2: A Royal Invitation

Chapter 2: A Royal Invitation

The Time: Present day, 720 A.E.

The Place: Kachai Fortress, on the outskirts of the city of Vaomeze, in the province of Shenevi

When the two of them finally return to the pavilion, they find things mostly as they left them: a scrawnylittle girl stuffing her face with leftover pastries, ascrawny black sighthound regarding her wearily from beneath the table, and—the one new addition—anexceedingly lovely young man sitting in one of the chairs across from her, idly plucking the three strings of a long, nearly coffin-shaped lute.

The melody he spins is as gentle and refined as his countenance. In the light of the late afternoon sun, his bronze skin is aglow; his carefully-coiffed snow-white curls are gilded. His hazel eyes are framed bythick, equally pale lashes. Though his frame is slender, it does not lack for willowy strength or ethereal grace—a grace explained at once by thelong, delicate sweep of his ears, both adorned withplain golden cuffs. He wears the plainer midnight blue robes of the Kachai Coven’s disciples, but around his waist is a silken bronze sash that denotes him as a senior. There is a cream-colored porcelain mask strapped to his hip as well, its detailsimpossible to discern at this angle.

The man blinks in faint bafflement. It is not impossible to find elves in God-Queen Velnyr’s Saimr, it’s only that most of them remain in and around the royal capital. To see one this far north, in such a remote area, is still a little shocking. The man himself has never encountered one in person, and he briefly finds himself wrong-footed. No one he has ever spoken to has mentioned “elves” in the same sentence as “humility, generosity, or kindness”.

But when the elven youth lifts his head, those striking hazel eyes squinting against the sun, his expression becomes lamb-soft and gentle, his shapely lips immediately curling into a sweetly deferential smile. His elegant fingers still on a final note, and he rises in one fluid motion to bow respectfully to the twofigures approaching him.

“Sahan,” he greets the Preceptor warmly. Then, to the man’s surprise, he nods to him and offers him a faintly accented, “Good sir. Welcome to Kachai Fortress. I trust your stay has been pleasant thus far?”

The man opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Finally, he blurts out, “Uh—yes! Yes, very much so. Th-thank you.”

The youth only smiles amiably. “Wonderful. This disciple will ensure the remainder of your time with us is equally satisfactory. Should you require anything else after Sahan departs, please do not hesitate to ask for me. Simply inform any of the attendants in brown that you wish to see Disciple Ambren, and I will come at once.”

Utterly dazzled by this unexpected gem of a boy, the man can only nod. What beauty! What incredible decorum! What poise, what style! He can hardly bear to look upon the youth’s shining face directly. If his daughter had been somewhat older, he could not have helped plotting her impending marriage to this upright princeling with all haste.

It seems Nila, too, is quite taken with the young man, for she frowns tremendously when he stops playing (though she can make no rebuke, as her mouth is currently filled with peach preserves).

The Preceptor grants the elven youth, who must be her own disciple, an easy-going grin. “Hey, kiddo. The Grand Matron didn’t run you ragged all day, did she? If she keeps asking to borrow you, I’m gonna start charging her by the hour.”

The youth laughs quietly. Even his laugh sounds like the tinkling of the finest chimes! What a treasure it would be to have such a son-in-law!

“Sahan need not worry about this disciple. It is this disciple’s pleasure to bring honor to Sahan’s name in all things.”

The man nearly weeps tears of bitter jealousy.

The Preceptor, though, rolls her eyes as if much put-upon. “Alright, alright, that’s laying it on a little thick. Just get some rest tonight. Don’t worry about being up for recitations tomorrow; I’ll tell the High Priestess I kept you up all night pushing paperwork.”

The young man shakes his head with a wry smile. “Please don’t lie to the High Priestess on this disciple’s account, Sahan…”

“Why not?” Preceptor Ari asks easily. “I lie to her all the time for worse reasons.”

Ambren just sighs, pressing two graceful beringed fingers to his temple. But after a moment his expression turns complicated. “Ah—I nearly forgot. The Grand Matron wished to speak with you directly once this matter is concluded, Sahan.”

“Oh?” The Preceptor cocks her head. Her expression remains light, tinged with good humor, but the faintest tension tightens her shoulders. “So formal. Alright. I’ll head over once I wrap this up.”

