. Maidal's hair has been a steely grey since her mid thirties, and she shares many of Maia's features, although not Maia's small stature. Her voice is entirely calm as she says: "I forgot to mention earlier — a message arrived for you."

    "Ah," Maia says. "Thank you, Mother. What time?"

    "Oh, it must have been seven hours past," Maidal says. "A personal matter, I think. It isn't anything too pressing."

    "I'll see to it now," Maia says, carefully passing her wine cup to a nearby servant. The seemingly innocuous exchange has told her several things that have officially put a damper on the evening, although they're not unexpected. Her grandmother, Erona Vermillion Shore, is here waiting in the basement, she requests Maia's presence immediately, and she is not alone. Maia wishes, but does not truly believe, that this has nothing to do with Ambraea and her dealings with V'neef.

    She navigates the dregs of the party, slips into the estate, and casually makes her way through the halls where she'd spent her childhood. The Erona estate shows all the signs of a middling patrician family struggling to appear more than it is. Cheap artwork arranged to seem expensive, faded and threadbare furnishings tucked away in certain corners, and an entire wing shuttered to avoid having to pay for the additional staff to maintain it.

    This last is Maia's destination. She slips through a disused door, latching it behind her, and walks through a darkened, half empty library. Crumbling religious books share space with treatises on subjects from centuries past and long-outdated gazetteers, filling the air with the scent of musty paper. At the far end, in a lonely corner, she finds an almost bare stretch of wall. Maia's hands find the finger-sized impressions hidden in it, and press them in the correct order. After a momentary pause, the false door unlatches with a click, and Maia is able to push it open, slip through and latch it behind her.

    Maia finds herself at the top of a long, narrow staircase spiralling downward. She takes in a deep breath, centring herself, and when she lets it out, Erona Maia, ordinary patrician woman, is gone. Iselsi Maia, cold and resolute, stands in her place. This is one of the few places in the world where it behooves her to truly be herself. She descends the stairs with silent steps, barely pausing as her keen hearing begins to detect voices rising up from down below.

    "... the fish from the aquariums in the House of Black Water? The ones that it's named for." It's a man speaking, one who Maia can't place.

    The second voice is unmistakably Maia's grandmother. "I recall. Pallid, sickly looking creatures? Die if they're exposed to bright lights?"

    "Oh, good. Now, imagine it were simultaneously a barbarian necromancer, and yet still insipidly morally judgemental. About as pleasant a conversationalist as that. This is what I have to contend with from the new generation of my colleagues." The voice has an old-fashioned inflection, in a way that Maia has heard from particularly old and out of touch Dragon-Blooded.

    Vermillion Shore actually laughs, genuine in a way that Maia has never heard from her. "Truly, no one suffers more than you, Uncle," she says.

    Maia arrives at the bottom of the staircase, and deliberately makes enough noise on the last few stairs before the final landing to announce her presence. The voices cut off. Here, the stairway opens up onto a wood-panelled rim lit by a row of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Masks hang from the walls, sightless and staring, each written with the story and the accomplishments of Maia's family members, each reaffirming what has been taken from them, and what they need to do to avenge it.

    Maia had first been taken here at age six, and then again after she'd Exalted. It's the place where she'd taken her first life — standing in it always makes her remember the sensation of hot blood being spread onto her palms, hear her grandmother's words in her head. Nothing can ever take this back. An instrument of vengeance, so anointed, may never be unstained again. Always, remember what you are.

    "Hello, Grandmother," Maia says, bowing respectfully to Erona Vermillion Shore.

    "Granddaughter," says Vermillion Shore. She appears as she always does. Deceptively fragile, an aging Water Aspect adorned in drab clothing of a martial cut. Her smile never entirely reached her eyes, blue like the drowning sea.

    "Everytime I see her, she looks more like your mother," the man standing with her says. He's dressed in elaborate robes of a style that had been popular among Dynasts centuries ago, like an actor from a period play. Despite this and his archaic manner of speech, he looks startlingly young beside Vermillion Shore, especially for someone claiming to have known Vermillion Shore's mother. Dark hair in an elaborate style, Wàn features, and pale, unlined skin. No sign of anything that would mark him as Dragon-Blooded. However, his eyes are a striking violet.

    Something about that final detail gives Maia pause, but it's like trying to remember a dream — there's nothing there but the vaguest memory of a memory. Maia isn't sure how to respond — she's certain she's never met him before in her life.

    The man's smile turns a little wistful at her lack of recognition, but he doesn't seem surprised. "Don't fret about it, Niece. As you know, our familial situation rarely allows things to be straightforward."

    "As you say," Maia says. Taking her cue from Vermillion Shore about the exact relation, she bows to him. "A pleasure to meet you, then, Great Uncle, even if it isn't for the first time."

    The man seems more pleased by that than Maia expects. "You seem more than a little tense, Maia. Relax. You're not here to be punished."

    Maia's eyes flick over to her grandmother, who doesn't speak. Mai will have to bring up the obvious herself. "I disobeyed instructions and accompanied Lady Ambraea and Tepet Usala Sola on a Wyld Hunt, last summer," she says.

    "You did," Vermillion Shore confirms. "But your instructions also include remaining on good terms with your lover, and you failed to either die or disgrace yourself. You did the family proud."

    "Thank you, Grandmother," Maia says.

    "I have been harsh with you over the years, " Vermillion Shore says, "but only for your own good. Despite your independent streak and one or two missteps, you have done well."

    "Thank you, Grandmother," Maia repeats. "I'm glad to hear you say so." This isn't it. If it had simply been a matter of her grandmother telling her that she's proud of Maia, it could have been done in public. Nothing so innocuous ever occurs in this room. She waits for confirmation.

    "Speaking of your Hearthmates," the man says, "you have news from the Imperial City, I think?"

    "Yes," Maia says. "Ambraea is... Ambraea has sought refuge with House V'neef. And she has asked if I will agree to induct V'neef L'nessa into our Kinship."

    A horribly sympathetic expression crosses Vermillion Shore's face. "And so the girl has thrown in with our enemies, as she always would in the end. Take heart, Granddaughter — I know this is not easy for you, but I have faith that you will do as duty requires, in the end."

    "Of course," Maia says, feeling sick to her stomach. And here at last it is — It was always going to end up this way. She'd known that, on some level. Up until this year, though, she'd been able to lie to herself, to pretend that Ambraea's unusual status as a Dynast who was not within the scope of the Vendetta itself might continue forever.

    "You are going to say yes?" Vermillion Shore asks, in a way that is only barely a question.

    "To V'neef L'nessa's request? I am," Maia says. She has deeply mixed feelings about this. On a purely emotional level, Maia likes the idea of bringing L'nessa into their Hearth, of making her friend one of the small number of people who she can truly rely on. But with every friend joined to her in this way, Maia's duty feels less and less clear.

    "Very good," Vermillion Shore says. "The Ambraea girl is still enamoured with you, yes? I have heard certain rumours."

    "She loves me," Maia says. Saying this here, to her family, to these people who in the scope of things mean Ambraea harm, feels like a small betrayal. Denying it would have felt like just as much of one. "Whatever she might feel for another woman doesn't change... it doesn't jeopardize my position."

    "Well, she certainly comes by having a wandering eye honestly enough," the man says, equal parts amusement and disapproval. Very briefly, Maia hates him a little for that.

    "See that you don't let her forget about you in the coming years. It creates useful opportunities."

