The room went quiet at Hssen Tyaniis’s words. She didn’t quite meet my eyes and I didn’t meet hers. What do I do? Is… is she really my sire?

Until now, I’d never really considered parents, or… one parent. I was an orphan. Simple. If Tyaniis was my sire and Ssiina my sister, how didn’t they find me?

From behind, Kyrae shoved me lightly, whispering, “Go to her!”

“What?”

“Issa! She wants to be near you, but she can’t.”

I looked over my shoulder at Kyrae, face twisting in confusion. Her lower body probably works fine!

Kyrae pouted, shoving me again. Tyaniis looked up, her eyes wet. Unsure, I slithered toward her, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room on me. Wanting to look anywhere else for a moment, I caught Ssiina’s surprised look, and the big, lopsided grin she was wearing.

“I…” I mumbled holding one arm to my side with the other, even as I slid slowly forward. “I… go by Issa now. That’s my name.”

Tyaniis, who had started to reach out toward me, stopped. “What did they do to you, my daughter?”

I stiffened, feeling the shadows in the room more acutely, the memory of the truth of their cold embrace slipping. “What did they do to me? Issa is my name! I gave it to myself! The orphanage may have been run by people who barely cared and full of kids who made fun of me and Kyrae, but they gave us food, and a dry place to sleep, and taught us numerals and some glyphs! But if you really cared for me…” I paused for breath.

“Issa, don’t—” Kyrae started.

I kept going, cutting my sister off, too angry to care. I need to say this. “But if you and Ssiina really wanted to find me, why didn’t you? How couldn’t you? The orphanage and the other kids both called me ke’el, and that could’ve been a clue! The place had a name too, I’m pretty sure. People who came to adopt could see me sometimes when I wasn’t hiding, or they could ask about me! We were in Ess’Siijiil, and that’s a big city, so it’s not like you couldn’t have found me, not if you really cared!”

Tyaniis recoiled as if struck, then slid upward on her lower body, out of her coil, to tower over me. Her brow furrowed, and she swallowed a hiss. “You will not address me in such a tone, Daughter mine.”

“S-sire!” Ssiina squeaked, clamping a hand over her mouth immediately after. She shrunk away as Tyaniis’s gaze panned over her.

Surprising me, Kyrae spoke up. “Hssen Tyaniis, I-Issa just wants—”

“And who might you be, ea?” Tyaniis wheeled on Kyrae.

My sister whimpered and hid behind me, so I moved in front of her protectively. The shadows reached out toward me, and I barely kept them at bay. “Hssen—Sire—Tyaniis, I-I meant what I said. And that’s Kyrae, m-my sister.” I swallowed and found some confidence. “She was all I had when the orphanage kicked us out. I’d be dead in a ditch somewhere without her. Even though I ate a lot, she always got enough food for both of us, and she’s the best at cutting purses, even if she worries she takes too much. She’s kind and caring and somehow keeps both of us together and alive when I can’t find the strength to.

“She’s my sister, even if not by blood, and y-you need to respect her as your own daughter, because… because if I’m your daughter, then Kyrae is too!” I coughed, mouth suddenly dry. My throat hurt. Had—had I been shouting?

Hssen Tyaniis hissed, the sound deep and threatening. More than ever, the wealth she was draped in intimidated the room. But… I found I didn’t care. Because I knew what mattered. Kyrae mattered.

The hssen whom I’d shouted at loomed over me, but I stood my ground, defiant. Shadows licked around my scales, cool to the touch. Behind me, clutching around my waist, Kyrae was shaking like a leaf in a typhoon. Someone whimpered, and both ssyri’ssen in the room were quiet, holding their breath.

My sire and I locked eyes, her intense gaze boring through me. “Daughter…” she said, the word harsh and rebuking.

