I summoned every master in Iyasgorth to my chambers over the preceding weeks and eventually it was time to make a decision. My child would be born any day now, and if it was to be free of Alum’s influence then there was no further time to waste.

The masters had - despite their own confusion at my request - made it abundantly clear that there was no legal requirement that the ruler of Ebonreach be human. In fact, some of them suggested that such a thing had been explicitly struck from statute when questions of possible faerie ancestry had arisen among the nobility of Trackford and its surrounds several generations earlier. Therefore, I could remain the Duchess of Ebonreach even if I became a nymph.

I don’t know when I decided to take Xanthe up on her request. At some point, I simply started acting as though I would be a nymph in a month’s time. It was strange, but after years of pursuing men based on their handsomeness or station it felt a relief to scorn them altogether.

There were some affairs I had to get in order before I became a nymph. I allowed the local delegate judges to handle Terera’s trial for adultery, knowing that she would not deny her guilt. I interfered not at all with her traditional sentence of head shaving and internment at a monastery for a year. I felt that I’d already marked her for life; every time she saw her own reflection, or the look of disgust in a man’s eyes upon seeing her, she’d remember that I’d cut her face. That she was a harlot.

I was also tried in absentia for the acts of violence I’d committed upon Terera with my dagger. Even though I was a Duchess, I was not above the law. Thankfully, it wasn’t a serious offence as no real harm was caused to Terera and the appointed judges were not eager to test my wrath. My own absence from the trial served to demonstrate how little I cared about its result. In the end, I was forced to pay a token amount of coin to a local monastery as a means of community service. Since the monastery would be confiscated as unoccupied commercial property within three months anyway, it worked out as no punishment as all.

I promoted Tadruk to the position of Seneschal of Ebonreach. He was reluctant to accept the appointment, but I felt that he could never trust me to keep him alive with the secret of Alum’s assassination unless there was some benefit in doing so, so I forced it on him. It was a mostly ceremonial position in any case, with the allocation of duties often decided at the whim of the incumbent.

One duty which Timoth and I ensured he did accept, after deliberating heavily on the seriousness of the proposal, was the damming of the Haelling. By blocking its flow at its mouth, Tokuan raiders would be unable to pass up the river and threaten Ebonreach and Halivaara from within, and though some trading opportunities would be lost by cutting off the ability for merchants to travel down the Haelling and then along the coast in a single vessel, forcing the Tokuans to attempt to land along a fortified coastline was a major strategic win. Tadruk set off to Haelling Cove immediately to put our plans into practice, but not before I had him perform one task in Vizonia for me. It was risky, but it paid off when he returned undiscovered, having been far better at infiltration on his own than with me, Timoth, Alum, and Regeda weighing him down. Upon his return, he met me in my chambers.

‘Did you get the information?’ I asked him.

He nodded. ‘Not only that, but I learned that the Vizonians are struggling to keep their slaves subdued. The ratio of slave to free man has become too lopsided.’

‘That is interesting, but at this time I am more interested in the task I gave you. Did you learn of the crime for which Alum received a royal pardon?’

Tadruk handed me a folded sheet of parchment. ‘I took this from the Vizonian archives.’

I immediately opened it right in front of him, ignoring that he’d obviously intended to leave so that I could open it in privacy. Tadruk fidgeted awkwardly as I read it. The note was an excerpt from a more extensive biography, but the section Tadruk had brought me contained the information I sought.

Aged nineteen, Prince Alum was party to a lengthy extramarital affair with the Countess of Midletshall in the Duchy of Hollintay, herself only eighteen. The affair continued for three months before it was discovered by the Count of Midletshall, at which time the Countess was condemned to a local monastery. Highfather Ioran himself led the charge to try Prince Alum. Despite his pleadings and those of Princess Allisia, King Degron issued a royal pardon, freeing Prince Alum from any judgment for his part in the destruction of a legitimate marriage.

Tears filled my eyes again, but this time they were tears of rage.

‘I never should have trusted him,’ I cursed myself.

I’d made the deliberate decision not to look into his past even though I knew there was something shady there, and I’d made the decision not to read our marriage contract. I had only myself to blame. He’d seemed so romantic back at Hollowhold, but I only had to take a single peak at his biography to see that he’d never been able to be trusted around women. No doubt, the Countess of Midletshall had found him similarly romantic.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

‘I’m sorry, Duchess,’ he said, the words strange coming from his mouth. It was clear he knew not what else to say.

‘There is nothing to be sorry about. My husband was a liar and a cheat.’

‘I-indeed,’ he replied awkward. I dismissed him and sat in my chambers, rereading the Vizonian biography. What a fool I’d been.

The note from Vizonia was not the only one to reach my hands that day. In fact, I received letters from all four duchies as well as King Milos denouncing my assertion of dukedom. I received none from the Borderlands, or from the Vizonian Order for that matter, though this hardly constituted formal recognition.

