If Yasha was honest with herself, she had expected nothing going into this outing, and was still somehow disappointed.

Travelling to Maelnaulde had been relatively painless; as the Red Branch was officially part of the diplomatic delegation from Emberlet, their travel arrangements had been handled not only by the Federation’s government, but personally by First Councillor Thayan, the highest single figure of authority in the Federation’s government, himself. But once within sight of the walls of Maelnaulde—massive fortifications larger than any she had seen in the ‘civilised world’ to date, old and strong and inextricably intertwined with the Deep Magic from which her people’s understanding of magic was derived—the gate guards decided to bar their path. Something called a ‘foreigner tax’ was required to gain entry into the city, a toll on the order of four thousand gil apiece.

Yasha could have told Constance that waving the writ they had been given for safe passage in front of the faces of Ferret and Weasel and insisting it meant they were exempt from the tax would result in her getting it taken, examined, and then destroyed, but remained silent as she watched it happen, unwilling to escalate the situation into an even more unwinnable state. Coming up with twenty thousand gil on the spot was, while not impossible, still something that required them to fork over every coin they had on their person, and they only further avoided having to attempt to pay a fine from allegedly forging official documents and attempting to use them to circumvent a legal measure by virtue of Yasha flaring her aura and staring directly at them, silently intimidating them into cowed submission. The extortion was as blatant as it was amateurish, but the guards held all the cards, and the Red Branch had the options of either paying or being buried in the bodies of an indeterminate number of guards and stronger foes, which would, again, only further spike the issue in terms of escalation. Even Yasha’s successful and effortless intimidation was perhaps entirely foolish, but such boldfaced idiocy famously truncated her already scarce supply of patience.

Once inside the walls, the situation only compounded, as without their writ, they had no means of navigating the city, nor any assurances of aid from any of the armoured ones who ought to know. And now, through some sequence of events that Yasha refused to recollect for the knowledge that doing so would set her head to throbbing in pain, they had managed to travel out of the commercial area and into what looked to be a wasteland.

From one end of the horizon to the other, and further than her eyes could see, it stretched interminably, a landscape of destitution, devastation, and abject ruination. It wasn’t an abrupt change, and indeed, you had to walk for a bit to get there, but not nearly as far as one would have been given to think, considering the splendour and wealth on display in literally the next district over. Quickly the buildings had begun to wither, and then become shells of themselves, before disappearing entirely into a swath of barren space, shantytowns larger than the entirety of some villages scattered both nearby and so far in the distance that they were more a suggestion than an image on the furthest extremity of her view.

It was at this point that Yasha had thought that everyone would start falling upon each other to point fingers and shift blame, but either the altercation in the necropolis had calmed their animosity from a frothing boil to a tense, simmering armistice, or the image before them was so stark in its juxtaposition and so shocking in the sheer uncompromising bleakness of its existence, that the words of baseless condemnation simply would not come to their lips, or some combination of the two.

Though privately, Yasha believed that Matoya’s vaunted training in academia prevented her from exercising the blatant hypocrisy of criticising Constance for committing to a course of action that she knew full well she herself would have believed optimal. Matoya lacked for many things, but a very basic sense of both self-awareness and argument in good faith was not among them, it seemed; Yasha would have laid coin on how long it would take her to revise that assessment of the mystel within the privacy of her own head, if she had not seized upon that train of thought in its nascence and understood it to be at least as much of a contributor to the company’s problems as any abrasive, myopic cruelty that had ever made its way from between the black mage’s lips.

“Such poverty… How could this and the district we just came from both exist in the same city?!” Matoya asked, the strength of her voice arrested by and confined within a prison of dull, uncomprehending shock.

“I’ve seen wealth disparity in cities before, but…” Constance remarked, equally if not more mystified. “This is absurd…”

“It makes the wealth of the markets seem…obscene, really, to exist in such concentration in a place not too far removed from all of this…” Noah said, his voice lachrymose in place of the surprise that seemingly everyone else shared. Of them, only Kai’ri and she herself had refrained from commenting. “It’s like Ravana in the first days of the occupation…”

“Judging by context clues, I am given to understand that you all are lost?”

The unfamiliar feminine voice startled all of them; for all its soothing melody and soft serenity, it was deeply unsettling, and hearing it evoked the feeling of standing on thin ice atop a lake rendered black with hidden and assuredly fatal depths. It was a hair’s breadth from mortality, the quiet whisper of a blade, the sheerest edge of oblivion, but at the same time it was…alluring. Magnetic. The sort of voice that could halt a squabble, all other voices falling silent to better bend their ears—the sort of voice that did not need to raise itself to be heard, that others would strain themselves to listen, hanging off of every utterance, very much as the Red Branch were doing just then. Yasha turned to face the speaker, and she imagined the others must have as well, but she could not muster the will to check; the voice gained her attention, and the countenance held it in the iron grip of the rictus of Death.

‘Imposing’ was too small a word for the woman whose figure they laid eyes upon. It was not her size, standing at over a metre and a half but under a metre and three quarters in height, but rather her presence, which seemed at once monumental and almost nonexistent, like standing at the base of a mountain and seeing only stone on either side. There were techniques to make one’s height seem greater than its actuality, adjustments in posture that exaggerated the form, but she seemed to employ none of them, standing with arms folded across her modest chest as she regarded them with a bottomless violet gaze.

She was a drahn, allegedly one of the descendants of dragons, soft of feature and almost disturbingly fair of face, with perfect ivory skin framed by sections of white scales and a pair of elegant horns that faced forward. Her raven hair was secured in a high horsetail that seemed to trail down to the small of her back, but enough remained to cascade down her chest to the top of her abdomen, and to conceal swaths of her forehead with bangs, though without obscuring the delicate yet deliberate sweep of dark brow. A golden-eyed black cat was curled around her shoulders, pawing absently at hanging strands of black locks, which drew the eye to the open-necked black blouse she wore. The sleeves ended with elegant hands clad in black gloves that had to have been made custom for how well they conformed, and the hem was tucked into a pair of black trousers that seemed of similar origin, to the point where the belt seemed to border on decorative, plain though it was. From just beneath her knees down to the ground were boots of hard but not inflexible black leather that seemed moulded to her calf, terminating in an elevation that lifted her heels ten centimetres from the ground.

The sound of the woman clearing her throat brought Yasha’s eyes back up her form, over the brown leather harness similar to the highlander’s own that held a large black sword to her back, along with the satchel that hung from her hip, and back to that passively penetrative violet stare, complete with a raised brow. “Is it really so surprising to see another person in a place such as this that such a gormless stare seems even remotely warranted? If you’d like, I could do a little twirl for you as well, and we can see if that would satisfy your curiosity.”

As she spoke, a slender white tail covered in scales and ending in a spade swished back and forth playfully, as though indicating a tone that her voice, calm and cold in the passive way of fresh-fallen snow, and her almond-shaped violet eyes that felt like twin stakes of mistletoe sliding languorously into the space of the gaps between her ribs as they fell upon her, failed to convey. With every moment those Stygian eyes were focused in her direction, Yasha felt increasingly aware of a rapidly growing compulsion to kneel or otherwise prostrate herself in supplication to this woman, an urge that was both instinctive and soul-deep, while steadily growing increasingly more difficult to resist, let alone ignore.

“Who are you?” Matoya’s voice, ever so slightly accusatory, was the first to shatter the silence.

“My name is Katsumi of the Fallen Rain. I am a member of the Order of the Laughing Tree,” the woman replied. “But I suspect that you are all far more interested in the circumstances in which you find yourselves, and the queries you have surrounding that topic.

“In short, this is the Rouge. It is a place for whores, bastards, and broken men to live out their lives in misery and die pointlessly.” She took a moment to chuckle, as though the words she had said had been in any way mirthful. “It is the largest district in Maelnaulde, and in many cases, the most expeditious route from one part of the city to another runs at least partly through it, though most do not take advantage of such things, fearing danger from drifters, cutthroats, and other rogues, as well as from the hazards of the landscape itself.”

“If it’s so dangerous, why are you here?” Matoya pressed.

“Because I am not most people,” the drahn answered with a shrug. “The threats here all lack the teeth to puncture my hide, and so I have naught to fear, and thus no reason to inconvenience myself with more circuitous routes. Now, quid pro quo. Why, precisely, is such a motley crew that is wholly ignorant of the nature of the Rouge so thoroughly in its midst?”

“We came from Emberlet,” Constance explained. “We’re representing the Federation in the upcoming tourney, and…”

“…You were extorted by the gate guards?” Katsumi of the Fallen Rain finished.

“Ultimately, yes,” sighed the red mage.

“Unsurprising. Biggs and Wedge aren’t precisely the wisest pair, believing themselves and their criminality to be evading the notice of the highest offices, and I have personally brought the situation at the gate to Dame Rienna’s attention on several occasions,” the woman said, her voice utterly devoid of inflection, just as it had been throughout the course of her speech. “Rest assured, they will pay for their repeated affronts to the crown with their lives. In the meantime, I am given to assume that whatever notice you were given to prove your identities and purpose were disposed of in the process of their little racket?”

“That is, unfortunately, the situation in which we find ourselves, yes,” said Constance.

The woman nodded sagely. “Sōka. I am, as it happens, in the course of returning to my current place of residence. If you are not disturbed by the prospect of sharing space with Maelnaulde’s offering to the tourney and thus your future competitors, then you may follow me as you will. In the meantime, I shall see what may be done to rectify the situation as it stands.”

“You have our thanks,” said Noah.

“Think nothing of it,” she rebuffed, waving a single gloved hand dismissively. “My motivations with regards to this are ultimately self-serving: if the corruption that seems rampant amongst the lowest echelons of grunts is allowed to hinder a smooth outcome for the tourney, that would reflect poorly on the crown, and on Maelnaulde as a whole, and as such cannot be allowed to transpire.”

The cat on her shoulder leapt from its perch and to the ground as she spoke, padding over to each of the Red Branch in turn and taking their measure, catching their scents and rubbing up against their legs primarily. It made a circuit around all of them before padding back over to the woman and leaping back up onto her chest; she caught it, and then placed it upon her shoulders once more. This odd behaviour elicited queries from Yasha and her comrades, but it was ultimately Kai’ri who gave them voice.

“Is that your cat?”

The woman’s brow furrowed, and then relaxed in comprehension. “Not at all. In fact, I daresay she is her own. But she was eager to make my acquaintance, and it most certainly does me no harm to oblige her.”

“Then I guess my follow-up question of what her name is would sound pretty silly…” Kai’ri lamented, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck.

