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After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 01

By: DeathAndTaxes



Author's Note: Hi guys! Welcome to After Exile Book One: An Emperor for the Eclipse. If you're here because you've read my other stories, you might be surprised to find that this story is not done yet (I'll give you time to collect yourself). I've got 5/9 chapters done, but I haven't put out anything since Feb, and have been encouraged by some of my friends to give you what I already have in the meantime. So once we get to CH 5, be prepared to wait a little bit. You can always check my profile to see how it's coming. J 

This is essentially a fantasy novel that happens to have some sex sprinkled on top. I won't skimp on the dirty details (I would never!) but you may have to read a couple chapters before we get there. When we do get there, though, you'll find a variety of kink but I'll give content warnings at the beginning as we go, in case anyone is squicked out by anything. 

This story has been much improved and refined by the invaluable edits and feedback I received from Waterburn and AwkwardMD. If you haven't read their excellent stories, make that your next stop! They're the best. 

OK! I'm so excited to finally share the beginning of this with you. Let's do this! 

~Eris 

* * * * 

AFTER EXILE BOOK ONE 

AN EMPEROR FOR THE ECLIPSE 

Prologue 

The pain was a yellow-white, and it made him feel as though parts of his body were connected which shouldn't have been. Cramps lanced through his gut, gripping, twisting him in half while needles from the forest floor stuck to the fevered skin of his face with their timeless indifference. 

Light filtering down through the pines was too bright and blurry. Something was wrong with his eyes. Something was wrong with all of him. Hip lips and jaw were numb and the surface of his skin stung as if he rolled on a sea of nettles. 

The thought of moving water made him sick again, but he could only lay on his side and cough and choke on the fire. 

A tiny part of him laughed somewhere—a part he'd thought extinguished already as his body entered these final throes. 

You came all the way across the mountains just to die anyway. Well done— 

Well done, what? Who? 

He reached out for ... something. His name? What was ... 

In his delirium, he turned this way and that; felt as though he searched, hands out, through a fog. 

He couldn't remember his own name. 

He couldn't remember his own name, and so he was no one. Couldn't remember light and so it was dark. Couldn't even remember pain, and so he felt nothing. 

Nothing. 

* * * * 

Something was poking him in the ribs. His head was full of wool and his extremities lead sediment. He wanted the poking thing to go away. 

"Hoi. Hoi, stranger." 

Cool air on his skin accompanied chattering sounds, which at length he decided were words. Words spoken by someone he didn't know. 

"Goghuh ..." Stubborn, clinging instinct told him to yell at the person, to demand they leave him alone, but all that came from his swollen throat and dry palate was a weak, huffling gurgle. 

More prodding. His senses got their collective business together enough to start forming conclusions. A stick. Someone was poking at him with a stick. 

"Nrrghff ..." 

"I think he's waking up, Noni," the small voice said. 

"Leave him be, Ovar. He'll come around when he's ready." 

The second voice ground like smooth stones across one another. A woman, he guessed, and older. He tried to swallow to get moisture into his mouth so he could use words instead of incoherent grunting. Instead, the angry friction of dry tissue triggered a coughing fit. 

He hacked and barked on his side among twigs and damp earth, and the spasms reignited his earlier pain. Bright light flashed behind scratchy eyelids and small explosions sounded off at his temples. The voices were more excited now, but sounded wary as he jerked, doubled up on the ground. 

Calm down and breathe like a normal person, Ga'ardahn! You're making it worse! 

As the coughing subsided and he lay there wheezing, some remote part of him nodded in approval that he'd managed to recall his name. 

Ga'ardahn. Yes. Raothan Ga'ardahn. 

A light pressure draped over his flesh and he couldn't decide, as conscious thought left him again, whether this was pleasant or disturbing. His skin still felt tight, but the wringing of his insides had faded, and the two people had gone quiet. 

Perhaps for now, he should go quiet, too. 

Raothan slept. 

* * * * 

At the smell of smoke, he jerked awake. 

Fire! 

And of course, began to hack his lungs out again. 

Raothan flailed to sit up, some measure of strength returning to his limbs, and fought against a flimsy barrier restricting his movement. 

A blanket. He was fighting a blanket. 

He flapped and flung it off, squinting into the beacon of light at his feet. There was a small campfire burning, and it was night. 

As he rubbed his face free of dirt and pine needles, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was an older woman sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire. She assessed him with a careful eye. 

Raothan blinked, opened his mouth to speak, and ended up coughing himself the rest of the way awake. 

"Your throat'll be good and sore for a while, Elvigra. Have some water." 

He looked up through forced tears just as the waterskin came flying at him. His hands moved to catch it, but fumbled instead and it bounced to the mat of needles on the ground beside him. 

Reflexes are still slow. Be on your guard. 

The water was cold and sweet as it coated his tongue and throat on the way down, and he took several healthy gulps without shame before setting the skin aside. 

"Thank you," he said, managing no more than a rasp after a final few well-placed hacks. 

"Ah," the woman said, dry as a desert summer, "You speak Novamnean. The Divine be praised for small favors." A large bundle at her side on the ground shifted, and Raothan remembered he'd heard two voices earlier. She lowered her tone in an effort not to wake the source of the second one. 

"You know," she went on, quiet this time with an elbow on one of her knees, "most people don't live after they've eaten copperfel berry. So either you were wise and put them down right after you got the taste in your mouth, or you're stupid and people from the other side of the Teeth are just made of tougher stuff than us Westerners are." 

Things were coming back to him now and he felt his eyebrows climbing. "Copper ... fel?" 

"The round little white ones with the orange in the creases and the kind of dusty skin? Copperfel. You're lucky to be alive." 

"Huh. That remains to be seen," he said, glancing around at the darkened forest and the Novamnean woman sitting across from him. She gave a quiet laugh at this. 

"You sound like my husband. He didn't eat copperfel, though. He just got old." The woman brushed a swath of grey hair back out of her eyes and tucked it in with the rest of the tail flowing down her back. She stared at him for a long moment, seeming to come to some decision. 

"I'm Rosavo," she said at last, and let the silence linger after, expectant. 

He'd almost died, and yet there were worse ways he could have made his first acquaintance in the empire. She hadn't looted his belongings and run off, but instead waited around for him to wake. Shared water. He nodded. Perhaps this was a good sign for the new life he might carve out here. 

"Raothan," he said, and after a pause decided to give her all of it. "Raothan Ga'ardahn." 

Rosavo let out a low whistle. "Now there's an Old World name if I ever heard one." She saw his look and put her palms up. "Only teasing. Forgive me. They always said my mouth would get me killed one day." 

One side of his face twitched at this, amusement lowering his hackles. He knew many with mouths like this Rosavo. Many he'd never see again. 

Raothan arranged himself into a sitting position mirroring his Novamnean benefactor and bent his elbow in half, reaching to work out the knots in his shoulder. Everything ached. 

No more white berries. Fuck. You're a grown man and someone has to tell you what not to eat. 

"So. You're a warrior." 

His head snapped up. Flames danced in the woman's keen, dark eyes and she stared at him, contemplative. 

"What do you know of such things?" Guard walls slammed back into place. This was supposed to be a new life, and the first person he meets drags the past into it? Did the gods make sport of him still? 

"My grandfather ran a mule route from Xenge. I remember some of his stories about men he drank with. Men who shave the sides of their heads, braid up part of the rest. Come from east of the Teeth were there's nothing but sand and scorpions." Her gaze penetrated and Raothan realized he'd underestimated the older woman. 

"Your grandfather drink a lot?" He was giving nothing up for free now, but exhaled in almost a snort and wore a smirk of his own. 

She sat there in her hide breeches and sleeved tunic looking unperturbed and capable. Her folded hands bore the marks of age and hard work, but the cant of her shoulders told him she was far from broken down. 

"I'm headed to Aquillo." She glanced at the lump at her side. "We're headed to Aquillo. You know where that is?" 

He shook his head. It was enough for him to speak the language. There was little else he knew about the Empire. Apart from at least one thing he shouldn't try to eat. 

"We'll run into the River Omeron in two or three days. Follow it down to the lake, then head south along the west side of the Tephnes most of the way to the sea." 

Raothan blinked at her, waiting for the relevant part. 

"Can't pay you, Ga'ardahn," she said at last. "But I can make sure you don't eat anything else that'll try to murder your insides. Keep you from wandering all over the plains, lost as a babe. Unless that's maybe what you want." 

"And me? What am I doing in this bargain?" He was very still. 

"You ride with us to Aquillo. Keep me and the boy from being killed by anything bigger and meaner than berries." 

His chin was on his knuckles now, as he evaluated her offer. The woman seemed harmless enough. And her travelling companion was only a boy. Maybe she could school him in other things a foreigner would need to know. 

"I've got a deed to a farm there," she said, as if to sweeten the deal. "We're going to grow kissmelon. I'll have some coin waiting for me when we get there. I know you're not a farmer, but I can take you on for a while. Maybe until you figure out what you're going to do next?" 

"How do you know I don't already have plans?" 

She raised her brows in a disbelieving challenge at this. He let out a breath through his nose and examined the ground for a long time before looking up. 

"All right, Rosavo," he said, meeting her eyes at last. "You got anything stronger than water?" 

The woman nodded and grew a wry grin that seemed to settle the matter. She turned and began to rummage around in a pack. "I do, but it's going to burn like the Illhallowed going down." 

There was crunching behind him then on the forest floor. The sound came from nowhere and was upon them before he could turn to see what it was. A snort and a hot huff of damp air blasted into his ear, and something massive and blunt shoved him almost over onto his side before he could catch himself. 

Rosavo stopped her digging to look his way at the sound, and her eyes grew wide. 

"Whaa ...?" 

"Don't panic, please," he said, putting a hand up as he pushed himself up on wobbly knees. 

"What in the name of ..." 

"He's a saigus," Raothan said, grabbing up the reins. "My saigus. Styrro." 

"A saigus." The woman drew out the word, breathy and full of wonder. Her eyes stayed fixed on the beast even as she brought out the second skin, her earlier world-weariness gone. "I didn't think they were—" 

"Noni, is that a monster?" The blanket lump had hatched into a boy with frazzled hair and eyes big and round as twin moons. 

"No, kid," he said, catching the full skin Rosavo tossed him this time, "still just a man." 

He downed a swig of the contents without even stopping to smell it first. 

Flames of Abra'an! 

It burned like she'd said it would. Lit him right up. He took another drink. 

There was much to learn about the empire east of Vrennic's Teeth, but some things were the same everywhere. 

Gods, that burns like home. 

* * * * 

"Do you fight with this bow, Raothan?" The little voice piped up from behind him on the saddle. 

"I have." 

"Ovar, I've told you to stop asking so many questions." Rosavo's horse bumped near as she admonished the boy. 

"There's no problem." He waved her off. Boys were always full of questions. 

"Will you teach me how?" 

Eight summers and the kid was already as persistent as the sun glittering into his eyes from the surface of the meandering river they followed. Styrro plodded along, carrying him and the boy, scaled snout whuffling and chomping through the high grass as he went. 

"Maybe we'll find the right kind of wood along the way," he said, "and I'll help you make your own. Mine'll be too big to teach you on—you won't even be able to draw it." 

"Did you hear that, Noni? Raothan's going to show me how to make a bow!" 

He saw the older woman smile at this, though she kept her eye on the trail. 

It was a fine, cloudless day, and late in the afternoon. This River Omeron was growing wider the further south they went, and Rosavo assured him it would run into a lake of the same name in perhaps another day. The pines of the forest still rose on both sides, but shied away from the shores to leave a broad swath of mostly dry grass on either side. Neither the saigus, nor Rosavo's horse were complaining. 

Raothan wasn't complaining either. He might just take this woman up on her offer, once they got to Aquillo. His old life was gone. Never coming back. This new one was standing here in front of him, naked and painted white, like a priestess of En Hata'al. Clean and new, bare but containing all possibilities. 

Yes. Everything new. 

"You have a game called bow and hoop on this side of the mountains, Ovar?" 

"No." He could feel the boy humph and cross his small arms behind him on the saddle, irritated there might be a game he didn't know about. Raothan chuckled at this. 

"Well when we make you a bow of your own, we'll play it. There's these three hoops, ka'apfe, and you take them—" 

"What did you call me?" 

"Ka'apfe?" he said, twisting his head around to make himself heard. "Means 'boy' where I'm from. But it's also a word a man would use to speak to a boy who is not his son, but he treats him like one." 

"Oh." Ovar scrunched around in the saddle, apparently satisfied with this response. "All right. So what do you do with the hoops then?" 

* * * * 

A spit with a pair of what Rosavo had told him were mountain hens turned over their night's campfire, their skins crisping and juice popping. He suspected they were almost ready and he would need to wake Ovar to eat. 

Rosavo had wandered down to the river to fill the waterskins. She'd offered to take his jhor and wash some of the stink out, as she'd put it, but he had nothing else to wear and wasn't interested in sitting around naked while it dried. It would have to wait until he could find something new, or perhaps have another one made in Aquillo. 

The woman was teaching him much. He'd learned a number of things that people considered impolite in Novamne. How not to speak to a woman if you didn't want her father's knife in your gut. That most people would probably call him 'vigra—short for Elvigra, which he was—but that nothing would really be meant by it: they just didn't see many foreigners over here. The Omeron was the empire's longest river, and it emptied into the Great Sea. No one trusted anyone from the capital, Protreo. "Pack off" was an insult, and he should avoid invoking the name of the Illhallowed, as it was considered a profanity among followers of the Divine, one of several flavors of religion this side of the Teeth. She'd told him that no one knew why The Nine Watchmen were called— 

A twig snapped. 

Rosavo stepped into the light of the fire, but with stiff legs and her chin up. 

A bulky arm wrapped around her shoulder, and it wasn't her arm. Then he saw the blade at her throat and a male face came into view over her shoulder. 

Raothan let go the spit. Another man appeared out of the night, followed by a woman. Nearly every hand courted a weapon. He went tense as a drawn catapult. 

"It's a shame you're not going to make it away from my fire alive," he said, eyeing the trio, making assessments based on stance, eye contact. Rosavo's gaze met his, tempered iron, fearless and ready. 

"Pack it, 'vigra," the one threatening Ovar's grandmother said. "Give us the boy, and we'll let you have your crone back." Raothan took in the curl of Rosavo's lip at this, and the way the second woman's knuckles flexed on the hilt of her blade. 

"What do you want with the boy?" He was stalling, racing through plans. 

"Young ones fetch the biggest price," said the leader. "Won't get shit for this greymother here. 'Sides. I bet you can put another kid in her. Least you can try." He leered and Raothan tried to be inconspicuous as he got his feet under himself. "Heard you Old World dogs'll put your cock into anyth—" 

"Don't give him a sow's tits," Rosavo growled out through clenched teeth, "Take Ovar and—" 

There was a metallic flash and a wide grin of claret opened below the chin of the first friend he'd made in his new home. His heart thundered into his throat as her hands clutched, useless, and the last pulses of her life. Rosavo, I'm sorry. Negotiations were at an end. 

Svir Ku'ul take you, you gutless fuck. 

There was no time to regret naming the forbidden name. He became Wrath. 

"AUA!" The sharp call was out of his mouth and everything happened at once. 

Hot ash and sparks showered into the leader's eyes as Roathan was on his feet and over the fire, swinging the blazing limb from the campfire before his companion slumped all the way to her knees, eyes aglass, seeing nothing forever. 

The man howled and his palms went to his face, but the Elvigra had already descended upon him, snatching up the dropped blade, putting a heel to the side of his knee. There was a dull crunch. The leader let out an animal yelp of pain and toppled to one side. 

Another edge weapon was arcing at him from his left as the second man came to his senses and attacked. Raothan ducked away from the blow just as the telltale clacking of saigus scales warned him to brace himself. 

There was a terrible thud and the ground shook in a ripple as Styrro's massive clubbed tail boomed onto the earth. It was enough to put the thief off balance and Raothan darted in, jamming his borrowed dagger up under Novamnean ribs. The worthless cur let out a caw of pain and went down, trying to keep the gush of red in with splayed hands. 

He whirled on his heel to find the leader trying to crawl, belly to the ground, away from the hornet's nest he'd stirred. 

"Oh no you don't, you pig fucker." 

In a stride Raothan was there, leaning over, a shin on the ground and a foot on the man's ruined knee. There was a bandit chin in his right palm and a temple in his left. He wrenched his hands in opposite directions, snapping their gristly burden along the way. 

When he looked up from the carnage, the woman stood staring, open-mouthed, either at him and the violent destruction he'd wrought, at the towering saigus, or both. She took a step backward. 


After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 01



"Go," he said, as he came to his feet, looming in her direction. She only stood there, looking small and horrified now that her company had fallen. 

"You want to die like your friends?" He was shouting now. There might never be enough rage. "Get the fuck out of here! GO!" 

Something in her seemed to wake from her trance. She turned and ran. Tripped and fell. Scrambled up, looked back, and ran some more, until the night swallowed her up and he was alone. 

Wait ... 

He turned around and his eyes swept the camp. 

"Ovar?" 

J'rt Thi's ever-loving blood. 

"Ovar." He stepped around the fire, cautious, listening for any sound. 

Gods, kid, please be— 

A small, dark head of hair appeared from behind Styrro's shoulder. Ovar made a tentative move out into the open, his young eyes taking in sights he would not be able to unsee. 

Some fucking guardian he'd turned out to be. 

* * * * 

The morning light was thin and grey as honed steel, and just as unforgiving. Raothan brought a small bough carrying the last of the campfire's fluttering life low, ready to touch it to the sleeve of her tunic. 

"What are you doing?" Ovar's voice held a panic. 

"I am helping her return to J'rt Thi's blessed earth, where she came from." He looked over at the boy and saw desperation in the red-rimmed eyes. 

"You can't burn her," he protested, sounding close to tears. "You have to bury her in the ground so she can go rest with the Divine. With Mama." 

Raothan saw the boy then. He was on some knife edge of composure, teetering. 

This is your fault, Ga'ardahn. 

He set the pine bough aside on the ground and stood to stamp it out. 

"All right, ka'apfe," he said, "we'll bury her. Help me dig." 

The kid—no, Ovar, he reminded himself, for whom he was now responsible, it seemed—was already wounded enough. There would be no need to rub salt in it by refusing whatever backward funeral rites these Novamneans practiced. 

There were no spades: they would have to use their hands. Gods be praised the earth near the river was soft. 

Ovar sniffed and knelt with him in the dirt, and they began to dig. 

* * * * 

A woman headed in the other direction driving a pair of oxen before an empty cart had confirmed for Raothan that the twinkle of warm light growing in the dusk ahead was indeed Aquillo. 

Ovar rode alone on Rosavo's horse, competent in the saddle even at that age, as he would expect the kin of someone like her to be. Raothan plodded alongside, rolling with Styrro's less bouncing gait. 

"Your grandmother didn't know anyone here?" 

"No." 

"Hmm. I don't know who to talk to about this deed." He'd transferred the land rights papers from Rosavo's pack to his own on that stark morning when they'd put her in the ground. The foreign hand scrawled on the deed was Novamnean, and though he did a passable job of speaking their tongue, he'd never learned to read it. 

You'll need to remedy that quick-like, Ga'ardahn. 

"Noni said we were going to see the Seat." 

"The Seat?" Strange bird calls carried across the fields around them. He was a long way from Elvigraath. 

"The Seat," Ovar repeated, staring over at him like he'd said he didn't know what the moon was. "He's in charge of the village." 

"Ah." Raothan was going to need help in this new place. And for now, he was going to have to get it from a boy. 

They rode in silence for a while, the evening purpling toward nightfall and the lights winking closer. From what he could still make out of the land on both sides of the road, it was becoming more cultivated as they drew near Aquillo. 

"Raothan." 

"Yeah." 

"How many summers do you have?" 

"Twenty-eight." It was always so important, when you were a child, to know these things. Ovar appeared to chew on this information for a moment. 

"Mama only had twenty-two." 

Raothan exhaled and did not know what to say to this. 

"Why did you think some people only get twenty-two summers?" the boy said at last. "And other people get to be really old?" 

Damn, kid. He was going to need to find someone to help with Ovar, once they had the land matters settled. Raothan knew next to nothing about raising children, and he was sure as dawn there would be a thousand more questions like that last one. 

"I don't know ka'apfe," he said. "I don't know." 

More silence. 

"Do you miss your grandmother?" He looked over at his diminutive charge. 

"No." 

Raothan's eyebrows went up. "No?" 

"Well," he said, as if trying to get his young mind around the thought, "Noni told me when you die, you go live with the Divine. And you're happy. So ... she's happy. Right?" 

"Right." He gave the only acceptable response. Children were far more resilient than people gave them credit for being. Ovar slipped right on to the next topic, satisfied with the simple reassurance of an Elvigra he barely knew. 

"You think they know bow and hoop in Aquillo?" 

Raothan grunted a laugh. "Don't know. Maybe we'll have to teach them." 

* * * * 

Chapter One 

The Vanslaang flows to the Sea, 

Her brother and sister waves receive there her rushing tidings, 

But upstream the holy temples lay, their lights a beacon to spirit. 

It is for man to pole against the current. 

~The Book of Vansthi, translated from Old Elvigra 

Raothan stood at the back of the long meeting hall, arms crossed over his chest, shoulders leaning against the stout column behind him. The lines of his brow and mouth warred between disinterest and disapproval. These people had no idea what they were talking about and they were about to create trouble for themselves where none existed. 

"They said there was a division, Loresto." Another well-meaning bald pate stood up from the crowd. "That the general sides with the church, and that soon we'll be made to—" 

"We are aware of the rumors, Frazhan," a tired-looking man, one of seven behind a table at the head of the room, replied, "but we cannot simply raise a flag and declare ourselves rebels on a foundation of drunken gossip." 

"They were soldiers," another voice piped up. The word 'soldiers' echoed around the room to the nodding of heads. "Surely we can—" 

"We can what?" Loresto said, flattening a palm on the table. "Take part in a rebellion we don't even know is real? No one at this table agrees with what the church is up to any more than the rest of you, but we're not going to go leaping forward, spears out and eyes closed, just so the Imperial Army can mow us down like so much grass for our trouble." 

"You're all a bunch of cowards." This from a woman bouncing an oblivious babe on her hip as she stood near an open window, her hair lit up in a frazzled golden halo in the afternoon light. "Why would the soldiers lie to us? We should join them now while we've still a village left that can speak for itself." 

More hearty approvals rang around the room and some of the faces behind the table turned to cast frustrated looks at each other. Many of the people gathered on the benches began to talk at once. 

"... should fight to keep them ..." 

"... and what will be next? You said yourself ..." 

"... are we supposed to raise our children if they ..." 

"... you know half the senate is bought up ..." 

The volume grew along with the discomfort of the leaders behind the table. People gestured and pointed fingers. The babe on the woman's hip started to bawl. In a few moments, if this kept up, faces would be red and spittle would fly. 

"Just send someone to the city." 

The voice was not loud, but the bass of it carried and shushed the crowd. Heads turned to look toward the back of the hall. 

Fuck. Why did I open my mouth? Too late now. 

"What was that?" Loresto said, trying to latch on to anything new that might calm the gathered crowd. 

"I said"—he cleared his throat—"Just send someone to the city." 

Many pairs of eyes blinked at him. And well they might. It was a rare day he bothered to sit in on these meetings, let alone speak in one. 

"We have traders going back and forth to the capital all the time, don't we?" Raothan levered himself away from the support at his back, taking a step further into the hall against his better judgment. "Can't someone savvy enough go fishing for information the next time they cart their wares out to the cliffs? Surely between a city and port the size of Protreo, we can find out whether we've been hearing tales from the bottom of a mug or if there's real cause for concern." 

He let his eyes skim around the room. These people had to see sense. Why was he the only one who knew which end of an arrow had the point around here? And why did they always have to stare at him like that? Hadn't he lived here long enough? 

"Yes," a rotund man said, seizing control from the far right end of the table and using it to steer the room away from an uproar. "Yes, we should send someone to learn from the source. Raothan is all too right. Tarvus! You're turning your wheels east in a week or two, yes?" 

The din rose again in the meeting hall, but this time it rushed with the purposeful burble of plans brewing, of cooperation. Tension eased from the air and now that eyes were elsewhere, to his great relief, Raothan slipped sideways out the open doors and removed himself from the center of events. 

You slid shy of that one, you maniac. 

At least they hadn't decided to send his oh-so-clever carcass to Protreo. That was the last place he wanted to be. The woman with the wailing child was right. They were cowards. Or he was, at least. 

The tide of voices behind him ebbed as he descended the steps and moved off into the market. Aquillo was large enough to justify a central area for commerce, but not enough to warrant any selling structure more permanent than an elaborate tent, despite occasional flurries of planning and dreaming from the merchants. Too many of them moved in and out too quickly to bother settling down. This was a village one paused at to replenish supplies, a rest for horses and oxen on the way to the capital, and little else. The only people who could boast more than one generation in Aquillo were farmers. Like Raothan. Only he couldn't even claim that. 

It was the hottest time of day, some two or three hours before sunset, and Raothan watched merchants mopping their brows from under canvas awnings and making the grudging effort to fan lazy flies away from tables and crates of wares. The time for harvest was nearly upon them, and the fly problem would only get worse. 

The market was all but barren with so many people away trying to sound important in the meeting hall, but Raothan still found himself having to dodge a shrieking pack of children as they tore through the street after a yipping dog. They appeared to be the only ones enjoying themselves in the heat. 

A beautiful rasping melody grew louder as he approached a tent of dark grey. Its flaps were up on all sides: an invitation to any small breeze that might happen by, and the song of a keen edge over whetstone rounded out its last chorus as he stepped into the shade. 

"Lysetta," he greeted the bladesmith, "You have my shears?" 

"And a fine afternoon to you as well, 'vigra," the woman said with a smirk as she turned to size him up. 

"You know I hate it when you call me that." 

"Well," she said with a shrug, sliding an oiled rag over a capable looking dagger, "It's what you are. You're Elvigra. There's no hiding it." 

"Not anymore, I'm not." He was tired of having this debate, but he shrugged it off, knowing the bladesmith bore him no malice. Lysetta was one of those people who spoke plain and dealt fair, and these were the reasons he brought his blades to her in the first place. That and he had no desire to spend coin on a whetstone of his own. Not when he could stretch his legs walking into the village and pass some of his time enjoying an eyeful of the bladesmith's trim waist and snug breeches while they made their trade. 

She rummaged elbow-deep in one of her standing trunks before coming out with a shortweave sack. 

"Consider not letting them get quite so rough before bringing them in next time," she said, tipping the two protruding handles in his direction. 

"You know you like it a bit rough sometimes," he said as he slid the two silver crowns across a slim bargaining table. She gave him a rude gesture to go with her smile and eyed the coin before slipping it into a purse belted to her hip.  

"You can always make payment in kissmelon if you want, Raothan," she said, making the effort to call him by his name, as she knew he preferred. "Your crop has made it to market in better shape than Frazhan's for at least three summers now." 

"I know," he said, tracing the edge of a hatchet she had displayed on the table with an idle finger, "and I just may, but they're not ready to come off the vine yet. Maybe another week. Ten days." 

"Need any help? Myrella's boys could stand to do something besides loitering." 

"No, I'll be all right. I like working by myself anyway." 

She was packing her equipment up into the trunks now. It seemed she'd been waiting for him to show up and collect his shears before making a day of it. He couldn't blame her in this heat, but then the Novamneans were the ones who insisted on wearing so many clothes. He'd stick to his sandals and his jhor regardless of the odd looks they earned him. 

Old habits die hard, eh Ga'ardahn? 

"Will you be walking back tonight?" Lysetta said, turning to face him again and tucking a length of dark hair behind her ear. There was a subtle straightening of her back, an unspoken offer in the way she presented her curves. He shook his head. 

"Yes. Tonight." The two of them had shared a bed on a handful of occasions before, and if he were in a better mood, he might have taken her up on her invitation again, claw marks down his back be damned. But that misstep in the meeting hall had him wanting to be as far away from the village center as possible. Fucking politics. He should've never drawn attention to himself that way. 

"Hmm. Perhaps next time then," she said, leaning forward to rest the heels of her palms on the table, showing off the cleavage he'd miss out on if he insisted on leaving tonight. He sighed. 

"Maybe next time." 

Raothan punctuated his agreement by swiping his fingertips across her wrist and giving her a reassuring smile as he turned to go. 

There was nothing wrong with Lysetta. She was pleasant to look at with her dark hair and olive skin, the same as most people this side of the mountains. Some men here would find her a bit brash or forward, but he made very little of Novamnean ideas of how a woman should act. 

There was something wrong with him, however, and so he pointed himself and his newly-sharpened shears in the direction of his farm instead of toward the bed of the more-than-willing bladesmith. 

"Have a good night, Raothan," she said to his back as he moved off. 

"Good night, Lysetta," he called over his shoulder. 

* * * * 

The road out of Aquillo toward Raothan's farm took him past the home of the Village Seat and, sure as dawn, Loresto was returning with his wife from the meeting. The older man gave him a friendly wave. 

Of course. A fine job of getting home early to avoid this you've done. 

Raothan returned the gesture of greeting but held his pace. If he kept walking, perhaps the Seat would take the hint and let him be. 

"Hoi! Raothan!" 

Or not. The man increased his stride to catch up, and Raothan resigned himself to stop and wait. For all he might want to be alone at the moment, there was no call to be rude to the Seat. 

"Afternoon, Loresto. Or evening," he said, squinting into the deep golden slant of the sun. "Cadrea." He turned a respectful nod down at the Seat's wife. The woman was perilously short, but her shrewd, dark eyes saw right over the top of any nonsense aimed her way, and would call it out in the bargain. 

"That was a sensible thing you said back there in the meeting, Raothan." The praise made him want to turn and run. No. Not this. "And you knew to bring it up just when the crowd was getting out of hand," the ever-harried Loresto continued, brushing grey hair back over a high forehead. "They were making plans just as you left—don't think I didn't see you duck out, my friend—plans to send Tarvus to Protreo to ferret out truth about whether there's actually some sort of rebellion happening." 

Raothan shrugged and looked at the ground, a ridiculous posture for someone his size. "I shouldn't have said anything." 

"But of course you should have. Those people were working themselves into a nice little mob before you spoke up. I tell you, Raothan, they listen to you. I know I've said this before, but—" 

"Then there's no need to say it again." The words came out gruff, harder than he'd intended. 

"—but have you reconsidered standing for a seat at the Table?" 

"No I have not." 

"But they would listen to you, Raothan. You would get the votes, I know you would." 

"People don't want some foreigner trying to muscle his way in and run things, Loresto." It seemed today would be chock full of debates he was tired of having. His patience was wearing thin. 

"They don't care about that," Loresto said with a dismissive puff of air. "Most of them couldn't even point in the general direction of Elvigraath. All that is meaningless to them. Flood and damnation, man, you've lived here for, what? Ten summers?" 

"Twelve," Cadrea said. It was wise not to forget about the diminutive woman. 

"Either way," the Seat continued, "you're one of us. Nobody thinks any different and we could certainly use your head at the Table, especially with Ephram thinking about retiring." 

"Loresto, you know how I—" 

"Why don't you settle down with Lysetta? Fill her full of babies? It's plain enough she'd have you." The ever-blunt Cadrea wasted no time with social niceties. How could a woman whose head wasn't of a height with his chest on a tall day make him feel as though she'd backed him into a corner while he was standing on a sunny, open roadside? 

"All right, all right, you two," he said, making a gesture of mock surrender with his hands and taking a step backward to let himself breathe. "Loresto"—he turned to the Seat—"I have no interest in the Table. At all. I want to work my harvest, sell off my crop, and maybe come into town once a week for a drink and a game of bow and hoop, and that's all. Simple." The older man opened his mouth to protest, but Raothan went on. 

"And Cadrea: you may be right. Maybe Lysetta would have me. But what do I have to give her? Do you know how many summers I'll have seen this year?" He waited for her eyebrows to raise with curiosity before continuing. "Forty. Forty summers. I'm of no age to be getting her with child, and leaving her wanting when I'm old and bent in half. I can't do that to her." 

The Seat and his wife glanced at each other and then back to him, stymied. Loresto made a last attempt for the day. 

"Raothan—" 

Raothan tilted his chin toward his chest and held up a warning palm. The older man let the rest of his sentence fizzle out. 

"Please. Just let me tend to my crop. You've both been very kind, and I can never repay you for all you've done for me over the years, but please ... you must know by now I'm not looking for this sort of attention." He let his eyes move from one disappointed face to the other. Loresto sighed. 

"I know, my friend," he said, taking his wife's hand, "and you know I'm still going to try again every few months, out of sheer stubbornness." 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 01



"Oh, I know you will." Raothan plastered on his best false smile. "And I'll keep refusing because we both know that's not why I came here." 

"Do we?" Cadrea put her question to no one in particular. 

Every year, the same conversation. It was time for him to go. Raothan shielded his eyes with the side of his hand and made a show of observing the sun's height over the horizon. 

"Well. I'd best be on if I want to make it back before sundown." 

"I don't see how you're going to make it now," Loresto said with a huff of disbelief. 

"It's these long 'vigra legs," he said, slapping his own thigh in self-deprecation, "I take big steps. I'll be home before your dinner gets cold." 

The older man shook his head. 

"As you wish, Raothan." 

He resisted the urge to snort. They had no idea what he wished. 

"Then good evening Loresto. Cadrea." Raothan touched fingertips to his brow in a respectful farewell. "I'll be sure to stay out of the meeting hall next time." 

His last comment earned him a long-suffering grimace from the Seat, but Raothan was already making his way down the road again, shears on his shoulder as his stride began to eat up the distance between Aquillo and his farm. Witty remarks aside, he'd be lucky to make it there before dark, not if he made his usual stop. 

Outside the village proper, but before the land gave way to farms, there was a place where some of the few large trees in the flatlands grew. Beneath spreading branches, there was a low stone fence, and Raothan saw himself within its perimeter. Inside the fence was a burial yard. 

He found the same marker where it stood every time and stood there looking down. No one else ever heard the quiet tune he hummed on that spot each time he paused on his way home. 

Six years. The boy had grown into a young man, full of enthusiasm and charm. He had friends. Went out and practiced the bow with them. Rode horses with them. Sometimes they explored. And sometimes they made trouble. And sometimes horses got spooked by brush snakes, and sometimes there were inconvenient rocks in the dry riverbed waiting to meet a bent neck on the way down. 

Sometimes people only got fourteen summers. 

It wasn't so hard now. More numb than anything else. 

He'd asked to be let alone, and now the solitary walk past scattered farmhouses of earthen brick and fields dotted with the bright pink rinds of nearly ripe kissmelon gave him just that. It was him and his thoughts, and lately he was beginning to agree that Lysetta would have indeed been far better company. 

* * * * 

A low house waited for Raothan, slumbering against the purpling sky as he cleared the modest rise and stepped back into his own parcel of land. There were no lights burning: he was the only one who lived there anymore. A single room and a simple life waited for him inside. It was the life he wanted. Or at least that's what he kept telling himself. 

On his approach, a broad scaled head popped up from its grazing. Tiny ears on a massive body piqued in a curious silhouette and chewing stopped. He gave a lilting whistle and called to the beast. 

"Styrro. It's me." 

The neck bent back to the ground, back to eating. Raothan shook his head. Typical saigus. 

And of course, once he closed the distance between himself and the constantly-foraging mount, he saw that the creature was crunching away, merry as you please, at an unripened kissmelon, still on the vine. He gave the beast a half-hearted thump on the shoulder. 

"Those are supposed to go for sale in the market, you big rock-ox. They're not even ripe yet. I hope you get a belly ache." 

The saigus grunted and flapped his ears at his rider's admonition. Tough, it seemed to say, if you wanted to watch what I ate, you should've stayed home today. Or taken me with you. 

"I could trade you in for a horse, you know. A horse I could take to the village without all the pointing and staring." 

This earned him a round of flatulence and the stamp of a hind foot. It was true, though. The average person this side of the mountains had never seen a saigus, and so arrived at the conclusion that they were a myth. On the occasions where he had a real need to take Styrro into the village, there were hordes of children asking him every question there ever was, and nervous adults herding the young ones back and giving him the eye as though he were going to a deliberate effort to make trouble by showing up with his unusual mount. None of that mattered now, though, and he was tired of worrying about what they thought. 

Raothan let the animal graze. At this point he cared little about the harvest, despite his words to the contrary. 

He made his way into the one-room house and leaned the shears against the wall beside the door. There was an oil lamp on the shelf above his narrow bed, but he didn't bother to light it. What would he do with light if he had it? He had no books, nor did he have a desire to read. And he no longer had anyone to whom he could write. He could work on making arrows, he supposed, but the thought of doing so carried some unnamable futility with it and he rejected this task with the others. 

His back met the straw mattress with a whump and he stared up at the darkened ceiling. 

What are you doing here, Ga'ardahn? 

Yes. Here he was again with this thought. It had been his companion as he lay in his bed and watched the night fold over the land for some months now. What was he doing? 

He was a man trapped between two worlds. Elvigraath was no longer his home. He hadn't been welcome on that side of the mountains for more than ten summers and there would be no going back. Not in this lifetime. 

Novamne, Aquillo, well ... it was as 'home' as home would get for him. He lived here. Maybe 'subsisted' would be a better word. For the most part, the locals accepted his presence. Ovar had helped with that, in those first years. There were people who perhaps considered him a friend. Loresto and Cadrea. Lysetta. But some part of him knew he would always be 'that 'vigra' to them, as much as they sought his affections or even advice in village meetings.  

And who were they to him? He didn't invite them to sit by his hearth, such as it was. He had no family. No sons or daughters to marry theirs, to cement a bond. When he was gone, no one would mourn for more than a day or two and life would go on. Someone else would buy up his fields. New boots would walk behind a plow to ready the soil for the next year's kissmelon planting, and the earth would sing the same songs and know no different. 

Raothan ran a set of calloused fingertips back along the side of his head, shaven up to the left temple as he had no right to keep it any more. Another old habit from an old life. He couldn't go back and he couldn't go forward. 

Oh, there's a way forward, but we've been down that road before and it leads to disaster, doesn't it Hast Kriga'al? 

Even his own thoughts sneered at him. He could try making something of himself here in Aquillo. Accept Loresto's advice and try for a seat at the Table. He might even win the votes—he could talk a good game if the moment called for it. But after that? No. His being in charge of anything more demanding than holding his own cock steady to take a late night piss was a terrible idea. He'd proven that, and more times over than he cared to think about. 

When it came right down to it, he was serving no purpose. Not for himself, nor for anyone else. 

So what then, Ga'ardahn? What are you going to do about it? 

A fluttering groan came from outside, breaking into his thoughts. Styrro was snoring. 

Fuck. 

He'd forgotten to tie the beast up for the night. With a low grunt of aggravation, he swung his legs back off the bed and pushed himself up. He crossed the room first to duck his head out the window and see where the saigus had fallen asleep. There was no light to speak of outside and he blinked into the darkness. 

Was it the Silent Moon already? 

Raothan moved to the door and stepped outside again, eyes crossing from one edge of the sky to another. No moon to speak of. He'd have to go manage Styrro in full dark. 

It was a still late summer's night. There was no wind and the only sound as he made his way around the side of the house was the crush of his sandals into the dirt. That and the saigus's intermittent snores. 

There was once a time, he thought, where he wouldn't have had to look outside to know where the moon was in its cycle. Regimented matters like the passage of time, the division of supplies, were as much a part of the fabric of his day as breathing. Now, without objectives, without ambitions or any real worries beyond the next harvest, the days and weeks slid by like the events of a drunken feast night. 

He worked the rope around the support post with blind fingers, deciding to tie up his mount where it had fallen asleep under the awning at the side of the house rather than wake the animal and try to coax it to move. It was best not to attempt to rouse a saigus once it had gone to sleep for the night. Many a novice rider in Elvigraath had learned the hard way and walked around nursing broken ribs and collarbones to show for it. 

He patted Styrro on the side of a plated shoulder as he secured the rope. There were times the saigus was the only thing keeping him here. And the level of his detachment these last few weeks had prompted him to rationalize away even that last tether. This was a herd animal with an innate sense of direction: a beast which, if left alone, would find its way back to the nearest herd, even if that meant a journey all the way back to Elvigraath. 

Raothan thought these dismal thoughts again now, as he stood under the dome of indifferent stars, their light brighter tonight for lack of a moon. The Silent Moon, people called it, both in Novamne and in Elvigraath. A time when the bright disc gave no light, so that other voices in the heavens could have a chance to speak. The last time he'd paid any attention to the moon, he— 

The last time. 

The Last Moon. Raothan ... 

He inhaled, full and deep, as the idea took him. 

His people had gods. Gods he was supposed to believe in, but for the most part he paid them lip service and little else. Even less since his arrival in Novamne. Still, there were some rituals he had followed—had even insisted other men follow—out of tradition or superstition or both. Now here was one of them, one he'd never imagined in a thousand summers he'd have any personal use for, staring him square in the face. 

The Challenge of the Last Moon. 

The sky seemed further and blacker than it ever had tonight, and Raothan suppressed a laugh, lest he wake the sleeping saigus. Here he was, a man who had no use for the gods and little faith to speak of, considering laying down the Challenge. Ask someone he didn't believe in to give him answers to the most important question he'd ever ask. 

It makes perfect sense. If you're insane. Which I just might be. 

But in a way, it did make sense. Years of training and repetition had fixed the process in his head: this is what a person did if he decided he might want to end his own life. This was the necessary cooling-off period to let a man assess his circumstances before committing to anything rash. Even if he didn't believe, the Challenge provided the excuse and the timeframe to wait. And see. 

He was already stripping off the top half of his jhor, letting the loose fabric fall over his belt and baring himself to the waist. Now there was a mission, something to do instead of standing around waiting for the world to happen, and he leapt at it with an eagerness that almost frightened him. 

Raothan was back in the house in a handful of strides, and across the small room in a breath. He lifted one of the still-glowing coals from the hearth with a pair of wood-handled tongs and was outside again before he could tell himself he was being ridiculous. 

There was no reason to go far. He had everything he needed right at his feet. 

Raothan fell to his knees under the starry shroud of night. The gestures, the words, came back to him across time and memory. He spat in his right palm and took up the coal in his left before falling forward to support himself on both hands in the loose earth. The coal sizzled against his skin. 

Fuck that hurts! Dammit! 

He knew it would hurt, though. It was part of the process, and it was begun so he might as well finish it. 

"Abra'an feel my pain." He pressed the hand above the coal further into the dirt, growling as it seared his flesh. 

"Vansthi heal my wounds." There was nothing to feel on the palm where he'd spit, but it was the water he needed for the ritual. 

He took a deep breath of the night air. "Alfta'an give me life when I come." 

And dug his fingers into the soil. "J'rt Thi take me back when I go." 

He closed his eyes. "En Hata'al: I am you and you are me." 

He opened them and was silent for the last of the six names, which by necessity remained unspoken. The pain in his hand was making his eyes water, but he soldiered on with the words. 

"I am Raothan Ga'ardahn, son of Ufthan Ga'ardahn, and I take up the Challenge of the Last Moon. I am ready to hurt and to heal, to come and to go, to be all and nothing again. I belong to myself and to you, but my use for this life is done." 

The words settled on him in a leaden blanket of grim realization. It was true. He had no further use for himself. He pressed on. 

"If you, my gods, have further use for me in this body, this life, I ask for you to make it known to me before the moon shines again as it does this night." 

The moon, of course, was not shining at all, but the meaning of the words was the same: the gods had a month to show him otherwise. If they did nothing he would be free to do as he wished. To end it. 

"I will look for your signs and heed them if they appear. You will accept my return if they do not." 

He sat back on his heels, raising the now burned palm to the night sky. 

"Let the mark be my promise." 

I can't believe I'm doing this. He took a breath. Said the final words. 

"I will stay my hand for One. Last. Moon." 

There. It was done. 

It was a simple ritual. Far less formal than most where the gods of his people were concerned, but this had made it easier to teach to soldiers. 

Raothan felt no different. This didn't surprise him. He expected no answers, no blazing lights in the sky or prophetic dreams. The month would give him time to decide if this was truly what he wanted to do and perhaps put his affairs in order. That was all. 

The only thing he could possibly claim now, as he was climbing back to his feet, was the feeling of some invisible weight lifted from his shoulders. The pressure was gone. There would be an end to this, and that end was in sight. 

The tiny house seemed just a whisper larger now as he went back inside. The rough bed cradled his tired body again. 

A month. 

If nothing changed by the next Silent Moon, he was going to do it. 

Raothan Ga'ardahn, farmer and failure, was going to kill himself. 

* * * *



After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 02



Author's Note: Hello again! A much shorter note this time: this story is going to be pretty epic in scope (at least compared to my other stuff), with a broad cast of characters, each with their own agenda. It's a big empire and they don't all live in the same place! This chapter leaves Roathan in Aquillo for a bit, while I introduce you to another major player. CH 3 will be the same: you'll meet some more new people and finally some sex! We'll meet up with our hero again in CH 4. 

Again, thank you to AwkwardMD and Waterburn for their awesome feedback and editing. 

Hope you enjoy! 

~Eris 

* * * * 

Chapter Two 

To walk the path of the Pattern is to see that All walk the path of the Pattern. 

~Taunai saying 

* * * * 

At the last adjustment to her foothold, a spray of pebbles rained down the face of the mountain, bringing an indignant cry from below. 

"Ssst! Watch what you do up there!" 

Niquel turned her head again to look down and estimate the location of her next drop and called out to Maudri: "Perhaps you should watch what I do up here!" Her friend was the size of an insect from this height. She let the handful of furry stems go and watched them fall the long, silent way down, glad it was the flowers and not her. 

It was a long-running joke among the Taunai to ask youngsters if they wanted to go and collect hori poppy for the healers. They'd agree, of course, eager to please their elders. Then they'd actually begin the task and discover what it entailed. No one volunteered to do it twice and, what was more, they'd keep the nature of the task to themselves in order to enjoy the looks on the next generation's faces when it they discovered it anew. 

The hori poppy, whose seeds the healers crushed for their pain-numbing oil, was a useful and sought-after plant. And because J'sau Jeqnam had a sense of humor, it only grew in some of the highest, woebegone crevices on the sheerest faces of the mountains. 

This was the twenty-second time Niquel had volunteered to collect the hori. 

"Just one more and I will come down," she hollered to Maudri. "I can see another one, and it is very close." 

She shifted her body to the left with sure toe and finger holds on the rock. Hugging the mountain, letting the stone feel her trust and love, Niquel stretched out her arm to the cluster of bright red flowers that was just above shoulder height. Her fingertips sought and strained. A trickle of sweat slid between her shoulder blades. The bright blossoms nodded their heads in encouragement beneath the eye-watering glare of a noonday sun. 

Just a little more ... 

Her fingertips brushed a fuzzy leaf. 

Just a ... little ... 

She had it. The grouping of stems was in her hand and, with a crude yank, she separated them from the rock, tucking her arm back in to her chest to center her weight. 

"Here is the last one!" she said, glancing down to aim her drop. There were two heads below her now. Someone else had joined Maudri on the ledge. It was difficult to tell from this height, but it looked like a man. Probably Zidjhal, come to flirt with her friend. Niquel dropped the last of the poppies and watched with satisfaction as they fwacked Maudri on the shoulder and made her jump. Niquel smirked and began her descent. 

She is useless over that boy. And he follows her everywhere. They should just make the water promise and have done with it. 

The heat of the sun was perhaps too much on her back this day, with all of her usual layers of furs and skins, and by the time she reached the relative safety of the ledge again, Niquel was ready to be away from people so she could wash up. 

She pushed her body away from the rock face and jumped the last half-body length to the ledge. As she'd surmised, there was Zidjhal, making Maudri blush and trip over what was, at any other time, a rude and fast tongue. 

"You are crazy," Zidjhal said, eyeing Niquel and giving a low whistle. "I heard you kept volunteering for hori duty, but I thought everyone was having a morning's piss at me." 

Niquel shrugged. 

"We all live on the mountain. We all have to climb it. What is one side, even if it is a little steeper than the others?" 

"Better you than me," he said, looking at the near-vertical expanse of rock and shaking his head. "The Elders are calling a gathering. They sent me to bring you back." 

"A formal gathering?" Maudri said, "Or just someone droning on about this year's hunt?" 

"Formal. I think." 

Niquel made a noise of irritation in her throat. "I do not suppose there will be time for me to wash?" 

"I do not think so," said Zidjhal. "I was told to come straight back with you. They are waiting now." 

"Rrgh. Someone had better be in the middle of a transition, I swear." 

"Niquel!" Maudri squeaked and looked to Zidjhal with eyes that begged forgiveness. "Do not be disrespectful." 

"Since when have you known me to be otherwise?" She flipped a dismissive hand over her shoulder and stayed off any further arguments by starting back down the mountain. The other two could do nothing but follow or be left standing on the ledge. 

* * * * 

It was one of the warmest days of the year on the mountain: only the parts of the ground in the shade still sheltered piles of snow. Perhaps not so hot as to start removing layers of clothing, but enough to where a body might push back a fur-lined hood, and gloves could come off at leisure. 

The trio were threading their way back down through the trees, making good time toward whatever gathering the Elders had called. 

"Do you know what the lowlanders call this?" Niquel said to Maudri, in a test to see if she could draw her friend's attention from the firm backside of Zidjhal as he loped down the mountain. 

