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The Last Daughter; Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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Interlude 3: A Mother's Fond Regard 02
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    • [Empress] Advice on binding and treating with spirits: 24

    [Empress] Advice on the advancement of your spellwork: 11

    [Empress] A small gift of great value to you: 6


    [Social] Sesus Kasi: 28

    [Social] Mnemon Rulinsei: 23

    [Social] V'neef S'thera: 19

    [Social] Tepet Usala: 11

    [Social] Ledaal Anay: 4

    The summons comes with your breakfast, delivered to your suite first thing in the morning in the form of a red card sitting politely between your tea and your bowl of noodles. It informs you in flawless calligraphy when to present yourself at your mother's residence, as well as how much time you can expect the Empress to set aside for you. An hour — which is only reasonable, of course, for all that you've flown all the way from Chanos on such short notice. Many people travel much further for far less, and you're grateful for so much consideration.

    And so you rise early, and begin to ready yourself for the day. Fortunately, as it would happen, your father has quietly taken some pains to ensure you have a suitable wardrobe on hand — you gather that he had Lohna request your latest measurements from Peony some months ago. This is good, considering the height you've put on since you were last in the palace.

    With her usual efficiency, Peony selects a gown cut in the latest court fashion, suitable for formal daytime wear. Black silk is broken up by bright blue and cloth-of-silver embroidery: elegant, swooping patterns that evoke serpents. "You look capable and sophisticated," she tells you, carefully braiding a series of serpentine ornaments into your hair.

    You haven't had to express any misgivings out loud. "You would say that, you picked out the outfit," you remind her.

    "Well, my lady," she says, voice careful, "then I've chosen well."

    You give a small, nervous laugh, careful not to move enough to disturb Peony at her work. "You have," you acknowledge. You catch the flash of her smile in the mirror, quickly obscured by your shoulder as she gets to the tips of your hair. Now that she's finished, the ornaments give the impression of a metallic snake winding its way through your dark braid. You glance at Verdigris, watching you from her place on a nearby cushion with alert, metallic eyes. Apparently, you have a motif.

    Dressed in your finery, hair carefully styled, and wearing just enough cosmetics to emphasise your Aspect Markings, you reach into the collar of your dress, and unclasp the chain that carries Perfection's scale and Maia's dagger. You stare at the knife for a long moment, idly flicking open the mechanism to reveal the poison well in the hilt, currently empty. Then you bring it to your lips, and give it a quick kiss on the flat of the blade. You put both treasures into a sturdy wooden box and lock it with a key.

    "You're going to have to stay," you tell Verdigris. She shrinks in on herself, clearly distressed — you don't like it much either. You haven't been farther apart from her than one room over since your magic brought her into the world, and leaving her behind gives you a pang. It can't be avoided, though — bringing small but deadly elementals into the Empress's private residence without express permission would be at least as bad as bringing in a Gemlord's Eye, if not quite as bad as outright carrying a concealed dagger beneath your clothes. You try a different tactic. "I need you to guard this box," you say, resting a hand on it. "You can't let anyone but me touch it. Can you do that?"

    In answer, Verdigris dutifully slithers over to the box, and curls up on top of it — still miserable, but at least determined now. You give her head a small stroke, before turning back to Peony. She's watched the whole exchange with a resigned sort of air. "I'm ready," you tell her.

    Maybe she believes it more than you do.

    The Imperial Palace is a small city into itself, a vast, self-contained compound with thousands of residents; officials, servants, courtiers, and slaves, in addition to the Empress's household, of which you are just one member.

    Walking through the grounds, you pass ministers, generals, concubines and countless others. Each has their own business to attend to, no doubt, but all are committed to not broadcasting anything too much like haste. You walk past lush gardens and beautiful architecture, return greetings and nods as warranted, and generally present a serene and unflappable mein to all who see you.

    Peony walks a little behind you and to the side, holding the handle of a large, silk umbrella to shade you from the sun. Not a service you ordinarily expect of her, but if there is anywhere in the world where appearances and formalities matter, it's here.

    The Empress's private residence is itself an entire wing of the palace. You have not been inside them more than a handful of times in your life, but they're not hard to find. Seeing the great set of doors ahead of you, you pause to address Peony:

    "I shouldn't be much more than an hour. You'll be at liberty until then."

    "Of course, my lady," Peony says. Then she adds in a hurried whisper, as if already thinking better of it: "Good luck."

    You let in a deep breath, and slowly let it out. "Thank you, Peony," you say, and you mean it. Then you continue onward, leaving her behind, unquestioning in the knowledge that she'll always be there when you come back.

    The impressive front doors are red-lacquered wood, barred in elaborately-etched white jadesteel in seeming imitation of the palace's outer gates. Standing to either side of them, as unmoving as statues in their ceremonial armour, stand two Silent Legionnaires.

    When the Dragons had first Chosen you, you'd imagined, briefly, that your mother's personal guard would stop seeming quite so terrifying to you. Surely, a newly minted Prince of the Earth, raised high by Pasiap himself, would be above such childish emotions as blind, hindbrain terror. Despite how incorrect this had proved, you'd allowed yourself to fall into the same mental trap. You're older now, beginning to blossom into your full Exalted might, a fully-fledged sorcerer who has treated with powerful demons and elementals.

    And yet, looking up at the nearest of the towering, helmeted figures, there's still that faint urge somewhere in the back of your head to bolt in the other direction. At least seven feet tall and universally mute, you've never met a Silent Legionnaire who didn't fix you with that same flat stare, uncaring of your rank or privilege, thoughts utterly opaque to you even now.

    "I have been summoned to speak with the Empress," you tell them. It's impossible to guess at gender under all that gleaming steel.

    Rather than simply stepping aside, one of them glances to the other and brings their hand up in a quick, deliberate gesture you can't quite track. Their companion signs back just as briefly.

    You feel a mix of impatience and irritation. "I am Ambraea, her daughter," you say. "I—"

    There's a click, and you look to see that a more ordinary-scale door has opened in the leftmost of the larger ones they're guarding. A man is standing there, shaven-headed and dressed in servant's clothes. The guards pay him no mind as he steps forward to offer you a low bow, and you notice that he very pointedly does not look in their direction.

    "My lady Ambraea," he says, "your punctuality is admirable."

    "I arrive when I have been instructed to," you say.

    "Of course, my lady," He bows again, and steps to the side enough to gesture for you to step into the residence. "The Imperial Presence is aware of your arrival. If you will please come with me?"

    In answer, you step past the two legionnaires, who of course do not trouble you anymore than they had the servant. He closes the door behind you, locking it in place with a flick of his hand. Crossing the threshold, you resist the urge to shiver, your arcane senses letting you feel the weight of the magic you've just placed yourself within. It's like the rest of the palace, but moreso. Wards on top of wards, scrying spells on top of scrying spells. You understand down to your bones that you have entered a place of power belonging to the greatest Exalted sorcerer of the Second Age.

    You are now standing in the most opulent entrance chamber you've ever seen. A massive sorcerous lighting fixture hangs overhead, dripping red crystalline jade down on invisible strands, illuminating the gilded tile underfoot. Directly in front of you, flanked by two vast staircases, stands a mural depicting your mother as saviour of Creation. Larger than life, a figure of red and white jade clad in Shogunal armour, a blade in her hands that burns with the power to destroy armies. To either side kneel the grateful people of Creation, mortal and Exalted both. At her feet, the twisted, monstrous forms of slain fairfolk invaders, and of Anathema formed of moonsilver, dead at her hand or by her word. Above her, Heaven looks down on this all and bathes her in approving radiance.

    It is not, you would say, subtle. You've been here twice before in your life, and it nonetheless leaves you staring in awe for several seconds. The servant seems to anticipate this, and allows you to take in the sights undisturbed. When you look up and glance back in his direction, he begins to lead you off to the side, through one of the many red-lacquered doors along the walls. You try not to allow yourself to be dazzled again, despite the sheer quantity of wonders on display. These chambers demonstrate enough wealth to make any lesser queen weep, drawing on riches taken from across the world, the Imperial City in miniature.

    The hall you're in when the servant turns to face you is red and black, the floor displaying mesmerising geometric patterns. A series of plush benches placed between ornamental vases as tall as you, each a masterwork by a different long dead artisan. "My lady, if you would be so good as to wait here, while I inquire as to whether our revered mistress is ready to see you?"

    "Of course," you say. From anyone else, it would be impossible not to taste an insult in being made to come here first thing in the morning, then instructed to wait once you got here. But your mother is incredibly busy, and her time is very valuable.

    You're fine with this.

    Still, though, you don't take one of the invitingly soft seats once he's scurried off again, instead pacing back and forth in a tight circuit between one bench and another, trying to focus on the tiles underfoot, or to admire the pattern in the glaze on the porcelain. Anything is better than dwelling on your nerves, or any other negative feelings you might hypothetically have at the moment.

    Minutes or hours later, you look up at the sound of a door opening; it's not your guide, however. A young mortal woman hurries down the hall, her finery conspicuously a little less than what most Dynasts could afford, her dark hair unbound, and slightly askew. She doesn't see you at first until she's only a few paces away. At this point, she looks up, makes accidental eye contact, and gives such an exaggerated gasp that some kind of acknowledgement is, regrettably, in order. There's still a moment of awkward, fumbling staring. Then she gives you a formal bow, as befits a mortal patrician greeting her spiritual and social better. "A fine morning, my lady," she says.

    You nod stiffly in return. Then, even though you think you know perfectly well who this is, you say: "I don't believe we've been introduced."

    "Rein Ilina, my lady," she says, confirming your suspicions.

    Your father may not bear any ill will toward whoever is currently sharing your mother's bed at any given time, but it's always a reliable subject of court gossip, which he is an endless and reliable font of. Somewhere around the bottom of the bottle of wine you'd shared with him, in the spirit of morbid curiosity, you'd asked him about the subject.

    Especially for a mortal, Rein Ilina is a spectacularly gifted singer. In the few short years since she's left secondary school, she's already become the talk of the Imperial City, giving performances stirring enough to bring hardened military women to tears and inspire half a dozen marriage offers — all of which to date her family has turned down, presumably holding out for something better. It was not particularly surprising, then, when she had been summoned to the palace over a month ago in order to perform for the Empress herself.

    Neither was it particularly surprising, for anyone familiar with your mother's habits, that Ilina had been called to give a follow-up performance that night, in private, in your mother's personal chambers. Where she had seemingly slept every night for weeks now. When the Empress sees something she wants, she rarely hesitates to take it. Some lovers, like your father, she keeps. Much more often, when she tires of someone, she sends them off with a fond farewell and a parting gift — a position, or a treasure, or simply the weight of her good opinion. You can be all but certain that House Rein is positively thrilled at this development, and what it implies for Ilina's future.

    She's a little taller than Maia, pretty in a guileless, round-faced sort of way. You try not to think about the short span of years that separate you from her. It's not as though your mother can exactly go for anyone her own age, at this point.

    "I am Ambraea," you tell her, voice cold with veiled anxiety.

    "Ah! Yes, her Excellency mentioned that she was expecting you soon," she says.

    "I'm sure it was an enlightening conversation," you say, tone a little dry as you look at her hair. Unsurprisingly, your mother is less willing to braid mussed hair than Sesus Vahelo.

    "I... Yes," Ilina says, face reddening dramatically.

    You abruptly feel guilty — you hadn't meant to take your nerves out on her, even if her presence reveals entirely too much about your mother's morning and why she's been keeping you waiting. "You seemed like you were on your way somewhere," you say, deliberately softening your tone. "Please, don't let me keep you."

    She bows gratefully. "Thank you, my lady." Then she leaves as quickly as dignity will allow.

    You try hard to find your centre again once she's gone, angry at yourself — the only safe target out of the people you could blame at the moment. You've never wanted to be the kind of Dragon-Blood who takes her frustrations out on mortals in petty and venal ways. That you earned your right to this current life's power and prestige through virtuous action over many lifetimes means that a mortal owes you her deference. However, it also means that you owe it in turn to be better in your thoughts and actions, not merely in your spiritual enlightenment. Acting harshly toward a social inferior over something that isn't her fault should be beneath you in every way.

    Fortunately, you're not alone with your thoughts for long. A short time later, the servant reappears, as blandly polite as possible. You're mostly happy to be moving again — he leads you down the hall, to one door among many, and holds it open to you. "The Imperial Presence will be with you momentarily. Thank you very much for your patience, my lady."

    You step inside, and he closes yet another door behind you, this time not entering the room with you.

    The room is cozy, by the standards of chambers as opulent as these. Sunlight streams in from a high window, illuminating the handsome ebony flooring. To one side of the room, a fragrant plant flowers in a priceless vase, filling the air with a pleasantly invigorating scent. On another, a Varangian clock of gold and brass ticks steadily away on top of a cabinet — its face is numbered in High Realm and Flametongue, quotations from the Immaculate Texts praising Hesiesh's patience spiraling over its surface. From the wall directly across from you hangs a vast painting: five Dragons protectively encircle Creation.

    Left alone here, you slowly sit down at the low, cinnabar-lacquered table, barely admiring the intricate carvings along its surface. Try as you might to relax, every fibre of your body feels immovably rigid as the minutes slowly tick by. When the other door opens, you first shoot straight to your feet, then instantly drop down to your knees, facing the floorboards.

    There's a rustle of red silk as she moves into the room, her regard beating down on the back of your neck. When she speaks, her voice is amused, and exactly how you remember it. "I am pleased to see you so dutiful in responding to my invitation. But I must say, a dragon is quite the entrance."

    "I wished to arrive as quickly as possible, my Empress," you say, tones stiff and formal.

    "So I see." She lets you kneel for a second or two longer, before she says: "Stand up so I can look at you."

    With as much dignity as you can manage, you straighten, and look at your mother for the first time in three years. For the most part, nothing has changed. She's still as young and vibrant as ever: a tall, pale, red-haired woman whose features you can sometimes find in the mirror, when you look for them. It takes you a moment or two of her silently studying you to put your finger on what strikes you as strange. For one thing, she's not wearing the heavy cloth-of-jade and orichalcum mantle you've never seen her in public without. She looks smaller without it, fractionally more ordinary. The other is that you're exactly as tall as she is, now.

    You feel speared in place by her gaze, as if she might assess you in your entirety in these few seconds and find you wanting. Instead she smiles at you, an almost wistful expression, and says: "You all become women so quickly."

    Three servants silently file into the room behind her. One sets a tea tray down on the cinnabar table, bowing as she leaves. The second carries an ornate vessel of blue jade, carefully setting it down on the table next to the tea tray. The third carries a portable writing desk with him, setting it up and meticulously arranging an armful of papers on its surface. All of them leave as soon as their tasks are complete.

    The Empress takes a seat at the far side of the table from you, as regally as she ever has her throne. You understand immediately what is expected of you.

    You bend down to carefully pick up the teapot, a Shogunate era bone-porcelain piece that's likely even older than your mother is. You pour first her cup, and then your own; the pot contains a fragrant black tea the colour of mahogany. You move to the winterbreath jar, pry open the lid, and carefully remove a platter of chilled fruit confections, setting it down on the table. Only then do you take your own seat across from the Empress.

    Your mother picks up her teacup. The cup is surely uncomfortably hot to the touch still, but she is as little bothered by it as she'd have been by the touch of an open flame. "I hope you understand that any unbound spirit, even one who you've struck a sorcerous pact with, is only to be relied upon so far."

    "I do," you say.

    "Don't ask too much too often — it is important that you try to maintain a balance of power, at the very least. Do not give it the upper hand, and try to find leverage of your own, if possible."

    "I already had to explain to a very nervous monk that they're not a dangerous, rogue spirit," you say. "I think they can perceive the value in our arrangement."

    The Empress seems to find this faintly amusing. "See that you continue to remind them. What were your plans for making the journey in time, barring the dragon?"

    You only take a second or two to recover from the sudden shift in topic. "I had thought to summon a storm serpent," you say. It had been the easiest fallback, and the one that required no one's assistance in particular. It would also have been far and away less pleasant than Perfection's help had been.

    "Serviceable, but it would have made for a miserable trip," says the Empress. She takes an experimental sip of tea, cupping the hot porcelain in one hand like a wineglass, not spilling a drop. "Young storm serpents in particular are far too volatile and excitable. Be thankful for your servant's sake that you didn't choose that."

    It isn't surprising that your mother would have ways of knowing that you'd arrived with your handmaiden, but it's still deeply unexpected for Peony to be mentioned at all. "I will consider my options more carefully in the future."

    "I'm sure. Earth elementals may hold some particular reverence for you due to your pact with the dragon," your mother says. "You would do well to bear that in mind. Are you familiar with the silt-winder?"

    "Not intimately," you admit.

    "I will send you some texts to review," she says, dismissing the matter with a wave of her hand.

    As much as getting additional homework while on your break might be frustrating, you're not stupid enough not to regard this as the significant gift it's likely to be. "Thank you for your instruction," you say, as graciously as you can.

    She gives you a strange sort of look at that, speculative if anything. "I wonder if you'll feel the same way by the end of this conversation."

    A chill goes down your spine. You choose your words very carefully. "I apologise, my Empress, but I don't understand."

    "Very often, the knowledge that we require to survive brings us little happiness," she says, briefly, for the span of that sentence, she sounds every one of her eight centuries. She indicates the writing desk set up beside the table. "Look at the scroll on the right."

    Confused and concerned, you reach for the less ornate of the two large scrolls on the desk. When you recognise the mon on the scroll case, it does little to explain anything to you. "This is... Genealogical documents from House Erona?" You have no idea why you'd need such a thing. It's not as though you and Maia are getting married. You have no idea why your mother of all people is interested in the ancestry of the patrician girl you're involved with.