“She has not been so kind as to inform me regarding how she prefers to be addressed, no; though I would be loath to say she has no preferences on the matter,” the drahn replied. “She rather firmly strikes me as a particular sort.”

“If you will forgive me for asking…” Noah began, his tone delicate and his choice of words deliberate. “Where, exactly, do you live?”

“You are forgiven,” she said with a nod, turning her head to the side to look out at what Yasha was given to presume was her route. Then her head swung back and fixed the highlander in place, a rodent held captive by the mesmerising gaze of a great serpent with its constricting coils and venom-dripping fangs. “As of now, I have heard each of you speak, save for this one. Is she incapable of such?”

“No, Your Ma—no, I am not,” Yasha replied at last, conscious of what had almost slipped unprompted from her lips as she was of the quizzical glances being thrown her way.

The woman was either too polite to remark upon it, or genuinely did not notice the error she had only narrowly avoided. She nodded with a small smile that looked about as real as the grin of a porcelain mask. “Simply laconic, then. That shall make things a great deal simpler. I mean no offence—as a method of religious or monastic observance, there are far worse options, to be certain—but I would rather not be required to attempt to navigate a vow of silence.

“I have not forgotten your query, ser,” she continued, turning her attention back to Noah. “But I am disinclined to divulge such things to those whose names are unknown to me. A more paranoid sort would take your reticence in the face of my willingness to introduce myself to be a sign of ill intent. You all have nothing of the sort, I am aware, but most are not nearly as understanding of such things as I am, and it is very rude regardless.”

“I am Yasha, of the Felmarch Highlands,” Yasha replied, taking the initiative.

“Master Noah, of the Way of the White,” Noah piped up at the prompt.

“Master Matoya, of the Coven of the Black.”

“The name’s Kai’ri Nhul! I’m a monk of the Closed Fist!”

“My name is Constance. I’m a red mage,” Constance finished.

The woman nodded. “That shall be satisfactory at present. Thank you. Now, if you will direct your attention outwards, I do believe you shall find that we have company. You all can come out now, you know! I must say, you’re not nearly so subtle as you’ve no doubt led yourselves to believe!”

Yasha, as well as the other members of the Red Branch, started at this, and after a short pause, a cohort of armoured figures came out from around a shadow-shrouded corner. Leading the knights in their silvery armour was a tall, lean man clad in the most resplendent enameled set of lustrous platemail Yasha had ever laid eyes upon. His every step was a swagger, his handsome face set into an insufferably arrogant smirk, and his pale grey-green eyes were alight with the sort of malice that rises from a sense of power and impunity. He drew a gauntlet-clad hand through a mane of fine hair the colour of spun gold, revealing a leaf-shaped taper to his ears, and his condescending brow set itself into a position that communicated ceaseless, derisive laughter.

“I shall admit, it is somewhat surprising that you detected us so, but I suppose even Her Grace’s pet drahn possesses a knowledge of skulking and sneaking that we elves could never hope to match,” the man proclaimed, his voice inflated near to bursting with pomp. “But I would have you stand aside, drahn, if you would. I understand that one such as yourself may not understand the difference, given your…disadvantages…but these with whom you associate are naught more than common criminals, and shall be dealt with as such. Take care that you do not share their fate. After all, you’ve been so lucky thus far, so handily escaping the long arm of the law for long enough to catch Her Grace’s notice, that I daresay it would be a shame for this to be the end for you.”

“Fascinating,” the drahn replied, her own lips shifting slowly into a smirk that strongly resembled the grim line of a slit throat. “Truly fascinating. I had heard that there were means by which one could utter many words and yet say nothing, but I had no idea one could actually manage to leach meaning from a situation with a sufficient level of mastery of the art. Sincerely, bravo. Most impressive. But I must, regrettably, decline. The common criminals, Lord Whoever-You-Are, are those reprobates at the gate from whom you have heard this tale spun. Though, we both know you’re not actually interested in enforcing the measures prescribed for the infractions these people have been said to have committed.”

“…I beg your pardon?” the nobleman asked, taken aback.

“I’m certainly not going to prevent you. From begging, that is,” said Katsumi. “I am, however, certainly going to prevent you from accomplishing your true objective here. After all, what better source of plausible deniability is there than claiming that ‘Her Grace’s pet drahn,’ as you term me, was captured by a band of foreign rogues and held hostage, and that regrettably, despite the best efforts of the knights under your command, you were unable to rescue said hostage, as the altercation claimed her life in the course of battle? Oh, drop the shocked and appalled routine. You’re quite atrocious at it. The fact that you nobles have a lichyard’s worth of collective bones to pick with me is painfully obvious, and has been for some time now. My only question here, however, is this: which of those bones is yours?”

The nobleman’s face smoothed from offended horror back to the cold-blooded arrogance he had worn upon entering the situation. “Well then, drahn, if you must know, I am Fauntleroy, Viscount Fortinbras. My father was snubbed in the midst of petitioning Her Grace in favour of your private audience, as were many of my friends’ fathers who were in court that day. My father may be a coward and an idiot who besmirches our family name by not seeking satisfaction for such an egregious offence, and indeed attempting to forbid me from doing exactly that, but he is highborn still, and allowing such a breach of the natural order of things to pass unchallenged reflects poorly upon the peerage as a whole. Not that I would expect lowborn filth like you to understand. What, after all, would a drahn know of pride or honour?”

Katsumi shrugged. “Oh, I daresay I know more than enough about pride and honour. Namely, that they have slain you.”

The nobleman scoffed, drawing an ornate, finely-crafted spear from his back and lifting it to point its head directly at Katsumi before slipping down into a battle-stance. “We shall see how insolent your tongue remains once I render it from your skull. This is Næġling, the ancestral spear of the Fortinbras line. Long has it been since last it tasted the blood of a dragon—so long, in fact, that I’d imagine that even your deficient, filthy heartsblood may serve to slake its thirst!”

At the end of his speech, the other knights also drew their weapons, arming swords with shields, longswords, spears, and battle-axes all bared and brought to bear. Yasha did not know precisely what was happening, but a part of her rebelled quite furiously at the very idea that these insolent worms might think to bring harm to this woman. Skofnung was brought forth to open air as she stepped into the path between them, and she was glad to see that her friends seemed to have a similar thought process running through their minds as they swiftly closed ranks around the drahn woman.

Katsumi of the Fallen Rain, the woman in question, lowered into a squat as she gingerly picked the cat off of her shoulders and placed it onto the ground, with a muttered imperative in a language Yasha did not speak, but that she could recognise as something akin to an admonition to stay close by, if not right where the feline was left. Then she stood and walked through the closed ranks of the Red Branch, past Constance’s enhancer, Matoya’s scythe, Noah’s staff, Kai’ri’s fists, and even Yasha’s greatsword, slipping the blade on her back out of its scabbard and into her hand.

A kriegsmesser, longer than she was tall and black as the void, beautiful and slender and deadly, with a keen edge that glinted bloody-red for a fraction of a moment—it was levelled with its point directed towards Lord Fauntleroy at the end of an outstretched arm as she brought it back to bear, sliding into a low stance of her own. Her eyes slid shut, and after a moment, seething black-and-red magical energy erupted from the ground beneath her feet, creating a pillar of elemental darkness that enveloped her; with that came a massive increase in the oppressive weight of her aura, such that it was a struggle to stand in her vicinity, and as she looked around, she saw the others having similar issues—none more so than Matoya, who suddenly looked deathly ill, visibly swaying on her feet with a gaze clouded with what looked like delirium.

When confronted with absolute terror, men, in Yasha’s experience, lost one of two things: their hearts, or their minds. Either they faltered and ran, or the dread wiped all thoughts from their minds, leaving only a panicked and frenzied need to attempt to destroy the source of their horror. Whether a man lost one or the other, she found, usually depended on what manner of man they were; Lord Fauntleroy, it seemed, was the sort to succumb to frenzy.

With an exclamation that was more a scream than a battle-cry, the armoured nobleman rallied his men, and they took heart, charging ahead of him; and instead of fleeing, to his credit, the man rushed alongside them.

Katsumi shifted her weight for a fraction of a moment, the ground cratering beneath her feet, and then shot forth in a stream of darkness, meeting the charge head-on; the sword swiped up, and with a trail of black-red shadow that followed the blade’s course and marked its wake, it split the first man from groin to crown, shearing through armour-quality metal like butter. Shock dilated the moment in Yasha’s perception, and she caught the rage and fear on the first knight’s face, frozen in time, his death having stolen upon him too swiftly for him to even react. He was dead before the first mote of pain registered, split so swiftly that blood sprayed in all directions from the shock, splattering onto the drahn woman’s pale face, on which was shown no anger, no aggression, no joy—it was the same serene calm as it had been when she was conversing with Yasha and her comrades, unchanged, unmoved, unflinching.

She landed, her course halted at the crest of her arc, with four more knights closing upon her, blades bare to pierce her body; but the arc continued, bringing the blade of the kriegsmesser behind her, where it flared with all the darkness of her charge, and then it was on the other side of her in what would have been the blink of an eye even for Yasha before the night of her dream, in the follow-through of a sweeping slice, leaving a line of darkness there for a scant moment before it erupted outwards. Four men became eight halves, bisected at the waist.

The sword tilted down, the point facing the ground, and then, following another step forward, cut upwards in a swift arc, sending with that one attack a cluster of five black waves of energy, each bisecting the path of the previous, tearing through the way into the oncoming traffic. The ground was torn from the earth and sent flying, leaving deep furrows like scars cauterised with small residual tongues of black-violet flame in their wake; the men it struck were hit with such force that they burst into body parts and gore, while the ones who, by some divine providence, managed to bail out of the path of destruction were either showered in blood and bits of various destroyed innards, or horribly injured themselves as razor-sharp shards of stone and bone pierced their armour and sometimes out through the other side of their bodies. Their screams and wails and groans of pain caused even Yasha to wince, but once more, the swordswoman was gone, shooting through the trail of death she had wrought as she continued to cut her way to her foe, virtually unopposed.

Lord Fauntleroy, to his credit, caught the blade on the shaft of his spear, which held the sword back surprisingly well, despite the quaking of the lordling’s grip under the strain. The noble’s face twisted into a horrific grimace as he forced the blade away, leaping back to put renewed distance between the two of them and allow the long reach of his spear to do its job in creating an advantage. The drahn, on the other hand, made no move to close the distance, standing there with a faint smile, so calm and cold that it nearly turned the blood to ice just from being near it. The nobleman’s face filled with vicious fury, as he cried, “Insolent wench!”

