Chapter III:53

It’s not just a wait there in the wings,
all hustle to ready such glorious things,
gears all checked and ropes pulled tight,
oh soon the great reveal will take flight,

proud actors prance swagger and sing,
a show a distraction for that coming,
be it villain or hero’s victory assured,
they fall to a mightier foe yet unheard.

– In the Wings, circa 80 E.R.

The Heart Exposed

Katrisha stepped into a tent after a push at her shoulder. Kiannae and Liora were just behind. The disgruntled paladin turned to glare at Elise, who gave her a look that said they could start then, if she really wanted. Katrisha flopped down awkwardly on a pile of cushions, ill balanced from her hands still bound behind her back. Kiannae fared a little better, and Liora paced, before exhaustion won. She collapsed, and curled in her own corner.

“Well, as your stupid plans go…” Kiannae muttered.

“You, were the one who had to bring some prophetic dream into it.” Katrisha groaned, and convinced the landing would be soft enough flopped over. She tried to wedge one of the pillows between neck and shoulder.

“It wasn’t a dream. I woke in the night, before we’d even left, and… well it was a dream… Like a waking dream, staring over my own shoulder. A spattering of days from here, to…” she huffed, “…who knows when. I woke up there, staring at the fire. I think it was a message, in the only form I would listen to. That I couldn’t let you do this fool thing alone.”

“Still just prophecy,” Katrisha said. It was a struggle to get comfortable with her arms bound. She fiddled with attempts at magic, but the mage-iron proved disruptive enough she didn’t trust it. She might have been able to force off a spell, but it would likely blow up in her face, if it did anything at all. The collar she realized was key, disrupting the flow at the neck. The wrists disrupting the primary extremities of the hands. She could see it was possible to work around this, but would take a great deal of practice most would not have. She could feel her staff nearby, and wondered if it would answer her call. If it would, she convinced herself it would be best not to tip her hand, just yet.

“What do you suppose they’ve done with Jake?” Kiannae asked, ignoring what might have been the larger worry about Wren. She suspected he could handle himself better than most, with such a woman. It was far from something she wanted to ponder.

“Yes, lets worry about him. Fates, I don’t know, maybe just put him in a separate tent cause he’s a man,” Katrisha offered. “Then again, maybe to question him about the others. How many were there, how many children did they take?”

Liora said nothing, but glared at the awkwardly lain woman.

“Don’t blame this on me,” Katrisha challenged her silence. “If we all hadn’t been there,  would you have really done any different?”

Liora looked away. “I don’t know. Six or seven I think. I didn’t know them all. Most were sent out to other enclaves. It was just Jake, and me at the Citadel. Was only really supposed to be him.”

“You didn’t answer my other question,” Katrisha pressed.

“Oh, I did, that was both of my answers. I don’t know what I would have done, but don’t think I’ll thank you, for forcing my conscience to betray me.”

“Your conscience, can’t betray you,” Katrisha protested.

Liora sat there, unbound. Her mother had proved her point. The little woman had taken a direct hit that had left her clothing in dust. That had killed others before, in screaming agony. All without a scratch on her. It gave Katrisha terrible pause that Liora had even tried. That even under those circumstances she could try for her own mother’s life, in such a way. She wondered at the scope of such anger, and powers she did not entirely understand. How Liora fit into the larger puzzle, ever more contrary.

“It does, if you’ve been poisoned by false ideas,” Liora answered, at last, laid down, and turned over.

“I suppose, we can once again, almost agree,” Katrisha said through gritted teeth. She rolled over to glare at a different wall. Disgust held back tears, betrayal that she had chosen to walk a dangerous path for such a twisted woman. Yet a sympathy refused to let go, for all the things that had made her. All the things Katrisha could not be sure of. A faith given, and taken, each against her will. Betrayed by everyone whose duty it was to protect her, because they saw her as broken. Crimes coming down again, not for the first time, but perhaps for the last.

“Such a cheery lot,” said voice from the center of the tent.

Katrisha rolled back over to find her sister glaring at the spirit who stood amidst them. Liora spared the creature a glance, and looked away again. Her expression twisted, as she strained to pretend it wasn’t there. A thing her mother had called Sister. She wasn’t sure which made her hate and fear the other more.

“Taloe?” Kiannae demanded with a wince, and almost prayer of worry.

“Don’t waste your breath,” the spirit groaned, and sat down to rub her face. “Your little pet is far too weak just now. Having my leash ripped from his grasp, both of us forced to manifest, and banished again to the aether… It took a bit out of him. She has grown frightfully strong, my Sister.”