The youth bows again and steps back, clearly about to excuse himself, but the Preceptor clears her throat pointedly. “Hey. Next time you catch Ranan and Tselai arguing, tell them that dragonhead fountain on the east wall of the garden needs cleaning again. And if you catch them fighting outside of the sparring grounds, tell them to clean the fountain and scrub the cobblestones. All of them. Oh, and—” From the bundle of summer gentians tucked in the crook of her arm, the Preceptor extracts three small blooms and passes them over. “For your… flower pressing book. Thing.”

Ambren makes a small, pleased sound of surprise. This tiny gift brings stars to his beautiful eyes. “Oh! I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to pick any of the gentians this season, the Grand Matron has kept me so busy... Thank you very much, Sahan.” He bows over his hands, beaming.

The Preceptor reaches up with her free hand, ruffling his stylish coif. He doesn’t seem to mind. “Alright, get out of here. Don’t skip dinner. If I find out you didn’t visit the mess hall tonight I’ll have you out sweeping cobblestones with those two knuckleheads tomorrow.”

“Sahan,” the youth replies modestly, and then he turns on his heel and is gone with a swishing of fine fabric, the three little flowers tucked safely into his pocket.

“Nooooo,” the little girl whines broken-heartedly. “He was so pretty. Make him come back!”

The man finds himself somewhat inclined to agree.

Preceptor Ari just laughs and hands the rest of the gentian bouquet to Nila, who stares at it stiffly for a long moment before cautiously accepting, holding the blooms like they’re made of fragile glass. “Oh…” She regards the flowers with a furrowed brow, and then turns that faithless expression on the Preceptor. “They’re pretty too, I guess.”

“Mm,” the Preceptor agrees. “Your atu told me you liked blue.”

“...Yeah,” the girl says finally, some of her earlier frostiness thawing. “It’s my favorite.”

The Preceptor settles back down at the table. “That’s pretty cool. I like blue too.” She raises a hand and tugs at the lapel of her deep blue coat with its bronze buttons. “See?”

The little girl narrows her eyes. “Everyone here wears blue…”

“And? We all like it,” the Preceptor responds with a grin. “You can wear blue here too, you know.”

The girl perks up at this. Back home, such well-spun, richly-dyed fabrics would be far too expensive for Atu to afford. “I can?”

“Mhm. I’ll let you talk to your atu about it later. For now…” the Preceptor lays her hand palm-up on the table, carefully avoiding the jumble of little plates speckled with crumbs. Her fingernails are still crusted with dirt; the sight makes Nila oddly more comfortable. “Why don’t you give me your hand and we’ll see what we can do about this fever you’ve been having?”

***

It’s past sundown by the time Ari finally arrives at the Grand Matron’s office. She walks with markedly less pep than before as she trudges through KachaiFortress’s maze of halls and towers. The lanky black dog follows sedately behind her, occasionally drawing directly alongside her to nudge her hand with its long, wet nose. Ari pats the beast’s head absently.

Most of the witches she passes greet her with a respectful nod (if they don’t know her) or a cheerful wave (if they do). The crisp, dapper lines of her long, high-collared coat and the bronze epaulettes on her shoulders mark her as a Preceptor, so the juniorswho’ve never met her regard her with something between awe and fear. But her more familiar comrades know this Preceptor is no stickler for appearances or propriety.

Still, her usually cheerful countenance is gloomy enough now that even her most familiar comrades decide not to bother her for a friendly chat at the moment.

Head lowered, Ari allows muscle memory to guide her while she sulks. Having spent no small amount of time wandering these same halls in her youth, there’s no need for her to pay close attention to her surroundings. Back in the day, Kachai Fortress hadbeen the Dawn’s heart and soul, a sprawling compound constructed according to the Prophet’s desires with the aid of Shenevi province’s Red Prince—a man thoroughly bewitched by the Prophet’s Beguiling Flame and therefore willing to grant her every request. Even after Seda began expanding her influence, Kachai Fortress remained her sanctuary, and she took every opportunity to return when no pressing matters required her personal attention.

After Seda’s death and the Dawn’s dissolution, Kachai Fortress had not been abandoned for long before God-Queen Velnyr reclaimed it in her own name. Still, despite its historical and (debatably) personal significance to the queen, she’d had little interest in it beyond appointing it as a new coven stronghold beneath Grand Matron Hvasira. In time, Kachai Coven became one of Saimr’s five major sects, butout of these top five, it was the most remote and the least influential.