The swordswoman, Katsumi, swung her blade up and rested its flat against her shoulder, her stare indulgent in the manner of a siren welcoming an enthralled sailor into the depths of the sea to drown in absolute silence as her posture relaxed.

“GYAH!” came the incoherent scream of rage as he advanced and jabbed his spear at her in a swift flurry of thrusts at blinding speeds. But not a single one managed to so much as glance, as the drahn managed to always be where the spearhead was not, while still holding her ground without the slightest hint of effort or strain. The nobleman stepped forth once more as he flurried, swinging his spear around like a partisan in a pirouette, looking to crash the shaft into her ribs and drive the air from her lungs, stunning her. The curve was swift and savage, but it did not connect—Katsumi bent backwards, ducking low enough that the shaft and head both cleared the tips of her horns. The lack of resistance saw Lord Fauntleroy’s eyes go wide, but he managed to compensate, letting the spear complete its arc before turning it over in his hands to face the head towards her and thrust forth with monstrous strength and speed.

With a booming thud, the spear was driven to the ground; the drahn had swayed out of its path, and then stomped upon the shaft with her heeled boot, nearly wrenching the spear from the noble’s grasp and sending him lurching forward with it. Capitalising upon that, she drove the pommel of her sword into the man’s forehead with a resounding crack, and then stepped off of the shaft to pirouette around him, driving her sword into his back and out his front with the harsh shearing of metal on metal, her attack taking with it his heart in the process.

Even stunned, his eyes went wide, flashing a fiery red that consumed even his sclera in the process, and his cheeks inflated for a moment before he spat out blood that was so dark a red it looked almost as though it was stained black.

“Soulsunder,” the woman intoned, before wrenching her blade out of his chest and letting his legs collapse out from under him that his body could fall to the ground with a clatter of now-useless metal, his eyes fully white and rolling back into his skull, blind, unseeing—lifeless. And then something as wondrous as it was horrific happened.

As the swordswoman stepped back, the naked blade shimmering with heartsblood, the dead man’s body twitched and jerked as though prodded and shocked, wisps of dark energy rising from his flesh until they became plumes, plumes that bent and twirled in the air to twist around the blade, sinking into it bit by bit. With every bit of darkness that rose from the corpse, the body seemed to dessicate and mummify rapidly, the colour and remnants of life leaching from the hair and flesh and indeed the physique of the body, converted into the Stygian tendrils that even now constituted a swirling mass about the black blade.

The shadows sank into the metal, causing it to flash with livid red symbols that, much to Yasha’s shock, she could recognise quite easily, despite having no memory of ever having encountered the language written on the blade before. It was a series of arrangements of modified circular, rectangular, and square symbols, shifting about each other in what appeared to be patterns; and in gazing upon each pattern, she knew it to be a word. But though she indeed recognised the language, and knew herself to be somehow capable of reading it, she felt the meaning of each word fade from her mind before it registered for long enough to decipher, leaving only the message written in fire across the fabric of her mind.

Continue to attempt to read this, and I shall not hesitate to end thee.

She tore her eyes from the sword, and moments later, the inscription faded once more into the umbral hue of the blade.

The drahn swordswoman—referring to the woman by her given name even within the relative privacy of her own head felt vulgar, insolent almost—straightened and slid the strange weapon into the scabbard on her back with a soft click, before walking back towards them, picking her way deftly across the field of screaming, writhing, ravaged bodies of slowly-dying men, those of them still capable of speech crying out for healing, for their friends to not be dead, or for the sweet release of death themselves. Her body and clothes were splattered with blood, splotches of saturation making the fabric of her blouse glisten wetly and sag off of her just a touch. As she walked, though, through the field of dead, dying, and debris, it seemed that, bit by bit and very quickly, as the aura of dread began to subside, the blood was not evaporating so much as sinking into the skin beneath, leaving the cloth and indeed the parts of her chest visible through the blouse’s low neckline as immaculate as they had been before the battle. By the time she stood before Yasha and the others of the Red Branch once more, the splash of blood on her cheek from the very beginning was all that remained—and before their eyes, this, too, sank into the porcelain flesh and disappeared without a trace.

“Now that that unpleasantness is over—my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience, by the way—I was in the midst of divulging to you my place of residence,” the woman began, her voice so devoid of inflection that it might as well have been a monotone, and while she spoke, her gloved hands worked absently to arrange her jostled hair back into place. “I and the other members of the Order of the Laughing Tree—my friends—all live together relatively nearby, at an establishment near the edge of the Rouge while yet very much within its district boundary. It is the Drunken Whore Bordello, Tavern, and Inn. There, we will await the visit of Dame Rienna, knight-captain of the Order of the Crown, whose men lay either dead or dying on the ground over there, and she will arrange for this unfortunate series of events to be rectified with the utmost celerity, of that I am certain.”

“Won’t she arrest all of us if she comes to see us, then?” Constance asked, panic clear in the tremor of her tone, though her terror was doing an admirable job of keeping shattered fragments of the remainder of her composure clustered together in a facsimile of assembly.

The drahn’s violet gaze turned perplexed, her brow furrowed minutely in confusion. “Of course not…? Whyever would she?”

The feeling of shock seemed shared between the members of the Red Branch, and Yasha was no exception. Noah looked to Matoya, and, seeing her still in no right state to be speaking just yet—though she was now beginning to recover—he stepped forth to explain what Yasha and the other members of the Red Branch knew ought to have been a foregone conclusion. “I mean, if she’s the knight-captain of the Order of the Crown, she’s responsible for enforcing the laws of the Principality. These men were under her command. Ergo, they were deputised to aid her in that task, and you’ve just killed them.”

“Slaughtered them, really,” Constance added.

“All true statements, though I fail to see how any of them are especially germane,” the drahn acknowledged with a nod, crouching down to lift the black cat from her feet where it was nuzzling and back up to her shoulder.

Yasha turned to her comrades and saw her confusion mirrored on almost all of their faces, though Matoya’s had the added benefit of just beginning to recover from a sudden unexplained bout of illness that had robbed her vitality, and as such, the confusion compounded in her expression to make her appear more nonplussed than any of them, save, perhaps, for the drahn; while her expression of puzzlement was so subtle that it was all but imperceptible if not held under direct scrutiny, the immense contrast between the expression she currently wore and the state of her face at rest communicated a lack of comprehension that outstripped them all.

“Isn’t killing a bunch of Crown Knights a crime?” Kai’ri asked. “One that you can get executed over?”

The light of understanding dawned for a flash before her face relaxed once more into its unsettling, impassive serenity. “Ah… Well, in the ordinary course, I’d imagine she’d be quite thoroughly put out if someone butchered her men as I just have. But given they are accessories to extortion, very nearly created a diplomatic incident, and came with the intent to commit high treason besides, I’d imagine their deaths warrant rather less consideration than that of a common rogue under the circumstances as they stand. She’ll come to see what happens, to see if I’m well, and then if I’ve anything to tell her before going back to the Coronet to see about addressing whatever problems I’ve brought to her attention.”

“How would you happen to know this…‘Dame Rienna’?” Matoya asked, her voice still diminished, but now strong enough to be usable.

The drahn sighed, though the expression seemed on some level performative. “She’s a friend of my employer. They used to be adventurers together. Now, would you rather get there before nightfall, or stand around here posing a ceaseless litany of inane questions? I have attempted to respect your time, and I would hope that I could be afforded the same courtesy.”

“…You are correct,” Matoya replied reluctantly, surprising Yasha until the highlander considered that the mystel could conceivably be feeling a shade of the same inexplicable yet instinctive deference that she even now struggled to suppress. “My apologies.”

“You are forgiven,” Katsumi of the Fallen Rain affirmed with a sharp bob of her head. She turned, and indicated the road ahead with a flourishing gesture of her hand. “Now then, if you will all follow me?”

----------------------------------------

“Wow, you weren’t kidding…”

In the ordinary course of events, Master Matoya would be inclined to chide her brother for the sheer inanity of his utterance, but at the moment, when faced with the aged yet well cared-for edifice of the establishment that their mysterious saviour called home, she could not help but agree with him; she, too, had been under the misapprehension that either the woman had misspoken or Matoya herself had managed to mishear.

After all, what worthwhile adventuring company, especially one that could count as impressive—if terrifying—a combatant as this strange, unsettling drahn amongst their members, would voluntarily occupy a brothel?

“So, you’re a whore, then?” Matoya asked, the words with their indelicate, uncouth phrasing slipping from her lips before she realised they had reached her throat.

“I am not, as it happens,” the woman, Katsumi, replied, her utterance as easy and calm and gracious and hollow as all of the others that had passed between her lips before now. Thankfully, that vivisecting violet gaze of hers was fixed upon the building, and not the black mage. “That part of our staffing is handled by Kagura and Kyomi, who tend to the carnal needs of our diverse range of clientele. No, I help Tandem and Madam Tsuyu on the floor as I suppose what amounts to a barmaid. I also do quite a bit of the cooking as of late. Today I had unusual demands on my time, and so Tandem saw to that part, but at least three nights a week, the fare is mine.”

The woman paused as she cocked her head to the side, as though listening to someone speaking, though the silence was as a physical force that weighed oppressively down upon them, compounding the already profound unease that the woman inspired in Matoya’s being with singular intensity. Then she nodded, taking two decisive steps forward and throwing open the front door, waving Matoya and the rest of the Red Branch through into the interior.

Upon entry, Matoya felt a force wash over her, like penetrating a permeable barrier that was nonetheless tangible. It registered faintly on a level beyond her innate awareness of magic, a disturbing quality of which she wished to avoid thoughts, but was changed out for a more pervasive feeling of hair-on-her-nape danger, a feeling of scrutiny she had not felt in…

The tavern area was furnished in a way that belied the quality of its wares, with tables and chairs that were deliberately crafted to appear rustic but were in reality quite comfortable and sturdy in the way that spoke volumes of artisanal craftsmanship; the flooring was smooth and even, and the weathered look of the wood could not divert her from noting that there was probably not a single floorboard that creaked unintentionally. In one far table, nearer to the corner, there was a vii with snow-white hair and fur, chattering eagerly to a degree that made Kai’ri seem reticent to a black-haired hume woman, impressively built, who sat on the other side of the table, nodding indulgently and looking for all the world to be immensely enjoying the vii’s company in that simple way that the tales identified as a sign of love. At the bar was a male elf, his bone-white skin and hair and ruby-red eyes acting as markers of albinism. A beautiful man and androgynous in that way elves had, though perhaps effeminate in feature even by the standards of his species, he dressed plainly, wiping down a pewter tankard in his delicate hands with a clean, dry rag. Near the corner opposite the vii and hume was another vii, this one with hair and fur that was coal-black and dusk-hued skin, looking for all the world as though she had just been dragged off of a battlefield, save for the broad, almost feral grin on her face, flashing bright white teeth; and next to her was an elf woman with long, straight hair the colour of ink, in whose face Matoya saw only the cold visage of Death, whose hands glowed with healing magic as she seemed to work to mend the black-haired vii’s wounds.