    "Read it," your mother instructs.

    Unfurling the scroll from its case, what you're looking at is a chart documenting Maia's family going back to its creation as a patrician house, with a note directing back to surviving older records for the Shogunate gens that House Erona descend from. Dragon-Blooded scions in particular are marked with brightly coloured ink and delicate brush strokes — Maia's stands out near the bottom of the diagram, the characters of her name in a deep, navy blue. The family had started out relatively large and prosperous. Over the years though, the house had diminished. Exaltations came less often, branches went extinct for lack of female heirs. It looks as if House Erona was poised to die out entirely several mortal generations ago, until Maia's grandmother had arrived.

    Her grandfather had become matriarch seemingly by default, a mortal man with no living siblings, obviously in need of a suitable wife who could marry in to the family. He'd found one in the form of Vermillion Shore, an outcaste with no known prior Exalted heritage, presumably fresh from her half century in the Legions. Following this marriage, the house was revitalised by his and Vermillion Shore's many descendants. The reintroduction of Exalted blood of even such dubious pedigree had even served to renew their exhausted bloodline, based on the number of Dragon-Blooded that follow.

    You frown down at the family tree, still uncertain what it is you're meant to be seeing here. That Maia's family has a stronger bloodline than you might have expected is interesting. It is still difficult to imagine how it could be relevant, though, especially when it's your mother drawing your attention to it.

    Your mother takes a stately sip of tea, regarding you levelly. "The other scroll now."

    It is both much larger and much more ornate, the case in polished silver with black jade accents. Something about that combination stirs a memory at the back of your mind. Before you can entirely recall, though, you find that you don't have to: You turn it over and recognise the mon emblazoned on it, freezing in place momentarily. You very much don't want to open this anymore.

    But you feel her eyes on you, so you make your hands work even against the pit of dread in your stomach, moving like an automaton to pull free the richly illuminated paper. You're looking at another family tree, this time styled magnificently as a waterfall cascading down through the generations. Your mother is at the top, the characters of her title painted in ink infused with red jade that seems to burn under the light. Beneath her is a single adoptive daughter, with the rest of the family flowing out from there, the vast network of adoptions and marriages that form a Great House.

    Your mother reaches out to tap a nail on a name near the bottom. It's a particular Exalted scion, her name in shimmering black jade ink, as with most of the Dragon-Blooded on the family tree you're looking at.

    "Iselsi Velera," the Empress says. "An officer in the Imperial Legions, lost during a campaign on the Threshold. You will note the timing, I'm sure." The disappearance was only a few short years before Maia's grandmother had married into House Erona.

    "What are you trying to tell me?" you ask, voice wooden.

    The Empress's gaze hardens fractionally. "You're an intelligent woman, Ambraea. Do me the courtesy of not pretending otherwise while in my presence."

    You nod, carefully rolling up the scroll, and setting the heavy case back down on the writing desk. The praise tastes like ash in your mouth, combined with so alarming a topic. If you force yourself to process this information immediately, you do understand what she's trying to tell you. Your mother has, in a far more indirect and theatrical manner than was strictly necessary, informed you that your lover is a direct descendant of House Iselsi through the female line, and that her family has taken great and highly illegal pains to obscure this information.

    Certainly, they'd have reason to. Iselsi was not merely struck from the Imperial ledgers — the name is worse than dirt, still tainted from an attempted assassination of the Empress over a century ago and dragged through the mud by every other Great House in the intervening years. The association is utterly toxic, and wider knowledge of it would absolutely destroy Maia's family... and reflect exceptionally poorly on anyone with too close an association to them.

    "You are suggesting that I cut ties?" you ask. You've managed to find a place of paper-thin calm, somehow. Beneath it, you feel faintly ill.

    The Empress raises her eyebrows. "Well, that would be up to you," she says. She reaches out and samples one of the chilled delights, taking an unbearable moment to savour it before she continues: "By all means, have your fun with the girl; I'm sure she's quite lovely. But my advice to you is to be prepared to distance yourself by the time you both leave the Heptagram. For your own protection. If you enjoy keeping a lover of lower birth, remember that there is no shortage of equally attractive, less politically dangerous patrician girls who would be happy to fill your bed. Your status aside, you've become a beautiful young woman." Something horribly like a fond smile crosses her lips. "My suggestion is merely for you to remain mindful of your own position while forming lasting ties."

    There is a note there of genuine motherly concern. You do not fool yourself by thinking that you can reliably tell when the Scarlet Empress herself is lying to you — but something about that look, about how profoundly wrongly it lands with you, makes you utterly sure that in this fleeting moment, she is being perfectly sincere. For your entire life, you have dreamed of such a moment of intimate candor from her. Right now, you hate it.

    You're glad that you haven't picked up your tea yet — you're not certain that your calm facade could have prevented you from shattering the cup if you'd had it in your hand. "I am not sure I can do that," you say, the truth unwilling to be bent any further than that.

    Your mother sighs, her eyes mercifully leaving your face to study the contents of her own cup, "I was young once, believe it or not — I understand what it's like at your age, to be overcome with passion for a pretty face."

    Your mind goes involuntarily back to your encounter with Rein Illina, and to dozens of others like her you can recall in the moment — generals and poets and magistrates, men and women both. Maybe it's the relative informality of this meeting, or the residual frustration at how the morning has gone, or your quiet indignation at the characteristically high-handed way she's gone about this upsetting subject. Regardless, the words come out of your mouth before you can stop them: "I hadn't realised you'd ever stopped."

    There's a pause just long enough that a profuse apology is on the tip of your tongue, before she throws back her head and laughs in genuine delight -- a full, intoxicating sound. "You have your father's wit," she says, open affection in her voice for you or your father or both. "It always sneaks up on me. Try one of these before they get warm — I can see you're taking this all poorly."

    Robotically, you reach for one of the confections. It's delicious, perfect for a warm summer day like today and it pairs well with the faintly smoky notes of the tea, cool enough for you to drink. It somehow steadies your nerves enough for you to glance at the scrolls on the writing table again, and ask: "Do you... intend to act on this information?" She knows that House Erona is outright flouting her laws by falsifying their official genealogical records. Her word would be more damning than all the physical evidence in the world.

    Your mother laughs again. "My dear, if I ruined every house and bloodline I had the means to simply because I had the means to do so, the Realm would be a very empty place." As amusing as she seems to find it, it is perhaps not the most reassuring thing in the world. "I assume, for the girl's sake, that you're capable of discretion on this subject, but in the end, the information is a gift, and you will do with it what you will."

    You force down a violently indignant reaction to that. However many confusing feelings you're having at the moment, you're not exactly planning to spread around an accusation like this about Maia's family. If she's been keeping this a secret from you the whole time, well, she certainly has good reason. You're not upset with her over this.

    Or so you tell yourself.

    "I am," you say.

    Your mother glances over to the clock, checking the position of its ruby-encrusted hands, then looks back to you. "I think we can move on to more uplifting topics," she says, just firmly enough to make it impossible to do otherwise. "I'll do you the credit of assuming you've put serious thought into your future. What are your plans for the next four years, and for after graduation?"


    You somehow acquit yourself adequately through the rest of the interview — academic areas of focus and future, occupational prospects, potential marriage options and other mundanities. You nonetheless leave with your stomach full of excellent tea and terrible feelings.

    "You're doing well," the Empress had told you, "We'll speak again before you finish school." You were numb to any feeling that those words should have normally elicited, but you'd expressed your gratitude adequately, made your formal goodbyes, and been mercifully dismissed from the Imperial Presence.

    Peony can tell there's something wrong the moment she sees you, although she doesn't seem particularly surprised by this. She gives you a sympathetic look as you step back under the shade of the umbrella, but leaves you to your silent brooding on the way back to your chambers. You try to take comfort in her quiet presence — it's difficult, but that isn't Peony's fault.

    Verdigris is a small coil of tension when you arrive back, and immediately winds herself tightly around your arm. You let her, relieved at least to feel the cool sensation of her metallic scales again. You sink heavily down into a chair, letting your poise slip just a little, alone in your bedchamber.

    You spend a long moment scrutinising the light filtering in through a high window, before you finally produce the key for the box Verdigris was guarding. Rising and stepping back to the table it sits on, you click the lock open. You pull out Maia's dagger first, drawing it from its leather sheath. It feels heavier in your hand than you remember, and somehow more ominous.

    Maia's training and evasiveness on the topic of her family had always been conspicuous. It had never been exactly unheard of, however. There had been almost an infinite number of possibilities more likely than her being a descendant of a defunct and disgraced Great House once infamous for its trained killers. But here you are nonetheless.

    You sheath the dagger and slip the chain containing both it and Perfection's scale back around your neck. You can immediately sense the dragon's presence vying for your attention; you're not in any state to speak to someone with so much insight into your mental state, however. You block them out for the time being, for when you're more composed.

    All at once, your room feels too small and too confining, so you get up, inform Peony that you won't require her assistance until the evening, and leave.

    The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. You wander the palace, ostensibly enjoying the sights, conversing with many passing acquaintances along the way. You settle an argument about the distinction between gods and elementals, have a lengthy exchange with a very polite young man which you cannot recall afterward for the life of you, and almost unthinkingly accept an invitation from one of L'nessa's adoptive nieces for a social engagement in the coming weeks.

    Your father finds you at some point during the afternoon, sitting in a gazebo that has always been one of your favourite places on the palace grounds, staring out at a shallow pond in which a number of brilliantly-coloured scarlet cranes strut. He doesn't immediately sit down next to you. He just stands there for a long, quiet moment, stroking his beard and staring into the same pond as you. He doesn't ask you how the interview went, or why you seem so despondent. Instead, he says: "By the time I was a little older than you are, my mother was already the tanist of Prasad."

    You know this, more or less — the Prasadi custom is for an official heir to be chosen from whichever of the two ruling Dragon Clans is not currently in power, elected by the Dragon Caste as a whole, rather than chosen directly by the rani-satrap. So your grandmother, Burano Maharan Rohavin, would have had to have been the tanist at some point. From your understanding, it's a position with much more responsibility in practice than it has on paper.

    Undeterred by your silence, Nazat continues: "I think, and have always thought, that your grandmother is a great ruler. But the things that make a woman a good ruler are not necessarily those that make her an easy parent. The demands are different."

    As if following some unseen signal, the cranes flap up into the sky at once, calling loudly to one another as they sail over the rooftops of the palace. The surface of the pond is temporarily awash with ripples, slowly returning to its previous, mirror-smooth state. You look up at your father, whose eyes are still fixed on the water. You know that this is the closest he will ever come to criticising your mother's conduct toward you, and that you should be grateful that he's willing to outright say so much.

    However, the person whose comfort you really want at the moment is Maia's. And you're not sure whether things will feel the same with her when you see her next. You feel Verdigris's head pushing into your palm from where she's emerged out of your sleeve, and you gently stroke it with your thumb. "I understand that," you say.


    Interlude 3 was originally meant to be two updates, as per normal, but if I'd continued on with that goal in mind, this update would have likely ended up over ten-thousand words, which would have been a bit of a nightmare for pacing. So there will be a third A Mother's Fond Regard chapter, which will include the two character-focused scenes voted for in the previous update, as well as several others before we get to the start-of-Year-4 vote.

    Article:
    Ambraea has just received shocking news from an unexpected source, and does not know how to feel about it yet. Fortunately, she has most of the summer to stew on this. It nonetheless affects her behaviour. How does Ambraea spend much of her free time in the Imperial City? In all events, she will maintain study and training enough to not appear negligent in either area. You may vote for as many options as you wish, but only the one with the most votes will be selected.

    [ ] Meet new people, engage in a series of shallow flirtations and entanglements

    Ambraea distracts herself from her troubles with a series of temporary friendships and superficial dalliances. While socialising is never effortless for a Dynastic sorcerer, companionship is not hard to find if she goes looking. This will nonetheless provide useful contacts among those willing to overlook Ambraea's occult practices. The court will take note of this.

    [ ] Focus on the texts that the Empress provided, conduct small experiments and rituals in your suite

    Ambraea distracts herself from her troubles by squirreling herself away from the larger society of the palace, spending the coming weeks as something of a recluse. This will provide her with a greater understanding of these texts going into the coming year. The court will take note of this.

    [ ] Throw yourself into your swordswomanship, seek out new opponents for practice duels

    Ambraea distracts herself from her troubles with physical exertion in her sport of choice. The Imperial City is a melting pot in many ways, including combat styles. There is no shortage of opponents to seek out and learn from. This will sharpen her combat skills beyond what she learns from her usual training. The court will take note of this.
     
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    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Jan 3, 2023 at 9:38 AM, finished with 84 posts and 48 votes.
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    • Interlude 3: A Mother's Fond Regard 03
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    • Note: This update is much larger than intended; anticipate things getting more to the usual size again when Year 4 starts, if nothing else just so I can actually sustain writing these.

    Swords: 31

    Study: 15

    Kisses: 11

    "I'm just pleased that there are no hard feelings."

    You give your companion a small smile. "Of course. It would be petulant of me to hold onto a grudge all this time over a friendly practice match."

    Tepet Kedus shakes his head. He's very much like the first time you saw him: slender, red-haired, and red-skinned. "I would never say that — pride can be a tricky thing, and my fiancée is sadly only capable of restraining herself so much once she has a sword in her hand. Still, it gladdens my heart to hear."

    Even if you had felt unkindly toward V'neef S'thera, it would be difficult to dislike Kedus. Having run into him at the palace training grounds on several different occasions, he's been quick to renew your acquaintance. While he doesn't have S'thera's reputation with a sword, he's an entirely competent fighter and a politely good-natured companion. He may be the most easy-going Fire Aspect you've ever met. So, you had no reason to turn down this invitation.

    You and Kedus are sharing a carriage rolling down the streets of the Imperial City. You're accompanied in dutiful silence by both Peony and the serious-faced young man who is her counterpart in Kedus's service. Through the window, you watch as you pass by shops catering to the wealthy — a parade of silk and jewels and fine porcelain, the air heavy with the scent of good food and exotic perfumes from the eight corners of Creation. Up ahead is the vast shape of Six-Centuries-in-Glory Temple, a building of pristine white marble, its entranceway guarded by a massive sleeping dragon statue. The temple had been designed by Mnemon herself, gifted to the Immaculate Order in dedication to your mother's sextennial.

    "Where exactly are we going?" you ask.

    "The Sapphire Poppy District," he says. At your expression, he laughs. "It's not even evening yet, and I promise you that the establishment we're going to has a wholly different focus than the ones you're thinking of."

    "Of course," you say. It would have struck you as quite out of character, otherwise.

    The part of the city you're headed to is an infamous high class blue lantern district, but as Kedus says, it's a little early in the day for the pleasure houses to be in full operation. Under daylight, it's quite a charming sight, the streets well kept and lined with the blue flowers that the district takes its name from. Your destination proves to be stuck in between a teahouse and a theatre — a wedge-shaped building of austere stone construction, softened by the flowering vines that climb its exterior walls.

    You step out of the carriage and into the light of day, accepting your sword from Peony and hanging it onto your belt.

    Kedus follows you, trailed by his manservant. "The Honed-Blade Society," he says. "It seemed relevant to your interests, with the way you've been spending your time."

    The physical exertion of sword training, and the challenge of finding new opponents, has been a distraction from troubled thoughts of late. You try not to linger on it, or let it put a damper on your good mood. "I'm sure it will be worth the trip," you say.

    You let Kedus approach the door first. When he knocks, an attendant appears, and asks him for a password — you can't quite catch what he tells her, but it's enough to get you all through. You step through into a large, open space, the walls and floors stone. Dueling circles are laid out around the centre of the room, a few occupied, most currently empty. The edges of the chamber are more lavishly adorned — comfortable places to sit and socialise and watch fights while servants bring you pleasant drinks. The place has been described to you as part dueling society, part social club, catering specifically to martially inclined Dynasts.

    The very centre of the room is taken up by a wide, shallow pit sunken into the floor, lined with sturdy looking tile. Directly above it is a large hole in the ceiling, letting the daylight filter down into the chamber. It only takes you a moment to realise that this is there to facilitate serious fights between Dragon-Blooded. Anima control is, of course, a virtue that's drilled into every Exalted child of the Realm, from you down to the humblest outcaste — you're expected to control your power in situations where it would cause wanton destruction or injury of innocent parties, outside of emergencies. However, while duels cannot legally be fought to the death, ones fought on serious points of honour can still require a Dynast's full capabilities.

    It's also useful for demonstration purposes, you'd imagine.

    Several pairs of eyes look up to take note of your group as you enter, the bulk of the attention falling in you. You're a new face here and easily the youngest in the room, but you're already sure that more than one person has noticed you.

    "Kedus," a disinterested voice says. A tall, gangly Water Aspect passes by on her way out the door. She offers Kedus a lazy wave, and you a nod of acknowledgement. She has what looks like a reaper daiklave on her belt, and she's trailed by a somewhat fussy looking young woman who is currently busy scrawling furiously in a notebook as she walks.

    "Magistrate," Kedus says, unbothered by the breeziness of the greeting.

    You follow his lead and return the nod.

    "Ragara Lurica," Kedus says. "I don't think I've ever heard her string together more than three words at a time."

    "She brings her scribe with her to a place like this?" you ask, glancing after the pair of them.

    Kedus laughs. "S'thera asked Gull about that once — the scribe, I mean. She used to just leave Lurica to it... until Lurica fought three duels in one night a few years back, and now Gull insists on tagging along to avoid 'unacceptable gaps in the official record'."

    The Empress famously selects many of her Imperial Magistrates from among the ranks of criminals and troublemakers, so you suppose that sort of thing is why they have an officially appointed scribe in the first place. "How does someone get into three duels in one night?" you ask.