Wargwa was stabled in a fenced paddock all of his own, attended to by men from the campaign who’d become accustomed to his presence. Scouts and spies were dispersed by Timoth and Tadruk into Vizonian and Crower-held Trent to keep us informed of events just beyond our border. Construction of the fortified outposts along the new border with Trent were underway. Timoth and Fraedwin oversaw their construction, and the earthmoving efforts necessary to funnel immigrants invading armies into the outposts. I sighed as I signed invoices for the royal treasury. I knew that, by the end, I was making excuses not to see Xanthe.

Therefore, at a time when my baby could be birthed any day, I left my chambers during the night. Clad only in my silk chemise, I spoke to the sergeant of the watch and asked if he was aware of any nymphs on the premises. He gave an evasive response, and when I pressed him the reason quickly became evident. Apparently, Xanthe had arrived late to share Timoth’s bed. I knew not what it meant for a nymph to treat with a man as an equal in a romantic relationship, but there was only one place to find out, and it was the same place that I needed to be anyway.

Upon my arrival at Timoth’s chambers, I knocked upon the door and was met by Timoth in the meeting room, clad only in hastily-draped bedsheets.

‘It’s okay, I know Xanthe’s here. You can let me in,’ I said to him.

Flushing red with embarrassment, Timoth closed the door behind me and Xanthe emerged from the bedroom.

‘Saemara. I was hoping to see you again,’ she said, totally relaxed despite my intrusion.

‘It seems that we may be seeing a lot of each other in future, for one reason or another. Tell me, Xanthe, what use does a nymph have for a man other than the taste of his flesh? Can a woman deeply and irrevocably scorned truly find love once again?’

Xanthe smiled. ‘If you live as long as I, you will find that the answers to these questions are not straightforward.’

‘Then you and Timoth are… in some sort of romantic relationship?’

Timoth’s face flushed again, but Xanthe pulled him against her and smiled.

‘I suppose that is the best way of considering it from a human perspective. Perhaps I will one day be the first nymph duchess!’ She laughed. I looked at Timoth. He wasn’t laughing, but neither did he seem to find the suggestion that far-fetched.

‘That seems highly unlikely,’ I said. ‘Not because I deny your union, but because you will not be the first.’

Xanthe raised an eyebrow. ‘You have decided to join us.’

‘I have. I have only one question: what will become of my skills with portalmancy? It is a human magic.’

Xanthe shrugged, ‘This is unknown. We have never had a woman trained in portalmancy become a nymph before.’

‘Saemara… What is this?’ Timoth interjected.

‘Is it not obvious? I am to become a nymph. Fear not, for I will remain the Duchess of Ebonreach, and your sister.’

‘That is not what I feared. These nymphs are not… human. I do not want to offend Xanthe, but they are not as you are. You will be changed,’ he said, struggling to find the words to explain his astonishment.

‘And here I was, thinking your objection would be to having to see your sister strutting about the place in the nude as is the way of the nymphs. Fear not, brother, for I plan to break with tradition and wear clothing,’ I teased him.

Timoth, however, did not seem to take my words in jest. ‘You may find that you do not want to. It is not a purely physical change, Saemara. It is not the free and unburdened gift of immortality. You will become a creature of the forest. Few remain as human as Xanthe, and I understand that even she did not begin this way.’

‘That is a risk I have accepted,’ I told him. ‘My child is currently that of my betrayer, and the niece or nephew of two current enemies. Immortality is not Xanthe’s only gift, as my daughter - for that is what I shall birth if I become a nymph - shall also become free of the defiling influence of the House Goldmane.’

‘That doesn’t seem right,’ Timoth said. ‘He may have betrayed you later, but the child was conceived of love. Should you really take the child’s heritage away from him?’

‘I see that you have not considered what the existence of this option requires: you may perhaps be less reluctant once you know that my child’s father was murdered by its mother, and that Terera was not Alum’s first taste of adultery. In addition, by his own admission, his love was for Terera.

‘Once I am a nymph, my daughter will have no father, and that is the fairest thing I can do for her. In any case, its mother was a murderess long before Alum came into the picture. I have sent many a man to his death, once even by my own hand as he pleaded for his life.’

Timoth’s mouth fell open, then he closed it. No more words were emitted, and I hoped that he would still share the bond we’d always had even after this revelation, and after my transformation. Conversely, part of me no longer cared. I’d proven myself in the absence of support more than once, and reliance on such had sometimes proven to undermine me. No, in future, I would be the ruler of my own life.

‘Shall we depart, Countess? We must attend the Dreadwood Forest,’ Xanthe spoke.

I nodded, and she led me out of Iyasgorth. The city lay some miles from the forest, but as soon as it was out of sight she bade me discard my chemise and undergarments. Completely naked, and by the light of the crescent moon, we travelled across the lands I had conquered to the Dreadwood Forest and disappeared into its fantastical mysteries.