The porthole admitted no light when I stirred. But before the comfort of sleep could take me once more, a disastrous sight started me. Revealed by the parted curtains on Litzia’s side was an empty bed. Panicked, I quit mine, and carelessly threw together my tunic, breeches and belt. The runestaff I seized from the hanger with wonted battle-readiness. But for how long she had been gone and what hope I still had to follow her, I did not know. Gladiola had not expected the wyverness to leave so early, and so had bidden a rendezvous at dawn with her pledge-sister. But now, even waiting for Hortensia until dawn would be a luxury.

I emerged from belowdecks, seeing naught but the women on watch, and Litzia nowhere in sight, my heart sank. She had gone ashore. And with her, my chance to ever find out her secret.

But scant time was allowed me ere a sharp whistle tore through the air and my crestfallen spirit. I jerked my head abaft, to the aft-most mast, the spanker. Climbing the dark stairway to the quarterdeck, base to the Citadel, I descried a figure sliding down the rigging.

Hortensia landed with no less grace than in her true form. A long gown hugged her human body and blended into the dark of the night, creases of which subtly shifted to blue or violet at her every feline movement. Under lustrous black locks, her pallor shone like a moon. It was in this dark of the night that the measure of her allure impressed upon me stronger than ever. A being that seemed born into the mystery of darkness, a bodily form that starkly contrasted her wonted mirthfulness. Silver glinted on her person, that of thorns and a spyglass.

“Captivating, am I not?” she said with a thin smile. But her indolence ended at that greeting, at once she pointed her finger to port. “She came ashore not long ago, now she lingers at the fifth ring.”

“I should have been up earlier,” I said ruefully, “or not sleep.” I could not see how we could track my pledge-sister, now that she had been lost in the interwinding streets of Tithonus. No spyglass could see through walls.

“It was good that you slept sound when she left, else she would have been alerted. But the cause is not lost. You have me.”

I looked at her. It was not that I distrusted her, and I knew well her masteries in the sky, but there seemed to be little usefulness in her for a desperate urban chase.

She cupped my chin, cold nails pressed lightly into my skin. “Your pledge-sister has not wings. I do.”

A pledge.

I shuddered. It felt most wrong to pledge with aught else than mine, much less someone’s partner. This, perhaps, was the only line I was not willing to cross.

“No.” I drew back, but she held firm. The painted nails dug in.

“Do you not wonder what she does behind your back? Something so dark she must needs conceal from her very sister?” So close, her fragrance breathed moistly upon my skin. Something awakened in these dark irises normally full of larks. Like quicksand, like sucking chasms they absorbed me. Slowly, gradually, inevitably, my will became eroded by the unrelenting insistence of her silky touch, her stinging nail. My senses all but dulled and lost. “I do not ask for your chastity, starling dear, but we must fly. Is now the time to scruple about so little?”

It was convincing, being a fleeting instant done for necessity. And promising, of things more and things less. But I shook my head within her restraint, and bled. It was bad enough I mistrusted Litzia and stalked her for my own peace of mind. A step further is a step too far. I could turn back now, and at the cost of lonesome anxiety I should regain my clear conscience.

Hortensia’s thin smile changed in accord with my reluctance. It drooped, and she growled, a savage shadow passed over the dark eyes that had been compelling me. “How obtuse! Are your kind all so stubborn? Fine then!”

Her nails dug deep into my skin, the other hand thrust the spyglass into my chest. Her face closed in, but in haste, she drew away after one brief touch on my quivering lips. That much sent shivers in my veins. Her outline brightened. Not one single vow was uttered, not one heartbeat matched. What contact we established parted with little remains, save a thin thread of consciousness, scant awareness of gained external senses. But it sufficed. Before me stood the slender serpentine form of Hortensia, cloaked in cerulean scales and silver thorns.

“Come,” her voice rang hollow, like a cold draft that swept away Tithonus’ warm air.

Though I involuntarily shook, I was yet the master of my own soul, not entirely succumbed to the pledge as I had Litzia. But still it was a frightful thing.

Growing impatient, she coiled away, spreading her wings.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I leaped upon her back, fitting myself neatly upon the base of her neck. The spyglass slippery in one hand, my other clutched a thorn as we turned skyward. And then it was too late to turn back.

It was my first time flying without a formation, and Hortensia made full speed towards the clouds. She moved differently from Litzia, lighter but swifter, with less close-hauled turns, easing instead to the undulation of the air current. So silent was her movement that even the slightest city sound reached my ears.