    Kedus gives a light shrug. "Something involving a man, I think. Like I said, she's not exactly talkative at the best of times."

    "I suppose that would make things difficult," you say.

    There is a respectable collection of others around the room — some in the dueling circles, others watching, or sitting back in the more comfortable portions of the hall to relax or socialise. Several people seem to recognise Kedus, but you assume that your presence puts a slight damper on things. You prepare yourself for a few stiltedly awkward conversations, but that's not what you get, in the end:

    Among the well-shaded seats in the back is a man with a naval officer's jacket draped over his shoulders. He's young, his skin faintly blue-tinged in a way that reminds you of clear, shallow water, and is attempting to grow a full beard with more valour than success. A pair of sheathed short daiklaves lean against his chair on one side. On the other, a second young man, with dark hair and a sly smile, perches on the arm of his chair, clothed to emphasise the slight, fine-boned delicacy of his body. He has one hand on the naval officer's shoulder, the other holding a crystalline cup of clear liquor to the officer's lips.

    The officer's good mood seems to darken when he spies you and Kedus entering the room. Sensing the shift in the Dynast's emotional state, the young man moves deftly out of the way, letting the Water Aspect sweep up out of his chair in dramatic fashion and approach you both.

    "Tepet Kedus!" He exclaims, his smile a baring of teeth. "Here without your fiancée's skirts to hide behind, for once."

    Kedus laughs as if this is all in good fun, and not at all appallingly rude. "Asher! Lovely to see you." He pauses — reaching out to his Hearth bond with S'thera, you realise. "Yes, S'thera is still in Eagle Prefecture, I'm sorry to tell you. But this will give you more time to prepare: I'm sure it will take her longer than three moves to beat you one day, if you keep practicing." Asher's smile grows more forced, but his eyes move to you, skipping over Peony entirely. "This is Ambraea," Kedus says. "Ambraea, Peleps Asher, a first officer with the Earth Fleet."

    "Captain," Asher says, voice tight.

    Kedus doesn't miss a beat. "Well, congratulations are in order, then!" For some reason, this fails to improve Asher's mood.

    Asher eyes you warily. "An honour to meet you," he says, in a way that tells you he knows who you are. "I'm surprised you find time for such... concrete matters as we concern ourselves with here, among your studies." His companion has come up to stand a little ways behind him. The slender young man's eyes are the purest blue you've ever seen from a mortal — you're not precisely a connoisseur of the masculine form, but even you can recognise a work of art when you see one.

    "I've found that my studies actually contain a great deal of 'concrete' elements," you say. On cue, Verdigris slithers up from beneath the collar of your jacket, and you reach up a hand to let her twine around your wrist. "There are worse ways to greet some of them than with a sword in hand."

    "I've seen lady Ambraea training every day since I arrived at the palace," Kedus says. "I'd hardly say that she's neglecting the physical world."

    "And what have you been doing at the palace?" Asher asks him.

    "Attending my matriarch, of course," Kedus says. You've seen Tepet Usala in passing, although you haven't had a chance to talk to her, and likely won't get one this summer — Sola's mother is a busy woman.

    Asher shrugs this off, clearly miffed by Kedus's continued unflappability but unable to actually complain about it. Asher's companion looks increasingly apprehensive, although he's relatively good at hiding it, for a mortal. "You're the daughter of Nazat of Prasad," he says to you.

    "I am," you acknowledge, raising your eyebrows as if inviting him to continue. You can guess what he's driving at, but he can go ahead and ask you himself.

    "I would have liked to fight him in his prime," Asher says. "I've heard he was quite the warrior, before he became just another gossipping courtier."

    Your face hardens infinitesimally. "I don't care for your tone, Captain Asher. My father is still every bit the fighter he ever was." This is possibly an exaggeration: You wouldn't be surprised if the younger Nazat, who had cut a bloody swathe through the armies of Prasad's enemies many decades ago, had been in somewhat better fighting trim than he is now. But he's still a Prince of the Earth and a master swordsman in his own right. The fact that he'd been surprised and pleased by your own progress the first time he'd beaten you this summer is a genuine mark of pride.

    "Well, would you like to prove that?" Asher asks, leaning forward. There's an eagerness to him now. "Assuming he trained you, rather than leaving it to your childhood tutors."

    You're aware that the room in general has started looking on with considerable interest, and so you remain stoutly composed. "If this is the way you make a request of a lady, I pity your future wife," you say. There's at least one stifled laugh from the onlookers, and he glares in response. He's older than you, undoubtedly more experienced, and this is not a good idea — you're being baited. Some things simply cannot be borne, however. "I will fight you, though, and if you lose, you will apologise for your disrespect."

    "Agreed," Asher says, with the tone of someone who doesn't expect to have to make good on his end of a bargain.

    As he goes to prepare, you lean closer to Kedus. "Should I be concerned?" you ask.

    Kedus shrugs lightly. "He's not all talk," he admits. "He's a serving naval officer and I'm sure he uses those swords sometimes."

    "A junior captain in the Earth Fleet," you note. The Earth Fleet is an honourable posting, the Realm's last line of defence at sea. But their job is to patrol the Blessed Isle's coastal waters, in practice catching smugglers and hunting down pirates. Not exactly enemies you'd expect to pose a challenge to the fighting men and women of the Realm in general, let alone to a Dragon-Blood from a house famed for its naval prowess.

    "His mother is an admiral," Kedus says, somehow conveying a great deal more than you could have in that single phrase. A male officer without the talent or the temperament to overcome that distinction, given a quiet posting through the influence of a powerful mother, and willing to make this everyone else's problem in any setting where he can get away with it.

    Or so you're able to surmise. It's not exactly unheard of.

    "Well, we'll see whether or not I regret this," you say.

    "Now you sound like S'thera. Although, she'd make it an eyesight joke," Kedus says. You try your best to take this as a compliment. You wonder at the two of them, briefly. For all V'neef S'thera's much whispered about womanising, she and Kedus are Hearthmates — sworn kin able to rely on one another completely, never entirely apart.

    Whenever you've thought of the husband that your future must necessarily contain, it has been in the form of some tractable young man who would come with ties to his house, administer your household in your absence, provide you with daughters, and look handsome at parties. There's nothing particularly unpleasant about the thought, just another item ticked off the long list of things you need to do to establish yourself within the Dynasty. You wouldn't want to be a bad wife, but it isn't something you've put a great deal of thought into. You've never really considered looking there for actual companionship.

    Maia's dagger feels abruptly conspicuous where it hangs around your neck. As little as you know what you're going to say to her the next time you meet, in this moment you miss her keenly.

    Fortunately, you don't have too long to fret over it. Soon, you're standing at the edge of a ring across from Peleps Asher. You've removed your jacket, handing it off to Peony. After a moment's hesitation, you offer her Verdigris. You watch Peony steel herself, but in the end she allows the snake to move over to her. Verdigris is sulky in the way she always is when you tell her not to defend you in a situation like this — perhaps a little more, given the obvious tension involved. It's not strictly proper for Peony to be too comfortable handling a spirit, but you can't help but find it encouraging.

    You re-fasten your swordbelt around your waist and step forward into the ring. A keen-eyed woman is explaining the rules of engagement; nothing nonstandard. To the touch or the disarm, no strikes to the face or neck, no use of weapons other than your swords, no hazardous displays of magic — the last is directed a little pointedly at you, you feel. You try not to resent it too much.

    "Agreed," you say.

    "Agreed," Asher says. He's similarly done away with his jacket entirely, although you notice he's not wearing the daiklaves you saw earlier. When he catches you studying the curved blades he wears at either hip, he smiles. "My steel to match yours. It only seems fair — I wouldn't want to damage such an ornamental blade."

    "Thank you for your consideration," you say, not rising to the bait. You draw your sabre in one smooth motion. Let everyone here see exactly how functional it is soon enough.

    "I've studied Steel Devil Style, Fire Dragon Style, and Jiaran sword dancing," Asher says. "Have you faced any of those before?"

    "Not directly," you admit. "Have you mastered any of them?"

    He doesn't like that much. "Enough for this," he says.

    He draws both swords at once, leaping at you in a whirl of metal. You catch one blow on your sabre, stepping back out of the way of the other. Frustrated, he follows through with a cut that radiates a shocking heat — you parry it out of the way and move into the attack, your whole body flowing with your slash. Asher's eyes widen, and he whirls away.

    These opening moments set the tone. Asher's technique is well-taught and practiced, his motions disorienting and dancer-like. They're rote, though, and it quickly becomes apparent when he's simply trying to execute on a series of movements that have been drilled into him. He's fast, and elegant, and most crucially, not as good as Sola.

    You don't doubt this would be somewhat harder in a real fight, with no rules of engagement to keep you from killing each other. But under these circumstances, he's having trouble addressing your defence, and you nearly catch him several times when he overcommits. You stand firm, the mountain weathering his rainstorm. You're satisfied when he begins to glow first, a faint, dark blue that limbs his body.

    "You're barely fighting back because you know you can't win!" He taunts, frustration clear in this body language as he circles toward you, forcing you to keep turning to face him. He wanted this to make him look good — it hasn't.

    In point of fact, you're doing it to wear him out, conserving your Essence and relying on your endurance to outlast him — something you're succeeding in, so far. That's not what you say, though. You spy Asher's mortal boy among the onlookers, clearly torn between not wanting to be seen looking away and half-concealed mortification. "Please. Your behaviour is unseemly. There are mortals watching."

    Anger flashes behind Asher's eyes, and he moves at you again. It was foolish of you, perhaps, but you'd internalised the rules of the duel a little too much — you'd stopped thinking about needing to defend anything above your collarbone. His blade cuts your cheek, still burning hot, and you can't suppress a hiss of pain. Behind you, you hear Peony's gasp of alarm, and Verdigris's own hiss of fury.

    "Peleps Asher, you immediately forfeit," the woman playing judge says, giving him a hard glare.

    Asher smiles at her. "I suppose my hand sl—"

    Your fist hits him square in the face with every bit of strength you have. He reels back drunkenly, looking as though he's just run headlong into a rock wall. Then he collapses awkwardly to the floor, swords falling out of his hands.

    "I suppose it's a draw, then," you say, expression cool as you look at the judge, a thin line of blood still trickling down your cheek.

    In the end, you don't think there's anyone present who blames you.


    Chanos Prefecture

    Keening-Blade Sai picks her way calmly past orchard workers and household staff, taking in the fine day and the charming sight of the distant mountains. Most barely notice her — those that do won't recall her once she's gone.

    In full summer, the trees are months away from bearing plums, but there's still plenty of work to do to prepare for the autumn. Workers are busy weeding and doing maintenance on the trees — everywhere but in one conspicuous place.

    A shockingly pale girl sits at the base of the largest tree, her back braced against its trunk, utterly engrossed in the book she has open in her lap. Several bored looking guards wearing Sesus colours stand a ways away, ostensibly keeping an eye on their charge. In practice, they're mostly just standing around, trying to look impressive and intimidating for the benefit of the more attractive farm workers. Sai has little trouble slipping past them as well.

    As she approaches the girl, one hand begins to casually sketch the Lesser Sign of the Mask in the air. Even if they're looking directly at the tree now, onlookers will be simply unable to perceive anything going on near it. "Good book?" Sai asks.

    The girl looks up in surprise. Sai has been doing this too long to allow herself to expect recognition. So when it comes anyway, it's always a nice surprise. "Instructor Sai!" Sesus Amiti smiles in genuine delight, letting the soulsteel pendant she'd had between her teeth fall in the process.

    It would be hard to imagine a pair that contrasts more. Beside Amiti's small frame and supernatural pallor, Sai is tall, broad-shouldered, and dark-skinned. She keeps her head almost completely shaved, and has a face that is inclined toward smiling, despite many reasons not to. "Looks like it," she says, leaning against the trunk of the tree.

    "Always lovely to see you!" Amiti says, as if having one-time Heptagram guest instructors drop in on her completely unannounced in this way is normal. In her defence, it gradually is becoming normal for them. Sai is busy, but not so busy she can't take a day or two to check in on a student every now and then. "I think you keep expecting me to forget you."

    Sai blinks pale lavender eyes. "What makes you say that?" she asks.

    Amiti looks around for a bookmark, one hand in between the pages of her book to mark her place in the meantime. "Everytime you show up, before I say hello, you have this look like you're trying to not get your hopes up. And everyone else who's met you or who I've told about you forgets and treats me like I'm making up nonsense, which is very vexing! I tried writing about it in a letter to my sister once. Her reply said it arrived half-burned."

    "Yes, that will happen. Have you been experimenting?" Sai asks, a little amused.

    "Yes!" Amiti says. She locates her bookmark, which she'd been half sitting on, sticks it in between the pages of her romance novel, and puts it safely in the basket beside her with the others. "I have a good idea for why it's not working on me."

    "And why is that?" This isn't precisely a happy subject for Sai or most of the others who share her particular nature. It's rarely a happy subject with Amiti, though, and yet the girl's enthusiasm is always infectious.

    "I think it was my initiation," Amiti says. She holds up her pendant, dangling it back and forth by its chain. "The wound in my soul isn't completely healed yet. It twinges now and then — when I'm using necromancy or too much Essence or just feeling a lot of things, usually. It always reminds me of you."

    That might actually help keep Sai from falling out of her head. It's unlikely to work forever, obviously, but nothing does. There's always an ending. "... Sure, kid," Sai says, fingering her own soulsteel token. Hers hangs from her wrist in easy reach, intricately shaped into a representation of the Crow, a constellation of acceptance and gradual death. Her own teacher had guided her through carving it it from her soul two-hundred years prior. The spiritual wound had long since healed over. "It'll heal more in a year or two."

    Amiti, sighs, almost comically exasperated. "You're not going to tell me how any of this works, are you?"

    "Tell you what — if you know who I am the next time we see each other, I'll tell you all kinds of things," Sai says. She slides down the tree to sit cross-legged beside Amiti, arranging the sheathed knives on her belt to get comfortable — they range in size from a hunting knife to very nearly a short sword, one of starmetal, one of adamant, and one of soulsteel. No one she's met has given them a second glance, or found her rough and practical manner of dress anything less than appropriate, no matter the circumstances. "You never did answer my first question, though."

    "I didn't?" Amiti frowns for a moment, as if trying to recall. "Oh. Oh! Yes, it's very good, one of my favourite books, actually! It's about a young man from a poor household, but he has a kind heart and a gift for numbers, so he gets swept off his feet by a very charming Cathak general who marries him and takes him to live in her ancestral home, and I like it because they get together almost right away instead of only at the end, but there are still all kinds of troubles they go through, like this villain who is obviously supposed to be a Sesus but the author didn't want to say that and make someone angry at her, and she — the villain, not the author! — is out to destroy their happiness and is in league with an Anathema, and I'm at the part where the Anathema has kidnapped the hero and stolen his face, and now he's watching helplessly as it tries to use his face to seduce his wife, but their bonds of love are already too strong and she sees through the trick right away, and then there's a very exciting sword fight."

    "I thought it might be something like that," Sai says, smile spreading into a wry grin.

    "This is the third time I've read it," Amiti admits, a little self consciously. "I suppose you wouldn't have Dynastic romances in Uluiru."

    "Not exactly," Sai says, shrugging. She has a brief flash of her elder sisters sneaking out to coffee shops every chance they got, hanging onto the storytellers' every word as they recounted selections from the Exodus of Queen Ulu, with its many twists and turns and perils. All long dead, of course — her sisters and the storytellers — not something she'd had reason to think about in many years. It's a good reminder of why she does this; there can't only be work, an endless succession of death and bureaucratic minutia. She needs to be reminded what life on Creation is really like, now and then. Even if Amiti is not exactly a typical eighteen-year-old herself. "Everywhere has stories, though."

    Sai's gaze drifts over to the rest of the basket of books, and she tilts her head to read a particular spine. "Queen's blood, where did you find that?" she asks.

    Amiti follows her gaze, already knowing which book Sai means. She pulls it out; a thick, leather-bound tome, frequently mended, the sad remnants of gilt lettering embossed on the cover. "Oh," Amiti says, "I finally convinced Huwen — one of the younger sons of House Daha-Ai, I mean — to trade me something worthwhile. You pointed me in that direction, remember? Incredibly prickly boy in our letters, I have no idea how I won him over. But it's a fascinating read! Please don't mention me having it to anyone important; I'm fairly certain it's proscribed."

    It most certainly is. The outcaste necromancer Early Frost had only written one compiled treatise before his actions had become extreme enough to see him declared Anathema — in light of that, the Immaculate Order had done its level best to collect and destroy every copy on the Blessed Isle. Sai suspects they'd succeeded, until now. House Daha-Ai is a rare lineage of Dragon-Blooded necromancers with deep stores of knowledge compiled over the centuries, but they're also a poor and troubled cadet house. The book is such an extravagant and dangerous gift on Huwen's part that Sai is forced to imagine that Amiti is not the only one whose mind has been lingering on thoughts of young men from impoverished lineages swept off to a better life by women of powerful military houses.

    Sai will leave that to Amiti to figure out, or not, however. She's not a matchmaker. "You're having difficulties with part of it?"

    Amiti glances up and around, at the guards and farmhands in the near distance. "They won't be able to hear any of this?" she asks. "You did that..." she waves a hand idly in an endearingly terrible imitation of one of Sai's signs.

    "No one can see or hear what we're doing," Sai assures her.

