“No farmer may keep two fields.”

—The General Principles of Gens Nethress

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Thorssel Palace of Governance

Tumbling Seeding 25, 1885 CE

It was late, and Dorsin’s mind was troubled.

The bright light of the Seeding moons poured in through the window, casting strange shadows across the room as he slipped out from beneath the covers, taking care not to disturb Oralie. He could not recall the last time he had ever had such trouble sleeping. In the interior Wildlands or the blasted urban wasteland of Tlazelco, he had always had servants, friends, companions, and officers to watch over him and allow moments, here and there, of stolen sleep. Compared to nights at war, tonight was an evening of incomprehensible ease.

But then, he was at war here, no less so than he had been during those endless years of bloodshed. Had he lost his taste for the battle? Or was he simply acutely aware that this time, he had no support? He had already expended his capital with his family, and his pride would not allow him to beg them for forgiveness. Honor comes by deed, not by word. If he could not save them, he would not deserve to be shriven; and if he could, then they would indemnify him even if he never asked for it. Here, in this, at the head of his own branch of the family, there was nobody higher who could grab his hand and steady him if he stumbled.

No. Here, at the peak, there was only air above him, and below were millions gazing up to him, their eyes begging for his leadership.

And Oralie — oh, Oralie would do whatever she was able, if only she knew about the war in his heart! But her flagging health prevented Dorsin from sharing himself so deeply with her. Oh, she suspected, certainly; she knew in the depths of her soul what troubles he faced, the doubts of which he could not rid himself. But so long as he refrained from speaking his fears aloud, he allowed Oralie at least a modicum of self-delusion which she certainly deserved.

Life had not been easy on her.

Dorsin slipped from the room, leaving his beloved wife to slumber. He would walk the halls for a while. That was all. Perhaps he would call on Senrii, though the hour was late, to apologize for his outburst. And more importantly, to resolve to do better in the future.

Thus his feet carried him, as if in a dream, through the Palace of Governance, down halls he had only infrequently walked, and he thought of his failures and his means to redeem himself.

A deep cinnamon scent brought unbidden to his mind the memory of Rosabella’s body in motion. He started, realizing that he was standing in the guest wing, in front of a door. Incense wafted out from beneath the portal, a reminder of the love he had recanted so long ago. Dorsin’s feet had conspired with his heart to bring him to this place, the one place in the Palace where he would be certain to lose what little peace he had.

One field. Only one. He would see how the children were doing. He turned back toward the way from which he had come. A little distance down the hall, a guard bearing a halberd in his hands and a wickedly spiked rifle on his back stood guarding a door. Of course. Dorsin had insisted on protection for the children. Senrii would have seen to it.

He approached the guard, who inclined his head deferentially; a full bow while trying to bear that lengthy weapon would have left him unacceptably compromised. “Are the children well?” the Dux asked.

“Erus.” The guard brought the shortsphere to his mouth. “Den, Lupus Sixteen. Magus Dux Dorsin Generosus Ortus Nethress requests report on conditions within Palatial chambers G354.”

After a few moments, the shortsphere crackled back, “Lupus Sixteen, advise our Erus that atmospheric conditions are normal, light levels are normal, sound levels and imaging indicate three quiescent children.”

The Dux nodded. “Thank you for your report.” The guard bowed his head again.

Dorsin turned back down the chamber toward the sweet-smelling door. He could proceed through the rest of the wing, then call on Senrii. He began to walk.

Spiced incense reminded him of lovely nights so many years ago. He would walk past, he thought. But then Dorsin found his hands, against his greater will but in accordance with his lesser, pressing the door open, and his feet bore him into the scented chamber.

The goddess, naked and unashamed, stood in the center of the room, facing toward the window. Smoke and incense curled around her body as every muscle tensed and relaxed in perfect sequence. She swayed like a snake, her only adornment the golden torc that gathered up her hair above her head so that the lines of her locks were a fountain cascading upward from it, then tumbling down her back. What music could she hear, that every step of her slow, sinuous dance should be so perfectly in rhythm? Dorsin could almost hear the phantom melody in every gentle clack of her shoes as they touched the floor just so, and just so, and just so.

The sound of the door shutting behind Dorsin roused neither him nor Rosabella, for she was lost in her trance and he in the beauty of her motions, her curves lush and lean, the unmatchable strokes that came together to build the most perfect womanly form imaginable. The slow motion of her dance induced her slowly to turn around, and as her bosom came into view, Dorsin remembered himself, then immediately lost himself again. Distance faded from her eyes as they met his; a longing full of sadness and joy took its place.

