--Hokiyama, City of Scarlet Knives--

The sun of Thea stretched itself across the bay beneath her window.

A golden dagger, aimed at the throat of the world.

She rose from her bed, her naked scales glistening against the dew of morning, and watched as the fleet of Yaresh prepped for another voyage.

The boy had acquiesced to his father’s demand immediately. He was the strongest of her sons, with a tenacity that matched her own. But there was too much of his father’s sentimentality in him. He was so weak when it came to his siblings.

In any case, it was said his ships, carrying an army of 10,000 trained Zhurkin, bloodied and emboldened by their recent victory over Marxon’s navy in the North, would be departing tonight, bound for Saku where the forces of the Shai-Alud and his pale bitch would finally be crushed.

That gave her the whole day…to finalize her own preparations. Maybe she’d even pay that adorable little Skeever a visit. To make sure he was ready for the part he’d play.

She leaned against the window, letting her velvet cover fall from her nethers. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the day settle on her skin.

That sun had meant something very different to her when she was a child. She remembered the days of her youth, before she was Matriarch Hakumi. Back when she had another name. A name born from peace, not forged in the fires of war.

The dry deserts of the East had been her home. There, the sun is omnipresent. It’s power, inescapable. She knew this from the first day she felt its rays seem into her soft flesh and cradle her head as she drank from her mother’s teats. She knew its power when she danced with her Sisters in the sands, and worshipped in the old temples to a God without a name. A God that was born from the very sun itself.

Her mother had taught her about power. She was the Elder of their tribe – back before there was an Empire, back before the Yokun were united under a single purpose. Two decades ago, there was only she and her Sisters. Their world was the temple and their purpose was veneration of their sun-deity and the patrons who came to worship there.

Such ‘worship’ was not, she would later realize, conventional.

Her tribe believed in the sanctity of the body. The movement of limbs, the sway of hips, and the twisting of the tail were acts of magic that could summon and contort the spirits of men. And many men came to them, out there in the desert. Tigrans, humans, other Yokun, even the proud Tauron. All of them came seeking that which they could not have. They left with more than they’d bargained for.

And at the same time, though Hakumi did not fully understand it, the wombs of her and her Sisters were blessed with their seed.

“Life is our most precious resource, children,” Hakumi’s mother would say. “The sun demands life. It gives life, and we must offer life to it.”

The fruits of their labor grew to become warriors to protect the temple or females to serve as its Priestesses. As the decades passed, the temple grew, and became an entire village. All the while, Hakumi grew into adulthood, and on the day of her first bleeding, her mother was there to calm her.

“Do not be afraid, child,” she said, stroking her wet crotch. “This is the source of your power. The time has come for you to serve.”

She nodded, dutifully. She was a naïve, obedient girl who trusted her mother more than she trusted herself. There was no conception of life beyond the temple’s walls. No understanding of what she was beyond her mother’s words.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But she listened to those words. She remembered them as she danced in the temple chambers, and washed the backs of the men, and took them to the Birthing ponds, and let them make their marks. She was a favorite among them for her eyes – her heterochromia was rare and, some said, a sign of divine blessing.

“The men-soldiers of this world fight with blade and bow,” her mother told her. “But these,” she pointed at her breasts and crotch, “these are our weapons. These are the tools by which we can make and unmake the world, if we so desire. Remember these things I say to you well, Hakumi."

She remembered, alright. Even now, she couldn’t forget.

She remembered when He came, too.

During the Unification Wars, the armies of the Patriarchs were nothing but rabble spread out throught the world. Warlords fought over land and territory throughout the South and the East. Yokun killed Yokun and enslaved any in their path. There was no concept of Brother or Sisterhood among the snake-peoples.

Until he came.

Rumors spread that one young Yokun had risen in the south, and had built a great city beside the ocean. His name was Jung, and he stood with an army in the tens of thousands – built via the forceful assimilation of the disparate tribes throughout the Arasaka jungles. He made war upon his brothers, and then offered the survivors a place within his ranks. He showed them strength, and then gave them a piece of his power. He united them under one faith, in which two Gods were served – a male and a female. And they followed him. Out of fear, admiration, or begrudging respect, Hakumi did not know. But they followed him.