    Amiti breathes a sigh of relief. "Right. Right! So!" She flips through the treatise, past arcane diagrams and notations in cramped, unfriendly High Realm. She comes to an uncomfortably graphic depiction of a deeply unsavoury ritual, seeming far less self-conscious about this than she had been about the romance novel. "This ritual. Horrible, obviously, but also deeply intriguing? I don't understand how this part works. Why would you need so much... material for that part, but not the final steps? I ask this purely in the interests of coming to a greater understanding, of course!"

    Sai believes her. Amiti absolutely is the type to pursue such things exclusively out of academic curiosity, every step of the way. And that means that at some point, she'll stop paying close attention to where it leads. Sai has seen it before, and dealt with the consequences more than once. It doesn't have to end that way this time, of course. As much as she feels a genuine affection for Amiti and enjoys mentoring her and watching her grow, that's half of why Sai is here doing this — someone needs to keep an eye on what exactly this kid is doing, and it certainly won't be her house.

    "I can explain the theory," Sai agrees. "Honestly, though, Frost had a bit of a bias toward mass sacrifice as a means of necromantic working. He got into the habit when he was with the Imperial Legions — his general got a little too permissive with him, as long as it was captured enemy soldiers and they kept on winning. There are more efficient ways to do what he's describing." And considerably less morally abhorrent.

    "You... knew him?" Amiti has her pendant in her hand, running her fingers over the soulsteel, the surface of the metal shifting visibly under her touch. Sai can see her adjusting just how old Sai is based on the answer.

    "For my part," Sai admits.

    "He died a century and a half ago."

    "A hundred thirty three years," Sai agrees. She shrugs, as if it doesn't matter. "I meet a lot of necromancers."

    This seems to satisfy Amiti, at least for now, and they settle back into a far more technical discussion of Underworld Essence and the various means by which one can harness and power it. As Sai explains his work to her latest pupil, she tries not to think too hard about Early Frost the man — what he'd been like when Sai knew him best, and what he'd been like at the end.

    What is the point of living this long if you can't inspire a few young minds? Not everything needs to end the same way.


    The Port of Chalan, the Near-Southern Threshold

    "I'm going to have to be awake for this?"

    Simendor Leresh doesn't look up from his array of wicked-looking tools. They shine dully in Malfean brass, just barely catching the light on their tarnished surfaces. "Ideally, no," he says. "But, I doubt I have anything that will keep you under through it all — the Blood of the Dragons does have some disadvantages, one supposes."

    Few enough, of course. Leresh is mortal, or close enough to it — he's been a sorcerer for most of his life, and a powerful enough one to have managed to imperfectly halt or slow his own aging this past decade. Within the hierarchy of his strange and insular house, this makes him a sorcerer-prince in his own right, very nearly a peer to his scant dozen Exalted cousins. Sadly, this doesn't stop his joints from aching at night.

    The room this workspace occupies is on the upper floor of his personal town estate, a squat tower that nonetheless boasts a very fetching view of the harbour via a large balcony. The crystalline mass of the Agate Throne, House Simendor's ancestral stronghold, utterly dominates the skyline, making the satrap's palace look small and plain by comparison. Chalan is a beautiful city from a distance, where you can't see the fear and resentment in the peoples' eyes or the various horrors — spiritual, living, or construct — that patrol its ancient walls. Simendor has never been loved, but it has certainly always been feared and respected. That's been enough to have let them cling to this place since the heady days of the Realm Before.

    The outer walls of the room are taken up by shelves of instruments, carefully organised reagents, mundane medical supplies, and shelves of anatomical texts. Closer toward the centre, the floor is painted with layer upon layer of incantations in archaic Flametongue, the beautiful calligraphy broken up by ritual candles of dubious origin, the last of which was currently being lit by one of his silent assistants. The second assistant closes the doors to the balcony, plunging the space abruptly into candle-lit gloom. Both of them are humanoid demons of the same variety: hairless, purple-skinned, with large, solid black eyes without visible whites or pupils. Neomah have many uses, particularly for Leresh's speciality.

    "Right," mutters his young cousin. They're perched on the edge of table at the centre of the sorcerous array, the place where all the room's magic of fluidity and change is focused. An Earth Aspect, like the majority of Simendor Dragon-Blood, metallic crystal shining within the stands of their hair. Still eighteen, newly returned from the Blessed Isle. Leresh had not expected them to call on him so soon after arriving, or at all.

    "There are safer, slower ways of getting what you want," Leresh says, turning to look at them directly. "As much as I have confidence in my work, I hope you've considered this carefully." The modification of living beings is far from unknown among their family; most are nonetheless little better than butchers, as far as Leresh is concerned. Twisting animals into chimerical monstrosities, or soldiers into superhuman warriors. Terrifying, but crude. Leresh, by contrast, is an artist. He won't say that everything he's turned his skills to has been kind, but it's always been worthwhile.

    Here and now, there is always value in being owed a favour by a young Prince of the Earth, and to being remembered as competent and considerate toward them at their most vulnerable. He'll be able to use that good will for his own purposes later on, or so Leresh hopes.

    "No," his cousin says. "This can't wait. If I'm going to make enemies for stupid reasons, it's going to be because of me, not because of my head being a mess."

    "I'm sorry?" Leresh asks.

    "It's not important. We're not backing out. I'm as ready as I'm going to be."

    "Good," Leresh says. "Lay down, then, and we'll get underway." He pauses, considering. "Have you thought about a new name?"

    "Deizil." They, he, says it without a moment's hesitation. "I always liked the first part, after all. It was just how it ended."

    "Deizil," Leresh agrees, and he smiles. "Very well, cousin. You're in the best of hands."


    The Imperial Palace

    Demure Peony sorts the papers in front of her without much conscious thought, separating them out into different piles for her mother to go through. She sits on the far side of a battered old writing desk from her mother, in a work space roughly the size of a large closet. It's filled with paper and ink and supplies, a little too warm in the summer heat.

    But the space is Lohna's, and she seems pleased enough with it, and oblivious enough to the warmth that she'd still pressed a chipped cup of green tea into Peony's hands when she'd first arrived. Now in her forties, Lohna is a trusted and reliable servant of the Imperial Household, and with her service in raising Ambraea no longer required, she'd been given other work. She is now assistant to one of the clerks responsible for managing the day to day expenses of the Imperial Household, which are many, and generate a staggering amount of paperwork.

    It makes quite a lot of sense; Lohna had ended up in her original role through a combination of her education — fluent in written and spoken Realm, Riverspeak, and several other useful languages — and having just given birth to Peony. She was essentially now doing the sort of work she'd been trained to in her youth after nearly two decades of disruption.

    "I hope you're coping with everything a little better?" Lohna asks, her brush strokes careful as she copies out a document by hand.

    "Yes, honestly," Peony says. "It's taken me a couple years, but I've even grown accustomed to that snake." Verdigris was almost sweet, in a way that Ambraea doesn't really let herself outwardly be anymore. Peony was glad to have forced herself to face the fear. Despite Ambraea's unflappable affect, seeing the small ways that her distance had hurt Ambraea had been one of the things to bridge the gap — as much as they have both grown and changed, Peony is still serving the same lady she'd always been.

    Lohna laughs. "Well, I'm glad someone is. She doesn't seem particularly mindful of whether or not it makes others uncomfortable."

    "I don't think she entirely notices how strange it all is, anymore," Peony says. She has begun to suspect that this is the largest reason for sorcerers having such a well-earned reputation for strangeness. Just sheer exposure to spirits and other oddities until they forget how alarming it all is. She thinks of Diamond-Cut Perfection, with their insufferable over-familiarity, and their dangerous capacity to make one forget what exactly they are.

    Realising that she'd let herself go silent, Peony follows that thought to a reasonable complaint. "A dragon, landing in the middle of a perfectly respectable neighbourhood!" She shakes her head. "I am getting used to it all, though, I think. But what else can I do?"

    "Good," Lohna says, putting her brush down to look Peony in the eye. And with a sinking feeling, Peony instantly knows where the conversation is headed. "I have nothing in the world to give you but my love, my Flower. You have a good place, and a lady who cares for your welfare. That's the best I could arrange."

    "I know I have a good place," Peony says. "I'm happy enough, day to day. And the servants in the Chanos residence are still treating me very well, during the school year. I do my best to help out with what I can, but there's not much work to do. I've never had anything much to complain about other than the strangeness."

    Lohna nods, willing as always to be reassured.

    Peony almost doesn't ask the question nagging at the back of her mind, but in the end, it slips out: "Are you happy here, mother?" she asks.

    Lohna looks surprised. She glances around the tiny study and its stacks of well-ordered papers. "I get a little lonely," she says, "but the work isn't too physical, these days. There are far worse places for an aging slave in the Realm -- I'm still very fortunate."

    It's more or less what she's always said to this question. Peony doesn't let herself look at Lohna's brand. Instead, she gives voice to a tentative thought that's been playing through her head for years. "Lady Ambraea might give you better, you know. She'll have a household of her own to set up in a few years. She could... Ask."

    The Empress would have little reason to deny such a small request, if it were responsibly made; gifting a daughter her childhood nanny so that she might give her a comfortable retirement was hardly unusual, if a little sentimental. Ambraea had implied thoughts in this direction once, years ago. "I could free her, give her a home," a much younger Ambraea had said. Would it be safe to remind her of that?

    Lohna sighs, a little fond, a little wistful. "When you were first born," she says, "I'd been in the Realm proper for all of three days. When the midwife handed you to me, I asked her if you'd be a slave too. She told me: 'From here on out, you'll live and die at the whims of some Dragon-Blood or another. This little one, though, she might do a bit better.'"

    "I know," Peony says, suppressing a sigh. It's far from the first time she's been told this.

    "Well, I try to have that be enough," Lohna says. "Lady Ambraea is a fine young woman." The words as Dynasts go linger in the air between them, silent and obvious. Then her bearing softens slightly, and Lohna adds: "... Assuming she's the same girl I helped to raise. I've simply learned not to hope for more than my lot." After all, when had it ever paid off? Clearly wanting to change the subject, she asks: "How has she been, by the way? She seemed very grim the last time I saw her."

    Whatever the Empress had told Ambraea had obviously rattled her. It was fortunately not Peony's place to ask. She'd never been quite so glad to be able to tell herself to not pry into the business of her betters. It's only natural to be wary around the Dragon-Blooded in general — the Empress, though, is terrifying. "She's well enough," Peony lies. "She's been spending time in study, and a lot of time practicing with that sword of hers. A woman showed her up in a practice duel very badly two years ago, and I don't think she wants that to happen again."

    Lohna laughs. "Good. It was very far to send you both, at your age. I wasn't just worried about the food."

    "She's happy," Peony says. "She's enjoying her studies, and she has close friends among her classmates. And a lover." It's not exactly a secret, at this point; Peony would be very surprised if some sort of news of Ambraea's involvement with an Exalted patrician hadn't made it to the palace; she'd gone out of her way to make enough of a spectacle of herself with that entrance that she's become a popular figure of gossip, for the moment.

    Lohna smiles, genuinely pleased. "That's healthy for a girl her age. You might consider the same, Flower."

    "I don't have time for relationships, mother," Peony says. Or the interest, in practice — romance seems as though it could be nice, in its way, but the more physical things that go along with it have always failed to excite her or hold her interest.

    Lohna tuts softly, returning to her work as she speaks. "Well, you should put some thought to it sometime, while you're still young. I know I've always regretted that I never got the chance to introduce my parents to my child."

    The attempt at guilt is almost comforting in its mundane familiarity. "I don't think that schoolgirl romances have much to do with marriage or children," Peony says.

    "Well, not for her, obviously, she's a lady," Lohna says, waving that off. "Things are allowed to be simpler for you. There are some perfectly nice young men near your age in service around the palace who I might introduce you to."

    Absolutely not. "I don't want to worry about that sort of thing until after we're settled," Peony says. "It doesn't make a lot of sense, when Lady Ambraea is still a student."

    "I raised you to be entirely too sensible," Lohna says, relenting. "Pass me that pot of ink, my love? I hope your tea isn't cold. I can fetch some more."

    "No," Peony says, giving her a small smile. "It's fine like this." For now, she means it.


    You open the door and step out into a rooftop garden like something out of a dream. Flowering vines hang from every vertical surface. A path underfoot winds it's way through manicured shrubbery, gaps in the plants only periodically revealing the manse's commanding view of the Imperial City's most affluent neighbourhoods. Exotic butterflies in impossible colours fill the air, compelled to stay within the confines of this one garden by the same magics that make the air taste like you're standing in a verdant meadow of wildflowers.

    You slow your pace as you walk down the path — truth be told, it's nice to have an excuse to dawdle. It's not as though you were exactly enjoying the gathering, so you appreciate that the manse it was held in is at least pleasant. Subsequently, you're a little distracted at first, rounding the bend, and it takes you a split second to recognise that you're not alone on the rooftop.

    An elderly woman sits alone on an ornamental bench surrounded by well-kept bamboo, alongside a small ornamental pond. She's plainly Exalted: Her hair is a dark blue like a storm-tossed sea, the streaks of white only adding to the impression of waves. One of her hands has been replaced by a prosthetic of flawless black jadesteel, its surface crawling with blue symbols. She's using her one good eye to stare into this hand's metal palm intently, as if there's something there to listen to.

    Frowning, you move your foot to the very edge of the pond. As with the vase by the courtyard when you'd first arrived at the palace, you let a thread of revealing Air whirl into the surface. It doesn't disturb the water, but it does reveal something in the woman's reflection: Perched on her hand is an ash-grey spider the size of a tarantula, gesticulating rapidly with its two forelimbs. It's a demon-spider, you're sure, although you can't quite identify the breed.

    Before you can put much more thought into the matter, or introduce yourself, the woman whispers something to the spider, and it abruptly vanishes into a cloud of ash, whirling up and out of sight. "Is it no longer the polite custom to introduce yourself to an elder? I can't quite keep up, these days," the Water Aspect says. You don't jump, despite the fact that you'd been certain that you were in her blindspot, but it does admittedly startle you a little.

    "My apologies," you say, stepping around the pond toward her. "I didn't wish to disturb you."

    "Oh, I'm sure you didn't," the Water Aspect says, turning to look at you with the eye not covered by an eyepatch — it's vibrant blue, and more amused than angry. She looks you over briefly. "Ambraea. This is a surprise."

    You two have not been formally introduced, but you suppose your Aspect Markings are reasonably distinctive, as is the snake draped over your shoulders. You don't have to pretend not to know who she is either, this way. Your second-eldest living sister is not particularly easy to mistake for anyone else, as much as it's a surprise to run into her here, in a manse belonging to a Cynis household. "Mnemon Rulinsei," you say, turning it into an actual greeting. You're maintaining a respectful distance between the two of you, her still sitting, you standing several paces away on the path.

    Rulinsei glances around at the scenic and secluded surroundings. "I hope you weren't meeting someone up here," she says.

    Maia would have liked this garden — even if she's got no immediate need for secrecy, she always seems a little more at ease when she can identify something she slip behind or hide in. Things might have been different if you'd been in another mindset, but so far you haven't actually followed Maia's prompting to have a few encounters like the one you'd enjoyed the summer before. "No. I came here for a poetry reading one of the family's younger sons was hosting — it's really not that kind of gathering."

    Rulinsei examines your expression — adequately stoic, you hope. "I gather you weren't the life of the party?"

    "Is it that obvious?" you ask.

    She gives a laugh, rough but genuine. "Please. I've been the sorcerer in the room for most of my life, I know how these things go. Did that V'neef girl I saw arrive earlier drag you here?"

    You blink. She had, assuming Rulinsei is talking about V'neef Evona. She is one of L'nessa's adoptive great nieces, a third generation patrician elevated to Dynast after her household had been folded into House V'neef. It was her invitation that you'd accepted in your troubled fugue after your meeting with your mother, barely registering the details at the time. "You guessed that very quickly."

    "You visiting V'neef two years ago isn't a secret," Rulinsei says. "Neither is you sticking close to her youngest daughter. I'm sure you're keeping your options open, so along comes this girl, using the mutual connection to magnanimously invite you along to a social event. Something casual that someone else is putting on. You arrive and no one else really wants you there, so she's the one who'll pretend you don't make her nervous enough to actually give you the time of day. And hopefully when it's over, all you really take away from things is that."

    You consider that, and can't honestly disagree with her assessment, for all that she's going off pure conjecture. "I also enjoyed some of the poems." Others had been a little overwrought — you can't say you care for the contemporary Pangu flowing river form half as much as your host apparently does. "Are you trying to warn me off of her?"

    Rulinsei shrugs. "Of course not. Whether or not the girl's a grasping social climber and just wants partial credit for tying you down barely matters — you could do a lot worse than attaching yourself to an up-and-coming Great House, if you're going to hitch your wagon somewhere. I'd hope you're old enough by this point to know that the Empress's protection is not to be relied upon indefinitely."

    You're a little proud of yourself for not glancing at either her missing hand or her missing eye — that Mnemon Rulinsei was maimed by assassins as a girl is not exactly a secret. Nor is who was responsible for sending them precisely a secret, although throwing around the accusation where anyone from House Ragara might hear of it is not wise.

    "And you see nothing objectionable for me going to V'neef for such protection, hypothetically?" you ask, too curious not to.

    "No," she says, almost disinterested by the question. "Is there a reason I should? Sit down, girl, you're making me feel tired just looking at you."

    You step forward and perch on the edge of a bench near to hers, the movement giving you an excuse to hesitate over your answer. The strange circumstances of this conversation and unexpected candor are infectious, however. "Your matriarch does not seem to particularly care for theirs," you say, delicacy making the understatement a little absurd.