Then her eyes were left with no recourse than to lay upon the central tableau they had been doing everything to try and avoid—and so settle there they did.

The woman sitting at that central table by virtue of her very existence recontextualised Kai’ya Nhul’s understanding of ‘terror.’

She was dressed in finery that, while perhaps slightly outlandish, was far from garish, and seemed fitting to the point where the mystel could not imagine her in any other outfit, or indeed any other way. Her olive skin, strong, austere features, and long, well-styled chestnut hair were certainly unique, and together with the metallic hue of her eyes, she was, as an image, not only singularly unique, but also utterly inimitable. For certain, no painting could ever capture the enormous magnitude and oppressive dread that involuntarily rose in the woman’s presence—and the Cheshire smirk that turned the corners of her full lips upward did little to dispel and much to compound the profound sense of paralysing, eldritch witness that so arrested her.

On the table in front of her was an enameled white cup full of black liquid that the aspiring sorceress recognised as coffea, which was held in her bare hands with all the refinement one would expect of an aristocrat’s tea social, and more besides; and across from her was sat another elf woman, tall, voluptuous, and brawny, garbed in a way that was at once relaxed and formal, with long silver hair and emerald eyes, staring wide-eyed at a comically large mound of pouches filled to bursting with gil that were piled on the table before her.

The terrifying woman took a slow, languid sip of her drink, before placing it gracefully back on its saucer; then, her head turned, and her eyes…noticed the drahn. “Ah! Katsumi, dear. They had told me you were indisposed. I love what you’ve done with your hair. Tell me, how is your left shoulder doing these days?”

“It is well, thank you, Lady Blackwood,” Katsumi replied cordially. “While it is a pleasure to see you again, I’m afraid I must ask what your intentions are in coming here.”

“So suspicious. Though I must confess, I was much the same at your age. You may be paranoid, but that by no means implies they aren’t out to get you, and all that,” said Lady Blackwood. “And it is Myfanwy, I’m afraid. My sister Rhonwen may stand on such pomp and ceremony, if only for the benefit of her aggrandisement and rather overlarge ego; I personally, however, find the entire practise rather aggressively superfluous.”

“I somehow doubt you’re going to get her to comply with that, Myfanwy,” called yet another feminine voice, and in short order, out from a side passage came a woman of the Far East, and thus so garbed. The robe she wore was rather aggressively lavish, with designs of flowers Matoya had never seen before embroidered into the shimmering fabric, and her long black hair was somehow yet another shade of black—jet, this time, contrasting with her pale flesh and the plum colour of her full, lush lips, the type that would seem always on the verge of some new mischief or fresh caprice. Her eyes, though, those eyes of jade—they caught her in them, and held her. “Our little dragon can be quite stubborn when it comes to formality.”

“I must respectfully disagree, Tsuyu. You do the girl a disservice,” Myfanwy protested, though Matoya could not bring herself to look away, transfixed by the verdant stare of the odd, beautiful woman, who was now beginning to approach them, a strange sort of pipe held idly in one hand. “Katsumi here is quite the clever girl indeed. I’m sure she understands that which I ask of her—she is hardly one to balk over such a peccadillo.”

“If that is truly your preference, then I shall certainly do all that I may to abide, Myfanwy,” Katsumi replied, though it sounded like she was further away now than she had been a scant few moments ago. “It would be rude to do otherwise, now that you’ve expressly asked me to refrain.”

“Hah! See, Tsuyu? The girl does possess a brain between those lovely horns of hers,” Myfanwy proclaimed jauntily, before taking another sip of coffea. There was yet still greater distance with that utterance, and Matoya felt her head begin to swim.

“Ah, well. I suppose it’s for the best that I didn’t put gil down on that,” Madam Tsuyu lamented. Her voice seemed much closer than the others, but even still, it was gaining distance, albeit somewhat more slowly. “Though I must admit that it’s quite the change of pace to know that I’d have lost a bet had I thought to make the wager. Even thrilling, I daresay…”

“Oh, come off it, Tsuyu,” Myfanwy sighed. The distance was greater than ever, the voice further muddled by the pounding of blood in her ears, which was as sudden as it was almost unnatural. “Tandem would be a corpse the moment he began to bore you. I know it, he knows it, Yuriya here knows it—in fact, I daresay even Rienna knows it, eccentric as she is. He’s only still with you because he still excites you, Bringer of the Storm, and I won’t have you insult my intelligence by denying it.”

“You’re rather annoying when you’re correct, you know that?” Madam Tsuyu protested, her voice for once petulant, though Matoya was barely capable of noticing. Her vision was blurring rather quickly, sore and sensitive gooseflesh prickling along her skin, and even the slightest breeze seemed to carry a touch of the boreal. All that remained in focus were Madam Tsuyu’s jade eyes, which now fixed on her, truly seeing her for the first time. The woman’s steps gained speed and purpose, and in the movement of her lips, Matoya glimpsed the silvery-white sheen of elongated, sharp incisors. “Fine, then, Myfanwy. Have your fun, by all means. I’ve just now caught sight of my own amusement, as it happens—and I am suddenly reminded of how so very long it’s been since I’ve had a proper…drink…”

Then Katsumi’s back entered her view, blocking off the path between the source of the mesmeric entrapment and Matoya herself. “Madam Tsuyu, whatever you intend to do, I don’t believe it’s wise.”

“Come now, little dragon,” Madam Tsuyu purred, her voice seductive and noticeably sibilant. “I ask for so little…”

The drahn woman shook her head firmly. “I must insist. Master Matoya seems near death already.”

“She’s right, Tsuyu. Poor thing looks positively anaemic…” Myfanwy Blackwood’s voice was the furthest distance yet, as though across the broad expanse of a plain. “Hardly a good selection under the circumstances, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What ails her, then?”

“I’m not—”

And with that, at last Master Matoya’s knees buckled, her legs giving out from under her. She fell into the grasp of a pair of solid arms, saw a glimpse of verdant hair, and then surrendered to the riptide pulling her under. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing—

Knew nothing.

----------------------------------------

The mood in the tavern area shifted remarkably quickly when Kai’ri’s sister collapsed, and in Constance’s arms she rested while almost everyone looked on in some form of surprise. They had all felt more than a little uneasy the moment they stepped into the building, to the point where some of them felt a little sickly, but Kai’ya’s reaction was far and away the most extreme of them all. A terse silence had fallen upon all of them, and it endured for a few moments until it was shattered with a sigh. Myfanwy Blackwood put down her coffea, stood, and approached. “I had hoped to postpone this for a little bit, but teachable moments like these don’t come too often, and one must always remember never to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“I would think that depends on the likelihood of said gift horse being hollow,” argued the drahn, Katsumi.

“Just so,” replied the well-dressed dark-skinned woman as she slid her arms under the back and legs of Kai’ya’s slumped form, extracting it from Constance’s still hold, to hoist his sister up into a bridal carry. “Well then, girl, come along. Class, such as it stands, is in session.”

Katsumi stepped around Kai’ri to get closer to Myfanwy, and the feeling of wrongness swept over them all, renewed and ever more potent. Between the two of them, it was as though Kai’ya’s body was merely a prop, and the rest of the Red Branch had summarily ceased to exist, or at least had become wholly irrelevant to the proceedings. “If she must be seen to, my chambers will serve best, I think. I have at present little need to spend any appreciable length of time within their bounds, and the bedding is fresh.”

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“It shall suffice,” said Myfanwy, turning as though Kai’ya weighed nothing at all and proceeding towards the miniature grand stairwell that seemed to lead to the upper levels. Kai’ri, refusing to be written out of his sister’s wellbeing, moved to keep pace and push aside the knowledge that he was uninvited. “Now, what has befallen this girl is a process of aura known as ‘awakening,’ and the way she has undergone it is a nasty bit of business. The best way to awaken someone to their aura is via choice and consent, in a controlled situation by someone with a precise knowledge of the undertaking. What has happened here is significantly less methodical than any of the proper methods. You’re a clever girl, Katsumi. Can you tell me what it was that occurred just then?”

Katsumi thought for a moment, making a small sound of consideration as she pondered. “Kyomi has told me a little of aura, and of od, and of magical energy in general, though there are still sizeable gaps in my knowledge of the subject matter. However, you would not ask me a question you believed me unable to answer with all that I would reasonably know, and so it must not be an especially complex explanation…”

“All true,” Myfanwy confirmed—not that Katsumi truly required such explicit confirmation, it seemed.

“You said she was awakened, which means that her aura was dormant prior, if that is indeed the correct term. If Master Matoya fainted, and her fellows did not, it stands to reason that they have awakened to their auras as well,” Katsumi reasoned, a slender gloved finger tapping at the side of her delicate chin. “Now, given what I know from Kyomi, and given what occurred when last we met, I assume that our auras, yours and mine, managed to achieve a variety of sympathetic vibration beyond either of our abilities to control, and that said sympathetic vibrations produced so much excess energy that Master Matoya’s latent aura was excited uncontrollably and awakened more quickly than her body could compensate for regarding the sudden upsurge.”

“Full marks. The exact term for the occurrence, as it happens, is soul resonance,” the older woman said with a sagely nod as she ascended the stairs to the second floor. “When two individuals with sufficiently similar souls and resulting auras share a space together, their similar frequencies amplify the magnitude of each exponentially. It functions regardless of strength—my aura is several hundred times the potency of your own—and is thus entirely dependent on compatibility of natures as it relates to aura. Your aura and mine are incredibly compatible, more so than I’ve ever seen before, and so the moment she stepped into the room, this girl, this ‘Master Matoya’, as she is styled, was either going to awaken to her aura or perish in so doing. It remains to be seen at present which will occur, and so some level of care must be exercised. I would have you see to it. After instructing you in the method, of course—setting up a student for failure is the mark of a poor teacher, after all.”

“We have a healer,” Kai’ri interjected, and instantaneously regretted it; the intolerable, impossible weight of Myfanwy Blackwood’s gaze was a more effective admonition than any cutting phrase Kai’ya had ever uttered. “M-Master Noah here is a white mage. He can help fix whatever’s wrong with her.”