“You… are afraid of her?” Kiannae asked uneasily.

“Yes.”

“What did you mean, you’ve chosen us?” Kiannae pressed. “You’ve not acted as an ally.”

The spirit laughed. “I’m not even sure I’m the prickliest company you lot are keeping. I’ve reasons for the things I say and do, and those I don’t.” She swirled over, and caressed Kiannae’s cheek, looming into her. Kiannae didn’t budge, or even really react.

“I knew this path would bring us to her. I wanted to see you unflinching before her. You did not disappoint. You’ve always wanted to be strong, you are finally learning.” Her fingers fell to the mage-iron collar, and ran along it. She shook the hand as though burned. “Hateful stuff mage-iron. So much nicer ways to bind someone. Though I do admit, few quite so effective. That is if you want to deprive them of any will at all, and why would I want that? What use is the empty adoration of puppets on strings.”

“You seem the sort,” Kiannae challenged.

The spirit swirled back, and paced. “You know nothing, of what I, or we have been. Rhaea and I, Estae and I. I don’t even know anymore, neither of us do. We were each rejected in our own ways. She loved only women, and had the want of men forced upon her. She ripped a hole in her own heart, that only by chance, an eon could twist into a curious cheat. I loved everyone, so what if I wanted to own them? I didn’t mind if my pets played together. Made me smile. Yet only my status as Sunchild, made me more than a Saou. For my mother was one, granted the gifts of a high-born, for a time. For having crafted the laws and practices they lived by, and handing my father his great peace. All things end, and if they are, they begin as well. I know how it began, even if I do not know which I am.”

“How?” Kiannae pressed.

The spirit sat, and looked to her, a dubious expression crossed her face. “Envy,” she said, and closed her eyes. “After long enough, we each grew to envy the other. Perfect, glorious, beloved, innocent, Firstborn Rhaea. The freedom, of wild, and intemperate Estae. She who always came to rule in the end, when father would leave to prepare a new world.”

The spirit glanced to Liora, who had sat up, and was glaring at her. “My sister knows well the curse of the All Father, so do I. A bond on desire, part self-imposed, part inflicted by arrogant men. We cannot feel right, so we try to feel nothing at all. Down such paths lies all manner of cruelties. The things we do, so often in ignorance, much as those that were done to us. Make others hate themselves, for not fitting our vision.”

Liora sneered.

The spirit huffed, and swirled away.

⁃ ◇ ❖ ◇ ⁃

Wren stepped into a tent at the urging of a guard.

Rowana stood with her back to him a moment, then absently dropped the cloak. She fished a new, and simple white gown from a pile. She turned, seeming to do nothing, by intent, to hide herself, and yet succeeded, mostly. A mocking smile crossed her lips, and she casually slipped into it.

“What do you want?” Wren asked.

She tiptoed casually towards him, biting her lip. It was a remarkably contrary impression of a woman of innocence. Eyes that begged approval, that she was pretty, and not bad for being teasing, and provocative. She reached out, and he did not cringe, but did lean back slightly. Her hand fell to his mage-iron collar instead of his cheek. She ran her finger along it, and the shackles fell away with three sudden clicks, and clattered to the floor.

“Really, I’ve nothing to fear from you. Your sisters though… my daughter… Really I should have left her bound.” She turned, and strode back across her tent. On a bead of cushions she lounged back with a casual, if prideful, girlish air. “Still, how can I bear to have my own child bound in such hateful things? Even if all of it is for their safety. You mortals are so prone to harming one another.” Her fingers absently ran up and down the center of her. Chest to belly in a slow loop, almost mesmerizing.

“What do you want?” Wren repeated.

“Isn’t that obvious?” She smirked.

“Not the least obvious, why you would imagine I would be interested.”

“Because I’m beautiful, and ever so wanting. Girlish and sweet, experienced and wise, playful and young.”

“You aren’t at least half of those things,” Wren said. “Your hair belies your youthful manner, and face. On the topic of sweet, need we discuss the fear you can so absently put into those men? By your own admission, wisdom would imply you should keep your daughter bound. Nor am I all so sure I am no threat to you. For what it matters, I do not feel the least desire in your aura.”

She laughed, got back up. Another tiptoed stepped towards him, again with that bitten lip. She added a down turned chin, and upturned eyes. “So you do agree, I am beautiful, girlish, and playful then?”

“Perhaps a bit like a cat, that’s caught a mouse.”

