My understanding of Exalted Magic is you need time and space to do magic.
If you don't have that you just punched in the face for trying. Demon library dude from before was on another tier entirely given the magics he could throw around, and alternatively, someone like Sola might be able to counterspell you directly, so if your battle plan hinges on a spell and your foe counters it outright you might very well get stuck with no great answer if the other guy can beat you in unga bunga.
Exalted Sorcerers tend to not have huge spell lists - spells cost xp to learn, which competes with an Exalt's native charms, martial arts, buying stat increases, ect. This is made up for by the fact that Sorcery spells have a larger individual impact compared to spells in other rpgs, the fact that Sorcery allows Exalts to access capabilities that are outside their native charmset, and that Sorcery grants access to Sorcerous Workings, which can do nearly anything imaginable (within limits for Emerald Circle Sorcerers like our main cast) if the caster is willing to spend the time, resources, and xp to complete said workings.
As for Ambraea swording, we've repeatedly taken actions over the years of her education to further her melee combat abilities, so it's actually a pretty significant component of her skillset in its own right.
So, I have got to ask, Ambraea is said to be set to graduate her school as a great sorceror, and so is Amiti. Deizil is also a very accomplished Sorceror, according to the narrative. But I look at their char sheets, and they only know 4 official spells, with Deizil having 5 because of his earlier initiation. 4 spells learnt over 6 years. How are they great sorcerors with only 4 spells? Then how many spells does the Empress, the supposedly greatest sorceror, know? 8? 10? Is there something about sorcerors that limit their spell library so harshly?
Also, Ambreaea is a sorceress. Yet the entire fight, she only used her sword. No snakes, no breath, only unga bunga. Is there a reason she ignored her main skillset?
Having mastered four spells already is pretty good for a Heptagram graduate. Like, the default Dragon-Blooded starting character, if they're a Dynast, is assumed to be a year or two out of secondary school, and five spells would be a third of your starting charms, as a good reference point. I don't think of myself as strictly beholden to that, but I keep the vibe in mind. Ambraea is very capable and talented and can use her skills well in combination with being a very physically accomplished Earth Aspect swordswoman. The Scarlet Empress was over 800 years old and had more time to learn many spells, including ones the the Second Circle that Dragon-Blooded can't normally touch.
The main reason Ambraea's fight was so sword heavy was that people voted for her to have a swordfight with the Solar swordsman, and she was basically tanking for Maia for most of it -- Maia's spells are a bit more closely orientated around direct 1v1 combat applications. If people had voted for a different opponent, it would have highlighted different parts of Ambraea's skillset. Hope in particular was always going to have some elements of a sorcery duel to her fight.
The thing I'll cop to is that I should have had her summon an elemental early on in the Hunt, maybe put it up to a vote, so that it wouldn't have just been Maia showing up with spirits.
Sorcery grants access to Sorcerous Workings, which can do nearly anything imaginable (within limits for Emerald Circle Sorcerers like our main cast) if the caster is willing to spend the time, resources, and xp to complete said workings.
iirc under 3e, ALL sorcerers can do Workings at all three circles, they are just harder and take longer if you don't have access to the circle initiation and its spells (which iirc are counted as Means)
Celestial and Solar circle workings are doable for Terrestrial Circle sorcerers, but they take a lot of time and resources. Like, years of dedicated work, in a lot of cases. The latter is out of practical reach for most of the setting, most of the time.
Ah thanks for the clarification! And yeah that makes sense it's almost the same effort (or more) they would need to dedicate to breaking into the Celestial Circle even as DB
Being able to break into the Celestial Circle as a Dragon-Blood seems to most often be accomplished through rare and extremely valuable specialised artifacts. The two canon ones we have examples of are the Mantle of Brigid and the Emerald Thurible -- the former is an extraordinarily powerful, ancient masterwork N/A artifact that straight up allows the Empress to be a Celestial/Sapphire Circle sorcerer, seemingly no strings attached. The Thurible lets Mnemon summon and bind Second Circle demons, and has some other powers associated with that general domain.
It seems likely that most such artifacts are going to look more like the Thurible -- giving limited or circumstantial access to a circle of sorcery or necromancy beyond what you can usually achieve, rather than unconditional access.
So, I have got to ask, Ambraea is said to be set to graduate her school as a great sorceror, and so is Amiti. Deizil is also a very accomplished Sorceror, according to the narrative. But I look at their char sheets, and they only know 4 official spells, with Deizil having 5 because of his earlier initiation. 4 spells learnt over 6 years. How are they great sorcerors with only 4 spells? Then how many spells does the Empress, the supposedly greatest sorceror, know? 8? 10? Is there something about sorcerors that limit their spell library so harshly?
In addition to the points already made, is she said to be set to graduate as a great sorcerer? (You might, genuinely, be able to point to a statement I'm forgetting.) Great by the standards of Exalted sorcerers? Or is she set to graduate as a competent and accomplished student, one who's seen as weird and scary by other Exalted by virtue of being a sorcerer at all, and "great" in the sense that she's a sorcerer and an Exalted and royalty and so scary and unapproachable thrice over by mortals, but still a fresh-faced young adult maybe ten percent through her natural lifespan (not that Dynasts are known for enjoying their full natural lifespan) who's yet to actually have, like, a real job or responsibilities? The assessment Ambraea gives of her standing before embarking on this latest adventure was:
...you're old enough and accomplished enough now that you genuinely could contribute to a Wyld Hunt, rather than getting in the way of the Older Dragon-Blooded.
This is an interesting point, though, because yeah, it does seem kind of weird that the way the game's set up, you might enter secondary school and aim to initiate into sorcery (thus learning your first spell) at fifteen or so, but only learn a handful more over the years before you exit chargen. We've seen what the Heptagram teaches instead of more and more spells, though, to wit:
Why casting that spell is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it
What to do if someone casts that spell at you
How to clean up after someone casting that spell incorrectly
How to maintain or safely dispose of a spell so it doesn't blow up after being cast correctly
History to tell you what spells someone might have cast and how not to get blown up by them
Languages so you can read thousand-year-old inscriptions saying "warning, spell that will blow you up in effect"
Cool poses (we haven't technically seen this on camera but I have to assume there's a class for it)
In addition to the points already made, is she said to be set to graduate as a great sorcerer? (You might, genuinely, be able to point to a statement I'm forgetting.) Great by the standards of Exalted sorcerers?
Ambraea has been stated to be very talented for her age and experience, and in the usual way with young Exalts, could grow into a genuinely formidable sorcerer by general standards and not just by the standards of senior secondary school students (or recent graduates, honestly).