    "I will need to go back to the Imperial City soon," Maia says, on that note. "I promised I would, and we can't swear in new Hearthmates without all of us."

    "Yes," Vermillion Shore agrees. "I have instructions for your time there. And for what you are to do afterward, when it is time to present yourself before your contacts with House Peleps. They may be displeased with some of your connections, but we can handle that. We will bend this situation to our benefit, as the stream wears down the mountain."

    "Yes, Grandmother," Maia says, relaxing as the instructions turn away from the woman she loves and her dearest friends, and toward people whose lives don't matter. All the while, the man looks on, a fond smile on his lips, his violet eyes catching the light. Almost like stars.

    Afterward, Maia will not remember he was ever there, or what exactly he told her.

    Article:
    Ambraea has made the decision to approach her youngest elder half sister, V'neef, to seek shelter and protection in exchange for her loyalty and her services in the years to come. Ambraea has taken the time to forge ties to House V'neef in good faith, has remained a loyal friend — soon to be Hearthmate — to V'neef's beloved youngest daughter, and approaches House V'neef at a time where their future is uncertain, and they need as many useful allies as they can get.

    Altogether, this means that Ambraea has a degree of bargaining power and good will that she would not have had with Mnemon. V'neef is willing to be flexible in what Ambraea's attachment to her house looks like. In all events, Ambraea will forswear any notional right to the Scarlet Throne she might have, in favour of supporting V'neef's claim.

    [ ] [V'neef] Adoption

    Ambraea is formally adopted by her sister, becoming V'neef Ambraea. While V'neef has many adoptive daughters, none of them her own sister, or her blood daughter's Hearthmate. This option represents Ambraea committing to V'neef's family and her cause as fully as she can. She will still marry quite young, as V'neef attempts to negotiate a match for Ambraea that helps to solidify a useful alliance with another house. In honour of her high status and elevated bloodline, Ambraea's children will carry the name V'neef Ambraea.

    Following this decision, Ambraea will eventually grow closer to her new matriarch as a sister, rather than simply as another adoptive daughter. It will be viewed as a very strong statement of Ambraea's loyalty to V'neef's cause. L'nessa, of course, will still call her "Aunt."

    This will be painful for Maia.

    [ ] [V'neef] Marriage

    Ambraea marries "into" House V'neef, as V'neef herself did to House Tepet many years ago. She will almost immediately announce her engagement to a suitable man of her sister's house, and the marriage will occur very quickly. This option represents Ambraea committing herself to V'neef's cause, but retaining a degree of separation and independence. L'nessa will still swear a Kinship Oath to Ambraea and her Hearthmates. While they will be associated with House V'neef, Ambraea's children will not have a house of their own unless Ambraea is able to found her own house in the future, or they enter one themselves through marriage or adoption.

    Ambraea's relationship with V'neef will grow more cordial over the years, but is unlikely to develop genuine warmth. She will marry V'neef Darting Fish, allowing his house to retain his services and elevating his status. He and Ambraea will develop a friendly partnership over time.

    This will be painful for Maia.


    Sesus Kasi has requested that Ambraea invite her sister, Sesus Amiti, into her Hearth. Along with L'nessa, this would bring their number up to five, ordinarily the maximum number of Dragon-Blooded who can belong to a Sworn Kinship. There are reasons why Amiti becoming Sworn Kin to Ambraea is less of an unalloyed good than L'nessa is, and her Kinship will discuss them amongst themselves before coming to a decision.

    Amiti's status as a necromancer, and dire lack of social graces, are things that will make her a pariah from much of polite Dynastic society, even beyond what most sorcerers suffer. Association with her will at times be inconvenient, or actively detrimental. While an additional tie to House Sesus is useful in many situations, Ambraea cannot be certain what side Amiti's family will eventually take in the coming conflict — aside from, as always, their own.

    Amiti would be an intensely loyal and caring Hearthmate, however, and her unique skills and insights are an asset all her own. Sesus Kasi will be extremely grateful that her request was heeded.

    Without strong ties among the Dynasty beyond her twin sister, Amiti may go farther afield and take greater risks in her research and her adventures. Eventually, someone will likely see the use of her talents, for good or for ill.

    [ ] [Amiti] Do not Invite Sesus Amiti into your Hearth

    [ ] [Amiti] Invite Sesus Amiti into your Hearth

    These are the final two votes of the Last Daughter, and while there will be another update after this one, their ramifications will be more fully explored in the sequel quest. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me over the past three years.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • Vote closed, Denouement 2 05 New
  • View content
    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Nov 28, 2024 at 7:25 PM, finished with 81 posts and 49 votes.
    [vneef] [amiti]
    Click to expand...
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • Endings New
  • View content
    • How Does Ambraea join House V'neef?

    Adoption: 39

    Marriage: 7

    Does Ambraea's Hearth invite Amiti to join them?

    Invite Sesus Amiti into your Hearth: 46

    Do not Invite Sesus Amiti into your Hearth: 2

    Secluded training ground of House Ledaal, Howling Heart City, Howling Heart Prefecture

    The Northwestern Blessed Isle

    The city of Howling Heart is a lonely, secluded place. Surrounded by high mountains riddled with old jade mines, it takes its name for the sound of the wind whistling through those tunnels at night. For many of the common people, though, it has a darker meaning.

    The ancient demesne is beneath the city itself, the metaphorical heart of the mountain. Vast and cathedral-like, it's filled with speleothem formations larger than a woman is tall, lit throughout by an eerie half-light, the ambient Essence in the air induced to a thin twilight glow. Properly capped, it could make a particularly large and powerful manse, but House Ledaal has had very different uses for the place.

    Ledaal Anay Idelle forces her breathing to stay steady, her mind to focus. She stands in a trench in the cavern floor, narrow and mantled in flowstone like the bars of a cage. It's part of a maze that snakes its way through much of the demesne, a mix of natural rock features and the old scars from jade mining in centuries past.

    The gloom seems to deepen the further into the maze she goes, her path now lit by the red glow of her own anima and the sorcerous will-o'-the-wisp that trails slightly behind her. In one hand she grips the shaft of a short spear, its steel blade dark with the shed corpus of profane spirits. In the other, she consults the cracked mirror bound to the back of her bracer, searching its depths for any sign of movement. Idelle tries to ignore the sensation of blood slowly seeping out of the claw marks torn into one of her legs. The spectre she'd dispatched already hadn't gone down without a fight.

    Idelle steps out into a wider part of the maze, stalagmites rising up on all sides. Blocking out the pain and the prickling fear at the back of her mind, she takes in a deep, meditative breath and lets it out, falling back on her Golden Janissary training to deepen her senses. She feels the presence of dark spirits like a foul taste in the air and her eyes find a patch of unnatural darkness amid the stalagmites reflected in the mirror.

    Idelle turns on her heel, her spear already pulled back. Letting out a defiant shout, she strikes at the place where the ghost's twisted midsection should be — it's wrenched into the material world with the force of her will and isn't fast enough to escape being speared through its wizened chest. A searing, golden light begins to blossom from within the ghost's corpus. As she pulls her spear free, holy flame begins to burn it from the inside out. It rakes bone-white claws against its own shadowy flesh, trying to tear the flame out, but can do nothing.

    Idelle is preparing for a followup blow when the third and final ghost attacks her from behind. It had been lurking immaterial in the deep shadows behind her. Now, it erupts into solidity on a gust of cold, fetid wind, claws and fangs outstretched in full pounce. Before it can touch Idelle, though, before she can even round on it, her will-o'-the-wisp acts first. It expands out into a sword of pure flame, intercepting the ghost's claws in a rain of sparks. That gives Idelle all the time she needs. She strikes the third ghost with a sweeping slash that catches it in one grotesquely-spiked shoulder, hurling it to the ground and pinning it there with the weight of purifying Essence.