"What is 'this'?" 

"The Starlys." 

"Oh. No. What do they call it?" Maudri was humoring her, as she so often did when it came no Niquel's obsession with lowlander trivia. 

"They call it the Harrelwood." 

"Harrelwood?" Zidjhal said without looking back. His steps jarred his voice and he was louder than he needed to be, as usual. "That is an ugly name. No wonder they never come up here. I would not either if we called it that." 

Niquel made a face. 

"They do not come up into the mountains because they are afraid of us." 

"Pssh," he said, dismissing her while plodding on, "They should be afraid of themselves. Barbarians. The stories alone of things that have happened when we dare send someone down to trade are enough to give the children nightmares." 

"Oh!" Niquel said. "Zidjhal has reminded me, Maudri. I wanted to tell you of the dream I had this morning. It was the strangest of them yet. I was—" 

"Here we are," said Zidjhal. 

There would be no more speaking of dreams, as least for a while. Not that Maudri looked at all dismayed at the interruption. 

Jeqnamset appeared out of the forest like a dream, or at least that was how it would seem to outsiders. One moment it wasn't there, and then it was. A person could traverse the mountain and see nothing but trees, trees, and more trees, and then, within two steps: a settlement. Out of nowhere. 

The Taunai did not extend the boundaries of their largest village out into the surrounding landscape in a gradual manner the way the lowlanders did. Every dwelling and structure kept within a tight perimeter so that no more of the forest was disturbed than necessary. And so that it was harder to find for anyone who didn't already know where to look. 

On any normal day, the gardens and outdoor basins would have been a busy hive of activity. Her people would be up to the sorts of summer tasks that either required sunlight, fresh air, or were prone to filling the spaces inside the mountain, where most everyone made their homes, with unpleasant odors. Preparation of meat, tanning, and the like. There was no one outside now. Not even playing children. Everyone must already be in the step hall. 

It must be a formal gathering then. 

Zidjhal turned to Maudri and swept up her hand in a dramatic gesture, placing it over the center of his chest. 

"I must go to my brothers," he said, adopting an uncharacteristic formal air. "May I find you this evening?" 

"You may," said Maudri, grinning from ear to ear. Her friend closed the distance between herself and Zidjhal and leaned in. 

Niquel cleared her throat. The two backed apart and her friend rolled her eyes at the interruption, but not before Zidjhal was able to deposit a kiss to the back of her hand as a farewell before striding off toward the gathering. It mattered little to Niquel what the pair of them did, but she did not need to see it with her own eyes. 

"Do you think he will ask you for the promise?" Niquel said as they watched him disappear between shelters. 

"It seems he might. But Azro has told me that I may ask him if he hesitates for longer than the next moon." 

Azro has also told her to wait about a dozen times while we work on Zidjhal's courage. The voice of Vodi, her guide, felt like a chuckle within her thoughts. Niquel smirked to herself and they made their own way toward the step hall. 

I do not doubt that at all, Vodi Namat, she said in silent reply. On another note, do you know if this gathering will be worth my time? I am tempted to skip the beginning just to go wash up. Maybe find something to fill my belly. 

Oh, this will be a very interesting gathering indeed, Niquel Nazav. The knowing smile in his words had her breathing out through her nose in an anticipatory huff as they came around the pillars that marked the entrance to the common area of the mountain rooms. 

Splendid. Not only did he imply she had no time to clean up, but the feel of his words told her something would be different after she had heard whatever it was the Elders had to say. 

Perhaps just a small hint, my friend? she asked him. 

A sense of more secretive smiles. Of course. He was not going to supersede the Elders in whatever message they had to deliver. It was a matter of respect. 

Niquel and Maudri stepped between the pillars and into the mountain. They left behind the scent of pine trees and damp soil for that atmosphere so particular to the inside of the earth that always made hollowed spaces within stone feel a dozen times more cavernous than they were. A rocky taste on the air one could almost grit between the teeth, and that any of the Taunai would claim they needed to sleep well at night. 

A broad corridor carved into the stone itself angled up at a gentle rise. There were many smaller branches from this main byway, leading to dwellings, healing rooms, various common areas, the few coveted hot pools. The two of them stopped at none of these, however, and kept up a steady climb straight on toward the light coming from the entrance to the step hall at the far end. 

The corridor opened up into an expansive manmade grotto beneath the staggering weight of stone above, hollowed out by the sweat of the Taunai a great many generations before Niquel's current lifetime. Curved rows of stone benches raked from the low end of the hall up toward the outer walls, growing in breadth away from the central rounded dais like ripples on a pond. A sea of dirty white greeted them as they entered at the top of the central aisle. Her people's clothing was made to blend with the perennial snow cover on the mountain but winter's tears, it was hard to keep clean. 

"Perhaps we can find seats off to one of the sides," Maudri said, craning her neck to look for available space in the already-full gathering room. 

"There," Niquel pointed, "down by the first set of torches, on the right." 

They made their way down the aisle, Niquel doling out efficient hellos left and right as they passed, and Maudri scattering louder ones in her wake. The noise in the room from hundreds of people greeting each other, conversing and speculating over the reasons for the gathering, was louder for the curve of the walls and ceiling. Though her people spent a great deal of time within enclosed stone spaces, the throng gathered in one noisy place this way made Niquel itchy to be done with whatever the Elders had in mind and be out and away from the crowd. 

There was enough space for the two of them at the end of the second row, and they squeezed in next to Topni and her grandchildren. Or great-grandchildren, maybe. Topni had been old since time before never. "Older than dirt," Niquel's father liked to say, but sharp as a glassrock chip. The ancient woman turned a smile and a nod to Niquel, and she tapped her own fingertips to her chest in polite response. Maudri had taken up the seat on the end of the bench, leaving Niquel squished between the two women, exactly as she'd prefer not to be. 

The step hall was full to the brim with more people than she'd ever seen gathered there in all of her twenty-four winters. The air was growing stuffy with the collected mass of bodies. Niquel's eyes scanned the room, hoping to locate her parents, but there were far too many gathered today, and she'd found a seat too far to one side to make a clear distinction of two faces out of the crowd. She would have to settle for finding them afterward. 

Will this be a short gathering, Vodi Namat? she asked. 

In a sense, he said. 

Ah, so it will be one of those days, will it? The guide was being especially cryptic, which never meant easy times ahead. But whatever came was meant to teach, if nothing else. Though Niquel knew, as well as any Taunai, that J'sau Jeqnam delivered just as many lessons in the form of a sound drubbing as they handed down in a gentle lecture. Yet another mystery she would just have to wait to uncover. 

With a thought for other things designed to make no sense, she shifted on the bench toward Maudri, ready again to launch into a recounting of her bizarre dream. 

"Maudri, now that we have a minute—" 

They did not have a minute, however. The Elders were filing up onto the dais. The din of voices in the hall hushed down to a collective murmur. She could be thankful for small favors. 

There were five Elders now, and they took to the small platform in a line. Other times there had been four, or eight, or six. Whatever suited the needs of the people for the time. Today five faces looked out over the gathered mass of Taunai, sunlight filtering down through the exposed crystal skylights overhead to light up white and silver hair. 

All of her people, of course, had white or silver hair. Young or old. Because of Niquel's incessant questioning, most recently of Vodi, but of others before him as well, she'd learned that most of the lowlanders, at least the Novamnean races, had dark hair, almost black, and it only turned to white as they aged, if then. Once in a great while, one of her people would be born with dark hair, or some other color besides white, and it would be much remarked-upon, but beyond that, it was only a novelty. Niquel had never seen a crowd of people with hair in brown or red or yellow—what had Vodi called it? Blonde? The word tasted strange in her mouth. But then she had never been lucky enough—or unlucky, depending on one's outlook—to be among the few selected for the risky annual venture of a trade attempt. 

The Speaker stepped forward from the center position of the line of Elders and now the room reached near total silence. 

At last, they come to it. 

Even the title 'Elder' was somewhat of a misnomer: the Speaker for today was Jelni, and if Niquel's memory served her, she was only sixteen winters into this lifetime. The Elders of the Taunai consisted of those who had the greatest ability among them: those who could most clearly hear the messages of J'sau Jenqnam, or what the lowlanders erroneously called 'the dead'. It didn't matter whether a person had seen eight winters or eighty. If they could converse, Nazav to Namat, from one side of the transition to the other, with more clarity and confidence than anyone else, they were well on their way to earning the name 'Elder'. 

Jelni stood apart from her peers, silver eyes serious and sweeping the crowd, a thin vertical line of red powder smeared between her young, unlined brows to indicate the importance of the occasion. 

Well dash me. They're not pissing around are they, Vodi Namat? What's this going to be? 

He tsked her. So vulgar. Hush. Listen. 

"People of the Mountain," said Jelni, a mature sonorous quality to her voice belying her years, "We are called here this day because a choice must be put among you. There is to be an Offering." 

"An Offering!" Niquel hissed the rough exclamation under her breath as she jabbed Maudri in the side with a finger. What could warrant such a thing? 

A whisper rippled around the hall. Niquel was not the only one to sit up and pay attention. Jelni continued. 

"We live off the Mountain, and we keep to its care. It has everything we need, and so we have little cause to venture elsewhere. This suits us well as a people, it seems, because our encounters with the lowlanders leave much to be desired." 

There were some sarcastic remarks made about this, some louder than others, from various parts of the room. Jelni had made a gross understatement. Her people had about as much chance surviving a mountain cat attack as they did a meeting with lowlanders. 

"But we have paid little heed to the affairs of the empire," the Elder said, ignoring the rude remarks, "and we often forget we are still a part of it. As much as we wish to avoid taking any part in the sort of games they play down there, we are afraid those games are coming to us, whether we invite them or no." 

People exchanged nervous glances in clusters along the benches now. The other Elders stood solemn behind their Speaker, hands clasped, hoods back, eyes disputing nothing being said thus far. Niquel shifted in her seat and the hair prickled on the back of her neck. She was getting that feeling. The one that made her guts flutter. Something today ... something was about to happen. Vodi remained silent on the matter. 

"You are all aware," Jelni said, "that we are part of an empire, and so there is, of course, an emperor. And you know that the lowlanders, for the greatest part, cannot hear J'sau Jeqnam as we do. Because of this unfortunate limitation of theirs, what you may not realize is that their emperor—our emperor, too, remember—receives his advice from other men, all just as unguided as he is. 

"Chief among these advisors is his First Councilor, a man called Ptyverias." The Elder paused here and Niquel knew they were about to approach the meat of the situation. She flexed her calves, alternating from one to the other, a nervous habit she'd had since girlhood. Whatever was at stake here must be important, for J'sau Jeqnam to bother bringing lowlander issues to their table. 

"The message we received this morning was very clear: This man has caused a shift in the Pattern." More murmurs of disbelief from the crowd. "And if he remains on his current path, we ..." Jelni turned back to the Elders behind her, the look on her face asking for something from the others. Reassurance, rescue perhaps. She did not want to deliver the message, but such was the burden of the Speaker. There were nods from the others. Niquel saw Jelni's throat move as she swallowed her reservations. 

"If he remains on his current path, we, as a people, will be annihilated. At least this is the most likely probability." 

The room erupted into a boil of raised voices. Immediate questions and exclamations and not a little swearing volleyed about and, despite Jelni's raised palm for silence, it took several long, noisy moments to shush the crowd again. Maudri was gripping Niquel's knee, open-mouthed and stunned silent. A proclamation like this was unheard of. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 02



"This is the Offering," Jelni said, arriving at long last at the point, "We believe this man, this Ptyverias, can be redirected onto a less destructive path, one that will not be so disastrous for our people, through a Turning. Most of you will not know what a Turning is, as this is a thing that has not been done since before any of our grandparents' lifetimes, and their grandparents' as well. 

"A Turning is a process, a ritual, where—and we will not linger on details today, as they are not important to the Offering—if a part of a being can be changed, so will the whole of it follow. If we can affect the desired change on a single part of this man, the transformation will resonate with the rest of him and it may be enough to divert him away from his current path. 

"It is quite clear that five Elders may not descend onto Protreo with any assurance of safety to find this man and carry out a Turning. Here is where we arrive at the Offering." 

There was a hum on the air, a still buzz of anticipation. Niquel wondered if everyone else in the room felt it. Her calves were flexing in a fury now, back and forth, back and forth. 

"We will not ask any one of you to make the journey," said the Elder, "but we have been told that one of you will volunteer. Today, in this step hall, there is one among us—and even we," she said, indicating the other Elders, "do not yet know who it will be—who will go down among the lowlanders. This person will do what they must to come by some smaller portion of the First Councilor Ptyverias, be it a single hair, a fleck of spittle, a spot of blood, and bring it back to the Mountain, where we will use it to conduct the Turning. We have been advised to determine who will go through an Offering so that there will be no question of whether the 'right' person was chosen. J'sau Jeqnam tells us they already know who will step forward; it is only to be revealed to that person. Now." 

A heartbeat of shocked silence, and then a man yelled out from the opposite end of the hall from where Niquel and Maudri sat. 

"If everything is a part of the Pattern, then how do we know this Ptyverias isn't on his path for a reason? Perhaps we are not meant to survive." 

Boos and shouts rolled in the man's direction at this, but Jelni raised a hand. 

"This is a fair question," she said, "but one we have asked. We are told that this situation is an exception. An anomaly that was not in any of the greater possibilities They foresaw, but has cropped up like a mushroom overnight. J'sau Jeqnam tells us that this man has always possessed the same intent, but that other events have shifted in such a way as to no longer prevent him from achieving his aims, as was the case in every probability they were able to see before today." 

"And what is his intent?" another man called out. 

Jelni's young face looked grim, and it was a shame to see one of so few winters forced into a position of such weight so soon. She seemed reluctant to make the gathered people privy to such dark news, and Niquel watched the young woman's fingers twist together, mimicking how her insides must have felt. 

"The First Councilor is not what the lowlanders call a priest," she said, "but not for lack of zeal, or so we understand. He is very much in bed with the ideals of their foremost house of worship. Those few of you who have succeeded in making trade will know: those ideals count us as blasphemers. Heretics. Witches. Demons, even, among the more superstitious. They do not understand our relationship with J'sau Jeqnam. They fear it. And they would see us wiped away like an infection that needs cleansing. If we cannot alter his path with a Turning, we fear this is exactly what will happen." 

Niquel felt more questions bubbling up from the benches, but Jelni was having no more of it. 

"Now. It is time," the Elder said. "There can be questions after. Quiet yourselves. Ask your guides. If J'sau Jeqnam means you to make this journey, they will tell you. And you will step forward." 

A hush blanketed the hall at Jelni's charge. Some heads bowed, others lifted to look at the ceiling. There were closed eyes, and just as many opened, but every soul in the flesh adopted whatever personal arrangement of body and mind he or she preferred to best converse with their guides, and asked. 

Niquel's own gaze dropped to her lap, unfocused. She breathed out, relaxed her shoulders, stopped her incessant calf flexing. 

Vodi Namat— 

Yes, he said, quick as lightning. She had not even finished her question. 

Vodi Namat, is it me? Am I to— 

YES. 

His voice was so forceful in her thoughts it made her fingertips throb with the surge of blood to her extremities. You knew it the moment you sat down, Niquel Nazav. Of course it is you. It can be you and no other. Stand. Up. 

Her throat had gone dry. Beneath her jerkin and tunic, a chill sweat dampened her skin. It was one thing to grumble to herself about boredom, to claim she pined for adventure, and quite another to have it thrust upon her like a heavy sack of windroot to be carried. 

People in the hall were stirring. No one had said a word, but heads were coming up, looking around. Who would it be? 

Stand up, Niquel Nazav. You must do this thing. Your path lies with the Pattern. 

Those were the words, the fateful, damning words. 'Your path lies with the Pattern' was a phrase that ended arguments and silenced objections among the Taunai in a way no other could. It reminded a person that their course was an essential part of a larger structure, and were they to choose to abandon it, the entire framework would come crashing down, causing infinite ripples of complication for every other soul it touched. 'Your path lies with the Pattern' meant you ceased your worrying, or at least shut your mouth about it, and forged ahead. 

Will I come back, Vodi Namat? 

There was an extended silence from her guide. The corner of her mouth twitched. 

It is unclear, he said at last. But as sure as winter ... you must go. 

She could feel his regret in a condensed knot at the back of her skull. But with it, she felt the clear call of truth. An interesting gathering indeed. It would have been funny if it were happening to someone else. 

Niquel stood. 

There were sharp inhalations all around her as her people watched her rise from the crowd. The sound brought the Elders' eyes sweeping around until they locked on Niquel. Jelni might have only seen sixteen winters, but the smile that came to her face just then held all the sadness and regret of a thousand lifetimes. 

"Niquel." 

Her name rolled out of the young Speaker's mouth and over the assembled mass like far-off thunder warning of a storm. Hundreds of eyes turned in her direction now. The other Elders hung their heads in various postures, and it was clear they were confirming the Offering with their own guides. 

In moments, there were nods from the group. They knew Niquel for the true Offering. She would need to make her way up to the dais before her knees buckled. Her heart was hammering away in her chest. She looked down, ready to pick her way around benches and other people's knees and feet, and there was Maudri, staring up at her, agog. 

"Niquel?" 

"It is me, Maudri. I have spoken to Vodi. I have to go." 

Her friend scooted off the end of the stone bench in a daze, letting Niquel step around. On impulse, she grabbed up Maudri's hand and squeezed it, giving her a final, tight-lipped smile before turning to walk the short distance to the edge of the dais, where she stepped up and joined the Elders. 

Jelni leaned in to her and asked under her breath, "Who is your guide, Niquel?" 

"His name is Vodi." 

The speaker drew back and cocked her head up to Niquel in curiosity. The Elders were familiar with many of the guides, but they would not know hers. 

"I don't think I know Vodi Namat," Jelni said, voice still low. There was no accusation there, however. Only the curiosity that arises from a lack of introductions. 

"He has told me, Elder, that this is his first task among the Taunai. Vodi Namat spent his last life among the lowlanders." 

Something flickered in Jelni's silver eyes at this, and a genuine smile curved her lips. "I see," she said, drawing the words out in slow understanding. "Of course." What she understood, Niquel did not know. The Speaker took up Niquel's hand and turned back to the gathering. 

"People of the Mountain," she began anew, voice raising once again to fill the immense chamber, "Niquel Nazav has received word from Vodi Namat, her guide, that she is to be our Offering. She will descend to the plains, to the cliffs near the great sea. She will enter the lowlander capital of Protreo, find her way to the residence of First Councilor Ptyverias, and secure some portion of his person, however small. She will return this portion to Jeqnamset, where we will complete the Turning. Give her your love. Let your guides help hers. Let her hear, and see, and feel, all that she must to complete this task." 

Niquel stared out into the assembled body of her people. So many eyes were on her, looking at her with hope, with skepticism, with disbelief. She wanted to turn and run. But her path lay with the Pattern, and there was no running from that. 

"J'sau Jeqnam has shown us this opportunity to change the path of the Taunai," the Speaker said, "Keep your thoughts on the summit. Do not look back to the fall." 

The young woman turned from the crowd on the benches, using her grip on Niquel's hand to face the new Offering away as well, and thus ending the gathering. The other Elders turned and began to vacate the dais. Behind her, Niquel could hear the collective conversation foam to life again, and the sound of shuffling boots told her the people were dispersing up the aisles and toward the door to the corridor. Jelni released her hand and followed her peers. 

Niquel moved along behind the five Elders, her steps placid and mind blank. There was no more to debate. There was only to prepare. 

Vodi Namat, why did you tell me nothing of this before today? 

Now where would have been the fun in that, Niquel Nazav? he said, sounding far too smug. 

Niquel rolled her eyes. 

She suspected the twenty odd times she'd volunteered to collect the hori would be nothing to make her ready for this. 

* * * * 

"Did you see your parents?" Maudri said as she secured the last of the bags to the side of the pony. 

"I did," said Niquel. Her mount had been ready for several minutes. She gave the beast a good scratching around an ear while she waited for her friend to finish. 

"You do not sound very happy about it. They are not coming to see you off?" 

Niquel sighed, rolled her shoulders for a good stretch. Some things were more of a burden to explain than they were worth. 

"You know my father, Maudri," she said, watching her friend smooth the coarse blanket over the sway in the pony's back. "He chose to be brief." 

"Does he not have faith in you? You might be the most fearless person in Jeqnamset. It makes complete sense for you to be chosen." 

"He does not look at it as being fearless," Niquel said, hoisting herself up onto her own pony now that Maudri had all of her supplies in place and was ready. "He sees it as recklessness. He is sure I will do something foolish and risky. That I will force my transition down there among the 'savages' and only come back to him as a guide. I think he is more afraid that my charge is an impossible task. That I am being sacrificed to no useful end." 

"But our people ..." Maudri's brows tilted up in concern from under the edge of her hood. "Does he not care what will happen to the Taunai if you do not go?" 

"He is not seeing the mountain, Maudri. Only the pebble in his shoe. This is how he is. Come." She turned her pony, barely bothering with the reins and guiding the beast with her knees to begin their trek downward to the edge of the Starlys. 

"And your mother?" 

"She does not wish to cause quarrel with him. They went back to their dwelling together." Niquel was ready to talk about something else or nothing at all, and thanked J'sau Jeqnam when Maudri fell silent after this. The ponies, with their sure, sturdy hooves, plodded away from her home, crunching snow and the springy needle bed beneath as they went. 

There was no great sending-off of heroes among her people. The Elders had allowed Maudri to accompany Niquel as she made her way southeast, as far as the banks of the River Omeron. They permitted the use of two of the settlement's four ponies until the pair of young women went their separate ways, at which time Maudri would return to Jeqnamset with both of the mounts. 

The weavers and tanner had even provided her an odd new set of garments, dun-colored to blend with the grass of the flat lands below the mountain, and a full cloak, boots, and gloves in dark brown, to help her fade into the crowds of the capital once she arrived. An uncovered face and head of hair in stark white and pale silver would draw every bit of the sort of attention she would need to avoid if she was to achieve her ends. 

The Elders had no further advice for her beyond a review of what sort of things she might find and bring back to satisfy the needs of the Turning process. A strand of hair, a drop of sweat, a fingernail trimming. All unsavory, but anything that had once been part of the physical body of this Ptyverias would do. What else could they tell her? Any other questions she had along the way she could put to Vodi or any other guide who was around and willing to talk. And the guides were pleased to help more often than not. She would have access to information hidden to the lowlanders due to their ignorance of J'sau Jeqnam, and this would keep her out of trouble, despite what her father thought. 

The sun was climbing overhead, warming the side of Niquel's face and tops of her thighs through her leather breeches, even as the trees thinned as they descended out of the steeper parts of the mountain. She pushed back her new hood to enjoy the warmth on her hair and scalp. 

"Were you not pestering me about a dream you wished to share? Before the gathering?" Maudri broke the silence, having decided Niquel was a safe distance away from uncomfortable thoughts of her parents and ready to engage in conversation once again. Her friend brought her pony up so the pair walked side by side instead of single file. 

Niquel let out a huff of tired amusement, keeping her eyes on the way ahead. 

"I suppose I was," she said, "though it seems unimportant now." 

"Well tell me anyway," her friend said. "It is a long way to the Omeron, and I will grow bored watching you ice over like a fall pond over there." 

"You should have asked Zidjhal to come along," she said, "I am sure you could have been plenty occupied with him. Could have mounted him up instead of the pony." They both snickered at this, rude and free with no one else around to cause them to worry about what was appropriate. 

But Niquel did want someone else to hear her dream, because it had been odd. 

"So this dream," she said as their laughter died down, "I can only remember parts of it now, but I was standing in a field of kissmelon. A flat field, not like our gardens." 

"Kissmelon!" Her friend burst into laughter anew. "So it was one of those dreams. Did it have dragons? Golden arrows?" Maudri would always tease her, and Niquel tried not to leap to exasperation right away. 

"Maudri, the kissmelon is a real thing. Just because you've never seen one. The lowlanders grow them on the plains." 

"It is not a real thing!" 

"It is. Ask Azro, he will tell you." 

This was often the settler of arguments between Taunai. Their guides had no reason to lie and so her people called upon them to clear up disbelief in matters both great and small. Niquel watched her friend's face go blank for a moment as she asked about the kissmelon. 

"Oh very well," Maudri said, shaking her head in resignation as she returned with her answer. "They are real. So what other real and true ridiculous things were in this dream?" 

It was Niquel's turn to laugh. "I believe that was that last one. Where I stood in this field, I saw a man. But—" 

"Was he handsome?" Maudri's eagerness had Niquel rolling her eyes. 

"You would only think him handsome of he looked like Zidjhal. But he was not only a man. He was also a horse." 

"What? At the same time?" 

"It is hard to describe. You know how dreams are. One moment I would look and he was a man, the next: a horse." 

"Hmm." Maudri sounded doubtful. 

"And the horse was a lizard." 

"Oh come. Now you are just flinging snow." 

"No!" Niquel said. "I do not know how to explain it. This is what I am telling you. It was all very strange." 

"Well you are strange, so it suits you." 

Niquel ignored her friend's poking. "And there was this itch, this pain. Right in the center of my back, between my shoulders where I could not reach. Nothing I could do would make it go away." 

They were silent for a few moments after this, Maudri unsure what to say to her friend, and Niquel deciding whether she needed to reveal the part where her dream went from odd to unnerving. It seemed she ought. 

"In my dream," she said, "Vodi was not there. None of the guides were there. I could not hear J'sau Jeqnam. I could not hear anything." 

Maudri looked over at her with wide eyes as their ponies picked their way along, oblivious. "You said it was a dream, not a nightmare, Niquel." 

"I know. What do you make of this?" 

Her friend shook her head, eyes drifting back to their path. "I do not know. But I hope for your sake that this is not a dream of foresight. To not hear the guides ..." She saw Maudri hunch her shoulders in a cringing way, as if to shrug off something unpleasant. 

"Well," Niquel said, trying to bring some mirth back into the exchange, "the dream had a man-lizard-horse in it, so how true could it be?" 

"Right." They laughed together and moved their talk to other things. The River Omeron would be at their feet by the next morning, and Niquel intended to enjoy her friend's company before then. J'sau Jeqnam could make them privy to the most likely probabilities, but there was always a chance events would unfold along an unlikely path instead. 

Niquel wanted to laugh and talk and drink in the sight of her closest friend. 

In case she never came back. 

* * * *



After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 03



Author's Note: Welcome back! Some more new characters for you in this chapter and at last some sex! No spoilers, but I think you'll finally see things begin to thread together here. CH 4 next week will bring us back around to Raothan. 

Content Warning: Light BDSM (impact play, restraint), ass play 

Thanks, as always to Waterburn and AwkwardMD for their edits and suggestions. 

See you in the comments! 

~Eris 

* * * * 

Chapter Three 

When the Divine light of Solis be dark at the hour of mid-day, and the Lock sees the Chalice born in the east while he lay down his mantle in the west, then will the head of the empire under the New River be made low, even unto death, so that the throne and the people may become clean and be raised with the dawn. 

~Libar Horis (Book of Hours, I.Y. 26, Auxaname Regus translation) 

* * * * 

Like items on a ledger, the First Councilor ticked his way through the day's roster of the accused with a cool disinterest. The palace guard was hauling the last of the sniveling condemned out of his presence, only to replace the unwashed malefactor with another. There would only be this one entering now and one other, after which Ptyverias would adjourn to his next meeting with the First Chronicler. 

The man the pair of guards escorted into the hearing yard before him now appeared to be somewhere north of twenty summers. It was difficult to guess with the amount of blood and filth on his face. The First Councilor noted to himself that it was well he made his judgements from the top of the steps, a respectable distance away from these vermin, and outdoors, so the wind could clear the air of their stench. 

It was morning still, and the hearing yard was on the west side of the Council Hall, leaving the hard-packed earth at the foot of the steps purpled in the building's shadow. This met with Ptyverias's approval, as he did not have to squint into the sun while he dealt with the chore of weighing sentence. 

"Asti Faran," he read the man's name from the list, "You stand here accused of ..." He paused to reread the recorded crime, curling his lip in distaste. "Of trespassing, public drunkenness, and defecating on a statue of His Grace, Emperor Tamorous II. Do you wish to speak in your own defense?" 

The man sputtered out something unintelligible, bloody saliva bubbling over his lower lip as a decoration on the complete lack of sense he made. One of his eyes would not come open when he spoke: it was clear it was crusted shut. And he appeared to be missing teeth, probably knocked out during his recent arrest. The guards kept their placid hold on his upper arms while the useless burbling went on. Ptyverias asked the Divine for patience. 

"Someone clean that mess off his face," he said in exasperation. "I don't have all day." 

One of the waiting clerks leapt forward with a rag he'd produced out of nowhere and began to clear some semblance of a path through the grime on the man's face with quick, rough strokes. The prisoner hissed at the pressure and some wound broke open anew and began to leak down over his temple. It was all the First Councilor could do not to wipe his own hands on his robes at the sight. The crude scrub-down complete, and the clerk out of the way, he took up the proceedings once more. 

"Do you, Asti Faran," he continued, "wish to speak in your own defense?" 

This time the man dove straight in, either sobered up by the clerk's rag, or hoping to avoid further pawing at his injured face. 

"Blease, Your Exc'llency! Blease! It was just some drinks. With my friends. You bust know whad it's like, to be a yug man, to do a foolish thing whed you're in your cups!" 

"Must I?" The First Councilor raised an iron grey brow. The man's nose was probably broken. He could barely speak Novamnean and be understood. 

He wouldn't be such a wretch if his useless parents had allowed the church to raise him under Divine Writ. 

"Must I also know," he said, "what it is like to wish to vandalize a likeness of the ruler of the entire Novamnean Empire with the movement of my own bowels? Is that the sort of thing a Councilor of his Imperial Grace is expected to know?" 

The man's eyes were wide now at the rise of the First Councilor's voice and cold ire, and he fell into further pointless blubbering. 

"No, Your Exc'llency! I didn't mean adything like that! Blease! I'b sorry! I'b only a foolish man!" 

"Yes, you are that. The pillory," he said to the guards, "upside down. Since he enjoys sharing his excrement with the public, he can stay there until he's shared with us all again. And feed him well." 

The prisoner growled at the sentence and tried to lurch away from the guards. "You can't be serious! First Coudcilor, I—" 

"Would you like to add the lash, then? Perhaps a second or third day with your feet above your head?" 

This threat produced the desired effect of silence, though for a moment Ptyverias thought he might add to the sentence out of spite. He was developing an ache in his temple, and he was sure this heathen was at least partly responsible. 

"Sentence to begin tomorrow at dawn," he said to the guards. "Next." 

As he waited for the guards to bring out the last of the accused on the list, Ptyverias heard the subtle clearing of a throat a few steps behind him. There was only one person it could be. Who might even dare and get away with it. 

"I hear you, Doxolemy," he said without looking back over his shoulder. 

"Our meeting—" 

"Is overdue, yes I am aware. There is but one more to hear and then we may begin." 

The First Chronicler, keeper of the imperial archives, astrologer to the Council and Emperor, and general necessary evil, was perhaps the only person Ptyverias knew of who might rival him on punctuality. The man knew where the sun was in the sky before the sun knew. It was unnerving. 

The Chronicler said nothing else, but Ptyverias felt his presence remain behind him on the steps. If his colleague wished to watch the sentencing, it was no concern of his. If he was squeamish, he could leave and wait inside. 

The guards returned, hauling the last of the accused before him, a bedraggled explosion of rags and muddy flesh. It was a woman, decked out in a scowl and dark hair. Her coloring said Novamnean, but her forearms bore Parthi tattoos. The Parthi were godless to the man, he thought, or he was a Xenge mine lord. She stood there, unresisting in the guards' grip, black eyes meeting his in defiant disrespect. He tasted acid at the back of his throat. 

Ptyverias snapped up the parchment and found her at the bottom of the list. Her crime didn't surprise him at all. 

"Bellora Dazhmi, you stand here accused of committing murder via the use of Will, an offense punishable by death." He didn't feel as though a person who had shunned their own kind, a person who had put pagan markings on their body and taken a pagan family name, had a right to the next words, but the astrologer bore witness and it was the law. "Do you wish to speak in your own defense?" 

She glared at him and he felt the hatred in her eyes reach out across the distance like a hand that would crush, would strangle. 

"Didn't murder nobody," she said, voice low and steady. "Was trying to save his life. It didn't work." 

"Of course you were," he said, "And I suppose that's why three witnesses say they saw you standing over your husband's body with a catchstone, yes?" 

The woman was unfazed. 

"I was trying to draw the fever out. He was too far gone." 

Ptyverias was willing to entertain no more of this nonsense. "Three saw you with the object used to murder. Only one voice speaks in your favor: your own. Hardly a neutral party." He blinked at her. Cocked his head the slightest degree. 

"The axe. Tomorrow morning. Guards," he said, directing the men to take the prisoner away. The First Councilor turned to go. 

"I hope you rot, you son of a whore." Her voice followed him like an oath spat on the ground. 

He was down the steps and inches from her face before the words died on her lips, his thumb and forefinger gripping her jaw like a vise. 

"Had to get one last word in, didn't you? Was that Parthi husband of yours worth abandoning the light of the Divine?" His words hissed with soft promise as he looked straight down into her rabid black eyes. "You could have enjoyed the mercy of the axe. Now you will wish for it. The cages," he said to the guards on either side of her. "And if she survives that ... the sack." 

He released her face with a vicious flick of his wrist, turned on his heel, and made his exit up the steps to the council hall. Behind him, mad laughter began to well. The woman's sanity burst like an overripe fruit and she filled the hearing yard with her hysteria. 

"The cages? The sack?" Her incredulity trailed after him as he passed the Chronicler on his way back into the hall. "You think you can hurt me now, imperial dog? Do you? Baovar is gone! My husband is gone! Nothing will hurt more than that! Nothing!" 

The raving and cackling receded as the guards no doubt carted her off to the cages. Ptyverias did not look back. He was late for his next appointment. 

* * * * 

"What have you for me today, First Chronicler?" 

The astrologer had an array of papers and books laid out over the long table of the council hall, all made well visible by the expanse of skylight overhead. Beyond visibility, however, the circles and triangles and arcs the man had drawn beside countless columns of sums meant next to nothing to Ptyverias. 

Both men stood at sides of the table, rather than sitting, to declare their mutual unspoken intentions of keeping the meeting short. Three of the First Councilor's attendants filed into the room in case it did not and messages needed carrying. One of them slipped alongside the table, discreet and efficient, to deposit a pitcher of water laden with winterstones. Two cups filled for the councilors, the attendant melted back against the wall with his peers to await further tasks. 

"In two weeks," Doxolemy said, ignoring the lackey and the water, jabbing his finger into the center of one of the many drawings, "we will have an eclipse." 

The First Councilor narrowed his eyes. "Don't we have one of these every time we turn around, First Chronicler? I know you didn't call me to the hall to bore me with the commonplace." 

The astrologer backed down no less than the condemned Parthi woman had. 

"This eclipse," he said, flipping some pages in one of his texts to point again to something he must have considered relevant, "is what is called a 'king maker', Your Excellency." The disdain came pointing back just as snide as Ptyverias has aimed it in the first place. "It is erroneously called a 'blood eclipse' in The Book of Hours, from Osquillian's reign, but this is not accurate." 

"Come to your point, Doxolemy." The First Councilor was determined not to commit to a chair. That would only assure the astrologer would waste more of his time. Instead, he reached for the now sweating cup and sipped at the icy water. 

"The 'king maker' is a complete occultation of the sun, which occurs while the Chalice of Rebirth rises in the east and the Lock of Oblivion sets in the west, all at the same time. Those last two factors are key, otherwise it is just an eclipse and, you are correct, we have them with some frequency. The last eclipse of this sort occurred two hundred seventy-six summers ago. Now can you recall what happened at that time? And at every time before that, two hundred seventy-six summers apart?" 

"Spare me your tutelage, Astrologer. Out with it." 

Doxolemy stared at him, dark brows lowered, streaks of silver at his temples flaring back in annoyance on behalf of his sharp brown eyes. 

"The emperor dies, Ptyverias." 

The First Councilor waved a dismissive hand, setting his cup back on the table. "Please. Telexeo died less than a year ago. I suppose we had one of your eclipses then?" 

Doxolemy's jaw flexed at this comment, and Ptyverias challenged him with a hard look, daring him to open his mouth. He watched the man contain himself, a wise choice, really, and grind on to his original point. 

"The last of the king maker eclipses killed Micreas. I'm sure you remember him from your history. Then Orvial III, Domonestes, Baresqo, Itello ... Back and back we can go through the records. All the same interval in time apart, all during this specific eclipse. These are not coincidences." 

The astrologer snatched up his own cup and took a forceful draw of its contents, banging the vessel back down on the table when he was done for punctuation. 

Ptyverias blinked at him, getting his bearings. If what the First Chronicler was saying represented a reliable pattern—and he regretted to admit that despite the way the man got under his skin, he was accurate more often than not—then they were standing, right this moment, on the brink of disaster. 

He took the chair. 

A great many things had been set in motion these past few months, and this would do more than toss some gravel in the path. This was an entire illhallowed mountain jutting up right in the center of the road. Fear of the unknown did what it did best and turned straight into anger, which he needed to throw at someone. 

"Why have you waited until now to tell me of this, Astrologer? If these things can be predicted—have been predicted for thousands of years, according to you—why give us a mere two weeks to plan for the event?" His fingers laced together in a tight mesh where he rested his hands on the edge of the council table, binding themselves down lest he strike something. 

Doxolemy gave a shrug that seemed to indicate some minor level of satisfaction with the First Councilor's ire. Perhaps the man thought it a fitting balance for his earlier rankling at the subject of Telexeo's death. Untimely, that. 

"When an event happens only once every two hundred odd summers, First Councilor, we don't go looking for it every day. It's something one comes across when curiosity or research takes him to the right text at the right time and he is reminded." 

"And you were 'reminded', were you?" Ptyverias's tone was dry with scorn. The astrologer refused to acknowledge the goad and kept to the matter at hand. So very rational. He held his sneer inside. 

"I was making a study of eclipse cycles," said Doxolemy, "and when I came across the records of the patterns of this particular eclipse, I realized we were about to have one. And now here we are." He spread his palms, the gesture taking in the long table and the documents covering it. 

Ptyverias drew in a deep, slow breath and let it out. 

"Yes. Well. Here we are," he said. "You know, I don't suppose there's ever a good time for an emperor to die"—the astrologer opened his mouth to throw down some choice words, but Ptyverias held up a finger—"but right now is about as bad a time for this as it could be, wouldn't you agree?" 

The Chronicler made a noise in his throat. Without dropping eye contact, he hooked a foot under a leg of his own chair, pulled it within range, and sat. Ptyverias continued. 

"You know as well as I know that we are one more unfortunate event away from a full scale rebellion." One of the attendants failed to stifle a low gasp at this, and Ptyverias shot him a silencing glare before going on. 

"Tamorous may not have the people cheering in the streets or bards writing songs, but if he is to leave the throne vacant, and without an heir, so soon after his uncle's death," he said, voice rising, "this entire bridge of feathers we trod upon at the moment will go scattering to the wind like the tribes of Uleas." 

"I am aware of the situation, Your Excellency." The Chronicler squeezed his words past a filter, striving to maintain decorum. 

"Then what are your solutions, Doxolemy? Because if we have no plan in place, there will be a grab for the throne. Telexeo had no other living relatives that I'm aware of. If Tamorous dies, Protreo will split among factions. The senate will come to a standstill. My sources tell me even now that there are pockets of unrest forming within Ayzhus's army. Is there something in your records to tell us what to do when trained soldiers stop taking orders and turn on their own people?" 

"Nothing but lore, Ptyverias," he said, with a vague gesture for his books. "Superstitious nonsense." 

"Well what lore, then?" The First Councilor sat up straighter in his chair, ready to explore any possibility that would prevent too many careful plans from being torn asunder. "Show me." 

The astrologer threw up a hand in frustration as he finished off his cup with a gulp. "It might as well be mythology," he said. "It's old. Ancient. The texts themselves are only copies, not even originals. They must've been brought over from before the Expansion, from the other side of Vrennic's Teeth, for pity's sake." 

Ptyverias shook his head as if to ask how any of this was relevant. "And? What does it matter the era? Does your text present a solution or not?" 

"They don't even say if it worked, Ptyverias." The Chronicler was insistent, leaning forward in his seat. "The names written there are so old we have no way of knowing if these were real people. Whether any of this ever actually happened." 

"Show me." 

The astrologer thinned his lips. Ptyverias was undeterred. 

"Show me the text." 

The man across the table closed his eyes and dragged a hand down over his face. He rose and moved to a pile of books at the far end of the table. 

Several volumes had to be shifted before a brass-cornered wooden box appeared from beneath the stack. It was near the width and depth of a man's chest, and Doxolemy hefted it with no small amount of care. He brought the box before Ptyverias and set it back on the table with ginger hands, as if trying to avoid making noise. 

Doxolemy stepped back and the councilors' eyes met before Ptyverias reached to swing back the lid. The tome inside was copper-bound and hinged in brass, a construction meant to withstand ages. He lifted it out and was sure he heard the astrologer hiss through his teeth. 

Does he take me for a beast? That I have no sense of how to be careful with an artifact? 

The book was as thick as his forearm. He frowned; looked up at Doxolemy. 

"And where will I find the relevant passage?" 

"There's a ribbon," he said, nodding down at the book. "It should be marked. It was the last section I read." 

Ptyverias found the satin marker and opened the halves of the book to its place. 

"It's in Old Elvigra," the astrologer said. 

"I'm disappointed you think so little of me, Doxolemy. Do you not think I paid attention to my tutors?" Ptyverias ran a long finger down the page and began to translate in his head. Several long moments passed with him reading and the astrologer hovering at his side. 

He set the book down, still open, and sat back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap and looking up at the Chronicler. 

"It's all right here, Doxolemy," he said, tone all but accusing the other man of attempting to withhold the information he'd just read. "They've laid out the exact steps. Why ever would we not do this?" 

"Because it's older than time!" The astrologer nearly exploded. "I tell you we have no way to know if it worked. What will we do, sacrifice some poor soul on the word of a legend?" 

"But of course it must have worked," Ptyverias said. "Why would they have recorded the process in such great detail if it hadn't? Why go to the effort? You know as well as I do that if a venture such as this had failed, the astrologers responsible would have had their throats cut and all of their writings burnt to ash. Its very existence is proof of its validity. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 03



"Besides, how could the Divine not welcome back to his arms someone who gave their life for the empire? If the surrogate dies, it will be with full honor, and after two weeks of abominable luxury to cap off his life, I might add. Since when do you put the life of one man over the good of Novamne?" 

The First Councilor's relentless press of words had made the astrologer's shoulders slump. The Chronicler paced back around the table to his own chair and sat down. 

"And who will carry out this ritual, Your Excellency?" 

"I will." 

The astrologer raised his brows at this. 

"You are proficient at figuring, Doxolemy, not matters of Will. Those are my domain, and I will see to their execution." 

"You believe yourself sufficient to this task?" The man seemed tired now, and it was making him careless. 

"You push me, Astrologer. It is unwise." 

Doxolemy lowered his brow into a supporting hand and massaged at his temples, but said no more. 

"The question now," Ptyverias said, tapping a finger to his lips, "is who do we tap? Who is expendable? It can't be someone the people will find preferable to Tamorous. We don't need a martyr. And it can't be anyone who has the presence of mind to attempt any sort of interference with the senate or the army for the time he's here." He shifted his jaw from side to side as if it would push some idea into his mind. 

Who in the name of the Divine can we use? This has to be done with care or we foul things up worse than they already are. 

"I know of a man, Your Excellency." 

Ptyverias shook himself out of his own winding thoughts. He looked around. "I'm sorry?" 

"Forgive me, First Councilor," said one of his attendants, stepping away from the wall and into the light, bowing his head as he came. "I said I know of a man who will suit Your Excellency's needs." 

"Do you?" This he had to hear. 

"Yes, Your Excellency. If it pleases you, this man who comes to mind is a farmer." 

"A farmer?" Ptyverias was skeptical. 

"He is also a foreigner, Your Excellency," the man said, avoiding eye contact in a respectful manner. "Elvigra. He will have no one's sympathy here. And he has no family to speak of. No wife, no parents, no children. There is no one to protest or demand satisfaction. Your Excellency can deliver him up to the Divine—praise be the name—without obstruction." 

The First Councilor's eyebrows had been climbing during the whole speech. 

Ask and the Divine will provide. Praise be the name, indeed. 

"Will you look at this, First Chronicler?" He turned his head to aim a deliberate gaze at the astrologer. "Solutions present themselves all around us." 

"What is your name?" He brought his attention back to the attendant. "Eggs, is it? Something edible?" 

"I am called Exen, First Councilor." The man made yet another tiny bow. 

"Well, Exen. Perhaps you should sit on the council. The first one all day to offer answers instead questions." He looked around the hall, a measure more satisfied, the oiled wheels of planning in his head groaning back to life. "And where will we find this lone 'vigra, Exen?" 

"He resides in Aquillo, Your Excellency. Or just outside of it." 

"Aquillo ..." He chewed on this information. "That shouldn't take long. Have a unit of the guard dispatched to fetch this man, Exen. Send at least ten. Maybe twelve. We wouldn't want His Grace To Be to feel unimportant, now would we?" He thought he caught a hint of a smile from the lackey at this. 

Doxolemy let out something akin to a growl, though low and mostly made of air. "I hope for all of our sakes this is not a fool's errand, Your Excellency." 

Ptyverias did nothing to hide his contempt this time. 

"Do you see any fools in this room, First Chronicler?" 

The man was silent. Ptyverias turned back to the outspoken attendant and the corner of his mouth began to twitch up. 

"Does this man have a name, dear Exen? What will we call our new emperor for the eclipse?" 

"His name is Ga'ardahn, Your Excellency. Raothan Ga'ardahn." 

The First Councilor could have laughed. Ga'ardahn. It was too perfect. 

"Then let us prepare welcome. For Emperor Raothan the Only." 

The twitch had grown into a smirk. The attendant bowed and left, his two peers padding out after him. The astrologer pushed back his chair with a grate and began gathering his texts. 

So many fires to put out. But the Divine has many hands. And mine will reach farther than them all. 

* * * * 

There should have been more than enough hallways and courtyards between the council hall and Doxolemy's apartments in the palace to walk off the nettles of aggravation roped around him by the First Councilor. There should have been enough fresh air in the cloudless late summer sky for him to take deep breaths and return to a normal mental state by the time he reached the familiar arch of his own door. But there was not, and he could not. 

He wrenched the latch open with an elbow, hands full of texts as they were, and it gave him a metallic shriek of protest that was nowhere near as satisfying as he would have liked. 

"Fool man," he said, kicking the door closed behind himself with a grumble. "Looks for my advice and then doesn't take it. Why bother at all? Thinks he knows everything about everything." Priests, Senators, the First Councilor: they all sought his wisdom behind closed doors and then turned about and decried his methods in public as being opposed to the Divine. Hypocrites, the lot of them. 

"Who is irritating you today, my love?" His wife's voice drifted from inside their study, unfazed. 

"You know who," he said, turning sideways to shoulder his burden into the room they shared to house their various scholarly afflictions. His side rampantly overgrown with books, scrolls, tablets, charts, mathematical tools of all sizes; hers entirely subjugated by stones, minerals, rocks, crystals, bits of ore and anything else fit to imbue with Will. They each had a solid work table of their own, and there were chairs and a chaise ready to receive them when they were lost to writing or study. 

He did a special, shuffling dance, trying to slide the entire pile of texts out of his arms intact and without toppling, onto his work table as his rankling continued. "Nobody listens to the astrologer until it's too late. Oh no. Everyone suddenly an expert in how to thwart the patterns of time." 

"The First Councilor again?" 

"Oh, of course," he said, as he turned around and leaned against the edge of his table. She was rearranging a series of polished stone spheres on tiny pedestals on one of her shelves. He watched the way her backside changed shape beneath the draped linen of her garments as she stood on tiptoe, and his irritation began to abate somewhat. Not enough to halt his complaining, though. 

"That old goat. Him and his agenda. He's supposed to advise the emperor, not commandeer the hand of the throne." 

"You know this man, right?" She came back down off her toes and turned to face him, arching a wry brow his way. 

He sighed; scrubbed a hand through his close-cropped hair. "I do. I do know him. And better than most." The two men had grown up in the same circles, shared many of the same tutors, attended the same feasts, though Doxolemy would be hard-pressed to call the man a friend. 

"So what has he done today that has you in such a knot?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest to lean against her shelves and settle in for his rant. 

He ranted. 

"Well," she said when he was finished, examining the cleanliness of her nails, "there's nothing we can do but wait and see. And since when do you get involved in politics?" Janeva looked back up at him. "What is it you're always saying? 'Provide information...' " 

"Right. 'Provide information and let everyone else make the bad decisions.' You're right. There's a reason I'm the First Chronicler and not a senator or some such foolishness. All of that is too much of a headache." 

She nodded, having heard, on many prior occasions, the rationale behind why Doxolemy remained neutral in the Council. For a moment, though, her features grew serious. "Do you really think Tamorous is going to die, love?" 