As for how long it took her to learn new spells, like, I don't think it's unusual for a sorcerer to graduate the Heptagram with a handful of spells and a really rigorous theoretical grounding in sorcery as a field. Most Dragon-Blooded seem to gain power pretty gradually from when they Exalt in their early teens to their early 20s, with the game modelling actual player characters as advancing at a really accelerated rate compared to most of the characters' peers. I've tried to hit a good medium and also reflect the fact that like, sorcerers in Exalted are rarely just sorcerers in the way that mages are depicted in a lot of fantasy.
A useful thing to remember is that Exalted sorcerers are more like Dying Earth than Dungeons & Dragons, despite the latter's ostensibly Vancian casting systems. No sorcerer in Creation is doing the equivalent of getting into a brawl with a band of kobolds and standing next to someone hurling bullets from a sling and matching them one-for-one with magic missiles.
A casting of Breath of Wretched Stone takes longer than a couple seconds to set up, but it can easily reshape a battlefield on its own. The threat of sorcery is that you don't know what sorceries a sorcerer knows, and they can do a vast variety of things. In addition to cutting down several squads of soldiers at once, it might seal secrets, twist minds through nightmares, explode the user into a cloud of birds and outrun any escape, shape weather, create various sorts of illusions, and more. That's in addition to countering or distorting others' spells, and that's all also wholly within the first circle of sorcery within third edition rules.
Add in that a sorcerer might well have a coterie of terrifying supernatural being attending her (dematerialized bound demons) who also have their own strange powers, and it's not that weird to think of four spells as being something that, in-setting, is very accomplished and important.
Exalted wants each spell to be cool and meaningful. That's part of what separates them in feel from an Exalt's native Charms, the innate power she wields instinctively and flexibly. You don't normally see someone picking up half a dozen spells at once. There's no cantrip-equivalent and each spell is dramatic.
Ambraea has been stated to be very talented for her age and experience, and in the usual way with young Exalts, could grow into a genuinely formidable sorcerer by general standards and not just by the standards of senior secondary school students (or recent graduates, honestly).
Oh absolutely - to be clear, I agree with this whole post and it's what I was trying to get at. Ambraea's praised for being ahead of the curve, and for having potential, but there is a curve and her current abilities don't really reflect the "normal" standard for an Exalted sorcerer, as I interpreted the OP as thinking.
And the point about theoretical grounding is what I was jokingly getting at - as far as the Heptagram is concerned, it's probably much less important for graduates to know any number of individual spells than for them to be really thoroughly drilled on how to judge what spells to learn and how to use them - and how to not. Especially when those spells might summon demons or elementals (or ghosts) so you have to learn the fine print for every entry in the monster manual before your tutor will let you even think about risking calling up something you don't properly understand.
I really enjoy the emphasis in the quest on how much Heptagram education consists of routine but vitally important maintenance work on spells, wards, workings, and artifacts all around the school and the Isle, stuff that students probably find mind-numbingly dull but which impresses upon them the importance of safety and rigour.
Childhood memories, and how two people can view them very differently: 20
Mothers: 9
The depth and limits of the bond that can be shared between a lady and a servant: 3
In the end, three pyres light the darkness.
The first is for the villagers of this nameless place — their bodies have been profaned beyond all decency, but this wasn't any of their doing. Each of the destroyed zombies were gathered up, separated from the other full corpses, and burned along with all of the unidentifiable dead flesh and bone. Nearby, a pyre for the dead peasant soldiers blazes, not quite as large, but large enough.
The oil for such an undertaking is precious. Fortunately, even the Sesus House legions, with their famously lax reputation for many matters of propriety, aren't prepared to be so reckless as to treat this many murdered corpses with anything less than the proper respect. If even a fraction of them created a hungry ghost, it would be enough for them to plague the region for years to come.
Most dangerous of all, the bodies of the three Anathema are burned together, away from those of the mortals. The lower souls of Anathema are infamously deadly and much harder to quell than those of a mortal — when all three bodies are sufficiently consumed by the flames, the ash and bone will be gathered up and given over to the Immaculate Order for safe keeping.
Most of you keep well back, the heat from the fires too intense for comfort. The exception is Sister Briar — as injured as she is, leaning heavily on a walking stick she'd grown out of one of the trees cut down for the fires, she still stands near to the flames. Her eyes are closed, her free hand running over her prayer beads, beseeching the souls of the dead to go swiftly to Lethe with the Dragon's Blessing. For the peasants and soldiers to meet with a reward in their next life, and for the Anathema to work to atone for this life's atrocities. For them to all leave, and not come back.
You stand well away from the fires, watching them burn from a remove that put you well out of the way of the soldiers going about their work to tend the blazes. Your entire body aches more than a little, the cuts on your face stinging in the cold air as they slowly heal.
The wind shifts a little, and you frown up at the ruins of the village, the darkened husks of the buildings standing out in the darkness, only a few of them still smouldering by now. You don't think that the Ogre was trying to accomplish anything but creating expendable foot soldiers when the Anathema had killed the inhabitants. Still, with so many dead at the hands of a necromancer, you hope that the Immaculate Order will take the appropriate steps to cleanse the site and stave off the remote chance of shadowland formation. You decide against mentioning it to Briar — the monks don't require you to know their own business, after all.
You get the strong impression that the soldiers would have preferred to make camp considerably farther away than this, but short of marching in the middle of the night, there simply hadn't been time, between tending to the wounded and dealing with the dead. You'd caught up with the rear guard and the supply carts, Vahelo had simply called a halt on a relatively flat stretch of valley still very much within sight of where the fight had taken place.
"I'm pleased you weren't hurt more seriously, Lady Ambraea."
You give a slight start of surprise — you hadn't heard Yueh Mei approach in the darkness. She's surprisingly uninjured, from what you can see. Her clothing is a bit of a mess, with grass and blood stains on her robes, but it's nothing that a bath and a change of clothing won't remedy. "I'd heard you were with the medics yourself," you say, frowning.
"Just helping someone make her way to them," Mei says, shrugging delicately. "I was much more fortunate, for my own part."
"I should say," you tell her, "you fought that Frenzied to the death on your own." It's not a unique feat in the history of the Dynasty, but it's the kind that builds a woman's reputation as a profoundly skilled warrior and shikari.
"Ah, well, I was lucky, as I said," Mei says, ducking her head modestly. "If he'd caught me, I don't think I'd be here to have this conversation with you. But I led him on a bit of a chase, and it turns out that collisions with rocks at high speed don't agree with Anathema after a point, however tough they are."
"I'll have to prevail on you for the story, at some point," you tell her. Before the journey's out, you hope. "I'm sure your family will have every reason to be very proud."
"A good return on what they've invested in me to date," Mei says, with a strange degree of irony. "I wasn't born to my current place. Before I Exalted, I was a servant in a noble household, if you can believe that."
You raise your eyebrows. "Really?"
"I thought you didn't look Baihu," Sola says, pausing on her way to her tent, having been helping Sister Briar with her preparations. She looks even more exhausted than you feel, for all that she wasn't hurt nearly as badly as you were. "I've met a few Yueh. Some of your family went North with our legions. I'm surprised you didn't go with them, now."