“Or a bird.” Her smile was contrary, innocence that one struggled to see as a mask. It did not matter how strong the suspicions of what lay underneath.

“What do you want?” Wren demanded once more. “Because I do not feel desire for these things you imply.”

She stepped up to him, and ran her fingertips over his cheek. “I want what you want. A world of peace and love, security and freedom.” She drew a deep breath, and closed her eyes. “All the fun things we have time for, when we stop fighting.”

“I’ve seen all too well, what becomes of freedom,” Wren answered her claim. “It seems incompatible with these others, and I will not take their will from them. That is a deeper death, than any blade.”

“So much freedom as can be,” she obliged with a tilt of her head, and a bit of a stricken expression. “If you like, I can be the harsh voice of command, and you can just be the pretty one, my darling pet. Not your fault, then. These things that must be done.”

“Please, drop this act,” Wren said. “I’ve no interest in a woman who does not want me, and least of all one trying to play me like a pawn.”

She stepped back, and squirreled up her face in annoyance. “You want to feel my desire?” she asked with a harsh air.

Wren said nothing to what seemed a hollow threat. It had been years since he met a woman who could hide any significant amount of want from him, even if he was in no mood for it. In this, was a grave error, that the women he was used, to were largely not the sort to hide. Wren fell to his knees as something like a roaring fire washed over him. His heart trembled, his lips fell open, his breath caught. It felt like nothing he had ever known, but he did know it.

He stared at the floor of the tent for some time.

Rowana strode back to her bed, sat down. She considered him curiously, wondering how much longer it would take to put him in his place.

“You want to be wanted,” he swallowed. “That’s all you want, all else you can feel, downed under it. It is the desire to be loved, and for them to prove it with deeds.” He looked up with such pity on his face that she recoiled in shock.

Confidence fell to a maddening pout, that sank into a sorrowful frown, and at last tears.

“Why do you think your tears will work on me? You’ve taken my family hostage.”

Her face grew stern instead. “You, have intruded where you do not belong. One of you may be a god, one of you… usually is.” She stood up, and marched towards him. “That does not give you the right to meddle with my child.”

“What gives you the right?” Wren demanded back, looking up at her.

“She’s, my, child,” Rowana said with faltering disbelief, as though it were a fool question. Her tone very much that of a petulant girl told something she felt meaninglessly unfair. All at once mixed with a voice much older, reproving a troublesome youth. “They have stolen such wonderful things from her. The feeling of being adored, and longed for, the pleasures of her form. Even if she must be taught they are there.”

“Like they taught you?” Wren demanded. “These, are things that should be found, not forced.”

“How will she find them, running from them? How much of her life will she lose to the lies they rooted in her heart? How many innocents will she become the tormentor of? This false faith must be broken, and it is one and the same to restore want to her heart.”

She knelt down, and unexpectedly brushed her fingers over his lips. Wren’s head could not help but follow, as an emptiness of longing filled his chest.

“You see, why you are no threat to me?” She leaned closer. “No matter how powerful, or great you are, it is not in your nature to harm me.”

“We think she loves the boy, Jake,” Wren spoke. A last hope to dissuade the woman from this path.

“No surprise, the want of a man is rooted in this curse. Would you have me restore the boy instead, and let her love for him return her, in time, to the fold? A bird in a golden cage, till she surrenders herself to him?”

Wren looked away.

“I like you.” She put a finger beneath his chin, that drew his gaze back. “You are wrong, about at least one thing. I can feel one other desire, the longing for a man. If it is to bear him a child. You are like no other, all the gentle, sweetness of a woman, bound up in this feral male animal. It wants so easy, and sometimes the wrong things. Sometimes we like them, and sometimes you don’t care. I remember you, when we’ve danced before. I bore you a brood of a little gods, noble, and kind. Who ended this age of strife, and showed the world a better way.”

“We’ve had an age of peace,” Wren protested thinly.

“A false peace, in this world. In so many others the Council failed its charge long ago.” Rowana turned away, disappointed by his response. “It ends, so quickly when it ends, and these little islands of darkness, they bloom like a plague. A thing that kills all that is not it, and dies in the fire it creates. That is if it does not bring dragons down upon them to cleanse the world first.”

Rowana walked back to her bed, got down, and arched her back with a languid stretch as she reached for a little box. She held this pose a moment, then plucked out a stack of cards. Her legs folded under her as she turned, and lay a card down before her.