He had awoken her, then. He had not meant to; he had not meant even to come into this room. But how could he not, with the memories that that scent had awoken in his breast?

She still moved slowly, deliberately, gliding to a silken robe that she had laid out on the elegant bed and wrapping it around herself. Against his will, Dorsin found himself cursing the disappearance of her curves and the wickedness of the gown, that it would hug her body and so tantalize him without allowing him any release.

When she had tied the knot of the sash, she curtsied deeply. The depths of her cleavage taunted Dorsin; he shut his eyes. “My Erus,” she said, filling the word with the meaning that only she could provide it, “you still remember the hours of my devotions.”

He had. Somehow, he had known or remembered, even without meaning to, that this was the time during which she took her substitute for sleep. It was a desirable trait, another that seemed to be unique to her bloodline, finding its source perhaps in an ancient splice of the genes of cetacean half-sleep, of trance-like motion that exercised the body even as the mind took its rest.

“I am sure you remember,” Rosabella added quietly, “that dance was not always my choice of meditation.”

“I remember.” He remembered all too well. Dorsin opened his eyes. “How could I not, when you were the brightest star in my sky?”

Rosabella rose and came forward, leaning up and gazing into Dorsin’s face. The rosy scent of her filled his nostrils. “As you still are in mine.”

“Rosabella.”

“Yes, my Erus?”

“Rosabella, you must no longer think in these terms.”

“Must I?” She was amused. She smiled. “And what is the standard by which you say so?”

“Rosabella, you know we cannot be what we once were.”

“This is not a reason.”

“This is not a reason for you to pine away for me?”

“Pining?” She tilted her head. “My Erus, I have said nothing about pining.”

“Then take another.”

“I have taken many others, my Erus.” She smiled. “Though never another man.”

“And there it is. As long as you hold out hope for us, Rosabella, you will never do your greatest duty of all.”

“Oh? And what is that?”

“Take a good man, mingle your genes with his, and produce children who will make the world a better place than it was when they entered it.”

Rosabella turned and went to the dresser. “That is not my greatest duty.”

“What duty could be higher?”

“Tell me, my sweet Dorsin, what I said to you on the first night that you received me?”

“I do not remember.”

“Mmmm. I do.” Rosabella pulled the golden torc free, and her hair burst from it in a tumultuous cascade that seemed to form a second garment down her back. “I swore that I would be yours so long as the sun gave its light and the moons continued their rising and the stars did not wink out. I swore that no man would touch me save for you.”

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“That was a long time ago, Rosabella.” And youthful foolishness.

“Not so long that I do not remember it.” She placed the torc on the dresser. “That is my highest duty.”

“I release you from your oath, then.”

“Dorsin,” she said, turning to him, fixing him with the full force of her gaze and making no effort to tighten the sash as it loosened slightly with the movement, “you have no power to do so. My oath is not a chain. It is freedom.”

“How so?”

She came forward again, stretching the lacquered fingernails of her hands toward him. “I spoke my oath,” she said as her warm fingers clasped his, “because you refused to look in my direction until I forced your hand. I took my oath because I touched you, and you did not react. I took my oath because months of torture and slavery vanished into thin air when I saw your face, because you saw in me a woman, rather than a toy.

“I took my oath because no matter how tattered and ragged my innocence was when you found me, you restored it to me. Because you proved to me that I had dignity.” She lifted Dorsin’s hand, closed her eyes, and brought the back of his fingers to her soft cheek. How he wanted to stroke that lovely face! “You gave me the gift of wholeness. I took that gift,” she said, opening her eyes, “and yielded it back to you, not because I was weak, not because I was defenseless, and not because you had earned my slavery, but rather because you had made me free.

“As a free woman I gave you my gift, and as a free woman I will not renounce it. If you refuse me, I will be aggrieved, but I will not be broken. My first duty is to myself, and to fulfill that duty is to wait for you, because it pleases me to do so. How else could I be true to my own heart?”

“Wait for me? Rosabella, do you intend simply to stand by until Oralie…” He could not bring himself to say it.

“No, Dorsin. No, this was never my intention — though if Oralie lives a long, full life, and then passes surrounded by her loved ones and family, I would hope that once your mourning had lessened, you would think again of your once-beloved concubine. But my faithfulness to you is my gift, not yours, and you can no more convince me to renounce it than you can convince the moons to renounce the sun.

“I will be who I am, forever, and proudly so, and if all I can cherish at the end of my days is a few short years with you, I will have no regrets, for those years liberated my destiny into my hands. You struck the chains from my body, and the chains of my heart fled soon after, and I have had a lifetime’s worth of love ever since.”

