“We should have just canceled,” Verum muttered cantankerously, and Callida sank heavily into the corner of the couch in his study.

“We’re doing the best we can, but there’s not much I can do about your noble guests getting harassed as they arrive.”

“I know. It’s just… after nearly two weeks of the camp breaking up and people finally leaving… how many did you say there were?”

“Less than a full battalion, more than I care to admit.”

Verum snorted humorlessly. “So not quite two thousand? And they just showed up overnight?”

“No, Verum, most of them are the people who have been stubbornly still sticking around, but their numbers did inflate again over the last two days. Like I already said, that’s what I’m the most worried about. Who is joining them now that the camp is breaking? It might just be late-comers, but with the ball being tonight, my concern is that–”

“–they’re not Primordialist believers and are just here to hide amongst the masses.”

“Exactly so. Maybe they’re plotting something.” She sighed, her head tipping back to rest against the cushion behind her. “Is it too late to cancel?”

“Callida, the guests are already arriving, I need to wrap this meeting up so I can get myself ready, and you need to get home so you can get ready! Yes. It’s too late to cancel.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “In that case, I want you and Flore to stick close to your bodyguards tonight. Pius, did you hear that?!” she shouted to be sure that the captain standing just inside the door could hear her.

“Yes, General.”

“Good. And Pius, let Sal know when you next see him?”

“Yes, General.”

“What about you and Qiangde?” Verum interjected. “You know a potential plot might be targeting you two rather than us, right?”

“Well, I’m me, and I’ll be wearing my sword belt,” Callida retorted with a smirk, “but Gravis is already planning on watching Rogue’s back for me, and I half expect that Vir will be doing the same for me despite that not being his assignment tonight. I’ve also assigned my boys’ nobilises to guard the palace nursery.”

“You’re still planning on your boys joining Tatio in the nursery tonight?”

“Yes. I’ve confirmed those plans with the nursery staff already, but, speaking of, I need to go bring the boys to them. They are expected right about now.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything taken care of,” Verum noted with melancholic distraction.

“Verum, we’ll get through this, and tomorrow I’ll go chew out whomever is still camping at the gates. Would that make you feel better?”

“Can I watch?” he returned with a sly grin. “That would be fun.”

Callida laughed and got up to leave. “Sure. Tomorrow, we can ride out together in a display of friendship to show a united front, and you can watch as I lay into these guys. Deal?”

Verum stood up to offer her his hand to clasp. “Deal. I’ll look forward to it, General.”

“Then, I’ll see you tonight, Your Majesty,” she said with a bow.

***

Her team of stylists had outdone themselves as usual. Callida and Rogue were dressed as the living embodiments of the day and night skies respectively — the sources of the Primordial power according to mythology. With a shimmery gown of a similar color to her hair — designed with a fitted, highly detailed bodice, a layered fringe skirt and fringe sleeves falling off her shoulders — Callida’s look represented the sun and would be fun to twirl in later that night. Contrastingly, Rogue’s black hair was further emphasized by a black suit studded with small, white, sparkly things and a thin crescent-shaped strip of silver subtly patchworked into the material of his jacket — the night sky.

“I will never get used to you looking like that,” Callida said of Rogue’s ensemble.

“In a good way or a bad way?” he smirked back.

“You look good, Rogue,” she assured him quickly. “You look…. You’ll fit in perfectly with the glamorous Lion Tribe nobility… except maybe your hair color. How did I end up with such a handsome husband?”

“But…?”

She smiled wistfully, her finger winding itself up in one of his freshly coiffed curls falling just to his shoulders. “But I married a bandit… who smelled of campfire smoke most of the time and wore old, patched clothes and tanned animal skins stitched haphazardly together. Now…. I’ll never get used to seeing you in costumes like this.”

Rogue collected her hand, still twisting itself through his hair, and kissed the meat of her palm. He then pointed at her dress, grinning goofily at her. “It’s shiny.” She laughed, and Rogue took the opportunity to draw her into a kiss that collected some of her lipstick with his neatly trimmed and shaped scruff. His just-been-kissed grin fell flat as Callida pulled away worrying her bottom lip. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She quickly smiled and pecked at his lips again.