The King reversed, a dagger in his hand. The detail stood out in the mind. The Queen reversed, to the right, her carnal face bare, a figure made to be desired. The Lovers reversed, between, not quite touching, or looking the same way. Her other hand wandered absently over her. The Sun reversed, the fall of a prideful man of great power, below the center. The Sword, upright, the key above. Yet in its upright position it was struck in the ground, an end to the war. Though he wondered in abstract if it should all be seen the other way, from where she sat. An understanding of deeper game, that slipped along the edge of awareness. A warning, ignored.

She looked up, holding his gaze. The Flame, she placed below the Queen, a dragon made of fire. The Void, she placed below The King. She looked down as though surprised, her hand trembling as she touched that final card again. She pulled out an unexpected card, and placed it below the middle, The Stag reversed. “He has awoken,” she said breathlessly. “Abass returns. The King of Beasts, The Mind of the Abyss. The Hunger for Power without end. The Envy, and Maw of the Dark Star.”

She dropped her cards, and clutched at her hair at each side of her head. She shook, and shook, and shook. Tears began again to flow with a desperation that no suspicion could make one doubt. Her trembling lips were clearly muttering a word. “No, no, no, no…”

Wren moved slowly closer, and sat beside her, looking down at the cards. He lay a hand on her trembling shoulder, and she threw herself into his arms sobbing. “I won’t let it end,” he heard her say in a tiny voice. “I won’t let him destroy the world.”

“Of course, you won’t,” Wren assured her. He was uncertain what to make of any of it. His eyes could not turn from the swirling darkness of the eclipse painted on the card. The enchantments seemed to move, and roil. It gave the illusion the ring of fire was alive. That the light of the sun behind the stag’s head seemed to mocked him, as the details faded to silhouette.

She looked up into his eyes, pleading, but her expression soured. “You,” she said furiously. “You… are not the one.”

She stood up, backed away, turned, and marched for the door of her tent, just as someone stepped in. It was hard to recognize for a moment, even as a black mage-iron blade came to Rowana’s throat.

“Hello,” Etore said.

⁃ ◇ ❖ ◇ ⁃

Etore had watched them all walk away, sneering to herself. She wasn’t even sure what her instinct had been. Was it to get away where she could be useful, or to flee? As she watched them go, she knew the answer. She would have cursed if she was not determined to risk nothing that might reveal her. She slipped swiftly off the trail, and into the woods where the assassins were leading the others. Children still held them at spear point. Like little pawns in a fancy chess game she’d found in lord’s study.

Etore almost saw a way it worked out for the better. Not that she liked it much, but they had already surrendered to the children. Maybe with her help they could get away, deal with the problem more delicately. Of course the exit strategy was utterly lacking, and the whole stupid plan had to rely on her. All assuming there was a plan, and they were not all idiots, herself included for following them.

She felt something in the shadows, and spun. Her blade out in an instant, but the stance itself was met with a parry. The contact barely rang as her blade slid off a stave, through a twist that minimized the contact. Etore huffed and glared at the woman lurking in the shadows of the trees.

“Of course you’re working with them,” Etore growled under her breath.

“No, I’m not,” Selene said, though her head wobbled slightly.

“The herbs ease the discomfort. They make it easier to find the shadowed place, but they do not help you,” Etore answered.

“You’re one to talk. Half the times I’ve ever seen you, you had a drink in your hand.”

“Slows me down to their level,” Etore smirked.

“I can relate,” Selene answered. “Not that I ever liked being on their level, but the pain… is a thing.” She shifted her stance to one less confrontational, and put a hand over her wounded shoulder.

Etore returned her blade to its scabbard. “Fine, they want them alive. That means they are prisoners, that means they will have to put them somewhere, and when they do, we get them out. Quietly.”

“A reasonable plan,” Selene said, “but it hardly gets me what I want.”

“We can’t always get what we want,” Etore said. “I can’t imagine this getting anymore out of control, is something you want instead. The longer that lot are kept prisoner, the more insane I am sure the world will get. You remember Mordove, don’t you? You’ve heard about Corinthia, and my Little Bird. Who knows what could come down on us? You know, what is north of here? Bit of a walk, but not an hour as the crow, or other things might fly.”

Selene sneered. “Fine. We’ll do this your…” Selene spun, and parried the swipe of a huge white figure. It had the body of a well-endowed woman, and the extremities of a wolf. That was except for cat like claws, that scratched along mage-iron under her grip

“Oh, fates,” Etore muttered.