Alternative religious sects, however, were not tolerated. He did not believe the truly faithful could ever be converted. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps not. It did not truly matter.

And so, when his armies came to the temple in the desert, they were horrified by what they found.

‘Degeneracy’ and ‘heresy’ were not words Hakumi understood, but they were the words chanted by his soldiers as they tore down the walls and slaughtered the sons and daughters of her Priesthood without parlay. Their blades and spears shone in the desert sun and the blood of Hakumi’s sisters ran red down the temple halls, staining the desert sands a shade of crimson that shocked Hakumi in its familiarity. It was the same shade of red that came on the day of her Bleeding.

Their warriors were not hardened soldiers, and they fell without much resistance. Hakumi ushered the youngest Sisters in the temple to run, to live, to survive, and saw them cut down by the slings and arrows of the Warlord’s vicious men. That was when she learned that running was impossible. She had never seen the world outside the walls of her home. But it had come to her, and hiding was not an option.

The Priestesses of the inner chambers were rounded up and thrown prostrate on the sands. The temple was sacked, and burned, and Hakumi watched her Sisters weep to see their home desecrated with such abandon. Her heart throbbed to see her mother kicked and beaten as she was dragged by her neck towards the rest of them, being dubbed the ‘High Priestess’ by one of the soldiers.

It seemed, by all accounts, that she would die there under the sun with her family on that day.

But then she saw him.

He looked like any other Yokun soldier from afar. Tall, rugged, wearing plated armor that bore the many scars of his conflict – apparently, he saw no need to have it repaired. He rode upon a Veskh – a sand-beetle common to the desert wastes – and dismounted to see the inner caste of his enemies before they were destroyed by his forces.

“So shall I deal with all deceivers and false prophets,” he said. Even then, his voice carried against the smoke and the flames of destruction all around him.

He barked an order to his men. And they moved to drag the Priestesses into the fire.

Then, his eyes lighted on her.

She felt his gaze like she felt the hot glow of the sun upon her skin. She felt it as she’d felt gazes like it countless times before. Her body knew how to hold such gazes with an almost mechanical precision. She knew exactly how to move her hips, even on the crimson sands underneath her, to make those eyes move down her body, to hidden places. She knew how to bite her lip, and lift her tail ever – so – slightly – to make the mind of this Warlord go to places it hadn’t gone before. He’d traveled the world and seen death. War was his hobby. But his mind was…untrained in other disciplines.

When his soldiers came to her, he privately ordered them to halt.

He stood over her, eyes wavering, hand almost shaking.

And she looked up at him, letting the tip of her tongue play across her lips. She knew that her mother was watching her.

“Take this one,” he said. Then, at his men’s confusion, “she will make an adequate slave.”

No more was said that day. Words were not needed. She was taken as the rest of her family was torched, tied to the columns of the temple and committed to the flames. As they licked around their scales, Hakumi watched her Sisters spirits leave this world. She watched her mother turn to ash before her.

But her mother did not scream. Instead, she smiled.

“These are your weapons, child,” her mother had told her on the day of her Bleeding. And on that day, Hakumi remembered those words.

It was those weapons she drew when he summoned her to his chamber on the long, grim nights of his campaigns. It was those weapons she raked down the Patriarch’s back after he’d committed thousands to the flames of his ambition. It was those weapons she sharpened on the wriggling maggot between his legs every night he called for her, until she was the only concubine he called for. Once the snake lord had tasted honey, he wanted the whole beehive to himself.

She gave him three sons. Three heirs. She gave him a legacy.

And in return, he made her his Queen. His Matriarch – even when some of his brothers called for her execution in accordance with the sacred laws of Anraka*.

But Hakumi’s weapons could break the sword of Law. Now, when such men saw her, they kept their heads down.

On days like today, she thought back to the smell of her mother’s charred flesh, and of her Sisters as they burned in the sun.

And she imagined how Saku would burn. And how two Princes would burn with it.

Or, if her plans came to fruition, three.