“Yeah, because I bought that, “ he snarked. “What’s wrong, Callida?”

“Just… stay close to me or Gravis at all times tonight.”

“Why?”

“Just promise me.”

“I… ok, fine, but why? Does this have anything to do with–”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t even let me finish,” he snorted.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You were asking if this had anything to do with the people crowding the palace gates.”

“Tangentially, sure. I was going to ask if it had anything to do with that stupid prophecy.”

She ignored the correction. “I’m feeling nervous about tonight. I don’t have any concrete reason to be nervous, but I am.”

Rogue frowned. “Goldie’s intuition?”

“I’m inclined to trust her instincts. She’s rarely wrong with stuff like this.”

“I know,” he said softly, studying his wife’s troubled caramel eyes.

“Yeah…. So tonight will be… interesting,” Callida said optimistically.

“Hopefully not too interesting,” he returned with a tease and got kissed for it.

***

Neurotically checking on the boys before going to the party in the ballroom, Callida found them all very happily playing or sleeping in the palace nursery. Probus had buddied up with Optatio and the pair were diving off a couch they’d disassembled onto the loose cushions on the floor, laughing hysterically while Rapax kept the pair from jumping on top of each other by accident. Tiaki and Manasik were exploring a bin of new toys, and Callida laughed when Manasik reached for a toy that was too deep and ended up upside down with his chubby feet flailing in the air, requiring a watchful Arum to fish him back out. Apparently that wasn’t the first time that had happened. The twins, Tajam and Ddalu, were sleeping while Moro and Adjutus gabbed nearby with a pair of flirty nurses. Callida was shooed away before she could even ask how everyone was doing. Mind at ease for the moment, she left quietly before the boys could see her, and led Rogue to where the orchestral music and visual splendor became overwhelming.

But the atmosphere was all wrong. Normally the New Year’s ball was festive with most of the space reserved for dancing. This year, the only quarter of the room with dancing couples was the space near that enormous observation platform where the king and queen presented themselves before joining the festivities. Callida poked her head out of her metaphorical turtle shell to actually pay attention to the people around her. Her conclusion: the glamorous nobles were nervous.

Instead of flaunting their plumage and trying to one-up each other, most of them were engaged in hushed conversations, commiserating in common stresses, worrying about the zealots at the gates — zealots in their own cities and territories, relaying anecdotes about the things these people were saying and doing… and threatening. The conversations danced around the prophecy, most of them refusing to address it directly, and as soon as they noticed Callida hovering nearby, they silenced, their mannerisms either becoming falsely cheerful or closed off and vaguely hostile. She’d gone from war hero to social pariah in record time, it seemed, and as soon as Rogue was connected to her, he too became an outcast. It’s not that she cared so much about what the nobility thought of her — frankly, any disinclination was mutual, but, if nothing else, it was uncomfortable dragging Rogue through the mud with her. It was tempting to simply walk out and go home, but that disquieting something niggled at the back of her mind, and her sense of obligation kept her in the room.

“Lion General! Qiangde, welcome to the party,” Verum greeted them with artificial gusto and a broad smile. He was trying to lighten the mood with Flore at his side and their bodyguards, Pius and Sal, following behind. He was facing an uphill battle. “Well don’t you two look fabulous?!” came the requisite compliment. “Embodying the celestial lights, the sources of power for the Primordial spirits. Does that make you a power couple?” He laughed at his own joke, and Callida humored him with a grin.

“Why don’t you explain your costumes to me, Verum?” she asked, knowing full well that the costumes were Verum’s favorite part of this event, and also knowing that he’d designed them himself. Both he and Flore were wearing magnificent outfits pieced from exquisitely detailed panels in the same five colors: black, gold, silver, blue, and red.