It had been the perfect place for Ari to make her reappearance—a familiar setting, but filled with new faces now, faces who didn’t recognize her. She’d been able to establish a new identity with little fuss; there were plenty of cast-offs from the Dawn who’d wandered back to some coven or another after the queen’s ascension. Ari couldn’t have passed herself off as some green newly-seeded acolyte if her life depended on it (and it did), so Kachai Coven’s relative indifference towards her past was an absolute blessing.

Only the Grand Matron had recognized who she truly was.

Ari sighs. In so many ways, having her slate wiped clean was a gift beyond measure, but… Once, she could’ve righted a spiritual aberration like Nila’s in a matter of minutes. Now, with her most defining techniques hidden away to save her own hide, she’s working with a hand and both feet tied.

She’d had to pretty much rebuild the kid’s pneuma from the ground up and then carve her spiritual circulatory system out vein by vein. It was a long, grueling process, and to make matters more exhausting she’d had to shield the poor dove’s mind the entire time. Having one’s entire spiritual core uprooted was absolutely excruciating. Ari could head that pain off at the pass with the aid of the Beguiling Flame, one of the eight Exalted Solar Arts, but relying too heavily on the Beguiling Flame for too long carried its own set of equally-dangerous risks for her hapless patient.

It would be no exaggeration at all to say that Ari is the only Preceptor—no, the only witch of any sort—in the Kachai Coven who can do such a thing. She is, in all honesty, the only witch in any coven who has such innate mastery over soulcraft of this variety. Everyone in the fortress knows that of the coven’s preceptors, Ari is the best-suited to handling spiritual aberrations, but only the Grand Matron truly has an inkling of just how much she can do with only the basic pneumatic alignment techniques every witch learns.

And even all of this is merely a flickering candle in the face of the blazing inferno she’d once commanded.

If she’d lost the ability to wield the Exalted Arts after her ignominious death, that would’ve been one thing. But she didn’t. If anything, she’s stronger now than she was as Saint Batira—and she can’t do a damn thing with it. Not if she wants to avoid a second death so soon after the first, or worse. Her dear master was most capable of delivering fates that made death a benediction.

Some time later, Ari ascends the final set of stairs leading up to the Grand Matron’s office in the central tower. Baza’s claws click on the polished wood, never more than a couple steps behind. She’s tired, she’s sore, she could definitely use a bath, and the mekhode inside her skin sting mightily with the effort of maintaining a steady flow of numina for several hours uninterrupted.

When Ari was younger, she’d suffered endlessly from possessing a soul that was stronger than the body it inhabited. It was her own Sahan who had inked the mekhode upon her skin when she was sixteen, utilizing some no-doubt ancient and mystical technique that Ari has yet to have ever seen or heard about again. It took hours, it hurt like an absolute motherfucker, and she cried so hard she threw up twice and passed out once, but when it was over she’d never again experienced the sorts of colossal pneumatic disruptions that had plagued her early youth.

What good fortune, she reflects sourly, that she’d chanced across a master so capable, so knowledgeable, so generous with her time and energy. Without her sahan’s intervention, not only would she have never amounted to much at all, she probably would’ve kicked the bucket before she even reached the age of majority. With her sahan’s intervention, she’d managed to make it to the ripe old age of 25 before being slaughtered for her master’s sake over a sense of fathomless devotion that had never been returned! Incredible! Another truly awe-inspiring accomplishment to lay at the feet of Saimr’s most holy.

The little overgrown pleasure garden isn’t the only thing Ari’s master nurtured and then abandoned once it outlived its use.

With such cheerful thoughts buzzing around in her head, it’s no surprise that when she finally barges into the Grand Matron’s office without knocking, Baza in tow, she looks like she’s just swallowed a hornet’s nest.

Seated behind her huge, ornate desk, Grand Matron Hvasira doesn’t bother looking up from the stack of parchment in front of her before addressing her visitor. “Are you really that angry about me borrowing your senior disciple every once in a while? Honestly. That boy is wasted on you. I should’ve steered him towards administration when I had the chance.”

“…That’s not why I was angry before, but I’m a little angry about it now.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The Grand Matron flaps her free hand dismissively. “Good luck holding onto him once he passes his Crucible. Mother Tanavi, Mother Rusala, and Mother Misery have all asked me about him.”

