Announce your status as Maia's sworn kin, lie to protect her: 24
Attempt to keep the secret for at least another year, stay out of it: 19
The office takes up most of a full tower level, large windows along the curved outer walls providing a commanding prospect of the surrounding island as well as the slate grey sky above. The remaining walls are covered by bookshelves laden with the dominie's private collection. Tables holding complex sorcerous instruments, meticulously detailed maps and models, and enclosures for small, exotic beasts take up much of the floor space. You yourself sit in a handsome mahogany chair placed in front of a vast and imposing desk carved of the same wood.
"We try to maintain a hands off approach, relative to the other great schools," says the man sitting behind the desk. "The pursuit of sorcerous knowledge is not best undertaken while under smothering attentions, however well intended. You understand all this by now, I would hope."
"Dominie?" you ask, pretending not to know where he's going with this. You haven't had a great deal of personal contact with the dominie in your five years at the Heptagram. He's famously reclusive, of course, only offering personal tutoring to those particularly noteworthy students who catch his eye.There's a tiny part of you that has always been mildly affronted at apparently not qualifying.
"Still, there are times where the scholarly freedom we allow is abused." As he speaks to you, he holds an ornate brush in one hand, slowly twirling it in his fingers. Ragara Bhagwei, founder of the Heptagram, and one of the eldest sons of your eldest living sibling. You've never had the dubious pleasure of meeting Ragara himself in person, but Bhagwei does bear a passing resemblance to his father's likeness in portraits. His green eyes are remarkably cool for a Wood Aspect, evoking a tranquil forest more than vibrant greenery. His entire bearing reminds you of nothing so much as an old, solid oak: strong, deep-rooted, bending as it must, but no further. "You and Peleps Nalri were not friends, I understand, but one would hope that you would agree her death was a tragedy."
"I hope you aren't accusing me of anything too serious sir," you say, voice level.
"So far, only of callousness," he says, still calmly studying your impassive face. "You were seen by numerous students and several members of staff during the time when Peleps Nalri met with her accident. It couldn't be any clearer that you played no personal part in her death if it had been planned to deliberately absolve you of suspicion."
Which, of course, it had been. "I'm not sure why you're telling me this then, sir," you say, raising your eyebrows.
Bhagwei stops spinning his brush, setting it down on the desk in front of him. "Peleps Nalri was a Wood Aspect," he says, "but techniques for traveling and defending herself underwater and at sea were at the heart of her sorcery — by all appearances, she was nonetheless overcome in the water. The misfortunate that befell her would have had to possess both combatant prowess as well as the capacity to best her in that environment."
"I suppose that's true, sir." You're sure he knows that you know what he's driving at, but you're determined not to help him in arriving at it, or to lend his entirely accurate suspicions any credibility by acknowledging them. Instead, you spend the brief time you have left steeling your resolve for what you know will soon be necessary.
"There are entities that could have accomplished the deed, of course," Bhagwei says, "but, unfortunately, the most likely culprit would be a Water Aspect. There are only so many of those on the Isle of Voices, and fewer still who have the martial skill to have bested Peleps Nalri. I believe you're well acquainted with one of them."
"I think you'll find," you say, "that Erona Maia was seen in company with me during that time."
"There are fewer still who have made such a prestigious study of illusion magic as your young friend," Bhagwei says. "Or who have as a clear a motive as she does, in the form of objections to Peleps Nalri's treatment of you. If you did know anything that could cast light on this matter, I'm sure that you yourself will not be found to have done anything worthy of punishment." At this last, you finally observe his lip twitch in something close to distaste.
It's not hard evidence. You doubt the dominie would be here pressing you for details if he had that already. Maia has been reckless, but you're uncomfortably aware that she must be able to cover her tracks better than that, at least. Just the suspicion is dangerous enough to make you sick in the pit of your stomach, however. The branch of House Peleps that Nalri belonged to is not the same one that Maia is destined to spend years in service to, but Nalri's admiral mother could certainly make Maia's life miserable, if she so chose. At very worst, if Peleps finds an excuse to find Maia or her house to be in breach of their agreement, they're ultimately the ones who are paying for her to be at the Heptagram at all.
You dearly wish that Maia hadn't done this, that you'd made yourself clearer to her, taken closer heed of the warning signs, or even just taken less drastic action against Nalri before Maia had reached her breaking point. Still, what happened happened, and here you all are.
"I can vouch for her whereabouts," you say.
"You have a foolproof method of detecting when it's her beside you, and when it's a Seafoam Eidolon?" Bhagwei asks, frowning.
"Yes," you say. You give yourself the briefest of pauses before you plunge ahead with words you can never take back: "Erona Maia is my Sworn Kin. It would take a great deal more than simple Emerald Circle sorcery to prevent me from being certain of her location whenever I wished."
Bhagwei studies you, betraying no trace of his inner thoughts. "Is she really?"
"Do you doubt my word, Domine?" You ask.
Bhagwei gives you an exceptionally weary look. When he responds, his voice remains calm, conversational. "On the contrary, I harbour exceptionally few doubts about this situation. I make it a point to never underestimate my father's siblings -- I have met too many of you, as much as I wish it were otherwise."
The response you'd been formulating to the first half of his sentence dies in the back of your throat. You give him a faintly astonished look. "I beg your pardon?"
"If I wanted to waste my time with the intrigues and petty deceptions of the Great Houses, I would not be here, dedicating my life to my work and the fostering of young minds. You can't help but carry it with you, even worse than the others." He straightens the brush resting on his desk with an idle motion, correcting a minute misalignment you hadn't noticed.
"Should I feel insulted?" you ask. The question is genuine -- this exchange has left you entirely unmoored.
He dismisses the question with a slight shake of his head. "A statement of fact is not an insult. I mean exactly what I say."
You sit in stunned silence for a moment, unsure of what to say next. You have accomplished what you set out to do, but of all reactions, this wasn't what you expected. "Is that all, Domine?"
"If this is truly all you have to say on the matter, then yes," Bhagwei says. He sighs, glancing out the window. "Peleps Nalri was a gifted student. She might have been more of one, if she'd been willing to set aside petty familial grudges to focus on the work. But this is far from the first such time that such outside conflicts have invaded my school. And it will not be the last, I'm sure." When he turns back to you, for the first time, his eyes have a hard, sharp look. "It is simply a consequence of having to educate Dynasts. But, I trust that we will never have to have this conversation again during your time here, Ambraea, or there may be consequences you dislike. Am I understood?"
"... Perfectly, Dominie," you say, resisting the urge to flinch back from his expression.
He waves a hand toward the door behind you. "You may go."
You don't stop to resent his high-handed dismissal — you take the opportunity for what it is, and leave.
It's still a strange place for a romantic rendezvous. Fortunately, you're not feeling all that romantic, this time.
As you step under the shade of the Black Elder Tree, you feel her presence before you see her. "Well, it's done," you say.
"What's done?" Maia asks from overhead. She's almost lounging in the tree's branches, like a leopard lying in wait. Her face is nothing but concern, however, and you see her hesitate against dropping down to close the distance between you. Your recent argument hangs in the air between you, invisible but almost tangible. "What did he want?"
"He suspected that you had killed Nalri on my behalf, and was trying to see if I'd say so and sell you out to spare myself the censure." You can read between the lines. Ragara Bhagwei might prefer to cast himself as apolitical, but he's still a Dynast and the child of the only Imperial Son to be granted his own Great House.
Maia eyes you with apprehension, slowly pushing herself up to a sitting position on her branch. "What did you tell him?" You're not sure what answer she's dreading most.
You close your eyes, letting out a weary sigh. "That I am Sworn Kin to you, and that I can give my word that you were nowhere near the place where Nalri met her end."
Verdigris pokes her head up from your collar, her bronze-wire tongue flickering concernedly against your cheek. You can tell that she's casting her eyes between you and Maia.
"You what?" You can hear the expression of horror from the change in her voice. A second later, there's a barely noticeable crunch of dirt as she drops lightly to the ground in front of you.
You open your eyes, but continue to avoid her gaze, studying the sky overhead. "You're an intelligent woman, Maia. Do me the credit of not pretending otherwise." Your mother's words emerge from your mouth with less of her arch confidence, and rather more brittle frustration than you'd meant. You regret them immediately, but can't very well unsay them.
"You weren't supposed to do that!" Maia hisses, "it was supposed to just be me. My choice, my kill, my consequences!"
"I didn't ask any of this of you," you remind her. "My wishes were never consulted."
"That was the point!" Maia says, a desperate edge creeping into her voice. "Your enemy is gone, and no one could have said you had anything to do with it. At worst, it would have just been me! You know what I'm meant to be used for, Ambraea!"
Some final thread of restraint gives way in your chest, and you turn on her, almost glaring into Maia's wide, bewildered eyes. The sight of her looking so vulnerable makes you want to take her into your arms, even as you also just want to shake her. You find a compromise.
You step forward, reaching out to take her face in your hands, tilting her eyes up directly toward yours. "Listen to me." You lean in close, speaking so quietly that no one else could ever hope to overhear, even if it weren't just the two of you in this lonely, cursed place. Nonetheless, you can tell that you've startled her. "Listen to me. I am not your family. I am not my mother. You are not a weapon to me, you are the woman I love. If you throw yourself away by being reckless and stupid, it is not only you who gets hurt. Do you understand me, you absurd woman? You absurd, beautiful, stupid woman? 'To defend you against all others. To keep faith with you ahead of all others.' I swore an oath as well, Maia!"
Maia is visibly too overcome to speak. She stares at you for long enough that you begin to worry that only your anger reached her, rather than the true meaning of your words. Then, at the end of that small eternity, she slumps into you. "... I'm sorry."
The worst of the anger goes out of you, and you pull her close. "Next time, we talk about this. Properly. We don't make decisions for each other behind one another's back. Whatever happens, we're in this together. Can you promise me that, if I promise the same?" Your hand goes up into her impossibly dark hair, cradling her head against your chest.
You feel Maia nod, as Verdigris slithers down your arm to twine around it and Maia's neck both. "... I promise."
"Good," you say. Then you lean down and kiss the crown of her head.
Due to the nature of your admission to the dominie, the entire staff knows what you are to Maia within the hour. Naturally, by noon, all several dozen students know as well.
"When exactly did this happen?" Sola asks, looking between you and Maia incredulously.
You exchange a glance with Maia before replying. "Since the end of year four."
It's impossible to ignore Amiti — she's not even pretending to continue salvaging the contents of her rescued notebook. Instead, she's looking at you and Maia with hearts very nearly visibly dancing in her eyes. "That soon after you fell in love? It's like something out of a story!"
"It is... a little like something out of a story," you allow.
Sola laughs in disbelief, leaning back against her favourite patch of wall. "Well," she says, "good luck with that. Mela, Ambraea — I actually used to think you were practical."
"I will choose to ignore that remark," you say, laying your books carefully out on the floor and settling yourself down beside them. Maia drops down beside you, her own work cradled in her arms. You're in your favourite work room, all ostensibly working on different pieces of research. The semi-privacy of the familiar stone walls is reassuring, even if it's a little cramped.
"I'm a little surprised you let on so soon," L'nessa says. "I thought I'd have at least another year to decide whether or not to pretend I hadn't noticed, by the time you actually got around to telling me." Sure enough, there isn't much shock on her face, just a sort of almost weary exasperation for the two of you.
"How long have you known?" you ask, heart sinking. How obvious had you been?
"Since the summer," L'nessa says. "You keep not being surprised when she creeps into the room the way she does. I've lived with the two of you for going on five years, a quarter of our lives; obviously I'm going to notice that kind of change. The significant glances have gotten a little unbearable."
You, having been in the process of seeking Maia's eyes, abruptly glance away. "Well, we must apologise for your inconvenience."
Apology accepted," L'nessa says, deliberately ignoring your sarcasm. Her tone turns serious, though. "I hope you know what you're doing — Peleps may look on this as you poaching their investment, Ambraea. And that's without considering..."
She doesn't need to say 'Nalri'; you all fill in the missing word silently. Amiti gives an awkward sort of frown. Sola and L'nessa aren't looking directly at Maia. None of them can prove anything — doubtless they don't want to — but they know you both well enough by now to be able to guess. Of the latter two, Sola seems considerably more concerned about the moral dimension than L'nessa is. Somehow, you're not surprised.
"No one has anything actionable to complain of us about," you say.
"That doesn't mean it won't rankle," L'nessa says, "and there's no accounting for her immediate family. This isn't the first time you've made Peleps lose face, and your association with my family won't help matters."
"Consequences have a way of catching up eventually," Sola says, giving you a look. "However slippery one is about things."
Noting her continued silence and discomfort, you move slightly closer to Maia. "You have the most flattering way of describing me," you say.
Sola manages a smile of amusement. It's only a small one.
"Regardless," L'nessa says, "you'll need to consider where your allies are going to come from. Things are getting serious, and you can't rely on only the Empress's largesse forever."
You know that this is far from an idle comment, and what L'nessa would prefer to choose. That doesn't mean she's wrong, however. "I suppose I can't," you say.
"Does that make you nervous at all?"
You look up from your diagrams, casting the speaker a cool glance. "I'm not sure what you mean," you lie.
Simendor Deizil laughs. He always seems to do that when you're not trying to be funny.
"You're standing in my light," you tell him.
You're sitting on a bench in the school courtyard, a large, blank notebook page held open beside you by Verdigris' weight. The snake is stretched out as straight as she can on the bench, holding perfectly still to allow you to more accurately sketch her with charcoal. Amiti has been giving you pointers, but you're still not quite so deft a hand at drawing as she is.
It's not so bad a day; the usual cloud and fog are present, but in lighter quantities than usual, letting thin, pale sunlight down to you. It's not altogether unpleasant, and you're taking advantage of it during the scant hour you have between your noonday meal and a series of exceptionally dreary maintenance rituals. They're part of your punishment for the incident with Hylo, and unfortunately they'll keep you busy until dinnertime. You haven't been this desperately busy since your first year.
Deizil has sidled up to you in the middle of drawing up your reference sketches, his shadow falling over your drawing. "Sorry, sorry!" he says, hands half raised in mock surrender. "And I mean them."
Across the courtyard, Cathak Garel Hylo stands in hushed conversation with Ledaal Anay Idelle, their expressions both serious as always. As if sensing your watching Hylo glances in your direction, pushes his glasses up his nose, and frowns. Then he turns back to consulting with Idelle. "What about them should make me nervous, exactly?"
Deizil smiles. "Well, two temperaments that seem like they should be bad in combination. But that's Fire Aspects for you, right? I guess you know how to deal with people who don't like you, though."
"Are you going somewhere with this?" you ask, determinedly not reacting.
Deizil shrugs. "I know my family's reputation. It's pretty fair, mostly — Chalan is a nest of sorcerous vipers. No offence." He directs this last to Verdigris, who gives a soft, inscrutable hiss in response. "Sorcerer-princes, we go after each other hard. Public humiliation, undermining each others' work, subtle curses. Unsubtle curses. Attacking their favourite slaves and servants through deniable proxies. Our rivals' loss is our gain, you know? And it goes too far every once in a while, sure. There are fatal duels and assassinations, sometimes. But that's rare — we usually know where the line is, and stay on the right side of it. We're not a large house, you know? We don't kill each other."
You set down your charcoal. "Are you accusing me of something, Simendor?"
"Oh, I'm sure you didn't kill anyone either," he says. You don't like his tone, but you never have for as long as you've known him. "I'm just reflecting on how glad I am not to have stayed entirely on your bad side." You see a flash of something like discomfort go over his face, soon disguised again.
"Despite your best efforts," you say.
Deizil shrugs. "Well, I guess things are more different here from home than I thought they would be. They did warn me, you know." He smiles again, a little less sincerely. "Good luck, Ambraea. With your drawings, and everything else."
As he leaves, you force yourself not to visibly frown. There's something deeply unsettling about the feeling that you're being morally judged by Simendor Deizil, of all people.
You find yourself looking toward the summer with a mix of anticipation and dread. Leaving the Isle of Voices for a few months would do you good, at this point. All the same, people will have opinions on your recent decision, some of whom you will not be able to ignore.
Article:
Once again, you find yourself summoned to the Imperial Palace; among other things, your father has made good on his promise to consult with the Empress about potential marriage matches for you, and a series of preliminary meetings in relatively casual contexts await you in the capital.
You will also receive a surprise, however, something given to you in celebration of your recent twentieth birthday, and completion of your fifth year at secondary school, five being that most auspicious number.
Along with several other substantial gifts intended to help you in establishing a household, which are contingent upon your graduation in two years' time, you are being presented with an heirloom daiklave. What is its nature?
[ ] The Tidal Fang
Materials: Black jade, the fang of a lesser elemental dragon of Water
Themes: Water. Spirits, ebb and flow, teeth
Provenance: A Shogunate-era weapon, originally repaired and reforged during your mother's reign to honour a different Imperial daughter, one who promptly proved herself less than deserving
[ ] Where Earth Meets Sky
Materials: Blue and white jade
Themes: Air, Earth. Cutting, the parting of things great and small, emptiness and solidity
Provenance: Created to celebrate the conquest of Prasad, a famed Burano family heirloom Ambraea's father carried with him to the Blessed Isle. His clan has been increasingly blatant in their requests for him to send it back to Prasad.
[ ] The White Serpent
Materials: White jade, orichalcum accents
Themes: Earth. Sorcery. A young artifact of undefined potential that will be shaped alongside Ambraea, possibilities include curses, binding, resilience, and snakes.
Provenance: Commissioned in secret by the Empress from the famed swordsmith Ledaal Shigora, immediately after Ambraea's first year of school as a show of the Empress's faith in her abilities. Shigora blades are legendary, and ordinarily only granted to those who swear to honour the smith's former calling as a famed Anathema Hunter. Shigora wisely made an exception at the Empress's request.
Descending Wood, Realm Year 763,
Seven Months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress
The Port of Chanos, the Northern Blessed Isle
"It can't be a coincidence," you say, frowning at the two letters laid out side-by-side.
"It might be," Maia offers. "My grandmother would have had words and instructions for me regardless. She may simply have been in the capital already, and it was convenient for me to go to her."
You nod, unconvinced.
The two letters rest on the same garden table where you once planned a trip with L'nessa and Ophris Maharan Teran. It's a pleasant, cloudy day, nice enough weather to take tea outdoors by Chanos standards. It really is appalling what the Storm Coast has done to your standards for what does and does not constitute good weather., One letter is another Imperial summons, this one instructing you in extremely flowery language to present yourself before the Throne within the month. The other is a much more innocuous seeming missive, requesting Maia's presence at her family residence in the Imperial City. From the way she frowns at the words, you take it that they contain coded meanings beyond your capacity to understand.
You're quite certain she wouldn't be showing the letter to you at all if it were otherwise, for your own safety as much as anything.
"Well, at least the journey will be made in good company this time," you say.
Maia smiles, a little guarded but still sincere. "I'm sure it will be the highlight of our summer."
You laugh. "Well, I hope we have a few moments together in the Imperial City that we enjoy more, but I'm sure we'll make the best of the journey."
"Is it just going to be the two of us?" Maia asks.
You sigh. "Well, it's not exactly proper, but I can hardly expect my handmaiden to come by the means we're likely to travel." The girl who has been fulfilling the role for you is still so skittish of you and anything relating to sorcery that you think it might outright kill her.
Maia leans forward across the table, her voice dropping lower, her smile taking on a shy quality. "If my lady requires someone to brush her hair, and help her out of her clothes at the end of the day..."
You laugh. "How good of you to endure such hardship on the behalf of your social betters, with no ulterior motives at all. Truly, you're a credit to the Patriciate."
Her face colours under your intent gaze, but she's still smiling, taking the time to savour the moment before she changes the subject to more practical matters. "That aside, how are we getting to the city?" Maia asks.
"One moment," you say. You close your eyes, reaching out to the dragon scale hanging around your neck.
"Ambraea." Diamond-Cut Perfection's voice is familiar in your head. As always, they seem like they're laughing at you. "Whatever can I do for my favourite Dragon-Blood?"