He pursed his lips. "It seems he must. The pattern of the eclipses bears this out. And this ritual ..." he shrugged, "Ptyverias believes it will work, but I have serious doubts. Of course, he will have his way in it. He always does." Doxolemy watched his lovely young wife get that look and caught himself. "Bah! Don't let me go on. I've had enough of this subject. What have you been up to all day?" 

Her face bloomed into a grin at this and she all but bounced on her toes at the change of topic. With a smooth step forward, she grabbed up a longish velvet bag resting atop a many-drawered cabinet and crossed the room to stand before him with it. 

"Today," she said—and he could tell she had been waiting for just this moment with glee—"I acquired this." 

Janeva whipped the bag away with a flourish to reveal a polished wand of crystal as long as her forearm: tapered at both smooth ends and banded about the middle by a hexagonal gold ring. One half of the crystal was colorless, the other half: a rich amber. The entire length of transparent stone caught the light with various inclusions. It was quite beautiful. And he had no idea what it was for. He smiled at her, waiting for the explanation. 

"This," she said, "is an icepyre." 

"Should that mean something to me?" He tried to keep his amused grin under control while he teased her. One of the things Doxolemy had learned in their meager year of marriage so far was that he did so love to rile her up. 

"These are almost impossible to find anymore," she went on, lost to her own charming enthusiasm now. "It's as though a winterstone and pyre ore had a monstrous love child. However, the temperature of an icepyre can be controlled to a much greater degree. Here, take it." Janeva offered him the stone. It was heavy and, for now, cool to the touch. 

He turned it over in his hands, examining it as she spoke. 

"With this end"—she touched the colorless half—"you can do as little as cool off a scalded fingertip, or as much as freeze a pool of water. And with the other side, you can warm up cold hands, cauterize a wound, boil water. So many, many uses. It will fetch me a fortune, should I ever want to sell it. I've had Ustavo keeping an eye out for months for one of these, and he finally delivered. Straight from Xenge, no less. And probably smuggled in, though you didn't hear me say that, Husband." 

He smirked at her and raised a brow. "Will I have to keep watch on this Ustavo? It sounds like he's willing to go to some lengths to please the Chronicler's wife." Doxolemy cast an appreciative eye over her graceful neck and smooth shoulders. "I can't say I blame him." 

"Oh, please," she said, taking the stone back and setting it on the table at his side, "Ustavo must be seventy summers if he's a day. I don't think he'll be tempting me away any time soon." She stepped forward to lean her body against his. He circled his arms around her waist. 

"But one day I'll have seen seventy summers, my love. Perhaps then you'll be tempted." He couldn't stop his own insecurities from cropping up like weeds among their banter. There were seventeen summers between them. How he'd managed to capture her interest in the first place was a mystery, and he was sure she'd realize her error in judgement at any moment and choose someone far more worthy. 

Janeva's eyes were intent on the line of his mouth now, though. "You know I belong to you, Dox." 

Her hips were beginning to melt against his in that way, and he found his fingers twisting up into the raven-dark waves of hair at the nape of her neck. With a tug, he had her face tilted up so he could drink in her eyes, pupils dilated now at the promise of his grip, silk-smooth olive skin beginning to flush, lips parted. 

"Yes," he said, as though he'd only just remembered, "You do belong to me. Don't you." The fingers of his other hand traced a dangerous path down her spine. 

His wife had gone docile under his grip like a scruffed cat the moment he slipped into this ... this role she'd explained to him she craved. He hadn't believed her confession in the early months of their marriage. Over time, however, he was coming to see that though his proud wife was a relentless scholar and fearless negotiator in public, when it was the two of them alone, and of a mood, it made her breath hitch to submit to his will. To have him carry on as though he owned her. 

It was both novel and terrifying. It made his cock jump just to think of her yielding to him, and yet he feared how far he might go. How far she might let him go. 

His worries could step aside, however. Doxolemy saw her intent: to distract him from the stresses of his morning. She was doing a damn fine job of it. 

He bent his head down to hers for the briefest of kisses, wresting the first of her submission from her with an intrusive plunge of his tongue meant to claim, to set the tone of their play. 

In a single move, Doxolemy levered himself away from the edge of the work table and slid from between her and the wood to turn and press himself against her back, wedging her against the tabletop. 

"Present," he said, letting her hear the low command in his voice. 

She lost no time hitching the fine linen up around her waist, only too eager to give up the reins. He was already twitching to life beneath his own robes at the way his wife leapt to obey him. 

Perhaps a little more aggression today. She keeps hinting at it ... 

"I said, present." His palm came between her shoulders and he gave a rough shove, sending her to her elbows on the table. Janeva's lovely round ass angled up now to meet him at the hips, and the lips of her sex peeked out from between her thighs. He could see that if he ground himself against her this way, he would stain his clothing. 

Doxolemy smiled. 

His hand went to the base of her neck and pressed down. She took the hint and lowered herself completely onto her chest, her face turned sideways, cheek pressed against a bit of parchment, the posture of submission even more perfect than before. 

She can take more. 

He whipped the black sash of his station from around his neck. His wife would no longer have need her arms. Not for what he intended, in any event. With slow, deliberate movements designed to stoke her anticipation, he gathered first one arm and then the other at the small of her back, bending them at the elbows to cross at the middle. Doxolemy made her feel every cool rasp of the fine satin as he looped the sash around her forearms once, twice, and again before tying it off. He could already see the movement of her shoulders as her breath began to deepen. His erection raged at the sight. 

It was time to play their little games. The ones she liked so much. It seemed he was coming to look forward to them, as well. 

"There," he said, stroking a hand down her back, over her bound arms, pale fabric bunched below her wrists to expose the curve of her upturned cheeks. "Beautiful." 

He let his fingertips ghost between her legs and brush along her slit. 

Already soaked. I haven't even done anything yet. 

His cock throbbed. 

"So," he said, desperate to pull back and slow himself for her sake, "has my favorite toy been good for me today?" The pads of his fingers circled between her lips and she hissed at the touch. 

"Yessssss." 

His wife jerked in surprise and took in a sharp breath when the flat of the same hand cracked over her backside. 

"I'm sorry?" Doxolemy made his tone as though he hadn't heard her. They both knew better. "What was that?" He let the silence at the end linger. She flexed her hips, wanting. 

"Yes, Master," she corrected herself, eyes closed, the blush of lust coloring her face. The title had been her idea, but he had to admit, the way it made his prick swell did a fine job of selling him on its use. 

He tsked her and went back to his petting, this time teasing around her nub. "You'll have to be careful, my lovely plaything, or you'll be headed in quite the opposite direction from any rewards you've earned." Janeva whimpered and rolled her hips at him, straining toward further stimulation. 

"Stop that." He landed a light slap on her pussy. She grunted. "Do you decide on your own pleasure?" 

"No. Master." Still, she couldn't help but wriggle, and it made him smirk. 

"Whose pleasure are you here for ... slave?" He heard her breath catch in her throat at this and watched her hips hump at the air, shameless. There. That was the word. It took even more getting used to than her calling him Master, but when Doxolemy reduced his wife aloud to the status of a possession, she melted for him every time into a submissive, pleading tangle of delirium. 

"Yours, Master," she said, her feet edging their way apart on the floor. "I'm here for your pleasure." 

There was only so much stalling a man could expect himself to do. He leaned his body forward to drape over half of her back and made a fist again of his left hand in her hair near the scalp. Janeva began to breathe through an open mouth at the added restraint, the force. His lips were at her ear laying down dark affirmation. 

"Yes. You. Are." 

His right hand wandered again, seeking heat; moisture. He found both and aimed a finger. Pushed. Janeva's moan of relief was worth every historical parchment wrinkling beneath her pinned torso at that very moment. 

There was a bout of swirling and probing. Her reactions: building. His ready cock dug at her hip, reminding everyone it was there, should anything need penetration. Anything at all. Doxolemy added a second finger and made her forget herself. 

"Dox! Oh!" The gasp was satisfying. So was the opportunity to toy with her. He stilled his hand. 

"Would you care to repeat that? Slave?" 

Her eyes flew open and he grinned despite himself. 

"Master! Master, I'm sorry." 

"You know," he said, brushing a thumb over the rim of her ear, "I shouldn't let you enjoy this at all until you can control what comes out of your mouth." 

She squirmed. Made her knees wider apart in offering. "Master, please." 

By the flood, Doxolemy was beginning to think it required more discipline to be the one in control than the other way around. He inhaled the scent of her hair and did his best to rise to the occasion. 

"I should stay just as I am," he said in tones of calm, feigned spite, "knuckle deep in this pussy of mine, and not move at all." 

"Oh no, Master." Her brows had come together in frustration and she arched her back, threatening to break it in half, to urge his touch. Doxolemy tightened his grip in her hair. 

"Slaves don't have the privilege of saying 'no'. Another lesson I see you need to learn." He was enjoying this power play between them entirely too much. "I should let you stay here, bent over like this, and have you recite the entire Table of Hours before I let you feel anything again." 

The sharp intake of breath at this told him he'd found fitting material with which to work. 

"Yes," Doxolemy said in agreement with himself, "The Table of Hours. Begin." 

She said nothing, but blinked and stared at an inkwell sitting in her line of sight, as if confused. Fingers yanked from her body and a palm collided with her backside, three times in rapid succession. A healthy pink glow was blossoming over the vulnerable flesh. 

"Master!" 

"You imagine I jest?" The hand hovered in the air, ready to strike again, if needed. "Begin." 

Janeva swallowed to wet her throat and began to recite. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 03



"The first hour is given unto the Sword. If the Sword fall under the Arms of Heaven, portents of war will reach the nation. If the Sword fall under Enra's Pearl, the empress shall betray her consort. If the Sword fall under ..." 

Satisfied with the rhythm of the words tumbling rote from her mouth, Doxolemy returned to a lazy pushing of fingers up into his wife. He said soft, approving words at her ear when she continued to recite without stopping at his renewed caress. 

On occasion, her breath would hitch, or she would stall and stutter, but Janeva soldiered on, making a commendable effort to prove her obedience. He added a third finger and almost broke her concentration, but aside from a wide-eyed Oh! of startled enjoyment, she started in on the Third Hour and its variations. 

She was retaining far too much self-control. Some mischievous part of him wanted to see her slip up, if only so he could increase the stakes of their play. 

Doxolemy exchanged his fingers for a thumb, long enough to coat the shorter digit in her moisture. 

Let's see how you fare through this, my love. 

The pad of his thumb slid up and over her pucker. He felt her ribs expand with her breath when he nudged and began to tease her ring open. Janeva was being so very good for him, keeping her upper body flat to the table where he held her, feet planted on the floor, not trying to evade as he explored her. She had given up on trying to get through the Table, he noticed with a smirk. 

The tighter entrance yielded and he was inside, the other three fingers back to work in her pussy. There was nothing to be done about his hips beginning to grind against her where he leaned over the table: the whimpers and hisses flowing out of his wife now as he took his sliding possession of her were an intoxicant. He wanted more from her. More. And he had an idea of how to get it. 

"Stop," he said. Janeva opened her eyes and slowed her breathing, waiting for his words. He had them ready. 

"How many fingers are inside you, slave?" 

"Four." Her lids closed again, and he felt her slick channel squeeze around his hand. His grin almost split his face in two. This was the very response he sought. 

"How many?" he asked again. 

"F—four?" 

This time she was not so sure, and her eyes were wide and alert at his tone. His cock twitched, stiff and furious at that look on her face, that breathless anticipation. 

Doxolemy yanked his hand away and she jumped at the abrupt withdrawal. Then the panic came. She knew she'd made a mistake somewhere. 

"Four, Master!" She attempted to stall in him, alarm growing in her voice. "Oh please! Oh please, wait!" 

"Quiet." Another swat to her already pink bottom. "Not only do you fail to address me with respect, you fail to take into account that one of these is a thumb." He held the digits in front of her face in triumph. "Three fingers. One thumb." 

Her lips made an O of surprise when she saw how neatly she'd been snared, but there was no time for further reaction. In a fit of devious inspiration, Doxolemy snatched up the icepyre from the end of the table and brought the colorless end to her mouth. 

"Open." 

"Master!" Her brows flew up and she jerked in her satin binding more than before, craning her neck back to avoid the Will object he had in his hand. He clutched the fist in her hair and gave it a shake. She had not called out their chosen word to stop the game, and he knew from the tilt of her hips she was lost to her own submission and nearly mad with lust. 

"Open!" 

She obeyed, if with reluctance, and he slid the icepyre into her mouth. There was nothing for him to explain. Janeva closed her lips around it and he felt it move with the swirl of her tongue. She already knew. 

Will objects were valuable for a reason: Will to perform the desired task was already imbued into the object by their creators. Thus, nearly any person, talented with Will or no, could make them work to their purpose. Doxolemy could wield no more Will than what it might take to snuff out a candle, but the icepyre made this deficiency irrelevant. He had only to decide on the temperature and hold the thought in his mind, and the icepyre would do the rest. 

Ice, then. 

He let the thought come while the colorless half of the crystal was still in his wife's mouth so she would see her punishment coming. She made a muffled noise of realization around the smooth length of stone before he drew it out, coated now in her saliva. 

The muscles in her thighs and buttocks tensed when the growing chill of the crystal slid along the cleft between her cheeks and came to press against the tight knot of flesh. He allowed her no time to think. The stone pushed past her barrier and Janeva rewarded him with a gasp as he introduced the cold end of the icepyre into her body. Unlike any common bit of chilled stone, which would warm to match her surrounding heat after a short time, the Will object would remain as shockingly cold as that first penetration for as long as Doxolemy wished. 

He took a moment to toy with her, rotating the crystal shaft, drawing it out and working it back in, enjoying the way she dilated around it. Her fingernails were curling into the muscle of her forearms in an effort to stave off bucking and protests. His own patience was wearing thin, seeing her like this. Bent over his work table, bound, panting, her secrets exposed for his amusement. He would need to be inside her, and soon. 

Doxolemy collected his resolve for a final round of teasing before he allowed himself to give in to his urges. He pushed the icepyre deep, so that the gold band around its middle kissed up against her body. His fingers gripped the amber half like a handle. Satisfied with her glazed-over eyes, her bottom stuffed with unmelting ice, he brought her back to task. 

"Table of Hours," he said with a subtle thrust of the stone. "Where you left off. Now." 

His words found her disoriented. She lay there restrained. Impaled. Her response faltered accordingly. 

"Ungh. Huh?" His smile grew at her confusion as she tried to remember where she left off. "Where was ... Unh." Her body rocked forward. The thrusts with the crystal became more assertive. His arousal scalded and thumped against her hip, unable to fathom why no one had called it from the reserves. 

"The fifth ... the fifth hour is given ..." she found her place in the Table and picked up the recitation, if at a halting pace, punctuated by heavy breaths and whimperings. 

"... is given to the Falcon. If the Falcon fall under ..." 

He found his discipline waning. Kisses fell on her jaw, the side of her neck. Janeva moaned and did her utmost to stay the course, but her bottom was tilting up to greet her "punishment". 

"... fall under the Arms ..." 

They were both losing hold. She writhed on the relentless, chill crystal he held firm inside her, and he could feel the damp on the inside of his robes from his own leaking desire. Control was teetering on the ledge. 

"Fall ... under ..." 

He fell. 

The icepyre thudded onto the table top and she made a shocked noise at its withdrawal. Doxolemy had his robes over his head as though they were on fire. He hoisted her to a stand again by the black sash still binding her arms and, with a single long stride, pulled her after him onto the chaise at the side of his table. 

They crashed onto the padded surface, his back coming against the single arm of the chaise and her crossed arms behind pushing against his ribs as he settled her over his lap. The cheeks of her ass pillowed against his groin and hips; his cock, hard as the stone he'd just pulled from her body, jerked and tapped at the wet mouth between her spraddled legs. 

He was simply out of patience. His arm curved down and around, thumb and forefinger circled the root of his need, aimed, and pushed. 

"Ma—aster! Oh!" 

Doxolemy growled as he held his ripe, young wife by the hips, his lust sheathed to the hilt in molten silk. Something inside her grasped at him, clenched, and he surged into action. 

There was nothing slow or sensual about the way he pounded into her. She would have to allow him to make up for it another day. Now, he was bouncing her off his pelvis with vicious enthusiasm. The sound of their flesh slapping together was a lewd disruption to the quiet of the study, which moans and hisses from both of them rose up to accompany. 

Her head lolled back and his left hand came up to cup the front of her throat. With his initial frenzy sated to some degree, he had slowed enough that she had begun to roll her hips without fear of him slipping out. The noises vibrating up through her chest were a challenge: he wanted to hear more, to make her lose control the way he had. His free hand dipped lower, fingertips seeking, finding, circling. 

"Dox! Ungh!" 

There it was. He chuckled, not even bothering to reprimand her for the lapse of his name. They were too far gone for that. 

"Do you enjoy my hands on you, my little plaything?" 

"Mmhmm ..." She had taken over most of the effort now, the muscles of her backside bunching and flexing, riding his length while he teased and rolled her most sensitive flesh under the pads of his fingers. 

His wife drove him mad. Her smooth, pliant curves arching and grating over him. Him, some unworthy scholar more than half again her age. She kindled within him some dark, bubbling desire for possession and he found words on his lips that seemed to come from someone else. 

"Do you belong to me, Janeva?" The words came hoarse at her ear. 

"Yes," she breathed, hips rolling, "Yes, Master." 

"Every last bit of you?" His fingers tightened around her throat and she groaned her approval. 

"Yessss. All of me. I'm yours." 

"What about this?" he said, parting his first two fingers to fork them on either side her pussy so he could feel his own cock sliding home. "Does this belong to me?" 

"Yes, Master. Please." She writhed, wanting his touch back, but he brought the slick fingers to her mouth and past her parted lips. Janeva made some guttural sound, clamped down, and began to suck, working his cock with more desperation, still. 

"And this?" he said, pushing the digits to the back of her tongue to make a point of his control, "Is this mine? This mouth?" 

"Mmmf. Yugh!" Her eyes rolled back at the sound of her own muffled assent. 

Doxolemy was reckless, smashing through boundaries in this fever for dominance. 

"Do I own you, slave?" he asked, sliding the hand from her mouth, back down between her upturned breasts, over her belly, and back to her sex to feel her jerk under his touch. She squealed at this and he felt a surge of new moisture coating his still-pumping shaft. 

"Yes! Yes, I'm yours." His wife was rabid, gyrating over his cock, working him for all she was worth. "Use me how you like. You can have anything. Anything you want." 

"Anything, slave?" His taunts would not stop: he was a man possessed. "Perhaps I wish to see you well-used indeed. Overwhelmed. Helpless." He gave her pussy a slap and she cried out, his suggestions escalating with the pace of her breathing and the churning of her hips. 

"Perhaps I should summon the palace guard," he said, "let them all have a turn." She gasped and he poured it on thicker. "Or let them have you all at once. Muffle your screams with a man down your throat and two more splitting you in half? So much meat pushing in and out of every hole, man after man, until you lose all sense of time? If this is my pleasure will you give it to me?" 

"Dox, yes! Please! I'll take every cock in Novamne if you want! Divine! Please, love me!" 

In reality, the idea of his wife with another man made his heart pound in fear and rage, but the words, her immediate feral acquiescence, tightened his sack. He speared up into her, using her upper arms for leverage. Her cheeks jiggled at every impact of their bodies together and her scent filled the room. 

"You're mine, Janeva. Mine!" 

"Dox!" 

He felt it. Something inside her twitched, grasped at him: sucking, fluttering. Her mouth came open in a soundless cry and dark eyes went wide as she came. 

Doxolemy couldn't know what a woman felt in that moment, but the way she seemed transported to some blinding ... elsewhere, for lack of a better word, was proof enough for him that he'd at least done one thing right this day. Janeva made him feel like an emperor, even as she shuddered down from her peak. 

His cock slid from her body, though he was far from finished. Her sighs painted his skin and his erection raged, glossy and red. 

He was right to stay out of politics. Who had time for such machinations when there was this, right here in his study? 

... like an emperor ... 

You can have anything you want. She's told you so. 

He angled the head of his cock lower, ready to show her something hot where before he'd punished her with cold. Wide eyes and a short gasp were all his wife had time for. She opened to his push, and then opened some more. 

Doxolemy took what he wanted. 

* * * *



After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 04



Author's Note: Whatever happened to that Raothan guy? OK, we finally get to move forward with him, and people's paths begin to intertwine. Sorry this is a no-sex chapter, but I promise once we do get down to it again, it'll be a little more consistent from there on out. Just need to get all our lovers in the same place and pointed at each other. Hehe. 

Thanks, as always to Waterburn and AwkwardMD for their edits and suggestions. 

Enjoy! 

~Eris 

-=(^)=- 

Chapter Four 

When you challenge the Moon at last, expect to see all of her faces. 

~Kriga'al saying, origin unknown 

-=(^)=- 

With the last of the kissmelon piled in place, and the wheels and axles all inspected one final time, Raothan slapped the saigus on the rump and stepped forward alongside the mount. He ran his palm along the leather straps, which harnessed the cart to the scaly beast, and gave a quick nod of approval. 

"Time to be off again, Styrro," he said, patting the saigus on the side of the neck. "Behave yourself, you hear? Go the back way and try not to scare the breeches off half the village." The saigus shook its great head and snorted. "And let's not be all day, hmm? I'd like to get two trips in, if you don't mind. Go on, now." 

Another encouraging swat and his mount dipped its neck and stepped forward, rocking the open cart full of kissmelon into motion. Raothan watched Styrro plod along in a parallel route to the main road until he disappeared over the rise. 

The saigus was highly trainable, more so even than a horse, and he saw no reason not to send the animal into Aquillo with cartloads of his melon crop while he remained on the farm to harvest. Not when he could have the work done in half the time. He had an arrangement with the Merchant's Circle wherein Styrro would be received, the cart unloaded, the proper amount of coin tucked into a purse belted around the beast's neck. After this, the saigus would be fed, and so it was indicated to Styrro that his chore was complete and he could trundle the empty cart home. 

Not long after the first harvest Raothan had taken in from his little farm outside Aquillo, one of the merchants working the exchange tents had a notion to get the better of this scenario. Once during an especially busy harvest season, the man had tried to short-count the coin left in the saigus's purse, imagining no one would notice. 

Once. 

Raothan had made himself understood and, with the way rumor flew, it hadn't been a problem since, with any of the merchants. 

Now he bent back to the harvest, his wrist twisting away with a short, curved knife through the ropy melon stems as the sun rode high in the sky. The repetition of the work was making the dead skin on his left palm come up in white layers. The burn from the coal a few days prior had almost healed, but the faint darkening of flesh there reminded him of the Challenge. 

His knife went back to the kissmelon: tug and slice, tug and slice. His lower back was beginning to complain at having to bend low this way, but it was more efficient than kneeling and attempting to move down the rows. 

There'd been no outward sign, no response to his ritual plea, just as he'd expected. Nothing to say to him, "Stop! This is your purpose! This is the way!" The gods, he thought, either didn't care so much about the affairs of men as men might imagine, or they were simply not there at all: a useful fiction to allay fears and justify wars. 

A few dreams had come his way, though none that seemed to say anything useful. Battles waged in his sleep over smoking fields, endless solitary journeys through barren lands. These were normal enough for him. There had also been two or three, these last days, where he'd seen a woman. 

Raothan wiped sweat out of his eye with the side of a hand. 

The White Woman. That was how he thought of her, now that he was awake. In at least two of the dreams, she had simply been present, looking on with solemn disapproval as he went about various activities. No matter how skilled he was at these tasks during his waking hours, whether it was firing an arrow or braiding up his own hair, her hovering presence made him feel clumsy, childish, small. 

In the most recent dream, however, the White Woman had made him feel ... well, the exact opposite of small. He cleared his throat. It seemed as much as she could glare at him in icy disappointment with those silver eyes, her unnaturally pale skin could also hold a blush, and those lips could say his name. 

Was this a message from the gods? Maybe she represented the moon itself, that figure central to his Challenge, with all of her ghostly pearl and silver, the way no real person could ever appear. 

Or maybe it means you should have taken Lysetta up on her offer. You're still a man, Ga'ardahn, even if you are pathetic. 

He pushed gauzy recollections of pale, tangled limbs and breathy pleas away. If he had to, after he'd made a full day of work, he could tug himself to relief and clear his head. It seemed some parts of his body were oblivious to Last Moon challenges, forsaking the big questions for the narrow present and its insistent calls to have its needs sated. 

Raothan bent back to his task, using the repetitive motions to smother away nagging thoughts and urges. Before long, he was in that still place with only his breathing and the sensations of the moment: the sun on his back, rind and stalk moving under his hands, the scent of warm earth in his nostrils, hoofbeats ... 

Hoofbeats? 

He cocked his head, focusing his attention on the muted thudding. His farm was, if not remote, at least a short ride form the main road. There would be no one with occasion to lead a horse out this way, and damn sure not more than one. Still, his ears didn't lie. He stood and turned in the direction of the sound. 

A sprig of something dark bounced over the rise, growing as it came. Raothan knew that silhouette. The years would not let him forget. A spear point, aimed at the sky from horseback. Another black point joined the first, and then another. A rider's helm, the pointed ears of a mount. Two, three, ten ... 

J'rt Thi's fucking blood, what's this now? 

He tucked the harvest knife into his belt and dusted his palms together, knocking away the worst of the dirt. The approaching riders—some sort of guard unit, if his impressions served him—came on at a walk: casual, confident, not even bothering to press their mounts into a trot. 

They were cutting a straight path in his direction, and his steps took him back to the near edge of the field where it abutted the yard surrounding his house. What was there to do but meet them and learn their business? 

Probably some fool new decree being enacted. A tax levy, I'll wager. 

The riders jangled up, bits of tack glinting under the noon light, two columns of five splitting apart and fanning out into a semi-circle before him. An eleventh man, who'd ridden in at their head, stepped his horse forward. Raothan crossed his arms over his chest. 

"Look at this one," he heard one of the riders mutter to a neighbor, "head shaved like he thinks he's some kind of warrior." 

"The general would shit a sword," the other agreed on the low assessment of this foreigner standing before them. 

The leader swept a hand to the side for silence. 

"Are you Ga'ardahn?" he said. 

Raothan suspected the man already knew the answer to his own question. How many other Elvigra kissmelon farmers could there be out here? 

He laid a finger alongside his nose and then angled it at the man, acknowledging the accuracy of his guess. "It seems I am." 

His eyes skimmed the line of what he now was sure were Imperial Guard. The Emperor's sigil—a pair of crossed swords beneath a crescent moon—fluttered on blue pennants strung around the shoulders of every horse. Raothan noted the bulk of muscle distributed among the riders, the sharp eyes and taut grips. There were seven men and three women. None of them looked as though they had seen lives of ease. They were not here for a tax levy. 

The leader nodded once at Raothan's confirmation and tugged a folded leaf of parchment from a saddle pocket. He opened it and began to read, his voice carrying and formal. 

"Raothan Ga'ardahn, you are hereby summoned to the Imperial Palace at Protreo Novamne Solarius by the order of His Excellency, First Councilor Ptyverias Firsoni. You are to meet with the First Councilor to discuss your forthcoming duty to the Empire. Accommodations will be provided at the pleasure of His Excellency." 

The man looked up from the parchment at him. "Do you come to the palace of your own will, Ga'ardahn, or do we drag you behind one of our horses?" 

Raothan stood there, assessing, holding the leader's dark-eyed gaze. The fact that he felt the need to ask if Raothan would be willing did not bode well at all. He narrowed his eyes. 

"Let me see the summons," he said, taking a step forward and putting out his hand. The leader sneered. 

"Can you even read, 'vigra?" 

He kept his hand out and moved to stand beside the horse. Something twinkled in the man's eye, and he handed the parchment down, amused. The leader shrugged and quirked a smile at his unit, as if to say, "This ought to be entertaining." 

Raothan read the content of the summons with no trouble, backing away several steps as he did. It was all there, just as the man had read it. What it meant was anyone's guess. 

Being an exile wasn't a crime in Novamne, nor was being an immigrant, rare though the Elvigra were on this side of the mountains. And his "forthcoming duty to the Empire"? He shook his head. Even if they knew what he was ... 

No. It doesn't matter what they want, or what they know. No more cities. No more empires. 

"And to whom do I have the pleasure of addressing, Guardsman?" Raothan met the man with a smile now. He straightened in his saddle and looked down a blunt nose. 

"I am Ogdavian, of his Imperial Majesty's Palace Guard. You may refer to me as 'Captain' " 

Raothan's grin widened. 

"Well, Ogdy," he drawled, lifting the parchment, "you can tell 'His Excellency First Councilor Firsoni' "—here he spat noisily onto the summons—"that he is hereby summoned to bend his prick around backwards and go fuck himself." At this, he crumpled the parchment into a wad and with a decisive popping gesture of his fingers sent it rolling onto the dirt. 

There were noises from several of the guard: a few growls, a chuckle or two, and Ogdavian's face had gone tight. Raothan gave him a mock salute, turned on his heel, and strolled away, moving back inside his house. 

"Somehow I expected no less," he heard the captain say to his back. Then, to his guard unit: "Take him." 

He heard guards dismount outside and begin to approach the house on foot. Raothan pressed his back against the wall just to the left of the doorway. 

The first man to attempt entry never made it across the threshold. The newly sharpened points of Raothan's shears sprouted from the back of his neck like a spring shoot. After a gristly moment of gurgling cries, the blades drew back and the guard fell, any life left to clutch at his ruined throat draining out into the dirt. 

The next guard stepped with more care, but still took the business end of the shears straight down between the bones of his foot. The man leapt back with a yelp of pain, but more were coming to take his place. 

One of the women was lifting herself over the sill of his lone window, and the shadows of still more guards—albeit cautious now—loomed outside the door. The prone and wounded bodies of their two peers gave them pause now: there would be planning before any more rushed in, but rush in they would, and Raothan could not take eight more within the close, earthen walls of the house. 

I need to get out. 

There were too many at the door. His eyes flicked to the woman, half inside now, her upper body hanging over the windowsill. She had been smart to find and compromise a second entrance, but her cleverness proved a mistake. 

Raothan was at the window, gripping the back side of her breastplate at its bottom edge, yanking her forward. Her weight and momentum carried her head-first into the room, her helm clanking against the slim tabletop that ran along the wall beneath the window. He watched her neck bend at a queasy angle, and she fell, her head lolling from side to side in a daze. 

She'll only be stunned for a moment. Get the fuck out! 

He turned, hoisted his backside onto the windowsill, and gripped the brick of the wall above to lever himself up and out. 

Up. Up! 

The awning was in the way of his intended path once his feet hit the ground outside, however, and he could hear shouts from the guards who had seen his hasty exit through the open door. He bolted for the back side of the house, shears still in hand, and launched himself at a run to grab onto one of the protruding ceiling supports. 

His body swung up and over, feet coming to land on the low roof. 

The shears in his hand would only be useful if he allowed the pursuing guard to get close. He needed another weapon. 

Raothan backed through the rows of low containers, vegetable leaves brushing at his sides as he went. He kicked the shears beneath one of the planters, hoping the rooftop garden, where he grew such things as he needed to keep out of Styrro's reach, would conceal the blades from anyone else looking for a weapon. 

A helm was clearing the roofline. He snatched up a long-handled digging claw from where it leaned against the chimney and gripped it parallel to the roof under his feet as a staff. Several choice bits of profanity fell from his lips at the lack of opportunity to have grabbed his bow and quiver on the way up. 

In three quick strides, he was at the edge of the roof. The long wooden handle pivoted in a sharp arc and cracked over the knuckles of the climbing guard. First one hand, then the other. The man fell back with a yell, but another was already rising over an adjacent wall. 

He heard scrabbling and whipped around to see two more pulling themselves up behind him, the butts of their spears planted onto the rooftop for leverage. Raothan backed toward the brick cover of the chimney, knees flexed to move, his improvised staff at the ready, close to his body. 

I can't take the rest. There are too many. 

Options flashed by in his mind, and he rejected them, one by one. He couldn't expect to fend off all of them at once. There would be no getting back inside to retrieve his bow. He could run, but they had horses. If Styrro was here, he might have a chance, even to stand and fight—these Novamneans had never encountered the likes of a saigus, nor the feats of which one was capable. 

But Styrro was not here. 

This is your answer, Ga'ardahn. You're meant to die. And you won't even have to do the deed yourself. The gods have sent people to do it for you. 

"We've got him!" one of the men shouted down to his captain. His spear and two others pointed at Raothan's chest as the guards advanced across the rooftop. 

Raothan seized up, every muscle tense as he faced the fulfillment of his wish. It was less dramatic that he'd imagined. 

This is the answer. I'm going to die. I'll be here, and then I won't. Just like that. 

He began to laugh. 

One of the guards, a woman, stood up straighter at this, taken aback by his odd outburst. Something flashed bright across his vision at her movement and he blinked, shielding his eyes. 

The polished silver of the Imperial crescent moon on her helm had caught the sunlight. 

Raothan laughed harder. 

He dropped the dig-claw with a clatter and his hand went to his forehead. Tears came. His back met the chimney and he slid down, quaking with the ridiculousness of it all by the time his ass met the roof. 

You complete fucking pole-biter! Yes, this is the answer! 

He'd wanted to die. Asked the gods for a sign. Here was the moon, the very symbol of his Challenge, glaring in his face. They'd given him a sign: Go to Protreo. See what awaits. Not stand here and fucking die. How much more obvious could they be? 

Raothan raised his hands to the trio of guards poised to lunge with their spears. 

"You win," he said, still shaking his head at his own foolish blindness, "I yield. I'll go to Protreo." 

"What's happening up there?" came the demand from the Captain on the ground. There had been too much silence. 

Raothan nodded again, coming to his feet, hands still out in a placating gesture. "Go on," he said, "be easy. I give, I tell you." 

"He says he yields," the woman called back over her shoulder, eyes still fixed on the curious Elvigra farmer they had cornered on the roof. 

"Well then, bring his Old World carcass down here and let's be on with it." Raothan couldn't help but smile. He would have said something similar enough, in Ogdavian's shoes. 

The group made their way down from the roof, the two men before Raothan, and the woman after, spear at the ready in the event he grew troublesome again. The men on the ground were hauling the body of the guard whose neck he'd interrupted with the shears. 

"Looks like we won't have to drag you to the capital after all, Ga'ardahn," said the captain, approaching, still on his mount. "It seems Austis is no longer in need of his horse." 

Raothan glanced at the dead man. 

"Sorry about that." 

Ogdavian grunted at this and wheeled his horse about. Death circled a life at arms like flies over a midden heap. If the captain had expected no losses, he wouldn't have brought ten other men. 

"Mount up!" he said to the guards. "And get this 'vigra on a horse." 

-=(^)=- 

They'd tied his ankles to the cinch on both sides of the horse, despite his assurances he'd come along without further incident. The bay gelding was indifferent to its new rider and plodded along at an unperturbed pace. 

The road back to Aquillo was, as usual, fairly free of traffic. It wasn't until they passed into the village proper that anyone was present to spare the guard unit a second look. And of course, of all the people who would be out just then, here came Loresto. 

"Raothan! Hoi!" the older man said, approaching the column where Raothan rode halfway back. "We just sent your beast on its way, but Frazhan tells me—" 

The village Seat spotted Raothan's bound ankles. His eyes grew round. 

"What's this?" he said, turning an anxious look to the guard riding being Raothan. "What is this? What's happening here?" 

"Mind your affairs, old man," the guard said, spitting onto the road for emphasis. 

"I am the Seat of this village, and I will know where its citizens are being carted off to!" Loresto was striding alongside the line of riders now, face growing red with indignation. "Raothan, tell me what's happened." 

"Looks like I'm off to the capital, old friend. And you thought we'd just be sending Tarvus." He tried to keep his words in good humor as the horse ambled along. 

"But why?" Loresto tried the guard in front of Raothan this time. "Do you know the reason this man is being taken to the capital?" 

"They know as much as I do, Loresto," Raothan said, waving the Seat away from the guard. "The First Councilor seems to think I have some 'duty to the Empire', whatever that means. I did agree to go. After a bit of ... 'debate', of course. But I think they're worried I might change my mind." He gestured at last to the bindings with a smirk. 

"Have you done something wrong, Raothan?" Concern pinched the older man's features. 

"Aside from just being me?" He shrugged. "Not that I know of." 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 04



"Is there a problem here?" 

Ogdavian had peeled away from the head of the column and was heading back in their direction, a steely eye for the 'vigra and the village Seat. 

"There's no problem," Raothan said. "The Seat's just come to see me off, haven't you, Loresto?" 

Loresto made a grim line of his mouth and said nothing. 

"Right," said the captain, entirely unimpressed. "Finish your business Ga'ardahn. I've no interest in slowing the company for village gossip." With this, he turned his horse and trotted back to his place out in front. 

"Listen, Loresto," Raothan said in a low rush, "I don't know when I'll be back. There's still more to harvest back at my place. Tell Frazhan if he wants to cut it from the vine, he can sell it himself. It shouldn't go to waste." 

"And that beast of yours?" 

Raothan forced a breath out through his nostrils. "Styrro will find his own way if I ... if it takes too long. Don't worry about him." 

"Raothan ..." his friend shook his head, at a loss, still working to keep up with the horses. 

"Oh, I've been here twelve summers already," he said, trying to throw the sense of impending doom off the mood. "Just ask your wife." Something in him felt defeated at the idea that he might never see the sharp-tongued Cadrea again. Or Lysetta. 

"Look, stop worrying," he went on. "I can handle myself. Either I'll be back, or I won't. Besides"—he tried to laugh for Loresto's sake—"you're the one who keeps trying to get me involved in politics." 

"Yes. Well," Loresto said, "Sometimes we should be careful what we ask for." 

More than one of the guards jerked their heads around at Raothan's loud bark of laughter at this. 

"You're right about that, old friend. You're right about that." 

A few more steps went by in awkward silence until Roathan forced his goodbye. 

"We'll meet again, Loresto. And I promise you next time I won't be tied to a horse." 

That's probably because you'll be slung over the back of one. 

"The Divine keep you, Ga'ardahn," the Seat said, slowing his pace and falling away from the line. 

"And you, my friend," he said under his breath as the column passed out of Aquillo. 

He was going to need his own gods, Loresto's, and any others who might be available. 

Forthcoming duties to the Empire. 

Raothan curled his lip. 

Remember, you asked for this. 

-=(^)=- 

Niquel was far better prepared for a journey into the lowlands than any of her peers would have been. Her endless fascination with lowlander customs combined with the near unlimited resource in J'sau Jeqnam meant she knew more about what went on outside of the Starlys than most any of her people. 

The problem was, J'sau Jeqnam could only provide answers to questions she'd thought to ask. And sometimes a person fails to ask about matters they take for granted. She was reminded of this failure again when she lamented for perhaps the hundredth time since descending from the mountain how dashing hot it was down here. 

She had never sweat so much in her life. And now, crouched behind a vase the size of a healthy tree trunk, at the end of a dim corridor on a lower level of the imperial palace, she was stuck in her heavy cloak and breeches, on the verge of passing out from the heat. 

There was nothing she could do. It would be bad enough, if they caught her where she didn't belong. And after the last two days in the city, Niquel was most certain she did not belong. With the hood of the cloak and her gloves obscuring her conspicuous white flesh, at the very least she might be able to beg off, to claim she was lost and beat a retreat. If she shed her layers to cool down, even for a moment, however, she ran risk of instant discovery at the first glance of any lowlander eye. 

Vodi Namat, am I safe to go? she asked her guide. He'd been helping her choose her route since she'd approached the city. And such a city. How naïve she'd been to think the gathering in the step hall back in Jeqnamset was what counted as a large group of people. She closed her eyes a moment in some symbolic attempt to block out the immensity of it. Of what she was trying to accomplish. 

You are alone in this hallway, Niquel Nazav, but there are two women coming. Go now before they turn the far corner. 

Niquel came to a stand, cautious. And go to where these two halls meet and take the stair? Is the stairway clear? 

Yes, and Yes, little thief, he said with affection. 

At his assurances, she moved on softly padding boots down the deserted corridor, taking utmost care to balance haste with stealth. Being caught here would be a disaster—not for her, but for the Taunai as a people. If one of the guard, or even a servant found her here, it was a foregone conclusion that her body would be harmed enough to force the transition. This worried her the least. They would probably inflict pain for their own amusement as well, and while Niquel would avoid such torture if she could, the real anguish would come from knowing she had not completed her mission. 

Perhaps the Elders would announce the need for another Offering, once she returned as a guide and confessed her failure. Niquel thought this unlikely, though, as she found the foot of the stair where Vodi said it would be and began to climb. 

What sort of man was this Ptyverias, that he could influence a city so vast its people seemed to outnumber the stars? 

It would not take much, she thought in disgust as her steps carried her upward into the palace. Even the bare snippets of conversation she'd overheard while making her careful way through the shadows of the city had been enough to curdle her stomach. Maudri thought her brave for fetching the hori poppy, but her friend knew nothing of facing fear. Maudri had never attempted to remain invisible while walking a gauntlet of casual cruelty made all the more dangerous by its own complete lack of self-awareness. It left a foul taste in her mouth. 

Niquel had somehow hoped that her people, come back from yearly trade, had been exaggerating when they gave their horrific accounts of dealings with the lowlanders. A stubborn part of her wanted to believe that no people could choose to treat others with such savagery. But lazy speculations she'd heard while slipping through the outer city markets about how much coin Taunai teeth would fetch, or a scalp, or various organs, only lent credence to the traders' tales. They called her people gravetongue or shadespeaker, witch or demon. Their ignorance twisted her heart, and she itched to be away from them, safe, back on the mountain. 

How much farther, Vodi Namat? She felt as though she must be able to put her head out one of these narrow windows and drink the clouds. How high could this fool staircase go? 

Not very. Soon. You will see: the floors will change over to black marble, and there you will turn down the hallway toward Ptyverias's rooms. 

Niquel nodded a silent thanks. The Novamneans might have caught her a hundred times over by now, if not for Vodi. How did the lowlanders ever accomplish anything without being able to consult with J'sau Jeqnam? 

Some of them can hear us, Vodi put in without prompting, but they most often don't understand what it is they're hearing. And they are told that 'hearing voices' is a mark of insanity, so they choose not to listen. 

She shook her head at this. The lowlanders made very little sense. 

The next landing came into view and it was black stone, as her guide had said. Daylight burned through windows that lined the hall with slices of vivid blue sky. The only shadows sheltered themselves within a series of alcoves that broke up the wall opposite the windows at regular intervals. Niquel flattened herself into the nearest one and was still. 

At this upper level of the palace, the noises of crowds and servants at their duties had died away, and silence echoed off columns and walls of cool stone. The pulse of her blood rushed at her temples. 

You're sure he is gone? she asked Vodi. 

Ptyverias is not in his apartments, Niquel Nazav, and you do not have the luxury of waiting. Go. 

Courage mustered, she pushed herself away from the wall. Within a dozen soundless steps, she was at the set of doors Vodi had described to her earlier that day. Her gloved hand rose to the latch and pulled to slide it back. 

It didn't budge. 

It's locked. 

They call this a willbolt, Vodi said. You must speak a password for it to open. 

Do you know it? She would be out on the ice for sure, if her guide didn't have this information at the ready. 

The word is 'Lovenna', he said. 

What sort of thing is that? 

A name, I believe. Say it now, but quietly. 

Niquel whispered the word, trying her best to pronounce it with a proper Novamnean accent while her fingers held the latch. With what she was sure was a subtle vibration, the bolt slid back and the door cracked open. The rooms within were dark. 

Amazing, she said to Vodi as she ducked inside. A lock of this kind would never work if these people could speak to their guides. Doors would only be a barrier at the pleasure of J'sau Jeqnam. She felt a ripple of amusement from him at this. 

Her eyes went as wide as they could in the shadowed space, but Niquel could see nothing. If the room had windows, they were heavily draped. 

Put your hand to the wall at your side, said Vodi, and feel for the pebbled area on the stone. 

She found it with her fingers, coarse and nubbly. 

Think of daylight. 

The room exploded with light. She jerked a hand up to shield her eyes, and felt Vodi's intangible grimace. 

Perhaps twilight then. 

Niquel felt around again for the pebbly surface and thought of that time just before dusk. The blinding aura in the room dimmed to a quiet glow, enough to let her move about, but not nearly so obtrusive. It was well that she would be leaving as soon as she found what she came for. Despite all her years of questioning, of amassing personal knowledge, there was still so much she didn't know about lowland ways. It would be a relief to return to the familiar arms of the Starlys. Of Jeqnamset. 

Eyes adjusted to the new light, Niquel ran her gaze around the room. There were the windows, smothered in draperies that could have passed for winter blankets, as she'd suspected. High-backed chairs with wooden arms sat on either side of a low table, which would serve for drinking vessels, but not for eating. Shelves lined with books and various objects whose functions she couldn't even begin to guess stood on a wall opposite the windows. From what little she knew, Niquel imagined this must be some sort of receiving room, for there was no bed, nor any other furniture or fixtures to suggest bathing. 

A smaller door than the one through which she'd entered was set into the rear wall, and she suspected it led to the rooms where he slept. It was there that Niquel held out the most hope to find "some portion of his person", as the Elders had put it. 

The second door's latch was not a willbolt, and it slid aside without a sound. 

Watch for me, Vodi Namat, she said to her guide as her heart began to beat an excited rhythm in her chest, I will find what my people need. 

Niquel opened the door and slipped sideways into the bedchamber. The time she could spend here was short. She would not fail. 

-=(^)=- 

It was not the first time Raothan had been to the capital, but the moving wall of guards surrounding him made him wonder whether it might be the last. 

Protreo Novamne Solarius. The "center of protection of the new river", or something like that, in Early Novamnean. Aside from formal documents and ceremonies, however, no one bothered with the mouthful. It was simply "Protreo". 

He'd been here to trade, to see the sights, as curiosity in his early years on this side of the mountains had taken him. Who wouldn't want to see the wonders of one of the great cities, even if it wasn't home? Wondrous structures like the aqueduct and Osquillian's Arch, made by the hands of man at the order of emperors. Marvels of the earth: the cliffs, Omeron Falls. The dizzying hive of commerce in the markets, Upper and Lower Cliffport, ships drifting in and out with exotic cargo from more of the empire's far-flung cities. 

But on the three other visits he'd made to Protreo over the last twelve years, Raothan had never bothered to explore those portions of the city that neared the palace. He knew what went on in palaces and halls of the elite. Corruption. Scheming. Petty personal vendettas and ambitions. Best to remain as far away from all of it as possible. 

For everyone's sake. 

Now, though, he couldn't avoid it. 

Ogdavian's guard unit marched him through plazas and courtyards, along colonnades and up wide stone steps. So fucking many steps. After a while he began to note, however, that the corridors they herded him down were becoming less grand, the ornamental greenery and flags less frequent. Raothan knew when he was being escorted somewhere via the back way. 

With every additional step, this entire ridiculous adventure grew more ominous. Or laughable, depending upon how he looked at it. 

The palace itself loomed off to the left of their path, towering at the edge of the cliffs, a sprawling leviathan of sea-bleached stone and soaring columns. The entire many-leveled structure lay across the western border of the city, stately and sated as a lion after a kill, and just as assured of its unchallenged authority. 

Ogdavian's guards were not marching him toward the palace, though, but one of the smaller—if no less intimidating—ancillary structures surrounding it. 

The beweaponed men and women around him were all stiff knees and squared shoulders as they trooped inside a very solemn-walled building of grey stone and up still more banks of stairs. Roathan's gait, however, retained its usual loose, rolling flow, as though he owned every roof under which he'd ever set foot. His eyes swept along the corridor they walked, curious but casual. True, there was no way to know what would come next, but worrying about it would resolve nothing. 

They came to a halt in front of a formidable set of double doors, flanked by two more guardsmen. Raothan watched the captain approach the pair and lean in to say something inaudible. He received a nod and the men stepped back, one of them swinging open the door on the right for his entry. Well-oiled hinges pivoted closed behind him, leaving Raothan and the nine guards who'd brought him from Aquillo standing silent in the hallway. 

Leather creaked as bodies shifted, but the eyes around him faced straight ahead. Raothan stretched his neck while they listed; cracked his knuckles. 

"You fought well back in Aquillo, 'vigra." 

He blinked and glanced in the direction of the voice. The guardswoman who'd been among the three to pin him on the roof was beside him. She kept her face locked forward, but he saw her cut a sporting eye in his direction. He grunted. 

"If it weren't for the rules about 'consorting'," she said out of the side of her mouth, "I'd ask to see what else you're good at." At this, she did turn her head, if only a fraction of the way, and favored him with a lascivious wink and a further unprofessional gesture with her hand gripping the shaft of her spear. 

He shook his head and couldn't prevent a half smile of his own. Soldiers were the same in every land: always hard up and never quiet about it. 

The door opened a second time and Ogdavian returned. 

"Bring him in," he said to the guards, nodding to one of the pair stationed in the hall to push open the other half of the door. The column moved forward, taking Raothan with it into whatever demands or disasters awaited on the other side. 

The next room was just as grey as the rest of the building, but it was spacious, and the sense of oppression was relieved in some measure by a generous skylight. A long, heavy table dominated the center of the open rectangular space. It was stone like everything else, and looked large enough to accommodate at least twenty. 

Now there were only two. 