“Who is this one?” Myfanwy asked Katsumi on her other side, speaking as though Kai’ri was not present, which, while an indignity in the ordinary course, was at the moment an immense relief. He had seen Katsumi cut her way through a group of armed and armoured men like it was nothing, displaying a level of martial prowess none of them had been prepared to witness; yet it was now, when she conversed with Myfanwy Blackwood without any sign of fear or hesitation, that he was most in awe of her apparent strength.

“He introduced himself as Kai’ri Nhul, a monk of the Closed Fist, I believe,” Katsumi replied, carrying on a conversation undeterred by the full attention of the other woman upon her. “They are members of the same adventuring company. Given the similarities in form and feature, I would hazard to speculate some level of relation, though I know too little to state the exact degree conclusively.”

“Hmph. Well, boy?” Myfanwy’s attention was on him once more, and he felt himself wither under the exacting and astronomical magnitude of what it was to be under her scrutiny.

“She’s my sister,” Kai’ri supplied. “Her birth name was Kai’ya.”

“Well then, Kai’ri Nhul, your partner Master Noah may know much of the healing of physical wounds, but only aura may heal aura, and though you are all awakened, none of you are trained in any of the associated arts,” Myfanwy explained, and though her tone was civil, he could not help but feel every word as the weight of a new mortal sin upon his soul. “If he wishes, he may accompany us and observe the method, but I have one pupil at present, and I am ill inclined to entertain another.”

Kai’ri was not eager to tempt fate by asking how this stranger had known of his romantic status and yet not of his familial relation, and so he bowed his way out, racing back down the stairs to inform Noah of the situation.

His friends were all where he left them, standing awkwardly in the tavern area, surrounded on all sides by unfamiliar faces and trying desperately to find their footing in the current set of circumstances—all except for Yasha, who did not look nonplussed so much as she looked conflicted. Now that the mystel thought back on it, she had been acting very strangely ever since they met the drahn, Katsumi; and since she had done him a good turn during their talk in the Rainbough common room, the idea of stepping in to give her an opening was a nice way of doing his part to build that bridge.

“Noah, they’re upstairs and they’re going to be healing my sister. Something about an aura awakening caused by soul resonance? Either way, Myfanwy Blackwood said you’re invited to come watch, though she won’t be giving explanations. This is for Katsumi’s benefit, and she’ll apparently be doing the healing. I’m going up because she’s my sister, of course,” Kai’ri began. “Yasha, I’d personally feel better if you’re there, too.”

“And what about me?” asked Constance, the cordiality of her tone belying her self-evident indignation. “Am I to stay down here, alone, in an unfamiliar place and amongst unfamiliar people?”

“I’m not great at seeing aura,” Noah interjected, laying a conciliatory hand upon the red mage’s shoulder. “I’ll need you to help me make sense of what’s going on.”

“So, we’re all going, then?” Kai’ri asked, a growing feeling of dismay accumulating in the pit of his abdomen.

“I suppose we ought to. We’re a team,” Yasha remarked, though she appeared just as disenchanted with the event as he felt.

The tall, muscular silver-haired elf woman stood from her seat at last, her verdant gaze pinning them all to the floor with the force of what unknowable fury lurked beneath, just barely shackled, yet straining to be free. Despite the obvious presence of her voluptuous endowments, her musculature was, while impressive, more martial than anything, coiled tight cords that threaded their way about her bones to complement her imposing frame, which made it all the more impressive that she had such mass on her. The knit, mid-necked black fabric of her long-sleeved top seemed to cling to almost every articulation of her musculature, her black trousers doing the same for her equally muscle-bound legs, and the navy-blue vest she wore, secured off-center with a series of gilded clasps and sporting pronounced lapels, all backed up the image of strength with accents of authority and severity, which lent even more weight to the predatory implications of her exacting stare.

“Mother, I’ll take them up to see what’s going on. I want to make certain they don’t do anything remarkably stupid,” she said to the woman in the Far Eastern robe, and her voice was, as her bearing, commanding, brash, and utterly uncompromising. Then she spoke directly to the members of the Red Branch: “I’m only going to say this once, so you’d better pay attention if you value your lives. There is limited space in there, and so as much as I want you all to stay the fuck out of there, I can’t have that, because I know that that would only end up with you gormless twats strangling the doorway. That being said, if I think any one of you’s getting any funny ideas, I’m beheading all of you first, asking questions never. You will all maintain two metres’ distance from my girl and Myfanwy at all times. You will all make certain the exit is always clear. Non-negotiable. And, just as a personal bit of advice: don’t. Test. Me. I’m in no mood to entertain whatever idiocy you all think you might just possibly be able to get away with. Trust me, you won’t. And if you think you need to ask, the answer is probably no. If you don’t think you need to ask, you should probably ask.”

“But you just said that if we felt the need to ask, the answer was probably no,” Constance protested.

The elf woman stared Constance dead in the eye, making her wither in seconds. “Congratulations. You have the ability to comprehend basic instructions. I’m sure whatever idiot saw fit to birth or raise you must be so proud.”

“But Matoya’s our friend…” Constance muttered, dejected.

From the dangerous cocking of the elf woman’s silver brow, she didn’t miss it. “I fail to see how that is in any way, shape, or form my problem.”

“Understood,” Yasha said with a small bow. “We shall abide by your rules.”

The elf woman’s lips quirked up into a mirthless smirk as her attention switched directly to Yasha. “Well then. Perhaps there is some hope for you after all. I like you, stranger. Keep it up, and I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. My name’s Ástríðr, by the way.”

“Yasha,” Yasha replied, her voice demonstrating more cordiality and deference than Kai’ri, and likely the rest of them, had ever seen from her. “I am formerly of the clans of the Felmarch Highlands.”

“The Felmarch Highlands aren’t too far from here,” the elf woman, Ástríðr, remarked, jerking her head in the direction of the stairwell and beginning to walk towards it. Yasha walked quickly to keep pace, the only one of them courageous enough to do so. “That’s where the jötunn tribes make their homes, yeah?”

“We make our homes in the hills. The jötnar live directly in the shadow of the Zaghnal Mountains, where even our bravest hunters dare not venture,” Yasha explained ahead of them.

“Why not?” Ástríðr pressed, mounting the stairs.

“In the Zaghnal Mountains, there dwells a beast, a mountain-god of old. In its shadow lurks others of its kind, its lesser descendants and kin, who, though having but a pale shade of their forebear, are yet beyond my people’s skill to fell, though not beyond that of the most daring of the jötnar, who use the slaying of one of the beasts as a rite of passage to weed out the peerless and thus deserving in their rituals of leadership,” Yasha sighed, elaborating even as they reached the second floor. “The Dread Behemoth Zodd has lived for ten times ten thousand years, and in that ten times ten thousand years, the mountain-god has stood unconquered. Many throughout the ages have tried, and of those many, all have perished.”

“Hm. Sounds interesting,” Ástríðr mused, and just then, the sudden turn the situation had taken caught up with Kai’ri. Moments before, the elf woman had been threatening—no, there was no ambiguity there, it was a promise—to end their lives if one of them so much as looked suspicious, and now she was just cordially conversing with the only one of their number who looked like they’d have even a chance of matching her strength. It boggled his mind; yet, even Kai’ri, for all that his sister demeaned his intelligence on a regular basis, was not stupid enough to voice his confusion. A half-remembered platitude about letting sleeping monsters lie flitted through the periphery of his thoughts. “I’ve always wanted to visit the Highlands, just for curiosity’s sake. I hear they’re as dangerous as they are beautiful—and if that holds true, and such danger exists in the region, it must be one of the most beautiful places the world over. Here we are, by the way. Single file only. Yasha, you go first. The rest of you, figure the order out amongst yourselves. As long as you respect the rules, I don’t particularly care which of you enters first, last, or in between.”

Yasha nodded and filed into the chamber, crossing the threshold into a sparsely-decorated yet spacious bedroom. Kai’ri came next, and he marvelled at the almost militaristic utilitarianism of the furnishings and decor. There was a definite aesthetic sense here, nothing seemed out of place or clashing, but the feel of the room was so incredibly muted that there was a gaping absence that could be felt within its bounds. It was…vacant, for all intents and purposes, and that inexplicable vacancy radiated an unsettling sensation Kai’ri could only express as ‘the feeling of being nowhere.’

Noah came in behind him, and Constance behind him; Ástríðr brought up the rear, and even the image of her leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed and no weapon in sight was amongst the most menacing things he’d ever seen. It wasn’t even her look that was so menacing—it was her aura, an aura of unquenchable rage that flared so hot he could feasibly entertain the notion that it could shatter the cosmos itself if it even attempted to contain the fury that simmered beneath her skin. Once they were all in, he wrenched his eyes away from the scary lady with the cosmic level of anger, and turned his attention to Kai’ya’s body, breathing in harsh, shallow, erratic gasps as it reclined, laid out carefully on the bedding. The woman, Myfanwy, was explaining to Katsumi rapid-fire, using her hands to gesture as she held an odd cane underneath the pit of her arm, while Katsumi nodded her head in a way that communicated true comprehension. How she was following the seemingly endless litany of jargon-filled lecturing when even Noah appeared at a loss, with Constance doing her best to play catch-up on his behalf with her self-professed limited understanding of the subject matter, was utterly beyond him, but the evidence of his senses had yet to let him down, and it would be a supremely convenient time for them to begin doing so; as such, he was inclined to continue to trust said evidence.

Katsumi eventually turned away from the older woman, while said older woman backed away herself, her steely eyes remaining vigilant, and approached Kai’ya’s bedside. Taking a moment to visibly assess the situation, she spread her hands over his sister’s abdomen, hovering just a hair or three away from making physical contact as she did so.

“Do you see it?” Myfanwy prompted.

“Yes. Her aura is rebelling against itself,” Katsumi replied, even as her attention remained fixed upon her task. “It’s looking for a foreign influence that doesn’t exist, and in so doing, it’s expelling aura far more quickly than aura is being produced, causing her to act on a net negative that compounds from moment to moment as the field fluctuates.”

“Very good,” Myfanwy nodded. “And how would you go about treating this?”

Katsumi pursed her lips in thought for a moment, and then spoke. “I’m going to inject some of my own aura into the mix.”

Constance’s eyes went wide, her explanation stalling, which was cause enough for alarm in everyone else, save for the elf woman who seemed content to understand little of what was being said. Myfanwy Blackwood, however, only nodded, intrigued. “Interesting conclusion. Why, though? I want you to explain your reasoning.”