Selene was swung aside like a rag doll, and lost her hold, into a tumble through the underbrush. The hulking Sylvan tossed aside the weapon, and came after Etore.

Ulri slipped under, or around every strike. She moved through shadow with an ease Etore could not match. The hulking creature caught her by both hands, and threw her to the ground.

The weight of her was more than Etore could hope to struggle against, though she tried. She had her pinned. “Hmm, Elise will be so happy I caught you.” Ulri sniffed her, and laughed. “You even smell a bit like her,” the Sylvan growled low near her ear.

Etore answered with a growl of her own.

Ulri laughed again, but turned her head at the sound of a footstep, and Etore made a desperate gamble. Not the most effective move normally against a woman, but she wasn’t wearing anything. A knee connected hard, and there was a faint yelp, that bought Selene a moment to leap on, and grab the sylvan by the forehead. “Sleep!” she commanded.

Ulri collapsed atop Etore who grunted as the wind was knocked out of her, and struggled to breath. Clutching claws still held her wrists.

“Little help,” Etore managed, further muffled, twisting her head to get her face out of fur.

Selene groaned as she tried to push the bulky woman over, and Etore wrested her hands free.

“How did you do that?” she demanded rolling her neck, and keeping an eye on the slumbering white furred giant.

“Normally it only would work on a willing mind,” Selene answered, and fished up her staff. “Fortunately hers has been bent to greater wills, and as elder of the Order, mine is greater than hers.”

Etore huffed. “So you are one of them.”

“No,” Selene said. “By rights I am above them. Now, if we are going with your plan, we will need to move fast, there is no telling how long she will be out.”

“We could… make sure she doesn’t get up,” Etore offered, but it was clear even she didn’t like the idea much.

“No,” Selene said.

“Fine,” Etore said, and put her blades back in their scabbards. Her face was that a woman both relieved, and feeling a fool, as she looked away towards where the others had gone. The fight had been quiet for the most part. Thankfully the arrogant lump hadn’t howled, or called for aid.

⁃ ◇ ❖ ◇ ⁃

“Getting cozy?” Etore asked, glancing to Wren sitting on the bed in the corner.

“She was crying,” Wren answered, and stood up as Etore pushed the startled woman back with the flat of her blade.

The two were suddenly in another position. “Nice try,” Etore remarked. With no further warning, and no space between, Rowna was face down. Etore held a hand behind her back, with a knee to her spine. “Nice position this one, thank you, seems one to remember in the company I now keep.”

Rowana tried to scream, but Etore covered her mouth. “Try all you want, I’m sure they were expecting to hear your muffled cries soon enough. Bet you’re a screamer, woman who plays the little girl at your age. This is what they made you though, isn’t it? Some twisted wish of hateful men gone wrong.”

Rowana tried to bite her hand, but to no avail, the way it was cupped. “Alright already,” Etore said getting annoyed with the struggle, and glancing to Wren. “You do know the trick to…”

Etore was thrown suddenly from the tent, leaving a tear through the wall. She tumbled, and staggered back up as rebels jumped to attention.

“Fates, of course she’s some kind of mage too,” Etore grumbled.

Elise stepped out of the shadows, and Etore pulled her long sword as well.

“Hello again,” Elise said drawing her blade. “I”d say lay down your weapons, but we both know you aren’t going to do that, are you?” She shifted into a ready stance, then struck without warning.

The fight was mostly invisible. Slashes connecting in positions that skipped around the fire.

Others moved to help, but Elise snapped, “Back!”

The two circled one another, furious and huffing.

“She needs to learn her place this one. I should have claimed her that night back in Fallowsend. I let my desires, and orders get the better of me. I’ve paid the price for that, we all have.”

More slashes, strikes, sparks, as positions jumped around the fire. Suddenly their blows carried through, and the world went gray.

Elise jumped back. “Now, now,” she said glancing to Wren, but not taking the other eye off Etore. “This is something for us to settle. Don’t get involved little bird. Besides, you brought a friend.”

Wren was thrown to the ground as the world snapped back to the orange of fire light. Rowana had him pinned to the ground, his face in the dirt. She leaned into his ear. “You’re not the one, but you are something… perhaps I will keep you. You’ll warm to me, they always do.” She shivered as she felt her presence have an effect on him.

Even pinned Wren still caught some of the exchanges through shadow. Etore had the advantage, as long as she had two blades. Her long sword however was chipping, and marring under the frightful searing blade. Fortunately the short seemed to handle it. As soon as long sword shattered the advantage switched. Etore was forced into retreat, desperately trying not to fall back into the onlookers. They seemed to have obeyed the command to stay out of it, but she figured that would be the end of her private duel.