    Rulinsei raises her eyebrows archly -- it's the first time you've noticed any particular resemblance between her and your mother. "Do you like V'neef? Our sister, I mean, not her house." You open your mouth to reply, then pause. You hesitate for long enough for it to be an answer in its own right. Rulinsei laughs. "That's about what I thought. It's not that I don't understand the why of it, and my loyalties are where they are. I'm just too old to have the energy for that sort of family grudge at this point."

    Pointing out that she's younger than Mnemon by a decade barely occurs to you. Whatever the span of years, the woman sitting across from you is visibly near the end of her life in a way that neither your eldest sister nor your mother is. Compared against nearly anyone else, making it the better part of a century past three hundred would be impressive on its own. "I understand," you say, because you have to say something to that.

    She actually snorts at that. "No, you don't," she says, "but being eighteen is hardly your fault. It isn't really my concern whether you attach yourself to V'neef or Sesus or Tepet or anywhere else — you're not my daughter. But accepting shelter where it was offered was the best decision I've ever made, and I could hardly begrudge you for doing the same."

    You nod, struggling against feeling indignant at the condescension inherent in this sentiment. There isn't really any way to make 'you'll understand when you're older' easy to swallow. "What brings you here, anyway?" you ask, the change of subject obvious, but sorely needed.

    "Marriage negotiations," Rulinsei says. "One of my grandsons is of the age, and his mother, my youngest, is busy running a satrapy in the North. We have ties to the household — my late first husband's sister owns this manse. The sort of connection that requires maintenance, every generation or so. I also designed and built the place for her mother, so that helps."

    "Oh. It's very beautiful," you say honestly, looking around at your surroundings.

    "The garden was Mnemon's idea," Rulinsei says, waving off the compliment. "Over three hundred years I've been making them, and I still haven't shown her a geomantic design that she hasn't immediately changed in some way. And it's always an obvious improvement somehow — the garden perfectly balances out the flows of Wood Essence. It's a little infuriating." Despite this ostensibly being a complaint, she's smiling as she says it.

    The relationship this implies between the two of them is a little surprising, and you're not immediately certain how to respond. Before you have to, though, a new voice carries through the air, feminine and trying not to sound openly exasperated: "Great Grandmother?"

    Rulinsei gives you a wry sort of smile. "That would be me," she says. Pitched more loudly, she calls: "Over here, Sulim."

    A moment later, a young Water Aspect woman several years your elder appears, a look of relief on her face, and the mon of House Mnemon stitched subtly into the fabric of her dress. The look freezes as she rounds the corner and fully registers your presence. "My apologies," she says, "I didn't realise you had... company."

    Rulinsei sighs slightly. "Relax — I think I'm entitled to taking a moment to catch up with my youngest sister, when we stumble into each other like this. Ambraea, this is my great granddaughter, Mnemon Rulinsei Sulim." The pair of you exchange polite nods, although the atmosphere does little to thaw. Fortunately, Rulinsei doesn't seem to expect it to. "Is our host looking for me?" she asks.

    "Yes, Great Grandmother," Sulim says, moving closer to Rulinsei's side, and offering her an arm. "They're waiting for you downstairs."

    "Well, it wouldn't do to keep them waiting, then," Rulinsei says. She accepts the younger woman's help getting up, although you're not entirely sure how much she genuinely needs it the physical support, and how much she's just playing to appearances. It can be difficult to tell, with elder Dragon-Blooded.

    "I wish you good luck, sister," Rulinsei says, glancing back at you. "We tend to need it more than most would assume."

    You try to take that in the spirit you hope it was given. "Thank you. May your negotiations go well."

    You take a few minutes alone in the garden before you leave, lost in your thoughts. Maia really would like it here.


    "Why do you need this so badly?" you think at Perfection, thoughts peevish.

    "For a scholar, you have no appreciation for history," Perfection says, voice infuriatingly amused in your head. "Suffice to say, the seas are large and hold many wonderful things, and it becomes easier to find them if one has the proper information."

    You're in a large, dreary building illuminated by soft, magical lighting, filled with shelf upon narrow shelf of records and volumes dating back to the founding of the Realm. And before it, more to the point. You'd been both suspicious and relieved when Perfection had called in your latest favour by requesting you help them locate frustratingly specific surviving shogunate era naval records. What could they possibly want with such a thing? You still don't entirely know the answer to that, but you do know several things: That this particular part of the Imperial Archives uses a vastly different organisational scheme than the Heptagram's libraries, that the older records barely seem to follow that or any organisational scheme, and that this is not a particularly pleasant way to spend a summer's day.

    "And for a dragon, you are as insufferably pleased with yourself as ever. Do not laugh at me, it's intolerably rude."

    "Ah, my apologies, then! As I've told you before, you have my utmost faith in your abilities to find what I'm looking for."

    You fight the urge to sigh audibly. "Your confidence is truly touching."

    "Well, I shall let you concentrate on your search, then,"     Perfection says. "Please tell Demure Peony I said hello. You really don't deserve her."

    "No,"     you say. And they have the nerve to laugh at you again.

    From her usual place trailing behind you, Peony holds the several volumes you've already found, watching you with her usual quiet solemnity. After a long moment's consideration, she ventures: "I hope that your... teacher is being more helpful, my lady?"

    It's your turn to laugh. Which is much more excusable, considering that it's not being done effectively right in Perfection's face. "You can tell when I'm conversing with them," you say.

    "It... often makes you look slightly vexed," Peony admits. "I don't think most would notice."

    That's slightly reassuring, on one or two levels.

    You're on the second level of a large chamber, a railing letting you look down into the first. You briefly take notice of a young man dressed like a servant, struggling under a large stack of books. Then you return to Peony's question. "No, they're being quite unhelpful at the moment. We'll give this another hour, then see about going to find some food."

    "I'm sure that would be wise, my lady," Peony says, with a grateful undertone beneath the platitude. She holds up well, but mortal frailties weigh on her a great deal more than you, understandably.

    "... Well, you'd better go find him, then, shouldn't you?"

    The new voice becomes abruptly audible as you round a corner, having previously been swallowed by stone shelves filled with paper. You look up from the characters labelling the shelves to see a young woman hurrying past, dressed similarly to the young man you'd spotted. As she stops to drop a hasty bow to you as she passes, you take in the colours of House Sesus on the hem of her collar.

    Continuing down the hall, you glance into the first reading room you pass, expecting to see a Dynast, to perhaps exchange a polite nod and be on your mutually silent way. When you catch sight of the girl seated at the table inside, however, you freeze up short.

    The girl is your age, blonde, pale in an unremarkable sort of way, going over a ledger with a serious enough expression. When she catches you standing in the doorway, staring, she raises intensely red eyes to give you a quizzical look. She's small, pretty in a wide-eyed, delicate sort of way. Her clothes are fashionable and well-suited to her narrow frame, though her hair is pinned back with an elaborate hair ornament. Carefully shaped metal feathers form a flame pattern in red and black jade. To your eye, the piece isn't merely jade lacquered, instead bearing the deeper luster and surface translucence of solid jadesteel — you strongly suspect it isn't just ornamental. "May I help you?" she asks, and even her voice is familiar, if inflected all wrong.

    Your first, absurd impression is that, if Amiti is a girl who has had all the colour drained out of her, this is where it went — a perfect copy in every other way. It's such a startling mix of contrast and similarity that it takes you an embarrassing moment to realise who this must be. "Are you Sesus Kasi?" you ask her, the name coming back to you.

    The girl quirks a questioning smile. "That is me." she says. There's an air of summer around her, somehow, of vitality and warmth.

    "My name is Ambraea," you say, "My apologies — but I've been attending the Heptagram with your sister for the past several years, and you look very much alike."

    "Oh!" Recognition passes over Kasi's face, and she stands up. "Yes, we do hear that sometimes," she says more than a little dryly — when Amiti had told you she had a twin, you somehow hadn't made the connection to their being identical twins Exalted with different Aspects. She inclines her head respectfully, still smiling. "Very pleased to meet you — I've read a great deal about you in my sister's letters."

    This faintly surprises you, although perhaps it shouldn't. Amiti is usually too busy reading or running experiments or talking about something 'fascinating' to find the time to talk a great deal about her family. She'd said that she'd missed Kasi, and you'd known they were the same age. You suppose it follows, then, that Amiti and her sister must be close.

    You wonder what that's like.

    "Good things, I hope," you say.

    "Glowingly. But my sister rarely spends letter space talking about people she doesn't care for," Kasi says. "Will you sit down?"

    You take the chair across from Kasi. As you do, you glance from Peony to a nearby cabinet — she understands, and sets her pile of books temporarily down on top of it. She has an obscurely surreal look on her face, past her usual mask of servile humility. You recall that Amiti once cornered her for a well-meant but traumatic conversation. This must be strange for her as well.

    The thought of Amiti writing nice things about you to close family members is a pleasant one for you, however. She's the only one of your classmates where you can imagine that the practical benefits of touting a connection would have scarcely entered her mind. "She's a good woman to have as a friend," you say. "She helped to get me out of a bad situation, last year."

    "Yeah, I think she mentioned that, but partway through the account she got distracted by discussing the anatomy of a 'cliff guardian'. There were diagrams. Hopefully, you can forgive me if I skimmed those parts." There's a note of exasperated affection in Kasi's voice. You assume this is a common occurrence. "It's good no one was hurt, but I'm glad we don't have to worry about any of the help trying to eat us at the Spiral Academy." She says this a little like she can't entirely imagine why someone would feel otherwise, but is being polite.

    "I'm not sure if I'd call the cliff guardians the help exactly, but surviving the dangers of the Isle of Voices is part of our education," you say. Verdigris is asking to be allowed out onto the table, so you let her. To Kasi's credit, she only stiffens slightly at the sight of the snake.

    "I suppose so," she says, watching the small elemental exploring the space. "It's good that my sister has found capable friends, at least."

    You raise your eyebrows. "Was it a surprise that she did?"

    Kasi gives you a brief, assessing look, calibrating the degree of candour this situation calls for. "Amiti did not have... An easy time in primary school."

    You can imagine not. Her eccentricities wouldn't have started with her Exaltation, and with Kasi Exalted so early in their primary school career, Amiti would have been quickly identified as a leftover child. "She didn't have an easy one at the Heptagram at first, either," you admit.

    "But she made friends eventually," Kasi says. "Well-situated friends! You and the daughters of two Great House matriarchs, even if one of them is a Tepet. Mother is so pleased that I don't think she quite knows what to do with it — I'm actually glad I didn't manage to convince Amiti to come to the Academy with me. I suppose she just fits in better with other sorcerers."

    It's not hard to read a protective impulse into the words, and imagine the relationship this alludes to. Kasi, Exalted, comparatively well behaved, looking out for her strange, bookish mortal twin. One can well imagine it continuing this way into adulthood, even with Amiti's late Exaltation. It's also interesting how differently the two sisters perceive Sesus Cerec's feelings on the matter.

    "I'm not sure if 'fits in' is quite the word I'd use," you say. When Kasi's expression loses just a touch of its warmth, you say, "Well, she's a necromancer." You don't ordinarily try to make the distinction to unconcerned laypeople, but you somehow feel that Amiti would want it to be stressed. Dragons know, she does it often enough herself.

    "I'm sure that there's a very technical and fascinating distinction there, and I have had it explained to me at length at least three times in two different letters," Kasi says, relaxing a little again when this is all you meant by the comment. "I don't think I'm exactly the audience for it."

    For a moment, you consider trying anyway. The different sources and natures of sorcery and necromancy aren't so very hard to understand, after all. It's a rather rudimentary subject, of the sort that any second year Heptagram student should have been able to sum up out of hand. Then there are the unique worries that come along with such a practice, the dark powers that can be unleashed by it and that can alter a practitioner in poorly documented ways. But then, you suppose that for most people, it's the sort of thing one is doing with their otherworldly magic that they care about, rather than how a scholar would strictly classify it.

    You think better of it. "Perhaps not," you say. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but do you often spend your summers looking through archives?"

    "Shockingly, no," Kasi says. "I'm here running an errand for a... family friend in the Thousand Scales. It's not exactly fun, but if it were, I suppose he'd be here himself. And yourself?"

    With the focus the Spiral Academy already has on interfacing with the Imperial bureaucracy, this strikes you as a little like what has happened to you, with the materials your mother provided. Although you have to imagine that rare works on the nature of various obscure elementals makes for considerably more interesting reading than dry, centuries old records. You've spent more than one late night in a mix of study and mental conference with Perfection, the Dragon's perspective always a little different from that of any human scholar.

    "I am also here running an errand," you say, "although it's for my teacher. There was a particular Shogunate era naval battle that they have requested I find information on."

    Kasi glances over to the small stack of materials that Peony has collected. "That is a terrible thing to get you to do. The Shogunate records are a bit of a mess," she says. "Different calendars, you know. And hardly anyone even needs that sort of thing. I think you might need some help."

    "I wouldn't turn it down," you admit. "But aren't you busy?"

    "Right now, I'm mostly waiting on my servants to get back here with some of what I need. I could use an excuse to kill some time until then. And it can't hurt to show you a bit of gratitude for looking out for Amiti." Or to do a favour for an Imperial daughter, she doesn't have to add. You don't know Sesus Kasi very well, but you already get the feeling that her motivations in such matters are about as complex as any Dynast's.

    "Thank you," you say, scooping up Verdigris as you rise from your seat.

    "Like I said, the pleasure is all mine," Kasi says, getting up herself. She moves with a confidence and purpose somewhat at odds with her size, but befitting the daughter of a legionary officer. "I can think of far worse ways to spend the time." Then she flashes you a hard to read smile, and leads the way back out of the reading room.


    Article:
    Near the end of the summer, Ambraea returns to Chanos, and then to the Heptagram for her fourth year, unaware that the period of normalcy that she's been living in is rapidly nearing its end. Foremost on her mind is what the Empress told her about Erona Maia, but this is hardly the only thing that will happen to her over the course of the school year.

    When you see Maia again, do you come clean to her about knowing her family's secret, or do you withhold it, and just try to carry on as you were? As your mother said, the knowledge was a gift, and you are free to do with it what you will.

    [ ] [Maia] Tell Maia what you know

    [ ] [Maia] Pretend nothing has changed


    Continuity note: I will be renaming the character "Peleps Nazri" to "Peleps Nalri", due to having belatedly realised that Nazri is the name of a canon Exalted character. It would drive me crazy otherwise.

    What storyline would you like to follow in your fourth year? The characters named as central will appear very prominently within this storyline, but this doesn't mean you won't see other characters as well. You may vote for as many as you like, but only the top vote will be picked. This vote is separate from the first:

    [ ] [Storyline] Flame and Frost

    Amiti's early friendship with Ledaal Anay Idelle seems to have grown particularly strained this year. Amiti comes to Ambraea and her other friends with a problem that she's trying to conceal. Why is Idelle so suspicious and intent on discovering it?

    Availability: Year 4
    Central character(s): Ledaal Anay Idelle, Sesus Amiti
    Themes: Ghosts, family ties


    [ ] [Storyline] Names and Nightmares

    Certain students begin to get strange, unexplained dreams, and they're not just from stress, for once. What could be causing them, and why?

    Availability: Year 4
    Central character(s): ???
    Themes: Dream magic, demons


    [ ] [Storyline] Best Served Cold

    In Ambraea's third year, her life and that of her friends' was put in danger by the actions of Peleps Nalri. While Ambraea wasn't the primary target, this is still not something that can be let stand. Ambraea and L'nessa find a way to get back at her before she graduates.

    Availability: Year 4, year 5
    Central character(s): Peleps Nalri, V'neef L'essa
    Themes: Familial rivalry, House V'neef and House Peleps


    [ ] [Storyline] Hard Lessons

    Sola once stepped in when tensions between Ambraea and another student reached an unwise breaking point. Ambraea will have ample opportunity to return the favour, or to decline to.

    Availability: Year 4, year 5
    Central character(s): Cathak Garel Hylo, Tepet Usala Sola,
    Themes: Familial rivalry, House Tepet and House Cathak


    [ ] [Storyline] The Serpent Thief

    An old annoyance has reemerged to trouble Diamond-Cut Perfection, slipping into their court to steal information and Essence. They would like to send a message that they are not to be trifled with in this way, asking Ambraea to kill or bind the thief. The thief's unique nature makes this no trivial task, however.

    Availability: Year 4, year 5
    Central character(s): ???, Diamond-Cut Perfection
    Themes: Strange spirits, ruins
     
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    [storyline] [maia]
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    • Year 4: Flames and Frost 01
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    • [Storyline] Flame and Frost: 22

    [Storyline] The Serpent Thief: 19

    [Storyline] Names and Nightmares: 8

    [Storyline] Best Served Cold: 5

    [Storyline] Hard Lessons: 4

    [Maia] Tell Maia what you know: 37

    [Maia] Pretend nothing has changed: 4

    Descending Fire, Realm Year 761

    Two years, four months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.

    The Port of Chanos

    You arrive back in Chanos without a great deal of time left to spare, Diamond-Cut Perfection perfectly willing to take you back at the same speed they'd brought you to the city. Peony had been stoically resolved to it, but you'd still decided to give her a few days to rest after your journey. When you left to go meet Maia at the time and place you'd arranged, you'd unfastened Perfection's scale from around your neck, and asked Peony to put it somewhere safe for you.

    As much as your sorcery is less effective without it, some things you'd prefer to carry on with without an unseen audience.

    Fresh from the Imperial City, you're struck anew by how different Chanos's character is from the place of your birth. Its rugged shorelines and slate grey skies cast the elaborate architecture of Emberswathe and other fine neighbourhoods into stark relief, its monuments less inescapable and distinctly coloured by House Sesus's sensibilities and history.