“Her aura is flitting around and changes configuration from moment to moment as it depletes its reserves and works to compensate,” Katsumi began, brushing an errant lock of raven hair out of her face to tuck it behind the base of one of her horns. “Out of everyone in this room besides you, my aura is the most well-suited to this sort of thing, given that I’m part of the inciting incident. I think of it like the formation of planets: if I give a large enough chunk of aura with a stable paradigm, for lack of a better term, the chaotic mess that is hers should accumulate to the largest concentration of self-sustaining aura and fall into place around it. Over time, the injection should deteriorate through emission, but the paradigm introduced will remain, and her newly-awakened aura will model itself after that configuration going forward. I also only feel comfortable using my own aura, given issues with familiarity and fine control, but that’s a side reason and not the primary determinant of success in this.”

Myfanwy nodded again. “Give it a try.”

“Am I correct?” Katsumi asked.

“When on the battlefield after a plan has gone to bits, and thus when you find the need to reconstruct your strategy in order to save your forces from total annihilation, are you then going to ask another if your amended stratagem is correct? Need you another to shoulder the burden for which you are best suited?” Myfanwy chided.

“No,” Katsumi replied with a firm shake of her head. “Point taken. Here goes.”

The drahn swordswoman went to retrieve a dagger out of her satchel, using it to cut open Kai’ya’s mesh bodysuit and expose her abdomen, and then laid aside the dagger; then, she removed her gloves, and searched with her bare hand, covered in several parts of her palm with white scale patterns, for something in her satchel. She brought forth an orb that blinded Kai’ri with the sudden headache the sight of it provoked, as if reality itself was flickering and tearing around it, and held it in one hand as if for good luck, while she placed her other hand, which sparked with what looked like scarlet lightning, upon Kai’ya’s bare sternum, just below her breasts and before her abdominal muscles.

She planted it there, and pushed; the lightning surged forth, and Kai’ya’s back arched as though electrocuted as the surge ran over her, seeming to cover her body like vines of ivy, before flickering back out of existence. The arching of her spine collapsed, and she fell back onto the bedding, her breathing deepening and subsiding into something much more calm and rhythmic. Steadier.

Kai’ri didn’t notice Katsumi slipping the orb away, and as he looked back to see her pulling her gloves back on in a hurry, with no orb in sight, he could not help but be grateful. Whatever that thing was, he could easily go his entire life without encountering it ever again, and it still would be far too soon. After having glimpsed it, already his idea of the world around him, the very fabric of his perception, seemed less sure, more fluid, with a great deal more room for the wriggling doubts he could feel burrowing into his mind, almost like a physical presence at the joint where his spine met his skull, scraping and writhing like some form of grotesque insect.

“Very good. Now we wait,” Myfanwy pronounced. “For future reference, you can do the same over clothes. Neither your gloves nor the mesh of the fool’s bodysuit ought to have presented complications.”

“Be that as it may, I thought it a flirtation with folly to court further uncertainty,” Katsumi assented as she picked up the dagger and sheathed it again before putting it into her satchel. “I had no knowledge of just how delicate and precise I needed to be before attempting it, and so I will defend my choice given the knowledge I had at the moment I needed it.”

“Prudent. However, there is a distinction between prudence and risk-aversion,” Myfanwy chided, reaching out to rest a hand on Katsumi’s shoulder. “Worry not, my dear—you’ll learn quickly. I’ll make certain of it. This was nonetheless a very promising performance.”

No sooner had this been said than did the door burst open, and through came a woman bearing a startlingly strong resemblance to Katsumi, if one disregarded the scales, the horns, and the discrepancy in eye colour. Their skin tones, hair colours, and hair textures were identical, and to look upon them was to see them as two beauties with no peers beyond each other: Katsumi’s beauty was sharp, distant, and cold like winter, ethereal and pitiless, while the other woman’s was a softer, kinder sort of allure, like the radiant warmth of a familiar hearth as a refuge against the bone-deep chill of driving wind and rain; yet, these differences placed them in the realm of plausible sorority if not for the evident difference in species, as opposed to the realms where the dreaded faerie púcaí walked.

The stranger’s bearing and attire were also divergent from Katsumi’s, yet still bearing striking similarities; while the new woman dressed in a flowing, elegant, courtly dress, it still bore a similar dark colour scheme—though contrasted with accents of other colours—and both still covered their bodies very completely, creating a very deliberate effect in what parts of them were on display. One of the woman’s hands, for example, with barely more than its long, delicate fingers on display, moved to toss the long braid out of her way in a gesture of what appeared to be agitation.

Behind her came the unusually hale albino man from the bar who Kai’ri supposed could only be Tandem, his eyes wide and his face frantic with contrition. “I’m sorry, Myfanwy, I tried to stop her, but…”

“Charlotte. You are quite late, young lady,” Myfanwy remarked, interrupting as though Tandem had not even opened his mouth. “Such tardiness is incredibly unbecoming, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“My apologies, Myfanwy. I had to get around the witless wonder behind me who was trying to bar my entry,” the woman replied smoothly, her golden eyes flitting around the room and widening when they fell upon Kai’ri and his comrades. “And who are these newcomers?”

“According to Katsumi, they are the self-styled Red Branch,” Myfanwy sighed with a dismissive gesture. “A company of adventurers or some such nonsense, I’m sure.”

“Ah! The Red Branch! Emberlet’s most illustrious band, yes?” said Charlotte, turning her attention fully upon them. “I must say, I expected five of you, yet I see only four.”

“The fifth is unconscious at the moment,” Katsumi supplied, folding her arms across her chest again, even as she gestured evocatively with one gloved hand. “She’s newly stable, but she had a bit of a nasty spell with her aura, so she’ll be using my bed to recuperate for the moment, until she regains some of her strength.”

“I see, I see. Well then, I suppose a proper introduction is in order,” Charlotte affirmed, drawing herself up into a courtly posture that was just a touch more perfect than it had been. “I am Mercédès Charlotte Lucerne, twelfth of my line, and fourteenth to bear the honour of serving the Principality of Maelnaulde as its sovereign. It is good to finally meet the group of whom First Councillor Thayan has such effusive praise. I would say that I hope you have not found your travels too arduous, but I believe I know as well as you that such a hope would be in vain. Nevertheless, I am pleased you have made Katsumi’s estimable acquaintance—she is a valued kinswoman of House Lucerne, and my dear friend besides.”

“She has been very helpful, Your Grace,” Yasha said, stepping forth and bowing slightly at the waist—though Kai’ri couldn’t help but notice that her display of deference here seemed much less sincere than it had been when she addressed Katsumi. “I do not believe we would have been able to meet you without her aid.”

“I am glad to hear it. You may rest assured that we will stop at nothing to ensure that the remainder of your stay in our fair city passes without incident,” said the newly-introduced Prince Mercédès. “It would not do for an olive branch from Maelnaulde to the other Free Cities to divulge into a casus belli. Our enemies great and small, within and without, are growing bolder, and so, now more than it has ever been since the Great War some few centuries past, unity is of paramount importance. May I make your acquaintances individually?”

Yasha’s eyes shifted in suspicion for the span of a moment, too quickly for Kai’ri to notice if he had not had his attention fixed on his friend. “Of course, Your Grace. I am Yasha, and I hail from the Felmarch Highlands and the clans therefrom. My companions can speak for themselves.”

“Kai’ri Nhul,” Kai’ri said at the prompt, wariness tempering his normal exuberant affect. “Disciple of the Order of the Closed Fist. My sister and our fifth member, Master Matoya, is the one currently unconscious on that bed.”

He crossed his arms, uncertain of what had stayed his tongue regarding the name by which he knew his sister, but trusting in it all the same. The baton was nonetheless passed, and Noah was next in line.

“Master Noah, of the Way of the White,” said he, following suit in turn with a short, perfunctory bow. “Master Matoya and I are colleagues, hailing from the Magisterium of Sosaria, though her Mastery was gained from the Coven of the Black.”

“And I am Constance the Red, Your Grace,” Constance announced, giving a fuller bow, complete with a flourish that nonetheless seemed to reflect Kai’ri’s instinctive wariness of the woman. “I, like my senior and comrade, Yasha, can claim no direct association to Master Matoya, or indeed any of the trio prior to their landing on the shores of Deist.”

“A red mage? I have heard of your order, few though you have become in number in recent centuries,” Prince Mercédès remarked. “Established in the wake of the War of the Magi, and culled by the Great War and its aftermath. According to my mother, Rainemard was the last of your kind. It is good to see that he has successfully rebuilt your discipline as he intended.”

Constance wilted, the false light fading from her eyes. “I am afraid, Your Grace, that Rainemard was my master. And he is no more. The title of last of the red mages which he bore, I have inherited.”

The prince’s hand flew to her breast, as she recoiled in shock. “I…I am sorry, it was not my intention to dredge up such unpleasant memories. Rest assured, regardless of how far he travelled and his associations with others of his august order, Rainemard was ever a son of Maelnaulde, and he shall be dearly missed. It is good that you, his apprentice, survived him, however; long have we wondered what became of him, and now we know.”

“Your Grace,” Katsumi sighed, but it sounded like a warning, and a harsh one at that. “Surely you have come to see to some business beyond the greeting of the newcomers of whose arrival and location you were, until recently, unaware. What redress do you seek in visiting us here in the Rouge?”

“Why, Katsumi! Can a prince not simply wish to visit a friend?” the prince replied, affronted.

“Had you wished to speak with me, you had ample opportunity this morning, directly after the conclusion of my meeting with Dame Rienna,” Katsumi said, her voice smooth and sure as she addressed the sovereign. “And I think we both know that were that your goal, you would never have allowed yourself to squander such a perfect opportunity.”

The prince sighed. “You’re no fun.”

“I have been accused of such,” Katsumi rebuffed. “Up to and including having an allergy to the concept attributed to me. How one may have a pattern of involuntary physical reactions to such an esoteric concept with such subjective criteria is beyond me, but it is nonetheless an accusation levied at my person.”

“Such is beyond my ken, as well, but if anyone could manage to have such an unfortunate affliction, it would be you,” said Prince Mercédès.

“Granted,” Katsumi acknowledged with a curt nod. “The fact remains, however, that I have not managed it at any point to date, and as such, further discussion of the matter is better left to learned academics and their indefinite contemplations. Now, shall we to the point, or have you yet more deflections with which I shall be showered?”