"I've been summoned to the Imperial City again," you send back. "I was hopeful that you could carry me in that direction again."
"Hm..." Their presence is thoughtful for a moment, before they reply with: "I have business that requires I not stray quite so far. But, I would be pleased to fly you over the mountains, at the very least."
Less convenient than a full trip by dragonback, but still something that could cut your travel time but more than half. "That would do nicely, thank you," you send back.
"Well, I could never pass up an opportunity to see Peony again. You don't deserve her.
They say this with a typically insufferable air, as though it's something that should make you annoyed with them. Instead, you're only caught off guard by your complete lack of recognition. "Who?"
There's a moment of confusion on their end, before they say, suddenly uncertain: "Demure Peony. Your handmaiden. She's served you your entire life."
"I..." It's almost there, something important that you've forgotten. Something you should never have forgotten in the first place. But whether by coincidence or the whims of fate, it once again slips through your fingers, and you're left only barely certain of what it is you're discussing. "I'm terrible with servants' names," you admit.
Perfection is silent for a long moment. By the time they answer, you've started to worry that they've already left. All they say is: "... Interesting." Based on how they say it, it's not a good kind of interesting.
"I beg your pardon?" you ask.
"It's nothing." they say. "Where shall we meet? I take it we don't want to meet that delightful monk again."
Interlude 5: The Precipice
Two weeks later,
Scarlet Prefecture, The Eastern Blessed Isle
In the middle of a lush field, the ground shakes, splits, and finally disgorges a massive serpent, its scales formed of overlapping pebbles. It opens an unhinged jaw large enough to admit a small house. Or, two Dragon-Blooded.
"Next time, I'm summoning an agata," Maia says, making a face.
You're not entirely certain why she's complaining — a siltwinder's mouth is entirely cool and dry, if dark. It's a perfectly viable method of travel. "On the way back, maybe," you say. Fortunately, the field doesn't appear to be active farmland this time. Which is a minor miracle, given how densely populated this part of the Isle is. You've frightened enough shepherds and villagers for one trip. Instead, you're standing on a low, rocky hill surrounded by grass.
"That's the city in the distance," you say, nothing the towers the horizon.
"Are we just going to arrive in the nearest town on foot and demand passage?" Maia asks.
"Yes, that was my thought," you say. "It's what I did last time, more or less. The elemental can guard the baggage until we can arrange for it to be collected. Why are you laughing?"
"Sorry," Maia says, smiling behind her hand, "I just love you."
"I'm not sure why the two things are related," you say with great dignity. Your hand goes to your hair. "How do I look?"
"Like a mad but beautiful sorceress descending from the mountains in the mouth of a monstrous snake," Maia says. Then, sobering: "You look like you've been on the road, travelling unconventionally. We're sorcerers, no one wants to think too hard about how you get around as fast as you do."
"I suppose not," you say, touching your hair, tightly coiled around your head. True to her word, Maia had done this for you. She's quite good, honestly. You'll still want a new handmaiden sooner rather than later; it will be easier to find one in the Imperial City than in Chanos, of course, but then comes the problem of bringing the poor girl back with you...
You begin walking, Maia falling in beside you. Verdigris emerges from your sleeve, wrapping around your arm to enjoy the sun. It's been very nice, just the three of you. You and Maia both know it won't last.
"I'll send word to you within a few days," you say.
"Hopefully whatever my family needs from me will leave time to see each other," Maia says. She frowns. "Assuming they don't invite you to come meet them. Which they might."
Accepting would mark something of a condescension on your part, but not an unexpected one, for the family of a Hearthmate. Of course, the fact that you know very well that the Erona are far from an ordinary patrician family does put a damper on things.
"Well, we'll see," you say. "Wish me luck." You're trying very, very hard not to think about how your mother might react to recent developments.
Maia puts a gentle hand on your shoulder for just a moment. "Me as well."
You arrive in the city late in the day when all is said and done, between wrangling suitable transportation and the journey itself. You'd parted ways soon after arriving, Maia to her family's home, you to the palace.
You're led immediately to your chambers for a quick meal, a hot bath, and a good night's sleep. This time, when you'd rather have a bit of time to gather your wits, there will be no appreciable delay: You are to present yourself early in the morning, before your mother and the entire court. Somehow, you sleep soundly and dream of nothing that you can recall.
You wake to sunlight filtering through the window of your bedchamber, birds singing in the garden outside, silk bedclothes smooth against your skin. You're able to lay like that, enjoying it all, for all of a minute and a half. That's when a knock comes on your door, quiet but oddly assertive.
You slide out of the bed, casting a frowning eye at your appearance in the nearest mirror — ignoring the sensation at the back of your mind that you're being watched which you get from most mirrors in the palace. You won't say you're presentable, but it's almost certainly just a servant.
"Enter," you say.
The door opens, admitting a tall, willowy young woman who immediately drops into an appropriately low bow, holding it as she introduces herself:
"My lady Ambraea, I am Teng Evening Garnet. It would be my great honour to assist you in preparing for your day."
"Very well," you say, stepping over to the mirror.
She takes this as the permission it is, straightening and closing the door behind her. You have a seat in front of the mirror, allowing her to begin on your hair. As her practiced hands begin unbraiding Maia's handiwork, you say: "You're not one of the palace servants." Neither her manner of dress nor the introduction pointed to that.
"No, my lady," she agrees. "My services have been procured for you by your lord father, if it pleases you."
That takes you by surprise — you'd mentioned the need for good help in one of your letters and asked him to keep an ear out, but you hadn't quite expected him to take this kind of initiative. Maybe you should have — he is always keenly aware of what's required to present you in the best possible light. It makes you feel a little guilty: He won't be pleased about what you did this year. It won't have made things easier for him. Obviously you'd do it again, but all the same.
"What are your qualifications?" you ask.
"I have the honour of having served as handmaiden to Winglord Sesus Lystra," Evening says, her eyes carefully averted, "as well as valet to her while she was on campaign with the Imperial Legions."
That makes you take a second look at her.
Evening Garnet is fetching more than pretty, her hair short and black, her high-collared dress made in a subtly foreign cut. Her voice has a trace of Flametongue — based on her features and light brown complexion, you'd guess Tengese. "How is it that you came to leave the winglord's service?"
"It is my lady Lystra's custom to free her valet at the end of a particularly... difficult campaign. Such that I might carry her bad luck away with me."
It doesn't surprise you that your father would think for you to take a freedwoman into your service. Long years in the Realm have made him inured to many things, but he's still not entirely comfortable with owning slaves. You suspect that Teran, or anyone else fresh from Prasad, would have been nearly as uncomfortable with a mortal woman of such low origins serving as a body servant to a Dragon-Blood to begin with, but time wears down even the highest mountains.
Not that you particularly mind; you've always had a free handmaiden. You think. What you say is: "Bad luck?"
"It is of course not my place to criticise my former mistress," Evening says, "but your lord father, at least, felt that I was unlikely to bring such misfortune to you." Her tone is perfectly, appropriately servile, but there's a certain dryness behind it. Not a trait everyone would appreciate in a servant.
You think of Lohna all at once — most of her life spent as a palace slave. It's your intention to eventually grant her a comfortable retirement. You can only imagine that at her age, it would be exceptionally difficult for her to find anything else if left at loose ends. Evening, though, must not even be ten years your elder. When her mistress had set her free, she might have returned to the Threshold, surely, or sought her fortunes elsewhere in the Realm. Instead, she's attempting to find someone who will pay her for the skills she learned as a slave. They do make for a useful combination, admittedly.
"You understand that I am a sorcerer, I hope," you tell her.
"I do, my lady," she says, not sure where you're going with this.
"If you went into my service, you would have to witness things that might frighten you. I have no use for a servant who falls apart or fails to maintain sensible distance when confronted with spirits or other parts of my craft."
On cue, Verdigris stirs on her cushion nearby, looking curiously at Evening. In the mirror, Evening's eyes flicker to the snake. She swallows, but doesn't stop preparing your hair. Her hands are confident and efficient. "I don't frighten easily, my lady. And I'm prepared to follow your instructions precisely, of course."
"We'll see." You're not yet certain, but your need is great enough to make you willing to give her a chance. "I assume your former lady's household provided you with a recommendation, at least."
"Yes, my lady," Evening says. "I can provide one."
It will be few enough years before you have someone else to vet your servants for you, but it's good to at least have a hand in it for a personal body servant.
"I have taken the liberty of laying out several gowns for you to choose between, my lady. In the interests of getting you ready for court on time. Forgive me if I don't yet know your tastes as well as I might."
"Very well," you say.
You don't regret your father's liberty, by the time Evening has you wrapped in the many layers of formal court attire. Apparently, someone told her you like black. The style of this gown is more form-flattering than the one you wore for your private audience with your mother two years past, both to chase current trends, and to give you a more mature look. Likewise, simpler hairstyles have come into fashion in the intervening time, but Evening has still found a way to incorporate your favourite serpentine ornament, threaded subtly into your hair.
The exchange with Evening Garnet had served as a pleasant enough distraction from the day ahead, but leaving for your audience, you're keenly aware of the butterflies dancing in your stomach. She walks behind you now, calm and poised, well used to playing accessory to a Dynastic lady.
You aren't that far down the hall when you spot a familiar face, and it's a relief, at least for a moment. You catch sight of Lohna down the hall, standing beside a set of ornate Dragon sculptures. You increase your speed ever so slightly, but pause as you see that she's in close conversation with someone you don't recognise, the other woman having been concealed partially behind the tail of the Sextes Jylis statue. She's a young woman of similar Western heritage to Lohna, her blue curls worn in a fashionably styled, her clothing marking her as above a common servant, without really marking her as someone of import. You wouldn't have looked twice, ordinarily, if she hadn't been speaking to Lohna so intimately. Although...
She glances up, her gaze meeting yours, and a look of startlement crosses her face. Then she darts in to give Lohna a swift hug, gives a hasty bow to you, and turns to walk away in a hurry.
"Wait!" You call after her, and whoever she is has the gall to ignore you, and slips away down a side passageway. Her eyes had been blue -- you're gripped by an absurd certainty that this is wrong, somehow.
Lohna, still plainly somewhat shocked by the hug and by your shout, quickly bows a little lower than normal. "Lady Ambraea! I apologise, I hadn't noticed you."
"You've done nothing wrong," you assure her, although you frown. "Who was that who was talking to you? She was being excessively familiar."
Lohna tilts her head slightly in confusion, obscuring the brand on her neck. "Who was I-- I apologise, my lady, but I'm not sure."
"She hugged you," you remind her. There are others entering the hall now, a group of clerks laden down with paperwork, but they're still a ways off.
"... Did she?" Lohna blinks, as if trying very hard to recall. "It might just be my old age catching up to me, my lady. I'm certain you're right, but I can't remember a word of that conversation. It's all fallen quite out of my head."
"Are you feeling unwell?" You ask her, feeling more concern than you permit yourself to voice.
"No, my lady. Why do you ask?"
"You're crying."
"Presenting Ambraea, Chosen of Pasiap, Twenty-Second daughter of the Scarlet Empress."
Face schooled and back straight, you step through massive, jade-barred doors and into one of the single most opulent rooms in all Creation. A great expanse of red marble and gold stretches before you, pillars rising up to the vaulted ceiling overhead, walls and ceiling and even the floor dripping with scenes of the Realm's glory and the Immaculate Dragons in relief and mosaic. Here, so close to the heart of the Empress's power, and with so much Immaculate imagery present, this amount of iconic artwork doesn't seem quite so spiritually dubious.
All around you is a respectable representation of the Realm's elite, Dynasts from every house, Exalted and mortal, along with the odd foreign dignitary. Enough silk and other fine fabric to smother a small Threshold Kingdom, enough tasteful jewelry to drive a lesser queen to despair. Every one of them is looking at you as you walk down the carpeted aisle at the centre of the room, all of them trying to decide what they make of you.
There, flanked by imagery of the Realm's founding and her closest advisors, is the Empress herself. Your mother sits on the Five Dragon Throne, garbed in full Imperial regalia, silently watching you with eyes that see much and betray nothing. You recognise most of the men and women standing near the throne. Your father has been afforded a place of honour today, dressed in a martial Prasadi style, looking at you with pride tinged with a veiled frustration — he'll certainly have words for you later. Beside him, to your surprise, is V'neef. You hadn't known she was in the capital. She actually gives you a small, encouraging smile. Despite how much it reminds you of L'nessa in her kinder moments, the sight of it sends a stab of irrational resentment through your chest.
Of course, even on a day when she is ostensibly honouring you, the Empress wants her favourite daughter close at hand.
As for the rest of the crowd, you also recognise Amon Mora, an aged Air Aspect who serves as Keeper of the First Imperial Seal, one of the few patricians in the room. He was apparently in conversation with a woman in the attire of a legionary general, who for some reason keeps sending discreet glares at your father. Near to them is someone you don't recognise — a thickset woman bearing the mon of House Ledaal sewn into the fabric of her gown, a detail you can just barely make out. Air Aspect Markings dust her clothes and hair with a fine layer of frost, despite the warm summer's day.
Just before you reach the dais of the throne, you catch sight of an elderly woman standing at the back of the crowd, as far from your mother's sight as possible without making it too obvious. Mnemon Rulinsei leans heavily on her cane, looking deeply unexcited by the court and the ceremony. Still, when she catches your eye, for just a moment her lined face twitches into something like a wry smile.
But then you're there, standing before the steps of the dais. On cue, you sink down to your knees, forehead nearly pressed to the floor as you prostrate yourself before the Imperial Presence. This is not a private audience between you and your mother. Today you are gazed down on by the rightful monarch of all Creation and the mother of the Dynasty. The weight of her presence falls over you like a blast of heat from a mighty flame.
"Ambraea," the Empress says, and her voice utterly silences the room without a shred of obvious effort. Everyone present is helpless to do anything but hang on her every word. "My daughter. This year, you are twenty years old, a woman grown who must soon look to the responsibilities of a woman. Today, I acknowledge your accomplishments, and prepare you for that responsibility. You may speak."
Without rising, you speak into the projected silence, raising your voice enough to let it carry despite your positioning. "I am honoured by my Empress's regard."
Taking up your phrasing without missing a beat, she continues: "As a symbol of that regard — that of a mother and a ruler both — the first gift I present you with is one to recognise your skill as a swordswoman. May you only ever wield it justly, to defend your life, your Hearth, your family, and your Realm against those villains who might threaten them. May you pass it down to your own daughters in turn. Ledaal Shigora."
You see an unfamiliar set of feet approach the dais, but the sound of the name sends a jolt of excitement through you. Ledaal Shigora is one of the Realm's most celebrated swordsmiths, as well as a heroic slayer of Anathema. You see Shigora kneel, holding something in her hands. With a rustle of fabric, your mother rises to her feet. "Look upon me, Ambraea," she says.
You raise yourself to your knees, looking up at your mother, crowned in gold and mantled in scarlet, the five solid jade dragon heads of her throne seeming to all peer down at you with an air of fierce judgment. On the dais, the Air Aspect woman you noticed before kneels, a large, ebony case held in her arms. A young man — an apprentice, you assume — steps forward with his head bowed, undoing the golden clasps, and reverently opening the case.
The Empress lifts the blade inside off the yellow satin it rests upon — a large, single-edged sabre of white jadesteel. She steps forward with it held across her hands. Literally, for just a moment, she's holding a sword over your head. But she's smiling as she offers you the weapon hilt-first.
You take it carefully, accepting the weapon's great weight into your hands. The blade is broad and gently curved, tip ending at a sharp diagonal point, the metal itself almost glowing a soft, glossy ivory under the sunlight streaming through the chamber's windows. At first you think the brighter metal decorating the over-sized hilt and the symbols etched into the blade are done in gold, but from that way they gleam, you recognise the ornamental elements as pure orichalcum. For a moment, it's heavy and unwieldy. Then your soul reaches out to touch the weapon's Essence — it feels cold, sharp, and dangerous. Still, the blade becomes light enough for you that you could easily wield it in one hand.
Or you might wield it in one hand later, perhaps, when you're not standing this close to the Scarlet Empress. You dearly want a chance to properly test the balance, but you're not about to do anything foolish. Instead, when the apprentice leans down to offer you the case, you gently set the sword back down in the box, beside its sleekly ornamented sheath.
It's a beautiful weapon, and even for a smith of Ledaal Shigora's calibre, it's one that would have taken at least several years to complete, under ordinary circumstances. Not only that, but the hilt meets the blade in the shape of a gilded serpent's mouth, as though it means to swallow the blade whole. Not only had your mother felt enough confidence in you to commission such a weapon much earlier in your academic career than this, she had also made such personal specifications as to include that. Even though proxies were almost certainly involved, it's the most thoughtful thing she's ever done for you. It does a great deal to drive out the worst of your anxiety. What you say is: "My Empress is very kind. It's beautiful."
Ledaal Shigora steals a look at you, coolly appraising. You can't say for certain what she's looking for in you, and you don't get the chance to ask.
The rest of the ceremony is more or less expected; a particularly generous stipend to establish yourself with, along with a demesne for your use, upon which you might have a manse constructed. Other, lesser gifts suitable for starting a Dynastic household, most of which will come into your possession once you graduate.
Above anything else, however, you'll remember that smile on her face for the rest of your life, always wondering what, exactly, she was thinking.
"No Tepets?"
"Ultimately, even this preliminary list was subject to Her Excellency's approval." Your father sits across from you, his expression blank and unreadable. His chambers are much the same as ever — the sitting room you're in is an almost bewildering array of Prasadi art and furniture, from the lush carpets underfoot to the elaborately carved writing desk in one corner. A series of paintings dominate the walls, imported at ruinous expense — landscapes, for the most part, showing scenes of verdant plains and glittering seawater and a great city of towers and gardens. Among all these is what looks like a copy of an official portrait depicting a woman with your father's stern bearing and Aspect Markings. An ornate, sheathed daiklave hangs over the empty fireplace, just as fine as the one you've recently received.
"As you say." You return to studying the list of potential marriage candidates. For most Dynastic households, it would not be normal for him to have this conversation with you at all at so early a stage, let alone to seek your input. It would be a matter handled by a young Dynast's mother and house matriarch working in concert, deciding what matches are best for both their family and their house. You have no house, however, and therefore no matriarch — you have your mother, who chooses to delegate a great deal of the minor decision making to your father. And you have yourself, who will be the founder of your own household at an exceptionally young age. As such, your father sees fit to consult you far sooner than would otherwise be sensible.
As your eyes skim down the list of young men from half a dozen Great Houses — V'neef, Cathak, Sesus, Mnemon, among others — you're aware that your father has other things on his mind. His cool and remote manner is a far cry from the warm welcome he'd given you the year before, and you can practically feel the unspoken issue hanging between you in the form of the oath you'd sworn to Erona Maia. Your determination to have him be the one to broach it finally pays off after several minutes of strained silence:
"When I was young in Kamthahar, I attended the Spire-Upon-the-Bank," he says. "I, too, had a lover. The son of an outcaste adopted into my clan. We cared very deeply for one another, in the manner of lovesick teenagers everywhere. Do you know what happened?"
You resist the urge to sigh. "I'm sure you did the prudent thing, and set him aside when the time is right."
Nazat actually scoffs, the first actual show of emotion you've had from him. "No, we fell out of love. We drifted apart. He married an Ophris woman and still serves honourably in her clan's legions, when last I heard. Young love is like beach sand, Ambraea. Easily worked, but you can't build anything on it to last."
You swallow your immediate response. Instead, you say: "It's too late to take anything back now. Maia is bound to me."
"I know," your father says, letting an actual frown mar his features, and he gives you a meaningful look. "I had thought you had more sense than this. I've heard it brought up by the mothers of two of the names on that list already."