    Hesiesh Taming the North is as ostentatious as anything erected in the Imperial City, however — a massive brass dragon winds sinuously around a pillar of eternal ice, the rare material a token of a conquest in the North. The statue stands in the middle of a vast market square, marking the border between the upscale neighbourhood of Lamplight and the decidedly seedier merchant docks.

    You tell your carriage driver to wait for you a little outside the square, and proceed on foot. A Dragon-Blood without attendants or entourage is conspicuous in its own way, but you're armed, and this is exactly the kind of neighbourhood where young Dynasts sometimes spend time in pursuit of adventure.

    The scents of burning incense and baking pastry are strong on the air as you cut through a side street toward the statue, alone for the moment in the space between one building and the next. Looking out at the crowded square filled with stalls and shoppers, it takes you a moment or two to spot who you're looking for.

    Maia looks particularly striking today, her dark hair cut short again. She's wearing a well-fitted tunic in blue and silver over silk pantaloons cut distractingly tight in the masculine style; a pale yellow sash is belted around her waist, a jeweled dagger tucked into it, along with who knows how many hidden weapons. She perches on the edge of the statue's dais reading a book, a servant and a bodyguard hovering nearby. You watch her from the far side of the crowd for longer than you strictly need to, filled with mingled longing and apprehension.

    You can't, you've decided, keep what you know from her, however much the news is likely to put a damper on things between you today. It's not exactly something you can talk about in such a public setting regardless, but you wouldn't know where to begin even if it were. You take a step forward, prepared to work your way through the crowd toward her, when a hand touches your back.

    Whoever had snuck up on you had been utterly silent even to your supernaturally strengthened senses, and you whirl around, your hand going for the hilt of your sword. You freeze up, dumbstruck, when you find yourself looking down at none other than Erona Maia. "Surprise," she says, a quiet sort of satisfaction in her voice.

    You look back over your shoulder — she's still sitting near the statue, seemingly, going through the motions of reading her book. Turning back to the Maia in front of you, you reach out to cup her chin in your hand, emboldened by your relatively solitude as well as surprise. "Well, you feel like the real Maia," you say, gentle tilting her face up as if to be sure.

    You feel Maia's face heat beneath your touch as a flush comes into her cheeks. "Sculpted Seafoam Eidolon," she admits. "I've been practicing."

    "On your family's servants, or just on me?" you ask, trying and failing to look stern.

    Maia shrugs, looking a little self conscious. "Looks like it works on both."

    "From a distance," you say. Now that the spike of adrenaline has left your body, it's quite funny. "I'm not sure if it would hold up to close scrutiny." Such as the scrutiny you're subjecting her to, just this moment.

    Maia looks away, but she doesn't seem displeased. "I missed you," she says.

    "I missed you too," you say.

    "You weren't too distracted by everything in the capital?" Maia asks. It's a teasing comment, more than being genuinely insecure. But there's still the kernel of something there.

    "I can safely say that you rarely left my mind for long," you say. There must still be something a little troubling in your tone that stands out, because Maia looks back at you, a slight frown marring her face.

    "Is something wrong?" she asks, dropping her voice to a whisper.

    Yes. "No," you say. "There's something I'd like to talk to you about in private, though."

    Maia opens her mouth to reply, but over her shoulder, several people in the garb of wealthy peasants round the corner. The woman at their head sees you, with the quartz pattern in your skin and your fine clothes and how close you're standing to a patrician girl. Without a word, she turns around, and pushes her companions to leave.

    "... Privacy would be good," Maia agrees. She takes a step away from you, a level of formality coming down over her like a curtain. It's slightly undermined by Verdigris, who has at some point slid out of your sleeve to coil around Maia's neck like a strange choker. "I am of course always ready to accept such an invitation, my lady."

    You give a wry sort of sigh at that. "You're really going to leave those two back there with your friend?" you ask.

    "I've instructed it to head back home to the house in an hour, and reply to simple questions," Maia says. "I can be back before anyone notices it collapsing back into water sometime early this morning. I assume you have a carriage nearby, my lady?"

    "I do," you say. "If you wouldn't mind following me?"


    She doesn't, in fact, mind following you, and as much as it deprives you of a pleasant day out on the city, you'll at least get the unpleasant part out of the way quickly. As you enter the manse trailed by Maia, you consider the many ways this could go, good or bad. You can only hope that she trusts you enough that you being able to hold this information over her isn't going to cross her mind.

    There's still a knot of tension in your stomach as you lead her to the stairs, toward the guest quarters you occupy. Mnemon Rulinsei's words about the Empress not being reliable forever cross your mind as your eyes meet the large portrait of her hanging over the landing — it will only be a few short years before you leave this place behind, and it returns to being yet another of your mother's unused properties. You should remember not to get too attached.

    As you enter your chambers, you order one of the servants to bring up a bottle of something pleasant to drink in the sitting room — he rushes off to do so like you might do something terrifying to him.

    "No Peony?" Maia asks, watching him leave.

    "She's still recovering," you say. "On my insistence."

    Maia glances around the sitting room — it's much the same as the last time she saw it: Expensively dated decor, heirloom furniture that's hardly been touched, tastefully inoffensive wall hangings. A space you're living in, but that isn't fully yours. You'd like to show her your rooms in the palace someday. "You needed to order her to take a nap?"

    "Yes," you say. "If she could just work instead of sleep, I think it's what she'd do all the time."

    You glance at the door the servant just vanished through, and will soon return through, and step toward the door to the bedroom. "We're not wasting any time, I see," Maia says, watching you hang your sword up on the wall outside the door.

    "I still need to talk to you," you say, trying not to be too diverted by the look in her eyes. You're both young, and you've both missed each other fiercely. You'd both appreciate a chance just to be close to each other undisturbed, as much as anything more base.

    You step into the room, surveying its impressive windows, austere decorations, and the same large, comfortable bed you'd woken up beside Maia in before you'd left for the Imperial City. It feels like years, somehow, instead of a matter of months.

    You'd intended to bring up the subject the moment you were alone with her, but as you close the door behind the two of you, you turn around to find Maia standing very near, an anticipatory smile tugging at her lips in a way that you can't quite bring yourself to disappoint.

    In very short order, you're on the bed. Maia is leaning over you with her hands in your hair, fingers skillfully undoing your braid. Yours are around her waist, holding her like something precious, kissing her like something that might slip away from you at any moment.

    What brings you out of the moment is a metallic, forked tongue tickling your ear, enough to make you withdraw from Maia, jerking around in surprise. Verdigris looks up at you with an oddly unimpressed expression in her eye, from where she's coiled herself on the pillow.

    "There is something wrong, isn't there?" Maia asks. She's still more or less on top of you, hands frozen in their careful work. There's a thread of worry there, as much as she wants to make it a joke. On some level, always trying to be prepared for the rejection she'd expected from the first.

    You steel yourself. "Maia... I know," you say.

    It would have been very convenient if she could have just decoded your meaning from three words alone. "You know?" she asks, confused, pulling back. You feel a faint pang as her hands leave your hair — you like them there.

    You take in a deep breath. "I know that you're a descendant of Is--"

    You've seen Maia move this fast, catlike and explosive. It has never before been directed at you, however. She has one small hand clapped hard over your mouth, the other braced against the headboard. She looks at you with wild, terrified eyes. Beside you on the bed, Verdigris hisses in alarm, not liking this, but not capable of threatening Maia enough to prevent it.

    You're very aware, somehow, of Maia's dagger still hanging around your neck, having been pulled free from your dress's neckline amid the earlier activity, now in trivially easy reach. You don't know why you never really thought of it as weapon before. However, when Maia speaks, her voice is thick with distress, not malice: "Never say that name!" She's trembling, you realise, her hand quavering against your mouth.

    Slowly, as if she's a skittish animal you're afraid of frightening off, you reach up and take her wrists, freeing your mouth to answer. She lets you. "I'm sorry," you say, pushing yourself up to a sitting position.

    Maia takes a second or two to compose herself as best she can. Then she asks, "Who told you this?"

    You see no reason to hide it. "My mother."

    Maia freezes in your grip, silent for another long moment. "What, exactly, did the Empress tell you?" Her voice is barely audible.

    You choose your words very carefully, aware, somehow, that there are a thousand ways this moment could shatter. "She told me about who your grandmother was. To warn me, I suppose. I understand why you'd want to keep it a secret."

    Maia lets out a nervous giggle, utterly mirthless. "And did she tell you to tell me? Why?"

    "No," you say, and there's an anger in your voice that surprises you, a resentment that you've barely allowed yourself to acknowledge bleeding into your words. "No. She told me to 'have my fun' with you, then distance myself before you become a liability. Because there are plenty of other patrician girls willing to warm my bed if I just want to keep a lover of a lower station." Maia flinches, and you deliberately soften your voice with some effort, your hands leaving her wrists, and moving to cup her face. "That's not what you are to me," you say, staring into her eyes, expression plaintive. Willing her to believe you.

    Maia stares back at you for a moment, gradually going slack. She lets out a quiet sniff, lip trembling. She doesn't resist as you gather her up into your arms and pull her close, cradling her in your lap.

    "She's right though. I am a problem. I'll be a problem for you," Maia says. She curls in against you, making herself as small as possible, her head pressed in against the hollow of your shoulder and your neck. You lean yours against it — as always, her hair smells like oncoming rain.

    "I don't care," you tell her, your heart full of uncomplicated feeling, unaware of your own dangerous ignorance. She seems to want to reply to that, but what comes out is a whimper, and in the end you just hold her tightly as she sobs, not entirely understanding what it is about this that hurts her so much.

    It's only much later that you think to notice that she wasn't particularly surprised that the Empress would be privy to her family's darkest secrets.


    Year 4: Flame and Frost

    "Have you heard the news?" It feels a little like being ambushed, L'nessa bright eyed and seemingly very eager for your answer to be in the negative.

    You've only just arrived at the docks. The sky overhead is dark enough that you all expect rain. The ship looks particularly small and uncomfortable ahead of that prospect, although not as small as the new first year students work. You could swear that the sacrifices get younger and younger every year. You've barely set foot outside the carriage, but L'nessa doesn't waste time when it comes to gossip.

    L'nessa leans up to you, stage whispering: "Simendor took the rite of Daana'd, she says.

    That brings you up short. You scan the crowd for a glimpse of iridescent Aspect Markings, eventually finding who you're looking for. Still tall, still gaunt, dressed in that subtly foreign way. But what little in the way of feminine curves he'd had are no longer in evidence — somehow, in a way you can't quite place, it meshes better with the way he carries himself. Unfortunately, he catches you watching, flashing an insolent smile that is exactly the same as it always was.

    The 'rite of Daana'd' is not a formal religious rite, in point of fact. But it is a useful euphemism to describe someone going through the sort of change that Sola had before you met her — or Danaa'd herself, in the Immaculate Texts.

    "Well," you say, "he might make a more tolerable man, at least."

    You hear Sola's laugh before you actually see her — she'd been approaching from the side. "I knew you'd say something like that," she says. As ever, she's wearing that daiklave, the many-faceted ruby in its hilt mesmerising when you catch sight of it.

    You're not sure how, but you understand you're being made fun of. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," you say, ignoring her answering grin.

    You catch sight of Maia standing a ways off, having arrived at some point when you weren't looking, quietly slipping in among the crowd of her betters. She sends you a small, slightly strained smile. Things had gone better than they might have, but there's still an odd sense from her. Like she's holding something back.

    "Have you seen Amiti?" Sola asks, glancing around.

    "Over by the end of the dock," L'nessa says. She looks over and frowns. "That looks a little tense."

    She's not wrong — Sesus Amiti is a pale, distinctive figure against the backdrop of the ship. Speaking to her is Ledaal Anay Idelle, her brows creased in consternation. Amiti does not look particularly happy.

    "If you'll please give me a moment," you say. On protective impulse, you stride over to the two of them, working your way through the crowd, offering polite greetings as you go. As you make your approach, the conversation comes into focus.

    "... It's not just a game, Amiti. There are real risks!"

    "I am quite aware of the risks of my field, Idelle," Amiti says, hunch-shouldered. "More than you, I'd think!"

    "You're aware of them, but you don't respect them," Idelle says. Her eyes flick down to the pendant Amiti is holding in her hand, which she's currently squeezing so tightly it might be a little painful. As you approach, a faint chiming sound fills the air, although you can't quite pinpoint its origin. Idelle turns to face you, her burning eyes briefly flicking to the snake on your shoulders. Literally burning — they aren't simply red, but flicker strangely to orange and yellow as well, uncannily like a candle flame. "Ambraea," she says.

    Amiti smiles at you, relieved as though you have just rescued her from something direly uncomfortable — you're glad you interposed yourself. "Hello, Ambraea!" she says. It's striking all over again how much she does and does not resemble her sister.

    "Amiti, Idelle," you say, "I trust your summers went well?"

    "Oh, lovely," Amiti says, "I got so much reading done, and the weather was lovely. And I saw instructor Sai again." She looks at you expectantly as she says this, and you have a faint, panicked notion that you should know who she means.

    "I'm sorry, who?" you ask. Idelle looks equally puzzled.

    "It's not important," Amiti says. And then she fishes in her bag for a notebook and graphite, for some reason.

    "I spent most of my time training," Idelle admits. "It isn't often I have a chance to work with my master, and it won't do to have my spear work completely atrophy." You realise what made the chime, belatedly — in an unusual affectation for a Dynast, one of her ears is pierced in three places, with three tiny, brightly-coloured bells dangling from it. They're jade — one green, one black, and one red. Oddly enough, they don't make any more noise when she moves her head or speaks.

    Idelle is both shorter and darker than you, built along more wiry lines, her dark hair in elaborate braids down past her shoulders. You're not surprised that the daughter of Demon Fang Anay might know her way around a spear, but you've never trained with her or seen her fight. After the summer you've had, you're suddenly curious, even if you're not exactly pleased with her for upsetting Amiti.

    As accurate a character assessment of your friend as she may have been making.

    "I did a great deal of sword work while I was in the Imperial City," you admit. "There was a lot of opportunity to find new opponents."

    "I'm sure you'll beat Sola someday," Amiti says, in an encouraging tone that you're quite sure marks a sincere sentiment.

    "I have beaten her. Occasionally," you say, frowning, and not altogether loving that direction of conversation. "I saw your sister, by the way."

    Amiti perks up. "Oh! I hope she's well — it's been long enough since we've spoken in person, but I'm sure she'll mention you in her next letter."

    "She seemed well enough," you say. "You didn't tell me you're identical."

    "Didn't I?" Amiti says.

    Idelle laughs. "Of course she didn't," she says. "What is it that your nanny used to say? Kasi got all the sense, you got all the dreams."

    Amiti gives her a quietly indignant look. "My sister has plenty of dreams," she says. "They're just about... practical things, mostly."

    You can't entirely say that the assessment seems incorrect. Sesus Kasi certainly seemed like she has her mind focused on far more temporal matters than Amiti, but you can't say that you didn't see ambition in her eyes, sometimes.

    The gangplank lowers then, and with it the request for you all to board. L'nessa gives you an amused look as she passes by, evidently more than a little tickled by the way you'd left so abruptly. Maia's eyes briefly meet yours, and things aren't quite normal between the two of you, but you're still looking forward to the more socially permissive atmosphere of the school.

    Idelle walks up onto the ship, and you're about to follow, but Amiti catches your sleeve. You turn to look at her expectantly. "Thank you," she says, voice quiet.

    "You looked like you needed some rescuing," you say.

    Amiti gives an awkward little laugh. "A bit! She's not so bad, though — she's trying to look out for me."

    "Because your parents are Hearthmates," you say. You recall her mentioning the previous year.

    "Yes, and we've known each other since we were children," Amiti says. "I think Anay told her to keep an eye on me, and she takes that sort of thing very seriously."

    You suppose it's not so surprising that so many people who knew Amiti as a young girl are of the belief that she needs minding. But at least Kasi is revising her opinion as the two of them grow older. "We're all supposed to keep an eye on one another," you say, as if you don't understand her specific meaning. "It's how the school works."

    Amiti smiles, and hurries to catch up with your longer stride as you walk toward the ship. "Yes, I suppose so," she says.

    Article:
    You will need to make good on that offer of keeping an eye on one another sooner rather than later. During your fourth year, Idelle will approach you with a concern about Amiti and what, exactly, she's been doing. What is the setting of that encounter?

    [ ] A difficult binding ritual

    As fourth years, you are now being tasked with more dangerous duties around the school. This binding is eventful, but it gives Idelle a chance to speak to you.

    [ ] A training session

    Idelle politely interrupts one of your sparring matches with Sola. Her news isn't exactly welcome, but you get an opportunity to observe her strange fighting style in practice.

    [ ] At the worst possible time

    You were planning to meet Maia, but you can't exactly just say that now.
     
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    • Year 4: Flames and Frost 02
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    • A training session: 23

    The worst possible time: 15

    A difficult binding ritual: 6

    Ascending Earth, Realm Year 761

    Two years, three months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress

    The Isle of Voices

    You'd been the one to talk her around to the idea, and you reconsider whether it was such a good idea almost immediately.

    By this point, you and Sola have been using this same spot for training for going on three years, the ground underfoot having been cleared by the passage of feet, the stony ground properly leveled through the exertion of your power. Rocks rising up on several sides provide a semblance of privacy, although the fog is already so thick you're not sure you'd need it.

    You and Sola stand across from one another, weapons at the ready, the air silent except for the distant sound of the waves and the raucous cry of a seabird somewhere overhead. You're holding your training sword as usual, but Sola holds Storm's Eye, the daiklave sheathed, but still very large and very heavy.

    "This can still break bone like this even if it won't cut you in half," Sola says, offering you one last chance to change your mind.