"I was sent elsewhere," Mei says.
"Fortunately for us," you say. "You married a Yueh, then?" It's ordinarily the only avenue for a foreign outcaste to formally join the Dynasty itself, including cadet houses like House Yueh. A lone outcaste certainly has more bargaining power when it comes to marrying into a Threshold family, however — they aren't exactly undiscriminating, but they simply have far fewer Dragon-Blooded than a Great House does, and one outcaste of even dubious parentage can represent a significant increase in Exalted power.
"There are worse lots in life than being chosen by a powerful woman," Mei says, smiling in an ambiguous sort of way.
Sola laughs. She claps you companionably on the shoulder by way of goodnight, and continues on her way to her tent. She still walks with a slight limp where her leg is still healing.
You also laugh, although somehow you can't help but feel like you're missing most of the joke. "I'm sure your lady wife would be pleased to not be the worst lot in life," you say. You look at Mei sidelong — Apart from Briar, and instructors First Light and Zadaki Twelve Feathers at the Heptagram, you haven't spent so much time around an outcaste very often in your life. And none of those three had taken quite the trajectory that Yueh Mei is boasting. "Do you miss the family you used to serve?"
You're not sure what possessed you to ask that. It seems like a silly and overly personal question the moment it leaves your lips. It takes Mei completely aback for a moment. She stares at you as if trying to puzzle something out, and when she speaks next, she chooses her words very carefully, perhaps conscious that she's speaking to an Imperial daughter: "I was raised alongside a noblewoman as a sister, only to graduate to being her servant when we got older. I do miss her, sometimes, but I'm not sure how much she'd feel the same."
The arrangement is perfectly normal, and well within your sensibilities. You'd had several such lowborn playmates growing up, after all, and if the Empress had seen fit to bestow the services of one of them upon you, it's not hard to imagine such an early companion staying with you in a different capacity as the years went on. Still, for some reason, something about what she says sticks in your head in a way that's just at the edge of your understanding. Like something caught between your teeth. "What do you mean?
"Power differences have a way of hanging over things, unstated," Mei says, still navigating the conversation with noted caution. "And they grow over time. I'm not sure that she noticed things gradually changing, year to year, the way I always had. Until one day she looked for a friend, and she only had a servant."
A profoundly lonely feeling builds in your chest as she continues. You scrutinise her for a moment, although you don't know what you're looking for — what you see is still a capable young Dragon-Blooded, a clever and resourceful warrior. "You're Exalted," you tell her. "Surely, she wouldn't object to your friendship now. And you could hardly be called her servant. She isn't above you anymore." What common Threshold noble would say no to reestablishing a close connection to an Exalted Dynast, even a cadet house Dynast by marriage?
"You'd think so," Mei says. She glances up to the sky, scanning the stars overhead. "But love is hard." After several seconds she looks back at you, a polite calm coming over her face. "I apologise — it's growing late, I fear."
"Of course," you say, giving her a shallow nod. You're doing a good job of hiding your inexplicable reaction, you think. You still watch her go for a moment longer than necessary before turning away.
Verdigris pokes her head out of your sleeve, her movements sluggish, but she's bounced back from her wound better than a mundane snake might have, at least. You hold still while she climbs up to your shoulders, not wanting to disturb her with any sudden movements.
"I don't believe I've properly offered you congratulations yet, Lady Ambraea." You turn to see Sesus Vahelo walking toward you. There's the very slight hint of a limp in her stride, and bandage covers one cheek and the side of her neck, where a zombie's nails had torn her helmet free from her head. The swelling in her nose isn't as bad as it might have been, but you still courteously choose to ignore the slight nasal quality the injury gives to her voice. Still, she smiles at you. "There aren't many who can boast of slaying a Solar Anathema before even graduating secondary school."
"Thank you, Talonlord," you tell her. Then, graciously, you add: "I could offer you similar congratulations on the success of your first command." There had been losses, certainly, but far fewer than there might have been, considering you'd faced three Anathema. That number still doesn't feel quite real when you think about it.
"Thank you. I hope you won't take offense if I don't feign modesty," Vahelo says. "I'm extremely pleased."
You laugh — the wound in your side still aches every time you do that more than politely. "I think we are acquainted enough for that to be permitted. Did the sister have a chance to look at your wounds?"
"Well, my face isn't going to rot off from infection, thanks to her," Vahelo says. She raises a hand to the bandage. "It will leave a scar, but I'm optimistic it won't spoil my looks. I may tell girls that it was the Ogre that left it, in the future."
"I could see that working well for you," you say. The conversation has done a good job of chasing away the worst of your bad mood, at the very least.
"I'll make sure that I give credit where it's due, of course," Vahelo says.
You stroke Verdigris' head, thinking back to your fight with the Blasphemous. You glance to a spot nearby, finding Maia, who appears to have fallen asleep where she'd sat down against a rock protruding from the hillside. You'll have to collect her, before you go to bed yourself. "For my part, the Anathema was arrogant and bloody-minded, to his great detriment. And I had great fortune in my allies."
Vahelo follows your gaze. "Mistress Maia is a lucky woman as well, I think," she says, a seemingly genuine comment.
Here in particular, you would be well within your rights to object to her hinting at such a personal subject — but it would be a little absurd, considering how you'd made the precise nature of your relationship with Maia impossible to ignore following the fight. And with the benefit of having known her longer now, you do still quite like Vahelo. "I certainly try my best to make that the case."
Somewhere in the midst of your talk with Vahelo, every particular detail of Yueh Mei, the strange Dynast from the West, quietly slips out of your head. You won't recall her name when you recount these events later, nor will you find the lack of the knowledge strange. The gist of the conversation you'd only just had with her, the seed of doubt planted there, though, remains, somewhere in the back of your mind.
It will be some time before it has a chance to bear fruit.
Descending Wood, Realm Year 764,
Weeks later
Grace stares at the Imperial mountain from over Nettle's shoulder, taking up more of the horizon now than she's ever seen it.
Bolt treks along a narrow, mountain trail, moving at a truly prodigious pace, but it still feels like a crawl to Grace. The interior of the Blessed Isle is almost incomprehensibly vast, mountain after mountain rising up higher and higher, each of them dwarfed by the towering stone pillar that represents only the above-ground portion of the Elemental Pole of Earth. The gateway that the Sidereals had originally come to Creation through had been closer than the one located on the slopes of the Imperial Mountain, but Nettle had flatly admitted that she wasn't feeling up to climbing or flying up the sheer, icy cliffs that she'd taken them down so easily before.