    It glares up at Idelle with pure malice as she drives her spear through its chest, spearing what passes for its heart. It dissipates in a rush of vile shadow. Behind her its fellow is fully consumed by the golden flames, and follows suit.

    Idelle pauses for a moment, seeking out any other trace of corruption in her surroundings, and finding nothing. She forces herself to relax while staring down at the place on the floor that the ghost had lain. "Do not come back. Seek out better choices in your next lives." She takes no pleasure in dispatching these wretched, twisted souls, beyond the hope that they will finally find Lethe and accept reincarnation back into the Perfected Hierarchy. It's the one thought that has allowed her to swallow her distaste for her house making use of the corrupted ghosts in this way.

    She's startled when a voice calls down from above: "Compassion, for a mortwight? If you have time to spare on such sentiment, you must truly have nothing further to learn."

    Idelle is still trying to identify where the voice is coming from when a figure falls down on her like a blue jade comet. Idelle barely has time to recognise the deadly length of a direlance in her attacker's hands. She tries to ready herself, but the flying spear thrust isn't aimed at her. The tip of the direlance catches her guardian sword squarely in the middle of its blade and shatters it into trailing embers. Idelle's own spear comes up to block the inevitable next blow, but no sooner has the newcomer landed then she spins the direlance up under Idelle's guard, slamming it hard into Idelle's breastplate and driving the air from her lungs.

    Idelle falls hard to the ground, her spear leaving her hands, trying desperately to catch her breath again. Her attacker kicks Idelle's spear away, lowering the tip of the direlance to Idelle's throat. It's only then that Idelle fully processes that she has been struck by the butt of the weapon, not its lethal blade.

    "Your skill is impressive, daughter," says Ledaal Anay, standing over her like an unyielding statue, "your dedication to your training and commitment to our cause undeniable. But your father's barbarian weakness still plagues you. I have told you before — A woman of our house must know how to harden her heart."

    Idelle looks nothing like Demon Fang Anay. Anay is tall, pale, her dark hair sleek and glossy, her shoulders broad beneath her armour. Around her neck hangs a moonsilver serpent's fang, a trophy torn from the mouth of a slain Anathema a century past, and the source of Anay's enduring sobriquet. Her hard, grey eyes have never shown a trace of warmth when they've fallen on Idelle.

    In her youth, Anay had fallen in with an Eastern outcaste named Gold Talon, a warrior exorcist and master of Golden Janissary Style. Together they had become near legendary shikari, fighting demons and Anathema, saving countless lives and inspiring even more stories. Anay's deeds and Gold Talon's unique aptitude had allowed her to convince her family to permit her to marry him, and he had proven to be an asset to the Shadow Crusade in the many years since. Anay married him for love, though, a weakness that she has never forgiven herself for.

    It is hard for Idelle, who has inherited Ledaal Gold Talon's Aspect and looks, as well as much of his personality, to shake the feeling that her mother sees her as an embodiment of her own weakness.

    "I... I, uh... yes. I understand, mother," Idelle manages, still looking up at the spear.

    "Your understanding holds no value if it does not inspire action," Anay says, voice stern.

    "Yes, mother," Idelle says.

    Anay stares at her for several more seconds, before finally taking pity. She pulls the spear back, offering Idelle a hand up. When Idelle ignores it and pushes herself painfully to her feet under her own power, a rare smile crosses fleetingly over Anay's lips.

    "I didn't realise you would be observing today?" Idelle says, making it sound like a question.

    "You realising as much would defeat the purpose of the observation," Anay says. "I have learned more this way, I think."

    "Well, um... I'm glad it was educational," Idelle says.

    Anay gives her a hard, searching look. Idelle tenses up once again, perhaps hiding it less well than she might have hoped. Something in Anay's expression shifts, but before Idelle can take it in, her mother glances away from her to contemplate the place where Idelle had struck down the second mortwight. "How long have you been training in this place?"

    It's difficult for Idelle to keep track of the hours in this place. "Today? Since... this morning. You know, early," Idelle says.

    "That is the defining trait of mornings, yes," Anay says. She's still not quite looking at Idelle. "It's past time that you rested and had something proper to eat."

    "Right," Idelle says, "I'll do that. Thank you for your... attentions." This is the first time she's spoken to her mother first hand in several years, after all. Her father had implied that Anay was busy, and not to be expected, so this is still all a little disorientating. She bends to pick up her fallen spear, not without a twinge of pain.

    "You have spent seven years in study and training," Anay says, surprising Idelle. Idelle had rather thought she'd already been dismissed.

    "I have," Idelle says, cautiously. It's the point of secondary school, after all.

    "Training here, among our elite shikari, can hone your skills further," Anay says, her back to Idelle. "There is a limit to where training alone can take you, however. At some point, a warrior must be tempered by the blood of life and death combat."

    Idelle might point out that she had been involved with the hunt for the demon lord, Yoxien, a little more than two years past. However, Idelle instinctively knows that having not been involved with the actual slaying of Yoxien himself, this example will carry little weight with her mother. "You have a suggestion?" she asks.

    "I believe I have just made one," Anay says, without further elaboration. Then she leaps up and out of the maze without a backward glance, leaving Idelle to frown after her.

    Idelle is still thinking hard about this exchange two days later, when in the early hours of the morning, an Infallible Messenger appears above her bed.


    The Seven Glories Ampitheatre, the Imperial City

    The Eastern Blessed Isle

    The mortal woman on the stage below sings in a hauntingly beautiful soprano, her voice as pure and light as blue jade. It transforms her from merely passingly pretty into something truly captivating, even more than the form-hugging silk of her dress and the splendour of the theatre around her. It's little wonder, perhaps, that she'd once caught the Scarlet Empress's eye.

    As the last trailing note of Rein Ilina's song fades away, your companion leans over to you, his smile telling you that he has noticed your rapt attention. "Have you seen her perform before?" Sesus Ambar asks. He's much the same as you remember him — slender and attractive for a man, the strands of his dark hair periodically lit by a ruddy red glow.

    "No," you say, "but we met several years ago."

    "Oh, really?" Ambar asks, instantly hungry for an amusing piece of gossip. "Where?"

    You decide that there's no particular reason not to indulge him. "Coming out of my mother's chambers, in fact."

    He looks positively delighted by this, although he must have already known that the patrician woman had been the Empress's lover. That her voice had charmed her way into the Scarlet Empress's own bed is a significant point of distinction that Ilina is not above capitalising on within the bounds of good taste. Beyond the bounds of good taste, there have been many off-colour jokes over the years regarding the "Imperial seal of approval."

    "Well, I suppose no one could ever accuse our Empress of not living life to its fullest," Ambar says with an admiring note in his voice.

    "Did you ever meet her?" you ask, curious.

    "I never had the pleasure, sadly," Ambar says, "is my impression inaccurate?"

    "I suppose not," you say. More incomplete, you expect. You both fall silent again as the music starts to swell, and Ilina launches into her next song.

    You and Ambar sit in a balcony overlooking the stage, the ornately carved stone of the theatre's walls and ceiling carrying the sound to you as if you sat right beneath it. You hadn't quite known what to expect when he'd invited you here — so far, it's been a very pleasant performance, and some innocuous conversation.