You want to tell him that he simply doesn't understand, that he had no one back in Prasad who mattered enough to him to keep him there, but it would be both childish and cruel to voice such things. Your father will not bring himself to draw attention to it explicitly, but you understand the fundamental precarity of his situation. His status as consort and father to an Exalted Imperial daughter buys him some security here, but only so long as he retains the Empress's favour. Substantially, only so long as you retain the Empress's favour. She has set aside more than a few consorts in the past, and her moods are not reliable enough to be certain of her response to something like this. So what you say is: "It grieves me that you are disappointed."
Recognising your complete lack of apology, his frown deepens, and he leans forward. He only has time to open his mouth, however, when a sharp knock comes on the door. Whoever is on the other side doesn't wait to be let in.
A servant steps forward into the study, her hands clasped smartly behind her back, her eyes fixed on the space in the air somewhere between the two of you. "Her Imperial Excellency, the Scarlet Empress!" the woman announces.
Both you and your father are kneeling in an instant, the papers somehow having been placed on a nearby table as neatly as you had time for. True to the servant's words, your mother's presence enters the room ahead of her. This time, she at least doesn't make the two of you maintain this show of supplication for long. "Please, rise," she says, "I think we've had enough formality for one day." And she actually offers your father a gallant hand up. He of course takes it, her hand very small and pale in his.
"I am surprised to see you, My Empress," your father says, as you climb to your feet beside him. "I was told that you had an important engagement."
The Empress laughs as though at a private joke. She's less ostentatiously dressed than she had been at court earlier, but even in a more casual gown, she doesn't sacrifice an ounce of her authority. "Yes, I do have a private audience to attend," she freely admits, "but it's nothing that can't be postponed. I enjoy teaching that man the value of patience, sometimes — for old time's sake."
Something about the comment does not invite inquiry about who she means, although part of you burns with curiosity.
The Empress takes a seat on the sofa that your father had lately occupied, draping herself across one side of it like a lioness surveying its domain. "Please, both of you, have a seat," she says. She motions for the servant who announced her: "Pour two glasses of wine, set a third aside with the bottle, and then wait outside and close the door behind you," she says. The servant will hardly be waiting alone — a retinue of attendants, guards, and hangers-on wait outside the room, all studiously pretending not to have been eavesdropping on the conversation so far.
The servant follows her instructions to the letter, and soon, you're left alone with your parents, a novel experience that hasn't occurred in many years. Your father takes his seat beside the Empress and pours his own glass of wine while you sit down across from them on the sofa you'd previously occupied.
"Ambraea, why do you look so pensive?" she asks, breathing in the nose of her glass of white. She studies you from over the crystal rim like you're something fascinating. "Whatever could be bothering you?"
You sense that she knows very well, and so you don't bother with evasion. "You have my utmost apologies, my Empress," you say.
She arches her eyebrows at you. "For?"
"For failing to heed your advice."
The Empress takes a long drink, considering that. "Well, I won't pretend that I don't enjoy extracting an insincere apology from a proud woman now and then, but today, I find it tiresome."
"My Empress?"
"When I want to give you an order, Ambraea, I will give it. I gave you information that you were to use as you saw fit. I find that a daughter's character cannot truly be revealed unless she's given room to make her own decisions. Some choices may make her life harder, but such is the way of the world."
The pit of anxiety you'd been carrying in your stomach slowly eases. "... Thank you, my Empress," you tell her.
Your mother quirks a fond smile. "You're very welcome," she says. "I must say, I didn't expect you to flout my suggestions and seize what you desired in quite so dramatic a fashion, but honestly, it pleases me. I had always seen a great deal of your father in you; not without intelligence or wit, but solid, steady, reliable. Your passions safely hidden behind propriety. This took some fire, though. It seems you inherited more from me than just your looks after all."
You feel a disorientating mix of emotions — a swell of pride at the praise, along with a visceral rejection of your relationship with Maia being described as though you'd insisted on keeping an inconvenient pet. "Thank you," you say again.
Your mother turns her attention to your father, reaching out to put one hand against his jaw, tilting his face toward hers. "Nazat, my pet, don't frown so, it plays havoc on your beauty. Ambraea has made her decision, what's done is done."
Your father's frown had in fact been getting deeper and deeper through the exchange between you and the Empress, full as it was with veiled allusions to a conversation he had not been privy to. Now, though, he has little recourse but to let his objections go, their having been so thoroughly overruled. "As you say, my Empress." Despite his broad shoulders and his standing half a head taller than her, your father never seems quite so small as when he's next to her.
To seize what you desired... Who you desired. Is this how she sees herself in you? The thought leaves you deeply uncomfortable.
"Well, I'm glad we could clear a few things up," the Empress says, her gaze lingering on your father, before flickering back over to you. "I'll be interested to see what comes of your last two years at the Heptagram, daughter. I believe I shall have more words for you then."
"I'll look forward to it," you say, and you're not sure if it's the truth, a lie, or something in between the two.
"Good. Then we have all come to a necessary understanding," the Empress says, downing the rest of her wine as though it weren't the best the Realm could offer. She turns her attention entirely back to your father. "I hope whatever you were going over can wait — Nazat, would you walk with me for a few moments? I'm afraid that I can stay longer, and I find that I must know exactly what it is you told Marshal Azure Raven that's had her grinding her teeth at you over the past week. I've heard other versions, of course, but I always enjoy how you phrase these things."
"If it pleases you, then it would be my great honour," Nazat says, following her cue and finishing his own wine just as quickly. He glances to you. "We will have to reconvene later, daughter," he tells you.
You understand that, while your mother may have other reasons for doing this, you are being rescued from a deeply uncomfortable conversation that was unlikely to reach a satisfactory conclusion. You can only hope that, by the time you see your father next, the benefit of hours or days will have blunted the worst of his disappointment and frustration. There's very little he can do about it at this point, since your mother has decided that your actions please her after all.
You stand up to watch the two of them leave, your father walking along at your mother's side, exactly as instructed. "Enjoy the rest of your summer, Ambraea," she says, "and, I wish you luck with the paths you've chosen."
You have never spoken with your mother in private without it inducing a unique mix of positive and negative emotions. Whatever validation she gives you is always tempered by disquiet. At the same time, however, all considered, this might have been the best such encounter.
Fitting, almost, that it will also be the very last time you speak to her.
You finish your wine slowly, savouring it as it deserves. Then you take your leave.
Article:
While the assumption is currently that your marriage is still years away, you understand that it will be a complicated matter, even for a Dynast. As an Imperial daughter, you are by definition a desirable match for most young men, in theory. Your bloodline is beyond reproach — your mother goes without saying, and your father has provided meticulous records from Prasad demonstrating the Maharan jati's respectable lineage going back to their departure from the Blessed Isle. Your exact future is uncertain, but you're more likely to amount to something than not at this point, and if there is a House Ambraea someday, there are few Dynastic mothers who wouldn't wish to have useful ties to its foundations.
At the same time, you're a sorcerer, a dubious quality in a daughter-in-law. And well-bred or not, your father's family are viewed by the Dynasty as heretical cadet house members, utterly lost to barbarian influences. The business with Maia might speak to a certain unpredictable rashness of character. These are not things that many will voice too openly, for fear of offending the Empress, but the concerns are undeniable. They hang over the preliminary talks that your father has been carrying out with your mother's blessing.
Nothing will be decided yet, but these things can take a great deal of time to negotiate, and you are of an age where it is customary to at least see how you get along with several young men under casual but carefully-observed circumstances.
You understand that a suitable match is extremely important to your future in the Dynasty, and that refusing one is likely to make your life more difficult. Regardless, that decision will be a long way off, after it has been carefully weighed and measured against all factors. You cannot know how swiftly your mother's protection will be stripped away, or how gravely important whatever connections you can call upon will be in the years to come.
What such meetings will occur during your stay in the capital this summer? You may vote for as many options as you like, but only the two options with the most votes will be selected. This is not a binding decision about who Ambraea will marry, but they will have an effect on future marriage negotiations. Nor is this a romantic vote, or something that will directly affect Ambraea's relationship to Maia — they would both be confused by anyone drawing such a connection.
[ ] Cathak Isri
A Wood Aspect who has graduated from the Cloister of Wisdom several years' past, who you would speak to at length while on a tour of one of a grand manse owned by his family. Despite his religious education, he is far more dedicated to intellectual pursuits, rather than spiritual or martial, having a particular gift for finances and mathematics. His occasionally nervous disposition and failure to meet his mother's unreasonable standards mean that he would leap at the chance for a good match to remove himself from her direct influence. As is common for Cathak households, Isri has only a middling bloodline by the standards of the Dynasty, his family seeking marriages that bring useful talents into the household above breeding. This match would bring connections to a military house second only to Tepet in might, in addition to a pliant husband with a gift for household management.
[ ] Mnemon Tomon
An Earth Aspect, and a recent House of Bells graduate who you would meet at an otherwise unbearable gala. A quiet, serious, reliable young man, his household is only middlingly wealthy, but they have excellent ties to the Immaculate Order and an admirable history of service with the Imperial Legions. This match would bring your family respectability, military contacts, and a strong bloodline, as well as connections to a very powerful and well established Great House. Unfortunately, he may be a little too much like Ambraea in temperament.
[ ] Peleps Lai Vemi
An Air Aspect recently graduated from the House of Bells, and a grandson of Matriarch Peleps Lai, who you would participate in a religious festival alongside. Despite his naval-focused education, Vemi has the grace and frail beauty of a romance novel hero, paired strangely with a love of excitement and novelty. The Lai household is both well-established and very powerful, but its bloodline is unfortunately only middling — House Peleps has long prized excellence and accomplishment over blood purity. This match would go a very long way to smoothing over your budding issues with House Peleps, and it would make your situation with Maia less difficult after graduation. It would put a significant strain on your friendship with L'nessa.
[ ] Sesus Ambar
A Fire Aspect and a Spiral Academy student, who you would meet for a hunting trip that will prove rather more exciting than anyone intends. A young man with very pleasing manners and sharp instincts, with a trail of broken-hearted boys laying behind him to put L'nessa to shame. His immediate family is closely aligned with Amiti's, which is both positive in terms of bringing you closer to a friend, and complicated in terms of exposing you to clandestine activities that you can only guess at. This match would bring you connections to a great military house of the Realm, valuable social connections, and a strong bloodline.
[ ] V'neef Darting Fish
Your former classmate, a Water Aspect who has recently graduated from the Heptagram, who you would see on a several day long sailing trip on V'neef's private pleasure vessel. A talented sorcerer in his own right with a mother who is very influential in the Merchant Fleet, who Ambraea already likes, he would be able to match her skillset and balance out her temperament. Unfortunately, his bloodline is not particularly strong. This match would bring wealth, connections to a young and dynamic house, and the pooled resources of two sorcerers. It would make L'nessa pleased with you.
As always, my planned two interlude updates simply did not fit the number of things I had in my outline in under ten thousand words, so in the interests of getting you this content sooner rather than later, I'm giving you the first half as its own update. This was the most sensible place to make the cut, I feel, but the end result is that there's no Ambraea in this update, so I'm not including a vote here either. The outcome of last update's vote will be depicted in update Int 5 03 along with our regularly scheduled voting content, so I hope you all enjoy this in the meantime.
One week ago
Entertainment district just beyond the Cerulean Lute of Harmony, headquarters of the Bureau of Destiny's Division of Serenity
Yu-Shan, the heavenly city
The Cerulean Lute shines like a precious jewel even among the glorious opulence of heaven. A pleasure manse of unsurpassed beauty, its gentle curves both pleasing to the eye and impossible to fully keep in the mind. Beyond the impossible blue of its walls lies a ring of fine parks and ornamental gardens featuring flora drawn from every corner of Creation, as well as some found nowhere but here. Beyond that, businesses hoping to cater to the Division's employees, or at least to bask in the reflective glow of the Cerulean Lute's many wonders — theatres, teahouses, eateries, brothels, and more. Music drifts through the air, and everywhere one chooses to walk, the scent of intoxicating spices seems to hang enticingly on the breeze. Gods great and small walk the streets here, some so deceptively ordinary they might pass for human on casual inspection, others bearing the shapes of beasts or more fantastical creatures. All solid and visible to the naked eye. The city beyond is grand beyond description, its spires and buildings and shining, metallic canals putting every great city of Creation utterly to shame.
For Singular Grace, Chosen of Serenity, a year spent living and working in this place has served to numb her to its overwhelming splendor, at times. At others the surreality of her situation hits her all over again, and she finds herself utterly overwhelmed. Even for a young woman who, in her previous life, had grown up in the Imperial Palace of the Scarlet Realm, worked in the personal service of an Exalted sorcerer, and been twice carried by a Lesser Elemental Dragon, it's beyond anything that she had been raised to expect.
"Darling, while I empathise deeply, there is a perfectly adequate window right there. It seems like a much faster way to escape this bottle than wearing a hole in the floor."
Grace stops short in her pacing, turning to stare at her companion. "... I'm sorry?" she asks.
The other woman inspects the contents of her cup with a vaguely disgusted air. "Dry, he called this. House Cynis should all be hanged for liars, along with the proprietor of this shop. I don't know why I expected anything different — Pangu Prefecture is Creation's finest producer of overrated dross, and this captures that quality perfectly." This doesn't stop her from finishing off her serving and holding the glass up for one of her servants to refill the cup from the bottle of alleged dross. Grace does her best not to look directly at them.
"You know, I was born there," Grace says, feeling a faint inclination to defend the honour of the Realm's most famed wine country. Although not, perhaps, that of the Great House that largely controls it.
"Present company excluded, then," her companion says.
Taking the hint, Grace crosses back to her vacated chair, sitting down, and taking up her abandoned glass. Unfortunately, it is a rather accurate likeness of a dry Pangu red, so she can't even offer Yula the excuse of blaming the ambrosia artist who'd shaped it. "Remind me to never drag you out for Realm cuisine again."
"It has its several saving graces," her companion acknowledges, if grudgingly. "Tragically, none of which include anything I'm likely to partake in from this establishment." She takes another long sip. "I suppose you won't have to settle for a facsimile of dreadful Blessed Isle wine soon enough, at least. Gate travel is very convenient to and from the Imperial City this time of year."
"I was in the middle of writing three reports for Tattered Veils!" Grace protests, a little weakly.
"I know for a fact that Tattered Veils' filing system consists of dropping reports directly into a 'to be sorted' drawer. Which of course means, 'to be sifted through every decade or so by some luckless assistant'. Don't look so scandalised, we are talking about a goddess of broken marriage vows, after all — one can only expect so much diligence. I'm sure your very important reports will keep for a few weeks while you take an actual break. It should do you some good."
Grace slumps in her seat. "I don't remember the last time I've taken more than a day off at a time," she admits. Even for the last few years in service, with Ambraea away at school, she'd kept herself busy during the school year by assisting the household staff at the Imperial residence.
"I think I may have surmised as much from the way you responded to an assignment to take a brief sabbatical as though you'd been ordered to set yourself alight." She gives Grace a wan smile.
They make an odd pair. Singular Grace with her unplaceable Western features and sea blue curls, dressed like a particularly conservative junior Thousand Scales minister, drab as a sparrow, the bright, sky blue of her starry eyes the only thing that betrays her nature. Beside the other Joybringer sitting across from her, she may as well be a background element, for all the attention she's drawing from the room at large. Yula Cerenye, formerly of Skullstone, is a gaunt woman with striking albino features. Her thin frame is draped in layers of black and grey silk, wrapped in a deep red shawl and a violet headscarf loose enough to leave white curls visible. Most arresting of all are her eyes — Bright blue, like any Joybringer's, but each surrounded by a ring of burst blood vessels. Her throat is usually obscured by her choice of clothing, but once or twice, Grace has caught sight of deep red imprints in her flesh; strangulation marks.
When Grace had first put two and two together about this, she'd thought back to her brief encounters with Sesus Amiti, with her Aspect twisted toward deathly chill and a piece of her soul willingly torn away for power, and she'd decided that, even more than sorcery, necromancy is a practice that Grace wants as little to do with as possible. But despite Yula's dark practices and unavoidable eccentricities, she is the next youngest member of the Division of Serenity after Grace, and has proven to be both friendly and sympathetic to Grace's own fresh woes. She's also surprisingly good company, and it would be hard not to like her, even if Grace were interested in trying. She's been far too lonely for that. Even if she's uncomfortably aware of just what the shrouded, masked servants that accompany Yula wherever she goes are.
"Yes, well, it seems a little excessive," Grace says. "I've only just completed my training."
"Sometimes, one requires a bit of a push," Yula says. She eyes the contents of her cup as though daring it to disappoint her again. "I spent most of my first year with the Bureau going between my office and my lodgings, drinking in my own company and working on my poetry and other writings in solitude. Not even my best work — what is even the point of being a tortured artist, I ask? Criminally overrated."
Truth be told, Grace doesn't go to her home in Yu-Shan for much more than to wash up and have a meal, ever since she'd figured out the trick to not having to sleep at all as long as she's actively working. Perhaps it's not the healthiest thing, completely burying herself in work whenever she's not being actively harassed to stop and enjoy the many pleasures of heaven by one of her colleagues. It is easy, though — as long as she's completely occupied by the petty details of committee minutes and destiny planning and diligently filing every report, she doesn't need to think about what she's lost.
Grace sighs. "It's..." she trails off at the sound of a muffled crash from the nearest table. They are sitting at the topmost level of the wine house, positioned on a balcony literally above the happy babble of drunken gods on the ground floor. The whole thing is fashioned in the likeness of a Realm eatery on a massive scale, serving food and drink that one might encounter in the Imperial City — at least, that the very wealthy might encounter. Peony is at least passingly fond of the place, on most days.
Unfortunately, tonight they have been sharing this balcony with a couple at a different table, a slight, nervous-looking lesser god Grace faintly recognises as an attendant of one of the Lute's galleries, and his companion, a fire elemental of some variety in the shape of a pretty young woman. Despite the decent amount of space between the tables, it has been increasingly difficult to ignore them the longer they've been there. Longing glances leading into meaningful whispers, meaningful whispers into cuddling. At this point, the two are physically occupying the same chair, kissing so intently that embers have started to drift up into the air from the elemental, surrounding them with motes of floating light, fireflies in the atmospheric gloom of the eatery. The noise that had drawn Grace's attention was an empty wine bottle being knocked over by an errant limb, hitting the floor and rolling away to rest against the railing.
It's more than a little unseemly, and Grace fights not to openly frown with discomfort. It's not as though she's opposed to physical intimacy — it is famously within Venus's purview, and arranging for predestined liaisons to occur or not is an important part of the work Grace has found herself doing — but she's never felt cause to partake herself, and there's something deeply inconsiderate about making others audience to it for one's own enjoyment.
She does her best to put it out of her mind, though, eyes going back to Yula, and not on what's occurring behind her. Yula, however, glances at Grace's face, follows where she'd been looking a moment before, and visibly rolls her eyes. Grace leans across the table, voice a tight whisper: "You don't have to—"
"If you don't mind," Yula says, her voice cutting through the background hum like a knife, "some of us are attempting quite heroically to enjoy our drinks in peace, which, given the piss we're drinking, is already a struggle without the sounds of your slathering over one another. I quite understand that the ambience might encourage otherwise, but if we could please refrain from public rutting, at the very least? I believe there is an animal pen outside — it might be a more appropriate venue." Horribly, as she punctuates her words with sharp hand motions, two of her zombie attendants ape the motions along with her.
The two spirits freeze in mortification. Then the god, his lime green complexion flushing several shades darker, very nearly shoves his date off of him, shooting to his feet, staring at first Yula and then Grace. When a minor Cerulean Lute functionary brings their lover to a nice wine house to impress her, very likely they do not anticipate being denounced for public indecency by two Joybringers. He gives the two of them a stricken, panicky look, his clothes still smouldering in places.
"You're not in trouble," Grace says, "go on." Looking immensely relieved, the god tosses some money on the table, and grabs the wrist of his increasingly irate companion, towing her toward the stairs. Grace has the abrupt memory of how terrified she'd been of interacting with Ambraea's elemental snake. Doing her level best to not look pleased at the couple's departure, she gives Yula a look. "You didn't have to do that," she says.