Etore threw the broken sword, followed by one of her hair pins in a desperate maneuver. A step through shadow by Elise was almost enough to dodge. Darkness crackling around the thrown mage-iron struck her chest as it passed.

“Oh, you are good,” Elise groaned. “It’s going to be a treat sorting you out.” She staggered up, and wiped the sweat from her lip.

“Who’s to say I won’t be sorting you out?” Etore answered, and the two circled again. She smiled with a sudden twisted grin. “You know, I loved you once.”

“What?” Elise said bewildered, and Etore took the advantage to push her on the defensive.

“We shared our darling little bird, right till the end. As the world turned to light, and I looked past it all…”

“What are you babbling about?” Elise snapped, her face contorted as she struggled to push Etore back on defense.

“I turned to you, as the world turned not to the gray of twilight, but the white of a new dawn. I embraced, that if there was a world after, if there was anything… after…”

Elise lunged through the distraction, Etore dodged. An elbow to the back of the woman’s neck dazed her, and sent Elise face-first into the dirt.

“If he was pretty enough, or she was man enough… So were you,” Etore said over her, holding her at sword point to the back. She looked around.

“Sister…” Rowana said as though confused. “You have taken another form…”

Etore glanced to the woman pinning Wren in the dirt.

“Let him go, he’s mine,” Etore demanded.

Rowana released Wren, who scrambled up, and to Etore’s side.

“I’m not her,” Etore said. “Whoever you think I am, but I can relate.” She looked to Wren. “Take her sword.”

Wren bent down, and pried the hilt from Elise’s reluctant grasp. Etore held out her hand, and he gingerly handed the frightful thing over.

Etore tested the blade with a few cautious swings. “Yes, this… is what I’ve been…”

She was brought down by a sudden lash of lightning. Wren jumped to her aid, but found a sword to his throat, and looked up to find it held by Amalia.

“That was not your place, daughter,” Rowana said sternly.

Amalia bowed, and took a knee, without taking away her sword point. “Better, to ask forgiveness for action, than for a failure to act.”

Etore groaned, tried to move, but barely tensed.

“Besides, she’ll be fine, particularly if what you think is true.”

Rowana stood, and brushed herself off, taking it all in, just as four more figures exited another tent. Two rubbed wrists of hands freshly freed. Katrisha stepped to the front, as the fourth lingering at the back.

Rowana looked to the woman hiding. “You betray me dearest?” she demanded of Selene, who reluctantly stepped through.

“No, I only seek to save you, from the thing that has taken you,” Selene answered the challenge.

“You mean the thing that gave me to you. I was made to be someone’s perfect little pet, and you let me be. I gave you a child you couldn’t have, and you gave me what I needed, someone to belong to. No more. I’m free now, and I will heal this wound you would let fester. We shall steal back the world they took, and return them, like the animals they are, to their place.”

“Is that the Faun talking, or the Woman?” Kiannae demanded. “Do you not see? You are becoming them. Those who did this to you.”

“Have you seen what they make of themselves? We can make their true desires far more comfortable for us all. Where they belong, where we bred them to be… Almost into subservience. Until we got weak, and arrogant, and they proved we had made them too smart for our own good. Fates forbid, you want a little companionship…” She let out a harsh breath, and shook her head.

With a flick of her wrist all who defied her were lifted off the ground. Each almost as though caught by the chin, but also the limbs. The imp of a woman grinned in a menacing manner. “You fools thought Aster was power, but she was all bluster, and show. The humble ones, that know we are all but children, are the ones to watch. We understand how the powers in play work. You are gods, playing mortals, but I’m not in your deal. If I truly threaten you, your powers, even awareness will awake to correct the issue. That is within the rules, precisely because I am outside of them. I’m not a threat, I’m not going to hurt you.”

She walked over, reached up, and placed her hand on Liora’s cheek. “I will find someone to do what I cannot. Fix her. Even if it is not our poor Elise.”

Elise got up, and looked around. She took back her sword from where it had fallen, and put it away in its scabbard. A few steps backed away from whatever was going to happen. Something terrible gnawed at her. She had seen such a show of power end poorly for her Lady before, but it was clear she wished matters in her own hands.

Rowana turned to Kiannae. “Your mother says hello, my kitten,” and to Katrisha, “and granddaughter moon.”