She had also shrugged off the suggestion that she might invoke the Greater Sign of Mercury to take them back to heaven directly, saying only that it 'wasn't an emergency'. At the time, having left the rest of the Wyld Huntin the dead of night, with Nettle still periodically coughing up blood, her cheek stitched up by a mortal legionary medic, Grace had been alarmed by the suggestion that it didn't qualify as one. By the time Nettle merely looked as though she had been run over five times by a heavy wagon, Grace had to admit that she'd been fortunate enough to have less practical experience with the limits of Exalted healing up to that point. They'd already sent back word of the Wyld Hunt's success, and received Holok's reply acknowledging when Nettle expected they'd arrived back, so it seemed that their time table is acceptable enough.
With the adrenaline long since past, and the feeling that she is all that's keeping the older Sidereal from toppling out of her saddle having faded as Nettle healed, Grace has unfortunately started to worry about the work that will be waiting for her back in Yu-Shan. Among other concerns, such as her conversation with Ambraea, and the more morally troubling aspects of this entire experience. Her dreams are filled with dead villagers, and the look in Hound's eyes as she'd watched him die.
"Fuck it, I need a break," Nettle says, seeing the road widen ahead of them. Bolt clucks an agreement, and steps to the side. Nettle gingerly lowers herself down out of the saddle. Moving more carefully, Grace follows her example. The austrech god ruffles her feathers, reaching a beak back to adjust the strap on her saddle, and proceeds to find a good place to nap for a few minutes.
Nettle slumps to the ground, her back against the cliff face behind her, having already snatched a few things from Bolt's saddlebags. She tosses Grace an apple, and predictably busies herself with her gradually-dwindling supply of hashish. Catching the fruit in both hands, Grace sits down near to Nettle, settling down onto the scrubby grass on the side of the path much more demurely.
"You've got that look again like you're imagining a stack of paperwork in your head," Nettle says. "I told you, they knew they were sending us into the middle of the mountains chasing down an Anathema. Being gone a month isn't bad at all, all considered. Someone else in your Division will be covering for you. Holok told you that. There'll be reports and shit, but nothing too dire by our standards."
"I'm not thinking about paperwork," Grace says. At least, she hadn't been, until Nettle mentioned it.
"What's got you all quiet this time, then?" Nettle asks, sheltering her supplies from the wind with her body.
Grace takes out a small travel knife, and carefully slices a piece off of her apple. She looks up into the sky, seeing a wheeling shape overhead that she assumes is Grinner. She puts the apple slice in her mouth, chewing as she mulls over the answer to Nettle's question. "That Lunar was the first time I've ever killed anyone."
"Yeah, no shit." Nettle lights up with her coiled direlash, as is her mildly annoying habit. When she looks up, she flashes Grace a grin, softening the blow of the words. Grace has to admit to herself that, despite Nettle's many lingering cuts and bruises, it's a relief to see her able to do that without wincing in severe pain. "You did pretty good with it, though. Didn't puke or fall apart until after it mattered." She brings the joint to her mouth, and takes a long, slow drag.
Grace can't suppress an appalled giggle. It's a strangely gratifying sort of half compliment, but it doesn't really get at what's been bothering her. With the tension cut, she puts it into words: "Anathema are monsters, aren't they? It's like the monks always said. They certainly acted like it." She knows the history behind the term, has had it explained to her by some of the very literal guiding minds behind the Immaculate Philosophy. She knows that the people they'd been hunting had been other kinds of Celestial Exalt, not demons who had stolen the power of the sun and the moon. But Exalted or not, those three had done such terrible things to people who couldn't have possibly deserved it.
Nettle looks at Grace sidelong, knocking some ash off the end of the joint. A songbird calls somewhere overhead, cutting off in alarm as Grinner makes a dive for it. "Does it make wrapping your head around this easier if they're monsters? Then sure, they're monsters. Lunars fucking eat people. Fuck that." She takes another long drag to punctuate the thought.
Grace sits with that, frowning as cuts another apple slice for herself. The thought does make it easier. The truth is rarely easy to hear, though. After several long minutes, she asks: "What do you really think?"
Nettle regards her more seriously than before. "'Monster's' just a word you use when you don't wanna feel bad about what you do to someone." She gives a bit of a self-deprecating laugh. "So's 'Anathema', if we're being honest, but at least people know what you mean when you say it. That Full Moon would've killed us both, made it hurt, and then moved on to 'your lady' and the rest, though. And they do really eat people, so I don't give that much of a shit, at the end of the day."
"And that works for you?" Grace asks.
"Pretty much," Nettle says. "Don't worry, you're not gonna turn out like me, however you figure it out."
"What does that mean?" Grace asks. She sets the rest of the apple down in her lap, turning her attention fully to Nettle.
Nettle grimaces. "It's not just Anathema. There's too much shit with this job to not figure out some way to deal with it all. Save someone one day, ruin someone's life the next. Do both a lot of days. There's no destiny where everyone gets to be happy — and happiness isn't even my job directly, the way it is yours."
"So you really just..."
"Be a callous bitch about it?" Nettle asks. "Yeah, I can do that. One of the upshots of being generally a shit person. I focus on the people who I actually give a fuck about, I live it up whenever I can, and everything else is just work. Everyone else, if it comes down to it. It's not so different from how I dealt with it when I used to rob travelers on the road or knock over caravans, but at least I know this is actually for something, right? I'm getting paid damn well, obviously, but someone's gotta do this shit, Destiny doesn't unfuck itself. Like I said, that's not going to be you, though. We all have to figure out our own way to cope. Me, Yula, even the older ones like Holok and big boss Kejak. You figure out your own way, or you lose your mind and turn into a crazy hermit for a few centuries. Or worse."
"... I see," Grace says. It's a lot to take in.
"You'll figure it out," Nettle says. Then she reaches out and actually ruffles Grace's hair, as if Grace is a precocious child.
Grace yelps a protest, ducking away from the gesture. "Don't do that," she says, voice tight.
"Okay, sorry, bad joke," Nettle admits, but she's still grinning as she takes another slow drag. After she breathes the smoke out again, she adds: "I mean it, though. You'll figure it out. You've already got your shit together better than I did, two years in."
Grace nods. As annoyed as she might be, she can't help but think back to when the last time that someone genuinely showed her that kind of casual physical affection had been. It had certainly been before she'd Exalted. They sit in silence for a time — Nettle smoking, Grace finishing her apple, Grinner cheerfully eating his songbird on a ledge above. After Grace swallows her last piece, she looks back over to Nettle, deciding whether or not to follow through with a sudden impulse. "Would you still like to let me try some of that?" she asks.
Nettle pauses, looking over to Grace in surprise. Then she smiles. "Sure, call it a standing offer," she says. She holds the still-burning joint out to Grace.
Cautiously, Grace accepts it, wary of burning her fingers. She brings it to her lips, and breaths in. The smoke is deep and earthy for a moment, before it quickly becomes overwhelming — she's inhaled too much, too fast.
Nettle laughs as Grace bends over, coughing. "It takes some getting used to," Nettle says, handing Grace a water skin.