    You wait another two songs before you speak again. "Things have certainly changed since last we spoke. I was surprised to get your invitation."

    "Well, I can hardly forget the woman who fought off a hellboar for me and then carried me to safety," Ambar says, as if the whole thing is a particularly funny joke. "And maybe not every change is for the worse, V'neef Ambraea."

    You raise your eyebrows. "Not quite yet. It won't be official for another several months — these things take time."

    "They do," Ambar says.

    "I can't imagine your house views the talks they were in about my suit for your hand as still being applicable," you say, deciding to be blunt.

    "True enough," Ambar says, shrugging languidly. "But, if you'll stretch your imagination just a little farther, this does not mean that my household is so averse to the idea. It would hardly be a bad match — and you have quite impressed my mother with all your unnecessary heroics."

    "I wouldn't call them unnecessary," you say, frowning.

    "Well, better you than me, at any rate," Ambar says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "I suppose I just lack a warrior's heart. Not everyone can spend all their days fighting demons and killing Anathema and cutting hellboar in two."

    "I don't recall that last one being quite so dramatic," you say, mouth twitching in amusement. You'd only wounded it.

    "Oh, it certainly is when I'm retelling it," he says. He makes a gesture, and a servant steps forward to pick up the bottle of wine on the table between you, refilling both of your cups, "I've found that young men find the story terribly exciting."

    You follow Ambar's example and pick up your cup. To his credit, he barely flinches as Verdigris sticks her head out of your sleeve and laps briefly at the wine. "Well, happy to have been of service, then," you say, voice dry.

    "May we both continue to be in the future, then," Ambar says, raising his cup in a toast.

    You suppose there are worse things to drink to. You raise your own cup to your lips and drink.


    The Cerulean Lute of Heaven, headquarters of the Bureau of Destiny's Division of Serenity,

    Yu-Shan, the heavenly city

    Singular Grace walks along a hallway with a book tucked under her arm. To her left, one wall is lined with handsome wooden doors at regular intervals, the other by windows of blue-stained glass, the light of heaven's setting sun rendered strange and melancholic by the sight. There's a sense of relief in her bearing. She's been spared many hours of work and, more than likely, another trip to Creation. This gives her time to go home for the first time in roughly twenty-eight hours.

    She has a quick errand to run first, however. She stops in front of one door among many, the name plate beside it reading Yula Cerenye in an ostentatiously intricate form of Seatongue — below it, the name is written again in much smaller Old Realm. Grace knocks.

    "Be a dear and get the door," Grace hears from within. Before Grace can even touch the latch, it swings inward, bringing her face-to-uncomfortable-face with the shrouded, silent form of one of Yula's zombie servants. Grace schools her expression, trying to remind herself that she's used to this by now. Fortunately, the zombie steps politely aside, letting Grace step inside.

    As always, Yula's office has a transportive atmosphere. Regardless of the time outside, the windows always open onto a clear, starry night, soft lighting filtering out of covered lanterns hanging from the walls and ceiling. It's a surprisingly large space, the room heavy with beautiful-woven rugs and drapery and and invitingly plush sofas, all in what Grace has come to recognise as the Skullstone style.

    Beneath a massive banner depicting the coat of arms of a Skullstone noble house, Yula herself is seated behind a massive desk of dark teak wood, its surface a study in organised chaos, different sections of the desk devoted to different tasks. Currently, she sits to one side of the desk, filling out reports with an impressive, almost mechanical precision, assisted by several more of her servants. Whenever she finishes a form, one of the zombies sets it aside to dry and replaces it with a fresh one, while a second stamps the newly filled form with Yula's seal of office. Whenever her pen needs more ink, another is ready with a proffered inkwell. Yet another stands a step or two away, a lit candle in a brass candle holder held carefully in its eerily still hands.

    The zombie closes the door behind Grace and the sun from out in the hallways vanishes completely. Yula glances up from her work long enough to give Grace a wave that's mostly fingers. "Grace! I see you survived that committee meeting after all. And sooner than expected. Are you going to Gloam?" In the privacy of her own office, Yula wears neither shawl nor headscarf, the garments hung on a hook behind her desk. This leaves her white curls free to tumble past her shoulders — it also leaves the marks of supernatural strangulation on her throat very obvious, but Grace has somehow gotten used to such things.

    "No, thankfully," Grace says, her tone distinctly harried. "Red Osprey volunteered to see to it in person. She likes Gloam, apparently. I can't imagine liking a place enough to volunteer to untangle that sort of love triangle, but it's gotten the rest of us out of arguing about it early, at least." For all that the beleaguered destiny in question is both complex and centres on a Realm satrapy, it isn't terribly relevant to faction agendas — this is fortunate, because Osprey, for all that she's very popular and likable, is a significantly more hardline Gold Faction member than Yula is in several ways. Under other circumstances, someone might have felt compelled to oppose her offer on those grounds.

    "Congratulations," Yula says, signing another document, "whatever will you do with all this free time you suddenly have on your hands? Reorganise your ink collection? Triple check your reports for the next month?" Grace has known her long enough that she can't fail to see the fondness behind the barbs, or the pleasant surprise at receiving Grace's company.

    "My ink collection is organised quite sensibly," Grace tells her, so seriously that it draws a laugh from Yula. "I'm actually leaving the office early."

    Yula looks up from her work, briefly, to give her a look of mock-surprise. "My! And without me to drag you away from your desk. You are dangerously close to developing a social life." As she says 'you', she points at Grace with her pen, a gesture that the zombie holding the stamp mimes with its own implement.

    "I live in fear of it every day," Grace says, still without outwardly cracking a smile. She takes a seat on the far side of the desk. Reaching over a bent wire sculpture of an elephant and several bottles of good Skullstone wine, she holds out the dark-bound book for Yula to take. "I finished The Night Voyage. I wanted to return it before I left."

    "And what did you think of it?" Yula asks, making herself sound only halfway interested.

    Grace pauses, considering. The book had been exceptionally maudlin, deeply morally troubling, and borderline impenetrable. The last might be down to her own inexperience with written Seatongue dialects in general, and the Skullstone variant in particular. "I think that perhaps my Seatongue still isn't good enough to appreciate the nuances," Grace says, as diplomatic as she can manage.

    "No doubt, but I can't entirely blame your miseducation," Yula says. She glances at the book in her hands briefly, before passing it to one of her zombies without looking. The zombie takes it and dutifully carries it over to a nearby bookshelf. "Frankly, Valin Menjaro's work is both overwrought and overrated. I'm not sure I could have continued to associate with you if you'd enjoyed it."

    Grace stares at her blankly. "You recommended it, though. You lent me the book!"

    "You said you were interested in the differences I'd mentioned between Realm and Skullstone literature — unfortunately, one cannot understand the modern Skullstone literary canon without having read at least something he's written. Even if he is a self satisfied hack who writes women so appallingly that you'd swear he's an Azurite. It's somehow gotten worse since he died. Insipid man."

    Grace, who had been privately reflecting on how difficult it is to relate to certain Western attitudes toward gender, finds her train of thought and her intended response abruptly derailed by the last part of that sentence. "His... ghost is still publishing?" she asks, a little weakly.