Katrisha tried to speak but couldn’t. Her eyes fixed on a growing golden glow at Rowana’s heart. A sense of something shifting in her overpowering presence.

“The world is full of mirrors,” Rowana spoke, shifting again into childlike glee. She stepped back, and held her dress in. “Some make us look skinny…” She spun letting it flare out. “Some make us look fat.” She walked over to Katrisha, and ran the backs of her fingers over her cheek. “Some, make us look kind, or cruel, old or young. You made your deals, or was it you?” The tone of her voice was erratic. Childish sing song wavering with mocking spite.

She turned back to Kiannae. “Have you finally fooled me you imp?” She stepped over, grabbed hold of her heart, and pulled out the spirit forcefully. The two glared at one another. “I can’t control you.” Her lips quivered in a girlish pout.

“She finally remembered something, that she will never accept. She loves me.”

Rowana huffed. “Good. Speak true Sister, is this her? The real one?”

“Yes,” the spirit answered. “She does not believe it herself, but she is.”

“You are real as well?” Rowana pressed.

“I am, Estae,” she answered, choosing at last. “Whatever else I know, whatever other lives I lived. I know, it has been so long to rebuild myself, but you must let us go. No good comes from us warring over them. Why must it be war?”

Rowana looked indecisive.

“You know Sasha said goodbye to me too,” Estae spoke pleadingly. “She’s moved on.”

“Fates, another, that’s all we need. Three fates at last!”

“I’m not sure it’s her, or rather, I think she chose to be someone else,” Estae answered.

“A fourth Fate… That’s too many.” Rowana looked worried. “There have never been four fates… What… what even would she be the Fate of?”

“Queens, so far as I can tell. Mortal rulers.”

“To perish, or become gods?” Rowana chided, laughed, and hummed. “That means there are seven now… So soon. Perhaps we can avert the end. We could convince them, before there is an eighth. That’s her cursed plan, isn’t it?” She glanced to Katrisha. “Shatter it all by too many hands pulling at the seams.”

Estae answered instead. “I don’t want to. If it’s the end, I am content. If they succeed, I will endure. I’m bored, time for something new, even if it is nothing. Nothing, at least can’t be bored.”

“You have chosen the Abyss, this is why he has risen. This is why the cards tell me the dark one has returned,” Rowana growled, growing manic.

“No, I’ve seen the Sun for what it is.” Estae’s hand shot out, snatched a silver cord peaking from Rowana’s gown. She snapped the fine chain, pulling away a pendant. Everyone suspended, fell. Most staggered off their feet to the ground, Kiannae more than most. The spirit came apart in wisps, and Amalia dove for the glimmering shard.

It looked like a crystal, caught before the sun, as she came up holding it. She glanced around at her dazed enemies, and pulled her prize close.

Rowana pawed at her chest, and looked little more than a broken girl who’d had a pretty bauble stolen from her. Her lips and body tremble, and she looked up pleadingly.

Amalia stepped back, and brought the broken chain to her neck. It wove around, seeming to move on its own, holding the shard at her chest. “Alright, my turn.”

Selene ran to Rowana, grabbed her, and dragged her away.

“What…” Kiannae groaned.

Amalia held out her hand to Kiannae. “Join me, Ki. End this.”

Kiannae staggered up. “No, it can’t be. You aren’t…”

“Oh, there is more than one… More than one who thinks of you as Ki. To whom it is her true name, spoken ever so sweetly by her twin.”

“I’d sooner die,” Kiannae growled.

“Then, perhaps one too many.” She lunged with her sword, but Kiannae stepped aside into shadow.

Amalia came around on an opponent, suddenly armed with her staff. It seemed though a thing made of shadow, and inky haze. “You… You left that in the field…” She narrowed her eyes in a place that ever wanted to play tricks on the senses. A stillness of tension on the verge of motion aching to begin.

“No, I left the root of mother Thaea, at the edge of a forest. You have stepped into my domain.”

“What are you?” Amalia hissed, as they snapped back in new positions, and all backed away.

The firelight seemed brighter, and more imposing after the gray of the shadowed place.

Kiannae again appeared unarmed. “I don’t know what you mean.” She readied wards, and other defense but it was a strain after so much had been dragged out of her.

Katrisha threw up her hand, and a staff tore through a distant tent wall. It froze between scattered onlookers, as Amalia swung again.

“I am the shadow she cast, not the woman before you.” It might have been Kiannae, again armed. It might have been someone else.

Amalia glanced to Katrisha’s staff, halfway to her hand. She backed off, and circled, but Kiannae kept between her and Katrisha.