When Grace breaths again, she takes a long gulp of water. "I might have to take your word for that," she says. But she smiles.
Ascending Fire, Realm Year 764,
Ten months after the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.
Silken Diamond, House Sesus palace-manse,
Ventus Prefecture, the Northern Blessed Isle
Vahelo laughs, and drains the last dregs of wine out of her cup. "A great many things happened," she reminds him. "If you're asking what I think you are, though, don't let your imagination run away with yourself — that patrician girl of hers has Lady Ambraea wrapped quite around her finger. Nothing could have happened, even if it wouldn't have undermined my authority with the soldiers entirely."
"Well, it's some comfort to me that your first command experience hasn't been entirely something out of a cheap adventure novel. Three Anathema! Honestly. The one time I was on a hunt, the Exalted only found one, and turned out to be some ragged fifteen-year-old boy who only ate the hearts of a few Blackhelms. It got put down without their even needing us." Talonlord Sesus Narin is some five years' Vahelo's senior, another mortal officer who she has had some passing acquaintance with previously. He's tall, albeit in an awkward, gangly sort of way, dark-haired and dark-skinned. He sits across from Vahelo at a table of carved mahogany, holding a wine cup of black and scarlet glass.
Weeks after the conclusion of the hunt, Vahelo sits clean and comfortable, her nose most of the way on the mend, the wounds on her face closed entirely. The pair of them are sharing a drink on a grand balcony, the only table currently occupied. The ornate, crystalline spires of the Earth manse rise behind Vahelo, built into the side of a great, hollow mountain. Behind Narin, over the edge of the balcony is a heart-stopping drop, providing a breathtaking view of a green valley far below, the snowy peaks of the Skyhewn Mountains all around, and the roaring progress of one of the Five-Color River's many tributaries. The river has been diverted through a carved-granite aqueduct to bring water into the upper levels of the manse, and back out again far below to carry on its way.
Silken Diamond is one of House Sesus's finest pleasure manses, the structure filled with elaborate baths, smoking dens, music halls and more. Its many delights are open to all Sesus scions, but only the exceptionally gormless think that they come without a catch. Vahelo understands what that catch is well enough, but after the ordeal that was the battle against the Anathema, she's happy enough to live with it.
A servant appears at the tableside, a cold jug of wine in his delicate hands. He's tall, tan-skinned and green-haired in a way that hints at an Eastern extraction. As pleasant a view as the vista, in a different sense. He fills both their glasses with golden wine of a Thornish vintage, leaving the bottle at Vahelo's casual gesture.
"I went to secondary school with an Erona," Narin says. "Pleasant enough girl, but dull — they do have that reputation. I've never met one of their Dragon-Blooded, though."
Vahelo could use a number of words to describe Erona Maia, but dull wouldn't be one of them. There had been a coldly assessing quality to her quiet presence, to say nothing of that horrid, shrieking demon of hers. "Very skilled," Vahelo says. "Not a woman I'd want to cross"
"I suppose that would have to be true, if she helped bring down a Solar Anathema two-on-one," Narin admits.
"Peleps should get their money's worth, at least," Vahelo says.
To her surprise, Narin gets abruptly to his feet, setting his glass down on the table to offer an automatic bow to someone behind Vahelo. She follows suit before she's even had a chance to register who it is — she'd heard a group had arrived several hours past under heavy escort, but she hadn't had the chance to find out who had been with them.
Straightening up from her bow, Vahelo finds herself face to face with General Sesus Leska. Her own mother.
"Oh, relax, both of you," Leska says. "This isn't a parade ground."
Vahelo nods. She drops out of strict military posture, although she doesn't actually relax, or make any move to sit back down. She knows her mother too well to take the comment too literally. "I'm surprised to see you, General," she says, tone carefully respectful.
Leska is taller than Vahelo, a Fire Aspect nearing her second century, the family resemblance hindered by a full head of luminously-red hair, the strands waving behind her like embers. She still wears her armour, red-jadesteel gleaming under the summer sun. Behind her, waiting patiently in the hallway the balcony opens up onto is the general's entourage. The officers of her staff, her honour guard, and her personal slaves. Standing slightly apart from them, smiling that faintly pleased little smile of hers is the short, grey-haired form of Quartermaster Sesus Cerec. The sight of her is a little disquieting — In private, Vahelo has never particularly cared for Amiti and Kasi's mother.
Leska takes Vahelo in, her eyes lingering on the still-healing scars that rake down Vahelo's face. There's something approving in that look. "While we both find ourselves here, it would seem wrong of me not to congratulate you on the success of your first command," Leska says. The shifting bonfire glow of her hair is as distracting as ever — over the years, Vahelo has learned to not get drawn in, focusing her attention on a space above Leska's right shoulder.
"The general is too kind," Vahelo says, ducking her head in acknowledgement.
"You drew blood from an Anathema, and led a talon of unseasoned, terrified troops to slaying it," Leska says. "Many far more experienced women than you cannot claim as much. You have done our house and my household proud."
Vahelo feels a swell of emotion in her chest — she knows what she's accomplished, but it's quite a different matter to hear it from the mouth of her own mother. "Thank you, General," she says.
Leska cracks a thin smile — a rarity for her. Then she delivers the highest praise she has ever given Vahelo, in a way that feels like nothing so much as being stabbed. "If you had only been blessed by the Dragons, I could hope for no more in a daughter."
Vahelo is old enough now that the last thin, feeble ray of hope have been extinguished for years. She'd reconciled herself to living and dying as a mortal woman by the time she'd turned eighteen, and turned her attention fully to the lesser ways she might prove herself and honour her family's name. The bitterness of that realisation had been undeniable, but she'd truly thought that she'd put it behind her. That she had at least robbed it of its capacity to hurt. A naive thought, she understands now. How can one ever truly feel nothing about failing the single most important test in a Dynast's life, when reminded of it so bluntly? She returns her mother's smile, bowing again. "You honour me."
"Only as you deserve." Leska glances back over her shoulder, sharing a brief glance with the quartermaster. "I have matters to attend to, daughter. I will send for you at some point over the coming days. We will discuss your future."
"Thank you, General," Vahelo says.
As Leska turns to leave, Cerec lingers for a moment. "So pleased to have heard about your success," she tells Vahelo.
"Thank you, Quartermaster," Vahelo says. "I feel that we owe the outcome of our venture in part to your household, however."
To Vahelo's private, ever-so-slightly vindictive delight, Cerec pauses briefly, the shifting, smoky strands of her hair even seeming to stop moving for just a moment. It's the only sign she gives that she's surprised. "Thank you, but how do you mean?" she asks, clearly unused to being placed at an informational disadvantage.
