Jajess

He arrived in an ordinary canal barge and not his customary pleasure boat because this was meant to be a secret trip. That old fool Gwarruf would probably find out about it sooner or later anyway but every precaution he took made him one step safe. With Ballum and Verris in tow he arrived at his estate.

Technically they were still in the palm forest, but the trees had all been cut down to make room for the fields. His great great grandfather hadn't been able to afford space to the southeast where the fields already were so he'd carved his own farm out of the palm forest. It was family legend. Jajess thought it was stupid, but it had given him a secluded area to conduct business he didn't want the emperor knowing about.

The walk from the river to the estate wasn't long. Heshk and Krazzek met him at the gates. The two men had sent in very different reports.

“Lord Patrician,” Heshk bowed. “Allow me to inform you personally of the success of my mission.”

“Yes, I read. Bring out our guests, I'll speak to them in the garden.”

“I would advise you to be careful, Lord Patrician. The Fang warrior is powerful. Terrifying even. We've only kept him in check these past few days by refusing to let him know where the women were and and threatening to kill them if he attempted to escape. We don't actually have a lock or restraints that could hold him.”

“And would you have really killed one of my prizes to control the other?”

“No Lord Patrician, of course not. But we had no other way to control him.”

“Well we'll have to see. The garden.”

The center of the manor house was a walled off garden. Jajess installed himself there with Verris and Ballum at his shoulders sitting on a stone chair cushioned with furs and feathers. The captives were brought out. He knew what Shylldra looked like, of course. Then there was the scarred woman they'd mentioned taking as a hostage. And the Fang warrior, an Angelarian boy with short hair still holding onto the Fang sword. Jajess understood horrible things had happened to anyone else who tried to touch it.

Just like Milkaamek's ax. Perfect.

“What the fuck are you doing here!?” Verris suddenly shouted.

“Verris!?” The Fang warrior gawped.

“You know each other?” The Patrician asked.

“Hallek and I were both...we were in Downwind together.”

“And now look how you've both risen in the world! How interesting. But happy reunions will have to wait until we're done here.”

“Then let's get this over with,” the scarred woman snorted. Jajess fought down a stab of irritation. The rudeness of a jumped up barbarian wasn't worth overturning all his plans. Besides, he needed all three of these people.

Meaning he should probably remember names. Hallek and Dyryl. Names could be very important.

“Yes of course. First of all let me apologize to all three of you for the manner in which you were brought here. My men were...overzealous.”

“Your men were maniacs,” Shylldra told him flatly.

“And idiots,” Krazzek chimed in. Heshk glared at him. “I think I mentioned.”

“Yes, in fact your report used the word idiot no less than forty seven times. And I'm inclined to agree. Heshk you've made a complete mess of this entire thing, needlessly angered the Birdfang, and with your rough treatment of our guests endangered everything I've worked for. Yes, you technically completed your mission. But the way you did so risked totally undercutting the reasons for your mission.”

“What!?” Heshk snarled. “Lord Patrician, I--”

“I am not an unfair man,” the Patrician waved a hand. “Rather than have you summarily executed as magistrate of the estate grounds--”

“WHAT!?”

“I'm going to grant you trial by combat. You will fight my assistant Ballum in the morning. Guards? Take him to a cell to give him time to prepare.”

Heshk charged. It was depressingly predictable. What Jajess hadn't predicted was that Verris was the one who saved him. He'd thought it would be Ballum. He had known Ballum was training the boy but he hadn't thought much about it until Verris caught Heshk's blade and knocked it easily aside before plunging his own into Heshk's throat.

“Thank you Verris,” Jajess said beatifically as Ballum fell to the ground choking on his own blood. Shylldra ran to the dying man's side, typical sentimentality from the Priestess of Maia. “Leave him, he's been sentenced to death already.”

“I can ease his pain,” Shylldra told him. Jajess shook his head. Maia's clergy were always so troublesome.

“If you feel you must. Needless to say you are all freed. I would like all of you to stay for dinner, where we can discuss what to do going forward.”

“About what?” Dyryl demanded. “For all I know my mother and brother are dead.”

“They are not. According to my sources they are in fact at the head of a remarkably large force of Birdfing tribesmen that are on the way here to get you back. It would be of great help to me if you could explain when they arrive that you are not a captive and that the man responsible for the insult has been executed.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“And are we free to go?” Hallek demanded. Jajess caught the Fang warrior's eye. It was hard. There was something saurian in that stare that made the Patrician want to flinch. The real question of course was am I going to have to kill people if Shylldra wants to leave?

“You and Shylldra ty imperiens may leave whenever you wish.”

“Let's hear what he has to say,” Shylldra said. Jajess suppressed a smile. That was a good start.

“Very well then. I'll see you all at dinner tonight. Until then you may have the run of my estate, and I hope you have a pleasant afternoon.”

Shylldra

Bringing him wasn't your idea.

She had Hallek on her mind, but her thoughts weren't romantic. They were guilty. The way he'd stared at Jajess had reminded her so much of the dinosaur. They'd barely had a chance to talk while they were imprisoned and now it was almost like he was avoiding her. She couldn't blame him. It wasn't just that he'd been captured and had to fight. He was something different now. Still Hallek, but that look on his face...he was the dinosaur too.

And she could try and comfort herself by saying Maia had told her to bring him along, but she wouldn't. Shylldra had done the bringing, Shylldra had gotten him into this. And he'd bled and killed so much for...for whatever Maia wanted her to do. She still wasn't sure about that. There'd been no more visions like the one she had at the palace. The hopeful way to interpret that was that she was on the right track. The less hopeful way was that she was so far gone Maia couldn't think of anything to say to her.