"What I didn't have to do was put up with that kind of behaviour in an eating establishment," Yula says. "One might hope for better behavior from the petty spirits of heaven, if she had spent very little time among them. Such a complete lack of regard for the common dignity would be considered disgraceful in Onyx, or anywhere the Sable Order held sway. I consider it my solemn duty to model something approaching proper morality, for the benefit of those in whom it is so insufficient." There's something meaningful about the sidelong glance she casts Grace, for all the haughty self-righteousness of this speech, as if to stress that Grace needn't put up with such behaviour either, if she were a bit more willing to impose herself. The kindness mixed in with Yula's overbearing presence is part of her strange charm, even if manners and strict courtesy have been Grace's best protection for too many years for her to so easily abandon them now.
"It wasn't exactly commonplace for me either, in my social circles," Grace admits. Seeing Yula arch a pale eyebrow, she frowns. "There is a time and a place for such things, and I made a point of never being around for either, where possible. It's not as though Lady Ambraea had a habit of dragging me to orgies."
"How considerate of her." Yula drains her cup again with a long sip, the motion somehow expressing every bit of real disdain she feels for the Dynasty. "Do you plan to see her as well?"
Grace follows suit, her own sip coming out as a bit of a gulp as a result. "No," she says. "Not to speak, anyway. I'll check in to see that she's well, if she's actually in the capital while I'm there, but... she's very nearly a grown lady. A grown Exalted lady. She doesn't need me." That's not quite adequate to articulate what, precisely, Grace feels toward Ambraea, the woman who she grew up alongside and served for most of her life. But for all that Yula is shockingly easy to talk to at times, she is very nearly the bottom of Peony's list for people to speak to about the subject. It's exactly the kind of complicated feeling that a noblewoman, any noblewoman, is utterly unprepared to understand, let alone empathise with. "I worry more about my mother," Grace admits. "She's... I'm all she had. Almost literally. All the hopes and aspirations she let herself have, she pushed it all onto me — as long as I was free and had a good place and a comfortable future, she was fine. I don't know how she's going to take having that all taken away from her."
"Well, it's good you'll get to see her soon enough, then," Yula says, voice quieting a touch.
"Seeing her isn't going to fix the problem," Grace says, shoulders tightening.
"I know, darling," Yula says. "It's an utterly barbaric custom." By which she means slavery — a sentiment Grace might find more compelling from someone whose own culture doesn't valorise reanimating the corpses of their own family members for cheap labour quite so much. Fortunately, Yula continues, her voice softening. "When I I visited Onyx again, it was in the company of friends. Companions who I could trust to help me bear the weight. It's always worse than you remember, seeing someone who should love you look at you like you're a stranger." There's an offer there, and a sincerely made one at that. It's genuinely touching, and catches Grace a little off guard.
"No," she says. "No, I think I should be alone for this, this time. I... wouldn't mind showing you the Imperial City, another time. Maybe you'd find something to like about it."
"I have witnessed greater miracles," Yula says, giving her a smile.
Maybe her superiors were right to force this time off — Grace would simply have to make the most of it.
The Imperial Palace, the Imperial City
The palace doesn't feel like home anymore.
Grace had felt it two years previous when she'd come here with Ambraea. Time and distance had made her forget just what the atmosphere was like here. The sense of being observed even when no one was present, the lingering weight of power and authority hanging on the air, reminding her of just how small she was and just how precarious her position had been. It had made her realise that the palace had never been her home — she'd just been permitted to live in it.
It's worse now with her senses fully awakened to the supernatural, layers of sorcerous Essence from centuries of great workings tingling against her skin, far more brash and open than what she's felt from the homes and offices of those similarly powerful Sidereals she'd had direct experience with. Grace hasn't been Exalted for long, but she can already appreciate the fact that even when they're being subtle or achieving complex effects, the magic of Dragon-Blooded has a natural tendency toward the straightforward. And the Empress is not being subtle in this place. It is very obviously her desire to make certain that anyone who enters this space knows whose palace they're standing in at all times.
The trip itself would have been pleasant, if not for her nerves. The well-traveled gate she'd chosen to journey back to Creation through is located near to the Eye of Heaven District, a deeply literal-minded thing of polished wood, barred and adorned with polished orichalcum. Unlike their behavior at smaller, less frequented celestial gates, the guards had been neither indolent nor lazy — but as intimidating as the massive lions and their lion dog subordinates might be, they had only eyed her briefly, heard her business explained in brief, and allowed her to pass. As a Sidereal Exalt and a heavenly official in good standing, travel to and from Creation is Grace's right.
The gate's location is deeply convenient, letting out into the midst of a glade just upstream from the Imperial River Basin. In the glory of a particularly warm summer, the scenery around the gate is pristine, almost overwhelmingly green. The land around the glade is forbidden to mortals for five miles in every direction, the area demarcated by a ring of Immaculate shrines, and well monitored by the Immaculate Order. As with most of the gates to heaven that they're aware of, the monks make no attempt to restrict the proper business of heaven, but they do keep a very wary eye out for improper behaviour on the part of visiting gods and other spirits. Grace is, of course, none of these things, but she'd be surprised if any of the observing monks remembered her after she'd left.
Grace had garbed herself in the destiny of a lesser official with business in the Palace. She had then hired a boat to carry her to the city, the influence of the constellation of the Messenger adding a sense of urgency that's obvious to anyone she tells of her task. She'd seen the way Sidereal power and resources could let someone slip seamlessly through the world before, but being on her own in the Realm, being treated as a person of authority and means, it had felt particularly stark to her. It somehow only heightens the feeling that she's utterly fallen out of the world in some crucial way.
The city itself had gone by in a blur, until hours later, Grace had found herself in front of the domineering jade gates of the palace itself. A great deal of patience and credentials thoughtfully provided to her by her superiors in the Division of Serenity eventually gain her admittance. There's a certain small pleasure in the fact that they trust her to be sensible with such access — it would be exceptionally easy, if also exceptionally foolish, to abuse if Grace were so inclined.
And then all at once, she's here, sooner than she'd expected. Up ahead, Grace sees Lohna Prince's Scribe, palace slave and the only family she has in the world, waiting quietly near the main entrance to Lady Ambraea's quarters, utterly dwarfed by the grandeur of her surroundings. She looks terrible alone, shockingly frail and delicate, for all the quiet strength Grace has always seen in her. She knows she should wait to speak to her mother, that Lohna is certainly here so early in the morning because Ambraea is in the palace — Grace barely knows what she wants to say to Lohna, and she certainly doesn't want to have that conversation with Ambraea present. Among other reasons she doesn't want to see her former lady just now. She should leave, and come back later.
Instead, Grace quietly slips off the destiny like shrugging out of a cloak. This doesn't coincide with any physical change. She's still herself, dressed like any of the many junior officials who visit the palace in the run of a month, but the air of purpose and urgency slides away as if they'd never been, the ineffable sense that Grace has something important to do for someone who matters wicking off into the morning air. She's left as just herself, exposed and unprotected in the halls of the palace, walking toward an aging mortal woman with as much trepidation as she feels for any of the great deities she's been forced to speak with over the past year.
She's still thinking of what she's going to say, when Lohna notices her first. Their eyes meet for just an instant, and the utter lack of recognition is like a knife to the heart. Nearly as bad, Lohna immediately flicks her eyes downward, and drops into a low bow.
The world reels around Grace, and for just a moment, her legs threaten to buckle beneath her. "You don't remember me," she says, like a perfect idiot. Because she has to say something.
Lohna tenses imperceptibly. She straightens, still not looking Grace in the eye. "I apologise, Miss," she says. "This slave's recollection fails her."
"It's Demure Peony," Grace says, speaking the name for the first time in months. A servant's name, ill-suited for the role she'd been thrust into. But there's an edge of desperate longing she can't quite hide as she repeats: "It's Peony."
There's still no flash of recognition from Lohna, no clear sign that she knows she's looking at her only child. But she reacts to that tone, to that need, as if something in her heart wants to remember, even where her mind won't let it. Her eyes briefly flick up to Grace's face and her hand twitches at her side, as if fighting the urge to offer physical comfort. "Are you alright, Miss?"
"No," Grace says, with an unwise degree of honesty. She tears her eyes away from her mother's face. Lohna is standing in front of a large bronze statue of Sextes Jylis, the Dragon's expression sympathetic, but somehow also mildly incredulous. It's a little much to feel judged by statuary, so Grace looks past it...
... And immediately sees Lady Ambraea approaching them down the hallway. Ambraea looks much the same as she had the year before, tall, imposing, darkly beautiful in the same way an impressive snake might be, pretty to look at, but with a hard to place sense of danger. Frustratingly, somewhere in the back of her mind, Grace takes note of at least three changes she'd have made to Ambraea's outfit, as serviceable as it otherwise is. At the sight of her, after a year amid the dizzying wonders of heaven, after having been forced to converse with great gods and millennia old Exalts as a near peer, Grace doesn't see quite so much of the intimidating sorcerer or mighty Prince of the Earth. She sees Ambraea in her mix of generosity and selfishness, protectiveness and petty grudges. The girl she'd been raised beside, been trained to serve.
"Do you need help, Miss?" Lohna asks, taking half a step toward Grace.
Yes, she does, more than anything. "No," Grace says, shaking her head. "No, I—"
She can't talk to Ambraea just now, doesn't want to deal with that same lack of recognition she'd just gotten from her own mother. Doesn't want to see the woman who had finally, painfully looked at her like she was nothing after knowing her all her life. Doesn't want to be confronted once again with the awful truth that, when Grace had finally needed Ambraea's protection, the supernatural forces that had come for Grace had been far beyond the power of one young Exalt to combat. She can't deal with the pain of seeing her mother and the irrational sense of betrayal at seeing Ambraea at the same time.
Fortunately, Grace doesn't need to. She doesn't need to be here. She doesn't need to have ever been here, as far as they're concerned. Under the heady influence of this lack of consequences, Grace gives in, looking Lohna right in the eye. "I love you, mama," she whispers.
"Who are—" the words catch in Lohna's throat as Grace swoops in for an impulsive hug. Grace can tell that it's affecting her, even if Lohna wouldn't be able to say why. She makes herself pull away despite the tears brimming in her mother's eyes, mind already scrabbling for the Scripture of the Hunted Maiden, her power subtly building inside her.
There once was a maiden who was driven from her land…
She sees the invisible threads of destiny that make up this coming conversation with her mother and Ambraea, and attempts to execute the impossible little sidestep that should remove her from it without a trace. She should have felt a strange shifting, and found herself somewhere nearby, completely forgotten as though she had never been present at all. The entire situation neatly dodged.
Instead, the power hovering in the air all throughout the palace becomes abruptly hard and unyielding, a bejeweled hand clamping down on her shoulder, keeping her trapped in the here and now. Grace is forced to look between Ambraea's approaching curiosity and Lohna's watery confusion, and take much more mundane matters into her own hands: her face burning, she turns on her heel, and begins to walk away. Briskly.
Ambraea calls after her in clear annoyance, but fortunately, she doesn't pursue. Grace is able to slip away into the great expanse of the palace, a small city in its own right. She had, in a real sense, already been regretting not accepting Yula's implicit offer of company. After this humiliating flight from Lady Ambraea, she feels it even more keenly.
Without thinking about it, her feet take her down a series of narrow side passages, and out into an odd little courtyard — small, ill-used, perpetually shabby in a way that is simply not allowed for the parts of the palace that the Empress's eyes might ever fall upon. The small space is almost entirely taken up by a piece of abstract statuary, a vertical slab of dusty white marble carved with a relief of stars hanging over what she'd always taken as the spires of a city, a Flametongue inscription running along the bottom. In the springtime, the blossoms of a nearby fruit orchard have a tendency to find their way here, brought by the wind to pile up in a small drift by the statue's feet. Grace has many memories of curling up on the plinth with a book or a bit of sewing, taking in the pleasant silence.
It's summer, though, and those blossoms crunch underfoot now, dried and desiccated under even the few hours of direct sunlight that this place receives. She approaches the statue, running a hand over its surface. The weary smile freezes on her lips all at once as recognition passes through her: The stars above the cityscape aren't merely arranged in a pleasing pattern, as a younger Grace had always assumed. They form the unmistakable shape of the Peacock, a constellation in the House of Serenity. Her Flametongue isn't good enough to make out the entire inscription, but she recognises the name "Urim" amid the rest of the flowing script — one of the Varang City-States, she recalls. Some monument to that distant city's glory, dragged all the way back to the Imperial City when the place had been made a satrapy, and put here, in the equivalent of an out of the way broom cupboard. And still she'd found it.
Grace slumps into her old spot at the base of the statue, the plinth harder and less comfortable than she remembers. How much of her mortal life had been like this? How many tiny signs had there been that she'd been unequipped to recognise, signs showing the entire thing head been just a prelude destined to be ripped away from her?
Something flutters out of one of her voluminous sleeves, landing amid the browned flowers at her feet. Frowning, Grace leans down to fish it out, finding a small, folded piece of paper. It's a note, written in neatly efficient High Realm, simple and to the point:
By sheer happenstance, Singular Grace is not the only Sidereal in the Imperial Palace today. Her senior colleague, no doubt here on urgent business, has nonetheless somehow learned of her presence, and is being courteous enough to invite her to tea later that afternoon. She stares at it for a long moment, conflicted by relief at the prospect of speaking with someone who even passingly knows who she is, and anxiety at receiving such an invitation from a man who she knows to be a truly great figure in heaven.
Slowly, she lays the paper out on the statue plinth beside her, and fishes around in the hidden pocket in one of her sleeves for what she's looking for — a graphite pencil and a friction match. There's a part of Grace embarrassed to not be able to use ink, but he must know that she's away from her desk, and that allowances must be made in circumstances like these. Carefully, she writes her reply in the space provided, strikes the match on the stone, and sets the note on fire. It goes up almost instantly, consuming the paper and text completely, a thin trail of smoke rising up into the blue sky overhead.
At any rate, it will be something to do.
House Erona Residence, The Imperial City
"Tell me about how she would have died, if you had committed such a thing."
"I would have killed her demons first. First one then the other, before they could alert her. They were lesser spawn of the Vitriol Dragon, native to the shallows of Ki—" registering the impatience in her grandmother's stoic bearing, Maia hastily course-corrects. "Aquatic demons, but not as dangerous to a trained Water Aspect as she might hope. Scavengers, not true hunters. A knife behind the gills for either. Then she would be alone."
Maia kneels on the hard floor, her body wound so tight that she's half worried something will give out in her chest. Standing over her, dressed in austere grey and blue, is her grandmother, Erona Vermillion Shore. The outcaste who'd married Maia's grandfather and renewed his flagging bloodline, who had filled his house with her descendants. She had never been a matriarch — Maia's grandfather had been succeeded by her aunt, who holds the title still — but from the moment she'd entered the family and taken in their name, it's unquestionably Vermillion Shore who has led House Erona from the shadows. She's small, deceptively thin, almost fragile, with eyes like the pitiless sea, after all these years still dressing in a faintly martial style, reminding all who meet her of her status as a decorated war hero. Despite her increasing age, Maia has never held any illusions about her grandmother's physical capabilities.
The training room the two of them are meeting in, kneeling across the small space from one another, is bare, even spartan, the blank faces of its walls seeming to close in around Maia. With her sorcerously-awakened senses, she'd noticed the subtle enchantment on the space almost instantly. At some point, someone had woven sorcery into the walls to swallow sound, assuring that nothing that occurs within them will be heard in the house beyond.
"You'd kill her pets. What then?" Vermillion Shore leans forward, gaze intent.
"Trail her for a time. Slowly, not disturbing the current. Get as close as possible without alerting her, gather sorcerous power. The spell she employed to stay underwater was useful and versatile — she wouldn't have been helpless, even if she couldn't match a Water Aspect."
"Do you imagine you would have been successful?" Vermillion Shore's eyes bore into Maia, daring her to lie.
For a moment, Maia is back in the sea off the shore of the Isle of Voices, hanging near motionless in the abyssal gloom, watching Peleps Nalri carefully following a dragon line along the seabed. A plant is wound around Nalri's body, its roots plunging into her mouth and nose to filter breathable air directly from the water, fronds twining her limbs like the fins of a strange fish. One of her hands carries a bespoke instrument of silver and black jade to guide her in her work.
Maia will never know what actually it is that betrays her presence, but one moment Nalri is none the wiser and the next she's wheeled around to see Maia, a human shape trailing her through the dark of the sea. There's a frozen moment as the two regard each other, one cold, the other openly alarmed. Then they both explode into motion at once.
Maia shoots forward through the water, one hand drawing her knife, a wound already opening on the palm of the other. The water churns with a storm of obsidian butterflies from Nalri's outstretched hand, but what would be lethal on dry land is rendered slower, more sluggish here as each razor sharp projectile drags its way through the water. Maia is already on her, the barbed whip formed from her own blood coiling mercilessly around Nalri's outstretched wrists, hauling her close enough for Maia's knife to sever the viridian stem of the plant keeping Nalri from outright drowning. There is a fight after this point, but the outcome is already decided.
"Well enough," Maia says, in the here and now. It may have gone differently, if she'd been a little bit slower.
"Good." With a slow, fluid motion, Vermillion Shore rises, standing over Maia with a dangerous expression on her face. "Hypothetically speaking, of course. Because, I do not recall permission being granted for you to claim the life of one of our enemies among your classmates. I am not privy to all that is done in our patron's name, however — am I mistaken?"
Maia forces herself not to look away. It will be worse if she looks away, or does anything to betray the helpless fear hammering in her chest. "You are not mistaken, grandmother."
"How curious, then, that she's dead. Why do you imagine that would be, granddaughter?"
Maia needs to answer this. Her tongue seems to have seized up, though, her mouth gone dry. "... She crossed Ambraea," she manages.
"Hm." Vermillion Shore looks down at Maia, her face horrible blank. "You were advised to ingratiate yourself to her. That girl's bed wasn't the place we'd planned for you, but it's too useful an opportunity to pass up — you've done well, in that regard. I expected you to please her long enough for the connection to be useful, not to inspire binding and public displays of devotion."
Maia is torn between a measure of genuine relief at this faint praise, and a tiny and extremely dangerous anger prickling into existence somewhere in the depths of her chest. What she has with Ambraea — the first thing that Maia's had that really belongs to her — being reduced to a cynical act of seduction sets her blood to boil. "... Thank you, grandmother."
"Don't thank me yet, girl." Maia's stomach drops as Vermillion Shore begins to slowly walk, moving around Maia in a leisurely, circular motion, her hands still clasped behind her back. It's a bit like being circled like a shark. "I'm not sure I believe you."
"I'm sorry?" Maia asks.
"The V'neef girl, whose family Peleps Nalri exercised her grudge against, your other roommate. The Sesus girl who helps you with your schoolwork, whose work she stole. What are they to you, Erona Maia?"
Maia closes her eyes briefly, not letting her shoulders slump. "... Enemies," she says, voice barely more than a whisper.
"Enemies." From almost directly behind Maia, where Vermillion Shore currently stands, something cold and metallic comes to rest on Maia's shoulder, the smooth length of a wrackstaff weighting heavily down on her. "What do we give to enemies?"
"Patience," Maia says automatically. "Patience, then vengeance."
"Correct," Vermillion Shore says. "Sesus, who were our enemies before ever we fell, who leapt at the chance to destroy us and slither into the void we left behind. V'neef, who eagerly snatched up our stolen holdings into undeserving hands before our corpses were cold. If either of them knew who and what you were, our little house would be utterly ruined. They are not our friends. We do not kill for them without good reason. Our Empress stands surrounded by wicked advisors and self serving children — we do not kill simply to please ourselves. Do you understand me, granddaughter?"