The prince chuckled fondly, and produced from her hand by virtue of legerdemain an official-looking scroll, which Katsumi took, breaking the seal and unrolling it to read its contents. Her eyes scanned for a brief period of time, before furling it back again with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “A formal proclamation of an Edict of Aschtinricht.”

“Indeed,” replied the prince.

“You don’t think that’s a little…I don’t know, excessive?” Katsumi asked, the exhausted sigh she did not release nonetheless represented in every word that found its way out her mouth. “The Fortinbras boy was acting on his own, in open defiance of his father’s wishes—and he failed. Lord Fauntleroy is dead. He died ignobly, slain in failure on the streets of the Rouge less than an hour ago. Is that not enough? For that matter, how did you even have the time to… You know what, forget it. Please call it off.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Prince Mercédès remarked with the utmost severity. “The proclamation is being fulfilled as we speak. All Crown Knights affiliated with House Fortinbras are as of this moment uprooting the entire poisonous weed of treason, burning the bulb, and salting the earth from which it sprang in the first place. Every last member of the house and its cadet branches, from the oldest crone to the youngest infant, shall die by the hands of their brethren, before that brethren, too, shall be compelled to fall upon their swords that the rites and rules of Aschtinricht might be properly observed, its stipulations satisfied.”

“Lottie…” Katsumi groaned, and Kai’ri would be shocked if anyone currently both conscious and in the room managed to miss the prince’s flinch and sudden look of blank astonishment. Equally stark was how her face hardened until it looked graven.

“Don’t ‘Lottie’ me! I don’t know if you’ve somehow missed the memo, but Maelnaulde exists in a very delicate balance of power between the noble houses, and many of them have a number of younger members with more ambition than sense with the capacity to cause all of us quite a bit of trouble if left unattended!” the prince fired back with uncharacteristic vehemence. “Your bleeding-heart mercy is all well and good in a less precarious situation, but unfortunately, this incident was a clear indication that the noble houses—all of them—need an unambiguous reminder of why conspiring to commit high treason is a bad idea. The moment Baron Fortinbras needed to forbid his son from acting, what he should have done is consult Mother or me, preferably both, so that only his son would face the consequences. Instead, he chose the safety of his heir over his duties to House Lucerne, the throne, and Maelnaulde itself, and for that, he condemned his entire line. Nobles are the embodiment of their houses and their houses’ interests. It is high time they were reminded of that, by force if need be! So unless you’re looking to take up contract killing to put these traitors to the sword before they implicate their entire families in such conspiracies…!”

“What did this Fauntleroy prick even do?” asked Ástríðr. “I mean, Aschtinricht’s some pretty serious shit, especially for you.”

“Lord Fauntleroy attacked us along with his cohort of Crown Knights, I think they’re called,” Constance piped up, supplying information in hopes of defusing the suddenly awkward tension. “He initially claimed to be after us, because Yasha got us out of being extorted, but apparently he actually wanted to use us as a cover to kill Lady Katsumi here, since she had apparently slighted his family and the families of his friends when their fathers were kicked out of court in favour of Lady Katsumi’s audience with the prince. This was interspersed with various racial epithets and insinuations to that…end… Oh no…”

Kai’ri had thought Ástríðr was terrifying in all her fury before, but he saw now that that had been simple ignorance and naivete. The elf woman’s fury was for a moment so oppressive that every instinct he had screamed at him to flee for his life, and then was undetectable, having shot to such a ruinous height and magnitude that it was rendered imperceptible to mortal beings. “Mercédès Charlotte Lucerne. For the sake of our friendship, I will overlook this instance, and only this one; and because you are my friend, I will say this exactly once. If anyone thinks to threaten her again, you will inform me. I shall deal with it myself. And I somehow doubt your methods of retribution are quite as inventive—or effective—as my own. The House of Fortinbras has not paid half as much as they are obligated. If I am forced to repeat myself, if this should happen a second time, there will be no more bonds of friendship between us, and no force in all the worlds will be sufficient to shield you from me. Are we clear?”

“Eminently,” the prince replied with a contrite sigh. “For what it’s worth, it was a sudden thing, and my mother made the call. I came here in part to inform you, and I would have been successful, had she not desired immediate reprisal, and had your father here not sought to impede my haste or otherwise obstruct me.”

“Well then, my dears, it has certainly been entertaining to bear witness to your lives,” said Myfanwy, who had somehow been forgotten in the mix, as she brushed past the press of people in moving towards the door. “But I’m afraid other matters require my attention at present, and so I shall take my leave. Ástríðr, dear, you can keep the gil. Think of it as…an investment, of a sort.”

“Wait, what was that mountain of gil for anyways?” Katsumi asked.

“Whyever would one spend such an exorbitant sum at a brothel, I wonder? Could it be that they sought to purchase the services of one of the employees?” Myfanwy asked rhetorically, pausing momentarily at the threshold. “Two of them, as it happens. I fancied a tumble with yourself, dear girl, and your wonderful lover over here. At the moment, however, I suppose it shall have to wait until a later time. You girls have fun, now! Take care to refrain from doing anything I wouldn’t!”

And with that, Myfanwy Blackwood was out the door with a jaunty wave, leaving a room stunned to silence in her wake.

----------------------------------------

The greatest source of shame in her life was that she was an imposter. A falsehood. The most thinly-substantiated of fictions. Her brother continued to call her that name, ‘Kai’ya,’ but Kai’ya Nhul had perished with her tribe, had ceased to be along with all she knew and loved, survived only by her brother. She had clung to the image of Matoya in the Magisterium, for it was a name that she did not have, but at least one she could earn, one she could reach for, no longer doomed to defile the memory of a dead girl’s innocence. She had become it as best she could, raw material poured into a mould in the hopes that it would assume the mould’s shape once it cooled, and every so often, she fooled even herself, letting herself believe in this little charade she had concocted to belay the acknowledgement of the inevitable truth—and when she slept, the sweet little lies she told herself and everyone around her were peeled away, leaving behind only that cold, dreadful truth, the immutable fact…

…That she was no one.

Matoya was as much a falsehood, as much a mockery, a thespian’s farce, as the name her brother insisted on calling her. The Sorceress Matoya was thousands of years dead, Kai’ya Nhul dead for over a decade; avoiding one did not preclude her from being marked with the sin of the other. She was a shade, a shadow on the wall, caught between two equally unobtainable people, people she would give anything to be either of—but then, she had nothing to give, did she?

And was that not a cruel irony, then, that the girl who had had so much was made to suffer all that she possessed to be ripped from her by force, while the wraith that took her place had all the desire to give, and was yet bereft? Truly, it was some great cosmic joke that she was certain the gods were still laughing themselves sick over.

So in the unending darkness bounded within the seemingly infinite confines of her mind did she wander, confined on all sides by truths so terrible that they wormed their tendrils of madness into her just far enough to hurt, but they never burrowed far enough to relieve her of the lucid awareness of all that she was, and all that she could never be. Some distant part of her hoped that at least whatever jester or charlatan had spun this jibe was being well-compensated by their divine audience.

“Well then, is this not a pitiable sight? One of Her Majesty’s very finest, reduced to such a state. Why, it is enough to drive one to despair, that the order of things might be upset so.”

The euphonious, silvery baritone that reached her was unmistakably male, its diction impeccable and laden with such obvious knowledge of superiority that she was given to wonder if this was how aristocrats thought they sounded, or at the very least thought they ought to sound. It was imperious and commanding, sensual and seductive, powerful and subtle, and it was a set of tones she was certain she had never heard before, for this was not the sort of voice that one ever truly forgot.

She turned to face the speaker, and what entered her sight was a man of surpassing grace and beauty. He was tall, slim, and flawless; from the lavender-silver hair that was figured and styled into a form that was most assuredly painstakingly intricate, and yet somehow appeared for all the world to be effortlessly simple, adorned with a golden diadem, to the dark features that made up his face—his smouldering eyes, high cheekbones, elegant nose, strong yet narrow jaw, and full lips—to the painted markings around his eyes and lips that gave it that extra little push, his was the sort of face that men would kill for, either coveting or despising. His garb was ostentatious yet elegant, a set of midnight robes more like a coat and trousers, with heeled boots and a pronounced violet mantle from which cascaded a luxurious billowing cloak, coming together to create an image of a sorcerer-king of eld, immaculate and immutable in all his inimitable darkness. In many ways, he was a male version of how she had always imagined the Sorceress Matoya to appear, at once alluring and terrible, looking to be reclined upon a throne with supreme languor, despite the fact that there was no throne beneath him—only the unbound darkness of her mind.

His fingers, adorned with long, sharp nails that looked almost like claws, drummed across the surface of the arm of the nonexistent throne, his eyes, the same cross between silver and lavender as his hair, fixed upon her in regal assessment, as though awaiting her.

“I-I’m sorry?” she said, half in query.

“As well you should be,” he replied smoothly, drawing both hands into his lap and folding them. “Her Majesty chose you by hand. The very least you could do is strive to prove yourself worthy of her favour. There are many who would slaughter armies and ruin nations to draw even a fraction of the attention you receive from her purely by virtue of the station to which she has appointed you—and in fact, many more already have.”

“‘Her Majesty?’ Wh…” she protested, utterly nonplussed. Then she sighed, composing herself, and spoke anew. “You aren’t making any sense. I’m afraid you’ll have to start at the beginning.”

“Would that we had the time,” sighed the man, propping an elbow upon where the arm of his throne would be, and then resting his jaw upon his knuckles. “Unfortunately, my expertise in pedagogy is quite thoroughly limited, and conveying all that you have just asked will require much longer than we currently have, and so I must assure you, hollow though the assurance may be, that all will be revealed in due course. For the moment, however, you shall know me as the Devil. As soubriquets go, it is evocative enough for our purposes and shall suffice at present.”

“The Devil?” she repeated dumbly.

“Indeed,” the Devil affirmed. “The Fifteenth, if memory serves.”

She shook her head, uncertain of what was happening or how.

“But enough of these drab surroundings! A more fitting stage, I think, is required for such a momentous occasion—why, not even Óðinn was accorded so high an honour as to awaken one of the Ten!” proclaimed the Devil, seemingly emboldened. Rising from the spectral throne, he plucked a rod from the ether, and with a single swing of it, from an arc at his feet to its apex above his head, the blackness faded away, and was replaced with an indigo floor made of semi-reflective tiles, the material for which was unknown, followed by the walls of a castle, decorated with hexagons of livid, pulsating, luminous violet flesh, creating a massive chamber that was all but empty. “But I jest. His was not to awaken one of the Ten, ‘tis true, but she who he has awoken is no less valuable for it. Indeed, all have a place in Her Majesty’s service, that they might share in her dream. Nevertheless. There are such gifts in my power to give, Kai’ya, and such sweet secrets I keep; but by Her Majesty’s providence, you may awaken to your inheritance, if you have but the strength to claim it. The strength of Kai’ya, of Her Majesty’s chosen, honoured member of the Ten.”