“You aren’t me, you’re her…” Amalia said with a sneer.

“What are you talking about?” Kiannae asked. She was unarmed again, even as the light of the shadowed place dimmed.

“How are you even here?” Amalia tilted her head. “No one ever trained you. No one showed you this place. What are you? You don’t get here by just being clever…”

“Maybe you do, when you understand what it is,” Kiannae answered.

Amalia thrust for Katrisha, and the world went white as Kiannae blocked again. The shadowed staff again in her grasp. “We’ve been here before, this is not now.”

Amalia stumbled back, thrown off, and people stepped out of her path. A staff reached its mistress’ hand, throwing Katrisha off balance. She caught herself with it, and staggered into a fighting stance, in front of her unarmed sister.

Amalia fragmented. A ring of copies stepped away. Each moved a little different. It spread in a circle, waves rippling out, or in. Shifting stance and expression. It was impossible to tell which was real, and as the loop closed even where it began or ended.

“Ok, now that’s cheating,” Katrisha muttered.

Kicks, swings, and strikes from every direction gut, back, side. The two defended desperately with spell, and staff but most dissolved on contact. A kick to the gut took down Katrisha, and Kiannae was again in the shadowed place. She was not quite sure how or why she was holding a staff that had parried the blow.

“I should have listened. I can’t slay you, because you are protected. Aster could die because she was willing… It was her plan.” Amalia gritted her teeth, and pushed off Kiannae, who staggered back.

More fragments of the woman circled. A kick to the back put Katrisha’s face into the dirt before she could recover, and one from the side put Kiannae on her back. Dazed from hitting her head, and already off guard she glanced to Rowana. A broken girl, weeping and fawning over Selene who was holding her. It was a power that destroyed all it touched. Kiannae pushed up, and lunged into shadow, where she caught Amalia’s sword arm.

“What are you doing?” the woman hissed. The golden flare at her chest defied the graying place. It grew brighter as all went white, and whiter than white. Everything washed away, but the shadow of two figures straining against each other.

Amalia struggled free, and Kiannae lost her grip on shadow a moment. She only re-caught the moment a hair short of the blow that would have struck her. Should have struck her. She held her hands as though ready to parry with a staff that wasn’t there.

“Have you really learned all the moves?” Amalia growled. It should have been a killing blow, but she’d stopped… or had she? Had Kiannae parried, or convinced her she’d parried? It hurt to even try to comprehend. She saw the staff she wasn’t holding, blocking a blade that burned like the sun.

“What if I’ve invented new ones?” Kiannae smiled, understanding at last.

“What are you doing?” Amalia growled. Her breaths ragged, the world ever more impossibly bright.

“Queen’s Gambit,” Kiannae said. “I already lost my heart, and to the abyss, let the monster burn, sounds like she wants it, and if that kills me with it…”

Both fell to their knees panting, as the color of firelight once again took the night.

Something cut the near silence. Low, thunderous, repeating, and then deafening. People looked around, most uncertain, but some fled instantly. The air whipped around as a shadow blotted out the stars above. Trees snapped like kindling, as a great green maw of teeth burst into the firelight of the camp.

“In the name of the Queen, and the Great Matron Alara, kneel,” boomed a massive greater dragon. Her green scales glinted in the yellow light.

Those already fleeing slipped away into the forest, and the night. Many looked from the distraction, to Amalia, gone. The dragon looked around, sniffed the air and grumbled. “Of course the little gnat got away. Do not tempt me further by following her example.”

There were distant snaps, thunderous thuds, and screams as dragons descended around the forest. Each making new clearings for their bulk, and penning in the rebels as best they could.

Katrisha straightened herself. “We are prisoners of these people, and guardians of a caravan bound by contract.”

“I see no caravan,” the dragon spoke.

“A mile, or two west,” Katrisha answered the challenge.

“A mile or two west, is the road, and another land. You are on Lycian soil, in the company of renegades. Rather unbound, for prisoners, of such gifts.”

“Bound… till almost a moment ago,” Katrisha obliged.

“Convenient. You will all to accompany us for questioning. All of you,” she roared the closing command. A few fell to their knees, staggered, and suddenly seen, where they had sought to slip away.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Katrisha asked, holding her staff upright.

The dragon laughed, and turned back to the little woman. “All the more reason. I like you. You’ve fire, little Storm Child. Keep your pretty stick, but unless you wish to do battle, you are coming with me. All of you are.”

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