Ari can only swallow a sigh. “He can go wherever he wants once he graduates, you know that.” A long pause. “But if Mother Misery thinks she’s got a chance in the Thousand Hells at poaching him off me, she’s dreaming.”

Matrons are a coven’s most skilled masters of the eight Exalted Arts. While technically a Matron and a Preceptor might be of equivalent skill, Matrons are experienced, devoted practitioners hand-picked by a Grand Matron to lead one of the coven’s martial branches.

Every coven is divided into anywhere between two and eight martial branches depending on the number of matrons of distinct talent the coven possesses. Kachai Coven is fortunate enough to boast six matrons of unique skill and is therefore divided into six branches according to the Exalted Art each of its matrons specializes in. Of the five major covens, three have six branches, one has seven, and only one has all eight—and then only on a technicality, as the matron of the final Exalted Art is the only member of the entire coven who practices her discipline (and, Ari might add, she hasn’t mastered that discipline either! She’s hardly a novice! It’s just that the final Exalted Art is so rarely expressed that any talent for it, no matter how mediocre, is prized beyond belief).

Once a young witch passes their Crucible and becomes an Adept, they’re free to serve any martial branch that will accept them—and of course especially talented new Adepts might be bombarded with requests from multiple branches. Ambren would likely become one such Adept. Truly, the Grand Matron isn’t wrong: Ari is very lucky that he chose to apprentice under her, especially considering she has next to no aptitude for the Exalted Art he specializes in. She had asked him multiple times when he was still an Acolyte if he was really, super sure he wanted to tie his fate to a master who could teach him only the bare basics of his discipline when there were far more suitable alternatives who would have eagerly taken him on, but Ambren had been quite certain.

Sometimes she can’t help but feel guilty anyway.

The Grand Matron carefully sets down her pen, rotates her wrist to elicit a few satisfying cracks, and then leans back in her chair with a bone-weary sigh. On the parts of her face left uncovered by her golden mask—carved into a shape reminiscent of a wolf’s snarling muzzle–her tanned skin looks sallower than usual, and her typically unimpeachable dark brown crown braid is littered with fly-aways. “I assume I don’t have to ask if you had any trouble sorting out that peasant girl.”

Ari tips her head. “Nah. Of course not. But if you don’t mind skipping the bullshit small-talk part, Ambren mentioned you wanted to see me personally.”

Grand Matron Hvasira emits a dry sound that might be called a chuckle, if one was being favorable, and stands up from her desk. Like Ari, she’s remarkably tall and well-built for a Saimerian woman. Also like Ari, there’s probably some godsblood somewhere far back in her family tree. Some people are just naturally large and robust, of course, but large, robust, and exceptionally magically adept? That’s usually a fine hint at divine heritage.

With a snap of the Grand Matron’s fingers, the faint orange flames on the tallow candles and lanterns scattered about her office brighten cheerily, and the heavy wooden door behind Ari clicks shut. A moment later, a line of script carved into the frame flares to life with a soft hum.

This is a silencing spell, of course, and the fact that the Grand Matron is bothering with it immediately puts Ari on edge.

She eyeballs her elder suspiciously as the woman leisurely moves to the fine cabinet in the corner and withdraws a heavy glass bottle of amber wine and two glasses.

“That bad, huh?” Ari asks.

“Something like that.” Grand Matron Hvasira returns to her desk and busies herself pouring two generous glasses of cider-colored wine before pushing one in Ari’s direction and resuming her seat. “Drink first,” she advises.

Despite the anxious churning in her gut, Ari complies wordlessly, sinking into the cushioned armchair opposite the Grand Matron that’s reserved for guests and letting the warm, nutty aroma of the wine numb her nose a bit before she downs her first sip. Baza settles silently next to her.

The wine is a better vintage than she’s had in some time—though she makes good coin on a preceptor’s stipend, and though trade to the north improved after the war’s end, some goods are simply harder to come by here than they would be in the more temperate, bustling central and southern provinces.

Once her glass is half empty, Ari clears her throat. “Well, I’m as ready as I’m going to get, I think.”