He allowed himself to be ushered into place before the seated pair and left to stand alone while the guards formed a line at his back. Roathan turned his head to look over his shoulder at the array of muscle and spears behind him, and then brought his assessing eye back to the men at the table, taking his measure of the situation. They hadn't shackled or restrained him in any way, but it was clear he was not free to go. 

They had positioned him to face the long side of the table, and one of the men sat opposite. His hands lay folded together on the bare surface and he leaned forward with dark-eyed interest. The man appeared to have seen several summers more than Raothan had. Silver crept in at his temples amid otherwise black, close-cropped hair, but this suggested wisdom more than age. These indications along with the cut of his robes screamed academia. 

The other man sat at the end of the table with his chair turned to face Raothan and the guards. 

Ah, here you are. 

This man had been the one to order the summons. It could be no other. 

Here was one of those rare individuals of indeterminate age. He might have been anywhere between forty and sixty summers with steel-grey hair and a long, serious face. Blue eyes just as hard and cold as the rest of him held Raothan up, turned him every which way, and discarded everything not useful for his purposes. 

There were no doubts. This was the First Councilor, Ptyverias Firsoni. 

The parties continued to square off for long, weighted moments before anyone spoke: the two seated men eyeing him with their own separate interests, and Raothan standing with his weight on one leg, arms folded over his chest, indifferent. 

He was about to say something rude, just to break the silence when the First Councilor did it for him. 

"You are Raothan Ga'ardahn?" 

Fucking games. They know who I am. 

"I am." 

Firsoni leaned back with a single, slow nod, elbows on the arm rests of his chair, forefingers steepled together in front of his chest. The First Councilor's reputation for cool, detached calculation had spread even to Aquillo, and it lay about the man's robed shoulders now like an icy mantle. Raothan had his suspicions, as did many, about the questionable circumstances surrounding the death of the previous Emperor, Telexeo. 

"I'll waste no time with preamble, Ga'ardahn," the man said, "Do you understand why you are here?" 

The kissmelon farmer failed to look either intimidated, or impressed. 

"Some sort of 'duty to the empire', I was told? I don't know. It was hard to pay attention while I was throat fucking one of your men with a pair of gardening shears." 

Firsoni raised a cool brow at his flippant response and the air in the space thickened as the two men engaged. In a mere two sentences, the other people in the room seemed to rush away, leaving Raothan and the First Councilor to lock invisible horns. Each of them recognized, in his own private way, and for reasons neither could yet comprehend, the mutual declaration of war. The sort of animosity that springs up between two people and can only end in one of them having the good sense to die. 

"Well. As there is very little in the way of distraction here and now, Elvigra," the seated man said, "I should think you will have no trouble understanding my words. There is a duty the empire requires of you." 

"Yeah? And what's that? Farming kissmelon? Because that's what I do." 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 04



"Droll," said Firsoni, face not twitching with the slightest hint of amusement. "I can see we've made an apt selection. No, I don't think you'll have the time, anymore, for fields and harvest, Ga'ardahn. You are needed ... to become the emperor." 

Raothan blinked at him once and then exploded. 

"HAH!" Now the First Councilor did start at Raothan's loud bark of laughter. "And what else am I to do, Your Excellency? Sprout gossamer wings and fly over Lower Cliffport, showering the merchant ships with golden crowns from the crack of my ass?" 

The older man's fingers clutched the ends of the arm rests in irritation. 

"Be serious, First Councilor," Raothan said, wiping tears from his eyes, shoulders still quaking with mirth, "you don't look like the kind of man who jests. What is it you want?" 

"I am serious, you ignorant dog." The first cracks were showing in the councilor's stoic shell. "You have been chosen to be crowned Emperor in place of Tamorous. At least until the next eclipse." 

"Oh?" Raothan was still incredulous. "Then what?" 

"And then"—Firsoni smiled for the first time, and it matched the malefic narrowing of his eyes—"you will have the privilege to die. For the good of the empire, of course." He inclined his head at this last bit, as though it deserved thanks. 

"Die? How's that going to help? I can die in Aquillo in another thirty or forty summers—why do you need me to do it on a throne?" 

Thirty summers. You were planning to shove off a lot sooner than that, Ga'ardahn. 

And what does Tamorous think about all this? 

Raothan had heard the new emperor was young. Surely he had a long reign still ahead of him, with no need for a replacement any time soon. No, something else was afoot here. 

The First Councilor's smile was sickening now, and self-satisfied. "I'm glad you asked, Ga'ardahn. This," he said, gesturing to the other man seated at the table, "is the First Chronicler. Also astrologer to the emperor. Explain if you would, Doxolemy, the nature of our problem with the eclipse, and how our Elvigra guest here will be helping us out of it." 

Firsoni kept his eyes on Raothan as the astrologer cleared his throat and began to speak. Likewise, the astrologer did not spare a glance for the First Councilor. His voice was dispassionate as he summarized, though not with the ice of his colleague. He spoke with the careful neutrality of a man who wished to keep himself apart from turbulent affairs. Raothan could see the years of obligate proximity between the two men from their postures and avoidance of eye contact alone. 

The explanation was brief and succinct, and at the end of it, this Doxolemy's words had sobered him from his earlier fire. 

"So ... you expect to say some words over me and let you put a crown on my head until this eclipse ..." He gestured ineffectually. 

"Kills you, yes," Firsoni finished his sentence. 

Raothan felt his lip wanting to curl. 

"And if I refuse?" 

"Then you can die today instead, Elvigra," he said, indicating the very pointy row of spears at Raothan's back, "and sentence some other equally ill-fated soul to go in your place. It's a simple choice, yes? Expire now or in two weeks, after enjoying the luxuries of the throne as payment for your service." 

The First Councilor was either the cleverest man Raothan had ever crossed paths with, or the stupidest. Either Firsoni was so naïvely confident in the power of his threat that the idea of Raothan calling his bluff had never crossed his mind, or he was such a brilliant judge of men that he had already worked out the truth: the Elvigra exile standing before him would not see himself responsible for another person's death. 

Never again, Hast Kriga'al. If it means you die in two weeks, then— 

There was a clatter in the hallway. Raised voices. 

"His Excellency is engaged at the moment! Please, if you will let me convey—" 

Every eye in the room turned to the entrance. A dull thud sounded on the outside of the doors and one of them burst open, swinging in a forceful arc against the wall. 

"General! You can't just—" 

The entry of two officers cut the protests of the lackey short. Leading them, in full military dress, was perhaps the most formidable woman Raothan had ever seen. She was not pleased. 

"Firsoni," she said, marching in with her gleaming, blue-crested helm under one arm, "I'll have your skinny shanks thrown from the top of the Arch for fishbait if you so much as think of issuing orders to my troops one more illhallowed time." Her voice echoed around the room, bold and jarring, like a fist connecting with a jaw. 

The First Councilor managed to repress an eye roll, but only just. 

"General Ayzhus," he drew out her name like a chore, "always a pleasure." His tone said it was anything but. 

"Pack off, old man." She brought her officers to a halt at the opposite end of the table and plunked down the helm. Sharp blue eyes as pale as dawn flicked to the row of guards behind Raothan. "You," Ayzhus jerked a nod at the nine spears and then at the door, "Out." 

So this was the great Kadrian Ayzhus. Raothan hadn't expected her to be a Parthi. Nor did he expect to see the left side of her head shorn up to the temple, the same as his. A tattoo of a ram's horn curled from her hairline back over her ear where the hair would have been. She couldn't have seen more than thirty, thirty-five summers. 

Interesting. 

He hadn't been aware of the presence of the Kriga'al on this side of the mountains. And at the head of the imperial army, no less. 

This changes nothing, Ga'ardahn. 

Ayzhus watched the last of her men file out and called to the end of the line as it snaked past the door: "And tell Ogdavian to report when you see him. I'll need to hear why we have a body over the back of a horse for no good reason." 

The woman turned her attention back to Firsoni while the pair of officers behind her looked on, casual but with the coiled promise of violence common among people trained to make war. 

"Undermining a sitting general's authority didn't cease to be treason at your convenience, First Councilor." She fingered the hilt of her sword as she said this, and the movement of her arm made the pale gold of her warrior's queue shift back over her plated shoulder. 

The First Councilor was back to folded hands and impassive features, but he, too, looked poised to lash out. 

The general's gaze swept around the room and it took time to light on first Raothan, and then the astrologer, before fixing again on Firsoni. Her eyes narrowed in disapproval. 

"Shouldn't you be off suckling at the Church's teat somewhere?" She sneered at him. 

This was the jab that punctured the man's restraint. 

"Shouldn't you be unnaturally fornicating with some misguided slit from that damnable harem of yours?" He leaned forward in his chair and made no effort to hide the malice in his eyes. Ayzhus gave a bitter chuckle. 

"Strong words, Councilor," she said, flicking an eye over his person. "Perhaps you're a man under those robes after all. Still. Another pious prick can easily be found to replace you." She picked up her helm. "I suggest you think twice then next time you have a notion to command my men." 

"Are you quite finished, General?" 

Ayzhus humphed at him in distaste, making another visual sweep of the room. "Where is His Grace? Does the emperor know that a portion of the council meets in his absence?" 

The First Councilor's forehead creased in a way that said just how little he thought of the general and her questions. 

"His Imperial Majesty has other concerns just now. As should you." 

She snorted at this, and waved a hand in rude dismissal. "Bah. I've seen enough." Her eyes fell on Raothan as she turned to leave. 

"Best of luck dealing with this one, 'vigra," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at Firsoni. "Word of advice: keep your asshole puckered shut. Lieutenants?" Ayzhus was halfway to the door. "I need a drink." 

The general wasn't the only one who could've done with a drink. If this were another life, Raothan would have liked to go have one with her—the Parthi Blyd Kriga'al and her handling of the First Councilor met with his hearty approval. 

But this wasn't another life. This was here; now. 

And Raothan had choices to make. One choice, at least. He turned his attention back to Firsoni. 

"So," the First Councilor said, ready as well to return to the matter at hand, "what will you wear tomorrow, Ga'ardahn? A crown? Or a shroud." 

The exit of the fiery general and the guard unit had bled all the life from the room, and Firsoni's words were a fitting pall for the reality left behind. 

Die today or die under the eclipse. Both were the same answer to the same question. When he'd snapped out of his fighting instincts back on the roof in Aquillo, Raothan had taken the unlikely appearance of imperial guard at his door as a sign. A sign from the gods in response to his Challenge. Perhaps there was something else for him in this life, something they meant him to discover in Protreo. 

Now, here in the grey council hall, with two of the highest ranking officials in Novamne apportioning him this grim mandate, Raothan felt the full weight of the gods' true answer. And oddly enough, it was no weight at all. 

He was going to get what he'd wanted in the first place: release. It was only a matter of when, and how. Very simple, when he thought about it. He had no obligations to anyone, no one to notify. Perhaps he could make arrangements for his farm, see that it was passed to Loresto, or even Frazhan. Make sure Styrro headed back to a herd. Yes. This decided it. 

The gods had spoken; their message was clear. And taking the throne for a matter of weeks would allow him time to tie up loose ends. 

Raothan inhaled and looked from the First Councilor to the astrologer and back again. He let out the breath through his nose. 

"The throne, then," he said. The walls seemed to drink in the import of his words. "It will give me time to set my affairs in order." 

Firsoni smiled. "Your 'affairs'. Of course." His tone mocked as he rose from his chair. "A wise choice, Ga'ardahn." 

Wise. That'll be a first. 

"So what happens now?" 

"Now," the First Councilor said, stepping away from the table and toward Raothan, "Tamorous will be formally stripped of his title and relocated to somewhere safe. You will be crowned in his place after I perform a small ritual on your person to assure that the eclipse takes the true emperor—who will, by then, be you. Tamorous will be re-crowned after your death." 

What a simple matter it was for this man to shape the flow of the empire. Raothan could have laughed. "Where will you send the emperor?" he asked. 

"That is not your concern, Ga'ardahn." 

He'd imagined as much. "When is the coronation?" 

"Tomorrow." 

Sooner than I thought. Not that it matters. 

The older man came to stand directly in front of him, cool eyes assessing. 

"And this ritual? What does that entail?" Raothan was not shy with his questions now. He had nothing to lose. 

"Nothing that will damage you," said Firsoni, "at least not beyond repair. Though this is of little consequence. You'll be unconscious for the entire process. You will feel nothing." 

"Unconscious?" Raothan's arms came uncrossed, and he took a step back, suspicious again. "Why will I be unconscious?" 

"Exen," The First Councilor said over Raothan's shoulder to the lackey who'd tried to keep out the general, "The sleepstone, if you please." 

A touch of cool stone, just below his right ear, was all the warning he had. 

"Sleepstone? What the fuck is a—" 

Blackout. 

-=(^)=- 

The council hall was quiet in the late afternoon. The astrologer had long since left. Only one of the First Councilor's servants had remained to assist him with fetching needed items and positioning the sleeping sacrifice. 

Ptyverias wiped the remainder of the oil from his hands with a cloth, along with the filth he'd picked up from the Elvigra's flesh. He looked to the insensible heathen farmer sprawled on the stone floor at his feet and sniffed in disdain. 

Old World swine. He should feel honored to die this way. 

With the sealing ritual done, the First Councilor's key contribution to the surrogate emperor plan was complete, but there were still preparations to be made. 

He turned to the servant and his face shifted in mild contempt. The lackey was a foreigner, as well: Elvigra, like the man on the floor. 

Is no one around me Novamnean anymore? The Divine help us all. 

"See to it this beast is moved," he said to the servant, tossing the dirtied cloth onto the limp form on the floor, "preferably to the baths. Send someone to be there when he awakes and make sure he washes off all the stink." 

"Yes, Your Excellency," the younger man said, affecting a small bow. 

"And have something more appropriate found for him to wear to the coronation tomorrow. Perhaps the guards' outfitter may be of assistance—nothing in the emperor's wardrobe is going to fit." He gave the Elvigra's shoulder a poke with his foot, as though it were a dead thing. "Tamorous is half his size." 

The servant nodded again. "What more may I do, Your Excellency?" 

"Tamorous is already en route?" 

"His Grace is on the road now, yes." Another bow. 

Ptyverias nodded his approval, but then lifted his eyes to the skylight for a moment, trying to decide if there was anything else needing attention. "Send out the heralds," he said at last, "and have them make sure Protreo learns of tomorrow's ceremony. We need as many as possible to see him crowned and know him as Emperor. The larger the crowd, the better." 

"It will be done, Your Excellency." 

"See that it is," Ptyverias said, already making his exit. "If there are any problems, notify me at once. I'll be in my apartments." 

As the First Councilor passed out of the council hall, his shoulders lifted the smallest measure in relief. His plans were beginning to come together. 

-=(^)=- 

Finally. Three lousy hairs. It was the best Niquel could turn up after scouring the entirety of Ptyverias's rooms. 

The man must be fastidious to a fault. 

Her meager prize tucked safely into a folded leaf of parchment, and that secured inside a leather pouch at her waist, she backed out of his bedchamber, careful to extinguish the glowing light as she went by way of the pebbly stone on the wall. The inner door latched with a smooth snick behind her. It was time to leave; time to slink her way through the shadows and alleys one more nerve-wracking time and be on her way back to Jeqnamset. Back to her people. 

Niquel raised the dark fabric of her hood to cover her hair and face again as she padded across what she'd come to think of as the First Councilor's receiving room. The day was growing long, and soon she'd have the advantage of twilight, followed by full dark, to aid the ease of her retreat. For now, though, the hood's extra concealment would be of utmost importance. 

The second inset square of the curious textured stone was beneath her fingers. She thought of midnight under a Silent Moon and the room plunged into darkness. 

Amazing. 

She cracked the door to the hallway open, but hesitated. 

Is the way clear, Vodi Namat? 

Now is the time, Niquel Nazav, he said. Go. 

Her heart thumped in her chest as she slid out of the apartments, silent as an owl in flight. The sky had turned golden orange during her search, and the light of the setting sun through the tall windows gleamed on the polished surface of the willbolt as she moved it back into place. She would need to leave everything as she'd found it. 

"Winter's tears!" she swore under her breath. "What is that foolish password again?" 

"Lovenna." 

The word was spoken aloud. It was not Vodi. 

Niquel whirled and her gasp nearly choked her. A man stood behind her, not an arm's length away, tall and radiating menace. 

Vodi! Vodi Namat! What is happening? 

The Novamnean had grey hair, but the hand that thrust out did not seem old or infirm when it connected with her breastbone and shoved her back against the door. The back of her head cracked against the wood and Niquel let out a disoriented grunt.  

Vodi! Where are you? Help me! Vodi! 

Her wrists flew up to knock the man's arm aside but, in mid-arc, her arms fell to her sides, limp as laundry. A knuckle was under her chin. Something smooth and rounded was pressing there: metal or stone. Her arms dangled. She wanted to kick or run, but her legs ignored her, and her feet were rooted in place. 

I can't move. I can't move anything! Vodi Namat, what do I do? Answer me! 

"A thief perhaps?" the man said in Novamnean. The sound of his voice made her blood run cold. "Or maybe a spy. Did one of those fools in the senate send you?" 

Whatever he was holding beneath her chin was keeping her immobile. Niquel stood helpless as the shadow of his other arm crossed in front of her and fingers tugged the hood back from her face. 

NO! No no no! Vodi! 

The man inhaled, quick and sharp, when her silver hair and snowy face met the sunlight. Niquel did the same when she met the blue eyes and terrible scowl. Here was Ptyverias. Here was the man who would help annihilate her people. 

"Shadespeaker," he hissed before whipping his head from one side of the hallway to the other, as though he expected an ambush at any moment. Ptyverias turned his eyes back to her and the knuckle under her chin tilted her face up to his. Whatever object he held or wore continued to sap movement from her limbs. Niquel's heartbeat had slowed, but now each pulse met the inside of her ribcage with a painful whump, as though it were trying to burst from her body and flee on its own. Her throat was dry and she could say nothing. She could only stare at this man in disbelief and wonder why her guide wouldn't answer. 

"Guards!" he bellowed, not taking those horrible eyes from her. She would have started at his shout if she'd been able to move. The First Councilor closed the gap between them and was less than a handspan from her face, eyes measuring; dissecting. 

"What illhallowed business is this, hmm?" His free hand had come up to separate a lock of her hair, and he drew it between his fingers now, assessing. "Your kind don't come down from the mountain to sneak around the halls of the palace. What were you doing in my rooms?" 

Niquel gaped at him, eyes wide with shock. She couldn't have answered him that moment if she wanted to. 

There were footsteps on the stair, and clattering. Two guards rounded the corner and broke into a noisy jog when they spotted Ptyverias. The man hadn't looked away from her. 

"We have a trespasser," he said to the approaching men, his voice casual and unnerving as he held her against the door. 

She heard one of the guards gasp as they arrived. "A witch," the man said, in horrified awe, and she saw him make a lowlander sign of protection over his chest out of the corner of her eye. 

Vodi? Her voice was tiny, even in her own head. I am afraid. 

"One of you, fetch me a silencer," said Ptyverias. 

"A what?" the second guard blurted. His fellow smacked him and he spat out the belated title: "Your Excellency?" 

"A contact harness, you fool," he said with a sideways grimace of impatience. "Doesn't Ayzhus train you? Check the arms repository on the ground floor. If not, find the First Chronicler—he'll know where one is, and if he doesn't, that wife of his will." 

When neither of the pair departed, Ptyverias snarled. "Go!" 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 04



They went, beating a hurried, noisy path back down the stairs. 

His full attention was back on Niquel. She willed her limbs to move with all her might, but it was as though her body belonged to someone else. She could only blink and breathe. 

"It's a shame," he said, stroking long, cool fingers down the side of her face, her neck. "There are so many questions I'd like to ask one of your kind. I'm sure you'd have a lovely time answering them for me." Her stomach heaved at the poison in his tone. "But I have larger problems to contend with just now, so unfortunately you'll be going to the cages. Since you like consorting with the dead so much"—here he smiled—"we can send you to join them. Executions are in three days." 

Niquel felt the first tears in many winters slide scalding down over her cheek at this, silent and accusing. She had failed. Her people. The Taunai. She had failed them. 

Vodi Namat. Please. Why? Why didn't you help me? 

She almost expected her guide not to answer, considering his earlier absence, but the familiar voice returned, weighed down with regret in her mind. 

I am sorry, Niquel Nazav. Truly. Your path lies with the Pattern now. 

The Pattern? she said, But I was supposed to return to the Elders! To help them complete the Turning! 

"Do you speak to them even now, blasphemer?" Ptyverias's knuckle drove deeper under her chin and she swallowed, trying to relieve the pressure. 

We are each of us where we are supposed to be, said Vodi, You must remember this, at all times. 

The guards were thumping back up the stairs. The First Councilor looked down at her with a cruel smile. He put his hand out for whatever it was he'd requested and one of the men gave it over. Niquel's eyes flicked down to some mess of leather straps and at least one silvery metal plate. 

"Hold her," he said to the guards, "and I will fit the harness." 

The men stepped near, darkening the window behind them. 

Vodi! Please! Why? 

The Pattern, Niquel Nazav. Always the Pattern. 

Ptyverias removed his knuckle from her throat and the other two men grabbed her by the upper arms. 

Her paralysis ended. Niquel screamed for all she was worth. 

-=(^)=-



After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 05



Author's Note: OK, guys. This is the last chapter I have written. After this, there's going to be a wait as I write chapters 6-9 to complete Book 1 of 3. You can always check my profile for progress updates. 

Content Warning: brief, not-extremely-graphic NonConsent 

Thanks, as always to Waterburn and AwkwardMD for their edits and suggestions. 

Hope to see you around again when we pick back up in CH 6. 

~Eris 

-=(^)=- 

Chapter Five 

The Circle is one and all, whole and eternal. 

The Void is nothing and none, the unmaking. 

The Circle contains the Void. 

We cannot know one, but for the other. 

~Inscription on the floor of the Temple of En Hata'al at Setsirkhal, Elvigraath 

-=(^)=- 

The air was thick. And wet. Raothan was warmer than he should be. Swollen eyes blinked their way open only to wince at glaring lamplight before scrunching shut again. 

Too much light. 

His senses were muddied and sluggish in the way that comes from falling asleep on a late afternoon and waking some indeterminate amount of time later with no idea whether it's the same evening or early the next morning. He blinked again, forcing himself to take in the golden light. His shoulder ached from lying on something hard. 

Where on J'rt Thi's blessed earth am I? 

The details of the room coalesced together as his mind stretched and gathered itself. There were oil lamps set along stone walls, flickering at regular intervals. Round columns lined the perimeter of the space. These Novamneans loved their fucking columns. Four large, square openings in the pale floor reflected the lamplight from liquid mirrors within. For a moment, grogginess continued to confound him. But then ... 

Water. These are baths. I'm in Protreo. The Palace. 

It came back then. The guards, the First Councilor, the throne, the eclipse. You will be unconscious for the entire process, Firsoni had said. You will feel nothing. There had been something about a sleepstone and now he was here. It was clear the older man had put him out with what was probably one of those Novamnean Will objects, done ... whatever ... to him, and had him moved to this bathing room. 

Raothan slid his hands along his body, taking stock. His fingers felt slightly swollen, and there was some sort of oily residue lingering on his shoulders and upper arms. He brought his hand up and took in the scent. It hinted at herbs, but none he recognized, and something bordering on metallic. Remnants of Firsoni's "ritual", most likely. 

He levered his torso up and away from what he realized was a sandstone bench situated several paces from one of the open baths. When his feet met the floor, he noted that it consisted of the same porous stone. A well-thought-out choice for a room where water would splash and pool underfoot. 

His jhor was still intact he saw, and for this, he thanked the gods for small favors. No one had undressed him while he was out, or if they had, they'd gone to the trouble of clothing him again, but he preferred not to imagine that alternative. He stretched, arching his spine forward, and felt stiff muscles complain at their time on the hard bench. His back cricked like a boy running along a slat fence with a stick. 

"Enjoy your nap, 'vigra?" 

Raothan's arms came down from the stretch as he turned to what sounded like a familiar voice to his right and behind him. 

The guard from the hallway earlier grinned at him, helm gone but spear still in hand. Dark Novamnean eyes glittered at him in amusement. A quick glance around the room told him they were the only two in the baths. The heat in the room and the bout of sleep had sapped him of too much energy to bother with anything rash, but still, Raothan opened his mouth to test boundaries, as he always did. 

"So just one guard?" he said, standing for another lingering stretch. "What if I run? You going to overpower me alone, Novamnean?" 

"Name's Loxanthe," she said, leaning her weight on her spear with both hands on the shaft in front of her, "and I'm the only one in here. There are four more outside in the hall." 

"Five," he nodded, sticking out a lower lip to show he was impressed. "You throw around one pair of shears and suddenly you're taken seriously." 

The guardswoman shook her head, remembering. "Austis was a jackass. He paid the price for rushing in and not using his head." She shrugged and then focused on Raothan again. "So I have a bunk I'd like to get back to tonight, 'vigra. Are you going to get in that water anytime soon, or do I have to push you?" He took in her considering eye and suspected he knew which of those two she'd prefer. 

There were questions. Many of them. What would this coronation consist of? How soon would he be free to contact Loresto and make arrangements for his farm? What would he do more or less alone in a palace until the night of the eclipse? Would he expire on the spot, or would the First Councilor simply have him killed? 

All of these he brushed aside. He was tired. And covered in oil and dirt from the road and horses. In front of him were steaming, ready baths. How long had it been since he'd been able to avail himself of this much clean, hot water in once place?  

Fuck it. 

Raothan was not ashamed and, judging by her crude remarks, this Loxanthe had likely seen it all before. He undid his belt and pulled his jhor over his head. As a people, the Elvigra tended to dress light: there were no other garments to shed. Without looking back at the eyes that were sure to be taking their fill, he stepped to the nearest basin and plunked his foot onto the first step. Water sloshed over his ankle and he held back a small groan. 

"Mmm mm," he heard the guardswoman hum as he descended the other two steps into the luxury of the bath. "They know how to grow 'em in your part of the world, don't they?" 

Instead of rising to her taunts, he plunged his head beneath the water and whipped it back out. The length of his hair sprayed an arc across the room, nearly dousing the guard. There was a fat cake of soap in a curved tray to one side of the basin. He took it up and went to work. 

"So they're really going to make you Emperor?" 

This woman was talkative for someone who was supposed to be on duty, and watched him without embarrassment as he scrubbed at his scalp, his limbs. 

"That's what I'm told," he said, "but I'll believe it when I see it. You know how these officials are: two different lies out of two sides of their mouth at once." The guardswoman nodded at this with the look on her face of someone who agreed, but ought not to say so aloud. 

Again, his head went below, only to come up leaving the water rippling with filthy suds. A coarse rag lay near the soap tray. He took it up and used the basin's bottom step to lift himself out of the water and lather it over his groin. 

"Need a hand with that?" Her eyes on him were casual but appreciative. 

"I think I've got in under control," he said, giving his member an extra soapy tug as a rude response to her offer. Raothan suspected she was more serious about it than her tone implied, but his mind rebelled, too wrung out from the events of the day to make the effort at "consorting", as she'd put it. Even though he'd woken less than an hour ago, he already wanted a pillow and more darkness. 

Body rinsed of soap, he stepped out of the water and dripped his way over to a stack of folded drying cloths laid out on another of the sandstone benches. 

"Saving it up for all the senators' wives you're going to plow your way through, once you have the crown?" Loxanthe said, inspecting the point of her spear while she waited. "Can't say that I blame you." 

Raothan snorted. "If you see me trying to get this thing wet again," he said as he finished drying himself, "You have my permission to slap me. Sound the alarm, ring the bells, or whatever it is you Imperials do around here, because that's how'll you know something's gone gods-awful wrong. All I want now"—he picked up his jhor and pulled it back over his head—"is somewhere to sleep and pretend tomorrow isn't happening." 

The woman shook her head. "You're more annoyed at the prospect of unlimited wealth and power than anyone I've ever met, 'vigra, but if a bed's what you want, you'll at least be in luck on that front. The emperor's rooms are ready, and that's where we're escorting you next. I hear his bed's made out of pygmy virgin goose feathers, or some bullshit like that." 

"Well let's hope it's the goose feathers and not the bull shit, huh?" he said to her, wringing the last of the water from his hair. "I'm ready if you're ready. Lead the way." 

He followed Loxanthe out into the hallway to meet up with the other four guards, and their group trooped off, Raothan at its center, through the forest of stone columns. It had been an offhand remark, what the guardswoman had said about his being annoyed with the idea of power, but it rattled away in his head, nonetheless. It was some bizarre joke of the gods that he was being forced into the very position he'd been refusing for years. If only Loresto could see him now. 

And yet at the same time, the gods—if they did exist—were giving him just what he'd asked for: a way out. But at the same time as that, in dying he would finally serve some purpose: the young Tamorous would go on to live a long life after all. It had been the idea that he no longer served a purpose that had made him want to end it in the first place. It was an endless circle of irony, and it was making his head hurt. 

"Does the emperor keep any drink in his rooms?" he asked Loxanthe. 

"I don't know, do you?" Her voice was light with the tease. 

"I haven't been crowned yet." 

"Whatever you say, Your Grace." He heard the smirk in her words. 

They marched on. 

-=(^)=- 

The harness made the skin of her back itch, especially where the silver plate sat between her shoulder blades. Whatever words the First Councilor had said after he'd wrangled her arms through the leather straps had caused the metal disc to fuse somehow to her body. If she twisted too far, or tried to tug at it, it felt as though her flesh would rip right away with it. The straps crossed her back and looped over her shoulders in a butterfly shape, and with them, the one part of the dream she'd shared with Maudri had come true. The part that made it a nightmare. 

The silence made her squirm inside, though she sat still as a stone. When Ptyverias had discovered her in the hallways outside his apartments, there had been the panic-inducing gap in communication with Vodi. Niquel had tried very hard to push away the idea that her guide had simply abandoned her. There had to be a plan. But now it was different. 

Vodi was gone. 

Not merely unresponsive, as he'd been before—that had been bad enough. Now there was this ... void. A sickening lack of potential as though she had scaled the face of the mountain to collect hori and turned around to find the ledge missing beneath her and no way back down. The all-pervading presence of J'sau Jeqnam at the edge of her consciousness had blinked out of existence the moment the disc on her back had been set in place. 

Now the world felt smaller, uglier, its parts disconnected. Everything seemed worthy of suspicion with her sense of reality muted this way and not a single guide to turn to for answers. If this was how the lowlanders felt all the time, there was little wonder at their constant anger and violence. Who wouldn't lash out if they were afraid and alone? She wanted run screaming to the edge of this disturbing, empty new world and crash through the border to where things were normal again. 

But Niquel would not be running anywhere. 

The cages, as the horrid Ptyverias had called them, were a series of iron barred structures situated outside under the stars, near but not in sight of what she'd overheard some of her fellow unfortunates refer to as "the hearing yard". The condemned were crowded inside, unwashed and reeking of fear, desperation, and resignation. There was little room to oneself, but Niquel had managed a vacant section of the confining bars to lean against, and she sat, knees to chest, on the hard ground. 

The lowlanders were giving her a wider berth than most. Ptyverias had divested her of her cloak during her capture, and now her silver hair and pale skin made the others avoid her as though she were a venomous snake. Dark Novamnean eyes cast suspicious looks in her direction, but she couldn't be bothered to take offense. She could only sit there, dumb, lifeless, her spine centered between two bars and her head down. This was not how she'd imagined her transition would take place. 

She might have dozed, she wasn't sure, but a pebble skittered over the top of her foot and Niquel was present again. 

"She don't look dead to me." 

Her eyes came into focus. A trio of lowlander men stood in front of her, looking down; assessing. 

"I've heard 'em say that, anyway," a different man from the first said. "That they're really ghosts, come to steal our blood so's they can live again." 

A dirty foot poked her in the hip, testing. She was too dispirited to flinch. 

"Nah. She ain't a ghost. Jus' looks like one. Bet she's pink on the inside, jus' like the rest of us." The leader of the three moved in, and Niquel's desolation slipped one ledge lower. Even this indignity she wouldn't be spared, it seemed. 

" 'S a bad idea," the third one chimed in, sounding nervous as the instigator bent to grab her arm. "Putting it in a witch like that? Your goods'll probably fall off in a week." 

"And we'll all be dead in two days," he said, hauling her away from the bars. "Hold her still." 

Niquel was unresponsive. Limp. Fighting would gain her little. She felt her body being positioned, the leather of her breeches being jerked down. The slaps and earth grating under her knees meant nothing, and the other lowlanders in the cage ignored the tableau, separating themselves from the casual violence as much as she did. If they—if she—could ignore it, it was as though it weren't happening. 

Male feet and knees shuffled in the dirt and grit. Hands grabbed at flesh, pulled hair. Fingers fumbled, scraped. 

"She'll put a curse on you, man. She's a demon," one of them said from far away. "Just look at those eyes." 

"Then find something to stuff in 'er mouth," said the one behind her, "so she don't get the chance." 

There was a push. Tearing. An angry, terrified human being had found a way inside, followed by a second. Pungent musk rose in her nostrils, and her throat choked on invading flesh, the last misguided attempt of a soul seeking to take back power from the fear of the unknown. Men grunted and cursed, but the pain seemed to be burning in someone else as she bounced, lifeless. 

Your Path lies with the Pattern. 

Somehow, they had neglected to mention that the Pattern wanted her to fail. 

Niquel drifted. 

-=(^)=- 

Raothan stood in the emperor's suite where he'd slept the previous night while a storm of servants swirled around him. There were tailors adjusting the drape of his garments, messengers darting in and out, attendants of every age scurrying about, piling up linens, bringing and removing pitchers and basins, trays and clattering miscellany. 

The eye at the center of this maelstrom of preparation was one Ellestia Ordus, the palace seneschal who'd introduced herself that morning as she'd come sweeping in to set the day's grooming in motion. She was perhaps fifteen or twenty summers his senior, with a curtain of white hair suited for one much older than herself flowing down her back, and dark, observant eyes. Her age carried experience with it, and the blistering efficiency she brought to the bustling room had earned a piece of Raothan's respect. With subtle gestures of her hands and discreet words to servants as they hurried past her in both directions, the seneschal directed the flow of the action like the aqueduct moved water out to the Arch. She was a tactician before battle, only here no one was going to die. 

Yet. 

The last time this much fuss was made over him, Raothan had been about to be stripped of titles rather than given them. 

Midmorning light streamed in through tall open doors that led to a balcony overlooking the Great Sea. He inhaled the scent of salt on the breeze as a woman with a serious mouth gave a final tug of adjustment to the hemmed fabric at his knees. The toga, favored within the capital, was more like his jhor than the restrictive breeches and tunics preferred by the farmers of Aquillo and, for this, he was grateful. 

The woman knelt to yank at the complicated straps of his sandals, tsking under her breath while the seneschal looked on. 

None of it seemed real. 

They'd groomed him like a prize horse for at least the last two hours. His skin rubbed with oils, hair combed and re-combed. There were limits to what he would endure, of course. Ellestia had to relinquish the duty of shaving to him—no sane Elvigra would hand that task over—and she had to resign herself to his refusal to allow his hair to be cropped close, as was the current style in wealthy Novamne. She'd watched with silent interest while he took the blade to the left side of his head, cleaning away stubble up to the temple, and then made deft work of braiding up the adjacent row of hair where it met the shorn scalp, all without the aid of a mirror. The rest of it hung loose to his shoulder blades and she would need to tolerate it, as far as he was concerned. There were some parts of himself Raothan wouldn't give up. 

When the stream of servants ran down to a trickle and died off as their preparations were completed, he found himself standing alone in the suite with the seneschal. The older woman's arms were relaxed at her sides, fingers laced loose below her waist. She afforded him a hint of a smile and a graceful nod of her head. 

"We've done our best, it seems, Your Grace." She insisted on using the title already, despite his protests that the official ceremony wasn't for at least another hour. "I believe us to be somewhere between Emperor and Old World warrior, if His Grace will forgive my observation. Let us pray to the Divine the people believe it." 

"Huh," he grunted, looking down over the immaculate white toga with its blue and silver edges. "I don't believe it, and I'm the one who's going to die." 

Ellestia thinned her lips at this and a line formed between her brows. The First Councilor's plan for the eclipse was known to the relevant parties and, in addition to the Imperial Council, that had included the seneschal, though she seemed loathe to have it mentioned. Perhaps the idea of this ritual sacrifice disgusted her. Perhaps it was as simple as the whole affair being a snag in the efficient running of her palace. She seemed to him a person discreet of opinion, so he would likely never know. 

"If His Grace is ready, I will escort him to the Council?" 

Raothan shrugged, turning a palm up in her direction. "Lead on," he said, wondering how the day could grow more surreal than it already was. 

The seneschal turned and swanned out of the room, the dove grey of her own, floor length version of the toga rippling around her ankles as she went. He had to look twice to make sure she had feet and wasn't just hovering above the floor, such was her glide on the way into the hallway. 

He followed in her wake through the maze of corridors and stairways of the palace. Servants parted in her path with respectful murmurs and Ellestia had a serene smile for each of them. He could see she was the sort of leader who never had to rage or berate. Those in her employ would want to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities out of sheer terror of seeing disappointment on the woman's calm, finely lined face. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 05



They crashed into the sunlight like a wall as, with a final, abrupt turn, she led them through an archway onto a colonnade of dizzying proportions. He'd seen the great temples of Setsirkhal, marveled at the city barges in Magrad Havan. He'd even climbed the Spike of Alfta'an a time or two, for gods' sake. But those things were familiar, and this was not. Raothan had never seen the front steps of the Imperial Palace from the inside looking out. 

An ocean of white stone shimmered back at him from below, making him reach to wipe water from his eyes and blink until he could get used to the blast of daylight. Steps upon steps upon steps flowed out of the façade of the palace like a waterfall told to keep order. A great, square plaza spread out in front of them and already crowds of Novamneans were gathering near the base of the steps, prevented from wandering up by a line of palace guard, who he could only imagine were sweating away under their formal livery. 

There was a knot of people standing between two of the massive white columns. Ellestia turned her glide in their direction. 

"First Councilor," she said as she approached. Firsoni was the first one Raothan recognized from the day before as the older man turned to her greeting. The general was there as well, standing on the opposite side of the group from the First Councilor, breastplate and formal shield polished within an inch of their lives, smirk growing as she saw Raothan step up beside the seneschal. None of the other faces were familiar, though they all looked at him with no small measure of expectation. 

"His Grace is prepared for the ceremony," Ellestia said, nodding to Raothan. "Shall I leave him in your care?" 

"His Grace," Firsoni repeated, as if testing the honorific out in his mouth and not finding it much to his liking. "I suppose we'd all better get used to the title, at least for the time being, hadn't we?" His eyes circled the group at this. "Yes, Seneschal, the Council will guide 'His Grace' from here. I assume you have preparations to finish for the coronation feast and Release Rite, yes?" 

It was subtle, but Raothan thought he caught Ellestia's eyes narrow just the slightest pinch at the First Councilor's hint that her army of servants didn't already have the work well underway. "All will be ready at the appropriate time, Your Excellency," she said, bowing her head just low enough. "If you'll excuse me. Your Grace." The Seneschal turned another, lower bow to him, and turned to float back into the palace. 

Raothan turned to Firsoni. "What's this 'Release Rite', then?" 

"One ceremony at a time, Your Grace," the man said, "Let us see if we can get through the coronation without event, first. Allow me to introduce the Imperial Council"—he cleared his throat and corrected himself—"Your Council. 

"You've already met the First Chronicler, Doxolemy the Younger," Firsoni said, gesturing to the astrologer who'd explained the eclipse ritual at their initial meeting. 

"Doxolemy Hectus," the Chronicler said with a note of correction in his tone for his peer. "My father was also Doxolemy," he directed this next to Raothan, "and also the First Chronicler before me. Hence the 'younger'." 

"You've met General Ayzhus, as well," Firsoni continued with a look of thin tolerance for the woman, "though somewhat less formally. As part of the Council, she is also known as the First Shield." Ayzhus met Raothan's eye and gave him a single nod. 

"This," the First Councilor said, turning to the youngest of the group, "is Beresne Parill, the First Purse." The woman, at least fifteen summers his junior, dipped her head, but said nothing, though he felt her appraising his worth with exacting thoroughness as her dark eyes swept him from toe to scalp. 

"Unoke Umbe is our First Sickle," Firsoni said, as though he were reciting the names and positions from a lesson. The man in question was ancient, gnarled, and dark as walnut; an immigrant from Xenge as rare in Protreo as Raothan was as an Elvigra. He was the first to offer Raothan anything that might be called a friendly smile. 

"I would greet you with the proper respect," the old man said, "But these Novamneans have beaten the habit out of me over the years." 

"He'd spit right on the floor, is what he would do," put in Ayzhus. 

"It means I would give up my water for you, but here they think only that I am being rude." Somewhere in his scattered thoughts that were trying to juggle all these new faces at once, this made some sense to Raothan. Xenge was in a sort of desert, or at least a very harsh climate. The sharing of water would be significant. 

Raothan hoped no one would ask him to remember all of the names, and further, he could only guess what some of these posts entailed. The General and the Astrologer's roles were clear enough, but First Sickle? Firsoni continued around the circle before he had time to worry about it much further. 

"This is the First Mediate, Paxus Antrimini." This title and name Ptyverias drew out with a light flavor of disapproval in his tone. When Raothan turned to meet this Paxus, he had to look twice. Three times, before schooling his face to quick neutrality. At first glance, the Mediate read in his mind as male, but a half a breath later, Roathan wasn't sure. And the more he looked, the less sure he was, either way. Paxus had high cheekbones and an aquiline nose to define a smooth, beardless face, and hands folded at his—her?—waist that were neither calloused nor too feminine. Long dark hair threaded with white flowed straight back over shoulders that also told him nothing. The Mediate wore a secretive smile as though accustomed to this sort of initial confusion. 

"Your Grace," Paxus said with a slow nod and a sonorous voice that still did nothing to help Raothan make up his mind. He looked back to Ptyverias, pushing his questions aside. 

"And where is the Artifice?" the First Councilor said, looking around. "The man will be late just to see if time will fight him." 

"Who's late?" came a booming voice from the avalanche of white stairs. "I'm always on time. My time." 

The man who mounted the steps to join them then made Raothan feel small. This was saying something since he towered over most Novamneans. Here was a man who looked as though he could hire himself out to harness up and relocate buildings. 

"Hadronymous," Firsoni said, as the huge man stepped up, "punctual as always, I see." The man laughed, refusing to be cowed. 

"You try untangling yourself from a wife and five sons, see how fast you get from place to place," he said. 

"Hadronymous Teqti," the First Councilor said in long-suffering tones, "the First Artifice." 

"Just 'Hadro' is enough," the massive Novamnean said. "So you're the one, eh? Can't say as I understand why you're willing to do this, Elvigra, but then again, if it's not a road or a bridge, I can't say that I understand a lot of things." 

Raothan grunted amusement at this, but Firsoni cracked in like a whip. 

"Who wouldn't give their life in service to the Empire, Artifice? His Grace only does what any citizen would do, if called. And we are using all the formalities, now, if you please. Titles, the whole lot." This Firsoni now addressed to the entire group. "This coronation is neither a joke nor a sham, Councilors. This man will be the emperor in all normal respects. We will address him properly, he will be included in the appropriate functions, and he will retain all rights and privileges. For this ritual to work," he put a hand on Raothan's shoulder, which wasn't uncomfortable at all, "Raothan Ga'ardahn must truly be Emperor. At least for the next two weeks. Do we all understand?" 

Nods went all around. The First Councilor turned back to Raothan, apparently satisfied. 

"And Your Grace has been made familiar with the stages of the ceremony, as the seneschal says? Any final questions?" 

Raothan grunted. "Yeah. When do we get this over with?" 

As though the empire already responded to his commands, a great blast of horns went up, startling nobody except him. A roll of drums boomed underneath, enough to rattle his ribs, and the crowd, now swollen to an ocean of shifting citizens, fell silent. The only sounds left were gulls calling from rooftops, indifferent to the affairs of men. 

Careful what you wish for, Ga'ardahn. 

"Very well," said Firsoni, "Councilors, you know your roles?" More nods and quick words of confirmation. "Then let us begin. Your Grace?" 

The group stepped into the formation Ellestia had schooled him on during the hasty preparations made that morning. The councilors arranged themselves into an arrow point, with Ptyverias at its head, and Raothan fell in behind, in the center of the wedge. They moved with synchronized steps at the signal of renewed drumming, their deliberate pace carrying them out onto a platform, which extended out among the stone steps like the cliffs of Protreo rising up out of the sea. 

Councilors parted off to both sides and Raothan stepped forward, approaching the edge of the platform to survey the crowd. When the drums thundered to a stop a second time, he heard limp cheers from several pockets among the spectators below, but he suspected the people looking up were just as confused as he was and couldn't muster the sort of noise they'd make at a more traditional crowning. Hadn't Tamorous assumed the throne only months before? Who was this new person? What happened to Telexeo's heir? Raothan could almost feel their questions reaching, pawing. 

The mad dreams he'd woken from over the last week made more sense than what was happening here today. He still thought he might wake at any moment. 

This is no dream, Ga'ardahn. You made the Challenge, and the gods have answered. 

Yes. They'd called him here to be a sacrifice. And unlike Elvigraath, he'd depart Novamne at the eclipse having actually done someone some good. There would be no more exile for him. No more loneliness. No more wallowing in guilt and shame. Only sweet release. 

The First Councilor stepped forward and began to speak. 

Raothan accepted his fate. 

-=(^)=- 

Kadrian Ayzhus had just stepped back from making her own begrudging contribution to the ceremony and now the comely but unobtainable First Purse was reciting hers. The words seemed too familiar to the general, and this, she suspected, was due to having just said them late last fall. The succession of Emperors should only happen once or twice in a lifetime, as far as Kadrian was concerned. The First Councilor seemed to be going through them like cups of wine after a bitter defeat. First Telexeo, now his weakling nephew? 

Tamorous was supposed to be coming back, though, or at least she'd heard. Like anything else, Kadrian would believe it when she saw it. She didn't trust Ptyverias any farther than she could throw him, and anything out of his mouth at this point was suspect, as far as she was concerned. 

And if that Divine-loving pain in my ass steps onto my territory one more time ... 

Paxus was stepping back. With the last words of the enigmatic Mediate, the Councilors had all spoken their parts. Now it was time for the water binding, and Kadrian's final task. 

A wide copper basin—an overgrown bowl, really—waited atop a pedestal behind the Elvigra they were making Emperor. It was filled with water from the churning chaos where the Omeron Falls crashed into the salty water of the Great Sea on the east side of the harbor. The mixing of the two water sources had something to do with the empire's past and future. With eternity, service, power ... Kadrian couldn't remember the whole illhallowed list just then. Either way, she and the Artifice were going to dump it over this farmer's head in a moment. 

The water binding was a task that was supposed to belong to the First Sickle, but Unoke was somewhere north of eighty summers and in no condition to lift the heavy, full basin over his head. 

Probably break a hip. 

Instead, Kadrian and Hadro had decided to upend the basin together, once Ptyverias had said the proper words, since they were the strongest two in the group. The Elvigra was already lowering himself to his knees on the platform in front of them. His toga, a special one made in haste for this occasion, had concealed ties at the shoulders, and the upper part of the garment fell to his waist when he pulled them. It was good that she hadn't yet picked up the copper vessel, or Kadrian might have dropped it. 

Arching across the kneeling man's broad shoulders and trailing down his spine, was a weathered tattoo of a bow nocked with an arrow. And more, a pair of rampant horses flanked the arrow's shaft. Or at least one was a horse. The other ... was some sort of different beast she couldn't quite place. But the bow was there, unmistakable, as was the horse. 

Hast Kriga'al. Sonofabitch. 

Kadrian had thought the warrior's queue on the farmer had been a conceit. In fact, she'd been mulling over a way to approach him about cutting it off, as easy as that would soon not be, with him being Emperor. She was now hyper-aware of her own ram's horn tattoo curling back from her temple and behind her ear. Her mark was out in the open: the Elvigra must've known from the moment she'd gone storming into the council hall to berate Ptyverias. 

"Ssst!" The Artifice hissed at her and Kadrian's attention leapt back to the ceremony. He made a jerky nod at the basin and she responded in kind, stepping to take it up with the rim gripped in one hand and her side of the base resting on the other. She and Hadro listened for the appropriate words; lifted the bowl as Firsoni gave them their mark. 

"Raothan Ga'ardahn," the First Councilor was saying, "will you bathe in the combined waters of Novamne? Will you cleanse yourself of your past and, in being washed clean, accept your future as Emperor, as protector, as a light for your people? 

Ga'ardahn ... 

They already had the basin in the air when Kadrian remembered where she'd heard that name. It all came crashing together at once. The hair, the tattoo, the nagging familiarity of the name. 

Well pack me sideways. He's that Ga'ardahn. Has to be. 

The water came down over the Elvigra's head with a whoosh and a splattering on the surface of the stone platform. To his credit, the man held still and didn't sputter. 

Ptyverias was droning his way through the rest of the ritual while Kadrian stared at the side of the old man's head. Very few outside the Kriga'al would recognize the marks, and if they did, they'd be some sort of military or mercenary, themselves. There was no way the scheming councilor knew what this man was. He would never have agreed on the Elvigra for the surrogate if he did. 