"Your daughter, Sesus Amiti, sent word of the hunt to Lady Ambraea," Vahelo says. "Without that, I don't think they would have offered their assistance at all. No doubt that our forces would have killed the Anathema eventually, but I don't like to imagine what would have happened if we'd been ambushed like we were with only two Dragon-Blooded and my talon. I find myself quite in my cousin's debt."
"How interesting," Cerec says, ambiguously. Her red eyes flash with something, but Vahelo can't quite tell what. "Amiti keeps managing to surprise me. One of several things I should discuss with her, I think. Enjoy your rest, child, I'm sure you'll be busy again soon enough."
With that strange parting note, she turns, following the last of Leska's entourage as they disappear down the hall.
Vahelo remains standing for a long, lingering moment after the Dragon-Blooded left, letting her troubled expression grow more obvious with their departure.
"Oh, sit down, Val," Narin says. "You absolutely need a drink, after that."
Realising that he's right, Vahelo falls heavily back into her chair, and takes an indelicate gulp of the sweet wine, abruptly in no mood to appreciate its nuances. "Did you know she was here?" Vahelo asks.
"No," Narin says. Vahelo can't tell whether or not he's telling the truth — one can never be sure, with family. She decides to believe him, however, for the sake of keeping civil conversation. He sounds sympathetic enough when he says: "Amazing, the things they can say when they're not even trying to be cruel. At least she did seem pleased — I don't think I've spoken to my mother about anything other than marriage prospects in years."
"How are things going with your engagement, by the way?" Vahelo asks, in between another heavy gulp of wine.
"To Tepet Laera? They aren't," Narin says. "Negotiations fell apart after she went North, for whatever reason, I haven't gotten an answer that makes sense out of my father. A pity, really — quite an intelligent woman, and she didn't seem upset about being saddled with a mortal husband."
"Didn't she tell you that she expected you to retire and mind her household for the rest of your life?" Vahelo asks, looking at him a little strangely. She can see the appeal in a husband willing to adopt that role, but forcing it on an actively serving officer seems a little high handed to her.
"Well, call me overly romantic, but as much as a bit of adventuring has been fun in my twenties, I'm not getting any younger, and starting over from scratch in the Tepet Legions just seems exhausting anyway," Narin says. "And you haven't seen her in person — it wouldn't have been so bad as all that, being a beautiful, Exalted lady's kept man. Not a wealthy household, but she has a lovely home." He shrugs philosophically, and takes a long sip of his own wine, before he adds: "She took the time to send me a very cordial letter giving her regrets, even after we're the ones who broke it off. I only wish her well."
"You really are a man," Vahelo says, finishing her wine. "I bet you kept it, and still read it wistfully on lonely nights." She knows he's deliberately trying to take her mind off of the conversation with Leska, and while it's not working, she's grateful enough.
He laughs. "Now you're the one who's being cruel," Narin says. "Spare a pitying thought for me, when you make dragonlord in your forties and I'm left as an unwanted bachelor."
"Your family's rich enough, they'll find your something, mortal son or not," Vahelo says, smiling despite herself. "I hope you enjoy wedded bliss as much as you think you will."
Narin catches the servant boy's attention with a flick of his hand, beckoning him over. "Something a bit stronger than wine, I think," he tells him.
"Of course, my lord," says the servant. He has a clear, pretty voice, Vahelo thinks. She can't help but notice that his eyes linger in a way they hadn't before, going to her scars. He'd been present for the entire conversation with her mother, of course, and has more context for her injuries than he might otherwise have. He catches her noticing him watching, and steps quickly away, ducking his head. She watches him go with a suddenly thoughtful expression.
Vahelo ordinarily keeps her dalliances to women. It's not from lack of interest in men, necessarily, but it's a good habit for a responsible Dynast — even with caution and proper use of maiden's tea, it's a great deal less likely to result in a disastrous, unplanned pregnancy. Because in all things, she has always tried to be a good daughter. To serve her house ably and well, as best as a mortal Dynast can. She'll very likely feel that way again tomorrow, but for now, a more reckless spirit overtakes her.
The servant arrives back with a bottle of fine liquor, leaving it on the table with two small, silver cups. As he sets it down, Vahelo asks him: "Do my wounds make you curious? No, don't apologise, it's not a reprimand."
The servant swallows back whatever apology he'd been intending, looking at her with surprise. He seems slightly wary when he speaks next, but in the end, he does ask what's been on his mind: "You got that while fighting an Anathema, my lady?"
"I did," Vahelo says, smiling. "It's a bit of a long story, but I might have time to do it justice, if you come find me later this evening."
The servant, to his credit, adjusts to what she's suggesting with admirable speed. "My duties should allow that, my lady."
"Do you have a name?" Vahelo asks, pouring for herself and a deeply amused Narin.
"Lark, my lady," he says, with the air of someone who has stumbled across something unexpectedly pleasant, but is now worried that a careless word might ruin it.
"Well, Lark, I'll look forward to it. You should find me in my chambers after dinner."
"Of course, my lady. Thank you, my lady." Lark dithers for a moment, as if the social script for this encounter has deserted him. Then he bows low, and retreats from the table.
"You shameless rake," Narin says, a laugh in his eyes. "You're not wasting any time in cheering yourself up, I see."
"I like to think I'm a practical woman," Vahelo says. "There's no reason to mope when there's a perfectly good distraction at hand."
Narin actually does laugh then. But he adds, with a slight note of concern: "You remember that all the servants here are carrying stories to someone, I hope."
"Naturally," Vahelo says, electing not to take offense at him stating the obvious. "I'll make sure to feed him a few harmless tidbits for whoever his master is. It would only be considerate, after all."
General Sesus Leska sighs in relief as the last of her armour comes off.
Leska has no notion that anything she said to her youngest daughter might have caused pain or distress. She had felt only a mother's pride, looking upon Vahelo, and had wished for her to hear it. Now, though, her mind has drifted to less pleasant topics.
"Leave us. Run a bath for me," she orders. The servants all bow deeply, and retreat out of the opulent room, several of them labouring under the weight of different pieces of her armour. Only one other person remains in the room.
"You seem concerned, General," says Sesus Cerec.
"Oughtn't I be?" Leska asks, fixing her subordinate with a questioning stare. "I'm not convinced of the wisdom of our course of action."
Cerec stands almost perfectly in the centre of the dressing chamber — a circular room, the floor tiles adorned with a motif of flames and feathers, the walls decorated with shamelessly iconic artwork featuring people and animals in various lifelike scenes. Overhead, a complex sorcerous lighting fixture dangles, each of its crystals aglow with the manse's Earth Essence. The Quartermaster looks anything but deferential as she smiles back at Leska: "It seems perfectly clear to me, and to those whose will I relay to you, General. The Empress has given us a mandate, and until such a time as she releases us from our duty, surely, we must pursue it as far as we are possibly able."