Grand Matron Hvasira grunts but doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, she rifles through the daunting stack of papers on her desk and withdraws a worryingly high-quality scroll. Ari doesn’t have to examine it closely to feel the faint, burnt-out essence of a spent protective seal lingering on the parchment.

Oh. That’s not good. That’s a very expensive piece of paper.

The Grand Matron offers the rolled-up scroll to Ari, who accepts it with the reluctance of someone being handed a pissed-off venomous serpent. She unfurls it with a clouded brow, scans it once with great haste, and immediately freezes. Penned in the tidy, ornate hand of an experienced scribe and sandwiched between two hunks of flowery filler text are a few simple lines that turn Ari’s gut to stone:

During the week of the spring solstice, the following dignitaries and disciples from the Kachai Coven are most graciously invited to join their fellows and partake in the Royal Palace of Tsimeda’s inaugural celebration of the Rites of Devotion in Her Worship’s honor.

Grand Matron Hvasira Eichani

Matron Tanavi Barvuri

Matron Asali ei-Haora

Matron Enahi Nzameni

Matron Jairani Udzelari

Matron Rusala Oghamani

Matron Dzamia Teiluri

Preceptor Lenara Hanjaveni

Preceptor Arivasi ei-Gazra

…

The letter continues on in this vein for several paragraphs, providing exact details for travel, food, lodging, and the ceremony itself, but Ari’s mind has turned to fuzz well before she reaches them, endlessly circulating with the afterimage of her own alias.

Arivasi ei-Gazra. Not her birth name, naturally, but close enough. Arivasi of Gazra. Unremarkable from start to end: a peasant’s name, or an orphan’s, imparting only the place of her “birth”. There’s truth in that, too. The swathe of charming broadleaf forest called Gazra was where she crawled out of the mass grave that held her broken corpse for two years. Only the locals had known the name of that anonymous stretch of forest and by now all of them were dead or dispersed; it had seemed a relatively safe bet to adopt it as her byname.

The Grand Matron is looking everywhere but at her.

Her ribcage is a vise around her heart; her lungs are filled with tufts of cotton. The room around her is wispy and immaterial. She forces herself to cycle her breathing, to force the panic welling in her throat to recede by cataloguing every detail of that air’s progress through her body.

Baza whines, very quietly, and puts her head in Ari’s lap. Ari gratefully scratches her soft, floppy ears.

Alright. Alright. She’s fine. None of this is about her.

Her sahan doesn’t know. Of this, Ari is certain. If she knew, she would already have sent someone to handle her former disciple swiftly and discreetly (Ari dares not consider the idea that she might deign to come personally, to grant her worthless apprentice the honor of a true and final death by her own hands. It would be beneath her). This truly has nothing to do with her—the very idea is absurd to the point of hilarity—and yet she cannot stop the tremors in her fingers.

Once she’s sure her voice won’t break, she speaks. “Wow. Big party.” Her tone is flat to the point of monotony, but it’s the best she can do.

She raises the wine glass to her lips and drains the other half in one go, heedless of the droplets that trail down her chin.

Grand Matron Hvasira hums noncommittally, neither fretful nor pitying. All at once, she reminds Ari so much of Saint Nehasi–the Grand Matron’s own sahan—that it strikes her with the force of a blow to the solar plexus. Once upon a time, the Red Princes had called Nehasi the Black Iron Bitch, and she’d deserved every word. When she took Hvasira as her disciple, those same princes sneeringly referred to her as the Little Iron Lady.

There wasn’t a lord alive now who’d dare use that moniker in hearing distance of Kachai’s Grand Matron.

“Yeah,” the Little Iron Lady says simply. “It is. It’ll be the queen’s first proper Rites of Devotion ceremony since she ascended. The whole fucking continent’ll turn out.”

It’s not even an exaggeration. Every lord, every merchant guild, every prominent mage, every general in Saimr will be scrambling for an invitation to an event like this. Rites of Devotion are spiritually significant for the queen’s flock, magically significant for the queen herself, and politically significant for every power player across Ulor—and probably beyond, given the queen’s lineage. It’s the most prime opportunity possible for the ambitious, the conniving, the desperate, and the just plain curious to build new alliances, sabotage rivals, arrange marriages, curry favor with the new crop of favored officials, establish a name for oneself in duels or competitions, and potentially impress the queen herself with a sufficiently lavish offering.