    "My bones aren't the easiest to break," you say. And more to the point, you're not actively trying to hurt one another. You're a grown woman, more or less — you can handle a few unpleasant bruises. You don't have to see Verdigris to know how unhappy she must seem, coiled up small and still on the ground behind you.

    "Alright," Sola says. And then she closes her eyes, and somehow just from that, you know that you're not going to fare half as well as usual. Sola is always fast, preternaturally skilled and focused in a way that has only been honed more and more in the years you've known each other. Now, though, she shoots forward toward you accompanied by an electric crackle and a flash of light, crossing the distance between you and her in the blink of an eye. You catch the first blow on your sword, and even though you had prepared yourself for the weight of a real daiklave, the blow still rings through your blade and up your arms, very nearly pushing you back a half step.

    You try to counter, but she's already moving again, her power focused and amplified, raining blows down on you faster than you can account for. Then, frustratingly quickly, you overextend by a hair. Sola forces your blade up, darts neatly around behind you, and presses Storm's Eye's sheath directly into your throat.

    Having kept her eyes closed the entire time.

    "I suppose I can't really complain that that wasn't fair," you say.

    "You could, and I wouldn't point out the hypocrisy, but you'd know I could point it out, and that would be even more galling," Sola says, and you can hear that familiar grin in her voice. "You wanted to see a bit of what I could do with this sword, so I decided not to hold back too much."

    "Yes, thank you," you say, trying not to sound annoyed. It would be absurd to sound annoyed. You'd known you were unlikely to win like this on your first attempt, but you'd hoped to at least hold your own a little better. "That speed is hard to adjust to," you say.

    "And dealing with the weight tires you out faster," Sola agrees. She has the daiklave leaned against her shoulder, holding it all casually as she might any lesser weapon. "I can't do that speed trick very often, yet, but it makes for a good opener, doesn't it?" She pulls the sheathed sword away from your throat, and steps back, letting you turn to look at her. To your relief, she's at least breathing hard, if not quite to the degree that you are.

    "Why were your eyes closed?" you ask, kneeling to give Verdigris a reassuring stroke.

    "It's hard to explain," Sola says, sinking down to the ground and examining the jewel in the blade's hilt. "The sword works as a scrying focus, I'm pretty sure. It lets me see my surroundings without seeing them — blocking out other stimuli makes it flow easier. It's good for casting spells, surprisingly, but also just focusing on a point and making myself go there. Narrowing all my speed and power down into a single movement." She slides the blade a hair out of its sheath, the brilliant gold and electric blue of the daiklave glinting as if it were in full sunlight despite the overcast sky. "I think it's got something to do with how the jadesteel flows through the orichalcum. Artifice isn't my specialty, though."

    "No, using artifice to hit people is, apparently," you say.

    Sola laughs. "Among other things! Hey, Ledaal, you want to come out now? This is getting awkward."

    You whirl around, cursing yourself for your inattention. Sure enough, stepping out from behind a particular boulder, looking distinctly guilty, is Ledaal Anay Idelle. "My apologies!" she says, "I didn't interrupt. I didn't want to interrupt, I mean. Since you were busy." She hesitates for a moment, before saying, a note of faint frustration in her voice, "I didn't think I was being so obvious."

    "Didn't you catch the part about the sword helping me sense my surroundings, while you were listening in?" Sola asks, amused.

    "I wasn't listening!" Idelle insists, deeply sincere on this point. "I mean, I was. But I wasn't listening in. On purpose. Eavesdropping, you know — that's what I wasn't doing."

    You manage not to laugh, which allows you to straighten up, and almost serenely ask: "Did you need something, Idelle?"

    "I just wanted to talk to you," she says. "I know that you usually come out here at this time of day. So..." she shrugs, still completely thrown off her intended approach by having been found out.

    You start to ask her what she needs, but Sola speaks first: "Well, you can make up for the unintentional eavesdropping by giving Ambraea a proper sparring partner."

    Idelle seems taken aback. "I'm sorry?"

    "She didn't get much out of that bout we just had — I was going nearly all out and using techniques she's not prepared for. And you're not that tired, are you?"

    "I'm not," you confirm, giving Sola a strange look. You do have to admit to having some genuine interest in the prospect, although you can't help but feel that it's being thrust upon you, to say nothing of poor Idelle.

    "I don't have a spear," Idelle says, looking at your sword.

    "Oh, here," Sola says. She reaches up and takes hold of some of the mist, twisting it together until it solidifies diaphanously. It forms into a staff of approximately the right size for a woman of Idelle's height, its heft obvious in the way Sola handles it.

    "And just how long have you been waiting to show that off?" you ask.

    "Well, this is the first time I've actually really managed it," Sola admits, sounding pleased but even more drained than before. She's outlined in blue light, and there's an electric intensity in the air around her that isn't usually quite so pronounced. Still, she holds the staff up for Idelle to come take.

    After a moment, Idelle approaches to take it — you notice that as she passes near to Verdigris, that same small, clear chime sounds. You're beginning to think that her earrings are some manner of spirit-detecting artifact. She only spares your snake a brief glance before accepting the strange staff from Sola. She gives it an experimental twirl, followed by a sudden stabbing strike at the air. Apparently, the weapon passes muster. "If you both insist," she says, meeting your eyes. "I really did just come here to talk."

    "We could always talk at the same time," you say, picking your practice sword up again. That isn't really an option with Sola most of the time — something about her using the training to help herself achieve the meditative state necessary to make the alchemical solutions she takes work properly.

    "Alright," Idelle says. She squares up in the spot Sola had originally occupied, allowing you to take your place across the notional practice ring from her. "You recall my conversation with Sesus Amiti back in Chanos?" She holds the staff in both hands, her stance solid, but clearly poised on the brink of motion.

    "I recall," you say, frowning a little as you take your own guard.

    "I do not believe she has taken heed of my advice," Idelle says. Then she moves, whirling into a sweeping staff strike. You turn it aside and answer in kind, slashing at her. She dances back, the staff coming up between you to block.

    "I would have been shocked if she had," you say, letting her back off again. You can't imagine Amiti of all people responding to something as vague as an urge to 'be careful' in her academic pursuits.

    "I'm worried," Idelle says, bluntly. "She's doing something dangerous."

    "What, specifically?" you ask. And as you ask it, you move, your strikes coming down on her like an avalanche, forcing her to nimbly step aside and parry each one.

    "She's staying out at all hours — her roommate is hardly lifting a finger to keep an eye on her." That much you can believe; the reason Heptagram students are kept in such cramped sleeping arrangements is to minimise your opportunities for doing something stupid alone. Both of Amiti's original roommates dropped out over the course of the first two years, however, and she's ended up with a Ragara girl a year older than you. You've never gotten the impression that she particularly cares what Amiti does. Idelle bats aside your sword, and moves into a sudden, lunging strike — you're forced to brace your off hand against the back edge of your sabre to parry it, and the shocking force of it drives you down to one knee. "She brought an entire case of salt with her!" Idelle adds, for final emphasis.

    Salt has several supernatural uses, but most famously, a line of salt is a simple and effective ward against many ghosts and other undead creatures. Particularly if it's laid with the power of a Dragon-Blood behind it. For all its horrors, ghosts should ideally not be a serious problem on the Isle of Voices.

    "What, exactly, are you asking?" You ask, breathing hard. Idelle lets you get up, the two of you circling each other once again.

    "For you to talk to her!" Idelle says, frustrated or winded or both. "She trusts you, doesn't she?"

    "And she doesn't trust you?" you ask.

    "We don't get along as well as we used to, anymore," Idelle admits.

    "And is there a reason you're not just going to an instructor with this?" You ask.

    Idelle bristles a little. "I'm concerned as a childhood friend of hers, not just because my mother asked me to watch out for her, or because I'm trying to get her into trouble!"

    You consider her for a moment. "We'll call this a draw," you say, relaxing your guard.

    After a moment, she does the same, still frowning. "Well?" she asks.

    "I may speak to her," you say, dubious. You're not going to commit to what specifically it would be about.

    "Oh, well... good," Idelle says. The flickering glow in her eyes is definitely brighter, and there's a faint scent of burning incense in the air around her. You're certain that the vitreous lustre in your own hair and eyes has likewise deepened noticeably.

    "Thank you for the match, I will do my best to reflect on it."

    "You're welcome," Idelle says. She makes as though to lean on the staff for a moment or two, but seems startled when it vanishes back into mist. Presumably maintaining such a weapon is not yet practical for Sola. "It's not really what I intended, but it's good to stay sharp, when the opportunity arises." She's quiet then, as if not entirely certain how to disengage from the conversation from here.

    "I am sure you will need to prepare for Instructor Ovo's remedial lecture before tomorrow," you say, nodding graciously. It's not a slight at her — you'd had a particularly monstrous lecture from the dominie earlier that day, and almost no one had followed the finer points of it. It's common enough for the rest of the staff to quietly schedule followup lectures to explain such things.

    "Oh, yes," Idelle says. "Right! Well, thank you. And please remember what I've said!" With that, she turns on her heel, and begins to walk away.

    It's a few moments before she's far enough away that you speak again. "What do you think?" You ask Sola, kneeling down to let Verdigris climb up your arm.

    "She's definitely had some Golden Janissary training," Sola says, glancing after Idelle's receding form through the mist. "You can tell by the footwork. I've seen it demonstrated before."

    "No," you say, frowning at her, "I mean about Amiti."

    "Oh, well, Ledaal's probably right," Sola says, as if this is obvious. "Amiti's been too quiet so far this year -- she probably is up to something. Girl cut her own soul to pieces to learn necromancy, remember?"

    "That is true," you acknowledge.

    "Nice girl, especially for a Sesus," Sola says, in case there was any doubt of her good opinion, "but her eyes light up when she talks about death magic the yours do when Maia walks into the room."

    "That is a deeply inappropriate comparison," you say, slightly annoyed. Comparing Maia to something dark and unsavoury you'd be better off avoiding strikes a nerve, just now, even if that's not how Sola meant it. "Still, checking in on her wouldn't be the worst idea."


    Amiti is harder to track down than she should be, based on your prior experience of her. She's not haunting her usual dim levels of the library tower, or occupying her favourite workroom, or in her dorm — her roommate proves to be quite as disinterested as Idelle had led you to believe. It's enough to make you give greater credence to what Idelle had said in the first place.

    In the end, though, Maia comes to your rescue. "I'm meeting Amiti tomorrow to go over a few things together," she'd said, when you'd arrived back at the dorm that night. "She's very good at catching basic mistakes in geomantic diagrams, and I'm helping her brush up on demonic hierarchical theory — apparently quite a few post-Immaculate works on ghost classification take some familiarity with that for granted as a basis for comparison. You can probably just come too, if you need to talk to her."

    Then you'd kissed her out of general gratitude, and L'nessa, who had just entered the room, had very unreasonably thrown a pillow at you.

    And so the next day, after breakfast and after renewing a particularly nasty binding for the school, you set out with the workroom that Maia directed you to in mind. You're a level up from your destination, currently traveling in between towers, when you find yourself face to face with easily your least favourite Heptagram student:

    "Ambraea! so glad to see you well," says Peleps Nalri, giving you a cuttingly pleasant smile. "I'd meant to say hello sooner, but we never seem to be in the same place for very long — strange, considering how few of us there are here."

    "Yes. Strange." You don't twitch a smile, and feel obligated to reach up to give Verdigris a soothing stroke where her head is poking up from the collar of your school tunic. The snake still lets out a small but distinctly threatening hiss.

    Now a sixth year, Nalri is much as you recall her — willowy and darkly attractive, her dense curls threaded through with kelp fronds gently waving in an invisible current. "I hope you enjoyed your summer?"

    "I did," you say, voice stiff.

    "I'm told you made a fool out of one of my older cousins," Nalri says, not sounding particularly upset about it. "I've met Asher before — I only wish I could have been there to see it."

    You take in a deep breath, and decide to abandon subtlety. "What is it that you want?"

    "Oh, very little," she says. "I could see you were displeased after that... unpleasant accident, last year, so I kept my distance. But I would hope that there's been enough time now to clear the air."

    "Well," you say, "by all means, clear it."

    You would call Nalri's continued pleasant calm admirable, coming from anyone else. "While I can of course accept no responsibility for what occurred with the V'neef boy's experiment, I will again gently advise you that greater care taken in your associations may yield fewer instances of you finding yourself... collateral." She smiles at the last word, as if too amused by it to refrain from the expression.

    You narrow your eyes. "I don't appreciate threats."

    Nalri waves that off. "We're Dynasts, my dear. The threats come along with the fabulous wealth and power. And in this case, I am still simply warning you — you choose your enemies along with your allies. And I would hate to see you choose poorly."

    "Thank you for your consideration," you say. "However, I am expected elsewhere. Hello, Maia, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

    "I could see you were occupied," says Maia, standing about a pace behind Nalri. Nalri gives a slight start at the sound of the voice, turning swiftly to glare. You'd watched Maia seem to almost melt out of the darkness, setting herself up to scare the older girl deliberately — from Nalri's expression, she is as aware of this as you were.

    "Erona Maia," Nalri says, struggling to maintain composure, "you will remain at least two paces away from me unless I invite otherwise." You're forced to bite your tongue — this much is Nalri's right to demand, particularly with her house fostering Maia to the Heptagram in the first place.

    Dutifully, Maia takes a step back. She bows apologetically. "As you wish, my lady," she says. Her eyes stay downcast in open deference, but you think you see something a little worrisome in them.

    Nalri shakes her head. "I hope you will not have lost sight of such things completely by the time you offer your service to my family." She looks back to you, and dredges back up a shadow of her original smile. "Please, think long on what I have said," she says.

    "I will give your words all the weight they merit," you promise. She says nothing as she politely walks past you and down the passageway.

    "That's quite an expression you're wearing," you tell Maia, approaching her once Nalri has passed.

    Maia gives the corner Nalri vanished around a cold glare, quite unlike her usual demeanor. "There are a lot of ways for someone to have an 'unpleasant accident' on the Isle of Voices," she says, voice very low.

    "It doesn't sound like you just mean ruining her experiments or humiliating her in front of our peers," you say, voice cautious. It feels, suddenly, like you're standing at the very edge of a precipice, and you won't be able to take back a misstep.

    "When someone nearly kills you, I take it seriously," Maia says, her voice nearly as much of a hiss as Verdigris' had been.

    "I was fine," you say. Then you can't quite help but add, "Simendor was hurt worse than I was."

    "Peleps Nalri does not get credit for you being brave and talented," Maia says. She raises a hand and lays it against your chest, just over your collarbone. The words send a complex series of feelings curling through your chest, along with the warmth of her touch.

    You let Verdigris slither down into her arm before speaking again: "We should probably not keep Amiti waiting for too long," you say. The issue of Maia and Nalri is one you'll need to address at some point, but it's... awkward. Somehow made more so by what you learned about her over the summer.

    Maia nods, and pulls away.

    Amiti is where she's meant to be, perched on a chair in the work room beside a deeply scarred table table, but she's so engrossed in her latest battered romance novel that she doesn't notice at first when you come in.

    "Hello, Amiti," Maia says quietly.

    Amiti looks up, and smiles. "Well! You two were a while. Did you end up dallying in a hallway?"

    You're so taken aback by the question that you answer more or less honestly: "Something a little like that." before taking a seat across from Amiti.

    Maia, face extraordinarily red, sits down next to you, Verdigris still cradled coiled in her arms. She doesn't contradict you, however.

    "Wait, am I being rude?" Amiti asks. "I'm not trying to be rude."

    "We know, Amiti," you say.

    "You two are just so adorable, though!"

    "... Thank you?" Maia ventures, utterly unsure how else to take that.

    "You're welcome," Amiti says, relaxing. She puts her novel away, opening a notebook to two pages dense with arcane diagrams winding their way around an innocuous looking drawing of a horse. You've learned to ignore these things, when it comes to Amiti's notes.

    The three of you get down to work, comparing notes from your areas of focus in order to fill in gaps in one another's understanding — for all that you had been distracted over the summer, the research material your mother had sent you had been invaluable in expanding your understanding of elementals and their connection to Creation's Essence flows. The general subject matter doesn't make Amiti come quite as alive as necromancy does, but she has an impressive intellectual grasp on much of it, and assures you both that it can be surprisingly relevant to some experiments she's been considering for the future. Maia surprises you slightly — she doesn't usually let on how complex her understanding of demonology is, for all the amount of time you spend together.

    You almost decide against pursuing what first brought you to seek Amiti out in the first place, but in the end, responsibility to one's peers is the Realm's first line of defense against sorcerous corruption. "Amiti?" you ask.

    Amiti glances up from where she's been adding some thoughts to her notebook. "Yes?" she asks.

    "Is everything alright, lately?"

    She seems more taken aback by the seriousness of your tone than anything. "Oh, things are lovely, generally. Better than I've ever been, I think!"

    You abruptly feel unaccountably guilty. You try to be careful in your words. "I just mean, I haven't seen you around the school very much, lately. And no one seems to know what you're... doing with your time. Not even your roommate."

    Amiti is quiet for a moment, looking back at you with her large, pale eyes. "Idelle put you up to this, didn't she?" She sounds disappointed, somehow. Like she's upset at herself for thinking this wouldn't happen.

    "She expressed concerns, and thought that it would be better if it came from me than from her," you say. There's a defensive note in your voice that you hate.

    "You can tell Idelle that everything is fine," Amiti says. "I'm fine. Things are fine. It's going fine!"

    "What is?" Maia asks.

    Amiti blinks. "I'm sorry?"

    Maia leans over the table. "You said it's going fine. What is it?"

    Amiti hunches down in her seat, rolling her pendant back and forth across her lips with one hand. "Do you not trust me either?" she asks, looking between you and Maia.