"Things are going worse than expected," Leska says, stepping forward to tower over the smaller woman. "Tepet Usala was always rash and half in love with her own legend — I thought that with her dead, that old fool, Arada would have more sense. He's letting the Icewalkers bait them further and further into enemy territory every day."
"On the promise of our supplies and logistical support, of course," Cerec says, looking exceptionally pleased with herself. "But, those Northern roads are treacherous even in summer. A tragedy that so little of what we send seems to be making its way to them." Leska stares down at her hard. Cerec meets her gaze coolly. Leska is the first to look away, and step back.
"I remind you, again, we are following the Empress's orders," Cerec says. "If she truly wished us to stop at any particular point, surely, she would have been more specific."
"And what will we say to her when the Anathema manage to break half the Tepet House Legions before they're run to ground?" Leska says.
Cerec raises her eyebrows. "Why, we tell her that we hope she appreciates our work in her name. It wouldn't be the first time she's ordered a house humbled, or destroyed." Leska crosses to a chair, and sinks heavily down into it, her head in her hands. "Come now, General, has the council ever led you astray before now?" Cerec asks.
They had not, as far as Leska's personal career is concerned. She had risen to her post more than a hundred years before, ahead of more experienced candidates, because of her willingness to cooperate with the wishes of the Masked Council. A shadowy group of elders within House Sesus, their identities unknown, the true masters behind the house's vast spy networks. For many, many years, she had known Cerec as more than what her rank suggested — as the council's errand girl within Leska's forces, the one to relay instructions phrased as polite suggestions.
But over the past two years, when the Empress had instructed House Sesus to hinder House Tepet's war efforts in the North under the guise of sending them much needed aid, Leska's long-running quartermaster had entered an early retirement, and Cerec had taken her place after decades as a dragonlord. Leska is now beginning to strongly suspect that she has had an actual Masked Council member among her subordinates all this time. That she has one standing in the room with her now.
"They have not," Leska admits. "You will forgive me. Their instructions have never been quite so... dramatic as this."
"We haven't had Imperial blessing to so directly undermine one of our rivals since the fall of House Iselsi," Cerec says. "Take heart in the great deal of faith the Council has in your abilities and your continued discretion, General."
Leska sighs. "Very well," she says. "Who are we really here to talk to?"
"Several people," Cerec says. "In order to convince the matriarch of the continued necessity of all our measures, we will need to have the facts presented to her by people she respects."
"People she doesn't think of as lying snakes, you mean," Leska says.
"Correct," Cerec says, still smiling. "So, we are here to speak to several such people. The matriarch will see reason, of course — we have been forced to accept the role of third among the great military houses for too long."
Leska nods, and tries to quell the worst of her anxieties. How far out of hand can things really get, after all?
Omphalos Gate Temple,
Endless Prefecture, the foothills of the Imperial Mountain,
The central Blessed Isle
This close, it doesn't even look like a mountain anymore. Just a sheer wall of sloping stone filling half the horizon, a thin ring of grass and trees clinging to its very base. If Singular Grace cranes her neck, all she can see is the place where the Imperial mountain plunges up through the cloud layer that had rolled in early that morning.
"You should climb it, sometime," Nettle tells her, after Grace has been standing there, looking up for most of a minute. "Not all the way — who's got time for that? But the view's not bad from partway up."
"I can't fly," Grace reminds Nettle.
"Neither can she, on her own," Grinner says, from his perch on Nettle's shoulder. He'd landed when they'd approached the temple gates. "But having good friends is its own sort of talent."
Tearing her eyes away from the mountain, Grace falls in beside Nettle, who leads Bolt up the winding path on foot. Up ahead, dwarfed by the mountain beside it, is a middling sized Immaculate temple. Several impressive domes rise up behind its walls, and five warding dragon statues stand before its gates. As they approach, a young monk rises from the ground where he'd been meditating beside the gate, a staff in his hand. He watches them approach with a polite expression on his face.
"My good women," the young man says, "our humble temple is not currently open to lay travelers, I'm afraid. There is another only a half-hour down the slope in that direction, however. Or, if you truly require assistance, we would be happy to provide you with supplies." He takes in the well-fed austrech and Grace's clothing in a manner that suggests he doesn't think the latter is the case.
"Yeah, I know, not my first time," Nettle says, rummaging in Bolt's saddlebag. She pulls free a battered looking leather case containing what proves to be a thin scroll, which she thrusts into the monk's hands. As he reads it, his eyes go wide with surprise. He looks back up at the two of them, scrutinising them with a frown. Then he says, with the air of reciting a passage from memory: "And then the sixth messenger came before him, of humble dress and humble bearing..."
Nettle responds without hesitation: "... with the heavens in her eyes and authority in her voice, harbinger of warning. Oh, calm down, it's nothing that serious, it's just the pass phrase."
The young man nods, gripping the scroll tightly against his chest. His bearing has grown a great deal more serious and servile than it originally had. Even though Grace doubts he actually knows the nature of the group standing before him, he clearly knows enough to understand that they are someone far more important than he'd first assumed. "Please, my ladies, wait here — I will go fetch the abbot," he says, slipping through the gate and into the temple grounds.
"Was that from the Immaculate Texts?" Grace asks. "I don't recognise the line."
"Yeah, it's obscure," Nettle says. Although Grace is quite certain that what Nettle knows about the Immaculate Texts doesn't amount to much. "From a story about Sextes Jylis meeting seven strangers, it's fucking boring. No one really bothers with it but monks who are real obsessive about theology, or some shit like that."
Grace nods slowly, too used to Nettle's speech pattern to be shocked anymore. She's been told there are some references to the existence of heavenly Exalts in the Texts, although she'd never actually heard an example before. She glances at the closed door and suddenly frowns. Neither she nor Nettle are wearing Resplendent Destinies — Nettle had insisted it would be fine, and Grace has never passed through this particular gate before. "What do we do if he forgets about us halfway down the hall?"
"He's still holding the scroll," Nettle says. "He'll know to show that to the abbot, and the abbott'll come out here. Older Dragon-Blood, and she knows what a Sidereal is, so it's fine if one of us slips out of her head for a moment."
"We've been through this temple half a dozen times before, at least," Grinner says, trying to reassure. "It all works out."
"The worst that's ever happened was when someone thought Nettle was a mortal we were trying to smuggle back with us," Bolt adds, offering a rare comment to Grace directly. "But, that was funny, more than anything."
The gate opens again, and a Water Aspect steps out, her face deeply lined with age. She looks at Nettle and Grace gravely, offering Nettle the scroll back. "My ladies," she says. "I imagine you're only passing through."
"Yeah, something like that," Nettle says.
"We don't mean to intrude long on your hospitality, Abbot," Grace adds, internally wincing at Nettle's lack of formality.
If anything, the old monk seems to find the contrast between the two of them amusing. "I see," she says. "If you will follow me, then."