    "Well, of course," Yula says, "if a dire lack of talent didn't stop him from writing in the first place, ascending to thanatocrat certainly wouldn't. I once wrote as much, almost verbatim, in a letter that ended up being read somewhat widely. And I may have included an unflattering reference or several to him in one of my more popular plays. It caused some small amount of friction between our families." She says this with a brisk, offhand tone, as if these things are amusing anecdotes and not anything too significant. From what Grace understands of Skullstone society and Yula's proclivities toward particularly acid critique, however, she is struck by the uncomfortable and slightly heretical comparison of a mortal publicly mocking a Dragon-Blood from a powerful house.

    "It's good you read it, though. It at least establishes a groundwork from which we can have some hope of instilling actual culture in you." Grace takes this as a sign that Yula is, in fact, delighted that she actually read the book.

    As Yula signs the next page, a piece of paper flutters out of her sleeve, a message sent from another Sidereal. Yula pauses, snatches it up, and glances at the untidy Flametongue scrawled across it. With a slight smile playing across her lips, she takes the time to write a much more eloquent reply beneath it before holding it up for the zombie with the candle to set alight, burning the reply to ash. From this vantage point, before the page is consumed, it's impossible to miss that, despite the ink being black when it's applied to the glass pen tip, it dries on the page in a mix of ink and blood.

    "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I am from the Imperial City, after all," Grace says, voice bone dry, "so I've certainly never been exposed to any."

    "I do know when I'm being made fun of, thank you very much," Yula says, very prim. She doesn't pursue that further, however. "Do you have plans?"

    "Plans?" Grace asks.

    "You never leave the office early," Yula says. "Do you have plans?"

    "I suppose so," Grace says, already getting up from her chair. "Nothing so very exciting, though. Thank you again for the book — I should let you get back to work."

    "I don't believe that I've stopped on your account," Yula says, still very much in the midst of her paperwork. "I won't keep you though. Go on, before you find an excuse to work for another six hours."


    Grace does not, in the end, find an excuse to work for another six hours.

    She leaves the Cerulean Lute shortly after saying goodbye to Yula, hires a boat at the nearest quicksilver canal, and tries her best to relax on her way home. Fortunately her place of residence is in an adjoining neighbourhood and traffic isn't so bad by the standards of Yu-Shan.

    Gods of all sorts ply the waters of the canals, piloting everything from humble ferries to elaborate pleasure crafts. It's the sort of experience that still becomes overwhelming and surreal if Grace thinks too hard about it. The entire trip, she feels curious eyes on her — even so close to one of the Bureau of Destiny headquarters, Sidereals are a noteworthy and even worrisome sight. Most of them won't remember her five minutes after she's gone, but they all know what she is.

    Grace is glad when she finally pays her ferryman a gold-wrapped coin of ambrosia and steps out onto the narrow streets of her own neighbourhood.

    The manse still doesn't feel like home to Grace. This would be understandable enough for any residence, given how little time she's actually spent here since first coming to Yu-Shan. There's something more to it, however. Grace has inherited the grand, well appointed structure from Wayward Prayer, her predecessor, and the presence of her Exaltation's previous bearer is still felt everywhere. From wall hangings and furniture like something out of an ancient Zhao palace to small personal additions to the architecture itself to how very many of Prayer's belongings are still here. Some days, Grace feels strangely like an intruder here.

    Even worse, on other days she feels like she's walked these halls thousands of times before. Another woman's memories bubble up unbidden, sparked by the view out of a particular window, or the layout of a particular room. Or, sometimes, by an art piece.

    As Grace passes through the great entrance hall, she catches sight of the large painting hanging in pride of place on the wall. In it, Wayward Prayer and her Circle are depicted, centuries younger. Prayer is a striking Zhao woman, a sheathed daiklave held in her arms, her robes cut to accentuate her figure in a way Grace can't help but find excessive. The Sidereals alongside her include Ayesha Ura of the Division of Journeys, and Red-Handed Kijamano of the Division of Battles, both long time supporters of the Gold Faction, as Wayward Prayer had been.

    Despite her best attempts at not taking the painting in this time, she can't help but feel a wave of nostalgia both familiar and alien. Along with the thought: Oh, yes, before Kijamano lost her arm. Grace has contemplated removing the painting and attempting to foist it off on Ayesha Ura several times, but doesn't quite know how to broach the subject. She knows intrinsically that the painting had been one of Wayward Prayer's prized possessions.

    Grace puts it out of her mind as she makes her way to one particular wing of the manse that has, of late, seen some notable changes. Furnishings in Wayward Prayer's more ostentatious taste replaced by simpler, more practical fare. Shelves laden with books that Grace has procured in Realm, Riverspeak, and Seatongue. Even the odd piece of art from her mother's homeland. She doesn't think, under the circumstances, that Lohna Prince's Scribe feels entirely at home here yet, but she certainly seems to be making more of an effort than Grace.

    She finds her mother sitting at a table alongside a large, second-story window, playing a game of Spirit-Frog against herself with what Grace somehow knows was once Wayward Prayer's third-best Gateway set. To Grace's eye, she had chosen a particularly grueling setup today, the other Gateway pieces arranged in a harrowing gauntlet that one attempts to navigate with a humble frog piece, travelling from the bottom tier of the board all the way up to the third.

    The game is heavy with Immaculate allegory, and each classic arrangement is as much meant to convey a story about the cycle of reincarnation and ascending the Perfected Hierarchy as it is a puzzle. Although Lohna had first been taught the game by a friendly monk attempting to foster proper Immaculate thought in a foreign slave, Grace strongly suspects Lohna just likes the quiet mental stimulation. Lohna had been eager enough for Grace to be raised Immaculate — anything to give her daughter a better chance of having a good life in the Realm — but Grace has never gotten the impression that Lohna has ever entirely internalised the Philosophy herself.

    Grace stops in the doorway for a long moment, silently watching. She can't deny that her mother looks better than she had when they'd left the palace. Lohna sits at her game in a dress of ambrosia-spun silk, ensconced in luxury, a free woman as safe and comfortable as any mortal can be said to be in the city of the gods. The worst of that lost, haunted quality is gone from her eyes. But still, when Lohna realises that she isn't alone and looks up to find Grace standing there, she shows no sign of recognition.

    After only a moment's pause, Lohna gets hastily to her feet, bowing deeply. "Apologies, my lady, I didn't realise— please forgive me, I didn't hear you come in."

    "There's no need to be so formal," Grace says, as though it's merely unnecessary, rather than something that sends a small pain lancing through her heart. "I didn't want to interrupt you."

    "Ah," Lohna says, uncertain. She takes Grace in again, from her finery to her unfamiliar face to her strange eyes. Hesitantly, she asks: "You are... my host, I think?"

    "This is my house," Grace agrees, not yet stepping further into the room.

    Lohna nods, still plainly confused. She knows that she's in heaven, that she asked to be brought here, that she is welcome as a guest in this house. It's the precise identity of the person who spirited her away to begin with that eludes her. "Forgive me for asking, but are you a goddess?"

    "No," Grace says, finally approaching. "I'm a Sidereal. My name is Grace."

    "Ah," Lohna says. Two months ago that explanation would have meant nothing to her, but already she's learned more about the existence and nature of the Sidereal Exalted than most mortals ever do. This only sometimes translates into knowledge of any specific Sidereal. On good days. "Welcome home then, Lady Grace."

    "I'm your daughter," Grace says, keeping her voice deliberately steady. She hasn't told any of her colleagues that she's brought her mother to heaven yet — Grace can imagine the reactions. Understanding and pity, as well as concern for Grace's peace of mind. They have all lost loved ones to Arcane Fate themselves after all, learned to cope with the cruel reality of the curse they all bear. Many would wonder why Grace would put herself through this. Their mothers had not been slaves, though.