“Rosabella, woman has always been a mystery to me, and you most of all.”

Rosabella laughed. “I shall not tell Oralie you said so.”

“Why are you here, Rosabella?”

“Because my mothers bore me? Because you were kind enough to provide me with the most exquisite suite in your palace, my heart?”

Dorsin strained to smile. “I meant, Rosabella, why have you come to Thorssel?”

At once, her face became serious. She released his hands and stroked his cheek with one finger, and Dorsin, to his shame, allowed her. “My love, what has happened to drain you of your joy? No. I know enough. I am here, my heart, because I know how dire your straits are. I know that Dux Ilhicamina has been turning all of his sights inward to the treasures you left in Acerbia in hopes of avenging his uncle’s death. He knows Gens Nethress teeters on the brink, and he has every intention of seeing you fall.”

Where she had been leaning forward, Rosabella drew herself to her full height. “And I will not allow that to happen. I will not allow him to wipe the man I love and his family from the face of the earth. I will do anything — anything — for the man who gave me my life. Name the price.”

“You cannot meet it.”

“Name it.”

So Dorsin told her of the troubles with the family’s finances, their losses of land, contracts, and subjects, and the vanishing allies on whom they had once relied. By the time he finished his lament, he was sitting on the bed, and she was gazing out the window over the glimmering waters of the city. “Dorsin,” she said when he fell silent, “the man who saved me has also kept this city safe all these years. No other child of Gens Nethress could have done that.”

“Rosabella, I am the cause of Gens Nethress’s weakness in the first place. I sold my Gens’s fortunes for…” He realized he could not say the words.

Rosabella nodded. “If I had known then what I know now, I would never have permitted it. My heart,” she said, turning her head away from the view and gazing over her shoulder at him, “this is why I will do whatever is necessary to help you.”

The robe provided tempting glimpses of the flesh of her legs and bosom as she returned to the bed. Rosabella stopped short and laughed. “How quickly we fall into the old habits.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were gawking, my heart. And I… was pleased that you were doing so.”

He had been ogling her. “How quickly, indeed,” he murmured.

“Hear, my heart,” she said, sitting next to him. “I have saved money and favors both. Let me spend them on your behalf.”

Dorsin shook his head. “I would dearly love to accept your offer, but while money may buy arms, it cannot purchase intelligence, loyalty, or will. If you cannot purchase me ten armies, your funds are of no use to me.”

“Then, my heart, I could deepen my cover in Gens Nxtlu.” Rosabella said it with such nonchalance that Dorsin immediately suspected her fears.

“If you were found out, the Sodality would disown you.”

“Not if I disowned them first. And besides, if they discover me conspiring with Gens Nethress, the result will be the same.”

“There is no need to renounce the people who have accepted you, Rosabella.”

“Of course not. My little sparrows have sharp enough ears to tell me that double agency is less rare than the Sodality would like to admit. So long as it is discrete and subtle, not providing overwhelming aid to one Gens over another, partiality is tolerated as a necessary cost of humanity.”

Dorsin could not believe that Rosabella was considering this. “You would be at risk from many sides.”

“I swore I would do anything.”

“Can you attempt it without arousing suspicion?”

Rosabella smiled conspiratorially. “Without a doubt. I have a certain pretty girl on the hook.”

Dorsin laughed aloud for the first time since he had entered the room. “Rosabella, you have not changed one whit in thirty-five years.”

She threw her head back and laughed with him, her youthful voice echoing through the space of Dorsin’s memories. “Why should I have?” she asked sweetly, humming and smiling as her eyes met his. “Do you object? For I do not recall you ever objecting before…”

She was so lovely.

Dorsin shook his head. Try as he might, he could not help but smile at the words. And the memories. “No, Rosabella. Enjoy what and whom you will.”

“I seem to recall a wise man advising me to do that not so long ago.”

“I seem to recall you telling that wise man that his advice was unwanted.”

“Well,” Rosabella said, tossing her hair over her shoulder with one hand, “I was wrong. I will take your advice to enjoy what and whom I will. I choose you, and Nera Oolo, and —”

“Who?”

“Nera Oolo, the opera star. The Heavenfall has been showing in Thorssel for two months. Weren’t you aware?”

“Is she pretty?”

“I shall have to find you a picture, but the short version is: yes. Yes, she is. You, and Nera Oolo, and of course, Oralie may join in too, if she wishes it. It will be a night to remember. No objections, my heart! You told me: what and whom I will. And these are whom I will.”