And why would a Kriga'al accept a charge like this? To die in luxury like a coward? He's not even old. 

The last of the First Councilor's words echoed out over the crowd. The golden circlet was in his hands, flashing in the sun, and then lowered over Ga'ardahn's head. Kadrian all but felt the other councilors around her let out a collective breath. It was done. 

A Kriga'al Emperor. Unbelievable. Next thing you know, I'll be settling down, taking a wife. The sun'll set in the east. Paxus'll tell us whether he's really a she under those robes. 

The Elvigra stood now and stepped, dripping and bared to the waist, to the edge of the platform, probably to the delight of any number of appreciative women in the crowd below. 

"Protreo Novamne Solarius!" Ptyverias's voice carried its farthest yet. "Your Emperor stands before you! Behold! Emperor Raothan the First! Vitre Empreo! Vitre Empreo!" 

Long live the emperor. 

Kadrian shook her head with a movement too small for the others to see. The gathered mass in the plaza took up the cry with a roar, caught up in the spectacle. As instructed, the Elvigra raised a hand to the people. Their noise went from loud to deafening: a wave of sound crashing up against the façade of the palace. 

This poor, poor bastard. 

At least there would be a feast. There was always that. 

-=(^)=- 

There was just enough time for Raothan to return to the emperor's rooms—his rooms now, at least until the eclipse—and swap out the soaked toga from the ceremony for a near identical dry one. This one, he noted, also lacked the string ties of the other, and had proper, sewn shoulders, though they still felt odd compared to the narrower, single-sided design of his jhor. 

The seneschal was all but tapping her foot out in the hallway, where he'd insisted she and her hoard of servants remain. This business of having other people dress him was horseshit. He was a grown man, for gods' sake. The decadence these people allowed themselves was obscene. 

As though there were never luxuries in Setsirkhal. 

Ellestia looked him up and down, in no way intimidated by his—albeit temporary—higher station. The seneschal was probably making sure he'd dressed properly and hadn't disheveled his hair over much. He must have met whatever unknown requirements she had, because he received a quick nod. 

"If Your Grace will follow me to the feast hall?" 

It was not a question. 

At first, the path she led him down was the same one they'd taken on their way to the coronation, but it soon veered off down new corridors and flights of stairs, and he was once again just as lost as before. 

Do they have to put everything so fucking far apart in this place? 

They passed through a sunny courtyard with a square fountain at its center. A number of indolent-looking hangers-on were sitting around it on benches, doing what appeared to be nothing of use. Their heads turned as a group as he and Ellestia moved down one of the bordering colonnades, but not in his direction. 

From the other side of the courtyard, the Blyd Kriga'al general came strolling toward them, thumbs hooked into her belt as though nothing important at all were happening today. 

"Your Grace," the general greeted him as she fell into step. "Seneschal." 

"General," the older woman acknowledged her. 

"Headed to the feast?" 

"We are," said the seneschal, never breaking her glide. 

"Makes three of us," Ayzhus said. "I'm happy to show His Grace to the hall. Assuming you have other things that need your attention." It was less an offer and more of a command, and Raothan wondered just what the pecking order was in the palace between the seneschal and the councilors. 

"Of course, General," Ellestia said with her unflappable neutrality. "I have matters to see to in preparation for the Release Rite. The sooner they are taken care of, the better. Your Grace." She swept a small bow to him as the only warning for her departure and disappeared down another hallway in a swirl of fabric. 

"So," said the general, taking up the seneschal's glide with more of a swagger, "Your Grace." Her tone had an intentional needling quality to it and, as much as Raothan was trying to take this impossible day in stride, it made him lose the top layer of his composure. 

"Cut the shit, General," he said. "I'm about as much anyone's 'grace' as I was two weeks ago on my farm." 

"Shall I call Your Grace by some other name?" she asked, a knowing mischief coming into her voice. "Hast Kriga'al, perhaps?" 

His feet stopped working. Ayzhus went on for a few more steps before turning back to him, grin in full bloom. 

He closed his eyes for a moment and gave a weary shake of his head. 

"Fuck me." 

Of course. She saw the tattoo. The brotherhood always knows its own. 

"Oh ho! Haven't heard that one in a while. You Elvigra have the greatest curses." 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 05



"Yeah, well," he started walking again, grumbling, "there's more where that came from." Just what he needed. Someone to ask him a hundred questions. Raothan hoped this feast they were headed toward had plenty in the way of drink, so he could drown himself before the day got worse. 

"Your Grace doesn't like 'Hast Kriga'al'?" There was almost a bounce in her step. The woman was enjoying this. "Perhaps a more specific title, hmm? Any suggestions, General Ga'ardahn?" 

The day got worse. 

He was torn between denial, outrage, and throwing his hands up in surrender to the futility of it all. Instead, he decided to hedge. 

"I think you're mistaken, General." He tried not to look at her as they continued down the hall. 

"Right," she said, "Because there's more than one Elvigra Hast Kriga'al with the name 'Raothan Ga'ardahn' in Novamne. How about you cut the shit. Your Grace." 

He made a disgruntled noise in his throat as they turned down yet another flight of stairs. "What is it you want, General?" 

"Me? I don't want anything. Unlike that dried-up worm, Ptyverias, I have no agenda with Your Grace at all. I'm just trying to figure out how one of the greatest military leaders of our generation ended up a farmer in some ox watering hole like Aquillo." Ayzhus's voice had an open quality to it, a guilelessness that made his shoulders loosen again. 

What's your problem, Ga'ardahn? This is how you greet one of the brotherhood after all these years? 

"How would you even have heard of me on this side of the mountain?" he asked, moving beyond denial to incredulity. 

"Well," she said, "had the Kriga'al in Elvigraath heard of General Obello?" 

"His name was known, yes." Of course he knew of Obello. Rumor told of the Nyttev Kriga'al cornered by a band of mercenaries in his youth. It was said he challenged them to fight bare-handed, like men, and when they agreed, he beat the lot bloody until none of them could stand. 

"Obello was my predecessor. A great man. A great teacher. You see?" said Ayzhus, a glint coming to her eyes, "the brotherhood knows no borders. Your Grace is surprised that tales of the youngest General ever to lead an Elvigra army have traveled among the Kriga'al?" 

It seemed some parts of his past refused to stay dead, no matter how deep he buried them. Yet some portion of him was relaxing around this Parthi, as well. She knew things about him on sight that no one this side of Vrennic's Teeth had ever managed to uncover. It might do him good, he thought, to have at least one person to speak plainly with in these last days before the eclipse. Perhaps he could unload some of the burden before he went to meet the gods. Raothan stopped at the base of the stairs and turned to the general. 

"Fine," he said. "Da'ande e dhagg, eranna ultiiv." 

Death for one day, honor forever. 

The blonde general's grin split her face and she stepped down off the stair to face him. "Da'ande e dhagg, eranna ultiiv." 

It was some unexpected panacea to hear the words again. Raothan slapped a palm to her chest, directly over her heart in the greeting he hadn't given in twelve years. "Well met, Blyd Kriga'al." 

"Well met, Hast Kriga'al." She mirrored the gesture, thumping his chest in turn. 

They stood there a moment, staring in dumb disbelief at one another, before Ayzhus took up their path toward the feast again. 

"So how did Your Grace end up in Novamne, anyhow? I heard tales of your exploits at the time I joined the army, but then a couple summers later ... nothing. Shouldn't you be fighting to keep those northerners, or whoever, out of your capital instead of getting sucked up into imperial schemes here?" 

"There was a series of bad decisions," he said, still circumspect. It was a relief to find one of his own, but that didn't make him any more comfortable yet with delving into the more ... unfortunate parts of his history. "And can you stop with the 'Your Grace' business? Can I call on our kinship under the Kriga'al or command you to stop, as your Emperor? I've been called a lot of things, but somehow 'Your Grace' is the worst of them." 

The general laughed. "All right, Ga'ardahn, but only in private. Unless you want to explain to everyone else at the feast why I don't address you properly." 

He grunted at this. "Fair enough." 

They rounded a corner and turned down the largest hallway yet, and he began to hear voices coming from the other side of a massive set of doors at its end. Two guardsmen stood, one on either side of the doors and, at their approach, drove the butts of their tasseled spears into the floor with a decisive bang. 

The doors swung open into the next room, and the voices went from a murmur to a din. Scores of people were on the other side. They'd arrived at the feast. 

I am not ready to be around this many people all staring at me. 

"So," Ayzhus said, leaning in to make herself heard over the nearing wash of conversation, "what was the series of bad decisions?" 

"His Imperial Grace, Emperor Raothan the First." He cringed as the voice of a herald boomed out into the feast hall just as they crossed the threshold. Every person went silent, and those seated, stood. Then came the bowing. 

Flames of fucking Abra'an, burn me now. This is going to be the worst two weeks of my life. A fitting punishment, no doubt. 

The First Councilor separated himself from two older men in red-trimmed togas and what appeared to be a priest of the Church of the Divine—though with vestments far more elaborate than what Raothan had seen on the priests in Aquillo—and headed their way. The grey robes and white sash of Firsoni's position were a sober contrast to the revelry around him that resumed after the proper obeisances ended. 

"It'll have to wait until later," Raothan said to the general in a low voice, avoiding her questions for the time being. 

"Your Grace," said the First Councilor, "allow me to show you to your seat. General, if you will?" 

The man's voice was cool, as if this was a coronation feast like any other. As if he wasn't setting Raothan up like a goat on an altar. Firsoni turned and led the way; the general trailed behind, leisure in her steps as though she hadn't just uncovered the door to his closet full of secrets. 

Long tables were arranged in a square with the guests all seated around the outside, facing the center. One side of the square consisted of two shorter tables with a gap between them to allow servants to lay out platters and bowls and vessels without having to reach over the shoulders of Novamnean elite. The space surrounded by tables also provided a place for dancers to leap and twirl about, and musicians to pluck and drum out their accompaniment. 

Raothan's seat, of course, was at the center of the long table opposite the gap. The seats on either side of it were vacant, as well. When a blue-clad servant pulled out his chair at the prompting of Ptyverias, there was nothing for him to do but sit. Ayzhus took the seat to his left. The other empty chair seemed to belong to the First Councilor, but he remained standing. 

"If Your Grace will enjoy the hospitality of the palace?" The man was playing the part well as he made a broad gesture to the staggering spread of food and drink before them. "And if at all possible," he said, leaning down to speak next to Raothan's ear, "you will manage to be mostly sober by the time of the Release Rite later this evening." 

Raothan leaned to the side with one elbow on an arm of his chair, away from Ptyverias to look up at him. "I make no promises, First Councilor." 

Firsoni's eyes narrowed and he raised one of his dark grey brows, but said nothing. Instead, he turned and wove his way back into the sea of gathered officials, exchanging formal greetings as he went. 

"Now there's a man who needs to get laid like nobody I ever saw," said Ayzhus once the First Councilor was out of earshot. 

Raothan snorted at this as the first of a line of servants approached and bowed from the other side of the table, before ladling something aromatic out of a tureen and into a bowl in front of him. His stomach rumbled at the rising scent and he realized he hadn't eaten all day. 

"So what's this Release Rite I keep hearing about?" he said as he took a spoon to the mysterious soup or stew, or whatever it was. 

"Mm. Right." Ayzhus was already deep in her own feasting and spoke around a mouthful. "Something we like to do whenever there's a new emperor. Or even a new councilor, sometimes. Supposed to demonstrate mercy in leadership, give people hope, all that." The woman ate like a soldier: noisy and quick, and this made him grow half a smile. 

"And how is it that we 'give people hope', as you say?" he asked before swallowing the first of the soup. It was hot and good, and he almost groaned as it hit his stomach. How long had it been since he'd eaten something decent? Something he hadn't had to prepare himself? 

"Oh, you'll pardon some poor bastard whose head's meant for the block. They essentially become your servant for life. Or concubine—some emperors have gone that way. Or spy. But who cares, right? They get to live, and that's more than they could say this morning." 

"Servant for life?" He paused in his eating. "So what happens to them after the eclipse? They go free? Back to the block? Serve the next emperor?" 

"You know," Ayzhus said, "I never really thought about it. It's not every day we have"—she made a vague, encompassing gesture at him with her knife—"whatever it is we have here. I wouldn't worry about it now, though. Suppose you can figure it out in the next two weeks." 

Raothan nodded to himself at this. He supposed he could. Two weeks. What are you going to do with your last days, Ga'ardahn? 

He very much believed the astrologer when the man had explained the precedent for rulers not surviving eclipses. The astronomer priests of Abra'an back in Setsirkhal studied such matters, and the Circle sought their council in all manner of things, from war to agriculture. Raothan could tell this Doxolemy was a man with a history of accuracy, if only from how seriously Firsoni took his predictions, despite the First Councilor's obvious dislike for the astrologer. 

As he ate, his gaze traveled the room, scanning faces out of habit, and he saw Doxolemy seated at the near end of one of the tables perpendicular to his own. The Chronicler's shoulders were looser now than they had been earlier. A woman at least a decade younger sat at the man's right, and by the way she would sometimes touch his arm or smile at him, Raothan guessed she was Doxolemy's wife. Or at least bedmate. The woman was almost a model of Novamnean beauty, and her presence made him reassess the star counter. 

In noisy discussion with the astrologer was the First Artifice—Hadro, was it?—who was surrounded by the five sons he'd mentioned before the coronation, and a plump, grinning wife. The eldest two boys were already rivaling their father for size, though neither was quite as loud. 

The young woman, the First Purse, was engaged in a more quiet conversation with the Xenge man whose name Raothan could not remember now. She made a controlled flurry of sharp, small gestures as she spoke, and the old man nodded here and there, following along but not saying much himself. 

And that Paxus ... For now, Raothan decided he would think of the First Mediate as a man, though the idea still sat oddly with him somehow. Either way, Paxus leaned back in his chair and surveyed the room with the barest hint of a silent, knowing smile over sips of wine, as though he knew, and was amused by, everyone's secrets. 

"So," Raothan said to the general, grabbing at the first handy thing to distract him from the approaching release he'd asked for, but now, for some reason, didn't want to think about, "the Mediate." 

"Hah!" Ayzhus laughed around a bite of bread. "You don't even have to ask. I'll tell you right now: I don't know." She covered her mouth as her own chortling made her cough a bit. "Nobody knows." 

His brows twitched up at this as the general got herself under control and continued. 

"They do that on purpose, you know. Every Mediate, the same way. I don't know where they keep finding 'em." 

"Why?" 

"Does Your Grace know what the First Mediate does?" She paused and looked at him, considering. "I mean no disrespect; I just don't know what a farmer might or might not have heard on the other side of the Omeron." 

"Enlighten me." 

"They uh ..." The general's head turned as a fit serving girl made her way down the table, leaning over to refill cups. Ayzhus gave a light shake of her head to clear out the distraction. "They act as a sort of liaison between the heads of the various churches and religious orders and the emperor and senate. The Mediate tries to make sure all the holy tempers are soothed and the lawmakers don't accidentally do something that sets off a riot." 

"But what does that have to do with ..." he nodded in the direction of the mystery that was Paxus. 

"The Mediate has to be neutral in all things," she explained. "There can't be any show of bias to one group or another. They're not allowed to belong to any religion, can't be tied to any faction in the senate, and at some point—I don't know when, hundreds of summers ago, I suppose—they decided the First Mediate should be of neither gender, as well. A true neutral." 

"So it's not an inherited post, then." 

"Well, council positions are normally by imperial appointment, and for life, but because of the specific" —Ayzhus looked at the ceiling, searching for the right word—"requirements of the Mediate's post, a sitting Mediate always seeks out and grooms a successor. It seems to work, so we just leave it be that way." 

"Hmm," he considered, stabbing at a cut of lamb, "If it works, it works. But it'll make me crazy if I think about it too long. I mean, who cares, but ..." 

"It makes all of us crazy," the general put in with a chuckle. "Servants gossip. You'd think we could figure out something based on who comes and goes from Paxus's rooms. But no. One night a woman'll be seen coming out of there, the next, a man. Sometimes one or two of each. Who can tell anything? And I suspect that's just how Paxus wants it." 

"And none of these lovers ever says anything?" He didn't believe it. 

"They don't," she said. "Either the fear of the Divine has been burned into 'em, or whatever the Mediate is dishing out behind closed doors is so good they all agree to keep secrets just to get some more of it. Even heard a rumor that the Purse has seen the inside of his apartments a time or two, if you know what I mean, but she's not one for airing her personal business, either." 

Raothan glanced over at the First Purse. "She seems young. For her post, I mean." 

"She is young. She was second to the previous Purse, but he managed to drop dead in a pleasure house at fifty-one summers—way before his time—and Telexeo appointed her the next day. What else could he have done? She was the only one who knew pack-all about the accounts. Beresne plays her cards close to her chest," the general said with a considering eye toward the Purse, "but she sure as the flood knows where every last gold crown in the imperial coffers is and what it's doing there. Woman can tally figures in her head fall-down drunk faster than anyone else can do sober. And there's that, too." 

"What's that?" he asked, enjoying the lull of listening to idle chatter for once. 

"That woman can drink anyone you know under the table. I lost ten crowns on her once. They had to haul the Artifice off in a barrow, and you can see the size of him. I don't know where she puts it." 

He gave the Purse a second look. Raothan was learning all sorts of things about the imperial council tonight. 

"Speaking of poor choices," Ayzhus said, bringing him back to reality, "you said there was a series of them? And you ended up in Novamne?" 

Ah yes. This. 

He'd never told anyone this side of the mountains the whole story, and he didn't intend to now. 

But what can it hurt at this point, Ga'ardahn? Might even do you some good. Get it off your chest. 

The military part he could tell her, at least. There was nothing shameful in that, despite the opinion of the Circle. 

He made a chuffing sound, somewhere between frustration and resignation. Where to start? What to tell and what to leave out? As a Kriga'al, a fellow in the ancient warrior brotherhood, there were things the general would understand that others wouldn't. Yet there were still some parts of his destruction too shameful to speak aloud. To anyone. 

It would be easiest, he thought, to start with the facts. 

"Right," he sighed, "there are some things you need to understand, General, before the reasons I'm here will make any sense." 

Ayzhus leaned back in her chair and gestured for him to continue. He got the feeling she would have put her sandaled feet up on the table, as well, if they weren't at a formal affair. He dove in. 

"So in Elvigraath, we don't have an emperor," he said. "We have a Circle. The Circle of Six, it's called, which is confusing because it's really made of twelve people." The general's brows nudged up in interest and he went on. "But the twelve are six pairs, so it makes sense, just not at first glance. Each pair consists of one general and one promulgate." 

"Wait, you have six generals in Elvigraath?" she said, cocking her head in disbelief. "How do you keep order? How do you decide who leads and who obeys?" 

Raothan gave a bitter chuckle at this. "Don't worry, my Parthi friend, I'll get to that. So the six generals and the six promulgates make decisions for Elvigraath, and it's done by vote. As you've probably already guessed, I was one of the generals." 

"So you were one of the ruling elite of Elvigraath." 

"I was." 

"And now you're Emperor of Novamne." Ayzhus shook her head. "If I didn't know you for Kriga'al and you told me that, I'd say you were full of shit." This brought another dry laugh from him. If he heard the story himself from another person, he might have said the same thing. 

"I know what a general does, obviously," she went on, indicating herself, "but what's a promul-what? What do they do?" 

"A promulgate is a lawmaker. They're the readers of books, the worriers, the voices of reason. The promulgates are the mind of Elvigraath; the generals are the body. They're the thought; we're the action. They think about the past and the future, and we keep order in the present." 

"Sure," she was nodding at him, "I see now, I think." 

"So once the Circle makes a decision, enacts a law, no one member is allowed to supersede the final vote of the group. Even if you voted the other way, you shut up and carry out the letter of the law, for the sake of unity. The idea is, if the people see an undivided Circle, there will be no cracks for them to find a drive a wedge into, and so the continuity of governance is assured." 

"Look at you, 'the continuity of governance is assured'." Ayzhus smirked at him. "You must've spent some time politicking, with words like those. Then what happens if there's a tied vote in this Circle of yours?" she asked, idly dragging one of her thumbs over the edge of a small dagger she'd produced from somewhere on her person. Blyd Kriga'al to the bone, the blonde general probably had several such blades hidden on her body. 

"Then there are various ... rituals? Processes? I don't know what you'd really call them, but the Circle would choose one member whose vote would count for two and break the tie, and we had our methods for deciding who that would be." 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 05



"What methods?" 

"Ugh," he made a tired noise, pushing a hand through his hair, "now that's really going down a side path. Are you sure you want to bother?" 

"And just how often does Your Grace think I get to ask a Kriga'al from the old world an earful of nosy questions? Of course. Bother away." 

"Hmm." Raothan rubbed at his lower lip with the knuckle of his thumb. How to make this brief ... "Without taking all night about it, it's simplest to say that the Elvigra pray to six gods, and each has their own temple and priesthood. Each day of the common week is dedicated to one of the gods, so on whatever day the Circle's tied vote occurs, we would move our meeting to the temple of that day's god and participate in a specific act of divination to determine which of our votes to double." 

"Acts of divination?" she said. "Like what?" 

"Well, for example in the temple of Alfta'an, a falcon would be let loose. The first person it would land on is chosen. Or in the water temple, Vansthi's house, a river lotus would be placed on the surface of a reflecting pond, and as it would float near to one of us, again, the gods decide. There were similar traditions in the other three temples, but that's more or less how it's handled." 

"That's only five temples," the general pointed out as she put away the dagger. "You said you had six gods." 

"There is one we don't worship. There are no temples, and no one speaks the name." 

"Sounds pretty pointless to have a god you don't worship, if you ask me." 

"Worshipping any of them might be pointless, as far as I'm concerned," he said, "but if one of our priests was answering you now instead of me, they'd probably tell you that there are a lot of things that exist that we don't worship. We don't worship injustice, and yet it is there. Dishonor, fear, destruction: all those things are present in the world, but we build no temples to them. The priests always reminded us, though, that even when we withhold glory from some things, it does us well not to forget their presence." 

Ayzhus's features had gone sober as she listened. "Huh. Your Grace is a deeper well than I thought. Perhaps it means something different to be a general in Elvigraath." 

Raothan shook his head and gave a mild roll of his eyes. "You hang around the promulgates and the priests most of the time and this is what you get. And now we're really far afield." They both laughed at this, and he felt himself growing easy in the presence of the Parthi. 

"So," he said, "back to my bad decisions." 

"Right." 

"As I said, no one member is allowed to act against the joint decisions of the Circle. And before I left, we were still trying to keep the northern armies at bay, as you mentioned earlier. That's where the first of it went wrong." 

-=(^)=- 

Raothan's face darkened as the war priest delivered the last of his report. 

From bad to fucking worse. Fuck this day and everything in it. 

A thin crescent of moon hovered not far above the distant peaks of Vrennic's Teeth in the southwest, as his division marched on in the last dregs of purple twilight as quietly as several thousand might do over the rocky ground. Only a fool would move an army through the Elvigra desert during the day, and they'd only just broken camp an hour ago. 

Styrro's ears shifted and Raothan broke his distracted gaze from the numbing tromp of soldiers moving past him to see one of his lieutenants trotting back in his direction. Lejhal reined his horse in close to the saigus and thumped his chest in a quick salute. 

"General Ga'ardahn," he began, "I realize there is still a night's march before we get to Dela Byuun, but the skarba'an master is asking if ..." Lejhal got a better look at the scowl decorating his commander's face. "Sir. What has happened?"  

Raothan was ready to chew glassrock and spit daggers. Styrro lashed the bulk of his massive clubbed tail about, picking up on his rider's ire. 

"We're not going to Dela Byuun, Lieutenant." The other man's eyes widened at the soft, dangerous tone. 

"Sir ..." 

"We have heard from the falcons, Lejhal," he said, addressing his fellow Hast Kriga'al by name instead of rank. They'd known each other a long time. He turned an eye to the war priest, who'd been standing in respectful silence on his right. An alert and unhooded falcon perched on the man's arm with a deadly grace. 

"Visra'al Alfta'an," he said to the priest, formal again with the use of titles, "Your report again, for the Lieutenant." 

The war priest squared his shoulders and the falcon flapped about, settling. Raothan knew the man would not want to repeat what he'd been loath to say once already, but he cleared his throat and began, nonetheless. 

"The falcons have ranged out over Dela Byuun and the city's surrounding areas," the war priest said. "There is no sight of the Djarmik unit anywhere." 

"This is good," Lejhal said, but glanced over at his general with a quizzical eye. 

He'll see. He'll see in just a minute why we've entirely run out of "good". 

"General Raadig and General Onand's divisions are there, however," said the priest. The falcon, of course, would not know names, but with the visra'al's focus letting him see through the bird's eyes, the animal didn't need to. 

"Even better." 

The war priest shifted his weight from one foot to another, eyes flicking to Raothan. 

"Tell him." 

"It, ahem"—the visra'al coughed into his hand and kept trying to look at the dirt—"it would appear, Lieutenant, that our other two divisions have grown impatient with waiting for the Djarmik to slake their aggressions. The town is ... is ..." 

"Is what, Priest?" Lejhal reined his horse in again, as the beast became restless in a mirror of his own anxiety. 

"Dela Byuun is burning," said the priest. 

Lejhal jerked his head back to Raothan. 

"Do you doubt him, Lieutenant? Knowing Raadig? And Onand?" 

Now the other Hast Kriga'al's scowl matched his general's. 

"The visra'al have seen it through the falcons," he went on. "They are destroying homes, slaughtering livestock, raping the—" he cut himself off with a growl. "We will not go there. This division will not be a part of it." 

His lieutenant's eyes were wide. "General, we should do something." 

"Do what?" he said, the inside of his mouth bitter. "They outnumber us two to one. You think they're going to be happy when we show up to interrupt their 'fun'? They're going to just lay it down and agree to behave because the young pole-biter general and his single division shows up and says so?" 

"But the Djarmik," Lejhal said, still fighting the idea, "What if they do show up? The Circle's command was to—" 

"Fuck the gods-be-damned Circle," he spat. "Situations on a battlefield change. We need to adjust plans accordingly. You think the Circle would sanction this horseshit if they knew what two of their generals were up to? And the falcons haven't seen hide nor hair of those Djarmik sons of whores anywhere near Dela Byuun." 

"Sir, you know we can't act against the Circle. We—" 

"No", he said, with a cutting gesture of his hand. "Signal a halt. We're turning back for Khulith Havan." 

"Raothan—" the Hast Kriga'al forgot propriety in his desperation and the war priest gasped. 

"Are you going to follow orders, Lieutenant? Signal the fucking halt." 

Speaking to his friend this way made his guts twist. 

It's my head on the line anyway, not his. I'll be damned if my division is involved in this shit, at least while I'm alive to stop it. 

Lejhal gave him a long, unreadable look before turning to the river of moving troops. 

"HALT! Division halt!" 

The man raised a fist into the night air and the weighty cabochon of lamprock set in his bracer, blessed by the priests of Abra'an, flashed a blue light, three times. In a moment, responding flashes of blue echoed up and down the lines among the regiment leaders, and marching rippled to a stop under the stars. Raothan turned his eye down to the visra'al, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. 

"Have your birds send the message back to the capital once we reach Khulith Havan. Tell them our own army is ravaging Dela Byuun. Border town or not, those people don't deserve it." 

The war priest swallowed and nodded. "Yes, General." 

Raothan shared a silent, heavy stare with his lieutenant. 

"I hope you know what you're doing, General Ga'ardahn." The man turned and trotted off to rejoin his unit. 

I know what I'm doing, alright. The right thing. And they'll probably have my balls for it. 

He put his knee into Styrro's side and the saigus pointed its head toward Khulith Havan. The Circle could do what it wanted when he returned to Setsirkhal. He was not having innocent blood on his hands, and that was the end of it. 

-=(^)=- 

Ayzhus was leaning on an elbow on one arm of her chair at this point, fist to her mouth, shaking her head. 

"Flood and damnation," she said at last, her earlier fire subdued. "So they exiled you for that? For leading your army away from dishonor? From a massacre?" 

"I moved against the Circle's decision," he said, shrugging himself away from the memory. "I'm lucky they didn't have my head. The usual punishment is death." 

And you probably deserved that, Ga'ardahn, at a minimum after Khulith Havan. But he would not be telling the general about the greater failure that had followed. That was his burden to bear and no one else's. 

"So how'd Your Grace wiggle out of that one?" 

"Ah, you see"—he slugged back another draught of the too-sweet Novamnean wine—"members of the Circle have immunity from death sentences. A reward for our service to the people." 

The Blyd Kriga'al snorted. 

"You wish you were dead," he went on, trying to return to his normal state of jovial apathy, "once they drag your ass through the Last Parade." 

"Last Parade?" 

"Oh yes," Raothan said, remembering more he'd rather not. "Once you leave the Hall of the Circle, they send you right down the front steps and out through the city." 

"That ... doesn't sound so bad," the general said. Her features bunched with trepidation, though, as she already sensed there was more. 

"The earth priests ring the bells at J'rt Thi's temple. It's a song everyone knows." His eyes glassed over again, recalling against his will. "Every soul in the capital comes out to the streets. They line up along the High Vanslaang Road, the main artery out of Setsirkhal. Both sides." 

Ayzhus gave a low whistle. 

"You walk," Raothan told her, "alone. There is no guard surrounding you. No drums or anything to announce your approach. They allow you a mount, if you have one, and whatever supplies you can carry away on your back. 

"And the people ..." He was far away now, haunted. "The people are commanded to silence. No one yells, or taunts. No friends cry out at your injustice. And as you pass them, on both sides of the street, they turn their backs." 

"Damn." Even the sarcastic Parthi general was grave upon hearing this. 

"Another thing my position among the Circle saved me from," he said. "I didn't have to take the Last Parade on my knees. If I'd been anyone else, they would've made me crawl. And High Vanslaang is a long road." 

She was silent now. There was only clanking of cutlery from the other feast goers and the tinkling of instruments from the oblivious musicians amid the square of tables. 

"They save the worst for last, you know." Why he would torture himself with this particular memory just now ... "They round up your family, loved ones, friends ... and the guard brings them to stand at the very end of the line, were the road leaves the city. The last thing I saw in my home, before they put me out into the desert, was my mother and my brother turning their backs." 

"By the flood, Ga'ardahn," Ayzhus swore under her breath. 

"They're not even allowed to talk to you. The guards see to it. They just turn away and it's over. You're dead to Elvigraath. To this day, I have no idea whether my family agreed with the sentence or not. They hate me? They miss me? Who knows? I tried to have letters smuggled across the border through some merchant friends who traded in Xenge, but I never heard anything back. Don't know if the letters got there or not, and if they did, what my brother thought. I just. Don't. Know. And that is the real punishment. That right there." 

"And you can't sneak back in? It's been twelve summers, you said. Surely by now ..." 

He chuckled at this. "Exiles are extremely uncommon. There might be one or two in a generation. Every guard of every city entrance has been trained to know my face. No, it's better this way." 

And I don't want to go back there anyway. Not after the rest. 

"Well, shit," the general said, staring at an empty platter, "I think if I had to—" 

"Your Grace," a serving girl approached, bowing low. "General Ayzhus." 

"Yes?" Ayzhus said. 

"His Excellency, the First Councilor, bids me inform Your Grace that the Release Rite is under final preparations. The Seneschal will be returning to escort Your Grace back to the palace steps." 

"I can escort His Grace to the steps just fine, Petrylla." 

The young woman blushed and nodded at this. "I will inform the seneschal," she said. Rather than depart, however, the servant sidestepped in Ayzhus's direction, eyes downcast to the table and turning redder by the moment. 

"If the general requires any further assistance this night, I may ... I may offer my services." The servant had meant the words to be as discreet as could be managed, and Raothan could tell it had taken all of the woman's bravery to get them out. Hopeful eyes dared to flick up to the Blyd Kriga'al, who was wearing half a grin now. 

"Your services?" Ayzhus put heavy meaning into the second word. "Come over here." The general made a nod to indicate that the servant should come around to their side of the table and the woman scurried to obey. It was no short trek all the way around the outside of the perimeter of tables, but in moments, the serving girl stood at the Parthi's side. 

Ayzhus caught up a slender wrist and tugged the other woman low so she could speak next to her ear. No one but Raothan could've heard. 

"And if I command you to stand here and wait for me on this spot, Petrylla, all night, will you do it?" 

"You know I would, General." The younger woman's voice was breathy and her eyes had begun to glaze. Raothan started to feel like he should be somewhere else. 

"Well I won't ask you to do that," Ayzhus said, the volume of her words back to normal and her grip on the servant's wrist released. "We'll see where things are at after the Release Rite, eh? I know where to find you." She dismissed her flustered admirer with a lascivious wink and the woman bowed and hurried off. 

Raothan cleared his throat and the general laughed. 

"That's the problem, Your Grace," she said, her former edge returning, "It's the chase that's all the fun. Once you've caught them ..." Ayzhus shrugged. "Well, where's the challenge in that?" Parthi blue eyes danced in merriment and he couldn't help his own mouth twitching up into a smile. 

"You're a fine piece of work, you know that, Kriga'al?" he said. 

"You're a mixed bag of nuts yourself, Your Grace. It's a shame you're going to die—I'd have liked to have seen you back among the brotherhood, show those greenlings a thing or two." 

The general glanced around the hall to see the crowd beginning to thin. "Well, pack-all," she said, slapping a palm on the edge of the table, and steering away from awkward talk, "Let's go see about this Release Rite, huh? It's about to be someone's lucky day." 

She rose from her seat and Raothan followed suit. With any hope, the Rite wouldn't be nearly as long as the coronation. 

And you'll have the opportunity to spare a life tonight, Ga'ardahn. Perhaps another reason the gods have brought you to this place: you can atone before the end. 

Ayzhus made for the doors and Raothan followed. The bowing began again, on all sides. It was an inversion of the Last Parade, though of some smaller scale, and it made no little impression on him that the decision which led him to that final casting-out in Setsirkhal twelve summers ago, was the same decision that found him in the palace at Protreo now. 

Maybe this time he could leave things intact. 

-=(^)=- 

The approaching sunset gilded the tops of the buildings surrounding the plaza. The palace itself faced east and cast a great, blue shadow as far as the marble statue of a man—probably some leader of old—which rose from its center on a tall column. Flames danced in the light wind from the sea in braziers lit at regular intervals along the outside edges of the palace steps. A crowd of citizens, though smaller than the one that had appeared for the coronation, had gathered to see the Release Rite. 

The guards had relocated the condemned from their traditional prison in the hearing yard to a new, temporary holding area at the foot of the palace steps. Two rows of barred walls, not unlike those that made up the cages, ran parallel to the length of the bottom step, not more than a man's arm length apart. 

A nasty set of metal rods Niquel now knew for some of the storied Novamnean Will objects, wielded by the guards under the direction of the jailor, kept the queue of pitiful humanity in line as they moved from one enclosure to the next. Only one demonstration had been necessary. A desperate man, some several winters her senior, had made a wild attempt to bolt as the guards were herding them out of the cages. The rod had only to touch the back of the man's neck before he lurched forward and vomited up what seemed like everything he had eaten in a month. The violent retching went on and on, even as they'd carried him off to J'sau Jeqnam-knew-where, wailing and choking. After that, the others faced forward and walked in a neat line, in any direction bid, without a word. 

At the command of the jailor, they'd funneled between these new iron walls, the narrow gauntlet forcing their numbers—some forty or fifty—into a single line inside before a gate at the open end swung closed to lock them in. The jailor, a paunchy man of late middle age, was pacing in front of the narrow hold now, lecturing them with every eyelash of authority in his tone he could claim for his own. 

"You will face forward toward the palace at all times," the self-important Novamnean was saying. "You will not speak to His Imperial Grace, nor to the Councilors, unless he commands it. You will keep your eyes cast down unless His Grace commands otherwise. You will not piss, you will not spit, you will not bleed, you will not fart ... in the presence of the emperor or his council. You will treat this as the Divine-blessed opportunity it is: to be granted a second chance at your unworthy lives." 

From what Niquel had been able to glean from conversations in the cages, the lowlander emperor, who'd only just been crowned this afternoon, was to emerge from the monstrous palace and grant a pardon to one of the condemned as some sort of display of mercy. Many of her fellow prisoners were hopeful, and some had been straightening what was left of ragged clothing, plastering hair into place with palms and spit, in hopes of presenting a more decent face. 

I wish they had just left me back in the hearing yard. What lowlander king is going to give a morning's piss about saving a Taunai "witch"? 

She no longer needed the stories. Niquel now knew firsthand just what the Novamneans thought of her people. There were still places her flesh stung and ached, and cruel words festered in her ears. And with this harness and its insidious plate sealed between her shoulder blades, she would find no solace in her guides. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 05



As they stood there, waiting for whatever was to come next—this emperor to make his appearance, she supposed—the crowd in the plaza behind them kindled to life again as it grew restless. Speculations about the rite circulated. A few taunts wobbled in the direction of the prisoners. Niquel let them become an insensible roar in the back of her head, the same as she'd begun to do with what had been at first the novel rush of the sea against the cliffs. 

The Pattern, the Pattern. Be calm. 

"Ssst." The noise came from her left, but she ignored it. 

"Hoi. Ssst. Shadespeaker." It was the prisoner at her side, a woman. 

Niquel's jaw tightened. They could stand to leave her alone, at least this once, could they not? 

"I heard your kind talk to the dead," the woman said under her breath with the same kind of urgency one uses when hatching an escape plan. "Is it true?" 

This made her turn her head just far enough to see who was harassing her. A sharp-eyed Novamnean woman, not quite half a head shorter than Niquel herself, stood with no little tension at her side. This lowlander didn't have the same malice in the line of her mouth that the rest had worn, and Niquel let out a slow breath through her nose, allowing her eyes to continue their sideways assessment of the woman. 

"Is it true?" she repeated in a hoarse whisper. "Can you speak to them?" 

These people knew so little about the transition, but Niquel would not begrudge genuine curiosity. Especially not after what she'd received up until this point. 

"We can," she said out of the side of her mouth, "but I can hear nothing now. Not with this thing on me." She rolled her shoulders to indicate the harness and put a dose of disgust into the word 'thing'. 

"Of course," the woman muttered. "I find one person who could possibly help me before this is all over, and I'm still over the cliffs." 

"I do not know this expression, this 'over the cliffs." Why was she bothering to engage with this lowlander? 

"Are you sure you can't do anything?" the woman cut in again. "They think I killed him, you know. Baovar. My husband." 

Maudri used to tease Niquel about being emotionally aloof, but this woman's words plucked at something in her. She was about to respond, despite herself, when one of the guards sauntered past, making her bite her tongue until he moved off. 

"I am sorry, Lowlander," she managed another whisper. "Whatever this Will object is they have placed on me, it has silenced the voices." 

The woman humphed at this and Niquel grew restless, hands gripping the bars in front of her. 

"This Baovar, your husband," she said, getting her tongue around the odd lowlander words, "you did not kill him, as you say?" 

"Of course not." 

"And what would you know of him?" Niquel said, still trying for quiet. "If you could speak to him." 

"I'd ask if he blamed me. Or if he knew that I tried." 

Niquel did not need to speak to her guides to answer a question like this. "He knows everything now, Wife of Baovar. What things are hidden on this side of the transition are revealed on the other. And he will not blame. Even if you did do this thing, he will understand, and he will forgive." 

"You think so?" Her words were almost inaudible over the hum of the crowd. 

"He is whole with J'sau Jeqnam again, fully aware. No foolish thing you ever did will he hold against you now, because he is able to see." 

"I don't understand half of what you just said, shadespeaker, but ..." Niquel saw the woman looking around, keeping her own eye out for the guard. "But how can you know this without talking to him?" 

"Because these things are true of all people," she said. It amazed her, still. Such a city, such wonders they had built, and yet these people were ignorant of the simplest truths. Perhaps when she returned to her people as a guide, there might be some way she could work to mend the gap, to make the unknown known to these lowlanders and chip away at some of the fear. 

There was a stir on the steps above them. A group of figures had appeared from between columns the size of elder pines and the noise from the crowd behind them ebbed away to a mere susurration. 

"Guess I'll find out if you're full of it soon enough," the woman said, eyes focused on the cluster of people above them. 

A single, booming roll of drums sounded from somewhere above and the fluttering braziers seemed to leap in anticipation. 

"His Grace, Emperor Raothan the First!" a man with a carrying voice announced to the crowd. "In honor of the traditional Rite of Release ..." 

The man went on, saying something about mercy. About generosity. Niquel didn't hear the words. 

Next to her, the Novamnean woman, the prisoner who'd asked about her husband, was muttering what might have been several creative oaths, but the lone Taunai couldn't tell them apart from the sound of blood rushing in her ears. 

Her calves flexed back and forth, the left, the right, the left again. The group of people descending the steps drew up in front of the makeshift narrow cages and her insides twitched. The man in the center, the one with the gold circlet on his brow: this man did not look like the rest of the Novamneans she'd seen. 

He looked like the man who was also a horse and also a lizard. 

Her lungs and heart seemed to seize up in her chest, and a thrum of anxiety rolled up from her knees to her hips. There were details of the dream Niquel hadn't shared with Maudri, but that didn't stop her from being assaulted with some choice memories of them just now. 

Winter's tears ... 

First the silencing of her guides and now this. Whatever J'sau Jeqnam was trying to teach, she was not learning fast enough. 

The man from her dream was the emperor of Novamne. 

He stepped forward. 

-=(^)=- 

The herald made his droning speech, recounting the history and purpose of the Release Rite, and adding any number of flourishes about the promise of a new reign and the potential for redemption at hand. Raothan paid little attention. 

Once the officious Novamnean stopped rambling on, the tradition at hand would demand he choose a soul among those lined up between the barred walls at the foot of the palace steps. Someone to pardon, to take into service. 

How? 

How would he do this? He didn't know any of these prisoners from the next, and perhaps they all deserved to die, as their sentences dictated, or maybe none of them did. What was more, Raothan didn't want a servant. He hadn't needed one in Setsirkhal, and he didn't now. And most certainly not for a mere matter of days. What would be the point? 

But he was here now. Standing on the steps of the imperial palace, the scent of sea air and smoke in his nostrils, the shadows deepening over the plaza along with his entanglement in what he was sure was only one of the First Councilor's many plans. If he didn't stand here and play Emperor, well ... Firsoni had already threatened other lives once to gain his cooperation. 

And why not go along? It's easier to drift down the Vanslaang than pole your way up it. 

Another rib-rattling report from the drums as the herald found it in himself to shut his mouth. Raothan twisted his mouth to one side. This was his signal to action. The people in the plaza were silent, and several pairs of eyes from the council focused in his direction, waiting for him to move. 

Get it over with, Ga'ardahn. The sooner it's done, the sooner you can make your excuses and be alone. 

He took the steps at an angle, descending to his right toward one end of the long, linear holding cell. The First Councilor followed. 

"The condemned are arrayed in this manner so that His Grace may walk the cage line and take their measure in order to make His choice," Firsoni said in quiet tones as they made their way closer to the prisoners. "They are required to answer His Grace's questions, if He has any, and submit to any sort of physical tests or examination He might require. After His Grace makes His pardon, the new servant will be made clean and brought to His Grace to receive instruction in his or her duties." 

Raothan grunted. "Right. Let's make it happen." 

Pleading and reaching out, desperation and tears were more in the vein of what he expected from the wretched citizens behind the bars. Instead, as he walked the line, all he saw were downcast eyes, some hands on the bars, others behind backs or at sides, and silence. It was obvious these people had been warned to whatever the Novamneans considered respectful behavior. 

Men and women stood side by side. Young and old, most filthy, many in clothing that couldn't even remember when it had been whole. Dark Novamnean hair topped most of the doomed heads, though there was the occasional straw-haired Parthi. 

He didn't want to ask them questions. The hopelessness, the resignation he saw on so many of their faces was too much of a bitter reminder of his own grey emotions. And Raothan was as condemned as any of these poor f— 

His feet stopped. 

His heart stopped. 

By all the gods ... 

Novamnean, Parthi, they were all anonymous. All alike in their inability to make themselves stand apart and give him a reason to choose one over the others. 

Not anymore. 

Right in front of his face, like a hallucination. Bedraggled and broken as the rest of them, yet the silver hair and pearly flesh stood out like the moon in the night sky. If her eyes were to meet his and be silver as well, the mirror of the dream ... 

It was impossible. And yet there was no way he'd had that much wine. Pale fingers circled the bars in front of her and, without thinking, Raothan raised his hand to touch them, to prove to himself he'd lost his fucking mind. 

She gasped as the back of his knuckles brushed hers, and he hissed and yanked his hand back. 

She's real. This is real. The White Woman. 

He was a warrior, a Kriga'al for gods' sake, and he was terrified of what he would do next. 

The First Councilor cleared his throat. 

Raothan stepped directly in front of her. He could see the rise and fall of her chest under a ruined tunic. 

"Look at me." 

Eyes flicked up to his, reflecting the flames of the braziers. Silver. 

Blessed fucking gods. 

"If His Grace is ready," said Firsoni, "there are the rest of the—" 

"Pardon!" He threw the word up like a shield, trying to remember the rest, the official line the First Councilor had given him. "I pardon this woman under my authority as Emperor. May her life serve as a symbol of the clemency of my reign." There. The words were out before anyone could silence him. 

"Your Grace," Firsoni said in a low voice designed not to travel, "any one of the other prisoners would be more suitable, I assure you. Execution is the least of what this ... witch deserves. Letting her live among the good people of Protreo is nearly a crime in itself." 

The woman in front of him had been holding his eyes all during the First Councilor's quiet vitriol, and he couldn't tear his gaze away. Raothan looked at the figure from his dreams and spoke to Firsoni. 

"Would you like to be seen undermining my authority, First Councilor? In front of all these 'good people'? For the ritual to work, must I not 'truly be Emperor'? Those were your words, I believe." 

He thought he saw something flicker in the woman's eyes. Amusement. Hope, perhaps. Firsoni made a noise of irritation in his throat. It was right then that Raothan knew he'd spend the rest of his short life taking every opportunity to needle this man. 

"My pardon stands." His smile began to grow. "I predict my reign will be an extremely generous one, First Councilor. In fact ..." Raothan managed to release the silvery stare long enough to swivel his head around to the side. 

"General Ayzhus," he said, calling back to the Blyd Kriga'al as he jerked his head in his direction. "If you will." 

The Parthi trooped down the steps to join them and Raothan could feel the venom radiating from Firsoni. 

"Your Grace," she said, tipping him a respectful nod. 

"You're accustomed to taking lives, General," he said to her, grinning now. "Perhaps this evening you should spare one, instead. Choose another." And before the First Councilor was able to interrupt further, he raised his voice for the benefit of the gathered masses. 

"A double pardon!" 

Wild cheers went up from the crowd. People whistled and hooted. Ayzhus smirked and Firsoni was livid. 

"Your Grace," the man seethed, "the Release Rite has been a tradition for hundreds of years. You cannot just—" 

"One more word, First Councilor, I dare you." The older man's pale blue eyes crackled with unspent lightning. "You open your mouth one more fucking time and try to tell me what I can't do, and I'll have the jailor release every last person in this cage, right here on the palace steps. Believe it." 

He watched Firsoni's jaw flex at this, but the councilor held his tongue. No doubt the stone beneath the man's feet was about to burst into flame. 

Good. Prick. 

"General," he said, handing over the reins of the ceremony to Ayzhus for a moment as his attention was pulled right back to the apparition in white standing on the opposite side of the bars. 

The general was already fixated on a Novamnean woman to their immediate right. 

"You're not Parthi," the Blyd Kriga'al said, nodding at the tattooed forearms of the subject of her interest. The general had similar markings on her calves. "D'you marry in?" 

"I did." The prisoner's words were clipped and this appeared to amuse the First Shield. 

"And where is he now?" 

"Dead." 

Ayzhus glanced at the bars. "Did you kill him?" 

"I did not." The bitterness was almost a taste in the air. Firsoni made some noise in his throat. 

"Do you want to live, Citizen?" The general made the offer as crisp as any order to one of her lieutenants. The prisoner was not humbled. 

"That depends on the life, General." 

"Hah!" Ayzhus barked a laugh. "I'll bet it does." Her tone painted a picture of a tactician already hard at work. Here was a challenge. 

"Very well," said the general with a crooked smile, "I pardon this woman under my authority as First Shield, Councilor to the Emperor. May her life serve as a symbol of the clemency of his reign." 

The Novamnean prisoner swore under her breath and Ayzhus chuckled some more, quite pleased with herself. 

Raothan took little notice. The herald started in again, concluding the Rite, and the jailor went about unlocking the gate and herding the prisoners out through the narrow opening. 

The woman Firsoni had called a witch kept her silver eyes locked to his. He gleaned little from her expression, except perhaps the unblinking eyes and barely-parted lips making her appear as blindsided as he was. 

The motion of the line forced her to move, at last, when it reached her place inside the enclosure. A final unreadable look back in his direction and then she was shoved along. 

The remainder of the Rite required Raothan to stand on the palace steps with the council while the prisoners were shuffled off and the temporary cage broken down amid more pomp and drumming. While he stood there, though, his skin itched and his mind raced. 

So many questions. 

He'd made the Challenge. The gods had answered him; first seeming to tell him one thing, but then proving they meant another. Yet here, on the eve of acceptance, appeared the very woman who'd troubled his dreams in the nights leading up to his departure for Protreo. 