She does understand it. Maia has known it since before she set foot in the Heptagram, from before the moment she first met any of her school friends. She knows what's been done to her family, how many were killed or vanished or destroyed in more insidious ways at the hands of the Great Houses. How quickly the warmth that L'nessa and Sola show her would evaporate if they actually knew what she was. How singularly lucky she is that Ambraea loves her regardless. But it's all so much easier to remember when she's looking into Nalri's terrified eyes than when she's with L'nessa or Sola or Amiti. Particularly Amiti. But all she says is: "Yes, grandmother. I understand."
"I feel that your understanding may have grown more selective of late. Remember, child, if you ever resent the weight of our duty, if you ever look at your 'school friends' and see in them the wealth and power that you should have grown up taking for granted, if you ever envy them the vapid idleness of Dynastic youth, remember: they stole all this from you. It was snatched away from you before you were ever born. If you ever resent our secrecy, the harshness of my lessons, the hard life that is left to us to lead, the blood on your hands, remember who it was who pushed us to it. And how quickly they would do it again, and worse."
"I know!" It comes out sharper than Maia means for it to, angrier, and her heart stops for a moment. "Apologies," she hastily adds, "I meant no disrespect."
"I'm sure you didn't," Vermillion Shore says, her voice almost softening. "The anger is good. Keep it burning, but keep it in check. I don't doubt your commitment to our path, girl, but your discipline is slipping. Fortunately, I have time to help you with that."
"Help how?" Maia asks, whatever relief she'd felt plunging back down into icy dread.
The wrackstaff seems to grow heavier against her shoulder. "Unarmed self defence against an assailant with a deadly weapon is a valuable skill," Vermillion Shore says. "I also find that it is particularly good at sharpening the mind. At reminding you of the cost of discovery if any of us slip up for an instant. I do this for your own sake, child. Do you understand?"
"Yes, grandmother." Maia doesn't move yet, but her body slowly tenses, ready to dart aside from whatever blow is about t
o come, ignoring the spike of real terror in her heart.
"Good," Vermillion Shore says. "Defend yourself — you are forbidden to break any bones,"
Then, of course, there comes pain. But pain is an old teacher.
The Imperial Palace itself contains numerous shrines and several full-sized temples to the Immaculate Dragon within its walls, built by the Empress in dedication to great victories, or to honour great heroes. Singular Grace isn't entirely surprised that her invitation directs her to one well beyond the palace walls, however. What it lacks in immediate convenience, it will certainly gain some measure of actual privacy. Despite the many people on the far side of the side gate she departs through, stepping beyond the compound's outermost walls and back out into the Imperial City proper immediately removes the creeping sensation of being watched that's only grown while she's been in the palace.
Grace is left in a solidly middle rung neighbourhood, taking in the sights and sounds of ordinary life. Living this close to the palace, with its slightly uncomfortable guard presence and heavy traffic, this is neither the domain of the truly wealthy nor the genuinely poor. Affluent peasants live here in handsome buildings, running businesses that cater to guards, soldiers, servants, and higher status folk bored of the palace's endless pleasures. Eateries, teahouses, an outdoor theatre. She even spots an unlit blue lantern in the window of an exceedingly polite looking establishment partially obscured by other buildings, the Maiden of Serenity's colour marking it as a brothel.
She realises with dull amusement that this is more or less exactly the sort of entertainment district in which she'd met with Yula a week prior, albeit one on a Creation scale, rather than the heightened supernatural excesses of heaven. She's sure that, if she had taken Yula up on her offer, they might have sought out some manner of diversion here, or somewhere like it. She's sure Yula would have found something to viciously criticise regardless, but Grace had surmised relatively quickly that the primary use Yula has for the Realm is despising it. Perhaps Grace might feel similarly, if she'd been raised in a blighted shadowland ruled over by a tyrannical ghost king.
If Grace ever visits Onyx, she is determined to be perfectly mildly polite about the entire affair, no matter how many horrors she's exposed to in the process.
Without company to immediately distract her from the pang in her heart, Grace arranges for transportation deeper into the city. She suppresses the automatic anxiety over the state of finances she doesn't need to worry about any longer as she flags down a carriage, settles into it, and sinks into quiet contemplation of the city rolling by.
Daana'd-Vanquishes-Corruption Temple is conspicuous in its magnitude, a towering structure made of black stone carved with religious imagery of its namesake dragon in her capacity as bureaucratic crusader. Its outer walls curve gently like waves, drawing the eye to its two large gates, propped open to admit the faithful. It utterly dominates one side of the grandly appointed square it sits in, opposite the headquarters of the Honorable and Humble Caretakers of the Common Folk, staring down the Thousand Scales ministry as if daring it to fall down in its duties.
A brightly coloured mosaic gleams underfoot as Grace moves through the well-dressed crowd, an aniconic design by some Mnemon artisan or another. She takes note of a very pricey looking stationary shop on her way, deciding that she'll spend some time there after this meeting. The thought of it does something to quiet the nervousness in her stomach — it's been told to her in jest before, but Grace has to admit that there may be something to her having been born to be a bureaucrat.
Passing between the two dragon statues that flank the entrance, Grace takes a deep breath, enjoying the cool, incense-laced air that washes over her from the temple's interior. Whatever confusing revelations recent years have brought on about the history of the Realm and the Immaculate Philosophy, she's abruptly certain that it's been far too long since she's been in a temple. She spends a long moment just taking in the art on the walls, the meticulously tended shrines around the main chamber, the air of contemplative tranquility hanging in the air.
"You seem lost, Miss."
Grace's heightened senses mean she doesn't jump when the man speaks to her, despite how little attention she'd been paying to her surroundings. "Oh, in a sense," she says, unable to quite stifle a little laugh. He's a monk a little younger than Grace's mother, his robes spotless, his expression politely confused. "Forgive me, brother, I was simply taking a moment to admire your temple. I do have business here. I was told to make it known that the Mouth of Peace's secretary is expecting me."
That certainly gets a reaction, as well it might. "Ah," he says, his manner growing considerably more formal, "I hadn't realised— please, allow me to fetch the abbot."
In short order, the abbot directs one of the temple's lay servants to lead Grace out of the main hall, and up into the strangely curving passageways built into the building's outer walls. In addition to the cells where the monks who live and work here sleep, the temple serves as one of the major administrative centres of the Immaculate Order's Breath of Daana'd, the bureaucratic arm of the Immaculate Order responsible for monitoring and facilitating the needs of the many mortal communities under the Order's guidance. As such, it contains offices, records chambers, and pleasantly appointed meeting rooms.
Grace is led up to the top floor, to what turns out to be a modest study maintained in one corner of the building. The space features an antique desk, seating for several others, and an obsessively ordered bookshelf. Narrow windows on several of the walls let fading sunlight in to stripe the floor. Off to the side of the room is a small stove for making tea. It has the air of a place that is cleaned and dusted regularly, but not used on a regular basis. A place to work while in the Imperial City. Or today, apparently, to meet with junior Sidereals.
As her host doesn't immediately arrive, Grace finds a space on the hard floor to sit down on, produces a small notebook she keeps tucked into her robes, and begins to carefully scribble away on a blank page in graphite. She writes in High Realm shorthand, carefully laying out in brief the report that she'll have to finish when she goes back to Yu-Shan. It's been a stressful morning, and half an hour's rest will be a welcome respite. She so loses herself in the work that, were it not for the missive apologising for her host's lateness an hour into things she finds tucked mysteriously between two blank pages of her notebook, Grace might have wholly failed to mark the time.
When the door finally slides open behind her, Grace stands in a hurry, tucking her notebook away back in the pocket up her sleeve, thankful to be free of the ordinary stiffness and pains of a mortal body — it's always a little mortifying to have to pretend your leg hasn't fallen asleep in front of a superior. "Hello, sir," she says, bowing.
"I admit," he says, closing the door behind him, "I had hoped that you would find something more diverting to occupy yourself with in my absence than waiting in my office. I realise that it's very poor form for me to have invited you then showed up late." There's a dry, weary humour in his voice, but also, Grace thinks, genuine irritation. She has no indication that it's directed at her, at least.
"Would you like me to make tea?" Grace offers, glancing toward the tea making supplies.
"It was not my intent for you to have to wait on me," her host says.
"I like making tea. And we're in the Realm — it's polite here, to show courtesy to one's elders." And for all that she'd lived fully at the mercy of Ambraea's good opinion, Grace had taken pride in her former profession. She doesn't get enough chances to make tea for people, these days. Which is probably more a statement on her refusal to have a social life than anything. Her colleagues at the Cerulean Lute might have had a point.
Her host has a seat, watching her go through the automatic motions of heating the water and preparing the tea leaves he has on hand. He's old enough to show his age in his face and what's left of his grey hair — which is truly ancient, in light of the dizzying lifespan Grace has been told Sidereals can achieve. Still, there's nothing to show a decline in his physical conditioning, his posture straight and upright, his green eyes tired, but still piercingly intelligent. "So I've been told," he says, but doesn't seem to object further.
"May I ask what delayed you so dramatically?" Grace asks, carefully portioning out the leaves — a top quality green harvested from Numinous Rolling Waves Prefecture, unless she was mistaken. A surprising touch of luxury here amid all the deliberately cultivated humility.
"That certainly isn't a secret," her host says. "I came here to advise the Empress on certain critical matters. It is her wont to deliberately waste my time now and again. Both for her own amusement and to remind me who really holds power in the Realm. She is an endlessly frustrating woman, as I'm sure you'd find as well should you ever have to deal with her directly."
"So far, Her Excellency has spoken..." Grace thinks hard for a moment, waiting for the water to reach the precise temperature she was waiting for. "... Exactly two words to me in my life. So I will simply have to take your word for that for now, sir."
"Which words are those?" He asks.
"'Leave us'." Grace only barely suppresses a wince at the memory, despite the humour — as a servant living in the palace, she had taken great, if unspoken, comfort in the thought that the Empress hadn't known that she existed. She doubted that the Imperial Presence would be significantly less overwhelming at this stage.
The old man twitches a smile, although it's only on his face for a scant instant. "You remind me of your predecessor, in some ways," he tells her.
Grace doesn't look up from carefully pouring the tea into two earthenware cups, but she does blink in surprise. "You're the first person who knew her to feel that way."
"I mean in your mannerisms, at times," he explains. "You learn to notice these commonalities among the different bearers of Exalted lineages, eventually. I grew to have a great deal of respect for Wayward Prayer over the centuries we worked together, as much as our political disagreements prevented anything as intimate as friendship."
Grace hands him his tea, before demurely taking a seat on the floor across from him. "I think I might be a bit of a disappointment to some of her contemporaries."
"Thank you. The Gold Faction are few in number, and have still fewer elders so committed to their projects as she was. I suspect that some had hoped you would grow to fill the void she left." He eyes Grace a little more keenly, even as he breathes in the steam of the tea with obvious appreciation. "That you have so little sympathy for her politics, as I understand it, would be naturally a little disappointing for them."
Grace had heard at least five different pitches involving her predecessor and her great and noble goals — had the Realm's many crimes laid out to her in detail, the unfairness of of power and resources being concentrated on the Blessed Isle at the expense of the world, the mercilessness of the Immaculate Order in spreading their philosophy throughout the Threshold. All of them had worked around to her mother eventually, and the circumstances they imagined had been representative of Grace's childhood.
It's true that the Realm had invaded Lohna's homeland on a thin pretense and stolen her away to a life of slavery on the Blessed Isle, but slavery and war are cruelties far from unique to any single empire of Creation. The fall of the Realm, fast or gradual or otherwise, would do little to protect the world from these horrors, and do less than nothing for the peasants and slaves on the Blessed Isle in their millions. Doubtless, a very large part of this is her Immaculate upbringing and attachment to the land of her birth, but it's more than that. Grace has lived all her life in the shadow of the great and powerful, has lately even be risen up into their ranks quite against her will — in her heart of hearts, if she's truly honest with herself now that this is something she's had to think about, Grace is forced to admit that she simply does not trust anyone who would seek to fill the power vacuum that the Realm would leave behind to be better than the Dynasty in any appreciable way.
Maybe part of why she spends so much time burying herself in desk work is that it means she doesn't have as much time to contemplate the position of terrifying, life-destroying influence she's been raised up to. She misses when such considerations were too far above her station to be worth fathoming.
What she says is: "Happiness for the greatest number of people means more to me than burning everything down for the sake of justice."
The look he gives her is coolly assessing, as if he's seeing through to the heart of her. Oracles often give her this feeling. "This sabbatical was not your idea, as I understand it," he says.
It takes Grace a second or two to recover from the abrupt change of topic. "It wasn't," she admits. "My superiors were concerned for my wellbeing. They felt that I needed to step away from work for a short while."
"This is not uncommon for the Cerulean Lute," he says. "The Division of Serenity is exceptionally... proactive when it comes to such concerns. Has it been helpful in your case, do you find?"
This is not a question that Grace had been prepared to answer when she'd come here. "Maybe," she says. "The change of scenery, perhaps, but seeing..." The look of blank uncomprehension on her mother's face. "... home has been difficult. I'm not used to not having anything to do with myself."
"Some people are not made for idleness," he says, although there's a faint, ironic edge that Grace doesn't think is aimed at her. "Would you like something to do with yourself, while you're here? A task to work on outside your official duties?"
Grace understands what this is. That she is speaking with the undisputed leader of the Bronze Faction, the political faction that has steered the Bureau of Destiny toward support of the Realm for its entire history. That any task that he gives her, however minor, is likely to be in pursuit of their goals. That once she starts down that road, allows herself to finally become drawn into the Bureau's meticulously civil political infighting, it may be difficult to extricate herself again.
Would that be so bad, though? The idea of having something useful to do is incredibly appealing just then. Anything to keep her from remembering the encounter with her mother and Ambraea.
"I think I'd like that," she says. "Thank you."
His smile lingers for slightly longer this time, something close to approval. He brings his teacup to his lips and takes an experimental sip. "Perfectly prepared," he tells her, "thank you."
Private pleasure craft of Matriarch V'neef,
The Imperial River Basin, Scarlet Prefecture,
The Eastern Blessed Isle
The ship cuts through the waves at a leisurely pace, the sun gleaming off of the surface of the Imperial Basin. The sky is clear overhead and the weather is as fair as could be hoped. It gives you all a truly picturesque prospect as the yacht navigates down the coast, heading toward the mouth of the Basin and the wider Inland Sea. You're not really going that far, of course, but it's an amusing fancy.
"I suppose one way to get us to socialise is putting us together on a ship where we're the only sorcerers aside from you."
L'nessa laughs. "It's not all that bad," she says, leaning over the railing. "I find it helps if one doesn't insist on showing up to a party with a snake wrapped around one's neck."
Verdigris stirs at this, flicking her tongue at L'nessa sullenly. You reach up to give the snake's head a reassuring stroke. "Of course they're talking more to you. They're here to make nice to your mother, and she clearly favours you."
L'nessa flips her hair over her shoulder — it's been painstakingly straightened and left daringly unbound. It's a style that has been growing gradually more fashionable, you notice. The motion still dislodges an autumnal leaf, and it falls down to land on the shoulder of her cream gown. "I don't get invited to quite so many parties, you know," she says, "not wearing my sorcery on my sleeve only gets me so far, after all. I simply go out of my way to be pleasing and nonthreatening when I am invited to one. That's not quite the approach that works for you, I'm afraid."
"I have noticed," you say. The yacht pays host to a number of Dynasts, entertainers, and hangers on, here to enjoy a gentle day's sailing through sheltered waters. Food is plentiful, wine flows as freely as anyone would hope from a social event put on by Matriarch V'neef herself, and sweet music drifts over the air. The yacht is more than large enough to let the other guests avoid you to a deniable degree. You had been slightly surprised to see L'nessa here in the capital as well, but you suppose you aren't the only one playing suitor to eligible young men. Not that L'nessa has any lack of practice in that role. And you certainly aren't complaining about her being here.
"I hope you're giving him a chance," she says, her tone turning a little more serious.
"Is there some reason I shouldn't?" you ask, raising your eyebrows.
"Well, there's the obvious," L'nessa says, "blood's as thin as any upjumped former peasant's son. But his mother is a very capable, well-placed upjumped former peasant, and you could do a lot worse than Darting Fish. The boy's talented, accomplished, and not terrified of you. Also quite pleasant to look at, in his way, but I expect that benefit to be entirely lost on you." She sighs. "Like gifting a good wine to a monk."
You laugh in spite of yourself. "I like him well enough," you say.
"Well, good," L'nessa says. "It wouldn't be the worst thing, surely, to marry into my house? Political maneuvering aside, I understand that you have... various feelings about your siblings, but I'd like to think that my company would be worth something? You could be my aunt and my niece by marriage." For just a moment, there is a trace of something close to actual vulnerability in her. She is saying that she would enjoy having you aligned with her house because you're her friend, as directly as she can bring herself.
"By marriage and adoption," you say, but you don't rebuff the notion out of hand.
"Look at you, already sounding like him," L'nessa says, smiling beatifically.
You scan the deck with your eyes, finding Darting Fish on the far side, watching the shoreline slide past from the opposite railing. You should get back to him in a moment. "No one seems to want to talk about that last girl he was nearly married off to."
L'nessa gives a very faint grimace. "Oh, well, you know how these things go," she says. Then she leans in close, and adds, in a scandalous whisper: "A Ragara woman, you recall, yes? Patrician adoptee, but the household's rich as you might hope. Well, things were progressing well toward an actual engagement, when it came out that her paternal grandfather had been an Iselsi."
"... Shocking," you say, feeling your mood plummet a little.
"Well, yes. We're not going to accuse them of concealing it, but obviously they were concealing it. Regardless, that got broken off in a hurry. She's Ragara's problem that they may attempt to handle as they will, but mother was hardly going to marry even an adoptive grandson off to that sort when they tried to outright hide it."
"Understandable," you say. And it is, from a political standpoint. The disdain that the Dynasty holds for the dregs of House Iselsi as the destitute descendants of traitors is very real. Maia's family has reason enough to hide it, even before you consider the darker secrets you've been let in on.
"Well, you didn't hear that from me," L'nessa says.
"Certainly not," you say, the lightness in your tone more feigned than it had been a moment before. "If you'll excuse me, I believe I have a bottle of wine to consider." Her laughter follows you as you move across the gently rolling deck. As you're used to, none of the partygoers are precisely impolite to you. You get nods or words of greeting whenever you directly catch the eye of anyone your passage takes you close to, but their manner is rarely inviting, and a striking number of them somehow avoid seeing you at all. It's at least useful when you have places to be.
As you approach Darting Fish, you take two glasses of wine from a passing server, determinedly not getting distracted by the very pretty smile she gives you as she ducks her head in acknowledgement. Or by the cut of her dress. You're entirely aware that L'nessa is watching your progress out of the corner of her eye, and that she'd have some very pointed jabs to make later if you allow yourself to be so diverted.
"Are you thirsty?" you ask, stepping up beside him.
Darting Fish smiles politely at you, accepting the glass. The shifting grey of his eyes feel like an altogether gloomier vision of the sea than the deep blue all around you — you wonder how pleased he is by this potential match. "Have I mentioned that you look lovely today?" he asks, taking a sip of sweet red wine.
"You may have," you say, "but repetition doesn't hurt." You're wearing a deep purple gown beneath a diaphanous black overrobe, a pattern of scales present where the sheer fabric catches the sunlight. The dragon scale around your neck is fully visible, glittering bewitchingly to anyone who looks too long into it. Evening Garnet has proven to have an entirely capable eye for the line between current fashions and your burgeoning reputation as a darkly mysterious sorcerer. Fortunately, there's no heat behind Fish's compliment. A one-sided infatuation in a potential marriage partner would be more trouble than you quite want to think about.
"I've heard that our Empress has called in your sorcerer's boon already," you say, reaching for an easy topic of conversation.
Fish smiles ambivalently. "Yes," he says. "I have been tasked with shoring up the enchantments on a retaining wall along the southern coast. Important work, but it will likely take me the better part of two years." The Empress has the right to demand such a boon from each and every sorcerer of the Realm. You've always been morbidly curious about what she might ask of you, in time.
"Are you displeased by the boon being called in so quickly?" you ask.