Dorsin knew in his heart of hearts that he ought to be shocked and affronted by this exchange. It troubled him that he found it amusing, even tempting, to discuss breaking the taboos. Drawing so close to the line was intoxicating. But the man, rather than the beast, had to take charge. He brought the man to the forefront. “Oh, Rosabella. That was a long time ago.”

“I know,” Dorsin. Her green eyes hinted at a smile. “I know. But I know something else as well.”

“What is that?”

Rosabella licked her lips and glanced away. Dorsin’s heart felt for a moment as though it might burst. When she looked back at him, there was no mistaking the meaning in her eyes. “I know that we are here, now,” she murmured. “Together.” Her fingers stroked his, and he did not pull away. “I know that I yearn for you.” She sat up higher, and the robe fell further open. “And I know, I can tell, I can see —” she glanced down at his lap “— that you…” Her fingers rose gently to his mouth; her other hand went to his arm. Her eyebrows rose in supplication. “…You yearn for me, too.”

Her mouth touched his, and there was rose and cinnamon and scarlet sunbursting in every direction as he yielded, drinking in her scent, tasting the orange sunset and white-sky clouds, handling every luscious curve of her body as their lips mingled and they became one—

“No!” Dorsin sat up. Rosabella stretched beneath him, her arms splayed across the bed, her ruby hair framing her face like a devilish halo. The robe had fallen open entirely. And he? He, at least was not so far gone. “No,” Dorsin repeated as he stood and turned away. “I love my wife. I love her.”

“I know, Dorsin,” she murmured. “I love her, too.”

“I can’t—”

Fingers touched his shoulder. He flinched. The grip fell harder. “Dorsin,” she said, “I will never touch you again, if you ask it of me.”

“I… I…”

She came around him. Mercifully, she had closed the robe. “Dorsin,” she said. “Dorsin!” Almost violently, she took his face in her hands. “I love you, my heart, as I love my own body. I love your wife. I will die rather than hurt you.”

“Rosabella, I cannot do this.”

“Then I cannot do it either, Dorsin. I will die,” she repeated, “rather than hurt you. Now sit down.”

“No.”

“Please. Please, my heart. Please, sit down.” And she asked so piteously that Dorsin forgot himself. He sat back onto the bed. “Tell me, my heart. Tell me what you need, and I will do it for you, though it require me to sell my soul in order to deceive the Nxtlu.”

Yes. The Nxtlu. There was something to grasp. “Data. Anything.” The words came out autonomously. “A Nxtlu Key. Senrii captured Nxtlu intelligence, but without a Key, it is useless. We have to find another way. And I have no time. Tomorrow, I travel to Lellonell.”

“You must report back on Senrii’s Prime Assay, then.”

“Yes. And you…”

“Tell me. Dorsin! My heart! Tell me what you need of me.”

“Oralie is having the dreams again.”

Rosabella’s slow nod told Dorsin that she, too, was dreaming Oralie in her midnight reveries. Some degraded form of Synapsis, vague but unmistakable, connected the women, had connected them for decades. If only it could be used to Nethress’s advantage!

“Would you have me…” Rosabella ventured.

“I think that she would appreciate your presence. It may make them less intense.”

“Experience agrees with you, my heart.”

“And the company. She is… very lonely.”

“I will tell her.”

“What?” Dorsin looked up uncomprehendingly.

“I will tell her that I kissed you, and that you stopped me from going farther.”

“I…”

“She deserves to know what kind of man she has wed, Dorsin.”

Dorsin shook his head. His gaze refused to rise from the floor, the shame in his heart was so strong. “What kind is that?” he mumbled.

“The kind that Gens Nxtlu would destroy by any means necessary. The kind that has thwarted their plans again and again, performing daring raids, rescuing dishonored maidens and assaulting Nxtlu’s blood-drinking wickedness where it is strongest. If that Gens had any sense at all, they would be trying to capture you and stud you, rather than kill you, but perhaps I am partial; I would allow them to take me again as a slave for a chance at one more night with you.

“The kind of man, Dorsin, who had a beautiful woman ready and willing, and who instead kept himself to his devoted wife. You should be proud, my heart. You do your Gens’s General Principles proud, and you are the fiercest warrior the sun and moons have ever seen. Be proud, Dorsin.”

“Be proud?”

“Be proud.”

Pride. The thought of taking pride in himself, with what he had almost done here so raw in his memory, was the last straw. Dorsin placed his hands over his face and wept, and when Rosabella took him in her arms and held him, he did not withdraw. “Be proud, my heart,” she said, stroking his hair. “Be proud, and know that I will do whatever is necessary to secure your family. Whatever is necessary, my heart. Whatever is necessary.

“Be proud.”