She'd look at him with disappointment and distaste on the other side of sleep, but there had also been nights that look had been hunger, yearning from beneath him. Thrashing and soft noises of discovery. 

Fuck. Think of something else, Ga'ardahn. You're in front of a crowd. 

Yes. But when they brought her to him after this was all cleared up, Raothan wanted to know just who this woman was and what she was doing on the wrong side of those bars. She'd answer his questions, by the gods, or he'd lose his mind. 

Who's to say you haven't already? 

"An interesting choice." The voice came from the First Mediate, as Paxus and the rest of the council had stepped down to join Raothan, Ayzhus, and Firsoni. "Your rule may be a short one, Your Grace, but if nothing else, it is shaping up to be ... lively." 

Raothan grunted. "You got that right, Mediate." 

The councilor had no idea. 

-=(^)=-



After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 06



Author's Note: Hi there! Glad you're back, and thanks for waiting! We're now on Chapter 6 of 9 in Book 1 and, by the gods, we've finally arrived at a sexy one. YAY! It's about time. Mama's got needs. 

Content Warning: Lesbians? Is that a thing? Are people squicked out by two ladies? Well, if so ... 

Waterburn was kind enough to edit this chapter for me, and AwkwardMD provided great feedback to help tighten up some of my more rambly bits. Love you two! 

Chapter 7 is in progress. Updates are posted on my profile page. Hope you enjoy! 

~Eris/D&T 

-=(^)=- 

Chapter Six 

A merry game of Catch did we 

Play by the fire light. 

I tripped and jumped and rolled, and she 

Escaped in hearty flight. 

I chased her back and chased her forth 

And won her fair and sure. 

For capture o'er the marriage hearth 

She loved me all the more. 

~Verse from traditional Parthi drinking song 

-=(^)=- 

What seemed like both an endless and instantaneous trek through stone corridors and courtyards passed by Niquel in a blur. Four guards marched her along toward some unknown destination without a word. At her side, the Novamnean woman from the cages who'd been pardoned by the general took longer strides to maintain the same pace. The armored group formed a square around the two women, a body at each point in a clear warning against any foolish notions of flight. 

The man from her dream was the Emperor of Novamne. 

What in the snow-loving Pattern is this? 

There were far too many coincidences for her to ignore. This man—not a native from what Niquel could see—had only just been crowned that day. She'd dreamed of this man, standing in a field of kissmelon, and now here she was, her transition out of the flesh delayed by his word. 

I'd be on my way back to Jeqnamset if Vodi had helped me to avoid Ptyverias. What is your plan, my friend? 

Her shoulders felt heavy once again as the leather of the harness reminded her she would not be hearing from J'sau Jeqnam on this matter, nor on any matter, so long as the foul thing remained joined with her skin. 

The woman at her side said something Niquel didn't quite catch and she came out of her walking trance. They were approaching an open doorway at the end of a hall. Warm light beckoned from the other side, and an older woman, long hair silver from age and not birth like Niquel, flowed toward them from a perpendicular corridor like a leaf riding the surface of a stream to intercept them. 

"Remain in the hall, please," the woman said to the guards. She had the voice of the kindliest grandmother, yet it covered a quiet, solid authority that made their escort step aside to flank the door without a word. 

Her eyes flicked over to take in Niquel and the other woman. "Come along," she said, gesturing for them to follow her through into the next room. 

The first thing to strike Niquel was the debilitating squareness of everything. Walls, ceiling, and floor meeting just so, as they did with all these lowlander structures. Columns of stone lining the walls, regular as seasons. Four square recesses in the floor shone with light from oil lamps reflecting on the surface of the water they contained. It was beautiful, in a surreal yet intimidating way. These Novamnean buildings insisted every line be perfect, and implied that their inhabitants would do well to strive for this perfection also, lest there be consequences. 

"I am Ellestia Ordus," the woman said, folding her hands at her waist, "Palace Seneschal." This word meant nothing to Niquel, though it seemed to carry weight. 

"It is the highest honor to have been pardoned by His Imperial Grace and by the First Shield," she continued, nodding at each of them in turn. "It would be wise of you not to squander this opportunity, but rather take pains to remedy whatever habits you've cultivated which saw you into the cages in the first place." Her look was pointed at this, though not unkind. 

"You both are to obey His Grace and the general to their very word. Your service to them, until they should choose to dismiss you from it, is your payment for nothing less than your lives. Am I understood?" 

Nods from Niquel and her partner in servitude. 

Splendid. At least with the transition, I could have made it back to warn the Taunai. Now I'm stuck here for J'sau Jeqnam knows how long with this vile harness strapped to my back. The Pattern confounds. 

Another Novamnean woman came through the door then, bearing an armload of folded linens and a dangling basket filled with small jars and sundry other objects Niquel couldn't make out from where she stood. 

"Now," the older woman said, "you two are to make yourselves clean." She nodded, indicating the square pools. "Be thorough about it or someone will be sent to be thorough for you. Leave your old clothes. You'll no longer have need of them. Petrylla has brought you serving attire, which you are expected to also keep clean." The other, younger woman stepped up beside this Ellestia after having deposited her burden on one of the many stone benches paralleling the pools. The woman called Petrylla eyed Niquel and her fellow pardonee with distaste. 

"When you are presentable, the guards waiting outside will escort you to His Grace and to the First Shield. You"—the dark eyes went to Niquel—"are to address the emperor as 'Your Grace'. And you"—she shifted her attention—"are to address General Ayzhus as 'First Shield' or 'General' unless instructed to do otherwise. The both of you. Now. Are there any questions?" 

Niquel shook her head. Clean up. Speak when addressed. Use lowlander titles. Obey. It was all perfectly clear. The woman at her side snorted. 

"Yeah. Any chance you can just stick me back in the cages?" 

Petrylla's face screwed up in affront at this. Ellestia brushed away the sarcasm as nonsense. "Don't be a fool, girl. You still have a chance at life. See that you don't waste it whining." 

With this, the silver-haired woman turned and flowed out of the room in a graceful swirl of grey fabric. They were left with the sour-faced Petrylla and, presumably, the four guards still outside the door. 

The three women traded blank, indecisive looks for a moment, before a sigh of resignation fell at Niquel's side. 

"Well? Pack it." 

The other woman began unbelting her toga with a shrug, unlacing sandals. Niquel glanced to Petrylla, who raised a brow that dared the Taunai woman to make her summon the guards. 

Well there is nothing to be done, is there. The Pattern moves forward. 

The tattered remains of her tunic came off over her head as Niquel moved to stand by an adjacent pool. She laid the ruined fabric aside on a bench, and the leather of her breeches followed along behind. Her boots hadn't made it out of the cages, stolen mere moments after she'd been thrust inside with the other condemned. 

"Flood and damnation are you white." 

Petrylla was gaping at her, features scrunched in mild horror. "Are your people born that color, gravetongue, or do you turn that way from all the corpses you take to your beds?" 

Niquel ignored her. She'd heard worse in the cages already. 

The woman with the tattoos on her arms had already splashed without ceremony down into her pool, and was using a rag to scrub at her skin with great vigor. The water was dirtying fast. 

There was nothing left but to follow suit. Niquel dipped a toe into the basin and found the water extravagantly warm, almost hot, and her skin prickled with tiny bumps in response. These were nearly as hot as the bathing pools in Jeqnamset. She took one step down and then another until the water came to just below her breasts. As she'd seen the other woman do, she took up a rag from a basket between pools and began to sluice away the filth. 

"Cleaning myself up just to get dirty again," came the grumble from the next basin. "Can you believe this shit? From one sentence to another, all in the same day. You ready to meet your new 'Master', shadespeaker?" 

Niquel had a cool eye for the scrubbing Novamnean. "I endeavor to be ready for anything the Pattern requires, lowlander." 

"Name ain't 'lowlander'. It's Bellora." 

"And my name is not 'shadespeaker'," Niquel said, swinging a foot up onto the ledge to work at it with the rag. "And not 'gravetongue' or 'witch'. My name is Niquel." 

The woman calling herself Bellora stopped her work at this and assessed her Taunai bathing partner anew. "All right. Niquel. Well I, for one, am not ready at all to become the general's newest bedroom toy. Married a man for a reason." 

"You should feel lucky General Ayzhus picked you!" Petrylla snapped from where she'd perched on a bench to wait out the bathing. "Any number of women would give their right arm for a chance like that." 

"Women like you?" Bellora said with a smirk, wringing the rag so that water ran in rivulets over her face. "Though I guess I should feel lucky compared to you, sh—Niquel. At least I know where my fate lies." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Well," she said, running her fingers through the snarls in her hair, "if the general wants a girl for something, it's an easy bet what that something is. This new emperor? Who knows? He's an Elvigra, which is crazy to begin with, and who knows anything about what some old world barbarian would want with one of your kind? If it were just a bed warmer, you'd think he'd look for one of his own. There was an Elvigra woman or two in the cages would've done for him just fine." 

"He'll probably beat you to death, witch," Petrylla put in. "With those enormous Elvigra hands of his. Just for the thrill of it." She gave a cruel little laugh at this, as if she would be much pleased by such an outcome. 

The thought hadn't entered her mind before, but now the seed was there, however poisoned its source. Would he? Was violence from this man part of the Pattern? The look in those eyes of his, though, when he'd commanded her to look at him there on the palace steps ... 

Niquel allowed herself the luxury of dipping completely beneath the water, soaking all of her hair as was rarely possible in the year-round chill of the mountains. As she surfaced and began to rake her hands through her wet hair, she thought of the lightning that had seemed to arc between her and this man as he'd held her gaze until the moment the guard had herded her away. 

His eyes were darker than hers, but not the black-brown of most Novamneans. Instead, they were a dark amber color she had never seen, reflecting the dancing flames from the braziers on the steps. 

The look they'd shared, however brief ... the momentary brush of his knuckles over the back of her hand ... these had made her reality shimmer and warp in the instantaneous way she'd experienced only once. It had smacked of vaudel, of that strange sensation a person feels when they step on an intersection of their own path with something long written into the Pattern. 

The last time Niquel had felt it had been the day her brother had— 

"Hoi. Time's up, gravetongue. Out of the water." 

Niquel's attention refocused to see Petrylla giving her an impatient look. She sighed and made her way out of the water, wringing her hair between her hands as she went. Bellora was already dry and shrugging her way into the clothing Ellestia had pointed out earlier. 

"There are oils and combs in that basket," the unpleasant serving woman said, pointing a finger. "The seneschal wanted me to braid up your hair, but I'm not touching either of you. You can both fix yourselves up or not. I can't say I really care whether your masters are pleased with you two." 

The woman stood there with her arms crossed again, waiting for them to dress. The still-damp leather of the harness chafed over her shoulders, but there was no taking it off, so it would have to dry while on her body. Again, Niquel had to look to Bellora for what to do, and followed her lead for how to slip on the serving attire, how to braid her hair and tie it off at the end, which oils to rub into hair and skin. 

Would all of this please the Emperor? Did any of it matter to him? Would it matter to her? What were perfumes and garments in the face of the unknown? 

Perhaps you can hear me, Vodi Namat, though I cannot hear you. Please, if you can, guide me through signs. I may be deaf to your words now, but I am not blind. I will have my eyes open. 

Niquel suspected the events of the next hour or so would determine her path in this life for some time to come. She hoped for the sake of her people the new emperor was not the low-minded savage this Petrylla had made him out to be. 

The Pattern, she thought, as the guards moved in, ready to escort them on, I will follow the path and see where it leads. I will look for signs from J'sau Jeqnam. It is all I can do. 

A metallic clinking caught her attention, and she saw that the guards had collars for her and Bellora, open and ready to fasten in place. 

It is all I can do. 

-=(^)=- 

Niquel knelt where the guard had told her to kneel, waiting. She could not have gone far, in any event, as the collar they had affixed to her in the hallway outside the baths was attached to a chain, which was, in turn, connected to a recessed crossbar set into the stone of the floor. A few paces in any direction would be all the further she'd be able to move. 

The emperor's receiving room was vast beyond its needs, with a scattering of wooden furnishings, a high ceiling—which met the walls to form perfect rectangles, of course—and a series of broad open doorways that led onto a massive balcony. She was sure this faced seaward, but it was full dark now and all Niquel could see outside were stars. Inside, oil lamps set into sconces burned in every wall. 

Another set of double doors stood open opposite the entry where the guards had brought her in, and these gave her a view into the sleeping area itself. A bed fit for several sleepers at once sprawled in the center of the space, and there were various chests and chairs and small tables holding court in its magnificent presence. 

Since leaving the cages, Niquel had received the smallest of reprieves: the short, sheer garment they'd given her to wear—a toga, if her memory served her—allowed her body at least partial relief from the unending lowland heat. 

None of the other palace servants Niquel had seen wore anything as transparent as this, and she wondered if it denoted something different about her and Bellora that they were dressed this way. Perhaps something to do with the pardon? 

Half a weak smile formed on her lips as she smoothed the filmy linen over her thighs. If they'd thought to humble her by leaving her body exposed this way, it only served to show how little these lowlanders knew about the Taunai. The people on the mountain covered their bodies, to be sure, but only out of necessity against the year-round cold. No one in Jeqnamset was any more ashamed to walk in their skin than the nearest fox or roundhorn sheep. Bellora had appeared far less comfortable, tugging at the material, keeping her arms crossed in front of her breasts. Wherever the woman was now, Niquel hoped she fared well. 

There was a clanking sound and her drifting attention snapped to the doors. The latch turned and she heard men talking on the other side. Her heart sped up. 

The Pattern. Calm. 

She took a deep breath and let it out. Again. In and out. Again. 

The door opened and a foot stepped through, followed by half of the emperor. 

Calm. 

"Just don't let anyone in here unless the palace is on fire, will you?" he said to someone in the hall. 

"Your Grace," came the affirmative. 

The man who was also a horse and also a lizard came all the way into the room. He shut the door behind him, looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and exhaled. Then he turned to Niquel. 

The intensity of those dark amber eyes didn't even have time to settle on her before his face turned down in disapproval. A noise of disgust came from his throat. 

"What have these idiots done, now?" He strode toward her before she could react, and it took all of her restraint not to scuttle backward on the floor as he stopped a mere hand's breadth from where she knelt. 

"Get up." 

Niquel looked up at him, bewildered. Her mouth must have come open. He was ... He was ... 

"Stand up," he said again, impatient. 

He was excruciatingly handsome. 

This made some part of her sink, dejected. Why did she need to be plagued with attraction now, of all times? Maudri would not have thought so, as her friend appreciated the traditional Taunai pale complexion and full beard preferred by the men on the mountain. Here this man was with tanned skin and a clean-shaven face—almost half a shaven head—utterly foreign and mesmerizing. 

This was the least of her problems, though. Her pulse was racing, yes, but with panic. Fearless Niquel, who'd volunteered twenty-two times to collect the hori, was terrified. Perhaps more than she'd been during her encounter with Ptyverias. She'd had disturbing—and on at least one occasion, blatantly erotic—dreams about this man, and now here he was. The anxiety seizing her limbs, her throat at this moment told her these events had been writ large in the Pattern long before now. It was too much. 

What does it mean? What does it mean? 

She blinked at him. 

His expression changed. Softened. 

"Wait, do you ... You don't ... You don't speak Novamnean, do you? You don't understand a damn thing I'm saying." 

Ooooh, he thinks ... 

Niquel did something then she probably shouldn't have. She let her face remain blank. 

The emperor's shoulders fell. "Oh for—fickle fucking gods," he said, throwing a frustrated hand up into the air. "Toy with me 'til the end, will you?" The same hand came back down, though, and he offered it, palm up in the universal invitation for her to take it. 

"Please," he said, "stand up." 

This she could do and still feign ignorance thanks to his gesture. Let him think she read his signs instead of understanding his words. It reeked of 'bad idea', but an inexplicable fear gripping her chest counseled her away from reason. 

It will buy me time. Time to think. 

She took his hand. 

A strong grip and a muscled arm hauled upward, and Niquel rose with it. As she gained her feet, he let go, only to rub at his mouth with his fingers, his face assessing. 

"What about Common?" he said at last in the empire's other most prevalent tongue. "You speak Trade Common?" 

She let her brow condense with the slightest hint of frustration and turned her face a fraction to the side, lying for all she was worth. 

The ploy succeeded and the emperor shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "Of all the—mmhh." It seemed he bit off a curse as he stood there, studying her. Some decision reached, he stepped forward again, only this time his hands reached for her throat. 

Niquel gasped and stepped back, and this made him hold up his palms. 

"Take it easy," he said in placating tones. His right hand waggled, drawing her eyes to a small key he held between his thumb and forefinger. "This"—he held up the key and then pointed it at her neck—"is for that collar. You want it off?" Raised brows put the question to her. She had to admit, he was doing well. Had she truly not spoken the language, the gestures still would have made his point. 

With a nod, she put her arms down at her sides to show she understood. 

He did reach her throat this time, though his fingers went straight for the collar. After a moment's inspection, he grunted. "Must be on the back. Turn around." As if he realized mid-sentence that she wouldn't understand his words, the emperor brought his hands to her shoulders and turned her himself in a single brisk move. Her whole body twisted to follow suit and she stood there stunned while he lifted the damp rope of her braid out of the way. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 06



Warm fingertips brushed the back of her neck as he did this, and Niquel repressed a shiver. She felt him fumbling with the collar, heard the small metallic sounds of him introducing the key. There was a decisive snap and the two halves fell apart. In an eye blink, one of his arms circled around to catch the unlocked restraint as it fell and, for the briefest of moments, her upper back came in full contact with his chest. 

The sudden press of flesh made her want to jump, to run away. It also threatened to lull her to sleep, standing just there. The worst thing it did, however, was conjure those secret parts of her dreams again. The parts where their bodies slipped and slid. What if she were to turn around? What would she feel, then? 

Niquel did jump, then, however, as the emperor held the collar out to the side and let it fall to the floor with a startling clatter. As quick as it had come, the heart-stopping brush of bodies ended. The emperor stepped away and moved halfway across the room before turning back to face her. 

The dark look he sent her way was part frustration and something ... else. He seemed to give up on whatever it was for the moment, though, because he pointed his attention instead to a long, narrow table against the wall adjacent to the door. A silver pitcher stood there, and he poured some of its contents into a matching cup. Looking back at Niquel, he raised the vessel and his brows, offering to pour for her as well. She shook her head and he shrugged. 

"Suit yourself," he said, knocking back some of the drink. 

The emperor set his cup down on the table and leaned against it now, weight resting on the heels of his palms, taking her in again with those amber eyes. 

At length, and after his gaze had all but seared the sheer linen away from her body, he spoke. 

"What"—and, oh, that voice was having an effect on her—"are we going to do with you?" 

-=(^)=- 

Of course, of course she didn't speak Novamnean. Or Common. It could never be as easy as that, could it? The gods gave and they took, gave and took. 

Here she was, standing in front of him, impossible, and he couldn't ask her a single question. 

Well, you can ask, Ga'ardahn, she just won't understand you. 

"There's got to be someone I can find to translate. Someone in this city has to speak your language." 

The woman from his dreams stared back at him, uncomprehending. Raothan frowned and did what he always did when answers he sought eluded him: he began to pace. 

"I'm sure as fuck not going to ask Firsoni. Maybe the astrologer knows someone ..." 

He turned to start back in her direction and found her keeping a sharp eye on his every move, a nervous cat in a room full of milling hounds. The pacing was also a distraction, because the second large problem Raothan was having just then was that it was almost impossible to look away from the woman. His own fingers raked through his hair as he nearly exploded in frustration. 

"And what in J'rt Thi's name do they have you wearing?" 

As soon as he'd said it, he felt bad. Without understanding his words, only hearing the harsh tone and seeing his aggressive gesturing, she reacted in a cringe, her hands gripping together in front of her. She didn't step back, though, and he gave her respect for that. 

"Look. Sorry," he said, trying to sooth with calm movements of his hands. "I just ... You can't walk around like this. I'll never be able to think straight." 

It was true, too. They'd clothed her not in the standard palace servants' garb—similar of cut but not sheer—but in the much more antiquated, more demeaning slaves' garments. Slavery hadn't been the law of the land in Novamne for hundreds of years, if not more. The short toga sent a distinct message: the imperials thought of this woman as his property. 

She wasn't, of course, not as far as Raothan was concerned, but damn if it wasn't hard to not stop in his tracks and devour her with his eyes. 

Just as in his dreams, her flesh was the color of pure white marble. The sleeveless toga she wore was a cruel joke, at once concealing nothing, while at the same time being a reminder that his gaze was somehow a violation. Its gauzy drape only served to draw attention to all those places Raothan would explore if they'd met under more fortunate circumstances. 

Here were nipples, the palest shade of pink, topping high, rounded breasts she didn't slouch or bring up her hands to hide. His eyes dipped to her navel and, gods help him, lower. Either she was without hair or it was very fine. Foolish thoughts of smoothing his fingers down over that cleft flickered through his mind, and he chased them along like an exasperated shopkeep with a broom. On top of everything else, she wore some sort of serious-looking, leather shoulder harness, completely incongruous with the rest of her garb, whose sole purpose seemed to be drawing his eyes to her throat, her collarbones, back to her breasts again ... 

You're too old for this shit, Ga'ardahn. 

Keeping his eyes on her face was no better, though. The heavy braid he'd moved to deal with the collar had surprised him by being made of true, gleaming silver strands, rather than grey as he'd first believed. And her eyes, the maddening silver from his dreams as well, seemed to take him in, to weigh and measure his every bone and muscle, yet revealed nothing, containing her own secrets completely. 

If his pacing was any indication, Raothan was far more uncomfortable than his mysterious guest. He quit his repetitive course and flopped down into an excessively grand armed chair opposite the entry doors. If anything, it would give him the opportunity to cross one ankle over the opposite knee and hide the evidence of this woman's effects on him. He was safe for the moment, but not if he couldn't keep his eyes where they belonged. 

Raothan sighed. He was all questions and no answers. The woman watched him from across the room, patient, but intent. There was no explaining the draw he felt. She was a stranger, didn't speak any language he knew, yet the physical distance between them was the thing that felt wrong and foreign. 

Will no one explain anything to me? Will I cast about, blind and searching, for the last few pointless days of my life? 

Raothan did something then he probably shouldn't have. 

He held out his hand again, palm up, and twitched his fingers, beckoning. 

"Come here." 

She didn't know the words, but the gesture was plain enough. An immediate first step in his direction surprised him, but then she stopped. Silver eyes tripped around the room, weighing options. From the entry doors to him, to the wide balcony and then back to meet his gaze again. The woman seemed to shake off something invisible and then made her choice. In several calm steps, she stood in front of him. 

His hand remained in the air. He looked at it, and then at her. To his relief, his excitement, his chest-tightening horror, she took it, her palm laying over his. No grip, just a gentle weight and, more unexpected still, not a trace of fear lining the perfection of her face. 

He let his thumb brush over the back of her hand and it was the smoothest silk. Discipline rose up and suppressed his groan. 

What are you doing, Ga'ardahn? She doesn't need this. She didn't ask for some strange man to start pawing at her. Keep it under control. 

Though he fought to hold his unprecedented desires in check, Raothan couldn't make himself drop her hand. More, he couldn't make himself not say ridiculous things, and thanked the gods his ramblings would mean nothing to her. 

"How," he said, the words coming slow, "did a lovely white river lotus like yourself come to be locked up in the cages with a bunch of murderers and thieves?" 

Her pupils seemed to dilate at this, but a moment later Raothan was sure it had been merely a trick of the wavering lamplight. She had not taken her hand back, though, and this encouraged him to confess more, now that he enjoyed the safety of a language barrier. 

"I dreamed of you, you know." 

Did her pulse speed up at this? He thought he saw ... 

Again, no. His shoulders relaxed. 

"In the weeks before they brought me here. To the palace. Each time you were there, in my dreams, I felt like such a foolish boy." He laughed, realizing. "I feel the same way now." Still, he was too ashamed to say aloud that they'd been lovers on the far side of sleep, though he might admit that and more and she would continue to gaze at him, serene, but uncomprehending, if he did. 

All of his urges screamed for him to bring the back of her hand to his lips. It seemed so natural, but his mind rebelled. 

Leave the woman be. She could be married for all you know. Will you seduce another man's wife? Is that the sort of man you are now, Kriga'al? 

Raothan let go her hand, the least he could do to prevent further nonsense on his part. 

When she had her fingers back, they rose straight away to cover her mouth, stifling a yawn. Silver eyes went wide, apologetic. 

Of course. He'd been served and waited on all day. Treated like ... well, like the emperor, and this woman had been through the gods knew what. Here he was making her stand around and be stared at like a feast day ice sculpture. 

Raothan stood and the White Woman stepped back out of his way. This time he grabbed up her hand without asking and moved to guide her toward the other room and the small ocean of pillows and linens someone had the nerve to call a bed. 

As he approached the open door, and the destination became clear, Raothan felt a tug on his arm. The woman had come to a halt, a look of panic flickering to life on her face. 

Idiot. 

"Gods, you must think I'm trying to drag you to bed and attack you like some sort of wild beast." He was failing here, and needed her to understand. 

"Here," he said, closing the distance between them and letting go his grip on her hand. "You"—he indicated her by touching a white shoulder, in no way a selfish move on his part to come in contact with her flesh again—"take the bed." He pointed to the monstrous thing. 

"I"—palm on his own chest, now—"will sleep out here." A final, exaggerated indication of the receiving room where there were a pair of couches and a wide chaise. Any one of them was more opulent by a long ride than his bed at the farm. 

He watched her process what he'd just tried to explain and saw success as the tension went out of her limbs. For the first time, she smiled, and Raothan found himself giddy as a boy for the space of two heartbeats. 

With a single nod, the woman stepped into the bed chamber. She crossed the room with a glance around the new space, before pressing her hand into the surface of the bed, testing its give. It must have met with her approval because, without ceremony, she sat, bounced a bit, and lay back. 

With a final appraising look for Raothan—probably wondering whether he would do as he'd indicated and stay in the other room—she closed her eyes and was still, as though these had been her apartments all along. 

It was curious, the way she rested: flat on her back, arms down at her sides, body straight as if upon a bier. He couldn't tell if she'd gone to sleep immediately, or was in the process of willing herself to do so. 

He shook his head. Better not to stare. 

The balcony adjoining the other room served as a suitable place to resume his pacing. 

Yes, he thought as the stars overhead watched him trace his steps back and forth, I'll find a translator. And then I can see who can take a message to Loresto for me. 

Doxolemy, the astrologer, seemed a good place to start. Or maybe the seneschal; Ellestia probably had resources, as well. 

It was a shame he'd have to speak to this woman through a third party. How could he confess his dreams and not leave them fodder for gossiping mouths to spread throughout Protreo? 

As if it matters beyond the next few days. At least you'll have something to occupy your time. 

Waves crashed to their misty ends against the cliffs below, and Raothan stopped his wandering to meet them, leaning on the stone wall of the balcony. The infinity of twinkling lights in the night sky dusted the darkness down to the horizon, where it was swallowed up by the black void of the sea. 

Did all of this mean nothing? His Challenge? The dreams? The woman sleeping in the other room? 

Could it all be random and serve no purpose? Or was something greater going on here? Something Raothan was simply too small to see. 

The pacing began again. It was going to be a long night. 

-=(^)=- 

"Dismissed," Kadrian said with a wave of a hand as she approached the entry to the rooms reserved for her in the palace. She saw the disappointed looks on the guards' faces. 

"Yeah, I bet you wanted to stand there and listen." The two cast sheepish looks to the floor. "Tell you what," she said, hand on the latch, "take the night off duty. Go find your own set of thighs to spread." They brightened at her grin.  

"Sir!" Twin salutes and the pair marched off, leaving her alone to her evening's conquest, at last. 

This ought to be entertaining. 

Kadrian had seen the emperor's apartments. Hers and the other councilors' were not quite as large, nor so extravagantly appointed, but they reeked of luxury, still. Far more plush and decorated than the utilitarian arrangement of her usual quarters in the barracks. Only the rare and special occasion saw the general spending the night in her palace rooms, and tonight was turning out to be singular, indeed. 

There she was, standing in the center of the receiving room, arms crossed over her ample chest, weight on one unimpressed hip, scowling, glorious. Kadrian almost forgot to close the door all the way behind her. 

The guards had probably told the Novamnean woman to kneel, but Kadrian could already tell from the flavor of the answers she'd received at the Release Rite, the swearing after her pardon, that this particular spitfire would be having none of that. 

Would it diminish my authority if I rubbed my hands together in glee? 

"I'd tell you to stand, but it looks like you've already got that much sorted out," she said, sauntering over to her opponent for the night. They'd clothed her in slaves' garb, a demeaning move, to be sure, but that didn't stop Kadrian from lapping at the shorter woman's curves through the sheer fabric with every conspicuous movement of her eyes. The way the chain connected to the collar disappeared between her breasts and beneath her crossed arms was distracting to no end. The woman continued to frown and kept a sharp eye on Kadrian's every move. 

"You always have such an angry face when someone saves your life?" 

This received something akin to a snort, and the pretty, heart-shaped face swiveled around like an owl's to watch the general as she circled. The head of the imperial army did nothing to conceal her appraisal of the woman's body. 

"Found out you were destined for the Sack," Kadrian said once she'd made a complete circle. "You're going to tell me this'll be so much worse, liathri?" 

Hands went to hips, exposing dark, flat nipples on full, heavy breasts. Kadrian wanted to bite a knuckle. 

"One"—her charge spoke for the first time—"my name is Bellora, not 'half-breed', General, and two, no, I wasn't exactly looking to enlist in Kadrian's Other Army. You should've chosen someone who wants what you've got." 

"And what have I got, Bellora?" she said, in a low voice, stepping into the other woman's space so their bodies almost touched. Kadrian smirked down at her collared prize. 

"A reputation." 

The woman didn't back down a hair's breadth, and Kadrian felt her skin prickle in anticipation. Her new charge didn't enjoy being called liathri, though 'half-breed' was not an insult among the Parthi. Perhaps the familiarity was what irked her. It was more a term used for someone outside the race who'd taken the marriage vows and was Parthi by oath, if not blood. The intricate tattoos vining around this Bellora's forearms were a sign of not only this, but of her life pledge, as well. It seemed, from the marks, she was some manner of willworker, though jagged scars crisscrossed the black designs, as though they'd been intentionally scratched out. 

Kadrian shifted her weight closer still, so that the fabric of their respective garments slid together, and ran her fingertips up along the pattern of tattoos. Bellora twitched at this, but the general kept her hand moving. On up to her shoulder, the back of her neck, to grab a fistful of the dark single braid at its base. The woman's head tilted back with the pull on her hair, but brown eyes met Parthi blue, unflinching. 

She doesn't want to be part of 'Kadrian's Other Army', hmm? 

The general indulged in half an internal smile. It had begun as a joke circulating among the barracks, but the imperial soldiers had dubbed her ever-expanding legion of jilted lovers with the snide nickname. It was evident from Bellora's remark that over time the phrase had spread its branches much further out into the capital. 

"If I let you out of this collar, are you going to behave?" Kadrian very much wanted the other woman to misbehave. 

"By 'behave' I s'pose you mean not try to kill you or make a run for the door?" The words were completely dry, not a tick of nerves. Kadrian grinned. 

"That is just what I mean." 

"Then, yeah," Bellora said, one side of her mouth ticking up the slightest bit, "I can behave." 

"Very well. Let's have a token first," said the general, letting go the damp braid and bringing both arms up to rest on the other woman's shoulders, her fingers laced together, suspended in the air behind, casual. "Arms around my waist." 

"No." Bellora's hands, in fact, were clasped behind her own back, as though she would allow nothing at all that looked so much like an embrace to happen between them. 

"I'll have that or a kiss from you," Kadrian said, sure of her tactics, "one of those two is what gets the collar off. Your choi—" 

Full lips were on hers as the woman stood on her toes. The mouth didn't come open, and neither did it accept a tongue, but somehow Bellora's kiss was fierce with defiance, as though she were the one forcing it on Kadrian, and not the other way around. 

It ended as fast as it began, but the brief press of lips fanned the general's flames to life. She laid hands on the key to the collar and popped it off with a metallic snick, letting it clatter to the ground. 

Bellora, untethered, backed away. She didn't make for the doors, as she'd promised, but stepped backward toward a small dining table at the far end of the room. Kadrian followed, matching her step for step. 

"And where do you think you're off to now?" Her tone remained smug. Those warm, plush lips would not be going far, if the general had anything to do with it. 

"Just wanted to make sure you understand, First Shield," Bellora said with a too-sweet tang on her words as her backside found the table. "Whatever happens here tonight, I won't be taken advantage of." 

The Novamnean woman's hand appeared from behind her back and olive-skinned fingers dropped something heavy on the tabletop. 

It was one of Kadrian's daggers. 

A second small blade followed, and then a pouch from her belt. A familiar looking thin strip of leather. 

The general's hand darted to the end of her warrior's queue and found its tie missing. It was all she could do to snatch back the look of shock before it could form on her face. 

Don't let her see you caught off guard. 

"Is this what you call 'behaving'?" 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 06



"I said I wouldn't try to kill you or run for the door. Haven't done either of those things." 

"No," the general said, reassessing. "No you haven't." 

Play it off. 

Kadrian flashed her teeth in a smile and moved to the table herself, pulling off her bracers as she went to set them beside the pilfered items. 

How did she even get to the second dagger? I never saw her hands move! Never felt anything! Be careful around this one, Blyd Kriga'al. 

"I should thank you for getting me started, gadya," she said, bending at the waist to remove her sandals. 

"Don't call me that." 

"I'll call you a thief if you are one." She started tugging her belt loose. 

"What ... what are you doing?" Ah, now. Now, her opponent was nervous. The woman slid away along the edge of the table. 

"Let's say we make a deal, Bellora." The belt joined the sandals on the floor. The other woman was silent, eyes narrowing. "You want to go free tonight? Put the palace at your back, never see me again?" 

Suspicion darkened the lovely features. "What kind of a deal?" 

Kadrian gripped the hem of her toga, crossed her arms, and drew it off over her head, leaving her body bare to the feisty little thief she wanted to conquer now even more than when she'd first seen her on the palace steps. 

"You and your husband ever play Catch?" 

Bellora swore. 

-=(^)=- 

The general of the Novamnean Imperial Army stood before Bellora in all her tan, naked, arrogant splendor. 

Well-muscled thighs and arms presented the woman's Parthi body like a challenge, while dawn blue eyes shone, eager, and a row of white teeth smiled, hungry. A deep, faded scar slashed down over the woman's left brow, terminating on a high cheekbone but missing the eye, both marring and accentuating the general's face at once. Another trio of newer, parallel scars raked along the front of her right thigh, just below the hip as though she'd survived a mountain cat attack. 

The important thing to remember was that the woman had survived whatever had made those marks. Kadrian Ayzhus had not earned her place as General by way of her bedroom conquests. Bellora would not win in a fight. 

And now the bitch wants to bargain with a round of Catch. 

It was a game often used to settle disputes between Parthi lovers or spouses, and a frequent wedding night tradition. The winner could claim victory in the argument and often some other agreed-upon prize. Bellora had a feeling she knew what General Ayzhus would claim as a trophy. 

At least if it was a man, I'd know how to handle this. Pack it all. 

"Yeah," Bellora said, finding her way around the opposite side of the table from Ayzhus, well aware of what would come next, "I've played Catch." 

Silence stretched as she watched the blonde woman tie off her braid again with the leather strip Bellora had lifted while they were standing close. The general had tried to conceal her shock, but the lightning fast raise of brows and subtle intake of air told her she'd managed to slip past the taller woman's defenses with her thefts. Ayzhus had power, but Bellora had speed and stealth, and it would serve her to make full use of this disparity. 

The general stood, waiting, calm, and Bellora humphed. 

Time to get this over with. 

"What are your terms?" 

Ayzhus grinned. 

"You win—I don't catch you before time runs out"—she gestured to a small sand clock on the table—"you walk out of here untouched. Go back to your life, your home, if you want. Anywhere, really. Won't be any business of mine by then. I'll release you from your service. Forever." 

"And if I lose?" 

"If I catch you," the general said, leaning her weight on her palms at the edge of the table, "you owe me satisfaction. Tonight." The woman shrugged, straightening. "But once I'm satisfied, you can go anyway." She took in the surprise on Bellora's face and laughed. "I don't want to take advantage of you forever. One night's enough. You'll get out of here either way; it's just a matter of what games you'll have to play first." At this last, blue eyes wandered away from Bellora's and down to her throat, her breasts. 

"I assume I already know what you mean by 'satisfied'?" Bellora's tone was dry. 

Ayzhus winked. "I'm pretty sure you do." 

Bellora let out something between a grumble and a sigh. There would be no getting out of this. 

"Rules?" 

"No use of Will," the general said, eyeing her tattoos. 

"Saw that coming," Bellora fired back with a grunt of resignation. "Fine. No intentional pain then, either." 

"Fair enough." The grin on the Parthi's face grew predatory as the warrior's body prepared for the chase, hips shifting, neck bending to one side with a not-so-subtle loosening crack of bone. "And take that off," Ayzhus said, nodding at her charade of a toga. "You're not hiding anything with it and you won't want to give me the advantage of an extra hand hold. Fair is fair." She finished off with another shrug. 

Bellora narrowed her eyes at the woman and held her gaze as she reached down to grab the bottom edge of her garment. In a fluid move, it joined the general's on the floor. 

"We're agreed?" the Parthi said. 

No. 

"Agreed." 

Ayzhus took up the sand clock. "Be ready," she said, giving a quick, upward twitch of her brows, eager for the competition. 

A tangible silence grew in the room as the two women squared off, tensing for the moment. 

The clock flipped. Bellora bolted. 

Her initial lunge to the left had the general surging around the side of the table to meet her. Bellora's hands, however, gripped the table's edge and she let her weight drop, sliding her heels across the marble floor, the rest of her following the momentum. She shot out the other side and leapt to her feet, sprinting for the open door to the suite's other room. 

Ayzhus hot on her heels, she bounded up onto the high bed. The deep luxury of the mattress let her bounce and launch herself upward to grab a hanging swag of the chain used to lower the room's immense iron chandelier. Feet followed hands into the air and Bellora clung to the chain, her entire body up and out of the general's reach. 

The other woman was undeterred and strode to the metal cleat on the wall where the chain was wound, bent on untethering it and lowering Bellora into grabbing range herself. 

Too late the Parthi saw the ploy for what it was. She was already on the far side of the room, opposite the door, when Bellora dropped back onto the bed. Swift legs that let her dart through the streets of Protreo had her across the threshold and into the receiving room again, well ahead of her pursuer. 

Or maybe not so well ahead. 

She felt fingers grab at her right wrist. 

"No!" Bellora wrenched her hand away, the hold never quite sealing true. 

Looking back was for people who knew they'd be caught. She went straight for the dining table again, vaulting on top of it. Her foot came over the far edge, toes gripping, and the other leg swung on past, flipping the entire table on its side, sending the sand clock and everything else crashing to the floor as Bellora landed on her feet on the other side. 

She heard the general curse behind her, but the stunt with the table seemed to buy her precious little time. Bellora ran again, as best she could within the two available rooms. 

It was probably just as well she was a slave for the time being. There was no way she'd ever be able to pay for the damage they did to the furnishings, and owning nothing meant there was nothing anyone could take from her. At least not in the form of coin. 

The warrior and the thief careened around the suite, upsetting tables, tearing draperies, terrifying costly vases. They lunged and bolted, twisted and slipped, sometimes grappling for intense moments before Bellora would break free, other times escaping with only a whoosh of air for contact instead of a firm grip. The clock was forgotten. Bellora only wanted to avoid capture. 

Now the two women stood, facing off, panting. The general's hands were at her hips and Bellora's were at her knees as she bent forward, trying to catch her breath. 

"Just give up, liathri," said Ayzhus, skin damp and chest rising and falling from the work of the chase. 

"Uh uh." Bellora kept her calves tight, ready to spring. "Ain't giving you nothing for free. You want a piece of this? Come and take it, bitch." 

The general growled in exultant glee at this and again they leapt into action, Bellora shooting off toward the balcony this time. 

That was when the rug went out from under her. Literally. 

The plush carpet shifted under her feet as she ran, and then skewed far to the right as Ayzhus grabbed two sides of it near a corner and twisted. 

One moment Bellora was in a dead run, the next her toes slid back at an odd angle, her weight teetering forward in a lurch. 

She met the carpet with sliding palms, swearing at the burn of the rug, but trying to scrabble her way to her feet as though the floor were on fire. 

Too late. It was a perfect maneuver on the general's part. The other woman was on her in a flash, straddling Bellora's thighs from behind. Strong arms slid between her and the traitor carpet, making a sure circle at her waist, drawing her upright as they tightened in like a noose. 

"No! Ugh! No!" She shoved and pried at the trapping arms as Ayzhus hauled them both to a stand, kicking and making herself as impossible of a burden as she could, throwing a final burst of desperate energy into freeing herself. She screamed in frustration and writhed about, but her opponent's hold was true. 

"Shhh," came the voice at her ear as arms clamped down ever tighter at her waist. "All right. Allllll right ... calm down. That's it. It's over. I won, clean and fair." 

Damp female flesh was at her back as Ayzhus held her there, almost on the tips of her toes, still squirming and jerking, not wanting to acknowledge her defeat. 

"Hoi"—the victor jostled her bodily, trying to shake her out of her last throes of resistance—"Hoi. It was a good game. Best I've had in years, actually. But we made a bargain. And you don't seem like someone who goes back on her word." The general's tone was blunt as always, yet somehow soothing. Bellora gave up on some of the tension in her limbs. She had lost. That was it. 

"Now come on, gadya mai," said Ayzhus, "it's time to pay up." The tone of her voice had dropped into something rough, smoky, the circle of arms at her waist melting away from steel trap to desire and possession in the space of a breath. 

It irked Bellora when the general called her gadya mai—my thief. It was the name Baovar had used when they spoke quiet things into the pillows once the candles burned down to nothing. 

Now the Parthi's small, firm breasts were pressed against her shoulder blades, and strong, female arms held her in a steady grip. It was nothing like losing a game of Catch to her husband. But there was no time for memories, now. Bellora needed to navigate the tricky waters at hand. 

She closed her eyes and let a deep breath out, along with the tension in her limbs. The key here would be to swim with the current. Sure, she'd get wet, but she'd also get downstream faster. 

The general's right arm came uncurled and the hand rose to sweep damp strands of Bellora's hair back from the left side of her face. Lips were at her cheekbone. 

"Now Bellora," Ayzhus said, "we agreed on terms. If I let you go, are we going to have a problem?" 

With the current. 

"No." 

"Good." The arms dropped away and the general stood back. Bellora turned to face the victor, the woman she now owed 'satisfaction'. It was probably just her opinion, but the Parthi's grin seemed satisfied enough. A woman of action, always, Ayzhus jerked her head past the wreckage surrounding them back toward the bed chamber. 

"Let's go." 

There was nothing else to do that wouldn't result in worse headaches. Bellora followed. 

Standing on no ceremony whatsoever, the general yanked the disheveled coverings straight on the bed and flopped herself down, dead center. Back upright, propped against a wall of pillows, one leg outstretched, the other bent up at the knee, a lazy wrist dangling over its peak, the blonde warrior could not have looked more smug. 

"Come on" she said, making a serpentine motion with her head, indicating her expectation that her prize should join her. 

Just do it. 

Bellora sat on the edge of the bed, palms on her thighs. 

"Bellora." Ayzhus's jaw tilted down and scarred brow ticked up in a way that said, Be serious. She rolled her eyes and brought herself fully onto the bed, knees tucked under her, facing the general. The woman didn't strike her as a sadist—the worst to come would likely be humiliating and awkward, but both were feelings Bellora could endure. 

Blue eyes lingered on her mouth as she sat there waiting for Ayzhus to make the first move. She certainly wasn't going to do it herself. This woman could have just what she asked for, and no more. 

"Kiss me." 

There. Unexpected, as Kadrian Ayzhus didn't seem like the romantic type, but it was a direction. The first step on Bellora's path out of this mess. 

She leaned forward, supporting herself on her knuckles and knees, parallel to the naked woman at her side. The general wore a smirk, daring her to close the distance. 

Here goes nothing. 

Bellora angled in toward the reclining Parthi, giving herself no time for second thoughts. Eyes closed for the last deafening heartbeat, she met the general's lips with hers. The woman chuckled into her mouth at this and she felt a hand arrive at the nape of her neck, bringing her close and quashing any last hopes for timidity. 

This time she allowed the tongue, opening to the general, letting the woman conquer as she would. Ayzhus was accustomed to victory: any resistance on her part would only add time to her sentence. 

It was entirely unlike kissing Baovar. There was no stubble, only soft lips and a smooth jaw. For a brief moment, she left her eyelids flutter open. Feminine cheekbones and a fine nose tilted opposite hers. The shaved side of the general's head was directly in her line of sight and, from nowhere, Bellora had to fight down an unexpected urge to reach and trace her fingertips over the curling ram's horn tattoo there. It was not a Parthi mark, but something other; curious. 

The hand at her neck was trailing down the front of her throat now as their tongues played together. She'd surrendered the idea of being a dead fish: there was no way Ayzhus would let her get away with that. Bellora tried to kiss with the art and enthusiasm she'd had for Baovar, in the early days of their courting. Only this was not her late husband. This was a woman. 

A knuckle dragged its way down her breastbone to her navel, making her belly suck in toward her spine as she started at the sensation. Confusion rippled through her body at the spark flaring to life between her thighs. 

This is ... What am I ...? 

Ayzhus was pulling away, though, and Bellora's eyes blinked open at the edge of the uncomfortable questions. The caressing knuckles moved to her supporting arm, doing something altogether unfair at the inside of her elbow. She searched the general's eyes, now quite fearful of where the next hour might lead. 

"Impressive, gadya mai," the woman said, settling back. "I didn't expect that level of ... commitment. But that isn't where I want your kisses." 

Bellora sat back on her heels and had to close her mouth. 

She'd suspected this would confront her at some point in the night, but now? So soon? The very next thing after braving something as simple as a kiss? Though the way her thighs slipped together as she knelt hinted that matters might not be so simple. 

For once, Bellora Dazhmi was at a loss for words. 

"Yeah." The general had a slow nod for her to wipe away any uncertainty. "Yeah." 

She couldn't even bring her eyes down there, and the woman wanted her mouth? It was too fast, too much, and she found herself frozen, staring. Ayzhus seemed to realize what was happening. 

"Come here." 

There. Her own initiative petrified, commands appeared to work. Bellora came down on her hands and knees, as she'd been for the kiss. 

She felt the general's right leg slip between her calves, and a forearm came around the small of her back, pulling her closer. 

"Down," Ayzhus said, and for a moment she locked her arms, trying to stave off the inevitable. The look on the blonde woman's face told her it would be an exercise in futility. 

She gave, lowering herself to rest in the crook of the general's arm, half of her body draped over the hard, feminine form below. 

It was like diving head first into a cold pool. No easing in, no ability to process one sensation at a time. All at once she mashed, breast to naked breast with the tall, muscled Parthi. A hip pressed into her belly and a warm—and by the flood, damp?—female sex fitted against the top of her thigh. Pack it all, her own confused anatomy was straddling a leg now, and the smooth skin there begged her to please, for the love of the Divine, grind for all she was worth. 

A hand stroked down her spine and Bellora was face to face with the general again, along with a set of brand new, unforeseen fears. 

"I ... don't know what to do," she admitted at last. Ayzhus nuzzled her nose at the side of her face, a soft move, but then hauled back on her braid with a fist again, forcing eye contact. 

"Did your husband eat your pussy, Bellora?" 

She felt her face flame red at this, a confirmation of its own. 

"And how would he get started?" 

"He would ..." She swallowed, wetting her throat, half dumb with disbelief. Had she not been wailing over the man's body two weeks ago? How was she here in this room, now? The palace? The general? 

Another tug on her hair brought her back. 

"He would work his way down." 

The memory of Baovar doing just that, swirling together with thoughts of trying the same thing with this woman now was doing strange things to her body. 

"Then that's what you should do," Ayzhus said, voice low but never relinquishing command. "You should work your way down." 

As if the woman knew Bellora would never find the courage on her own, she dragged her down again for another kiss, this time more savage. At the plunge of tongue, the nip of teeth, her hips rolled without permission, quietly trying to humiliate with their complete lack of discrimination. 

Ayzhus tilted her jaw up, pulling on her hair again, her message clear. Work your way down. 

Bellora inhaled to summon her nerves and took the path offered. 

Though taut muscle lay underneath, the general's skin had a silk she didn't know. As her mouth moved over this new throat, it both made her want to hold back and be more careful, more gentle than she would have been with Baovar, and at the same time plucked at something more predatory within her. She bit down at the tanned flesh where shoulder met neck. And Ayzhus grunted in approval. 

Without trying to think too hard, Bellora shifted lower, moving her lips to a collarbone, a salty sternum. 

The hold on her braid shifted, as did the general's chest. She was open-mouthed, baffled for a moment, not certain what was happening, when a nipple bumped against her lips. 

Oh. 

She latched on, giving what Ayzhus wanted, and began to suck. The stiff little bud pulled into her mouth, the general groaned, and the throb of lust burst to insistent life between her legs all at once. 