Someone whimpered again, and I realized it was Ssiina. Tyaniis’s eyes flicked over to her other daughter and then back to me. The tightness in her brow eased, and her fangs drew back up and out of her grimace. “Daughter mine…” she repeated, this time soft and somber. “By Jaezotl, what have they done to you? How have you suffered so? What… what have I done?”

I froze. My shadows froze, too, unnaturally still in the flickering light of the room’s sconces. Sire Tyaniis’s words washed over me, through me. I didn’t catch all of them, not at first.

And before I could, the scariest, most powerful person I had ever met swept me up in a crushing hug. Kyrae yelped, dragged up with me, and clung on for dear life. Tyaniis’s arm grabbed her by the shirt and lifted her closer, settling the two of us alongside her, resting my sister on the polished dark emerald scales of the hssen’s lower body.

She’s warm too. Not like Kyrae, but warm.

“I am truly sorry, Sseti. No, Issa. I… after your mother died, and we lost your trail I…” Tyaniis swallowed, head turning suddenly to the others in the room. “Out,” she commanded. “I wish to have words with my daughters in private.”

They all, Ssiina included, turned to leave quickly. Noksi went with a glint in her eye and Onussa with a deeper-than-normal bow. Dyni, whose wraith-like presence I had almost forgotten, slipped wordlessly out behind them, shooting a look at Ssiina, who was the last headed for the door.

“Ssiina,” Tyaniis said sharply.

Ssiina stopped, going rigid.

“You’re my daughter too, are you not?” Tyaniis continued, her tone marginally softer. “You may—please stay, Daughter mine.”

Still shaking, Ssiina smiled. “Yes, Sire.”

Tyaniis bade Ssiina to coil where Noksi had been, and I ended up next to Tyaniis, with Kyrae by my side.

My sire sighed. “After your mother died, we chased down the people who took you as best we could.”

“How old was I?” I interrupted.

Tyaniis took a deep breath. “Three.”

That… made sense.

“We couldn’t find you. Even once we’d found the people who’d taken you. Even after I personally dealt with them.” Tyaniis’s fangs dropped and she took a moment to regain her composure. “They’d gotten rid of you. Thrown you away somewhere along the Hssyri, our most holy of rivers. And we searched, but…” Tyaniis looked away from me and towards Ssiina who bowed her head.

“I gave up. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t bear the pain of hope. The pain of being wrong. But your sister, Ssiina, she never gave up. You were her light when you were a baby—she and your mother would spend all their time with you, even as I couldn’t.”

Kyrae and I looked at Ssiina. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up higher, a warm smile on her face. “It’s true. Sire even tried to stop me.”

“She what?” I blurted.

“I didn’t want her to lose herself in a hopeless task. We’d looked—we thought we’d looked everywhere,” Tyaniis answered. “But we were wrong. And you suffered for my cowardice. I’m sorry, Issa.”

“Issa? You’ll really call me Issa?”

Tyaniis nodded. “It is more your name than the one I gave you. I do not know if I deserve the honor of naming you, and I won’t force a name on you that you barely remember.”

“What about as another name?” Ssiina asked. “It’s been done before, right? I know it’s not common, but… well…”

Tyaniis considered her daughter’s words. “Perhaps.”

“M-maybe. I don’t know yet.” I sighed. “You said you weren’t around… Sire. Why?”

Tyaniis smiled sadly. “I was training to be Jii’Hssen. I am the elder of sister Ssyii, after all.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

She used the empress’s given name alone! “Why then?”

The former empress-to-be shook her head. “After your mother died and you were taken, I was no longer fit for the position, or the responsibilities it held.”

“Don’t blame Issa for that,” Kyrae said softly.

Tyaniis glanced at her and she froze. “I would never do something like that…” she paused. “I am not certain how to address you yet, Kyrae. You are… newbloom I believe is the term, yes?”

Kyrae hesitantly nodded.