"Oh, no. Better than to have the uncertainty hanging over me," he says. "I am of course happy to serve at the pleasure of our Empress, but it will make future plans less complicated."
"Do you still intend to take a post with the Merchant Fleet after that?"
"I do," Fish says. "I want the travel, and I think it's important that my house gets at least a few good years out of me, before I get married off."
"Unless you get married to someone who doesn't have a house yet," you remind him, examining the contents of your wine glass.
He looks as though he'd genuinely not considered that aspect of things. "... Yes, I suppose that would make things different," he acknowledges. "I'm sorry, I'd gotten so reconciled to the inevitability, that I hadn't entirely considered that."
While you would not be quite joining your spouse's house in the same way a man might marry into one, anymore than V'neef herself had joined House Tepet when she'd married her husband, as an unattached Imperial daughter, the difference would be largely academic. At least, until the hypothetical day decades in the future when your mother might allow you to found a House Ambraea. Until then, your household would be attached firmly to your husband's house in all but name. If Darting Fish marries you, there is very little reason why he might not keep a post with the Merchant Fleet.
"No offence taken," you say, offering him a slight smile. More a reassuring nicety than anything.
"How is your research proceeding, by the way?" he asks, his eyes falling on Verdigris.
You find yourself genuinely glad for the change to a subject that feels neither stilted nor awkward. "Well, I hope," you say, "I spent a great deal of last year in research and preliminary ground work — the boring parts, but I would never touch my poor Verdigris with transformative workings without knowing exactly what they'll do."
His expression softens slightly, becoming something less guarded. "You do seem to be fairly close to inseparable," he says. Intellectually, you can see how he'd be someone who L'nessa would consider attractive — boyish features, deeply tanned skin, and an easy smile.
"It feels wrong to leave her behind," you say, with rather more candor than is your norm. You take a pleasant sip from your glass, leaning companionably forward. "What I had in mind, though, was..."
You tell him about your work, what you're hoping to achieve, how progress has been. Your general research into the topic of elementals and the sorcerous modification of spirits, and how it differs from the natural Essence cultivation that elementals engage in on the scale of centuries. Darting fish listens with clear interest, both following your explanations and asking intelligent questions of his own. Before long, you've naturally transitioned to discussing Fish's own work, and then aquatic elementals and demons.
All the while, everyone else is giving you both a much wider berth than they had for you and L'nessa sharing marriage gossip. It's even understandable — you're two sorcerers openly conspiring about your sinister craft, and they're more than pleased to leave you to it.
Is this a microcosm of what marriage to another sorcerer would be like? Both of you sliding into the role of the valued social pariah, the person who people want to have at their disposal, but not their social events. In some ways, it would be easier, founding a household with someone who can understand your work without fear or disgust. But is that really the best idea? Would it be better to have a husband who you can rely on for the things you're less suited to, more than just one who can provide a harmonious domestic life? Darting Fish's bloodline is also a serious concern. You do need Exalted daughters and sons, if you're to establish a real lineage. It's a lot to consider.
"May I engage in some unwise frankness?" Darting Fish asks, at length.
This takes you by surprise, lost as you'd been in your troubled thoughts. "If you wish," you say. On the shoreline behind him, you can see a family of peasant fisherfolk, who have obviously paused to gaze in wonder at the passing vessel, resplendant as it is with House V'neef's colours.
"I know that I could not possibly hope for a better match than you," he says. "It's a little surprising that it would even be considered."
"I think you're aware of the advantages," you say, uncertain of where he's going with this. He's also very certainly correct — it's only House V'neef's nascent state that makes this match even potentially viable. "Do I sense a degree of reluctance even with that?"
"Well," he says, suddenly looking very much like he'd like to take his previous statement back, "that's not quite what I—" he stops, frowning at something on the shoreline.
"Is something the matter?" you ask, following Fish's gaze.
"That child is drowning," he says, pointing to the fisherfolk. Sure enough, there is a small figure splashing around in the water, too distant to make out the details of.
"Are you sure?" You ask, straining to look.
"No," he says. And then, outrageously, he strips off his outermost layer of clothing, and dives over the side of the ship, drawing gasps from all around you. You're left watching, dumbfounded, as he begins to swim toward the shore with superhuman speed that not even most Water Aspects could match.
"He is a very good-hearted boy, isn't he?"
You turn to see your host. V'neef is staring after Darting Fish with an expression halfway between amusement and exasperation, so much like L'nessa that, for a moment, you can't remember what it is you dislike about her so much.
"I have always thought so, elder sister," you admit.
"You certainly seem to get along amiably enough. I should hope an impromptu display of heroics wouldn't give you too bad an impression of a young man." She seems pleased by this, even as she turns to address a nearby servant: "Prepare a change of clothes for Darting Fish, should he require them upon his return."
You and the curious crowd of party goers watch from the railing of the ship as the distant figure of Darting Fish reaches the struggling child, pulling them along back to the shore. Even from this distance, you will admit that he looks particularly gallant, stepping out of the water with the peasant child in his arms. The rest of the family falls to their knees in gratitude.
There are other Water Aspects onboard today. One of them may have done something if Fish hadn't, if they'd noticed — but he'd been the first to act, without even a moment of considering otherwise. It's the sort of thing that a good, Immaculate Dragon-Blood should be prepared for, theoretically, protecting mortals with your divinely granted abilities in exchange for their deference and obedient service. Still, there are many Dynasts who would not have gone out of their way like this.
Would Maia have done this? It's a strange thought — it's never occured to you to directly compare the two of them before now. Whoever you marry, you're keeping Maia no matter what he thinks. It still comes to you now, though, and the answer is so obvious that you don't need much time to reflect upon it: She would if you asked her to, or if someone pointed out the need.
Somehow, the thought just makes you miss her.
Imperial hunting preserve,
Scarlet Prefecture,
The Eastern Blessed Isle
Although the clouds on the horizon threatened to spoil the fine weather, in the end, they stayed dutifully far to the south. You stand amid a hunting party consisting mainly of other young Dynasts, along with a decent number of older Dragon-Blooded. Among these is your father, already mounting his steed with the ease of long practice — this is, after all, his event.
Scarlet Prefecture is almost entirely settled land — cities, towns, and the vast farmland necessary to feed them. Nowhere on the Blessed Isle is so wholly tamed as that, however, if only by deliberate design in this case. No doubt expressly for the purposes of arranging this hunt, the Empress has granted your father the use of one of her private hunting reserves. You've all assembled at a comfortable hunting lodge on its edge, prepared to muster out into the rolling, forested hills.
A flock of hunting austrechs have been gathered, the flightless birds slower and more temperamental than horses, but braver and more surefooted over difficult terrain. Yours is a dark grey creature, a fierce intelligence glinting in the amber eye that it regards you with. It sniffs at your jacket once, directly over the spot you know Verdigris is sleeping, but it's clearly accustomed enough to the supernatural not to spook immediately — it had been one small part of the gifts given to you by your mother, so you suppose such things were taken into account. Slowly, you reach out to stroke it where savage beak turns to feathers. When it consents to this without trying to bite your fingers off, you pull yourself up into the saddle.
You're smartly dressed for riding, your hair tightly braided in a crown behind your head, your new sword hanging reassuringly from your belt — you shouldn't need that, of course, but being able to show it off a little doesn't hurt. Your peers are similarly dressed, following your example as they climb onto their own austrechs, some with more or less confidence than yourself. One of them, you're actually familiar with:
"A pleasure to see you again, lady Ambraea." Sesus Kasi's austrech is smaller than yours, to better suit her, but she handles it well. In addition to her more practical hunting clothes, you note that she still has the feather-shaped jade-steel ornament in her blonde hair — your certainty that it must do something truly useful only strengthens.
"Equally," you say, with some genuine meaning behind it. Amiti's twin shows every indication of being as friendly now as she had been when you'd encountered her two years before. Perhaps even more — you're not sure how much Amiti chose to tell her about the incident with the ghost and Ledaal Anay Idelle, but your impression is that the two of them are strikingly candid about sensitive matters.
"I hope my sister is well," Kasi says, as if confirming the direction of your thoughts. She makes it sound like polite inquiry,
"Very well, when last I spoke to her," you say. "Her studies are progressing nicely — I think, sometimes, that she would be counted as the best in our year, if her area of focus were more conventional."
"That's great to hear," Kasi says, although you can see a certain calculation in her eyes as she decides how to take the latter part of your comment. You're not trying to be dismissive of Amiti's talents, and she's a dear friend who you can and have defended before, but she is a necromancer, and it's good to be realistic about these things.
Some of the others have drifted closer to the two of you, apparently following Kasi's example of acknowledging the sorcerer. Which is good, because one of them is the boy you're supposed to be speaking with.
"There are so many frightful rumours about poor Amiti, these days," says Sesus Ambar. "Is it true that my cousin has grown so ghostly pale that you can see through her on moonless nights? Kasi insists on making exactly the very threatening, polite little smile she's making right now whenever this comes up, but she hasn't had the privilege of her sister's company in person either, these past years. Does she truly bathe in blood to fuel her dark rituals?" Ambar is a Fire Aspect, and a handsome young man — narrow in the shoulder, but pretty in the face, his dark hair wavy, and lit by a strange inner furnace glow. Like smoke choking a bonfire. He doesn't ride quite as well as Kasi, but that doesn't stop him from having an infuriating sort of partial smirk on his face.
You give him your most level stare. "Nothing of the sort. Amiti has been blessed by Mela, whose purview includes winter's chill — it's nothing particularly remarkable that she has prominent Aspect Markings, coming from a good bloodline as she does." That she has instead carved out a piece of her soul and wears it in a pendant around her neck is, to you, less distasteful than whatever nonsense he's describing about blood baths, but you suspect that it still wouldn't be particularly helpful in dissuading the most lurid rumours.
"Maybe one day, my cousin will learn not to take vicious rumours so seriously," Kasi says, voice light. You don't know her well enough to tell if she's hiding annoyance or true anger — once again, it's very strange to see someone who looks so close to Amiti who doesn't wear such things on her sleeve.
"I make it a point not to take Ambar seriously in general," says a younger girl — a Wood Aspect with a Cynis mon stitched into her clothes, "Dragons know, it does seem to be what he's going for."
In spite of his earlier joke about Kasi's false politeness, Ambar shoots her possibly the most passive aggressive smile you've ever seen. "Thank you, Deya — You're venomous as ever, this morning."
The main thing that strikes you about the interaction is that all three of them are students together at the Spiral Academy, and likely have been for years. The undercurrent of existing relationships, grudges, and alliances leaves you feeling a little at a disadvantage. From what you've heard, the social environment of the Realm's largest great Secondary School makes what you're used to at the Heptagram seem tame and straightforward in comparison.
You only have so long with that thought, however — the trackers are ready to get underway, and so the hunt can finally begin. You all start forward, your austrechs eager to be on the move.
The first chance you get for a private word with Ambar, you're all following a rough trail through the forest, still waiting for word from the trackers of the deer that they've been following signs of. It's narrow enough to not accommodate more than one or two austrechs abreast like this, offering you the illusion of privacy. In reality, both the nearer of Ambar's peers or your father and the other chaperones have the opportunity to listen in to whatever conversation you're having. It's not as though either of you know one another well enough for confiding anything too sensitive to one another at any rate.
"I've heard good things about you from three of my cousins now," he says, conversationally. "Albeit indirectly from Amiti — we are not quite one another's frequent correspondents."
"Who is the third, beyond her and Kasi?" you ask.
"Vahelo," Ambar says, giving you an almost conspiratorial little smile. "I believe her exact words were 'an intelligent and upstanding lady'. Whatever did you do to leave such a good impression from so brief an acquaintance?"
You cast him a sidelong glance, keeping most of your attention on guiding your mount down the shallow slope ahead of you. "Nothing that would interest you at all, from what I've been told."
Ambar laughs, seemingly genuinely delighted. "Now, that's certainly fair enough. But from what I've been told of you, my lady, I might think that attention to such matters isn't what you'd seek in a man anyway."
You don't let your mouth twitch in amusement. "I may also look for some measure of discretion," you say instead.
"Well, of course," Ambar says, with surprisingly little resentment, "it's all well and good to be so blatant while I'm still young and unmarried, but trust me when I say I fully intend to allow whatever lucky woman I end up with full credit for finally 'taking me in hand' — I will certainly continue seeing to my needs, of course, but I am confident that I can do so without being an embarrassment to my spouse or our household. Although I doubt I'll go so far as to outright declare a lover sworn kin. Such a show of devotion is a little beyond my cold little heart."
You turn your head to consider him fully for a moment. He's too much of a stranger to you to be able to tell how sincere he's being, but if you were to marry a man already notorious for his conquests while in his twenties, his reforming his ways only after marrying you is certainly one way to make up for it. The remark about Maia is a little pointed, but hardly unfair, following your own jab. "And who could ever ask for more in a groom?" you say, voice bone dry.
"Well, I do bring intelligence, wit, and social connections as well," Ambar says, "but it's true, my unwillingness to maliciously cast doubt on my eventual wife's ability to control her own household is the best feature I'd bring to the table. For my sake as much as anything."
"For your sake?" you ask.
"Well, of course," he says, "I trust that my honoured mother and matriarch will conspire to see to it that I marry well, and I don't intend to squander the opportunities that union provides to me or my family."
"What opportunities are you hoping for?"
"What opportunities am I hoping for through marriage to a powerful woman?" he asks, "oh, well — political power, wealth, prestige, an enviable place for my children. Surely, that's not so unusual."
"I suppose not," you say, "are you always so forthright?"
"Oh, certainly not," Ambar says, "I wouldn't survive long in the Spiral Academy if that were the case. But sometimes, there is a benefit to disarming honesty, when one wants to learn a few things about one's conversation partner. You really don't give much away, do you? Even for an Earth Aspect."
"I've been told as much," you say.
"I'd hope that you'd have ambitions of your own," Ambar says, giving you a significant look. "Goals in life? Plans for after graduation?"
"In the short-term, I've always wanted to visit Prasad," you say.
"Well, that is a bit more of an adventure than I'm looking for in a grand tour," he says. "But I suppose it's natural enough to want to see the land your father left behind. And when you return?"
"Settingling into the dull work of establishing a household," you say. Which you both know will likely be rather more exciting than you're letting on, and not necessarily in a good way — carving out a place for yourself in the Dynasty, building a reputation and a name of distinction for yourself, remaining someone who your mother might still think well of, when next she raises up a Great House.
Which is, of course, what Ambar is driving at. Predictably, even more than from Darting Fish, there is nothing at all of lust when he looks at you.There is, however, desire of a different kind. While there are no guarantees, a marriage to you might well lead to your husband as the honoured spouse of a Great House matriarch, his blood flowing down through generations to come. For just a moment, past his facade of amused nonchalance and your wall of cool stoicism, an understanding passes between you — you're abruptly certain that he might want that even more than you do.
You don't know if you trust him, but would it be the worst thing in the world to be paired with an ambitious, politically minded man? The kind who people find likable, who people who are reluctant to seek you out directly might look to as an intermediary. Assuming your goals remain aligned, such a match certainly has its advantages. To say nothing of the strength of his bloodline and the vast resources of his house.
It will be something to talk over carefully with your father.
"I think," you say, "that we have skipped over several rounds of smalltalk, and have come dangerously close to emotional honesty."
Ambar laughs again. "True enough!" he says, "Shall we circle back? Speak of schoolwork, amusing anecdotes about social engagements, our respective idle hobbies?"
You raise your eyebrows. "I wonder exactly how much you'd really enjoy hearing about my schoolwork," you say.
To his credit, Ambar doesn't grimace. But his eyes flick to where Verdigris's head is poking out of the collar of your jacket, and his discomfort with the brief eye contact he shares with the elemental is clear enough. "Well," he says, briefly disconcerted, but mastering himself quickly enough, "I did have a deeply funny encounter at a galla I attended earlier this year..."
He's not wrong about the entertainment value of the story, and you find him startlingly likable when he's making the effort. A dangerous trait, in its own way, even if his obvious reluctance to directly talk about your being a sorcerer stops you from being wholly taken in. Game proves remarkably scarce, but at least you can say you spend an hour in more or less pleasant conversation.
This is more or less what you find yourself thinking, when you become aware of a commotion at the head of the group. "What's going on?" you ask Ambar.
He frowns, craning his head. "One of the scouts, I think? It's hard to entirely make out, but she doesn't seem happy." This difficulty is due to the peculiarity of the trail's geography having led to the two of you being a little more isolated from those directly ahead of and behind you, winding around the side of a forested hill as you are — you have to squint through dense foliage to make out anything happening at the head of the party.
You're about to put a little more effort into the matter when the wind shifts slightly, no longer coming from directly ahead of you. The effect on your mounts is instantaneous, with yours balking, stamping from foot to foot and letting out a deep, alarmed sort of squawk. Ambar's responds in a similar, but more dramatic way — the austrech panics, and he can't quite manage to get it to calm down.
"Here!" you say, reaching out to try and do something. You're a moment too late, though. His animal bolts away down the hillside, carrying Ambar with it. You hear him give a startled cry of his own as it throws him partway down, leaving him to roll down the hillside in a distinctly undignified manner. You stare after him for a fraction of a second, glancing up and down the trail for any sign of help, but don't hesitate any longer than that.
Your own austrech is deeply reluctant to go after him, but it obeys with a bit of coaxing from you, plunging down the forested slope with agile, sure-footed ease, following the sounds of Ambar's unhappy progress. It reasonably doesn't take so long to find him where he lays painfully against a tree, but it's more than enough time for you to have lost sight of the trail amid the trees.
You leap down out of the saddle as adroitly as you can, carefully picking your way to Ambar's side. "Are you hurt?"
"... Most definitely," he groans. As you approach, you can see that he has indeed landed badly, his leg trapped between him and the tree trunk. You're not quite certain what to do about that — you're certainly not a healer. Still, you crouch down over him.
"Can you get up?" you ask.
He tries, letting out a hiss as he tries to put weight on the injured leg, falling heavily back down into a sitting position against the tree. "Well, this is not quite the impression I meant to give," he says, looking up at you wryly, despite the pain.
It takes you so off guard that, for the first time that day, you laugh out loud. "Yes, I can imagine," you say. "If you will allow me—"
A crash comes a distance away, like a small tree being toppled. Then another, and another — as if something very large is pushing its way through the forest toward you.
"... I don't like the look of that," you say.
"Thank the Dragons we have your Heptagram-trained mind to give us these insights," Ambar says, without any real acid. "Is it a bear?"
"Too big." You're quite sure, at least — you don't think that bears make that much noise. As whatever it is approaches, you hear a shrill cry from behind you, and turn around to see your austrech's nerve finally fail. It's ruffled its feathers up dramatically in alarm, head lowered, murderous eye fixed on whatever it is that's approaching you, torn between fight and flight. When another tree comes crashing down, it settles for the latter, racing away from you in a spray of dirt. You mutter something distinctly impolite under your breath.
"Aren't they supposed to be brave?" Ambar asks, some degree of panic entering his voice.
"Under normal circumstances," you say, turning back to the direction of whatever it is that's bearing down on you. It's close enough now that the scent of it can reach you, a fetid, animal musk. You step in front of Ambar, drawing your daiklave in a smooth motion. It's beautifully light in your hands, but the length of the weapon will make things a little difficult, with the close trees all around you. Assuming that whatever you're looking at doesn't simply knock all of them down. With your free hand, your fingers flash through a series of Heptagram signs — as you bring your foot down on the slope in front of you, it shakes as per normal, but you feel the daiklave pulse slightly in your grip.
"What are you doing?" Ambar asks, voice distinctly nervous. You ignore him as you finish the ritual, Perfection's scale cold against your skin as you draw on it to empower the spell. Bronze serpents boil up out of the ground, twining around your feet in the manner of an overeager pack of hounds. Ambar, still on the ground and much closer to them than he'd like, visibly recoils.
"Guard," you tell the snakes, and they abruptly snap to attention, forming a line ahead of you. "Just a little insurance," you say to Ambar. "They won't hurt you."