“What are you blathering on about?!” she cried at last, finally unable to stomach so much as another moment spent in such profound ignorance.

The Devil smirked, adopting an airy posture. “Hmph. Sometimes, to understand the path that lies ahead of them, one must needs look behind them, to gaze upon forgotten roads once travelled.”

Frustrated, she turned to make a point, only to be arrested by that upon which she gazed.

The creature that stared back at her was at once entirely alien and oddly familiar. Equal parts raven and dragon, it was a great beast many times the size of a man, vivid red eyes gazing back at her from where they were set in a great angular skull, horns curling from a crest at the back of the head and forward to reveal themselves to be ossified feathers. Such feathers occupied every space where one might otherwise expect to see a scale, to the point where the long, thick tail was adorned with rectrices at its tip, and even the wings were adorned with plumage in place of the leathery membrane she had expected. Its body was massive and figured alike to that of wyrmkin, and yet once more, the chest and back were covered in feathers so thickly that she did not believe an arrow would be able to puncture the creature’s hide any more than it would were a coat of scales in the feathers’ place.

In its maw were the teeth of a scavenger, of carrion, meant to tear away dead or dying flesh more than the slaying of prey; the eyes gleamed with a corvid intellect, and beyond that, an intelligence that was beyond the ken of mortals, a boundless and unfettered view of the cycles and functions of the turning of the wheel of life and death. The claws were like the teeth, but the digits were odd, seemingly capable of deft manipulation despite the magnitude of the creature’s form; and in its jaw rested a long, thick, livid red tongue, lacking the distinctive fork found in most reptiles, and even lower orders of wyrmkin. Yet, the emotions she felt from it were alike to her feelings regarding her own name, that to approach it would be to violate some final boundary beyond whose undiscovered country lay she knew not what.

“It is a common mistake, you know,” began the Devil anew, drawing up alongside her as she hesitated to approach. “Many are the multitude who have looked upon the visage of Death and seen an end. As is often the case with such things, it is true, but it is by no means the whole truth. The black standard, the white rose, the dead man on his pale horse, the number Thirteen, it’s all very evocative, is it not? But Death bears also No Name, and while the assumption is that Death foretells ruin, it is better understood as a harbinger of a crossroads, a herald of great change, transformative change, such that the old self is slain that the new might be born. That is why Death is sometimes depicted as a woman gravid with child; that which came before is but the anticipation of what is to succeed it, for good or for ill.

“You claim that Kai’ya is dead, and that she perished long ago. You claim it to yourself within the recesses of your mind, have repeated it like a prayer until you are so fervent in your belief that you can see naught else to exist. But the child who perished was a Kai’ya. She was not Kai’ya, not truly, and she never had been—just as a larva is the anticipation of a butterfly, so too was she but the anticipation of you, and all that you may become. So, come then, Kai’ya, and cast away this crude effigy, this mask of yielding flesh! Know thyself, and witness the truth! Look there, and gaze upon the Dread Wings of Hel!”

The creature preened for a moment, before, acknowledging the prompt, it rose up to present itself in all its mortific glory, feathers fluttering to the ground as its flight-giving limbs unfurled to their true magnificent size; and where their shadows fell, so too did mortality fester and give way to nothingness. And in that moment, she knew.

It was a psychopomp.

And it was her.

It was Kai’ya.

Perhaps for the first time, she allowed herself to think it was possible—that someday, she might not feel like an imposter, a skin-changer, a wight wearing a dead girl’s face.

That someday, the face she saw staring back at her in the looking-glass would feel like her own.

She reached out, a deep yearning to be filling her heart, her fingers a hair’s breadth from the psychopomp’s nose…

The Devil’s hand seized her wrist in a grip like iron. She could get no closer. He sighed in lamentation. “Not quite yet, I’m afraid. And things were going so well, too…”

“Wha…?!”

“I apologise, my dear, but you’re simply just not ready,” the Devil explained with a sort of didactic contrition, like how one would speak to a small child. “You didn’t really think this would be that easy, did you?”

“But…!” she cried, and it was like she felt the face of Kai’ya being ripped from her once more, leaving naught behind but that shadow of what might have been.

“There was once a girl who dreamed of flying, and so, in her darkest hour, she prayed for wings,” said the Devil, his gaze serious even as his expression twisted into conciliation and something like sympathy. “It is that prayer, and that prayer alone, that shall set you free. But until you reclaim it for yourself, such liberty shall ever elude you. But lament not, my dear—Her Majesty would not appoint a task that she believed beyond you. I shall leave a token that you may remember me by, and when the time is right, you shall know what you must do. So stay strong. Keep the faith. At journey’s end, we will meet again.”

We will.

We will…

----------------------------------------

She shot up in bed like she was breaking through a sheet of ice at last, her chest heaving as though she had been submerged in the freezing depths below. It was as though frost had formed on the tissue of her lungs, every breath thin and wheezing, with the faint taste of blood at the back of her throat. Her appendages tingled and burned as though she had been submerging them in snow for hours, but she nonetheless felt around and chanced upon a hard surface, her fingertips glossing across the ossified texture of it. She shied away, dreading it with all her being.

The bed beneath her was a plush feather mattress, but all around her there was naught but darkness. Through a large window came the serene argent light of the moon, but it only threw the unyielding blackness of the chamber into harsh relief. She did not know where she was, or when she was, and was caught between believing herself awoken and contemplating the possibility of having emerged from a dream into a layered nightmare.

Then, in repositioning her hand to better balance, her fingers hit upon cold, thin metal; she secured it, and brought it to her face, relying on her feline sight to gaze upon it, but the light was insufficient in the face of the moon’s obstructive radiance. She rubbed her eyes and stared at it harder, but to no avail; the darkness was too deep for her senses to pierce.

“Why do you fear it?”

That language. Her ears did not understand it, could not make sense of the twisting syllables and the double-toned layered phonetics, one voice speaking one thing and the echo harmonising a different sequence of resonant sounds. It was not a tongue that mortal mouths could speak, nor one that mortal minds could ever hope to comprehend. Yet, in the deepest of her heart of hearts, in the exhumed depths of her soul, she knew it like her mother tongue.

“It’s only a mask. It will not harm you.”

She turned to find the source of the voice speaking that tongue, only to fall upon a set of scarlet flames, eyes so vivid and luminous that they glared through the dark and appeared alight, like candle-flames—though they illuminated nothing beyond themselves.

Then the speaker stepped forth, and she could feel something, a rhythmic pulse that was almost percussive, felt within the depths of her being instead of her physical form. She knew this person—Yasha, her brain insisted, while her heart called Sieðreyj. She wondered if this was how Kai’ri felt when he addressed her, knowing her as the sister he had known all his life while knowing also that she called herself something quite distinct, and felt at that internal question a surge of empathy for her brother, one that she could not suppress as she normally did. It felt as though the mask of Matoya was torn from her, leaving her visage flayed and exposed to the world—exposed even to herself.

“It is the one place I do not dare look, for I know not what I shall find,” she replied in kind, and to say the words aloud, to reproduce the language wholesale, provoked a profound yet inexplicable feeling of recurrence.

“You must confront it,” Yasha/Sieðreyj chided. “For like a shadow, it shall stalk you until the ends of the world, and the flight, futile as it is, shall ruin you utterly. It is not our way to run from such things. It is not our way to forsake our dreams. Our beloved Phantasia.”

Scowling, she reached back to where the ossified surface lay, and lifted it from her side to gaze upon it.

It was as she had been told—a mask. Pale as bone, thin as flesh, yet stronger than any and all materials she had ever before encountered, or even known to exist. The visage it portrayed was sinister, like that of a skull, teeth bared and eyes empty yet glaring sockets, and nostrils like that of a snake, slits on either side of a contour.

“Why…? Why does it not quicken…?”

“It does not quicken because it does not know me,” she answered bitterly, the words like ash in her mouth. “It does not know me, for I do not know myself.”

“But how…?! How could it not?!” Yasha/Sieðreyj protested, frustration like palpable heat radiating from her. Then she sighed, composing herself. “What is the other thing upon which you were so fixated before?”

The black mage produced the thin sheet of metal from beside her, slipping from out of the unfamiliar bed and onto her feet, padding on unsteady legs like a newborn cervine to the broad shaft of moonlight that cut through the interminable shadow. In the light of the moon, she beheld its face, and upon it was depicted a fiendish satyr with the full head of a goat, bearing an inverted pentagram upon its forehead as it sat with monastic poise upon a raised pedestal, goat legs folded in half-lotus while great leathery wings unfurled from its back, its right hand raised while the left, holding a torch, was downturned. The pedestal held a yoke, and to that yoke were chained two youths, one male, one female, with upturned horns like where she had her ears, and tails, with the male’s tail afire while the female’s bore a bunch of grapes, the chains forming a noose hanging loosely around their necks. At the top of the plate were two characters, “XV”, and at the bottom was written in a script she did not immediately recognise a pair of words that she knew by instinct had to be there, for what else could it be?

THE DEVIL.

“It is the sign of Hell's Remnant, Her Majesty’s Living Shadow,” Yasha/Sieðreyj began, her intonation reverent. “He whose loyalty was so great that he sacrificed his sentient existence, the very truth of his soul, that he might serve for eternity as an instrument of her will. We know not his name, for that is known to Her Majesty only, and to all others has he relinquished it; he is known as the Black Magician. The Devil.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Were you to ask me to repeat this on the morrow, I could not find the words, and nor would I even know that I have spoken such,” Yasha/Sieðreyj explained. “We are creatures of instinct, and this far removed from our homeland, such knowledge comes to us when it ought, and is at all other moments utterly beyond our reach. By Her Majesty’s grace and by our service in her name shall salvation be ours, and by our shared Phantasia shall we always possess that which we require at the moment it is necessary.”

The black mage lifted the mask again, staring into it in rueful contemplation. “The Devil said that I will be ready when I remember the prayer. That I must remember what it was to dream of flight. To pray for wings…”

“I see,” Yasha/Sieðreyj replied, nodding sagaciously. “Then I suppose you must ask of yourself… What became of the girl who prayed for wings?

“And by what means might she be Resurrected?”