Crazily, her thoughts pushed her to shift over and taste its twin, but firm hands were at her shoulder, nudging her along again. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 06



Work your way down. 

Ribcage, navel, hip bones, the swell of a thigh: her mouth met them all with astonished approval at every turn. But again, when her destination loomed large, something made her eyes slide away each time she tried to face it. 

Bellora hedged, loitering at the general's thigh, the tattooed calves holding her attention. The Parthi designs there were angular, woven through with dangerous, barbed curves. These were the marks of a warrior. A leader. 

Stop procrastinating. 

She forced her kisses to climb the inside of the scarred thigh. Her heart was thundering in her chest. Why was this so terrifying? 

She's satisfied, you leave. Do it. Now. 

"I swear, Bellora," the general said, eyes closed, fingers only trailing over her conquest's ear now, "if I fall asleep waiting for you, I'm going to make you stay a second d—" 

She went for it. Tongue rasping straight up the center, spreading plump, warm folds as it went. 

"Mmm, there we go." Some tension went out of the woman and it was contagious. Bellora settled into her task. 

It was both exactly as she'd expected, and totally foreign all at once. The best she could do was try to remember what Baovar had done to her, and give now instead of receive. 

She lapped and suckled, tongue flickering, exploring. Whatever made Ayzhus moan and tilt her hips, Bellora repeated. Her tongue made stiff, she delved and wriggled, working the other woman up to a frustrated growl before moving her nose to nudge at flaxen curls and expose the hidden nub to her teasing. 

The general was squirming now, but it was not enough. They would be here all night. 

Again, with a mind on what would ignite her own pleasure, Bellora slid a palm under Ayzhus's thigh and pushed it up and back, letting it fall bent at the knee. A sound like a question, far more vulnerable than she would have thought possible, came from the general, and her eyes snapped open. The sound made Bellora's pussy squeeze out a new trickle of moisture. 

What is happening to me? 

Questions aside, she brought her other hand up to glide through the Parthi's damp slit. They made eye contact as she paired her third and middle fingers, quested, and found entry. 

Bellora pushed up inside and it was hot, clasping, velvety. The groan from Ayzhus dropped down to almost inaudible levels, and her head fell back, eyes closed again. 

She told herself it would be just like taking her own pleasure, only with greater reach. And someone else would be biting a lip, straining. Her fingers slid, searching, and when they found their goal, Bellora knew it. Ayzhus let out a grunt of surprise as her hips jerked. This was the signal. 

Bellora leaned in again and went back to work. 

A lack of experience made it no small feat for her to pay attention to what her hand and mouth were doing at the same time, but Bellora hung on for the ride, determined. She tried to keep up her tapping, her sliding; relentless fingertips making the general swear and clamp down on her hand. She chased the slippery mound as it began to buck and roll, smothering swollen lips with her own, ravaging the hungry slit like a craven beast. 

Her own pussy, up in the air as she knelt in service, hummed with lust, aching to be attended, as well. The sounds she was dragging out of this woman drove her mad in a way she'd never expected. Some wave of raw conquest swept her up. Here was the most feared, the most powerful woman in Novamne, rocking desperate hips against her face, all but begging for what Bellora could give. 

And, caught up in the wild present, Bellora wanted to give. 

Tongue and fingers, deft enough to lift daggers and coin unseen, danced together in a frenzy. Her face and knuckles were soaked, and her free hand had to keep Ayzhus's thigh from snapping in and impeding her efforts. The woman wasn't even making noise now, just breathing in a staccato of sharp gasps. 

There. Take it. 

Fingers thrust home, lips latched on to suck—some bizarre revenge for Ayzhus plucking her from the cages in the first place. 

Take it, you Parthi bitch. 

The moment it became too much, the general stiffened. 

"Bellora! Gadya mai! Nngghhh!" 

A hand was back in her hair, her face smashed into Ayzhus's seizing cunt. The woman growled, showing teeth, eyes crushed shut as she came. 

The hot channel clutched at Bellora's already compressed fingers, and she felt that primal, involuntary kiss of female release, that rhythmic pulsing, under her lips and tongue. Bent on delivering the satisfaction that would fulfill her end of the bargain, Bellora rode out the last hot twitches and jerks, her mouth buried, worrying at the wet furrow like a dog shaking a rag. She was not going to let the woman claim she hadn't given her full effort. 

The quivering faded to heavy breath and, with it, the gripping fingers fell from her hair. Ayzhus lay spent, a forearm blocking the light from her lidded eyes; legs limp now atop the rumpled linens. 

There. Now if that doesn't do it, I don't know what this woman wants. 

Bellora sealed off her work with a last broad lap of her tongue over the pink, sensitive folds, and pushed herself up to sit again on her heels. 

A strange glow of pride suffused her cheeks as she stared down at the supine, recovering general. She had done this. Made this woman come. 

Not bad for a first time. 

"Mmm." Blue eyes appeared from under lazy lashes. A hand moved in a glide down Parthi ribs and over the inside of the scarred thigh, sluicing away the languor of release. The general propped herself back up among the pillows. 

"You know, with a tongue like that, I'm beginning to think you'd make as good a liar as you do a thief." 

Bellora brushed aside what she couldn't decide was a compliment or an insult, and came straight to her top concern. "So you're satisfied, then?" 

The smile on Ayzhus's face grew from sated to bold beneath taunting eyes. 

"Almost." 

A golden brow raised to revel in the withholding of the promised reward: freedom. 

"Almost?" Bellora said, incredulous. "And what does the great Kadrian Ayzhus need to be satisfied?" Her shoulders fell as the destination she thought she'd reached receded again toward the horizon. 

The general's grin was fierce. "To see you come." 

"What?" 

Flood and damnation. Her stomach knotted with nerves, bracing her once more for the unknown. 

"It's your turn, gadya mai." 

-=(^)=- 

The way her mouth came open at Kadrian's ambush was priceless. Dark eyes swept her body in review of what she'd just done. 

And for the first time, if that's to be believed. Damn. 

"You're going to ... to ..." Bellora nodded, trying to make the gesture complete her thought when her tongue refused. 

"No," Kadrian said. Wouldn't that be the biggest disaster to happen today? "You're going to." 

"What? How?" 

"You're going to come sit right here"—she slapped her thigh, still parted from its twin to form an open angle on the bed—"and finish yourself off." 

Bellora blinked at her. "Are you serious?" 

She said nothing and, by her silence, let the woman answer her own question. 

"Paranthe's ever-loving ghost," the thief swore with an eye roll. 

Kadrian put out an arm, motioning Bellora to take her place. Letting her sit and cool off would be a mistake. 

And, I need to touch her again. 

With a chuff of frustrated breath, the olive-skinned gift this surrogate kriga'al emperor had given her crawled up between her legs, turned away, and sat. 

As was becoming a habit, Kadrian dug her fingers into the base of the dark braid and pulled the shorter woman toward her so they came together, back to chest. The soft curves of Bellora's hips and buttocks between her thighs almost had Kadrian grinding again. 

It wasn't that she didn't want to return the favor. Oh no. There was nothing Kadrian Ayzhus would have enjoyed more than pinning the feisty half-breed to the sheets and licking her until she wouldn't know how to say anyone else's name for a month. No, it was what she'd have to suffer herself that kept the blonde general upright and clutching her charge to her chest. Not long after Bellora had dropped her daggers on the table, the sharp glint of a challenge in her brown eyes as the thief proved a point, Kadrian knew she trod upon dangerous ground. This petite, curvy temptation had already breeched her defenses in more ways than one. Tasting her, feeling her whine and buck under her mouth would solidify this rampantly growing attraction she felt, and that could mean only one thing: trouble. 

It was better for her to watch Bellora come by her own hands—at least she could have that without anything much more serious than lust for the woman. Safer all around. The general of the imperial army would be well-served by avoiding attachments.  

Besides, Kriga'al, you'll catch her and the chase will be over. And so will all the fun. 

She slid her fingers down to catch up Bellora's free right hand and slide it over the woman's hip. Both pairs of fingertips slipped twined between Novamnean legs, over the modest dark crest of hair and into a moisture that had Kadrian biting back a groan. 

"You're wet," she pointed out as the woman inhaled at the combined touch. "Now Bellora," she said, voice lowered, massaging their fingers together through the slick heat, "I want you to take this hand"—she paused, kneading—"and go to work on this wet little pussy of yours." Kadrian felt the woman's breath hitch at this. "And when you make yourself come, you can consider me satisfied. You'll be free to go." 

Shoulders shifted against her at this, delicious, hesitant. 

"And Bellora," said Ayzhus, leaving the words right at the rim of her ear, "I'm not a man. You can't fake it with me. I'll know." 

There was an extended silence. But then: "If I do this, I can go?" 

Kadrian smiled, withdrawing her hand. "There's a fresh, normal toga waiting for you in the chest beside the door." 

"Do I have to sit here to do it?" 

The lack of total surrender was making Kadrian wet again. "Yes you do," she said, resting her chin on the petal-soft skin of a shoulder. "Now go on. Show me." 

She felt the woman exhale, deliberate, and her body settle and relax. Kadrian knew a purposeful attempt at calming the self when she saw it. Patience unusually generous with this one, she let the lust-dream between her legs come to it on her own. She almost had to say something. Almost. 

Bellora's right arm flexed and Kadrian's closed, waiting eyes came open to peer over the moving shoulder. There were the delicate fingers, circling flat and three wide amid that fleshy source of endless fascination. 

The movements became more dramatic, more purposeful after a short time, and Bellora's mouth came open just enough to speed her breath. Kadrian was rapt. 

There was no resisting it. She moved a hand up to cup one of the full breasts, to find and pull at a nipple. This brought a tiny gasp from the woman, which in turn made Kadrian clench inside. Handhold at the long braid forgotten, she palmed the other globe as well before using her fingertips to stretch both dusky buds as a pair. 

Bellora let out a whimper at this, fingers stirring with more vigor at the added sensation. 

All attempts at remaining a passive audience flung themselves from the cliffs. Kadrian's hands were full of soft flesh, fingers pinching and tugging. A glance at the action showed her Bellora's hand had moved from a tentative flat-palmed massage to a sharply angled wrist maneuvering for penetration. At least two fingers were buried deep, working. 

This is how I'm going to lose my mind, watching this. 

Kadrian slipped her right foot over the woman's calf, keeping the flexing leg spread wide by the resistance of her own. Her hands squeezed at hips, skimmed belly, weighed heavy breasts. Ragged kisses found their way onto Bellora's shoulder and then her throat, pulling a feverish Kadrian along in their wake. She set her teeth there, her tongue, devouring, wanting to swallow the woman whole. 

Now there was a damp slapping noise. A tattooed wrist vibrated at a rolling hip bone as cupped palm clapped against the swollen, juicy slit, fingers thrust home with every lewd, meaty impact. 

There was no help for it, and Kadrian ground her own soaking cunt against the tailbone in front of her. The noises of exertion and growing pleasure coming from her prize were more restrained squeaks and whimpers than any of her own open, feral growling when close to the same peak. It seemed designed to drive her mad. 

With no finesse whatsoever, she wrested Bellora's jaw around to the side and seized up her open mouth in a kiss. The woman squealed down her throat at this, and Kadrian felt the straining hips begin humping with a more violent purpose. 

Bellora tasted like want, her tongue reaching, to Kadrian's delight, into her mouth, seeking a life line. As much as the general enjoyed this bit of surrender, she wanted even more to own the moment. 

"Come for me, Bellora," she urged, mouthing the words over silken, parted lips. "Make that pussy scream for me." 

"Uhnnnh?" The sound that came from her frantic little thief as her brows gathered together was almost a question. As if she couldn't quite understand what was happening to her, or why. 

"Come on, gadya mai," she said, returning to pinch at nipple, to bite at the moving throat. "Come for me. Now. Do it." 

"NnnghhUUHHH!" The compressed howl went up at the end, condensing toward an infinity of sensation at a tiny crystalline point. 

Bellora went still, muscles flexed rigid while the hand soldiered on, harrying out any last bits of pleasure it could find until the wrist grew tired and limbs relaxed. 

Kadrian felt the tension bleed out from the woman between her thighs and checked the pace of her own mauling of tender flesh. With it, instead of squeezing and clawing, she smoothed her hands over flushed skin, fingers and thumbs coming up to dig into tight shoulders. It was a gesture of care prudence would have cautioned her not to make. Not when she was trying to keep her distance. 

She needs to sober up and get her perfect ass out of here. 

As if on cue, Bellora twitched away some of her stupor, back straightening when the fog of orgasm dissipated and she remembered where she was. In a single move, the woman rolled over Kadrian's left thigh and off the bed, coming to a disheveled stand, hands on naked hips. 

"Well?" she said, looking Kadrian up and down as though she might spot something she'd missed. "That's it right? I'm free to go?" 

Relief and disappointment sank the general deeper into the bed. It was too soon and not soon enough, but she presented her worthy opponent with her best careless grin. 

"You paid the price." She shrugged a shoulder, reaching up fingers to rake through the loose portion of her hair. "Toga and sandals are in the chest by the door." 

Bellora stared at her, unmoving, for a long moment. 

"Don't know yet if the life I'm headed back to is going to be worth the thanks for it," she said at last, dry as ever. "It's been ... educational, General. Good luck with your army. Both of them." 

At this, the woman cut her a blithe salute, the formal sign of respect looking like nothing so much as a rude gesture between old friends, turned on her heel, and put the general at her back. 

Kadrian heard her rummaging in the chest in the receiving room, followed by a quiet moment where she must have been slipping on the clean, white toga and corded belt. In a few more breaths of staring at the ceiling, she heard the dull clunk of metal sounding the work of the door latch. 

The inside of her palace apartments lay destroyed. She smiled into the empty room, remembering the game of Catch. 

Bellora Dazhmi had been a thrilling adversary. But now she was gone. The best of them rode in and out the fastest, like freak summer storms. Kadrian would be reliving this one in her head for quite a while, she suspected. There was no way the next would amount to even half the challenge. 

You want a piece of this? Come and take it, bitch. 

The First Shield chuckled to herself. At least her rooms in the barracks tomorrow wouldn't remind her of half-breed thieves and their clever little tongues. She tumbled backward into a satisfied sleep, not even bothering to douse the lamps. 

-=(^)=- 

Gulls were calling. Salt was on the air. Open doors, facing west onto the balcony, allowed the clean quiet of blue-grey dawn light to steal into the room. Something warm shifted against his chest. 

Someone. 

Raothan's eyes popped open and his body froze. 

Oh, you did not ... 

Oh yes, he had. 

You complete pole-biter. Is this where you promised to sleep? 

She made some small whining noise, burying her face part way into a pillow and giving him a mouthful of silver hair. 

As wakeful thought uncurled and stretched, digging its claws into to the weave of morning. Scraps of memory came spiraling back, pooling like falling rope in a growing, tangled coil. 

There had been curiosity, and oh, how he'd battled it in the blue darkness. He remembered the pull, drawing him in, like an invisible hook beneath his ribs. Against his better judgment, he'd lifted a knee on the bed, and then a second. Careful as lapping waves at dawn, slow as time, Raothan had eased himself down to lay on his side, wanting nothing more than to watch her breathe in the silence. 

She looked like no one he'd ever seen—even now, so close to his face he wasn't able to bring her into focus. The silver hair and eyes, the ghostly pale flesh ... Whatever lands her people called home were far from any place he'd ever set foot. 

But the compulsion he'd felt last night was no byproduct of her appearance. No, this was something else. Firsoni had called her a witch, but this was nothing as common as mere magic use. She hadn't even been awake and yet being in her presence alone had calmed him, draining out his store of fears, replacing them with peace, surety. 

He hadn't felt so calm or whole in ... he wasn't sure. Couldn't remember. So of course, instead of rousing himself to go find a place in the other room, as he'd promised the trusting woman he'd do, the sacrificial emperor of Novamne had surrendered to sleep and left his body behind at her side. Like a gods-damned horse's ass. 

He wasn't calm now. 

You promised you wouldn't do this, Ga'ardahn. This very thing. 

He needed to remove himself before she found him there. 

With the care of someone building a card castle, Raothan peeled his right arm from around her waist, lifting it away from the soft home it had no business finding in the night. Worse, he discovered their legs entangled, and cursed himself for a fool as he extracted his ankle. Then, as he began to roll away, he cursed his manhood as well, for doing what it did every morning. 

By the gods! Why can't you just be— 

Another restive whimper, and her shoulder jerked. 

"Mmnnn." The sound came thin with unease, followed by another, more vehement. Her upper hand shoved at some imaginary thing, batting it away from a pale thigh through a drunken could of sleep. 

She was dreaming. And it was beginning to look like her dreams were far from pleasant. 

"N-uh!" Her hips shifted, legs tried to curl in, protective, and her arms moved to ward off whatever nightmare pursued her in blind earnest. 

Instinct leapt in front of reason at the sight of her distress and Raothan palmed her shoulder. 

"Hoi," he said, hoping his tone was gentle enough. "Hoi. You're all right." His hand moved to her elbow in an attempt to turn her toward him. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 06



"NO!" 

A sharp kick to his shin was the lesser of two surprises as the woman came awake with a start, rounding on him and shoving with urgent palms. 

"Get off me, y—" 

Silver eyes snapped wide meeting his. Her mouth was open, breath coming quick. The outburst had rolled her straight into his chest and, for just a moment, their bodies crushed together from hip to chest. 

Did she ... just ...? 

At the press of warmth, Raothan's inconvenient erection jumped, reading nothing but opportunity in the sensation. 

In a flash, she was out of the bed, scuttling backward to stand, hands on hips, showing him those excruciating curves once again. Indignity put a fire of color on her cheeks. 

"You told me you would sleep out there," she said in an accent unlike any he'd ever heard, pointing to the door. 

Raothan came up on an elbow in the bed, right hand falling into the warm spot this woman had left in her wake. He gawked as though he'd never seen her before this morning. 

"You speak Novamnean." 

Her arm dropped. Eyes blinked at him, and then brows drew down as she sent her gaze off to one side with an eye roll. 

"Oh, winter's tears." 

It sounded like a curse. 

He could've sworn, himself. All those things he'd said last night ... Called her a white river lotus ... 

Well there's at least one thing you can take off your list, Ga'ardahn. 

There would be no need for a translator. 

-=(^)=-



After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 07



Author's Note: Hi everyone! Thanks for waiting. This chapter was a bear to get through. For whatever reason the last scene took me weeks; my ability to push through the various necessary events that happen at the end just slowed to a crawl and took forever. But it's a longish chapter at 7 pages, so at least there's that for you. After this, only 2 more chapters left in Book 1. You can always check my profile for progress updates. 

Content Warning: NonConsent (oral). I will note that the dialogue within the scene in question is vital to the plot, SO ... if this is gross for you, if you can possibly skim just for the parts in quotes, it would sure help your understanding of the story. 

My lovely friends Waterburn and AwkwardMD for have edited and provided feedback again to make sure this madness looks like it has a method. So many thanks. SO many thanks. 

I really appreciate all your comments on this story, since it's my first attempt at fantasy. They mean so much to me. Happy reading! 

~Eris/D&T 

-=(^)=- 

Chapter Seven 

Among the many fanciful beasts found in Elvigra lore is the saigus. There are some who speculate (Agrimonetes, Mundae) that the mythology originated from exaggerated tales of crocodiles, which are known to inhabit the River Vanslaang. The saigus is said to have the power to bring forth thunderings in the earth, and fiery rain from the skies. 

~Collected Works of Terlus Aoni, I.Y. 4389 

-=(^)=- 

The bird and the man. The man and the bird. They were the only two living souls in the forgotten little root cellar. This, no doubt, was for the best. 

The lack of windows in the underground room made for stuffy air and hardly sufficient light, but it also made for blessed, velvety silence, which the man needed if he was to concentrate. 

The bird danced about on its perch in the cage like a small, yellow, flickering flame, hopping from side to side on tiny, grasping feet, and cocking a liquid black eye up at the man with the soft voice and unruly hair. It was past time for the bird to be fed, but its caregiver was distracted. Again. 

"Now hold still this time, Kitak," the man said to the bird, "and let's see if we can't do this right." 

The round little man slid the two standing crystal points apart on the table, pushing the black one away to his left and its milky white partner off to the right. He reached for a stoppered clay jar and, holding it between both palms, gave it a hearty shake. 

None of the crystal arranging or jar wagging looked to the bird like any sort of activity that involved food, and it chirped its lack of enthusiasm for what seemed like an unnecessary sidetrack the man was taking. 

Instead of seeds, the man shook from the jar a neat pile of sand. He flattened it into a rough line across the surface of the table, between the pillars of crystal. At first glance, the sand would appear as tawny as the dunes of any beach, but a closer look revealed grains in every color imaginable. The man placed a wrinkled palm atop the miniature sea shore, closed his eyes, and began to mutter under his breath. 

The grains of sand on the table began to vibrate and shudder, as though a tiny, faraway army were marching across the scarred wood surface, shaking it with the might of an invisible legion of footsteps. The bird fluttered down to the floor of the wire cage, and then back up to its perch, twittering with increasing agitation. 

As the man's quiet, focused recitation wore on, a metallic odor arose in the room like a fog, and the stone walls seemed to sing in confirmation. A density built in the air until it reached some sort of critical apex, then broke with a tactile pop. The man's pale blue eyes snapped open. 

"Green!" he said, an exasperated frown turning down the corners of a usually smiling mouth. He'd made a change, but not the right change. He forced himself not to dash the sand across the table in frustration. "You're supposed to be blue! What in the seventh winter am I doing wrong? Ugh." 

The bird was indifferent to the man's upsets and lifted a delicate claw to scratch beneath feathers now the green of new spring buds. His plumage could be any color under the sun and it would not change facts: the seed dish in his cage was not getting any fuller. 

"I don't understand," said the man, "Heximoleth's process should have worked. It's such a simple transition." He turned to an open book on a separate pedestal to his right and ran a fingertip along compact lines of text, skimming the steps of the appropriate thought journey, for anything he might have misunderstood. The words had been recorded a stupefying number of generations back and even this well-preserved volume was becoming difficult to read. He was lucky it didn't disintegrate under his touch. 

"Hmm," he spoke to the book, finger pausing over a mark at the edge of the page, "this might be an ink blot and not a reduction glyph. Shall we try it without?" 

The bird fluffed its new green feathers, indicating it didn't think this was the best idea. A better idea, it thought, would be the pouring of seeds. Maybe even a nice cricket. 

The man's palm was in the sand again, fingers curling into the varicolored grains, tongue forming the words once more with a fierce concentration. Again the table began to hum. 

The bird grew still. Sweat began to spring up along what used to be the man's hairline, when he'd had more of it. The air in the room seemed to dry out, grow warmer, and there was a shimmering, like a mirage, between the white and black points of stone on the table. 

It was going to work this time. He could feel it. He repeated the words. 

The pile of sand felt like a cloud beneath his hand, the floor no longer firm beneath his feet. 

Yes. Yes, it's working. It must be. 

He had the sensation of warm water pouring down the back of his neck. It made him want to relax, to let go, but he wouldn't. He needed to focus, to say the words, to— 

Aphishmenes Setha'at Murél. 

It came like the strike of a gong in his head. His concentration scattered. 

Aphishmenes Setha'at Murél, it is time. You are Called. 

He slid down through the water of reality, away from the hopping, chattering bird, and toward her voice. 

If only They could have given him a little more time. 

You have all of time, Friend. You know this. 

He did know it. His being relaxed, floated. 

Called. He could have sighed. It was bound to happen eventually. 

And so it has, Young One. 

Young. If he'd had a body here, he would have snorted with it. Certainly. About as young as the fattest tree in the Harrelwood. He felt a ripple of energy that might have been a chuckle. 

You are young to Us, Aphishmenes, as you well know. And one day so will another be young to you. But we tarry unnecessarily. And poor Kitak ... 

Yes, the bird. Well then, she ought to be on with it. 

You are Called, Aphishmenes Setha'at Murél, to your time of service. The first meeting of The Three is upon us, and one is not willing and another not able. 

He suspected he knew the unable and unwilling were the parties who least needed to be such. And that the remaining third party was more than enough of both to make up for the lack. 

Your suspicions are correct, Young One. Heavenly bodies align more easily than earthly ones, I'm afraid. We need you to throw some stones in the pond, make all the fish look twice. 

The vibration of her presence hummed mild amusement at her own delicate jest. 

We know it has been long since you returned to the capital, but new paths have opened up and Our hand has been forced. 

This didn't sound good. Matters unforeseen were a rarity. Something abrupt must have come about for her to use language as strong as this. 

By the Listening Moon you must be there, Aphishmenes. The Unwilling will be there also, and your feet must be in the water before matters fly down a more ... difficult path. For all of us. 

He understood. Perhaps not all of it. Nobody ever understood all of their Calling. Not at first. But enough to let him know there would be no more time for maneuvering through dusty texts and trying Kitak's patience between the four walls of a root cellar. 

Yes, she agreed, it is time for you to go back. They are waiting for you, my friend. And after, so are we. Love is All. 

Love is All. 

A packed earthen floor was hard against his spine and shoulder blades as his usual goodbye brought him back to the small room and the reality where he was Called to serve. 

He pushed himself up to a sitting position and brushed the grit out of his hair with distracted fingers. A part of him had thought he'd never be Called, with as long as it had been, and yet another tired side of him seemed to sag in relief. He took note, as he stood, of knees that creaked and lungs that grunted with effort, and admitted that it would be better to have this business out of the way now and not in another twenty or thirty summers. 

"Fish, my boy," he said to himself as he hoisted his body up with palms on the edge of the table, "you're no longer a spring chicken." 

Chicken! 

"Kitak!" 

The cage was empty. 

"Oh, little bird! What have I done?" 

His fingers fumbled at the latch of the cage door, flung it open. There was a ruffling sound accompanied by an angry chirp, and he all but jumped out of his skin at the feel of a wingtip flipping across his cheek and twiggy claws on his shoulder.  

There was no bird to be seen, but still more disgruntled twittering spiked into his ear, making him blink one eye in a fury and lean his head away from the shrill sound. He felt a pointed beak nip at the top of his ear. 

"Kitak!" he cried, reaching up, "what in the name of ..." 

He could feel the airy, feathered body, and hear his long-suffering winged friend, without a doubt. But the bird who had been yellow only a short while ago, and then momentarily green, was now, as far as Fish could tell, invisible. 

Of course. 

He'd received his Call in the middle of trying to work through the color transition thought journey for what must have been the twelfth time. Who knew what incoherent nonsense he might have trailed off with as he slipped from one reality to another? 

Now he was able to sigh with a real body. 

"I am sorry, Kitak," he said, getting his fingers in what looked like a pantomime around a ruffled, imaginary bird. "I'm sure I'll figure out what I did and have you back to normal again in no time. Though blue would be better. That was the idea. Then you'd be harder to see against the sky. But I suppose now you're harder to see altogether." He ushered the indignant creature back into its cage, apologizing as he went. 

"I know, I know, but I how else am I going to keep track of you if I can't see you? Double seeds for you tonight, my friend. You do put up with so much." 

A chirp of grudging interest sounded out of thin air at this, and Fish shook his head. Kitak being invisible would take some getting used to, but to be fair, it was his own fault. He set about sweeping the pile of sand back into its jar with the cupped side of his hand before laying out a fine cloth to wrap up the crystal points for storage. 

"You'll like the capital, Kitak," he spoke to the unfortunate bird as he busied himself about the room, straightening, gathering necessities. "There are gardens all around the palace with all manner of trees and high places for you to perch and look down on everyone ..." 

He chattered on in a matter-of-fact way, as though he'd been planning this journey for ages instead of being thrust down a new path mere moments ago. Perhaps on some level he had. There was not much to pack and, before long, he stood at the foot of the stair, ready to ascend to ground level. Everything he needed he carried on his person, and that included what others would now see as an empty birdcage. He screwed up his face. Perhaps along the way, he could run through the thought journey again. 

The bird tweeted a warning. 

Then again, perhaps not. 

We need you to throw some stones into the pond. 

If there was one thing he could still do at his age, it was throw stones. 

He set a foot on the bottom step. 

-=(^)=- 

One indefinable moment had seen her fleeing grasping hands amid a void of hissing, giggling darkness, the next found her waking in a strange man's arms, nestled into a warm bed of opulence. What other reaction could there have been, but for Niquel to leap out of bed and cry out? 

A wiser reaction, for a start. 

She hadn't been awake enough yet to remember with any clarity the events of the night before, aside from the fact that she should have been sleeping alone. And now here was this man—the Emperor—accusing her with those amber eyes from where he sat, still bound up in the linens. 

"I knew it! You even looked me in the eye back on the steps when I asked you. How did I not see? You understood me the whole time!" 

His gestures grew vehement and Niquel did what she always did when others became excitable: she went quiet and still. A chill on the air to counteract the flames. 

"Well?" he said, not the least bit patient with her silence. "What do you have to say for yourself? Why did you lie to me?" 

It was her fervent wish at that moment to be able to talk to Vodi. Like many other things, however, there was nothing to be done for it. Niquel decided to admit her shame. More for her fear than for the lie. Though that, too, made her feel low. Because of her ill-considered ploy, the man had confessed truths he otherwise might not have. At least one of them made her fight down another flush of color. 

"I was afraid," she said, lowering aggressive hands from her hips to hang at her sides. "I have never encountered a situation of this nature. My fear caused me to stop thinking. And to choose poorly. His Grace has my apology." 

Niquel dropped eye contact at this, pleased at least that she'd remembered the use of the honorific as Ellestia had warned. It would be foolish to upset the man further. 

The moment stretched out in the brightening blue of early morning as she examined her feet and the stone of the floor beneath them, the two nearly the same color. Then she heard him clear his throat. 

"Look. Out of all the people in this palace," he said, "you have about the least to fear from me." 

At this, Niquel looked up at him and opened her mouth again before she could help it. "His Grace was in the bed. With me." 

His eyes cut to the side at her accusation and he made a face, forcing air out through his nose. When he met her gaze again, he'd carved out a portion of calm for himself. "And for that you have my apology. It was never my intent. Now please," he said, swinging a leg out of the bed and rising to his feet, still in his rumpled toga, "call me Roathan. I have no interest in being anyone's Grace." 

This was not expected behavior, if the stories Niquel had heard about lowlander kings and emperors were to be any guide. He should be pointing, demanding, imperious. 

Instead, he waited with an open stance. Frank eyes. Spoke to her in plain language, forming the Novamnean words so that the vowels came wide and round, hinting at another first tongue behind it, somehow ancient and closer to the earth, to a ... a source. It was a voice that was affecting her in a way Maudri had described when she waxed on about Zidjhal. Only she'd never quite understood what her friend had meant until now. 

"And what will I call you?" 

Niquel blinked. She'd been staring, unfocused. 

"Niquel," she said, coming out of her stupor, "my name is Niquel." 

He repeated it, tasting the word for himself, and she found she liked the way it sounded on his lips, as though it had more weight, more substance. 

"So I suppose you speak Common then, too?" 

She looked at the floor again. 

"Flames of Abra'an." It sounded like a curse, and Niquel sank back into shame. He sighed then, and she heard the sound move. Her eyes came up to see him leaving the bed, straightening his toga. 

"Right," he said—and winter's tears, would you look at those calves? "Let's start again, mysterious Niquel. This time without the lies?" There was no irritation left on his face. Only an earnestness, as though he hoped to have some obstacle behind him. She felt her shoulders relax. 

"I would like that, Your Gra—Raothan." 

A nod seemed to settle the matter and he strode across the room. She turned to watch him arrive at some piece of furniture near the far wall. There were several glossy, wooden drawers beneath a fine, marble surface. Atop sat a wide stone basin, and from it, he began to cup water with his hands and splash it over his face. 

"So how did you end up in the cages?" he said, as if they were old friends meeting after a long time apart. 

Just how much was she willing to reveal to this man? If he knew the true reason behind her arrival at the palace, would he come to the same conclusions as Ptyverias? Have her tossed back into confinement? Worse? 

He was smoothing the long, loose portion of his chestnut hair back into place now, and she watched with far more fascination than she would have thought possible at the way his arms bent and moved above his head. 

Something made her want to trust this man. Perhaps because he appeared to have no immediate agenda aside from curiosity, and she was certainly guilty of that herself. He had told her there was nothing to fear from him, but still. 

No lies, Niquel. 

"Ptyverias caught me in his rooms." 

"In his rooms?" He turned his head to give her a considering eye before wandering past her into the adjacent room. She followed to see him grab up a tray of edibles and migrate it to yet another low table between two chairs. "How'd you manage to get in there? And why?" 

Again, she wrestled with what to tell. Simple answers seemed best. 

"I had a guide." 

The emperor nodded at this and sat, gesturing for her to take the other seat. "What happened to your guide? Locked up in the cages?" 

Simple. Simple. Lowlanders don't understand J'sau Jeqnam. 

"He did not make it to the cages." 

"Oh." The word came flat with the dull tint of regret at having asked a painful question, but only realizing it upon receiving the answer. He tried to change the subject by sliding the tray in her direction. "When's the last time you ate something? Here." 

Niquel was happy to move from the topic. She eyed the contents of the tray: a variety of white, hard cheeses and some sort of dried fruits, dark brown and just thicker and larger than her thumb. She chose one of the latter and, after a cursory inspection, bit it in half. 

It was sweet and tart at the same time. Her stomach awoke and made an audible growl of irritation at having been ignored for so long. The emperor had half a smile for her at this as she ate the rest of it and reached for a second. 

"So what were you doing in Firsoni's rooms?" 

It seemed he would not leave the matter, after all. But what answer would satisfy that wouldn't need several hours' explanation? 

"He has designs to destroy the Taunai. My people. I was sent here to prevent this." 

"An assassin?" 

"No," she said, working hard to veil her contempt for the lowlander notion. Always violence with these people, though she was surprised with his simple acceptance of her reasons. "There are other ways to alter a course." 

A dark brow lifted at this. "And you don't wish to speak of such ways, is that it?" 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 07



"It is ... complicated." 

"All right," he said, breaking off a piece of one of the cheeses and leaning back in his chair. "I don't need to know everything. But you did understand every word I said last night. Didn't you." 

He popped the bite into his mouth, assessing her. 

"I did." Where was this going? 

"Then tell me why you visited my dreams, Niquel." 

There it was again. Every hair standing on end. Vaudel. His stare pretended to be casual, but it hid a tension, a fear. And she feared as well, for here she most wanted to confess, but would he believe? The truth seemed more farfetched than a lie. Something tingled along her spine as she teetered on the edge. 

Tell him. 

If only it were Vodi's voice and not her own. 

She folded her fingers in her lap and met the amber eyes. What was the worst that could happen? 

"I do not know why you saw me while you slept, Raothan," she said, "but before I came to this city, before I knew I would leave the mountain, I saw you there as well. In my dreams. You stood in a field. Of kissmelon. This happened more than once." 

The emperor burst into laughter. 

This was not what Niquel had been expecting and she shifted in her seat, looking down again at the laden tray. 

"Oh gods, that is too perfect," he said as he got his breath. "Too perfect." 

She waited, calves up to their usual nervous flexing, not sure how to respond. 

"Do you know what I was doing a week ago?" he said to her, wiping an eye, fighting back more baffling amusement. 

"I do not." 

His eyes twinkled at her. "I was harvesting kissmelon. On my farm in Aquillo." 

Her jaw went slack. 

"But what does it mean?" she said. There was more, of course, about him also appearing as a lizard and a horse, but that seemed like too much to tell him. That and the other parts. If portions of her dream already reflected reality, which others might also become true? She was sure the color was flaming over her face. 

"I don't know," he said, reaching for the pitcher, pouring out some of its contents into a cup. "But perhaps the gods meant for us to cross paths. They couldn't have picked a worse time, I'll tell you." 

"Why is that?" 

The man sitting across from her gave a gentle shake of his head and wore a rueful smile. "It doesn't matter." 

Her desire to ask questions rose up, as it always did, but she pushed it down. There were matters she had already been evasive about, and it would not be fair to ask the emperor for more candor than she was willing to give herself, just yet. 

"I think," he said, brushing his hands together and rising again from his chair, "I'd like to help you, Niquel. While I can." 

Inconvenient parts of her body clenched when he looked down at her with those eyes, spoke with that voice. 

"Help me?" 

"Yes." He offered a large palm, that she might stand as well, and she took it, leaving behind any shame for an excuse to touch him. "You need a way to return to your people in one piece. The way Firsoni talked about you? The guards? Something tells me someone who looks like you wouldn't make it out of the city alive." 

She blinked a few times at his unexpectedly quick assessment of the grim realities, but he continued: "I have friends who can get you past this pack of jackals in the palace and the capital. I'll have a message sent today. If I can't do it myself, there are people I trust to do it for me. For you." 

Niquel's breast welled with unfamiliar emotion at this selfless declaration from a man she'd only traded words with this morning. There was something immediate and terrifying about the way they were being drawn into each other's lives with the sudden pull of a vortex. This? The dreams? The vaudel? 

His offer was kind, and yet it steered her off course. 

"This is welcome beyond words," she said, "but I have not done what I came to do about Ptyverias. If I return to my people now, I do not know if there will be another way to turn him from his plans." 

He had not let go her hand and his thumb brushed over her knuckle as she looked up at him. Niquel's pulse fluttered. 

A horrible time. A horrible time for this. 

"I don't think I have enough time to fix a problem as big as that," he said, voice low and unhelpfully intimate, "but I'm sure I can do this. Let me get you back to your home, Niquel. Maybe then I'll have something to show for this whole disaster." 

The last words seemed more for himself than for her, and Niquel wasn't sure what they meant, but the rest melted some of her usual ice. Or maybe the warmth in his eyes was to blame. She wasn't sure. 

"I will accept this help, Raothan. You are very kind to do this." 

Again, the wistful half-smile as he released her hand, stepping back. 

"There's something else you need my help with, too," he said, trying to muster some of his earlier smirking, causal air. 

"And what is this?" She smiled back. It was contagious, at least with him. 

"I'm going to find the seneschal," he said, eyes skimming her form and bringing a disbelieving shake of his head. "We've got to get you something else to wear." 

Yes, it seemed lowlanders had far different ideas about concealing and revealing the body. She heard him muttering as he turned to move toward the door. Something about men not being able to make plans at all, and distractions. Possibly another curse to one of his gods. 

Niquel looked down at herself. It was only a body. Why such fuss? 

But then she had been focused on this Raothan's physique more than made any sense. The hands, the shoulders. Those eyes. 

Things were sure to become more complicated before they became less. 

-=(^)=- 

Bellora woke to a splitting headache, her neck turned to one side at an awkward angle, cheekbone crushed against the grain of a tabletop. An empty bottle lay toppled just within her line of sight. Her legs were asleep below the knee. 

A horrible groan filled the single room she'd shared with Baovar, and she realized it had come from her own throat. 

Slices of light pierced in through the slats of the shuttered windows and the muscles in her neck screamed as she straightened herself. 

"Oh, pack me." Her words came at a croak as she shifted her feet and the blood began its million pinprick return. 

There was clatter already from the potter's shop below the apartment, and the long-familiar sound made Bellora somehow feel more foreign in her own home than she ever had. 

Just what in the blue flood had happened to her last night? The general? Had she actually done those things? With Kadrian Packing Ayzhus in the illhallowed palace? 

Her feet were coming around and she rubbed her temples. 

Bellora might have brushed the whole thing off as too much drink and strange dreams, but that wouldn't explain the new toga she wore. The one Ayzhus had told her to fish out of that chest by the door after she'd hauled herself sated and confused out of that city-plaza-sized bed. 

Holding the bottle up to her bleary eye and squinting down its neck confirmed her suspicions. She'd drunk it all. 

Baovar wouldn't want to see you like this. 

Perhaps a fair assessment. But was she more distraught for having gone to someone's bed so soon after seeing him at his pyre, or at the bed belonging to a woman? Was she being unfaithful to his memory in this? Had there been any choice, plucked out of the cages as she was? She hadn't enjoyed any of it. 

Had she? 

Come for me, Bellora ... make that pussy scream ... 

The way heat flared to life between her thighs before she could think twice about the general's words flashing though her head, and despite the raging headache, again told her more than she wanted to know. 

She'd never bothered to think of women in that way. Women were her mother. Women were Baovar's sisters, the potter's wife downstairs. Men were lovers. With their big, square hands, their deep voices. A man could chase, could catch, could battle wills. 

And what else did Ayzhus do, if not all that? Were you or were you not wet when you were face deep in her slit? 

Increased blood flow was not helping the throbbing in her head. She needed water, now. 

Sliding the wooden chair back over the floorboards and hoping her knees were ready to support her, Bellora moved to stand. She remembered there being water in the— 

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! 

She almost wet down her own leg at the jolt of a fist banging at the door. The whole wall seemed to shake. 

What the ...? 

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! 

"Imperial Guard. Open the door." 

Imperial ... Had they followed her? Her mind and heart were in a race to see which could trip the other and kill her first. Was this about the— 

THUMP! THUMP! 

"Imperial Guard! Open the door now, or pay for a new one later!" 

Oh, balls. What could these idiots want? 

Bellora scurried around the table to the door, knowing the potter's wife—her landlady—would be none too pleased if part of the property was splintered to bits. It felt like an awl was pushing through her temple as she moved. 

This better be important. Assholes. 

THUMP! TH— 

"Yes?" she said in irritation as she yanked the door open to a bracer-clad arm still in mid-air. 

"Bellora Dazhmi." 

It wasn't even a question. The blunt-nosed officer smirked down at her, two more of the palace guard flanking him from behind. She was in no mood. 

"What do you want?" Hadn't Ayzhus said she was free to go? 

In answer, the heel of his hand thrust forward and banged the door out of her grasp, knocking it fully open. Without invitation, he pushed his way into the room, Bellora stepping back to avoid being trampled. 

"Hoi! You can't just come in—hoi!" 

Before the whole of her indignity left her mouth, the trailing pair of guards were on her, wresting her arms around to the small of her back, shoving her down by her shoulders. The outrage threatened to render her aching head explosive. 

"What is this?" Her knees met the floor with a jarring thunk. "I was pardoned. The general said I was free to go." Her face was hot now with fury. 

"Indeed she did," the officer said, taking his sweet time about closing and latching the door behind him. 

"Then what's the problem? Why are you here?" 

"A good question, half-breed. And one I intend to answer." He's not Parthi. How dare he call me that! "Your work in the palace is not yet done." 

She was about to fire off some new retort, but the invectives died on her lips. The man's right hand had shifted beneath the dangling metal of his cingulæ and was pulling his prick to stiffness through the fabric of his toga. He stepped forward into her space. 

Bellora balked but the pressure on her shoulders increased, along with the twist of the grip on her forearms. 

"You came all the way down here to get your cock wet?" She was incredulous and her lip curled in disgust. "There ain't tail enough near the palace?" 

"No," he said, dropping a smug grin down on her, "I came here to bargain. This is just to let me get a word in around that liar's tongue of yours." 

In a jangle of metal, a bunching of fabric, angry veined flesh loomed large as a final step brought Imperial thighs and groin near. Fingers like a vice from behind had the hinge of her jaw in a forceful pinch, springing it open against her will. 

Her mouth was full of meat, stuffed before she could breathe in to rage at it. Instinct jerked her head backward, but a palm was at the base of her skull, denying any retreat. 

Bellora glared daggers up at the son of a whore. 

"Teeth would be a poor choice, slit licker," he said, feeding himself a bit further past her lips. 

This ... illhallowed dog! He doesn't know what he's unleashed. 

She reached down into the center of her being, ready to delve into that ever-shifting other that was the source of her Will. 

By the flood, I'll have him writhing so fast. 

"I wouldn't bother," came the officer's voice, sounding almost bored. "We're all wearing nullified steel." He slid the metal surface of one of his heavy bracers along her cheek. "You won't so much as touch your Will until we're gone. Now stop wasting everyone's time being uncooperative and listen." 

If Bellora could have lit him on fire with her eyes, she would have. But he was right: that luminous flickering layer of possibility she would dip her focus into and bend to her Will was simply gone. Negated by the presence of the specially-wrought alloy the three men had on their person. She should have known. It was probably standard military issue these days. Who in the Guild had allowed that development, she'd never know. 

"Now," he said, with an idle shift of his hips that pushed more of his musk into her nostrils, "you are in a position to procure what I need, Disgraced One. And more than that, you possess the particular talents to obtain it." 

She twitched her shoulders and made some unintelligible noise around the organ pressing down her tongue, but both were pointless. The situation would not be altering in her favor until this walking eel allowed it. 

"That's a good question, Bellora," he said, turning her struggles into a jest. "I'm glad you asked." She cut her gaze elsewhere, focusing on the motes glittering in the plane of light coming between the shutters, rather than on the dark tangle of hair at the end of her nose. 

"What I need you to do"—a crisp tap to the side of her face with an open hand—"Pay attention. Eyes up here. What I need you to do, is return to General Ayzhus." 

"Unnh?" 

What?! What did he want her to do? 

"Yes, you heard me." A subtle meaty throb. "The general will have returned to the barracks. You've caught her attention once—I'll need you to find her there and do the same again." 

"Waugh?" Bellora had passed confused long ago. And just how many people needed to be in her mouth in the space of a day? The hold on her arms from behind was predictably painful, but so far the Eel seemed to hold true to his stated purpose, merely plugging her up and stilling her tongue, not trying to root. 

"You're to go back," he said, trailing unnecessary fingertips under her chin, "and become her shadow. Endear yourself to her. You'll go everywhere she goes, if you play the game right. The great Kadrian Ayzhus is blind as a bat when it comes to her favorites. You'll hear what she hears, see who she sees. Especially with your ... abilities." At this last he wore a mocking smile, and she knew he referred to her specific brand of Will work. He also would know by the scars rent through her tattoos that there would be no Guild stepping in to protect her from bullshit like this. 

"And on every third day, my little snatch-bait"—he pushed so that she felt the furry scrotum against her chin—"you'll be reporting what you've seen and heard back to me. In detail. Now I'm going to relieve you, and you're going to tell me this is all perfectly clear. Understood?" 

Bellora grunted, brows drawn together in contempt. The cock retreated and she coughed, wetting her throat. 

"You know she sent me away, don't you?" She couldn't help but laugh, despite the restraining downward pressure still on her shoulders. "Kadrian's Other Army grows for a reason. She's not going to have me back. Bitch doesn't have anyone back for more than a night. Your plan goes about as far as a running leap off the cliffs." 

"Ah, but that's where you don't understand the general." A hand slid over his length in idle strokes, glossy from her spit. "The faster she shows one of her toys the door, the worse she's got it. You lasted what? An hour or two? She might as well be polishing her dress armor for the wedding. No, she'll have you right back, even if she won't admit it. And you'll say just the right words to convince her there's nowhere you'd rather be. Won't you, Bellora?" 

She couldn't help it. The chuckle welled up, bubbled into some sick sound of humor. This cocky bastard wanted to stand here and make demands? As if she had some satisfying life to preserve against his threats? Baovar was gone. Her sentence had been almost a blessing. Someone waving his prick around thought he had something more to hold over her head? 

"What are you going to do?" she said, unable to conceal the derision in her voice. "Rape me? Kill me? Make me listen to you sing the Ballad of Osquillian? I ain't doing shit for you, palace dog." 

"Oh," he said, growing a predatory smile, "you won't be doing it for me." He let down the hem of his toga and lowered himself, bending at the knees to sit on his heels in a squat, dark eyes level with hers just a handspan from her face. His gaze glittered with sinister promise and Bellora knew he'd been waiting for this moment. 

"You'll be doing it for that sweet little niece and nephew of yours." 

His grin had too many teeth and she felt a pit open up below her stomach, her sweat turn cold. 

"What is your husband's sister's name again? Dairah?" Her heartbeats slowed, but each felt like it was going to squeeze together and rupture something. " 'Auntie Bellora! Auntie Bellora!' Isn't that what they run up the stairs screaming? Won't it be fun for me to tell their mother whose fault it is when their little voices stop?" 

"Pack off!" She wanted to lunge forward and bite off part of his smirking face. "You're not going to start murdering children." 

"Ohhhh, Bellora." A blunt fingertip traced down over the lump in her throat. "You would cry and beg for the Sack again once you saw what became of their bodies." 

"You ... illhallowed ... ugh!" There weren't even words, but she was sure she was red in the face. 

Eanni. Rocairr. And neither of them older than ten summers! As the Eel rose to his feet again, so did her gorge in her throat. Her legs tried to straighten under her, to follow him up, to claw out his eyes at the very least, but restraining hands shored up their hold, weighing down, hauling back. 

"I see we have an understanding," he said dusting off his hands. "You'll keep me informed of the general's dealings; your family lives for another summer. And it should go without saying, but I ought to make it clear: disclosing this morning's 'conversation' to anyone will forfeit your part, as well. Now. Shall we seal our bargain?" 

The rough hands at her jaw again, the brief scuffling of shins and sandals as she tried to avoid. Imperial thumb and forefinger circled a ruddy girth for aim, crammed in past the threshold where she wouldn't gag. This time the goal wasn't her silence. 

Gripping her hair at the scalp, the Eel lost no time thrusting. The blunt end battered the roof of her mouth, the back of her throat as she coughed and sputtered around it. There was no way to help the jagged noises of outrage lancing out of her around the invasion. 