You don't turn to see how convinced he is — you're too busy looking ahead to the large shape shouldering its way through the trees ahead, your heart dropping at the sight. Taller than you at the shoulder, a mass of muscle and wiry, black hair. It might have been mistaken for a large boar, if it weren't for the elongated muzzle full of flesh-rending fangs. Its jaws are stained red, and there's an agitated quality to the rumbling grunts that it's emitting.
"Hellboar," you say, sounding a great deal like a calm person.
"Weren't the scouts meant to look out for things like this?" Ambar demands, trying to pull himself up to a standing position.
"Ideally, yes," you say, adjusting your stance to a two-handed grip. Your sword's elongated hilt facilitates this easily enough — its design would make it ideal for slaying horses or other large animals, but you're not altogether pleased to have an opportunity to put that to the test so quickly. "I think they found it a little late." As the monster approaches, you can see several arrows stuck into its flank. That might explain the blood on its mouth, unfortunately.
You harden your heart the moment it locks eyes with you, the two of you standing stock still for just a moment. Then, letting out a squeal that shakes the trees all around you, it charges, knocking small trees and branches aside as if they're nothing. You centre yourself, feet rooted in the ground underfoot, willing yourself to not be moved as those massive jaws are carried toward you at increasing speed.
It comes at you with the force of a rockslide, mouth lunging for your midsection. You just barely slide out of range, your daiklave coming up in a brilliantly shining underarm arc, jadesteel biting deep into the hellboar's neck with all your strength behind it. Such a stroke would have cleanly decapitated a horse or split a grown man in two — with this beast, you're left trembling from its sheer weight and strength, splattered messily with its gushing blood as the sword lodges partway into the muscle.
It screams in pain, wrenching itself free of your sword, dancing back from the numerous lunging bites that your snakes inflict on its feet. You step back, giving yourself room for a second blow, when a ball of fire streaks over your shoulder, hitting the beast square in the gore-coated snout. That, as it would happen, is enough — it turns around, shrieking its displeasure as it crashes down the hill, half a dozen bronze snakes still clinging to it with their fangs buried in its thick hide. You stare after it for a long, harried moment.
Once you're certain that it's not about to circle back in a hurry, you turn to look at Ambar, who has pushed himself up to a kneeling position, one shaking hand still outstretched from where he'd hurled the bolt of flame. "Well aimed," you tell him, pulling the ornate sash free from your shoulder. It's already utterly ruined from the pig's blood, so you don't feel too guilty about using it to clean the blood from your daiklave, your hands going through the motions as if you've done this countless times before.
"What else could I have hit? It was nearly on top of us!" he says, eyes very wide. Not a man who has faced direct physical danger beyond the schoolyard, you decide. Still, he'd kept his head better than most, at the very least.
"Me, for one thing," you say, sliding the White Serpent back into its sheath. You can hear the sounds of the rest of the hunt approaching, voices calling out for you. It will make things easier to go meet them, of course. You lean down, extending a hand to Ambar. "Can you walk?" you ask him.
"Not well, or with any dignity," he admits.
"Do I have your permission to carry you?" you ask, with as much gallantry as you can muster under the circumstances.
He sighs, accepting your hand. "Well, it does seem like the most practical solution, for the time being." You lift him up easily enough, carrying him in your arms without complaint as you begin to walk toward the loudest of the voices. "This would be disgustingly romantic, if we were different people, wouldn't it?" he asks.
You laugh again. "Yes. It would be."
House Erona townhouse,
The Imperial City
"You look halfway presentable." Erona Vermillion Shore's gaze is critical as she takes in Maia's attire, her arms crossed over her chest.
"I suppose so, grandmother," Maia says, her own glance distinctly unenthused as she looks at herself in the mirror.
Vermillion Shore sighs. "Nothing to be done about the hair, of course. Why you insist on keeping it so short, I'll never know — it's as though you want to be mistaken for a boy."
That's not quite it — Maia has no particular desire to follow Simendor Deizil's example, although she thinks it might actually make things simpler in some ways if she did. But she's never felt entirely at ease in extremely feminine attire, and has done what she can to avoid it whenever possible. This is not one of the times where it's been possible. There's no safe answer to her grandmother's criticism, so Maia makes none.
The elaborate layers of the dress are a faint, silvery grey chased with white, the mon of House Erona subtly worked into the fabric, silver glinting in her short hair, and rubies at her throat. It's easily the finest thing she's ever worn, and the cost of having such a dress made is disquieting, to say nothing of the several others she's been presented with. With a tasteful amount of cosmetics around her face, Maia wouldn't call herself unrecognisable, but it's a near thing. She wouldn't look so out of place in the halls of the Imperial Palace.
Which is good, because that is where she's going.
"Do you recall your instructions?" Vermillion Shore asks.
"Yes, grandmother," Maia says. She has been well drilled on who she is to greet, who she is to convey particular messages to, and who she is to avoid at all costs. Patricians, even Exalted patricians, may not freely visit the Palace, instead requiring an invitation from a Dynast or a palace official. Now that her status as Ambraea's Hearthmate has been publicly acknowledged, such an offer is almost a formality — no one will find it at all odd that Ambraea would invite an avowed boon companion to be her guest while she stays at the palace. Still, though, for a house like Erona, not particularly important in a political sense, such an opportunity is not to be taken for granted, and obviously must be exploited for all that it's worth.
She's also been instructed to continue to keep Ambraea well pleased, but Maia likes to think that that much will be less of a chore.
One of the house's few servants arrives at the door, bowing low before the two Dragon-Blooded. "She has arrived, Mistresses," she says.
"Punctual," Vermillion Shore says. "There are worse traits in a Dynast."
As Maia walks alongside her grandmother, working their way to the townhouse's front hall, she feels a strange sort of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. The plainness of the place jumps out at her for perhaps the first time. The places where artwork has been sold or traded away, leaving walls strangely bare, the small signs of neglect where repairs have been too expensive, the scant handful of servants, barely adequate for a townhouse this size. Maia never forgets the differences between her and the Dynasts she goes to school with, but it's still easier to overlook them at the Heptagram, where everyone is wearing the same clothes and sleeping in the same dorms.
Ambraea won't care. Maia believes the sentiment as she thinks it, but it doesn't quite quell all her anxiety. Seeking reassurance, Maia reaches out through her Hearth sense, confirming just how close Ambraea is, growing nearer with every step.
When they arrive in the modest reception room off of the main entrance hall, they find her. Ambraea is seated at a small table, politely sipping from a cup of hot tea, being attended by Fallen Leaf, Vermillion Shore's aged slave valet. The rest of the household servants are present, kneeling to either side of the door, honouring a prestigious guest. Upon entering the room, both Maia and Vermillion Shore bow as well, Vermillion Shore less deeply than the mortals, and Maia less deeply than her grandmother — a Hearthmate greeting another, rather than a patrician greeting a Dynast.
"Ambraea, you look well," Maia says. For someone who had recently faced off against a hellboar with only a wilting socialite at her back. The incident is a little nerve wracking to think about, but just the sight of Ambraea is a relief. She's tall and dark and beautiful as ever, and not noticeably torn limb from limb by a large predator.
Ambraea looks Maia up and down, taking in her attire, although not lingering. "And you," she says, rising from her seat.
"This is my grandmother, Erona Vermillion Shore, mother to our matriarch," Maia says, by way of introduction. "Grandmother, this is Lady Ambraea, my Hearthmate."
"An honour," Ambraea says, acknowledging Vermillion Shore with a polite nod, finally enabling her to rise.
Vermillion Shore straightens. "The honour is mine, my lady. I only hope that the modest hospitality of our house pleases you."
"I could not be more pleased," Ambraea says, "the tea is excellent. As is the company." The latter can't help but draw a slight smile from Maia, although Vermillion Shore takes it stoically.
"My lady is kind to say so."
It's always strange to see her grandmother like this: a placid, servile exterior hiding all her least savoury depths. The domineering shadow matriarch, the cold assassin, the stern teacher were nowhere to be seen — one might be excused at disbelieving that she could be anything more than an aging Outcaste, retired and comfortably married into the patriciate.
Ambraea, however, knows better, which is a strange and terrifying thought all over again, with them in the same room. Fortunately, Ambraea doesn't do or say anything to let on to this fact. Polite niceties proceed apace, further compliments are exchanged, offers of more extended hospitality offered and politely refused.
Still, Maia doesn't really relax until she accepts Ambraea's offered hand to join her in the carriage that waiting outside, ignoring the slight twinge of pain in her back as she takes her seat across from Ambraea within the cramped confines of the compartment.
"That dress..." Ambraea looks Maia up and down rather more closely than would have been appropriate before. The carriage rumbles and sways as the driver starts it on its way.
"Yes?" Maia asks. There's a part of her who hopes Ambraea hates it.
"It doesn't seem like you," Ambraea admits.
"Oh, no, not even a little," Maia says, smiling more easily than she has in weeks. "Not my choice, of course."
"I didn't think so," Ambraea says. She leans forward, and the path her eyes trace from Maia's neckline to the fastenings near her waist can nearly be physically felt. "I suppose it will just have to come off at some point, then."
Maia can't quite suppress a shiver. "We haven't seen each other since arriving in the capital, and that's the first thing on your mind now?" It's not really a complaint.
"I've missed you," Ambraea says, simply. "I have been in the company of a parade of extremely eligible young men, and I am quite sick of it." She closes her eyes, sighing deeply. She seems to be taking some genuine relief in the simple fact of Maia's presence so close to her. "I hope you don't mind if we take dinner in my chambers tonight. Once I've had a chance to show you around the grounds, and you've had the opportunity to satisfy your family's desire for politicking."
Maia leans forward, gently putting her hand on Ambraea's. "There is nothing in the world I could want more than that, right now."
"Good," Ambraea says, her fingers lacing through Maia's. "That goes for both of us, I think."
For Maia, the day passes in a blur — Ambraea's presence does a great deal to soothe the pit of dread that settles into her gut the moment they pass through the outermost gates of the palace, and she's almost managed to ignore the sense of being watched when it comes time for her to conduct herself socially.
She walks side-by-side with Ambraea in the shade of walled gardens. She is introduced as Ambraea's Hearthmate numerous times, to people she was instructed to make nice to as well as many others. In the scope of one day, Maia sees more beauty and wealth on display than she had in the previous twenty. While she has an acceptable reason to be here, however, she is not quite able to forget that she's only here due to a connection to Ambraea, and the various Dynasts she encounters are quick to remind her in small ways.
In light of all of this, as evening approaches she's not even a little bit sorry to retire to Ambraea's chambers for the night.
"You really carried him to safety?" Maia asks, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I'd assumed that was just exaggeration."
"It was a bit awkward for both of us," Ambraea says. She tips the last of the wine from her cup into the bowl that Verdigris is coiled up beside — the snake happily begins to lap it up. "But, well, he wasn't particularly heavy."
Maia giggles at the thought. "Now you can't marry him," she says, "imagine having that kind of story hanging over your marriage. You'd have sensitive young men the Realm over — and Amiti — swooning over it."
"We would, wouldn't we?" Ambraea says, torn between amusement and mild horror.
The room is just off of Ambraea's bedchamber. It's small — just the table, some furniture against the wall, an aniconic design on canvas covering one of the remaining walls. The cozy nature of the room only increases the intimacy of the moment. The little table between the two of them is littered with empty bowls and plates, their meal having been delivered by servants who had departed afterward at a glance from Ambraea. There is also a mirror, which Ambraea pointedly draped a cloth over the moment the two of them were alone — Maia chooses not to think about that too hard.
"It's really not what's on my mind at the moment, however," Ambraea says.
"What is, then?" Maia asks.
Ambraea rises to her feet, moving around the table to where Maia sits. "I believe there was some talk earlier of that dress coming off of you."
The look in Ambraea's eyes sets Maia's heart racing, and it's with that same sense of nervous anticipation that she rises to meet her. "I'm sure you can find the ties without too much difficulty."
That's all the encouragement Ambraea needs. She steps forward, scoops Maia up off her feet with stomach-fluttering ease, and seizes Maia's mouth with hers. Maia wants nothing more than to just let herself be carried away by it all, to forget everything but Ambraea's strong arms around her. She wraps both her own arms around Ambraea's neck, doing her best to drown in the kiss.
Ambraea carries her to the nearest couch, dropping down heavily onto it, Maia cradled in her lap, hands already working at the many hidden ties of Maia's dress. It's a very good feeling — Maia lets her work, the ornate sari being pulled away first, then the gown beneath. By the time Ambraea's questing hands have found their way to bare skin, Maia has pulled away from Ambraea's mouth, trailing her lips down the line of quartz chips that follow the curve of Ambraea's neck. Maia barely has the satisfaction of hearing Ambraea's breath hitch when she abruptly jerks back, a pained hiss escaping her.
"What's wrong?" Ambraea asks, looking down at her in obvious concern.
"It's nothing serious," Maia says, averting her eyes.
Frowning, Ambraea pushes away the loosened fabric of Maia's dress, revealing the long, deep bruise that stretches diagonally from the back of Maia's shoulder to nearly her hip.
"I'm sorry, I forgot," Maia says. And she had — the pain has faded to background noise throughout the past two days, and she'd allowed it to slip her mind. It isn't her first time.
"You forgot what?" Ambraea is all confused worry still, not yet piecing together what exactly must have left the injury in the first place.
"... A training accident." The lie comes easily to her lips, although it's not actually intended to deceive Ambraea.
"Who are you 'training' with who hits you hard enough to leave this?" The anger is creeping into Ambraea's voice now. Her grip on Maia's shoulders tightens imperceptibly, and Maia can see dangerous notions taking root behind Ambraea's eyes.
"My grandmother came up through the legions," Maia reminds her, "Pasiap's Stair left an impression." She makes herself look Ambraea directly in the eye, willing her to recall where they are. That absolutely nowhere could be less safe to discuss this, however much Ambraea knows that Erona Vermillion Shore has never set foot on Pasiap's Stair. However much she might know what Maia has done recently to provoke such a punishment.
The possibility that this conversation might be somehow overheard, might be recalled at a later time by the Empress or someone else, hangs in the air between them. With a pang, Maia watches as Ambraea swallows her mounting anger with veiled difficulty. Maia is aware, as she sometimes is in moments like these, of the fact that Ambraea is the only person in the world who both really knows Maia, and still loves her well enough to be outraged like this on her behalf.
"... I see," Ambraea says. "We can stop."
"No!" Maia startles them both with the outburst. Taking Ambraea's face in her hands, Maia looks up at her in open beseechment. "No, please. It's fine — it's going to hurt either way. We can't do anything about it tonight. Just... help take my mind off of it?"
Ambraea is conflicted for a long moment, meeting Maia's gaze with an unreadable frown. Then her expression softens, her grip on Maia's shoulders relaxes. One hand gently draws Maia closer against her chest, while the other goes up to gently trail along the full line of Maia's lower lip. "That may be within my power," she says, voice very quiet.
"It always is," Maia says. Then she closes her eyes, and surrenders to Ambraea's touch once again.
And for Erona Maia, for a brief time, things are as good as they can be. All the while, beyond this room, the world grinds ever closer to the edge.
Article:
Ambraea returns to school for her sixth of seven years, well on track to graduate with distinction. The history books will mark this as the year where things changed irrevocably. For most people living through it, however, that will only be obvious after the fact.
Throughout the year, Ambraea will continue to research workings to modify and empower spirits. What areas of experimentation is she building toward? The full process will take some time, but will bear some promising signs of early success.
[ ] Concealment
As a minor elemental, Verdigris is a material spirit, physically present on Creation and unable to vanish at will. This makes it impractical to bring her into certain settings, something which distresses her and Ambraea both. Taking advantage of the bond between them and her deep connection to the element of Earth, Ambraea discovers a novel solution to the problem.
[ ] Enlargement
Verdigris is a relatively small snake, born as she is from Ambraea's control spell, Plague of Bronze Serpents. Ambraea feeds her on a diet of lesser spirits swollen with Earth Essence, granting her the ability to grow larger at need.
[ ] Venom
Verdigris has a painful bite that is life threatening to mortals and inconvenient to more powering beings. Drawing on her knowledge of stillness and sorcerous petrification, Ambraea imparts Verdigris with deadlier venom, and a more dangerous delivery method.
Calibration, Realm Year 763,
Two days before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress,
One hour before the Jade Prison is broken,
The point of no return.
"Do these over again." You kick at the sloppy characters drawn on the paving stones, a thread of Earth throwing the chalk up into a diffuse cloud.
"I just finished that!" the girl says, half rising.
You loom over her, eyes narrowed. "What was that, Sacrifice?"
The girl freezes in place like a rabbit, the shifting cloud of her hair turning grey and stormy. "Nothing, Lady Ambraea!" she says. "So sorry, Lady Ambraea!"
She scrambles to do the work over, as you'd instructed.
It really is for their own good — the sacrifice was getting sloppy, and you feel that you owe it to Sola to look after her younger cousins while she isn't present to do it herself.This latest batch of first years are practically infants, of course — it just keeps getting worse the older you get.
You stand outside under a moonless sky, your breath fogging in the winter's chill. It's almost eerily calm, the fog having retreated ominously to reveal the sky overheard, the stars wandering strangely. The air feels strange and thin, the magic that the Isle of Voices is steeped in particularly close to the surface. When you listen too closely to the wind, you can almost start to hear it whisper back.
Very nearly the entire school is out tonight, even more exhaustingly busy than you are on most Calibrations. Hundreds of years ago, long before the Heptagram was built, a great working had been laid down on the little archipelago, rendering it impossible to navigate to or from through ordinary means, warding it in storms and walls of smothering fog. For the protection of the school that had been here at the time, of course. More importantly, though, so that if anything goes terribly wrong — if, as has happened many times before, a school full of young Exalted sorcerers manages to destroy itself — it's contained here, sparing the mainland of the Blessed Isle and the people of the larger Realm.
Such a great working can maintain itself for a very long time, but if left to its own devices, it might go sour over the years, breaking down or worse. Accordingly, every seven years on Calibration, rituals are conducted to maintain the effects and keep them from going awry. You're only glad that this task falls so late in your time at the Heptagram; the first years are being set to relatively unskilled work in preparing the mundane space of the ritual site, but they're still being worked harder than they likely ever have been in their sheltered, Dynastic childhoods. You have the advantage of some worldly perspective on such things, by now -- you have, of course, worked hard for the progress you've made.
The site is a carefully maintained, eight-sided clearing in the forests near the school, a representation of the islands themselves set into the paving stones. This isn't the centre of the original working, but that site is dangerous enough that using it directly is poorly advised.
The entire school, instructors and students combined, make up less than sixty individuals. Especially since your trip to the Imperial Court over the summer, there are times where exactly how small a world the Heptagram is becomes very obvious to you, in a way that's almost claustrophobic. There's a part of you that is increasingly eager to be gone, to start the life that's waiting for you beyond this island. Patience is, of course, a virtue of your Aspect, but you've been patient for more than five years now..
Your task, for the moment, is supervising the younger students in their work. You and the other older students will have to exert yourselves more in the active portions of the ritual, but for now, you're being kept comparatively fresh and rested. You frown censoriously at the next boy in your section of the outer ritual circle. "You haven't started." You say, noticing the complete lack of stone on the stone in front of him.
He glares up at you — an Earth Aspect from House Mnemon, who has been struggling every time you've noticed him. The kind of student who is the reason why no one bothers to remember the first years' names. "It's not there!" he says, gesturing up at the sky overhead.
"What isn't?" you ask, not particularly liking his tone.
"The Mask!" he says. "The book says to adjust based on the position of the Mask, but I've been looking for half an hour, and it isn't there at all!"
You glance up at the sky, glancing over the stars. Strange Celestial phenomena are common during Calibration, but an entire constellation disappearing completely would be highly unusual. "If you can't find it, you'll have to make do," you tell him. "This isn't your primary school, Sacrifice. You have to keep up or the instructors will just watch you fail." You leave him scrambling to find alternate instructions in his book, and continue on your way.