    Lohna's first reaction is shock, but it's a shock she's had many times by now, and she must feel that on some level. Just as she loves Grace even without knowing her. "That feels right, somehow," Lohna says, wonderingly. "Grace." There's no spark of recognition today, no Flower! Pardon my forgetfulness, I've missed you. Still, it's an improvement on balance.

    Grace crosses the room, resting a hand on the back of a chair near to Lohna's table. "If you don't mind, I'd just like to talk, and watch you play."

    "Ah, of course," Lohna says, as if this is a normal situation. Increasingly for them, it is. She sets back down at her table, and Grace takes a seat at her own chair. They sit in silence for a moment, Lohna hovering over her game, trying to recall where exactly she was in it. Once she's picked up the thread of the puzzle again, she begins to methodically move the frog across the board, taking pieces as she goes. "Have you done any interesting reading of late, Grace?" Lohna asks, taking a stab in the dark.

    Grace is surprised, but not displeased. "Interesting? I suppose so. Have you ever read Valin Menjaro?"

    "The Skullfolk writer?" Lohna says, with faint recognition. She pauses in her game, frowning. "Yes. I studied some of his work as a girl, to learn the language. We usually only traded with the Skullfolk indirectly, through the Azurites, but my father felt it was important for a well-rounded scholar to be fluent in as many of the major Seatongue dialects as possible."

    "Do you remember what you thought of it?" Grace asks.

    "It has been well over two decades, but I think so," Lohna says. "What did you read by him?"

    "The Night Voyage," Grace says.

    Lohna laughs. "That novel where every woman the narrator meets is motivated by wanting to bed him, including the one who was already dead? And it's all a tortured metaphor for the West yearning for Skullstone's benevolent guidance?"

    "Yes," Grace says.

    Lohna takes the final piece on the lowest tier, frowning before carefully moving her frog to the middle one. She takes several long seconds to consider her final verdict. "I don't recommend it."

    Grace laughs.

    This isn't perfect. Sometimes it's difficult, and sometimes it hurts. But at the very least, they have one another. With the world the way it is, Grace has to take whatever good she can get.


    Scarlet Prefecture, the Eastern Blessed Isle

    Weeks later

    As Tepet Usala Sola rides past the row of kneeling farmhands, she spares them a brief, shallow smile, despite her conflicted mood. A wide-eyed young man near the end looks as though he might remember this moment for the rest of his life.

    The late afternoon sun hangs over the horizon, lighting rolling fields of grain to either side of the road, the wide blue ribbon of the Imperial River in the distance. She's dressed in her lamellar armour, Storm's Eye at her belt, and Bloodrime slung across her back by a leather strap. Mountain Song, one of her household's surviving servants, follows behind on her own horse.

    Sola doesn't know what kind of a reception she'll receive among the Dynasty at large in the Imperial City. Just how far her family has fallen and how quick the other houses have been to turn on them has been made abundantly clear to her. Sola wouldn't be coming at all, if it weren't for her Hearth.

    At the thought of them, she checks on them through the sixth sense of their bond. Maia is still a ways away to the south, but Ambraea's proximity is enough to make Sola's heart race. Day by day she's been getting closer. By now, it's almost as if Sola can reach out and touch her. Sola realises, to her surprise and delight, that Ambraea is not in the city. She's quite a bit closer than that.

    Without explanation to Song, Sola steers her horse off the main road, moving toward a distant stand of trees. Song gives her a questioning look, but follows.

    A small eternity later, she grows close enough to the trees to make out a familiar silhouette standing among them, moving through sword forms with a daiklave of white jade. Ambraea must know that she's approaching, but she doesn't look up or stop, focusing on the steps of the dance. It's only once Sola has approached close enough to comfortably speak, and slipped out of the saddle, that Ambraea completes the exercise.

    Ambraea carefully sheathes her sword. For all that things have changed for both of them, she looks very much like she did the last time Sola saw her. Clad in black and gold, her jacket removed and carefully folded on a nearby rock, with Verdigris curled up on top of it. Ambraea's hair, and the small crystals in her skin sparkle in the sun. Sola takes a silent moment to quietly take in the sight of her.

    "I hope you're not content with only watching," Ambraea says, finally glancing in Sola's direction.

    "Don't rush me," Sola says. She passes her horse's reins into Song's waiting hand and steps closer. "A busy woman like you, I hope you haven't come all this way out of the city just to see me."

    Ambraea raises her eyebrows. "You're flattering yourself. My new matriarch is eager for my new allegiances to be known — she had me playing glorified messenger to a member of her house." Ambraea looks briefly surprised, as she adds: "Our house soon, I suppose."

    "I bet whoever that was was thrilled to have a sorcerer under her roof on short notice," Sola says.

    "I didn't say it was a member of our house who Matriarch V'neef is pleased with," Ambraea says. Then she finally smiles, a softer expression than her norm that she used to save for Maia. "I was pleased enough that it let me meet you on the road like this."

    "So you can travel back to the city with me?" Sola asks.

    Ambraea steps closer to her, lowering her voice. "We don't have to go quite that far yet, I hope."


    The roadside inn that Ambraea has chosen provides a warm bath and a perfectly pleasant meal. Sola is so distracted that she barely enjoys the former, and has to force herself not to entirely inhale the latter. It's a little embarrassing how eager she is to be alone with Ambraea. It's not just about the physicality of the coming encounter — Sola hasn't been in private with someone she can fully let her guard down with in months. She hasn't been aware of quite how exhausting that was until now.

    Sola looks herself over in a dressing room mirror, noting with slight amusement that she's wearing the same white tunic that she had been the first time that Ambraea had kissed her. It hadn't been entirely on purpose, but she supposes it's appropriate enough. She tugs the garment down into place and steps out into the rest of the suite.

    The rooms are still more than comfortable enough for the two of them, but they're small, quaint even by Dynastic standards. It doesn't take Sola long to find her lover. Ambraea sits on a chair in the bedchamber, stroking Verdigris in her lap. Her hair is unbound, draped over her shoulder in a silky curtain. The robe she's wearing is in matching black, and just sheer enough to be distracting.

    "So, V'neef Ambraea," Sola says, closing the door behind her. The room has a bed, several chairs around a small table, and a large picture window, notably shuttered.

    "Soon," Ambraea agrees. "I'm still not used to the thought — do you like the sound of it?"

    "I think I could get used to it," Sola says. "Did your mother run out of ideas for simple names after Cynis, do you think?"

    Ambraea laughs. "You know, of all the things I never got to ask her, that wasn't something I thought of." The mirth is brief, though. She gives Sola a searching look. "How are you feeling?" she asks. "Your letter was circumspect."

    Sola gives the question serious thought, leaning back against the closed door instead of having a seat. "Like I've lived all my life preparing for a future that was never going to happen," she says.

    "I know what that's like," Ambraea says, voice quiet.

    "I know," Sola says, giving her a sad smile. "If anyone does, you do."

    Ambraea returns it, that shared understanding passing between them. "I'm sorry about your sisters."

    "I am, too," Sola says. She studies Ambraea in silence for several seconds, the next words difficult to say. "I'm afraid sometimes. I just don't know what's going to happen."

    Ambraea lifts Verdigris off of her lap, setting the metallic snake down on the table. Then she rises to her feet. "I am too," Ambraea says, and Sola knows how difficult it is for her to admit that, even here alone. "But whatever it is, at least we don't have to be alone. 'Comrades and sword sisters'." She steps forward, staring into Sola's eyes in clear invitation.