    "Of course I trust you," you say, almost impatient. "Especially after last year. I am concerned."

    "Oh." She stops short, apparently uncertain how to respond to that kind of sentiment. It's a long moment before she manages: "I'm not doing anything immoral."

    "The way you just said that fills me with less confidence than one would hope," you say.

    "Well, it's true! I think so, a anyway!" she says. This time, she's the one who sounds defensive. "But it's just... possibly not something the school would approve of. Maybe. I didn't, exactly, ask them."

    "Are you doing something really dangerous?" Maia asks.

    "I'm learning!" says Amiti. "That's why we're here, isn't it? I will let you know if there's actual cause to worry. I'm sorry, I think I need to go. Thank you both, I had a good time. Goodbye!" She rises, and begins to quickly stuff her things into her bag.

    "Amiti—" she slips past you before you can catch her, leaving you and Maia alone in the workroom.

    There's a moment of frustrated silence on your part, while Maia strokes Verdigris's head thoughtfully — she's been resting across Maia's shoulders for most of the study session. "Do you want me to keep an eye on her?" Maia asks. "Figure out where she's been going?"

    That surprises you. "You mean, follow her."

    "Without her noticing, yes," Maia says, not quite meeting your eyes.

    "You're very quick to offer to do that to one of our fellow students," you say, bemused despite everything.

    "That's, well..." Maia abruptly seems flustered, for some reason. "Well, you know it's in my skillset, by now. I'm worried about her too, now."

    "I suppose it... wouldn't hurt," you allow. "If you really don't mind doing it."

    Maia looks like she's on the verge of saying something difficult just then, but in the end, she swallows the words. She leans up and brushes a kiss against your lips, giving Verdigris a chance to slither back over to you. "It's the kind of thing I'm good for," she says, pulling away.

    "You're good for a lot of things," you tell her, frowning.

    She only smiles at you, small and troubled, gathering her own things back up. When she's gone, you're left feeling like you're still missing something, about more than just Amiti.

    Article:
    Unfortunately, Amiti is eventually going to have to tell you that there is actually something to worry about. Something in her secretive experiments go wrong — what is it?

    [ ] Something Burning

    [ ] Something Cold

    [ ] Something Silent
     
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    Year 4: Flames and Frost 03
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    • Silent: 23

    Cold: 7

    Hot: 7

    Ascending Water, Realm Year 762

    One year, eleven months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress

    Spring is finally threatening to emerge from a particularly harsh winter by the time anything comes of Amiti's situation. By then, you'd very nearly forgotten about it.

    "This works fine, when the soldiers and commanders are numbers on a page," Instructor First Light says, glancing up from the plans you've written. Her battle-weathered frame looks out of place sitting behind the desk in her impeccably orderly office. Fortunately, you've long since gotten over any lingering surprise at the former outcaste existing in an academic setting. You're in the middle of seeing her for half an hour of scheduled one-on-one feedback; you prefer the strict timeslots that First Light demands, compared to the first come, first serve approach some of the other instructors take — Cynis Bashura being the worst.

    "I have tried to account for that," you say, stiffly. "The soldiers would have minimal contact with the spirits in question, and I'm certain that the commanders could be prevailed upon to be reasonable, given enough time to talk to them about the idea."

    "You and I may have spoken to different front-line commanders," First Light says, casual words backed by her long decades of experience. "May I be frank for a moment, Ambraea?" she asks.

    You blink. She's never felt the need to ask permission for such a thing, before. "Of course," you say.

    "Are you thinking about your own house one day?" Light asks.

    This throws you, of course — you've never had someone ask you this so casually. "If that is what our empress desires," you say, carefully neutral. The real answer is, of course, yes — power means safety.

    "That is about what I thought," Light says.

    "I'm sorry, Instructor, I don't understand," you say.

    "You have a decent enough grasp of the sorcerous principles, and I've made decent headway at teaching you to apply it strategically — you're more open to actually learning than some Dynasts I've taught over the years, or I wouldn't even be mentioning this." First Light places the paper carefully down. "You still approach all these scenarios like you expect to be in charge, or at least influential enough to be able to get everyone relevant in charge to listen to you. It's a consistent weakness in your tactical and strategic approaches. It would serve you poorly in a situation where you had to deal with a commander who wasn't impressed by you."

    You swallow an indignant feeling that swells up in your chest. "I am unhappy to learn that," you say, through strained courtesy.

    "I'm not trying to insult you," Light says, still entirely calm. "I hope you can make something of the advice."

    "Yes. Thank you, instructor."

    There's a moment of silence there as she studies your expression, Verdigris twining a little tighter around your arm. Then, First Light gives a small sigh, and moves on. "Well, let's get down to the actual feedback you're looking for," she says. She taps the page in front of her. "You're using a siltwinder here. Have you considered what those things eat?"

    "I have," you say, relieved to be moving to a subject that has, as far as you're concerned, a right answer.


    As you exit First Light's office, you're a little surprised when Maia falls in at your side. "Weren't you busy studying?" you ask, smiling at her.

    "I was," Maia agrees. Plainly nervous, she bites her lip, which you try not to get too distracted by. As much as you could use a good distraction after that meeting. Something about her bearing makes you think it's not a good time for that.

    "Is something wrong?" you ask. You angle toward the stairs; leaving the staff level of the residential tower is only polite. It's also smart, if you don't want to be overheard.

    "Amiti's in trouble," Maia says.

    "You don't just mean her sleep schedule?" you ask. Amiti has looked conspicuously exhausted these past few weeks, and whenever you've brought it up, she's artlessly changed the subject.

    "I think it's related," Maia says. She shrugs her narrow shoulders, walking slightly closer than you than strict propriety would demand. "But this time, she admitted that she needs help when I asked."

    "Well, that's nothing good," you say, "assuming it's about whatever she's been working on." Amiti paying more than token heed to the risks or dangers of interesting varieties of necromancy is a new and worrisome development. "Whatever she's been working on in that cave?"

    "Has to be, she's not been doing much of anything else," Maia says. "I have no idea how she keeps up with her ordinary studies as well as she does."

    Through a combination of being incredibly smart and incredibly foolish, you would say. You like Amiti too much to say this out loud, however.

    Predictably, Maia leads you to the library, although not to a level you usually go to. It's high in the library tower, up several flights of stairs requiring bespoke unsealing rituals to access — Maia performs all of these with ease, including one that you don't recognise, and carefully reseals each door behind her.

    Amiti is standing by herself in the stacks, frowning deep in thought as she references a book connected to the shelf by a sturdy length of chain. She doesn't notice your approach, even as you try to make your footsteps slightly louder than usual while walking toward her.

    "Amiti? I'm back," Maia says, her voice gentle. Amiti doesn't look up — She's hunched over the reading podium, poring over the tome as she works her pendant back and forth in her mouth. She doesn't seem to hear Maia.

    "Amiti." Your voice is both a little louder than Maia's, and a great deal firmer. Amiti starts visibly, jumping back a step and whirling to face you. It takes a moment before Amiti remembers to spit out her pendant in order to speak to you.

    "Ah! You scared me!" Amiti says, unnecessarily.

    "I noticed," you say, voice bone dry. You approach her, pulling a book off the shelf to examine the subject — exorcism. "What's going on?" you ask, deciding to be direct.

    "Oh, well, lots of things," Amiti says, trying and failing to sound airy. "I just got a letter from Kasi — she shared a very funny story about Cynis Wisel's youngest daughter, who just started this year. I can show it to you, if you like!"

    Ordinarily, you might say yes to that. Amiti has thought to share parts of her sister's letters with you already this year, now that you've met her twin — Sesus Kasi has a talent for rendering Spiral Academy gossip both highly interesting and deeply funny. You both know this is her attempting to change the subject, though.

    You give Amiti a long, searching look. You take in how tired she is, how hunched her posture, the nervous way she's wrapping and unwrapping the chain of her pendant around her hand. Then you ask, a little more gently: "Are you well?"

    "... No."

    "What's wrong?"

    Amiti wavers, looking at Maia, and then back to you, then to the bookshelf nearest to her. To the shelf, she says in a very quiet voice: "I may have made... a little bit of an accidental mistake. Slightly." She lets that hang for a second or two, before she adds: "I need help."

    Your stomach sinks. "What kind of accident?" you ask.


    "This was not an accident!"

    "Well, no, of course not! I did that on purpose."

    The cave that Amiti has been spending all her time in is a little out of the way, partway up a shallow slope and more or less invisible if you're not standing right at the entrance. A convenient lip over the top, and the slight incline the entrance is at keeps it dry, presumably even in heavy rain. Which is good, because someone has conspicuously laid down several lines of salt across the entrance.

    Stepping carefully across the salt creates a strange sense of warning in your heart, a subtle wrongness prickling against your third eye. The cave takes a gentle left turn, terminating in a dead end that Amiti has clearly been working in. There's a portable writing desk in one corner, several stones used as impromptu shelves for materials. Most of the ground and part of one wall, both swept and scrubbed meticulously clear, is taken up by an intricately drawn summoning circle.

    Stepping inside is briefly like plunging into icy water, before the ambient chill recedes to merely being unpleasant. Outside, the air is clammy, but with spring a matter of weeks away, winter's grip on the Isle of Voices has started to break, snow and ice thawing in rivulets that flow down the island to the sea. This is a wholly different kind of cold from the fog outside, however — an eerie, graveyard cold that you feel in your heart as much as anything.

    "Amiti, is this what I think it is?" you ask.

    Amiti wrings her hands a little, once again not quite meeting your gaze. "Well, that depends."

    "On what?" you ask.

    "On what you think it is."

    You give her a flatly unimpressed look, trying to channel a little of your mother into the expression. "A shadowland."

    "Oh," Amiti says, wilting, "Well, it's just a little one!"

    "What did you do?" you ask.

    "Well!" Amiti says, trying to find her footing in this conversation. "Well! Someone must have already died in this cave — quite badly, I think, which is useful — So it was just a matter of... widening things? Deepening? Like picking at a loose thread in a dress until it turns into a hole."

    "You needed a sacrifice for that," Maia says, speaking up for the first time. She's just behind you, frowning deep in thought.

    "You're making it sound so sinister!" Amiti says. "You've both had goat before, I assume. It wasn't anything more dreadful than that." After a moment, she reconsiders. "It wasn't so much more dreadful than that."

    "I hadn't actually been in here before," Maia says, looking to you. "I mostly just looked in from the outside. I didn't know what she'd done."

    This is serious — not only would the school be deeply displeased by Amiti having opened even such a small shadowland on the Isle of Voices, it is also not a practice that is viewed at all favourably by either Realm law or the Immaculate Order. Ghosts and other dangerous things can crawl out of its depths in order to vex the living. You're about to tell Amiti exactly how dangerous and reckless you think this is, but what she says next stops you short:

    "You still don't know what I've done!" Amiti says, giving Maia an exasperated look. "You two won't let me explain!"

    You don't like the sound of that — your eyes drift back to the circle. "What happened?" you ask.

    "Well," Amiti says, suddenly a lot less eager now that you're actually asking. "Well! I wanted to talk to a ghost."

    "Why?" you ask, frowning.

    "Well, to ask them about the Underworld, their nature, their life..." Amiti shrugs. "General academic curiosity! Isn't it normal to speak with spirits? You speak with a spirit all the time!"

    You want to defend Perfection against this comparison with some common ghost refusing to accept its next place in the cycle of reincarnation. Except, you really don't, actually. "If this were like me and Perfection, I doubt you would be this concerned about it."

    Amiti winces. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "I shouldn't have drawn the circle half on the wall. But I've read you can do that as long as you account for it, and there's not enough room in here, otherwise!" She frowns at her handiwork, clearly mentally correcting all the missteps she can see.

    "What happened?" Maia prompts her.

    "I... made a mistake," Amiti says. "Two. I lost control during the actual binding, and this wall..." She frowns at the cavern wall that the circle is partially drawn onto. "There was a crevice."

    "A... crevice?" Maia asks.

    "She seeped through it!" Amiti says. "I sealed it up, but now she's somewhere on the island!"

    You take a deep breath, and try to swallow the worst of your exasperation. "It's just a ghost, though?" you ask. Most of them aren't that dangerous to even a relatively young Dragon-Blood. There are worse than that on the island.

    "Oh, no, worse than that!" Amiti says. "It's a cavern wraith." You and Maia stare blankly at her. "A cavern wraith! A soul that's spent too long lurking alone in the dark, until it's lost its voice and tends to, um... drag people into the dark to steal theirs and kill them. A little."

    "Dragons, Amiti!" You put your face in your hands, feeling Verdigris tighten around your arm.

    "How were you even going to talk to it?" Maia asks.

    "Well, I'm sure I would have figured out something," Amiti says. "I could always have just given her a stick of graphite, I suppose." Maia looks dubious.

    "Never mind that, how dangerous is this thing?" you ask.

    "It might be able to hurt one of the younger students," Amiti admits. "But that won't happen."

    "How can you possibly know that?" you ask.

    "Well, because we're going to find her and stop her first, before that happens, or the school finds out!!" Amiti says. She hesitates. "... assuming you're going to help me."

    You look around at the tiny shadowland, and what she's done. "This is not a small thing, Amiti," you say.

    "I know!" Amiti says, "but... you'll still help me, won't you?"

    You think back to Amiti at the cliffs last year, no hesitation or regret in risking her safety to help ensure yours, and to her sister's obvious relief that Amiti has made a friend in you. You sigh. "Yes, I suppose I will," you say.

    "I guess we're looking for ghosts then," Maia says, her manner resigned, but committed. You feel a mingled stab of guilt and gratitude toward her.

    Amiti beams at you both in open relief. "Oh, good. This won't be too much of a problem now, then!"

    You know she's wrong the moment she says it, and this feeling will only grow in certainty as the days go on. Still, there isn't any point in telling her that. You'll just have to salvage a bad situation as best as you can.

    Article:
    When things come to a head with this horrible ghost, you will fortunately have help. In addition to you and Amiti, two other of your friends will be on hand to assist. Who are they?

    You can pick as many options as you like, but the two with the most votes will be the winning vote.

    Earth Aspect Dragon-Blood

    Ambraea is a talented sorcerer focused on elemental summoning and elementally-resonant spells. She's also a trained swordswoman with enhanced senses and superhuman strength and durability.

    Sorcery:
    Initiation level: Emerald Circle
    Initiation: Pact with an Earth Dragon
    Shaping rituals: A gift of gems (wealth sacrificing ritual)
    Spells: Plague of Bronze Serpents (control spell), Summon Elemental, Breath of Wretched Stone

    Air Aspect Dragon-Blood

    Amiti's morbid preoccupations have translated to an intense focus on necromancy, the death, and related subjects, as well as esoterica about Essence manipulation and other arcane subjects. She is not particularly physically inclined, and mortifying in social situations.

    Necromancy:
    Initiation level: Ivory Circle
    Initiation: Half-Souled
    Shaping rituals: Soul-Forged Token (draw on soulsteel pendant to focus necromantic power)
    Spells: Raise the Skeletal Horde (control spell), Summon Ghost, Flesh-Sloughing Wave


    [ ] [Character] Maia

    Water Aspect Dragon-Blood

    Maia is trained in stealth, brutal combat, and assassination, and her studies of sorcery have only expanded those abilities. She can shape illusions of herself and others, and summon a lethal sorcerous weapon from her own blood.

    Sorcery:
    Initiation level: Emerald Circle
    Initiation: Student of the Heptagram
    Shaping rituals: Sorcerous Archives (ritual research and study)
    Spells: Sculpted Seafoam Eidolon (control spell), Blood Lash

    [ ] [Character] Sola

    Air Aspect Dragon-Blood

    The ancient daiklave, Storm's Eye, allows Sola to synergise her gift for swordfighting directly with her sorcery. Even at her age, she is already deadly with a weapon in her hand and studied in tactics, and has made fast progress at marrying her talents over the past few years. Her sorcery takes on a more logistical bent, but her combat prowess more than makes up for it under these circumstances.

    Sorcery:
    Initiation level: Emerald
    Initiation: Blade of Ten-Thousand Eyes
    Shaping rituals: Inner Storm (focus inner eye to flood the body with sorcerous power)
    Spells: Beckoning That Which Stirs the Sky (control spell), Stormwind Rider

    [ ] [Character] L'nessa

    Wood Aspect Dragon-Blood

    L'nessa is already a competent sorcerer for her age, although her focus is on useful, support oriented spells. She's a gifted socialite when given the chance, a trained medic, and a competent archer by Exalted standards — extraordinary by mortal ones.

    Sorcery:
    Initiation level: Emerald Circle
    Initiation: Student of the Heptagram
    Shaping rituals: Sevenfold Art Evocation (precisely memorised mudras and equations to open the mind)
    Spells: Infallible Messenger (control spell), Food From the Aerial Table


    Additionally, Ambraea's studies have continued apace, and are not wholly focused on combat and elemental summoning. What additional spell has Ambraea mastered?

    You may vote for as many options as you like, but only the one with the most votes will win.

    [ ] [Spell] Corrupted Words

    Ambraea can lay a curse on a target — whenever they attempt to speak about a topic of her choosing, instead of words, all that issues from their mouth is fat, white maggots.

    [ ] [Spell] Dragon of Smoke and Flame

    Ambraea can create a serpent of smoke to guide her to a location — either a specific she knows, or to a place with specific properties she asks it to find, such as fresh water, or a lode of precious minerals.

    [ ] [Spell] Theft of Memory

    Ambraea can steal a memory from someone by trapping it in a gemstone. This leaves them with no recollection of it, and allows her to review the memory at her leisure, or show it to others.
     
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