You spot Sola leaning against a tree, an already crumpled letter in her hands. Near her, perched on a small tree stump, Amiti is reading what looks suspiciously like a novel, in full sight of everyone else at work.
"You know, you could at least pretend to be busy," you tell Amiti.
Amiti has the gall to smile up at you. "Well," she says, "we wouldn't want that — someone might worry about me contaminating the purity of the ritual with Underworld Essence. Since that's all I can channel. The domine was very clear about this being a concern!"
"I'm sure he was," you say, tone dry. You glance to Sola, a question in your expression. She isn't a necromancer, and yet here she is, not visibly helping either.
Sola heaves in a deep breath, then lets it out. She folds the paper hastily, then returns it to the pouch on her school belt. "Later," she says, pushing off from the tree.
"As you wish, then," you say, frowning a little. She looks even more subdued than when she'd been left behind while her family legions went North. Subdued and... You don't think you'd have noticed it if you didn't know her very well already, but something about the set of her shoulders, the way her off hand rests on Storm's Eye's pommel, speaks of anger to you. Still, you don't have much time to waste considering her, as much as it gnaws at you.
Year 6: Calibration
You move back to the group of sacrifices you're supervising, when you find yourself intercepted by none other than instructor Nellens Ovo, his expression as frustrated as ever. "Ambraea," he says, "good."
"Sir?" you ask.
"You can actually carry heavy objects, and you're not so inept that you'll break them," he says, an uncharacteristically charitable description of anyone, from him. Not for the first time, you consider if Ovo would even have a place in the larger Dynasty beyond this small, strange school. The failings of his house aside, he's unforgivingly abrasive, even for a sorcerer. Anywhere else it would land him in serious trouble, sooner or later. You're barely even offended by this point, your resentment dulled by long exposure.
"Thank you sir," you say, "I do try."
Ovo gives you an unimpressed sort of glower, but continues: "The ritual ceramic rod we are using has a crack in it — there is an adequate substitute in the storage room on the fifth floor of the fourth tower. I trust that you can retrieve it?"
"That should be within my capabilities," you say. Then you can't help but add: "Or within the capabilities of many of the sacrifices."
Ovo's eyes narrow in obvious annoyance. "I am not putting a younger student into that room," he says. "These are dangerous artifacts, to say nothing of that caged demon. It's harmless enough, but a terrible influence on anyone who starts talking to it too long. I take it that you know how to access the place?"
"I do, sir," you say, pointedly not sighing. You feel Verdigris coil reassuringly around your arm.
"Don't sulk, it's unbecoming in a grown woman," he says. "Don't worry, you won't be going alone. Moving it is a two person job, to be safe."
You don't entirely like the way he says that. When you see who he's referring to, you understand why.
Article:
You are going up to the same storage room that you first stumbled onto during your first year, in the company of someone you've had serious difficulties with in the past.
This will go very wrong in a way that no one could have reasonably predicted. Whichever enemy you choose, current or former, will be genuinely useful to the situation you'll find yourself in in some ways, but a liability in others. This choice will have significance for the entire coming year 6 arc, rather than simply this immediate situation. Who is Ambraea sent up to the supply room with?
[ ] Hylo
- Hylo's theoretical knowledge and expertise will become immediately useful
- The artifact lenses that Hylo wears will provide an unexpected advantage
- His desire to show up Ambraea will cause problems for them both
Fire Aspect Dragon-Blood
Hylo's obvious intelligence is undercut by his inability not to make sure everyone around him knows it. He remains one of the best prospects in his year, with a near encyclopedic knowledge of spirits and their attributes as well as conventional battlefield tactics. He is nowhere near Ambraea's equal in martial combat, but this is perhaps best for everyone — Hylo very obviously still nurses a quiet grudge over the events of the previous year.
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: Virtuous Guardian of Flame (control spell), Flight of the Burning Raptor, Demon of the First Circle
[ ] Idelle
- Idelle's special combat skills will be immediately useful
- The bespoke sensory abilities afforded to Idelle by her strange set of artifact earrings will provide crucial advanced warning
- Idelle's mistrust for Ambraea will come back to bite her
Fire Aspect Dragon-Blood
The youngest daughter of the famed shikari Ledaal Anay, the Heptagram was Idelle's second choice after the Cloister of Wisdom. She has taken advantage of the opportunities the sorcery school provides to shape herself into a capable, if barely tested, martial exorcist, wielding martial arts that can burn through ghosts, demons, and other creatures of darkness. Her sorcerous talents are more middling, but she is capable at tracking and circumventing obstacles. She is a fearless, stalwart, and honest ally, but she has good reason to mistrust Ambraea in particular.
Sorcery:
Initiation level: Emerald Circle
Initiation: Soul-Perfecting Elixir
Shaping rituals: Ascetic Perfection (abstaining from earthly indulgences to cultivate sorcerous power within her body)
Spells: The Ravenous Fire (control spell), Dragon of Smoke and Flame, Unbreakable Bones of Stone
[ ] Deizil
- Deizil's sorcerous talents and knowledge of strange and unusual spirits will be immediately useful
- There is a special quality about Deizil that will provide a surprising advantage
- He never can stop himself from running his mouth when he shouldn't
Earth Aspect Dragon-Blood
In your sixth year, it is now increasingly difficult for even his most ardent detractors to deny that Simendor Deizil is a true sorcerous prodigy. He has used his head start on the rest of your year to delve deeply into everything the Heptagram has to offer, and has already accomplished more than many do in their full seven years. A young sorcerer-prince of Chalan's infamous ruling cadet house, Deizil's somewhat foreign manners and sensibilities have left him ill prepared for a social environment where almost all of his peers think of him as a social inferior. Wielding the secret sorcerous practices of his family, he is not quite Ambraea's equal in combat, but he has proved himself to be a capable if unpredictable ally in the past, when it suits him.
Sorcery:
Initiation level: Emerald Circle
Initiation: Simendor Sorcery
Shaping rituals: Unbroken Spirit (drawing sorcerous power from opposition and social friction in emulation of rogue gods of the Burning Sands)
Spells: Flying Guillotine (control spell), Demon of the First Circle, Invulnerable Skin of Bronze,Thunder Wolf Howl, Corrupted Words
"Do you think he put us together like this to annoy you, or just out of convenience?" Deizil asks, walking amiably alongside you.
"I couldn't possibly venture to say," you say, voice tight. Deizil laughs — he's always charmed by your unfriendliness when it would be most annoying. The two of you are walking up the stairs of one of the Heptagram's familiar towers, your footsteps echoing in the silence of the largely deserted building. At least, when Deizil isn't trying to make conversation. You find that you don't mind his chatter as much as you might otherwise — it's more than a little unsettling to be alone in the school on Calibration with nothing but the unseen servant spirits, bereft of even the distant sounds of your classmates moving through the building.
"By the way, I'm almost surprised that you're not walking around with the new sword on your hip all the time. I'd have thought Sola would have rubbed off on you a bit more by this point," Deizil says.
"I simply can't match Sola's enthusiasm for swords," you say, tone dry. "You're just fishing to have a look at it. You really do have an unseemly fixation on orichalcum."
Deizil scoffs. "Please. I want to have a look at hers because it's ancient — you can figure out roughly where orichalcum came from by the way it shines, if you have the eye for it. Academic interest. Your sword was made in the Forge of Mother's Fury, so I know exactly where the little bit of demon gold it has on it came from — they import all their orichalcum from Chalan."
This makes sense — House Simendor controls an ancient but still productive orichalcum mine. It's the source of much of Chalan's wealth, and a very convenient source for the limited uses that the Realm proper has for what is often considered a deeply inauspicious metal. Still, you're not quite sure you enjoy the proprietary way Deizil talks about it.
You let things fall into silence again as you near the landing that leads to your ultimate destination, waiting to see if Deizil will pick things up again, or let them lie. The wind gently rattles the glass in some of the windows ahead. There's a certain heaviness to the air you can't entirely shake, a weight of expectation hanging over the entire evening. Deizil, fortunately, makes one last valiant attempt to actually strike up a conversation again. "Things still going well with your girl?"
"Yes," you say. Then, with a hint of a barb, you ask: "How is your friend, Mnemon Keric?" The two of them haven't been quite so attached at the hip, lately. It's impossible to ignore the gossip in a school this small.
"Oh, well enough," Deizil says, shrugging, "if you ignore how much his family doesn't like me." He's being cavalier about it, but you sense that he's rather understating things. It makes you feel a touch guilty.
"How bad is it?" you ask.
Deizil grins mirthlessly. "Well, your esteemed elder sister has told him she doesn't approve."
You stare for a long moment. "You're playing a dangerous game," you tell him.
"Oh, I know," Deizil says, shrugging, "but, that boy has the prettiest eyes. It makes me do stupid things."
At least what you have with Maia, despite all the difficulties, isn't quite as shallow as that. If not any less potentially catastrophic. You reach the top of the stairs, and the fifth floor. The sorcerous lights hanging overhead flicker and dim for an instant, before coming back to their regular brightness — many things are less reliable during this time of year. "I'm sure you know what you're doing," you say, dubious, moving out into the hallway with the door you're seeking.
"Well, that's more than I can say," Deizil says, salvaging a bit more of his good mood.
Unbeknownst to you, somewhere between one step and the next, the world is violently changed. Far away, cold, dead hands fling open a box torn free from the stars, golden light spilling out between their spectral fingers even as they snatch for it. A time of wonders and horrors Creation hasn't seen in over a thousand years is loosed upon it, and it will be many months before anyone truly understands the full ramifications. More importantly for you, behind the door you're walking toward, the delicate latch of a gilded cage quietly snaps open of its own accord.
Deizil reaches the door first, the artifact storage room wedged in between a study room and a mundane supply closet, made distinctive by the much stronger warding seal set into the reinforced wood of its face. You watch as he goes through the motions of opening it, the small ritual making the seal on the door glow, then after an unusual delay, finally allow it to be pushed open.
The little room is much as you remembered it, the same instruments and artifacts cluttering the tables, the same air of mild disuse to it all. It's completely still inside, and disconcertingly dark — you realise that the sorcerous lantern mounted on the wall has shattered, shards of glass littering the floorboards underfoot. Perhaps that's why it takes you entirely too long to fully register what about it is making your skin prickle, in a way that has very little to do with the weather.
Verdigris lets out an alarmed hiss, tightening around your neck, at the same time as Deizel throws himself at the door, slamming it shut and engaging the seal on the room once again. Your hand shoots toward the stone of the wall, plunging into it up to the wrist to grip the hilt of your daiklave, pulling it back into existence from where it had been sheathed in your very element. For a moment after that, the room remains entirely too silent, entirely too still.
The birdcage that should have held a demon, that had held a demon since the ancient days of the Realm Before, stands cold and empty, its door hanging open.
Slowly, you reach into a pouch on your belt for the mirror Maia gave you, senses trained inadequately on the room around you. "Show yourself, spirit!" The commanding tones of your voice resound a little absurdly in the emptiness you're presented with. At first, there's no response.
Finally, in the far corner of the room, there's a strange blurring of the air, an aroma like blood and ink. Then the figure of a man appears, perched calmly on the edge of a work table, eying you both with an air of false fondness in his piercing, yellow eyes. "'Spirit'? Honestly, Ambraea," he says, smiling a needle-toothed smile, "surely we're on more familiar terms than that." The sound of your name in his mouth hits you all at once like the weight of every expectation that's ever been placed on your shoulders — everything that the name means or implies about you pulling you down. It's almost enough to make your knees buckle.
"Whatever you're doing, stop it at once!" you say.
He laughs. The human parts of him might have been any young man in his twenties, slender and attractive, dressed like a Shogunal scholar, with features that speak of the southern Blessed Isle. But his hair is the red of blood, and the wings folded at his back lend him a profane, Anathemic cast even if you didn't know exactly what he was already. "I am doing so very little," he says, "I only collect names — you're the ones who make them mean something. I've told you before that I've always liked Terrestrials. You've always put so much onto your children, from the moment you name them. It makes for a pleasantly complex blend of entitlement and obligation. Like an heirloom wine."
"What do you want?" Deizil asks. Thankfully, he hasn't been reckless enough to try and call that horrendous sorcerous weapon of his. You're extremely conscious of the tight confines of this space, between you with your daiklave, Deizil's usual fighting style, and the demon watching you both from a scant distance away.
Yoxien laughs. "What I want," he says, flexing his fingers oddly, "is simply to leave. To go on my way and out into the world. Which that seal you've just put back in place is currently preventing me from doing. Fifteen centuries — fifteen centuries, trapped in that shape, in that cage. Fifteen centuries as a salon curiosity!" Despite his mirth, there's a dreadful intensity to his gaze as he stares into you both. "Can you imagine that, as young as you are? As free as you are?"
"We can't allow you to go free out onto the island," you say, gritting your teeth against the pressure.
He pulls himself up to his full, unimpressive height in his seat. "Ambraea," he says, voice almost gentle, "have you quite forgotten that you've sealed yourselves in with me? This isn't the time for brave posturing."
"If you had an easy way to get out of this room without our help, you wouldn't still have been in here when we showed up," Deizil says.
Yoxien looks from his face to yours, closes his eyes, and lets out a long, impatient breath. "Do you fully understand who I am?" he asks. "You've all forgotten." Then he opens his eyes, twin pools of blazing yellow, and stands. All four of his wings unfold, sending priceless instruments crashing to the floor from shelves and tables. A great light seems to blaze to life behind him like a halo, baleful and red. "I am Yoxien, the Directory Bound in Crimson, Defining Soul of the Bottomless Library, who is the Ninth Soul of the All-Hunger Blossom. I will not be trapped again by such rudimentary methods." He speaks a word, stamps his foot, and there is a deafening crash behind you. You barely fling yourself aside to avoid a shower of jagged pieces of hardwood flying through the air.
You know of this spell — it shouldn't have worked against the warded doors of the Heptagram. But bindings and wards are notoriously unreliable on Calibration, and such a thin barrier was never truly intended to contain a lord of hell on its own. The door to the chamber lies in splinters, and beyond it you can see that every other door and window in the hall has met with a similar fate. A horrendous, supernatural shriek vibrates through the air, some manner of alarm or minor catastrophe unleashed by Yoxien's spell.
Yoxien pulses forward through the air, and you try to catch him with your daiklave — the weight of your own name seems to pull on your limbs, slowing you by just enough that the demon manages to leap over your blade, his foot catching you hard in the side of the head as he passes. Pain fills your vision with stars, and the world reels as you struggle to keep your footing, catching yourself on a nearby table.
Before you can fully right yourself, you feel a rush of wind pass uncomfortably close to your head, accompanied by a high pitched whine. Yoxien screams — pain and anger more than anything. As your vision clears, you see Deizil stepping out into the hall, calling the length of flying, razor-edged metal you've seen him summon before back to hover near his side. Red feathers drift through the air, and the floor and walls are sprayed with burning demon blood.
Yoxien stumbles back to the floor, the tip of one wing very nearly sheered off at the bone, whirling on Deizil with murder in his eyes. "Simendor," he says, turning the name over in his mouth. He frowns in deep annoyance. "You've disavowed the rest of your name since you gave it to me last."
"'Personally, socially, and before the gods'," Deizil says, grinning. "That's what matters for you, right? You've been in that cage for a long time, but my family is old. It took a bit of looking, but I have found references to you, when last I had a chance to look through our archives in Chalan. I might know more about you than anyone else on this island."
"Is this really the time for gloating?" you ask, your head still spinning as you step out into the hall. You give Deizil and his flying guillotine a wide berth, the chain still spinning fast enough to sever a limb with uncomfortable ease.
"It really isn't," Yoxien says. You step forward, but stop as the blood spray on the walls and floor begins to rise up into a crimson mist, becoming a cloud that quickly condenses into a creature very much like Yoxien, if he had crimson skin and flesh-rending talons in place of hands. "This is the time to reconsider whether this is a fight you want to have to begin with."
You don't need to win, you just need to stall him long enough for someone else to arrive — the tower's security spirits, or an instructor taking note of the alarms. If they're not too far away to hear. You shift your daiklave into a two-handed grip, lunging forward into a brutal upward cut. The blood-thing twitches aside, one claw seizing your arm and heaving you into Deizil. You don't hit him hard for either of you to wind up on the floor, but you foul his next throw — he stumbles, a string of Flametongue curses falling from his lips as his guillotine passes over the real Yoxien's head.
Teeth gritting in concentration, you recover faster than the blood-thing expects, slamming the solid jadesteel pommel of your sword directly into its delicate nose. It falls back with a shriek and barely dodges your followthrough swing that might have taken its head off. Behind it, Yoxien is chanting again, words of binding and stillness that conjured a seething green mass between his hands.
Deizil frantically speaks the words of a counterspell, his anima shimmering to life around him as an invisible battle of wills and sorcery stretches between the two. When the tension finally breaks, the energy in Yoxien's hands leaps through the air unimpeded. Deizil tries to snap his mouth shut, but he's a moment too late — the brilliantly green magic forces its way in and down his throat, leaving Deizil bent over and reeling.
Verdigris lashes out from your shoulder, striking at the blood-thing's face just as it looks like it might be recovering. It flinches back, giving you just enough of an opening to cut a deep slash across its chest. It bursts in a shower of demon blood, splattering your mouth and eyes unpleasantly.
"Ambraea, he's going to—" Deizil's words catch in his throat as if something has physically seized his windpipe. Then he's bent over again, vomiting a stream of large, vile, still-writhing maggots out onto the floor.
"Don't try to talk if you've been cursed!" you tell him — a mistake, as it happens. You can't afford to take your eyes off of the demon himself.
Yoxien surges forward, his knee colliding with your chest, followed by his elbow to your temple, expertly snaking past your guard and avoiding taking so much as a scratch from your daiklave. An absurd part of your mind tells you that a man that scrawny shouldn't be able to hit you hard enough to throw you like this, and you do your very best to ignore it. You whirl to try and cut him where he lands behind you, but he darts out of the way with insulting ease.
Beside you, Deizil struggles to control his rebelling stomach, as you feel something warm and hot trickle down the side of your face. You meet Yoxien's raptor eyes, taking in his vexed expression through the pain pounding in your head. For just a moment, you're startled to understand that if he were actually committed to it, you could die here.
The shrieking of the broken wards still echoes through the tower, though, and it's joined by the deeper tolling of a bell coming from somewhere many floors above, loud enough to carry far beyond the confines of the building.
"Children, it has been enchanting," Yoxien says, his expression a mix of irritation and satisfaction, "but I fear I have places to be." With this, he bursts into a veritable swarm of miniature, red-feathered mospids, their shrieks and flapping wings joining the din as they all depart through the broken windows. You and Deizil are left bloodied and defeated.
Deizil straightens, heaving in air, a deeply disgusted expression on his face as he regards the mass of maggots at his feet. "I think," he says, "that I might hate that bird."
"You just had to tell him all about the one advantage you had over him," you say, looking at Deizil with deep disapproval as you gingerly touch the cut on your head. It's not deep, but it's bleeding exactly like a head wound. Yoxien's elbow must have had some manner of bone spur you'd failed to notice.
Deizil glowers at you. "Well, given his reaction, I think we can safely say that he suspects—" His eyes widen with horror even as he doubles over once again, retching up yet more maggots.
"Don't try to explain it to me. You know how that curse works, I'd hope," you say, giving him a withering glance. For once, he's in no shape to respond. You sigh, inspecting the demon blood on your clothes and splattered along the length of your daiklave. Your heart is still hammering, mind still racing at how quickly that encounter occurred, and how badly it had escalated. Verdigris coils consolingly around your neck.
"We need," you say, deeply unenthused, "to speak with the dominie."
Article:
While he is unable to leave the Isle of Voices at present, Yoxien has opportunity to cause some degree of chaos and before you have an opportunity to fully explain what has occurred — you do not, as yet, know what his goals might be, or even if he's had time to form any.