    It's a small room. Sola only has to take one step herself to bring them nearly face to face. "I missed you," Sola says. She feels the warmth of Ambraea's hands on her, one on Sola's hip, the other on her shoulder.

    "I did too," Ambraea says. "I have a favour to return, though. Do you remember?"

    "A favour?" Sola asks, confused.

    Ambraea moves faster than Sola can react. She hooks a leg behind Sola's ankle, sweeping her feet out from under her, and shoving her hard onto the bed. Sola lands on her back in a surprised heap. Before she can so much as squawk in protest, Ambraea is literally on top of her, straddling Sola's waist, hands pinning Sola's wrists above her head.

    "You know," Sola says, looking up at her, "if the favour was putting me on my back, I at least let you have a sword in your hand the last time I did that." The quip comes out a little weak — she's too preoccupied to be wry.

    "You think this is cheating, then?" Ambraea says leaning down enough that her hair brushes against Sola's face and neck. "Would you rather be sparring instead? Would you like me to get up?" There's a trace of vulnerability in this last question. Ambraea has been lonely too, after all. Months of politics and worry, the uncertainty of her situation as an Imperial daughter without protection, tense meetings with elders and Great House Matriarchs. Decisions she can never take back.

    They both need this.

    "I didn't say that," Sola whispers.

    That's all the answer Ambraea seems to need. She leans the rest of the way down, and kisses Sola hard.


    Port of Arjuf, Arjuf Dominion, the gateway to the South, the Southern Blessed Isle

    "She said she'd be here," says Mnemon Keric, drumming his slender fingers against the table. He's all nerves in a way that usually makes Deizil want to force him to relax. Given their current very public surroundings, that's not quite an option. He'll get the chance later.

    "She will be," says Simendor Deizil. In contrast to Keric, he leans back in his own chair, a study in affected nonchalance. "I don't think she's capable of going back on her word on purpose. It's endearing, when it's not annoying."

    The two sit beneath a brightly coloured awning set up for them in the midst of Arjuf's busy waterfront. Arjuf is a dazzling blend of Realm and Southern Threshold architecture, the streets lined with monuments sent in tribute from southern satrapies, the markets filled with exotic goods and dialects from dozens of far-flung locales. The docks themselves are awash with nearly as many petty criminals as sailors. None of them are foolish enough to trouble two Dragon-Blooded in broad daylight, however.

    Deizil and Keric watch as various supplies and belongings are loaded onto a ship that they'd hired with their pooled resources, one intended to carry them very far away from the Isle and then back again. Keric continues to frown at their intended companion's lateness, but Deizil has something altogether different on his mind mind. He leans forward towards Keric, dropping his voice. "You're sure this is a good idea."

    "It's too late for it to be a bad idea now," Keric says. "We've hired the ship, we've charted a course. I've convinced my mother to the point that she's willing to convince the rest of my house. We don't have any choice but to do this, and to succeed."

    "So, no pressure at all," Deizil says, making a face.

    "Your house should be pleased as well," Keric insists. "If this all goes to plan, they'll have to thank you."

    Deizil snorts. "My cousins will be furious that I gained another distinction over them. Our matriarch will be annoyed that I didn't present the treasure to her."

    "You always talk about your house that way," Keric says, dismissive in the manner of someone who has only met one Simendor. "Your family kept Imperial favour so long by being among the first to swear to the Empress when she took her throne — my matriarch does not share her mother's affections for them. If Aksaja won't do anything to change that, you'll have to."

    "Matriarch Simendor Aksaja of the Leaden Tablet has her own plan for that," Deizil says, tone long suffering, "she intends to present the next Empress with a legendarily vile collection of curses for her to use against her enemies."

    "My great grandmother would certainly find a use for that," Keric admits, frowning, "but waiting until after she's Empress may not be enough. It certainly won't be enough for her to stop looking so askance at you in particular. These gauntlets of yours will be of real strategic value during a civil war — Matriarch Mnemon will put aside her personal feelings. Assuming they really are what you think they are, and they really are where you think they are."

    "I know where they are!" Deizil says, suddenly affronted. "I've checked and double checked my sources. That part, I'm sure of." He falters, glancing away from Keric, and over to the ship. "I'll just have to trust you on the rest of it. You're smarter than me at some things."

    "Just some things?" Keric asks, smiling thinly.

    "Well, I apparently have better taste in men." He casts Keric a significant glance that sets a creeping, rose marble blush rising up into Keric's face. Deizil loves how easy it is to make that happen.

    "I can't believe I let you two talk me into this." It's a new voice from behind Deizil. Turning around, he sees Ledaal Anay Idelle, armoured in a breastplate of blue-enameled steel, a spear resting against one shoulder. Behind her, servants in her house's colours carry the rest of her baggage.

    Keri gets up, smiling at her half in amusement, half in welcome. "I believe my message mentioned adventure on the high seas, reclaiming dangerou and ancient artifacts, bringing them back into the wise care of the Realm..."

    "... And we need some kind of moral centre in this enterprise," Deizil says, likewise getting to his feet. "Who knows what I'd get up to, otherwise?"

    Keric shoots Deizil a look, but Idelle actually laughs. "Well, I think I am ready for an adventure," she admits.

    Despite his worries, glancing between his two companions, Deizil finds a fragile sense of optimism blooming in his chest. Maybe he's ready for an adventure as well.


    Personal estate of Burano Maharan Nazat, Scarlet Prefecture, the Eastern Blessed Isle

    Erona Maia perches on the very edge of the rooftop, watching the sun sink below the horizon. She sits with her knees hugged against her chest, making herself as small and still as possible, quietly waiting to be noticed. She'd arrived at the country estate some hours before, drawn here by her Hearth sense. She looks out at the grounds beyond the house.

    It's a pretty little estate, well-maintained, but not heavily used, despite how close to the city it is. Maia supposes that Ambraea's father has had little cause to be away from court in the decades since the Empress gifted him the place. Despite this, it certainly has its share of occupants at the moment. From her vantage point, Maia has already observed the staff in a state of controlled chaos, presumably scrambling to accommodate the sudden presence of the estate's master and multiple Exalted guests.

    On the balcony immediately below Maia's perch, a door slides open, and a familiar figure steps out onto it. Ambraea glances upward, although Maia knows that she's just barely out of sight from that vantage point. "I'm sorry," Ambraea says, "did you forget how doors work?"

    Maia smiles to herself. "I wanted time to think."

    Ambraea leans against the railing of the balcony. "Were things as bad as you thought?"

    "More or less," Maia says. Bad enough to leave her brooding on rooftops. "My grandmother was there. We... talked about your adoption. What it's going to mean."

    "What is it going to mean?" Ambraea asks, although she must understand. Maia has told her more than enough for that.

    "As far as my family is concerned, you're a V'neef already."

    "I'm still me, you're still you," Ambraea says, quietly. "We're not our families."

    Maia wants more than anything for that to be true. She unfolds herself from her perch and slips down off the roof, landing beside Ambraea almost soundlessly. "It's going to be hard sometimes."

    Ambraea looks down at her, unphased by her entrance. "You're worth that."

    "Sometimes, I'm not sure I am," Maia says, almost too quiet to hear. She isn't worth Ambraea's life.

    Ambraea reaches down, cupping Maia's face in her hands. "I think that's my decision. You asked me to wait for you, I will."