"That's it," he said, planting himself deep in a relentless repetition. "Choke on it." Her eyes began to water. She couldn't time her breaths with the pace of the spearing shaft. "Choke on it, little cocksucker." 

Several more wild jerks of his hips had Bellora doing just that before she raked in a great gasp of air at an empty mouth. The first hot rope of fluid arced across her cheek, and then another onto her chin, her upper lip, the crude seal to the "bargain" he'd promised. 

Bellora fumed up at him as he grunted through the last of it, letting the final few drops splatter to the floor between her knees. 

One of these days, by the flood, I'm going to kill you, Eel. 





After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 07



"I expect you to make an appearance at the barracks before the end of the night," he said as he settled his toga back into place. The guards behind her had not released their hold and all she could do was kneel there and catch her breath. 

"Ask for an audience with the general. She'll see you, I promise. And so will my eyes." A few paces back, he had hands at his waist, assessing her with that smirk she wanted to flay from his skull. "Every third day, Bellora. I'll send someone to collect your report. Are we clear?" 

Oh we're clear, you worthless pile of shit. 

"How am I supposed to know your 'eyes' from anyone else?" Her voice came at a croak and she had to swallow to wet her throat. "All you pricks look alike." 

He had the gall to chuckle at her taunt. "They'll ask what news you have for Ogdavian"—he put a fist to his breastplate, indicating himself—"Captian of the Palace Guard, and you tell them everything you know." 

All at once, the heavy hands left her as the two at her back stepped away. Bellora fell to one side, leaning on her hip, bracing herself on an arm and murdering the captain with her eyes as he and his men moved toward the door. 

"So pleased we could come to an agreement," he said. "If you ever get tired of eating Parthi slit, you can come ... 'reinstate our bargain' any time." A lewd grab at his crotch and a slithering leer were his parting gifts as the trio funneled out the door and shut it behind them with far less noise than they'd made on the way in. 

Their departure seemed to snap her awake somehow, and Bellora scrambled to her feet, ripping her toga off over her head and wadding up the material to scrub at her face in a fury. It wasn't enough. She found the pitcher of water she'd risen to look for in the first place and upended it over her head, rasping the skin of her cheeks, her mouth, nearly raw with wet hands in an effort to chase away the feeling of the guard captain's cooling spunk on her flesh. 

Her frenzy of cleansing ended with her leaning on the heels of her hands on the table, chest heaving with anger for which there was no outlet. 

She wasn't a fool. Tonight she'd have to go find the general again. There would be no fixing this mess right away. This Ogdavian wasn't wrong: she did have a liar's tongue. One of the finest in Protreo. The damned thing had all but paid for the apartment she seethed in the morning after her unexpected pardon. And now she was going to have to use it to buy something else: her family's safety. 

But later? Weeks? Months? 

This captain had better enjoy his puny handful of power now, for whatever fool purpose he wanted it. Because once Bellora picked her way clear of Imperial plots and schemes, the Eel was going to pay. 

-=(^)=- 

The stammering servant had almost been unable to stop bowing and pouring out obseisiances long enough to guide Raothan through the palace as he'd asked. And when he wasn't stumbling all over himself out of nerves at being spoken to directly by the emperor, he was glancing back over his shoulder at the woman who called herself Niquel as though he was being stalked by something that had crawled up out of a grave. 

After sending the seneschal gliding about to produce a more reasonable toga for his pale charge, and to have a message sent to Loresto via one of the many Willworkers the palace retained, Raothan had popped his head out the doors to his temporary rooms and snagged the first person he'd seen passing in the hallway. 

The young man's eyes almost goggled out of his skull when his emperor insisted he didn't want to wait for a formal meal to be prepared and brought up, but rather asked to be led to wherever it was the servant took his own meals, reasoning it would be quicker, simpler. They'd wait half the day if some small army of cooks and servants had to be mustered for his sake. The people around him didn't seem to realize just how brief his stewardship of the throne would be. There would be no need to keep up the pretense. 

That, and he felt restless penned into the two rooms, no matter how luxurious their trappings. A gilded cage was a cage all the same. The least he could do was explore this labyrinth he was set to die in, and a mess hall was as fine a place to start as any. 

The enigmatic Niquel, who'd stepped out of his dreams and straight into his ill-fated path walked a step ahead of him now, and to this right. Until he had a better grasp of who he might trust in this den of corruption, Raothan thought it best not to leave her alone for any length of time. He'd noted the way this servant shrank whenever he looked in her direction, as though the emperor would set her to enact terrible magicks upon him were he to step out of line. And then there had been the seething revulsion Firsoni had shown the night of the Release Rite, painting the young prisoner as some sort of abomination. It was clear Novamnean attitudes toward her race were not conducive to the woman's safety. He'd said as much to her, and had his suspicions confirmed when he'd seen the relief on her lovely face at his suggested precautions. 

Any real reason for such hatreds had yet to surface, as far as Raothan could see. Watching the silver curtain of her hair sway across the back of her newly acquired Imperial blue toga as they followed the servant, all he could think of was the frankness she'd displayed this morning. Well, after being found out, that was. And the trust she'd placed in him, even the night before during her mute pretense. In truth, she'd understood his words and showed belief in their honesty, smiling and taking the bed without fear, expecting him to do just what he'd said and sleep in the other room. 

And a fine job you did there, Ga'ardahn. Surprised she was willing to speak to you at all after that. 

The replacement of her sheer slave's garb had been a relief. Descending through the palace while staring at flexing white cheeks the entire time would have had him tenting his own garments and not paying attention to where he was going—the opposite of what was his normal instinct to do. Ellestia had brought her sandals as well, at his request. Bare feet seemed also somehow a way to bring her low, and he was surprised by the strength of his conviction that this should not be done to the woman he'd just met. A great many odd things were happening these days. Challenges. Eclipses. Dream women. 

They moved down into the bowels of the hulking stone structure now, well below where people of status conducted their affairs. The stone was hewn rough, and the fine oil lamps replaced with torches. Less windows meant stale air, and he could see from the way his guide wrung his hands as they went, that the servant was embarrassed to be bringing his emperor this way. 

A sharp right turn and a final short, wide offshoot from the corridor they'd been following led them to a broad square entry into a larger space beyond. The servant hesitated at the threshold, looking from the mess to Raothan and Niquel, lost as to what the protocol would be in a situation like this. Should he announce the emperor? Show him a table? Raothan chuckled to himself. 

"Thanks, friend," he said, slapping the younger man on the shoulder. "I'm sure we've got it from here." 

The servant gaped at Raothan as though he'd transformed into a flying cow right before his eyes, but he was fast to close his mouth and effect another shaky bow before scurrying off, by the looks of it to empty his bladder at the nearest opportunity. 

He turned to step into the awaiting room, making a customary sweep with his eyes as he went. A handful of servants sat taking a midday meal at long wooden tables arranged in rows, and busy kitchen hands bussed in and out, harrying surfaces with rags, balancing precarious stacks of dishes. Narrow, horizontal slits in the stone, high up on the walls, served as meager excuses for windows, letting in thin gold-white fans of noon light and venting the space to the outside at ground level. 

A familiar laugh yanked his eyes to the right side of the room and he couldn't help but grin. 

"Hoi! They can't get me to take meals in my rooms like a proper leader either, Your Grace. Join me, then?" 

Kadrian Ayzhus sat at one of the benches, knife and fork in mid-hoist, her seemingly unflappable cocky smile flashing like a blade in the sun. 

Knowing Niquel would be even more out of her element than he was, Raothan touched fingertips to her elbow, and when she glanced at him he nodded toward the table, indicating they should go and sit. He wondered if he was reading too much into his observation that she didn't seem bothered by his touch. 

"General, this is Niquel," he said as they slid onto the opposite bench, "of the Taunai." 

The Blyd Kriga'al arched a golden brow at this, but seemed to think better of making any sort of comment. "Shadespeaker," she said, nodding to the woman on his right. Raothan noted the dissatisfied quirk of a lip at this, the tiniest narrowing of silver eyes. 

"Niquel," he said, the correction subtle, but he saw from Ayzhus's shrug the point had been made. Fair enough, her shoulders said, and she went back to cutting into some sort of meat-filled pastry. 

Why so protective already? Who on J'rt Thi's blessed earth is this woman? 

"So where's the woman you pardoned?" he asked her, trying to decide whether it would be better to shift away from the warm female thigh whispering against his beneath the table or stay as he was and be distracted. Had she sat so close to drive him insane? 

"Mmh"—the Parthi words came around a mouthful—"already sent on her way. She bargained well, earned her freedom." Here Ayzhus laughed. "I can see you're not interested in the tradition of making slaves out of imperial pardonees, either." She nodded to indicate Niquel's blue toga, an obvious replacement for the flimsy one they'd given her. 

Before he could comment, the general's eyes flicked up over his shoulder and she made an exasperated face. 

"Come on, get in here. The Emperor's not going to bite you." 

He turned in his seat to see a willowy serving girl with a full tray hovering at a second, smaller entrance to the room, probably one leading to the kitchens. Her dark eyes were as round as the servant's who'd led them down here. 

"I'm not that horrifying, am I?" He put a laugh into his voice, trying to put the woman at ease as she crossed the room with swift steps, the way a Djarmik shaman would walk a line of coals. 

Ayzhus waved his attempts to placate away as the woman unloaded the contents of the tray onto the table. "Just leave the whole thing here, will you? Go find something useful to do besides staring at His Grace." 

He sighed at the truth in this, however blunt the general had been. The woman was almost fumbling crockery, stunned as she was to find the emperor in the service mess. That and the way she gawked at Niquel made him again want to curl a defensive arm around her small waist. He didn't, of course, but he wanted to. 

"A bit harsh, eh, General?" 

"Pff"—she whipped the length of her warrior's queue over her shoulder where it was attempting to fall into her plate—"you're going to send every servant in this place to the healer's ward with an attack of nerves before the end of the week, at this rate, Your Grace." 

"They don't seem to be bothered with you in here." 

"Eh. They're used to me. And I'm not the emperor." She showed him a row of jesting, white teeth at this before nodding at additional pastries the serving girl had left. "Your Grace'll want 'em before they're cold, I can tell you." 

"No doubt," he said in agreement. "And I've already asked Niquel to call me Raothan, so you can relax with the titles there, General." Ayzhus cast a look between him and the silver-haired woman and he watched her try to judge the nature of their situation. Whatever her final assessment, she left it unspoken, and only bobbed her head as she chewed. 

"Works for me, Ga'ardahn." 

Raothan slid one of the steaming dishes past himself to Niquel, and then took the second one for himself, pausing to fill two cups with more water from a ready pitcher on his left. Concern darted through his mind for a moment that perhaps the Taunai woman had never eaten anything of this sort, and what manner of utensils her people used for eating, if any, but he left it, figuring if she was hungry enough, she'd figure it out how to get the thing into her belly one way or another. 

He wasted no time tucking in, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Niquel spearing at her own dish with the downturned tines of a fork. However bizarre this entire morning must be for her, she appeared to be taking it in stride, accepting the new circumstances as they came without any great deal of resistance or displays of emotion. This calm demeanor garnered her additional respect from him, and he hoped Loresto would be able to make arrangements to have her securely on her way before the eclipse reared its head. Before his ability to protect her came to an end. While he still knew next to nothing about her, some inexplicable impulse told him she deserved better than to be abandoned to the whims of Protreo. 

"Of course you know," Ayzhus said, interrupting his thoughts, "I have about a million more questions for you." 

"Well I have no idea where babies come from, if that's what you want to know." They both laughed at this. Even Niquel, he noticed, had given a small huff of amusement and the corner of her mouth turned up as she ate. 

"Maybe you'll answer me this, Kriga'al," she said. "You know I realized what you were when I saw your marks there at the coronation." The general referred to the tattoo arcing across his shoulders, down his spine. He nodded for her to continue. "The Hast Kriga'al mark is two horses and a bow. But yours is a horse and something else. What's the other beast? Are our Hast sisters and brothers so different in Elvigraath?" 

Raothan decided it would be worth it to see the look on her face. She wouldn't believe it, by why bother to lie? 

"It's a saigus." 

"A saigus?" Her eyebrows rearranged themselves. "Some sort of good luck symbol?" 

The Novamnean ignorance of the beasts often annoyed him, but for some reason with Ayzhus it was amusing. His grin widened. 

"No"—he gave a slow shake of his head, holding her blue eyes with his—"in Elvigraath we ride them." 

Disbelief wrinkled her forehead for a moment before the general barked a laugh. "You're so full of shit, Ga'ardahn." 

Niquel's eyes widened at this and glanced to him, unsure if there had been insult, but Raothan only snorted. "You think so, do you?" 

"Please. Next you'll be telling me you found Paranthe's tomb." 

He shrugged, grinning like a fool. "Don't know what to tell you. The saigus is native to the desert. Can't help it if you think they don't exist just because you've never seen one." 

The general narrowed a skeptical eye. "And you ... ride them." 

"The saigus is an excellent war mount. Only a very few of the Hast earn the right to saddle one. To call themselves Hast Saigat Kriga'al." He could tell Ayzhus still thought he wasn't serious by the way she'd stretched out an arm to rest on the edge of the table and leaned her chin on the knuckles of the opposite hand, the line of her mouth leery. 

"What does this word mean? Kriga'al. It is not Novamnean or Common, I do not think." 

The general blinked at Niquel's entrance into the conversation, as if she'd forgot the other woman was sitting there. She looked to Raothan, asking with the quirk of a brow how much was acceptable to say to an outsider about the brotherhood. 

We're both outsiders here. 

It was true. And who would she tell? After the eclipse, it wouldn't matter one way or another. 

"It's fine," he said, waving away Ayzhus's concerns. He turned to Niquel. " 'Kriga'al' is an Elvigra word for warrior. Hast Kriga'al"—he pointed to himself—"horse warrior. Blyd Kriga'al"—he gestured to Ayzhus—"blade warrior." 

"Warrior," Niquel repeated, as though she hadn't made it past the very first of his explanation. 

"Yes. Though not just any warrior, any soldier. The Kriga'al are a brotherhood. A person can't petition to become Kriga'al. An existing brother or sister must see some promising skill, the right temperament, and invite them. And still, they must meet many challenges before earning the right to the name." 

It sounded impressive, when he said it like that, but Niquel was squinting down at the remainder of her food, trying to process his words. "So you ..." She cleared her throat, looked up at him again. "It is your calling to force the transition. To kill, as you lowlanders say it. And many people. All at one time. With your ... armies." 

The last word sounded the most foreign of all on her lips, and he felt a strange indignity rise in his chest. The gods had taken many things from him in this life. Many dear things. But his pride at being Kriga'al was not among them. Not yet. 

Ayzhus was looking ill-amused from her side of the table. Never in his life would he have imagined having to justify what he was, and yet the disappointment in that pair of silver eyes had him hurrying to explain himself, to maintain what respect he'd earned from the woman. 

"Niquel, of course war is unpleasant, but when there is an empire the size of Novamne, of Elvigraath—" 

"Pull in every spear from the lower levels as you go!" There was yelling in the hallway outside, organized footfalls trooping past at a jog. "Block every entrance. You! Go find the captain!" 

Raothan and the general both stood at once, instincts from her present role and his of summers' gone by snapping them alert at the sound of urgent commands issued, of trouble on the air. 

Ayzhus was at the entrance to the corridor in a heartbeat with Raothan on her heels, ready to assess, to take action out of habit. 

"Hoi. What's happening?" The general had flagged down the source of the barked orders, but when Raothan appeared behind the Parthi, the uniformed woman in the hallway bowed low as soon as she saw him. 

"Your Grace." 

"Attention, Guardswoman!" Ayzhus snapped her fingers and the woman sprang upright. "What's going on?" 

"General. Rebels have mobbed the throne room. We don't know how they got into the palace, but we're moving to seal them in. I sent someone to notify the captain." 

A growl of dismissal flared in the Blyd Kriga'al's throat. "Forget Ogdavian. If he isn't already involved, who knows where he is. I'll go myself." 

"Rebels?" he said as she stepped out of the mess. The general looked back at him and grimaced. 

So it's true. Another thing I'll need to tell Loresto, if I can. 

There was no question as to whether he'd follow Ayzhus. He'd be of help, if he could, not linger here like some discarded weapon of old. 

His eyes flicked to Niquel, who was standing now, as well, expectant. 

"You should come with me. It won't be safe for you here alone." 

Whatever her misgivings, they appeared set aside at the haste of the moment. She stepped over the long bench, all refreshing efficiency, and was at his side in a breath. This woman didn't waste her time with ceremony of movement, of decorum, the way so may in the palace insisted on doing. It only added to his growing estimation of her. 

That's not all that'll be growing if you don't pay attention. 

Yes, whenever they'd cleared up the threat in the throne room, and he could find himself alone with her again, Raothan had any number of further questions he wanted to ask of the woman with the silver hair. The one who was making him self-conscious for the first time in many summers. 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 07



Questions like, Do you mind me staring at you all the time? 

He grunted to himself as they moved to keep up with the general and the guardswoman. What were the gods playing at? 

-=(^)=- 

Now they were striding through the endless stone warren of corridors that riddled the imperial palace, always heading upward, the frequency of windows and colonnades increasing as they went. Niquel following close behind the emperor, and he on the heels of the golden-haired general. The pair who called themselves 'Kriga'al'. Warriors. 

As little as the lowlanders understood the Taunai relationship with J'sau Jeqnam, so did her people fathom the calling that existed outside the Starlys for men and women to force the transition of their fellows. Not for mercy, as when the only continued endurance of the body would involve great pain. But for their wars. To say one portion of land was named after this leader or that, to claim that one people or another had the right to own the stones and trees of the earth. 

War. There was no word for such a concept in her native tongue. When Questioning, Vodi or the other guides had been forced to use Novamnean words to explain it. And now it seemed this general the emperor shared his easy camaraderie with was a leader of wars. Of warriors. More, the man who'd so gently held her fingers in his palm the night before, said delicate beautiful things to her, whose smile made her belly tight with unfamiliar expectation—he was one of them as well. One who dealt in wanton violence. In ruin without purpose. 

There wasn't even time for her to consider how all this might fit along her path, why the Pattern needed her to be here with such people as these, before the potential for still more savagery had erupted right in front of them. And now they were rushing to meet it. 

The only way she knew they'd arrived at this throne room was when the general came to a halt outside a deep recess in one of the walls and another of the guards trooped out to meet her, offering her a crisp salute and a confused face. 

"General," the man said before seeing Raothan at her back and balking as the last one had, executing a hurried bow. "Your Grace." 

"The rebels," Ayzhus prompted him, brushing off his formalities. 

"That's just it, General." The young man's eyes were wide, head shaking in disbelief as he planted the butt of his spear on the stones of the floor. "There were dozens of them, Sir. Armed. Pikes, blades." 

"Were?" The blonde warrior's voice carried a threat. 

"They're ... they're gone." The guard's face was slack as though he couldn't believe it himself. "They were all there, raising a noise like the Illhallowed. Then"—he made some gesture to compensate for something he couldn't explain—"gone." 

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" This from the emperor, and the guard dipped again in a quick bow. 

"Your Grace, the throne room was full of angry men, and then it was empty. In the blink of an eye." The guard looked back to the general. "Well. Almost empty. Now there's an old man." 

"An old man?" Ayzhus looked as though she were about to strike someone. 

"He says he's here to speak to the emperor." 

"And the old man just ... replaced the rebels?" 

The guard nodded to the emperor's question, but the general whirled on Raothan at this, as if he were the one who had invited the entire disturbance. "What's this about, Ga'ardahn?" Her voice came at a growl and the guard shrank back a pace when she abandoned the imperial honorifics. 

"Be fucked if I know, General." The man from Niquel's dreams shrugged. "If he wants to talk to me, let him talk." He stepped toward the door, but Ayzhus moved as though she might block his path. 

"Your Grace." Her eyes were level with his. Serious. 

Raothan's face split in a slow grin. "What? You think I can't handle a single old man?" 

Something in the general's face relaxed at this and she stood aside. "Right," she laughed. "Just don't get yourself killed before it's time, eh? I don't think the empire can handle another surprise coronation." 

Now what does she mean by this? 

Niquel twitched her shoulder blades under the harness. It was maddening not to be able to speak to Vodi. To anyone. And now was not a time she could be asking questions of the people around her. 

The emperor made for the doorway and she could only follow. 

They emerged into a massive rectangular space, filing out onto a raised portion of the floor at one end of the room. A stone chair of extravagant proportions, crusted with ornament and intricate carvings, faced the body of the hall. A series of three stone steps cascaded from in front of what must be the throne down to a level with the rest of the hall. 

Of course, pale stone columns lined both sides of the room, and between them, and in front of an imposing set of double doors at the opposite end of the hall bristled palace guards. Every spear pointed inward, and at the center of the airy space there hunched a round little man who appeared to be muttering into a small, empty brass cage of some sort that sat beside him on the floor. 

An expansive skylight—a poor glass mimic of the crystal one in the step hall in Jeqnamset—filled the room with colorless midday light. By its light Niquel could see the man wore ragged grey and dun robes beneath an otherwise haphazard mantle of small bits of fur, twisted buckskin cording strung with feathers, stones, tiny shells from the sea. White bursts of hair ringed a pink, bald head and a pair of well-worn sandals wrapped his feet. 

Standing on the opposite side of the throne was a man whose face Niquel would rather forget, if not for the needs of her people. To her surprise, it was this man Raothan addressed first, rather than the tangle of rags and mystery at the focus of so many spears. 

"Firsoni?" Raothan said, stepping further into the room. "What are you doing here?" 

"Your Grace," said the other man, tipping only the slightest nod. "I was pulled in when the—" 

"Emperor Raothan the First!" 

The clear, carrying voice made half the room start, including Niquel. The old man must have only just noticed they'd arrived. 

"Your Grace!" he said, abandoning the tiny cage to step in the direction of the throne. The array of guards shored up grips on their spears at this, but the white-haired man was oblivious. "I've crossed half the empire to stand in your presence this day! I am honored. Honored." He wrung aged hands together, leaning forward on his toes, eager. 

"Well now you're standing here," Raothan said. "What do you want?" Cutting through ceremony appeared to be a habit of his, Niquel noted. 

"Oh! Your Grace, yes!" The old man's arms fluttered with enthusiasm, setting the various stones and shells he wore clacking against one another. "I've come to offer His Imperial Grace my services. My council." At this he sketched a proud bow that impressed Niquel with its smooth execution. He moved well for a person with so many winters weighing on his bones. 

"His Grace enjoys the advice of seven councilors already," Ptyverias said. "He may confer with us on every possible matter affecting Novamne, from finance to war. There will be no need for him to take on additional ... 'counsel'." The last word dripped with disdain, but the elder petitioner only grinned, pale blue eyes guarding a knowing twinkle. 

Something about this man nagged at Niquel, but she could not put her finger on what it was. She'd never seen him before, but something ... Something. 

"Oh?" White brows drew together over a pink face, confused. "So there's already a seer among you? Well why wouldn't they tell me this before they called?" 

"A seer?" Ptyverias plucked out the offending word and made some dismissive noise. "The Imperial Council relies on facts. Histories. Records. Things which can be measured and recorded. Not wild notions pulled out of hori dreams. General"—he turned to the other woman at Raothan's side—"this man is wasting our time. He should be escorted off palace grounds." 

Hori dreams. 

This notion struck a chord with Niquel, but its implication seemed impossible. 

"Not all knowledge comes from books and tablets, my lonely friend," the old man said, ignoring the guards tightening their formation. "Some wisdom can only be got from places we can't touch with our hands." 

Ptyverias blustered at this, and Niquel gathered the man seeking an audience with the emperor had either failed to use some honorific, or worse, had offered some insult. She watched Ptyverias's hands come into fists at his sides and his jaw tighten. 

"That's more than enough from you, Seer—" 

"A seer? Where?" The supplicant gave a startled little hop and looked around the hall as though he'd just awakened and found himself surrounded by strangers. "I should very much like to meet one of those fellows," he said, backing up toward his abandoned cage. "You know I hear they—" 

"Bah! This has become nonsense," said Ptyverias. "This madman wanders in here from the Divine knows where and ..." 

Niquel heard nothing after the single word that unlocked the teasing thought she'd been chasing. 

"Wanderer." 

Arguing voices went silent and every eye in the room stared at Niquel. She'd spoken aloud without realizing. 

Warmth like the most glowing summer's day eased the features of the old man's face at her one-word proclamation, and he turned to face her, nodding his head in slow respect, as though she deserved as much veneration as the emperor. 

"Questioner," he greeted her in turn. 

Winter's tears, he knows what I am! Then he must be ... 

"But we have not seen one of your kind on the mountain since the grandmother of my grandmother was a girl." She leapt from thought to thought, unable to grapple with one idea before jumping to the next. 

"Well it can't have been me. I haven't been back that recently." He scratched his chin with stubby fingers, considering. 

"He consorts with the witch!" Ptyverias stabbed a finger in her direction. 

"Enough of this," said Ayzhus. "Get him out of here." 

There was a clatter of arms, but Raothan stepped forward, putting his hand on Niquel's shoulder. 

"Everyone calm down." 

She repressed a shiver at the sound of his voice. Deep. Clear. Carrying. If there had been any confusion as to the final authority in the room before, his resonating imperative had resolved it. The guards eased their spears, all eyes on the emperor. 

The old man's shoulders softened more at this, and he clasped his hands together like a proud parent. "Ah, yes. The Sun and the Moon are coming together for the eclipse. Then we're not too late, are we, Kitak?" 

Niquel had no idea what the Wanderer was talking about, or who he was talking to, but the words lit Ptyverias aflame all over again. 

"What do you know of eclipses, Seer?" 

The old man met his eyes, shaking off some sentiment directed at her and the emperor like so much mist on his robes. 

"And lo, the Lights of the Firmament shall conjoin overhead. And the people will know darkness and strife. The cliffs will they paint with blood and the Void will they purchase with fear, but it is without foundation." Every set of lungs in the room held its breath, and the man seemed to grow in stature as he spoke, challenging anyone to dispute his words. "The union of Moon and Sun begets new light. So has it been. So shall it ever be." 

Ptyverias's face could not have been more red. 

"Don't quote Telamemnon to me! The man was a drunk prophet at best." 

"But those are the best kind!" The old man laughed, as if this proved some point. 

"Your Grace, this is going nowhere," Ptyverias said. 

"Never thought I'd agree with the First Councilor," said the general, "but, yeah. We should be on with our day." 

At a subtle jerk of the woman's head, a pair of guards broke ranks, moving to lay hold of the nuisance in their midst. The Wanderer shot a single splay-fingered hand out toward the emperor. 

"Raothan, wait!" 

A chorus of gasps went up around the room. The hand dropped from Niquel's shoulder and the man at her side came forward onto the stairs. 

Oh, Vodi, where are you? If you hear me now, please help him. 

If a Taunai like Niquel was rare and reviled amongst the lowlanders, a Wanderer was a thousand-fold more. She prayed they didn't understand what he was. 

And that the man from her dreams would continue to prove to her that not every Novamnean was willfully ignorant. 

J'sau Jeqnam, do not make this lesson a hard one. I can hardly bear any more. 

-=(^)=- 

Raothan was amassing questions faster than bodies piling up on a battlefield. Everyone needed to stop talking. 

Wanderer? Questioner? A seer? Telamem-who? 

By the tongue of Alfta'an, would nothing make sense? 

The entire throne room walked a knife's edge of anticipation now that the insistent old man had called him by his name alone. 

As if it mattered. What he most wanted to do was escape this uproar with Niquel and leave the Imperials to their machinations. It was time to come to the point. 

"What. Do. You. Want." 

He made his words clear, with just enough threat woven in to show he wouldn't tolerate further sidetracks. This did nothing to intimidate the man with the empty cage, who only grinned as though this was the part of the audience he'd sought from the beginning. 

And still no one's explained where the rebels went. 

"Your Grace," he said, spreading his palms wide, "I'm afraid I'm quite serious about my offer of services." Raothan's lip turned in irritation, but the man went on. "If I may speak to His Grace one single word, and that one word alone does not convince him to accept my presence, I will depart the capital this instant and never seek to trouble Him again." 

"One word." He was more than skeptical. But be damned if he wasn't also more than curious. 

"Yes, Your Grace." The man bowed low again. "Just the one and no more." 

"All right," Raothan said with a toss of his head. "Let's hear it." 

A smile broadened the already-round face. "This word is for His Grace's ear alone." 

"Of course it is." He was ready to be done with this and stepped down onto the floor, the old man already moving to meet him. 

A score of armored bodies shifted forward at the sight of what might be a madman closing in on their emperor. The sound of Ayzhus's sword clearing its scabbard made a metallic rasp at his back. 

Oh, for— 

"Stand down," he said to the guards. "Now." 

He glowered at the general over his shoulder and unspoken words flew between the two of them. 

She narrowed blue eyes at him, sheathing her sword. 

"Stand down." She repeated his words and the guards fell further back, as confused as anyone else in the room. 

The First Councilor glared around the hall at the whole affair and Niquel looked as though if she went any more still, she'd become one with the white stone columns. 

Fuck it. Let's do this and be out of here. 

Three more strides had him meeting the old man in the center of the room. He stopped with his hands on his hips, waiting. 

"Well?" 

Heavily-lined fingers motioned him to bend low and match the other man's height—of which there wasn't much—and Raothan rolled his eyes as he did. 

"What's the one word?" he asked as the hoary head aligned itself to his right ear. "Before I lose patience." 

"If His Grace will forgive me ... the word is ... 'Hesme'." 

The guards, the general, the First Councilor—even the intriguing Niquel—all disappeared. 

Raothan hurtled headlong down a black roiling tunnel into a maelstrom of his past. 

Hesme. 

The void laughed at him in great hiccoughs of wanton nothingness. For an instant and interminable moment, the weight of which he could no more easily shift than the length of Vrennic's Teeth laid over his shoulders, he was on his knees again, howling into chaos. 

It's your fault. IT'S YOUR FAULT! 

Smoke was in his eyes and burning ash whorled up into the night. The eyes. The eyes were open, staring up, unseeing, and people were calling his name. 

"Raothan!" 

It's your fault. 

"Your Grace! Are you well?" 

And as fast as it had come, the cruel seizure of memory was gone. 

He staggered back a step, shaking his head, the throne room filling his vision once more. The old man stood in front of him, hands clasped together, solemn but expectant. 

"How do you know this name?" His words came at a rasp and he swallowed to wet his throat. 

"I know a great many hidden things, Raothan Ga'ardahn." It was another whisper, meant only for him, and buttressed by a sad smile. 

Something whispered against his elbow and Raothan caught his backhand before he struck. Niquel had come to his side, silent as the grave, and flinched at his violent reaction to her touch. 

"Are you all right?" Silver eyes were wide with concern, her voice no louder than the seer's. 

Calm down, Kriga'al. 

"I'm fine," he said, gathering himself. "Fine." 

Raothan regarded the old man and Niquel. Swept his eyes around the room. The collective hush awaited some decision from him. Some action. 

There were so many questions. And here another stranger shows up knowing a name no one this side of the Teeth knew but Raothan. Perhaps the man had other answers. 

"What's your name?" he asked. The least he could do was stop thinking of him as "the old man". 

"Fish, Your Grace." A glimmer of pride shone in the pale blue eyes at this. 

"Fish?" he repeated, not sure he'd heard right. "Like the animal?" 

White eyebrows knitted together in confusion, as if wondering why anyone would ask such an odd question. "No." He offered no further elaboration. 

"Huh. And what's with the cage?" Raothan nodded at the floor and the seer bent to take up the brass enclosure. 

"This"—he presented the cage—"is Kitak." 

"You ... named a cage?" 

"No." The man gave him a more intense version of the look he'd worn earlier, as if Raothan were the crazy one. "Who names a cage? The bird is Kitak." 

"What bird?" 

The man who called himself Fish made some noise of exasperation and lowered the cage. "Ah. Well. He's a bit ... invisible right now. My doing, I'm afraid. But he's still a perfectly serviceable bird, Your Grace, I assure you." 

He glanced down at Niquel and she shrugged. 

"I see." 

It was all becoming more bizarre by the moment. But still. 

Hesme. 

Yes. If there was a chance this old man could help him make sense of things before the end, he would take it. Why not? It seemed the gods meant to throw every other insane thing under the sun at his feet. Why not this? 

"Very well, Fish," he said, to the brightening of blue eyes. "I'll accept your counsel." For as short a time as I might need it. "You have somewhere to stay? Or do I need to have the seneschal find you rooms?" 

The man was all smiles now. "I have lodgings in the capital. Your Grace is most kind. Most kind, indeed." 

"Good enough." He turned to nod at Ayzhus. "We're done here, General. I'm sure your guard have better things to do." 

Listen to yourself, commanding these people. As if you had any right. As if you won't be dead in a week, just like you wanted. 

Despite his self-recrimination, the two-dozen-odd spears were already filing out of the room. The four stone walls were surrounding too close, too heavy. He had to get out of here. 

"Find me tomorrow morning, Fish," he said, turning toward the door where they'd entered. "I have questions you might try to answer." 




After Exile Bk. 01: An Emperor for the Eclipse Ch. 07



"His Grace wants me to answer questions?" the seer said. "How lovely!" 

Gods. Maybe he has lost it. 

"Oh! Speaking of serviceable beasts," said Fish, "I believe I passed yours on the way into the palace." 

He turned back to the man. "What?" 

"Styrro? Great clubbed tail? Eats everything in sight?" 

"How did—oh, nevermind. Where is he?" 

"He was nosing around the gardens when I saw him. But that was some time ago." 

"Your Grace, what is this?" said Ayzhus, hand still on the hilt of her sword. 

Raothan couldn't decide if the whole situation was hilarious or enraging. Perhaps it was both. 

"It's my gods-be-damned saigus, General. If you didn't believe me before, today's your lucky day." It didn't matter if Fish knew where the beast was. They could just follow the sounds of imperial panic. 

He turned on his heel to leave the way he came, Niquel following close behind and Ayzhus standing open-mouthed, when the First Councilor stepped in to almost block his path. 

"Your Grace," Firsoni said, all sober formality once again, "I would never presume to question your judgement on this matter, but—" 

"Then don't." Raothan shouldered past him, uninterested in hearing the rest. 

"Tomorrow morning, then, Your Grace!" came the cheerful call from the seer as he passed into the corridor. 

The exiled Elvigra general grunted as he strode along toward the next disaster. 

And what the fuck kind of name is Fish, anyway? 

-=(^)=- 

From the palace gardens, where the baffling seer had said he'd last seen Styrro, it was easy enough to follow the trail of mild destruction and clusters of gossiping servants that seemed to mark the path of the wayward saigus. The pairs and trios made hasty bows and scattered back to their duties in every direction as Raothan and Ayzhus passed. Niquel followed in their wake 

Her reactions in the throne room said she knew at least something about this Fish, though how much was uncertain. Once he had the mess with Styrro settled, and he could manage to get her alone again, Raothan would press Niquel for the reasons behind her outburst at the appearance of the old man. 

If he would even find a saigus at the end of the end of their search. They'd set out to find a throne room ambushed by a throng of rebels, and instead there had been a single man with an empty bird cage and more confusion. 

Just out the door to the mess where they'd started, an ancient Novamnean woman, skinny as a broom handle, stood pressed back against the corridor wall. She began to stammer even as they approached, clutching a meat-tenderizing mallet to her chest as if for protection. 

"G-General!" she said, recognizing Ayzhus "Th-there ..." 

"Is it in the service mess?" Raothan asked, inserting himself. 

The old woman almost fell over herself trying to bow in the middle of quaking fear. "Your Grace! The ... the kitchens!" 

The general again took the lead at this trembling instruction and moved past the woman, across the mess, and through the passage the serving girl had appeared from earlier with their tray of pastries. Raothan was close behind, trailing Niquel, but it was the Parthi's abrupt halt at the other end of the passage that had him almost crashing into her back. 

"It can't be," Ayzhus said in a sort of daze while Raothan shouldered past her. 

But it was. 

There, in the middle of the palace's immense kitchen, muzzle rooting in some sort of wicker bin, was the saigus. 

"Styrro." 

A grunt at his name and the head came out of the bin, a dark, liquid eye turning back in Raothan's direction. 

"What are you doing here, you scaly beast?" he said, approaching the saigus's flank to slap at the familiar hide. "You were supposed to go back to your herd." 

The weighty clubbed tail gave a subtle swish, as if pleased to hear a voice it knew, and the snout went back down to forage, unrepentant for having disturbed the workings of the palace's kitchens. 

"Pack me," he heard Ayzhus swear under her breath behind him. "Thought you were having a laugh at me, Kriga'al. But no. That's an illhallowed saigus." 

By this time, Niquel had also slipped into the room and, while not as wide-eyed as the general, she still wore her own stoic version of awe on her snowy face. 

"It is ... like a horse," she said, as though searching for words, "but also like a lizard." 

"That's one way of putting it, I guess." 

She gave a dazed little chuckle at this, eyes not leaving Styrro. 

"Why's that funny?" he asked. 

Her gaze flicked to Ayzhus. "It is humorous for the same reason kissmelon was this morning." 

Perhaps she alluded to another dream? Of course, he wanted to know more, but he could understand her wanting to be circumspect around the general. Niquel knew the Parthi woman even less than she knew him, and that was hardly at all. 

All these things aside, the saigus needed to be out of the kitchens. That poor woman in the hallway, whom he suspected was the cook, might never be the same as it was. 

Raothan whistled a particular two-note tone, the one that told the beast it was time to listen and obey commands. "Styrro. Ready up." 

The great head rose out of the bin, a final green apple still between its crunching teeth, and turned itself to face its rider. He couldn't help cringing as the enormous tail swept around and cleared more than one countertop of clattering cookware. No. The cook would be none too pleased, at all. 

Styrro wore neither bridle nor harness, and he wondered for a moment whether it had been Loresto or someone else who'd unhooked him from the cart, considering the last time he'd seen his mount he'd sent the beast off to haul his harvest into Aquillo. Whatever had happened, he'd have to rely on obedience alone to get the saigus moving now. 

"Those doors go outside?" he asked the still-goggling general. 

"Um ... yeah. Yeah, they go outside," she said with only the briefest glance to spare for the pair of wide, wooden doors with iron hinges as long as arms to support their weight. 

"Good." He went to the doors and lifted the hefty bolt, swinging the left one in so the eye-watering daylight poured into the space. With a glance back to Styrro to gauge size, Raothan moved to pull back the right side of the door, as well. He still didn't understand how the saigus had gotten into the room to begin with. If his mount had come through the passage from the mess, the same as he and Niquel and the general had, well, he must have been a determined creature indeed, because it would have been quite a squeeze. More mysteries, which he hated. Raothan Ga'ardahn preferred things to be out in the open. So naturally, that's just how they refused to be. 

"I assume the palace has stables?" 

"It sure does," said Ayzhus, shaking her head in disbelief. 

"And you know how to get to them from here?" 

Now she had a proper laugh and lopsided grin for him. "What do you think I am? New? Come on." She moved past him then, with a final incredulous look for Styrro, and set off at a walk along the foot of one of the stone walls of the palace. 

Raothan turned his attention to Niquel. "Hope you like columns," he said, by way of an apology for dragging her all over the palace, from one bit of trouble to the next, "because wherever we're going, I'm sure there's more to look at along the way. And probably stairs. I'm sure the imperials'll figure out a way to work some of those in, as well." 

Her smile at this was genuine and it made him want to say more stupid things to her, language barrier or no. 

"You say this as though you were not chief among them, Your Grace." she said, silver eyes glinting. 

Is she ... teasing me? Gods, help me now. 

As if he wasn't having enough trouble trying not to behave dishonorably already. 

"Right"—he gave a nervous laugh, as though he were a youth, stymied with his first infatuation—"Well." Diverting his attention to the saigus, he gave a double click of his tongue and set out after Ayzhus. At the familiar sound of the command, Styrro followed, passing into the open air. 

Niquel increased her stride and came around the beast to fall into step at his side. She appeared far less concerned now with the improbability of a saigus on this side of the Teeth than most people at their first encounter, not bothering to look back every few moments, and not going out of her way to give the foreign animal a wide berth. But then, he supposed everything in Protreo was in some way exotic and new to her, so what was one more thing, even if was a lizardy war mount the size of a plow horse? 

She was doing far better than him staring at her every few moments when he thought she might not notice. His latest obsession was the way the criss-crossing of her sandal straps climbed her white calves, changed shape as her muscles flexed from walking. He wondered if he were to unlace them, would the leather have left an impression on her skin, and what it would feel like to trace with his fingertips. 

"Fuck!" 

A stupid place for a rock to be anyway, he thought as he saved himself from a stumble. 

"Is everything all right, Raothan?" She looked at him with a hint on concern pinching her brows. 

"Sure," he said, with an eye roll reserved only for himself. "Seems I just can't walk and chew thoughts at the same time." 

-=(^)=- 

Ayzhus led them some distance through the palace grounds before they reached their destination. Strategically upwind from the palace itself, the stalls of the imperial stables formed three sides of an enormous square, velvety muzzles bobbing over many of the low doors to face a central staging area whose hard-packed dirt was the current home to neither beast nor cart. 

They entered through an iron gate at the southeast corner of the structure and followed the general out from under the eaves and back into sunlight. A Parthi girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen summers backed out of one of the stalls, pitchfork in hand, and closed the door behind her. 

"Hoi," Ayzhus said, "Where's Jaemus?" 

"Stablemaster's back in the tack house, General," the girl said, stepping in their direction now, a hand to her brow to block the sun. "He—" 

Her words halted with the rest of her as the saigus joined them in the light. 

"Go fetch him then, will you?" said the general. The young stablehand blinked and stared, a reaction Raothan knew would get tiring before the end of the day, and began to lose her grip on the pitchfork. 

"Right! Right," she said, sending fluttering hands after the falling implement. "Jaemus." The girl scuttled off, backwards for the first few steps, as though if she were foolish enough to look away, the saigus would be gone when she turned back. At least she hadn't recognized him as Emperor. Probably would have tripped over her own feet trying to bow and scurry at the same time. 

The Blyd Kriga'al was no better and, after having sent someone to round up the stablemaster, had returned to her own silent disbelief. Arms folded across her chest, feet planted apart in the dirt, the general looked as though she was about to engage in a strenuous debate with the beast. Styrro stood at Raothan's shoulder, indifferent and awaiting commands. His nostrils flared with interest, though, while they waited there, on the never-ending lookout for food. 

When the stablemaster didn't make an immediate appearance, Raothan spared a glace down at woman standing on his other side. Her skin had attained a scorching new level of white in the full glare of the sun. When he caught her eye, she gave him a shrug that suggested her opinion of standing around waiting. In a blink, she'd stepped across his path and brought herself eye-to-snout with Styrro. Before he could stop her, a pale hand went up. 

"Niquel, I wouldn't—" 

Taunai fingertips and a flat palm rested on tawny scales, between the intelligent eyes. The small, leathery ears came forward, and his mount snorted with interest. 

"Hm." It was a short sound she made, through a bit of a sideways smile, as though she'd confirmed some suspicion. Her hand moved again, ascending over a horny eye ridge. 

"Ah, you know," he said, lamenting the current lack of reins, "he doesn't really like—" 

People touching his ears, he was going to say, but Niquel had the thick, flexible skin between thumb and fingers and was massaging the bristly rim, oblivious to his attempts at cautioning her. The saigus's eyelids were drooping and the beast lowered its head so she might reach the other side, as well. This earned a chuckle from her and she went to work with both hands. Raothan added the sight to the growing list of oddities he'd seen in the last few days. 

I must be getting closer to meeting the gods. 

Styrro didn't let anyone touch him. At least not without permission from his rider. A necessary part of the Kriga'al training; it would be the same for any saigus-warrior pair in Elvigraath. It had taken several summers for the beast to accept Loresto's hand, when the occasion called for it, and here this woman was, meting out affection as though the mountain of scales was a favorite dog. 

"Your beast journeyed on his own to find you?" she said as she moved down Styrro's opposite side, sliding her palm over plate-sized scales as she went. She carried herself with the calm of a person who encountered entirely new creatures as a matter of routing. 

"So it would seem." 

As he watched her with the saigus, a thought stuck him. He'd told Loresto when the guards were hauling him out of Aquillo that Styrro would return to his herd, once freed of his rider. But if the animal accepted Niquel's touch so well already ... 

Maybe I need to amend my request to Loresto once he arrives. Or Cadrea, whoever comes. One of them will be here, I know it. 

The Taunai woman could use all the protection she could get on her way back to the mountains. Perhaps with Styrro he might be able to provide her with an additional layer of security on her trek. 

"General Ayzhus!" A man about Raothan's own age came around the far end of a wing of stalls, wiping his hands on tan breeches which would have been more at home in Aquillo than the capital, and trailing a boy of perhaps seven summers. He stopped cold at the sight of the general's company, and the youngster bounced off the back of his thigh at the unexpected halt. 

Raothan couldn't help his bark of laughter. It was all so ridiculous. Was it the saigus shocking the man? Or was it the new emperor showing up in the stables without retinue? Or maybe the white and silver "witch" at his side these Novamneans all seemed to regard with such horror? It could be all three. 

Maybe the answer to his Challenge was to take out as many imperials as he could via heart attack in the next few days before he expired, himself. Between Niquel and Styrro following him around, he might do just that. 

"Your—Your Grace!" 

And here come the bows. Thank the gods this'll be over soon. 

"Jaemus, right?" 

"Y-yes, Your Grace?" The man could hardly compose himself, though the boy at his side suffered from no such nerves. Young eyes stared straight past Raothan to the saigus, ignoring all else. 

"Let's have it out of the way, Stablemaster," he said, wanting to run as far and fast as he could from the scenes he was causing everywhere he went today. "Yes, it's a saigus. Yes, they're real. No, he doesn't breathe fire. And no, he doesn't eat people. Now is there a stall big enough you can keep him in for the next few days?" He glanced at Styrro. "A sturdy one?" 

"I ... I ..." It was taking the Novamnean man a while to chew through everything Raothan had just piled on his plate. The boy, on the other hand, was ready with questions, emperor or no. 

"Is that a monster, Da?" 

Noni, is that a monster? 

Ovar's words from summers long gone flew at him out of memory, a fish yanked up out of a stream by a lure. No kid, still just a man. He remembered his jaded response to the boy back on the western foothills of the Teeth, while the tentative hope for a new life sprang up green and wavering. 

Now, watching the past in his mind's eye was like being bound to a stake and made by his enemy to watch his loved ones drown over and over again. The enemy's laughter always sounded far too similar to his own. 

Is that what I am now? Have I become the monster? Is there nothing left? 

It was the reason he'd laid down the Challenge, wasn't it? The emptiness? The divorce from humanity? And yet here were his promises to Niquel. His near violent response to the seer's "single word". It was as though insubstantial hands grasped at him from this direction and that, endeavored to pull him back to a sense of purpose he'd abandoned with the steps of the Last Parade. Pleading with him to feel something once again. 

Against all reason, the wide eyes of the stablemaster's boy made some stupid part of him want to reach for those hands, to grab onto old ideals as though this time they'd bring him something other than ruin. 

"He's not a monster." The words were out of him, their tone patient, before he could deny the instinct. "He's a saigus. Are you going to help me find a stall for him?" 

The puny shoulders and ribcage puffed up at this. "Yes," the boy said, as if daring Raothan to challenge his compact expertise. Ayzhus and Niquel were repressing smirks at the whole exchange while the stablemaster stood looking from one face to the next, mortified. The man was most surely the boy's father. 

"What's your name, kid?" 

"Natteo," the boy said, stepping away from the man. 

"Well, Natteo," he said as the child approached, "this is Styrro. And he doesn't have reins right now, so you're going to have to learn how to lead him by commands. Can you make this sound?" He made the double click of his tongue, his hands on his hips, looking down at the dark-haired top of a head, waiting for confirmation. The boy offered up a passable imitation of the sound, and Raothan nodded. 

"All right. Now say, 'Styrro, follow', and make that noise. And go where you want to lead him." 

The stablemaster's son made the commands, his small voice confident, and moved past the beast's right shoulder, looking back as he went to see if the saigus would follow. Raothan passed a palm down the side of a scaly neck and gave his mount a subtle pat, indicating Styrro should follow his miniature, temporary master. The animal hove into motion like ship parting ways with a dock. Satisfied—and more than a little amused—Raothan came around to walk with the boy toward the empty stall where he was leading them. 

"Now, just like a horse," he said, "you'll want to not stand behind him. Avoid being in the way of the tail. And if he starts making this noise"—he reached over to twitch his fingertips in the hollow under Styrro's chin, causing the loose scales around the beast's neck to ruffle together in a chitinous clacking—"get as far away as you can." 

"What happens when he makes that noise?" the boy asked as he led the beast into a double-width stall. 

"That's when the tail comes down," he said as he watched Natteo close and latch the door. Styrro's intent crunching sounds were already grinding up from a feed hopper in the rear corner of the stall. "If you're standing anywhere close when that happens, well ... you won't be." 

The stablemaster had ventured near and was hovering now, all nerves that his son might somehow be irritating the emperor. And yet Raothan found himself more at ease speaking to the boy than with perhaps anyone else he'd met in the palace. Probably because the kid seemed blissfully ignorant of titles and Raothan didn't have to endure a lot of awkward bowing and honorifics.