A gathering like this could set the tone of the queen’s rule for years to come, for ill or for good. It will be grand. It will be expensive. It will be dangerous.

Ari could not possibly have less desire to attend, but she was invited by name. If she doesn’t show up, it’s a slight to the crown—but she’s also merely a single humdrum preceptor. It would be a… very minor slight. It’s not like she cares literally at all about her own reputation and really, the best case scenario for her is to be overlooked and forgotten. If she feigns illness or whatever, the worst that happens is a few people she’s probably never met and doesn’t care about bad-mouth her for a day and then forget she was ever supposed to attend in the first place.

The tight knot of fear in her chest loosens. Hah. What an overreaction, and for no reason!

She glances up at the Grand Matron. Her relief must show on her face, because the woman across from her just shakes her head. “Finish reading the list of invitees.”

Perplexed, Ari looks back down at the scroll and discovers that the list of names does in fact continue past her own. There are maybe fifteen more, but there are only three that make her heart clench with utter dread.

Senior Disciple Ambren Ivellios

Disciple Tselai Vatsalavi

Disciple Ranan ei-Vaomeze

Fuuuuuuuck. Her own disciples? All three of them?!

“Fell Empress have mercy,” Ari says limply.

“Not one of her better-known traits, I’m afraid,” the Grand Matron replies.

Ari sets the scroll down on the desk and squeezes the bridge of her nose until she sees stars behind her eyelids.

Despair.

She has to go. How can she not? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her disciples. As their master, she has an obligation to attend, to guide and encourage them, to protect and support them. It’s not about saving face as a preceptor; if she doesn’t go, no one else is going to fight for her disciples as hard as she would. The other preceptors and matrons will have their own disciples to show off. They might not let any harm come to hers, but they’ll be in a prime position to shunt them off to the side so their apprentices can shine all the brighter.

Her brain whirs feverishly.

Ranan was a street urchin before the coven took him in. If he plays his cards right, he could spin himself a great many more opportunities for his future than remaining at Kachai, if that’s what he wants. Tselai is a lordling, a close cousin of Shenevi’s Royal Governor (and a relative of the former Red Prince Velaizo, more distantly) and second in line to inherit the Governor’s estate. Of course he has to go; this is a perfect chance for him to build connections that will benefit him enormously later.

And Ambren—Ambren is an exile, forced out of his grasping, shitty, superstitious mid-rate clan when he was just a kid. Even if Ambren doesn’t care about getting sweet revenge on them, Ari does. She wants him to strut around before them, proud and accomplished, a personal guest of the queen herself (that’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s true that being invited to this ceremony by name is a significant achievement).

Ari drops her head into her hands, defeated. “Shit.”

The Grand Matron just nods, utterly unsurprised. She pours Ari a second glass of wine, which at least proves she has a more merciful heart than her old master. “I’ll be holding a proper meeting with everyone on that list later this week. We’ve got a lot to prepare and not a lot of time to do it. None of your brats have heard the news yet—I don’t care if you tell them yourself, but for fuck’s sake don’t let them blab about it. Ranan, especially.”

Ari drinks as much of the second glass as she can manage in a single swallow. It burns all the way down. Her head is pounding.

“It’ll be packed.”

“Yeah,” the Grand Matron says flatly.

“That many people… If someone from back then just happens to recognize me… If she finds out…” Ari trails off helplessly. “What in the hells am I supposed to do?”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it.”

That is decidedly not a good plan when approaching anything involving Ari’s sahan. She’ll—have to come up with something. Some kind of contingency plan to keep the kids safe if nothing else. On the one hand, Sahan has no real reason to target anyone but Ari (and possibly the Grand Matron, if she finds out she was complicit in hiding Ari’s identity). On the other hand, Sahan is a monster. If she’s angry enough at Ari’s deception, she won’t hesitate to make her precious disciple’s last moments as miserable as possible at the cost of a few innocent lives.

“I’m getting tired of looking at your pitiful face, and I don’t have another bottle of this wine in storage,” Grand Matron Hvasira grouses. “Down that glass and get out of here. Sleep on it. It can’t be that fucking hard to keep your head down for a week.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Ari deadpans. But she does finish the second glass of wine, and she does leave directly afterwards. Baza follows her faithfully as she wanders the halls in a daze, stopping periodically to stare at the sky through the windows. The few people she passes look at her with some concern, but they don’t stop to bother her.