    Maia's family is proud of her as long as she's their well-honed weapon. Kill who they say, unflinchingly, without question. Others in her life have never had to see that side of Maia in its fullness. Ambraea has, though. She is still the only one who has seen every part of Maia, has seen her at her best and her worst and her lowest, and still wanted her. After everything, still thinks that Maia is more than just a honed blade. That she's someone worthy of being treasured and protected. Maia doesn't know how to express how much that means, but maybe she doesn't need to. "I love you."

    Ambraea leans down and brushes a kiss against her forehead. "I'll remember that, no matter what happens. I love you too."

    Maia leans her slight weight against Ambraea, letting out a gentle sigh. "I know you will," she says. "So will I."


    "I'm not sure that your father likes me," Sesus Amiti says, hands playing over her soulsteel pendant. She walks the path through the grounds of your father's estate half-oblivious to her surroundings, simply following you. The sky is overcast today but not excessively so. The breeze is pleasantly cool against your skin.

    You give her a rueful shrug. "He's uncomfortable with necromancy. More than most people. Prasadis are — well, the Pure Way is — harsher on matters related to death than the Immaculate Philosophy is."

    "Oh, so I wasn't imagining it," Amiti says, seemingly happy for the confirmation as much as anything. "It's nice of him to make as much of an effort as he did."

    You resist the urge to sigh at that, continuing to lead Amiti away from the house and its surrounding gardens, out toward the edge of the grounds. "I'm sure he didn't mean for you to notice at all."

    "I notice more than people expect me to," Amiti says, giving a light little shrug. Seemingly genuinely unbothered.

    "You do," you acknowledge. You can't see the others yet, although you know that they must be over the rise up ahead.

    "I've never gotten to see a Hearth Oath be sworn, though," Amiti says with genuine enthusiasm. "I've read about a lot of them, but never the real thing!"

    "I'd like to talk to you about that, actually," you say. You'd obviously already intended to, but it's a good lead in.

    "Hm?" Amiti looks up at you in surprise. Her dress today is red and brown, a feather pattern embroidered into the sleeves and collar — it wouldn't have reminded you of dried blood if anyone else were wearing it.

    "You must have noticed," you say, "even with L'nessa joining us, we have room for a fifth member."

    Amiti stares up at you for a moment, briefly puzzled. When she takes your meaning, she stops short, a look of genuine surprise coming onto her face. "Me?"

    "You," you say. "The Dynasty is turning into a dangerous place. We all need to know we have people we can rely on, who we can trust. You're our friend. It can't be that surprising, can it?"

    Amiti searches your face, the emotions heart-wrenchingly clear on her face. Sincere shock, happiness... and a strange sort of reticence. For the first time, you wonder if surprising her with the question was a good idea. "Did Kasi put you up to this?" Amiti asks, the insight catching you off guard.

    You don't balk, or lie. "She suggested it. We wouldn't be asking if we didn't want you as Sworn Kin, Amiti. This is too serious a matter to make decisions based on pity or favours to your sister, as pleasant as her company is."

    "You know I... cause problems," Amiti says, looking away, "even when I don't mean to. Do you want to have to deal with that for the rest of our lives?"

    "We all cause problems, sometimes," Maia says, stepping in between you. Amiti gives a little start at her sudden appearance, although you knew she was coming. "You don't have to be alone."

    Amiti stares at her, looking briefly outright overcome. She masters her emotions, though, and nods. "... Thank you. I would be... I do want to, if everyone wants me there."

    "Do you know the words?" you ask, more just to change the subject than because you think she might possibly not.

    "Yes!" Amiti says, finally letting herself get excited. "I've memorised several versions, actually. I never thought I'd have to use one of them, though."

    "Don't get too emotional on us, Sesus." You've crested the hill, revealing Sola, perched on a large stone. She smiles as she says it, though, a genuinely fond expression for all three of you. "She said yes, then?" she asks you.

    "I did!" Amiti says, returning the smile in a way that chases away whatever doubts you might have had.

    "Oh, good, I knew you would." L'nessa stands nearby, trying not to look either excited or nervous. A single leaf flutters out of her hair, giving her away.

    The stone Sola sits on is one of many — they're arranged around a bare, flattened patch of earth, one set aside for sparring or for certain games. More importantly, it's also somewhere where the combined anima flux of five Dragon-Blooded and four elements won't scar the land too badly. You're trying to be considerate to your poor father, after all. From your vantage point up the hill, you can see that you have an audience in the near distance, your father and more than a few of the servants having gathered, looking on with rapt attention.

    "Well, I suppose there's no use belabouring things," Sola says, tone light. She steps past the others, taking up a place near the centre of the ring, and holds out one hand in front of her. Catching on, you follow, taking your own place in the circle, and laying your hand on top of hers. A moment later, Maia lays her small hand on top of yours, followed by L'nessa, and a distinctly nervous looking Amiti.

    There's a moment of preparatory silence before you begin to speak first, feeling the power in those familiar words for the third and final time. "I, V'neef Ambraea, swear to stand beside you as Sworn Kin..." Sola speaks her oath next, her anima bursting into life, sky blue, intertwining with the white of your own. Maia speaks next — it doesn't match up with any of the major elemental cycles, but it feels right, the three of you renewing your vows to one another and to your companions first. Maia's blue-black light joining yours and Sola's.

    And then it's Amiti's turn. You're afraid for a moment that she might lock up, but after taking a very deep breath, she plunges ahead. Her oath is simple, but the sincerity in her words is palpable:

    "I, Sesus Amiti, swear to stand beside you as sisters and Hearthmates. In joy and sorrow, peace and war. To defend you all above all overs. To keep faith with you all above all others. By Air, by Water, By Earth, by Wood, by Fire, I swear." Her pallid anima whispers up around her, but it doesn't feel cold to you, for once.

    L'nessa doesn't miss her cue, smiling with true happiness. "I, V'neef L'nessa, daughter of V'neef, swear to stand beside you as Sworn Kin. To share in your triumphs and failures, to shoulder your burdens and allow mine to be taken in turn. To be your shade, the nourishment of your souls and the thorns that keep our enemies at bay. By Sextes Jylis I swear. By Hesiesh, by Mela, by Danaa'd, by Pasiap, I swear. By Wood, by Fire, Air, Water, Earth, I swear." With that, brilliant green joins three other elements, and you are a Hearth of five.

    You stand like that, hand in hand, each filled by the comfort of being among Sworn Kin. At least for now, it banishes away your worries for the coming succession crisis, your grief for your mother and your fear for Lohna, the powerful forces arrayed to destroy the fledgling house you've attached yourself to.

    When you'd come to the Heptagram, you realise now that you'd been alone in a way that even most of your classmates had never been. You aren't anymore. You've spent the past seven years with these four women, bound by joy and hardship, supporting one another in problems large and small. The world is hard and dangerous, but you've ensured that you will all continue to have each other. Those bonds will certainly be tested in the years to come, but you're determined never to let them break.

    When your collective anima finally dies down, you finally pull your hands apart, although you don't step away. L'nessa is the one to speak first. "Life with you is always so dramatic, Ambraea. I suppose it's good we're all used to that."

    You all laugh.

    END
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • A Vision in Bronze sequel link New
  • View content
    • forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    [Exalted] A Vision in Bronze; A Sidereal quest Fantasy

    You are a young agent of heaven's Bureau of Destiny, working to mitigate or forestall a civil war that will ruin countless destinies, and kill or destroy millions of lives. All the while, shadowy forces strive to make the coming conflict worse.
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • View content
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top