Structures of the city lay bare under our eyes, her strange arches and domes impressing on the mountain an uneven silhouette. We passed over all, making less noise than the orchards’ swaying and rustling. Yonder at the market by the docks, the first stands had begun to stir, but where we were, silence held her serene rule of sleep, disturbed only by her consort, the night breeze.

As she bade, I extended the spyglass, sweeping the deserted streets, winding pathways up and downhill, wending in complicated threads the much-altered passages, corners and almost hidden alleys through many populated centuries. But it was a futile endeavor. So late into the night, and early in the morning, our only light was the moon, whose light scarce touched the city’s lower parts, shadowed by the high estates of the ancient families. Upon one’s terrace Hortensia now landed. She shifted in the night as smoke, then in human form pulled a sheer hood over the silver horns, concealing the glimmering reflections from the world.

“We waited then, she will come,” she said and settled on the ledge.

“How do you know?”

“She’s still searching.”

Puzzled, but I sat with her, an arm away. She did not seem invested in the task aught more than our idle talks in the Hall. Save that her cloaked figure was at ease in the night breeze, pale skin as though merged in the moonlights, and she wore a content expression.

“What do you know?” I asked the burning question.

“I saw her in the spyglass. Scouring the streets, looking for something she herself didn’t know if it was there.”

And so we waited. From where we sat, the rare lamp lights dotted our visions with warm glows, under porches, behind gates, casting shapeless shades upon dead streets. I watched for movements, but only lone cats slipped by in a hurry for prey or mates. Countless souls asleep, and yet among them a lone woman searched, desperately. I did not know for a prey or mate, or a way out. Only that for this quest I had been neglected. Now I sat with a woman I didn’t know well, but what I did know, I fear.

Funny how in the dark, anyone, whoever, could be better than none at all. And I came to anchor my safety on the wyverness by my side, in the back of my mind, in this soundless, lightless, slumbering world. I dangled my feet off the ledge, lifting my eyes to the stars, momentarily left off the vigilant watch. How many nights I used to be on the watch like this, looking at the celestial beings, long before she had come? Here a star, and there a star, all seemed dull, losing their way, failed in luster even to Hortensia’s silver.

“You sigh too much,” Hortensia said, “ ruining the mood.”

What mood? I stared at her, not comprehending her at all. She was a puzzle, but perhaps that is wonted for an Old Empire’s courtier. Only her beauty was easy to understand, and then little else, unlike with my friends, Litzia and Thea, whose each gesture impressed somewhat on me. But when she was close, the outward allure cast away thoughts, even feelings, leaving only temptation, exciting passion, for one herself so nonchalant.

“How did you do it? The pledge,” I asked, feeling braver now that some time had passed, “I did not give in.”

“So you would like to think?” She looked at me sideways, “No, you did not. But I have my way, like Valerian with her palm, or Galanthus with her light – a gift.”

She stressed the word with only a meager note of sarcasm, and that sufficed. I had seen what became of Valerian’s blessing.

Like that, my mind returned to Litzia. She too had been confined for some gift of her own, whose nature I had yet to comprehend. The freedom that was once her had been taken away, and a friend killed. Is it so wrong that she would seek justice? No matter how often, in the privacy of thoughts, I had ridiculed the probability of her goal. But here I was, endangering the only chance she had glimpsed, whatever it could be.

As though she could read my mind, Hortensia asked, “So what will you do when you know?”

Only one thing was clear: I did not know. Is it too much to ask that I shall decide once the facts are revealed to me?

“The best for her,” I said, and hoped.

“Not for the both of you, hm? How admirable.”

“What do you want of me? That I shall stop her? Reason with her?”

Hortensia chuckled, “does not seem very feasible knowing your pledge-sister’s temper.”

I did not answer.

I wanted to believe that I alone could have a say in what Litzia did. But that too was a selfish thought, in the manner I once hoped that she would be happy by the gift of the Ammolite. And she had appeared so, at first, but never did I see the stone on her person, though she’d had it crafted into a thin chain of silver.

In the end, it seemed her mask never did allay, but only thicker in pretension. And the lies, for a long time since, had switched sides without my knowing.

Unconsciously, my fingers reached for my chest. And I froze, realizing the absence of the embed pendant, which I had forgotten in the hurry after Litzia.

It was then that Hortensia snatched the spyglass from my other hand, and leveled it towards the third ring.

“There’s our stray cat, alone still.”