She leads Nettle and Grace into the temple, passing beneath the walls, and up a path on the grounds that winds its way up the mountainside. Their destination is not hard to spot, even from a distance. Rising up from the stone is a perfect, freestanding natural arch taller than a man and at least six times as wide, its rough surface shockingly veined with white jade and shining orichalcum. This is somewhat less conspicuous than the huge, golden lions sitting to either side of the gate. They might have been taken for statues if Grace hadn't known better. And if one of them didn't open its massive jaws to give a feline yawn as Grace watches.
The path that leads up to the gate has a series of steps carved into the mountain, ornamental shrubbery and small dragon statues guiding the way. Nettle stops short at the bottom of it. "Oh, shit, right," She says, as if she's just remembered something. "There is something you could do for us, if it's not too much trouble?"
The monk stops, looking at the two of them questioningly. "We are happy to accommodate the servants of heaven in their official business, within reason." There's none of the young mortal's submission in her tone, although only a slight edge of suspicion.
"Spring rolls," Nettle says. "Could you get us some? There's no meat in those, you people eat shit like that."
"We do indeed," the abbot says, a faint smile creeping over the corner of her mouth. "It's barely past lunch time; I believe we have some in the kitchens, if you don't mind them being slightly cool." She seems unwilling to let any of their party out of her sight, but she waves over a lay servant, who bows respectfully, and heads out to retrieve them.
"Well, if she wanted them hot, she could've come down here herself," Nettle says, shrugging. For a moment, Grace has no idea what she's talking about. Then she abruptly remembers Yula's sarcastic request from all those weeks before, and lets out a helpless sort of giggle, covering her mouth with a hand.
It doesn't take long before Grace is holding a large bag of relatively-fresh spring rolls, the scent not unpleasant, but every bit as bland as she expects from central Isle cooking. She bows low to the abbot in thanks, and the four of them make the climb up to the gate while the Dragon-Blood stays below, watching their progress.
"They make terrible spring rolls out in the mountains," Grace says. "Really, you want to go to one of the coastal cities for ones that are any good. Or, the easterly ones. The Arjufis like to talk theirs up, but they use the wrong spices."
Nettle laughs. "Says the Imperial City girl."
"Yes," Grace says, unphased, "which is how I know what they're supposed to taste like."
Nettle shrugs it off. "She'll find it too funny that I took her seriously to be too disappointed about the flavour, I wouldn't worry about it. Good way to distract her from exactly how beat to shit I still am."
They're about halfway up the path now. One of the lions is pretending to be asleep, although their partner has cracked an eye open to regard them with lazy disinterest. Celestial lions aren't all exactly alike anymore than any category of god is, but they certainly act like it, sometimes. "Do you like each other?" Grace asks. "I couldn't tell before."
"Who, me and Yula?" Nettle says, grinning at her. "Well, we're Circlemates, and she's only the best friend I have in the world. I'd say I love her like a sister, but I don't give a shit about any of my actual sisters, so it's not a good comparison."
Grace nods, frowning. "You're very different," she says, in what feels like an understatement.
"Well, yeah," Nettle says. "The Fivescore Fellowship's a small fucking place, it's right there in the name. And we're all weird as fuck. You figure out who you can't stand and who you actually like fast enough, and you find a way to tolerate those first ones and make friends with the second ones. You know, even if one's an Onyx noblewoman who would've refused to breathe the same air as me, back when we were mortals — which is fucking fair, I'd have slit her throat for her pocket money, some days." Among the many flippant references Grace has heard Nettle make to her own horrifying history of violence and criminality, this is the first time that the joke seems to sit poorly with Nettle. Like the thought actually bothers her, the way everything else hadn't.
They're in front of the lions now, though, and Nettle casually flashes her Caste Mark to the nearest of them. "Bureau of Destiny business," she says. "Stinging Nettle, Chosen of Mercury, Singular Grace, Chosen of Venus. Grinning at Murder and Blinding Bolt, assistants to the former."
The dozing lion sits up, metal joints moving smoothly and silently as they adopt a more serious posture. The massive paw that one of them had thrown in front of the gateway at their approach is pulled back, clearing the way.
"Well, that's this over with," Nettle says. "Let's get you back to your one true love, your desk."
Grace laughs, following her through the gateway and back to heaven.
Descending Fire, Realm Year 764,
Twelve months after the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress
By the time school starts again for your seventh and final year at the Heptagram, your period of blissful ignorance is at an end.
When you get back to Chanos, there is a letter waiting for you there from your father, written in a series of allusions and indirect references that form a makeshift code. Which is well enough, because you strongly suspect that someone has opened it on route and read the contents before you received it:
No one has seen any sign of your mother since the first day of Calibration. She's never been gone this long before, and it's starting to take its toll. Countless processes in the Thousand Scales grind to a halt, needing her approval or input in some small way. The Deliberative is grinding to a halt, having never been intended to function without her to make the final decisions on anything that really matters. And perhaps most worrisomely of all, Nazat has heard rumblings about the Imperial Legions, although he isn't yet sure how that will end up.
Others will notice this, and it may well affect your standing in their eyes. While you still don't yet think the absence will be permanent, the fact that he feels the need to assure you that the stipend, land, and other resources set aside for you for the following year have already been put into writing, and should come to you uninterrupted, is in of itself profoundly worrisome. He tells you to be careful.
Somehow, that fills you with more dread than fighting an Anathema ever had.
Article:
The atmosphere changes during your final year at school — slowly at first, then much more dramatically. People look at you differently than they did before. The first time it's so obvious that you can't ignore it, however, the sign doesn't come from what someone says about you. Rather, it comes from something someone says to one of your close friends. Who is it?
I'm pretty sure V'neef situation degrades moderately during the coming chaos, remaining a great house but severely weakened in influence and allies if my interpretation is correct. In addition we still have the betrothal options for our ties to their house. If we take our actions this break into account, I'd be unsurprised to find us elevated to early ties with house Sesus as well.
Using this final year to elevate one house to connections four and our betrothal to elevate the other is valid strategy for ending up well situated to weather the coming century of turbulence.
Well that's what happens when your assurance against rebellion is the system being designed to fall apart if your not around to handle the most critical bureaucratic decisions.
I really thought for a second in the update she was going to get copied by a Lunar, which was sad (because Vahelo dies and/or only appears on screen as someone else's vtube persona) but also amazing (because a Lunar posing as Vahelo promises incredible content, and more "Vahelo").
Of course not. Vahelo has to be stationed somewhere and putting her in the region with a powerful hearthmate group of sorcerers including a close cousin, a former lover, and two former wyld hunt companions, as someone meant to guard and keep the family informed of the actions of it's heptogram graduate necromancer, is a very sensible place to assign her.
A fang on hand to assist the sorcerers with putting down anything dangerous that gets out of hand is a good way for the house to have and use a necromancer without the immaculate order getting too offended or the populace growing unproductive.