“Oh, come, now, Callida. Isn’t it obvious?” He pouted playfully and launched into an overly detailed explanation while Flore rolled her eyes. She’d heard this explanation probably a dozen times already. “So, there are five colors, and each one–”

“–represents one of the five Primordial spirits,” Callida finished his sentence, trying to hurry him along. It backfired.

“Very good, General! You’ve been brushing up on your lore!”

“Everyone knows that, Verum,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot.”

He chuckled and continued. “Well, the detailing on each color is symbolic of the essences of the Primordial spirits. So red feathers for the Red Phoenix, blue scales for the Blue Dragon, gold suns for the Golden Lion, silver stars for the Silver Wolf, and black smoke for the Black Bear.”

“It’s very symbolic,” Callida nodded with approval.

“But you haven’t seen the best part yet!” he exclaimed, and next to him, Flore all but facepalmed. Verum opened his jacket to reveal a white satin also detailed with scales. “It’s the Dragon King! Isn’t it awesome?!”

“And Flore has her own secret, white panel?”

“It’s hidden by the bustle of her gown,” Verum confirmed, “but I think she’s tired of me showing people,” he added and grinned apologetically at his wife.

“It’s… awesome,” Callida validated dryly, giving Flore a knowing, sympathetic glance. “How are you, Flore?”

“Oh, the evening is treating me well enough,” she declared diplomatically and side-eyed her husband.

“Has Verum asked you to dance yet?”

“One song,” Flore rolled her eyes again, and Callida snorted.

“Unacceptable. Verum, you need to fix that.”

“Right, erm, next dance?” he asked sheepishly.

“Yes, please,” Flore said with a polite curtsy, rising again to mouth “thank you” at Callida (without any real effort made to hide her silent gratitude) as Verum led her to where people were dancing next to the corner tower.

“Callida, everyone is staring at us… well… at you,” Rogue drew close to whisper in her ear, his eyes scanning the near groups of people all quickly looking away the moment she too started looking. “How do you stand it?”

“It’s not usually this bad,” she whispered back, “but mostly, I just ignore it.”

“But how?!”

“I don’t know. I guess I just don’t care enough for it to bother me.”

“Oh, to be you and able to just not care,” he snarked uncomfortably.

She laughed at that. “It used to be annoying,” she backtracked and began mindlessly fussing with the collar of his shirt as an excuse to snuggle in closer. “Maybe I just got used to it. Someday, you will too.”

“I don’t think I want to do this often enough to get used to it,” he retorted but grinned with her nose nuzzling softly against his jawline. “Ok. Maybe it’s not so bad. Hey, you wanna pretend we’re teenagers and find a quiet corner somewhere to makeout?”

Callida snorted and then actually considered the joke proposal. “I wonder if anyone’s found the library yet.”

“Yeah?!” Surprised, Rogue became excited, and Callida took his hand with a wink, leading him through the crowds to the side door and through the hallway beyond it, at the end of which was the library in question. Sadly, someone had already found the library — unironically, a pair of teenagers. “Dang. Out-teenagered by the teenagers,” Rogue sulked and laughed at the same time.

“It’s probably just as well,” Callida sighed, and laced her fingers through his on the walk back. “Raincheck?”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“I think we lost Gravis somewhere back there. First night with a bodyguard, and you’re already giving him the slip,” she grinned impishly as they arrived at the ballroom.

And someone screamed.

“I’m not that ugly, am I?” Rogue quipped for Callida’s benefit, but she was too distracted to hear him. The volume of the room dimmed, there was another cry of alarm, and the next moment, everything fell into chaos as the nervous nobility spooked. Some people were shouting or shrieking, others made a break for the exit. The palace guards began confused efforts to either block people in or help them get out more quickly while others searched for the source of the mayhem.

“Rogue, Gravis, now!” Callida ordered, pointing at the tall lion just a few feet away, her hand on her sword as she identified a section of the crowd that had stopped to stare. It was an upstream swim, but it became evident pretty quickly what had started the commotion. Faces were turned upwards toward the tall corner platform. At the front edge stood Verum and Flore, knives at their throats.