It’s fully dark by the time she finally drags her sorry carcass to her quarters in the western tower. Some people call it the Tower of Masters; it’s where the coven’s matrons, preceptors, and some senior adepts have their lodgings.

Her own apartment isn’t huge or anything, but it’s comfortable and well-appointed with a private bath and a modest private kitchen, though she’s in no mood to make use of either at the moment. She doesn’t so much as light a lantern or kick off her boots after she closes the door.

For a long while she simply sits on the edge of her bed and stares at the wall. Baza hops up next to her. They huddle together in silence until Ari finally heaves a deep, gusty sigh and wraps her arm around Baza’s long neck. The furry body next to her is whip-thin and bony, but the comfort radiating from it is indescribable. Baza echoes her tired sigh, her big dark eyes just visible in the moonlight sneaking through the curtains over the big arched window on the opposite wall.

With no one else around to hear, Ari scratches the dog’s chin and whispers, “Ah, my Varul… Are you excited to see your old owner?”

For a few breaths there’s no response. But a moment later, “Baza” lifts her black lips to expose teeth that seem suddenly to be too long and too sharp to fit in her slender muzzle. The growl that pours from her chest is no sound that any dog has ever made.

Ari can’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, me too.” She strokes the dog’s silky ears, and immediately all is as it should be. Baza–-Varul—blinks wet black eyes at her, snuffles her cheek with a wet black nose.

Gradually, Ari becomes aware of an aroma emanating from the little-used desk pushed up against the wall next to the door. Following her own nose, Ari lights her wall sconces with a snap of her fingers and then moves to the desk to investigate.

On her desk is a wooden tray laden with a small, carefully-covered clay crock and a thick hunk of dark rye bread thoroughly wrapped in wax paper and twine from the kitchens. The crock is still steaming when she lifts the lid, and the mouth-watering aroma of barbecued pork, roasted peppers, and fresh coriander and fenugreek does battle with her nose. Next to the thoughtfully-included spoon is a small, folded, unsigned note penned in a relentlessly elegant hand.

Now you can’t say I never visited the mess hall.

Ambren. Fell Empress bless that kid a thousand times over.

“Aww,” Ari says aloud. “Supper, Varul!”

As expected, Varul makes no move to join her as she sits to eat. She’s not a dog, after all. Her meals don’t come from a bowl.

Ari eats with single-minded intensity, and once she’s done, she crawls directly into bed without bothering to change out of her uniform. Varul rests her long head on Ari’s stomach.

She’s expecting to spend all night tossing and turning. She doesn’t. In fact, she falls asleep almost instantly, exhaustion dragging her ruthlessly under.

She dreams of a wall. She dreams of being suspended upon it. She dreams of a knife through her throat, of the blood that gurgles ceaselessly in her esophagus around it. She dreams of a blade pinned through each shoulder, of the screaming agony in each tender ligament.

She dreams of a figure standing motionless beneath her, watching, examining her like a butterfly pinned to a board. She can’t make out its face, but she knows who it is. She tries to call its name, but all she can manage is a horrible, hoarse moan.

All at once, the figure turns and begins to walk.

Ari doesn’t care about the knife in her throat, about the blades in her shoulders. Suddenly she’s on the ground and she’s crawling, crawling after that indistinct shadow, but she’s not fast enough. There’s dust in her teeth and gravel embedded in her palms and sweat in her eyes. There’s blood leaking in a heavy slug trail behind her.

Please don’t leave me. Please. Sahan, please. Please!

I’m sorry, whatever I did. Whatever I said. Please just come back. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to die. Please come back. Please come back, Sahan. Please take me with you. I just want to be with you.

I don’t want to die. Please help me.

Please.

Please…

***

Pronunciation Guide

Ambren Ivellios: AHM-bren Ee-VEH-lee-ohs

Arivasi ei-Gazra: Ah-ree-VAH-see Eh GAHZ-rah

Hvasira: Hvah-SEE-rah

Mekhode: MEH-khoh-deh. In the Heavenstongue, it means “blood ink”

Ranan ei-Vaomeze: Rah-NAHN Eh Vaoh-MEH-zeh

Tselai Vatsalavi: TSEH-lai Vah-tsah-LAH-vee

Varul: VAH-rool. A Heavenstongue word meaning“famine”