Well great Maia I've got a lot of questions, when you've got the time. Like what exactly all this is supposed to accomplish. All you said was I'm too weak and I should run. What am I supposed to do now?

But neither the goddess nor her reflection had anything to add. She hadn't worn the dress they gave her. It was like something her mother would wear in a hypothetical world where her mother had taste. A sapphire blue toga with a semicircle of matching feathers rising up behind her head, pinned in place with a jeweled broach. It really was a very lovely dress but she'd played these games before. The purpose of the dress was to remind her what she was missing away from the luxuries of the palace and high society. To make her tacitly admit that deep down she would rather dress in fancy feathers than her priestess robes.

So she wore her robes to dinner. She'd been taught to play this game by experts and if this was the best move Jajess had she didn't have anything to worry about.

The knock on her door came ten minutes early. Seating order was also part of the game, and what with pieces carefully arranged into places it was probably the part closest to games actually played on a board. She made a point of not hurrying to open the door, whatever game Jajess was playing by calling on her early she didn't have to hurry towards it.

When she did open the door, she wasn't expecting what she got.

Alright, she might have guessed it would be Hallek standing there. And alright, technically she should have expected they would give him clothes for dinner too. But somehow her brain had never even considered combining Hallek and expensive clothes into a single thought. It seemed wrong on some basic level, like putting a dress on a casae. Not that Hallek was a fat stupid lizard, that simile was too mean. It was like putting a dress over the statue of some ancient hero who'd been depicted in their armor.

Not that Hallek didn't look good in a single strap toga made out of shimmering blue silk. Because he did look good. Almost painfully good. Especially with the way the cut showed off the infused tattoos all over his arms and chest. But it was still somehow wrong...

“Can I come in?” Hallek asked.

“Of course!” Shlldra said. She hated how awkward it was between them now. “What's going on?”

“Well,” Hallek said, holding up half a dozen jeweled gold cylinders, “first of all you can tell me what I'm supposed to do with these.”

“Oh! Those are for your hair.”

Hallek looked at the cylinders, then his eyes rolled up in his head like he was trying to look at his own scalp. Probably because he was.

“What are they supposed to do in my hair?”

“The fashion lately for young noble men is long hair. These help keep it in check. Bunch it up and weigh down so it hangs. Haven't you ever seen anyone in the city wearing them?”

“Yeah, but I wasn't usually in the high end neighborhoods you know? We always cut it as short as we could in Downwind.”

“I noticed that. With you and Verris I mean.”

“I guess it just turned into a habit. Long hair and big piles of dung mix even worse than you'd think.”

The air was uncomfortable and thick and heavy now, and Shylldra had no idea what she was supposed to say.

“I'm sorry. For dragging you into all this.”

“No reason to be sorry. I chose to come along.”

“But it's what’s upsetting you isn't it? You came along and now you're infused with the soul of a Fang, and stuck in the middle of all this...”

“I'm not upset,” Hallek sighed. “And that's not the problem. The problem is that I got a whole lot of extra stuff when I fused with the fang.”

“Like what?”

“Shylldra, giganotosaurs...mate for life.”

Shylldra blinked.

“You mean...”

“Yeah. The reason I'm so weird is that the human part of me knows we've only known each other a few weeks. And they've been great weeks, but we're still finding out if we can really build anything long term. Assuming this whole mess doesn't get us killed or you end up forced to marry, I dunno, the old emperor's pet zuni or something.

“But to a giganotosaur, once you choose a mate that's it. They're your mate. Practically a part of you. I've got a whole set of instincts now that tell me we belong to each other. And no matter how much human logic I try to apply to it...”

He shook his head.

“You know I always hated really possessive guys? But now, if someone made a pass at you on the street I'd have to work not to kill him. And if we break up, the way people do...I don't know how I'd react. The human me has been broken up with lots of times, but to a giganotosaur the concept doesn't even exist. Because the females have all the same instincts too, you know? But that's...that's why I've been so weird when we see each other lately.”

Well there's a certain attraction to the concept of a guy literally designed from the soul up to be faithful, a wicked part of her mind chimed in. She tried to ignore it.

It had always been so easy. They got along. They were getting to know each other. He'd been raised too poor and she'd been raised too rich to believe in fairy tales or romance novels so there wasn't any of that hovering over the relationship. But now one of those fairy tales had slipped into the story all on its own.

“Can you figure out how you'd feel about me without that?”

“No,” Hallek shook his head. “I thought you were pretty amazing before, I know that. But this...this is a part of me now.”

“I don't know...” Shylldra began desperately searching for anything she could say or do that would help.

“I don't want anything!” Hallek said hurriedly. “That's not the point. I just didn't want this to come out of nowhere somewhere along the line.”

“I can understand that,” Shylldra said. “I don't know, I'm not sure what we should do. For now we've got to deal with the Patrician.”

“Yeah I don't think I like that guy. You know he's going to try and rope us into whatever he's planning tonight, right?”

“Oh trust me I know. He's already getting started. Even those clothes are a part of his plan.”

“They are?” Hallek said, looking down at the toga. “They're a little too fancy for me but they're kinda comfortable. I didn't notice anything sinister.”

“It's a noble thing, don't worry about it. What do you think Verris is doing here?”

“No idea. They said he had a noble backing him. What do you think Jajess wants, anyway?”

“Well probably to overthrow the emperor. That's why we have to listen to him. Sweet gods, we might even turn out to be on the same side! Or at least facing in the same direction.”