“I see. Hinssa, my partner and Issa’s mother, was always closer to the ea, but I am familiar with the term. She grew up in the Emerald Mountains, near the border between Zalaga’iil Province and Aa’ean’iir Province. I remember she told me to call that region of the ea land “Deepwood.” Tyaniis sighed and refocused her gaze on Kyrae. “Do you truly desire to be Issa’s sister, newbloom Kyrae?”

“Um, I am Issa’s sister, Hssen Tyaniis.”

Tyaniis closed her eyes. “An ea, adopted to hssen. It’s never happened before.”

“So what’s stopping you?” I asked. “She’s my sister and that’s final!”

“Ssiina?” Tyaniis asked, cracking golden eye open at my sister.

“Yes Sire! I mean, yes, I would like for Kyrae to be Sister Kyrae. In… in fact, Sire, I will call her as such even if you do not choose to adopt her as your own! Because I believe everything they’ve told me about what’s happened to them. Kyrae’s a hero!”

Tyaniis hummed, deep and low. “Issa, daughter, could you tell me what you remember since you were taken?”

“Uh, all of it?”

“Yes. I wish to understand my failing, your suffering, and what may be done to set things right.”

“It’ll take long time and the others outside—”

“They will wait. I do not care if they wait a day.”

“Okay, Sire Tyaniis,” I said softly.

Tyaniis smiled, and pulled me into her bosom. “Good. Leave nothing out.”

***

Kyrae and I told my sire and our new sister everything. At times, I felt Tyaniis’s lower body tense alongside mine.

Ssiina gasped more than once, and even assured us that she would make sure everyone at the palace got to try fried water rat. Tyaniis balked at the idea, and I swore she almost laughed when she heard her daughter’s insistence that it was “very good for ssen’iir food.”

I felt, for the first time in a long while, like I wasn’t one wrong word away from getting kicked out. Maybe. The mood, however, was somber. More than once Tyaniis’s fangs slipped down and I heard her grinding the rest of her teeth together. All the while, the shadows bent and twisted unnaturally, pulsing to the worst bits of my life.

I felt those dark things closely: cold, familiar, and welcoming. They weren’t the only ones welcoming in the room with us, though. Tyaniis, despite how terrified of her I was at first, seemed like a… somewhat nice person. Really, if she’d was our current Jii’Hssen I didn’t think I’d mind—in the sense that she seemed to listen. I’d probably be even more scared of her.

When I finished, Tyaniis hugged me—and Kyrae—tighter, the emotion of her motion at odds with her stern, hard face and regal demeanor.

“Thank you for telling me this, Daughter Issa. It saddens me to hear firsthand the worst our Empire has to offer its own people. I will make absolutely certain you will never again want for clothing, a dry place to sleep, or food. I will also see to it that those who worsened the fate I had a hand in leaving you to are punished.”

“Punished?” Kyrae asked.

“Unless they never checked, the orphanage should have had a guess you were kelaniel, Issa. That you are ra’zhii should have been another clue. They are responsible. Do you remember any more names, or where exactly this was?”

I listed off several, and tried to describe the orphanage and the neighborhood around it. “What’ll their punishment be?”

“Death,” Tyaniis replied simply.

Death!? In an instant, I saw Nyss’s terrified face. “No!” I shouted. Shadows jolted and twisted in the room, passing partially over the light from the sconces.

Tyaniis moved back in surprise and Ssiina jolted. Kyrae, meanwhile nodded along.

“No, not death,” I mumbled. “They—something else. Unless… unless you find worse or something.”

I don’t care if they die. I just don’t want to see it—or know about it.

“Then it will be something else, Daughter mine. Unless I find worse,” Tyaniis said in what was probably the closest to a soft voice the immense kelaniel had. “The shadows right now are your doing, yes?”

I nodded. “My curse. It’s, well, there’s something attached to this power. That dark place I go when I sleep, with the big crushing thing in it.”

My sire frowned. “And Ussyri Noksi was unable to cure you of this affliction, yes?”

I glanced at Kyrae.

“That is what both her and Ssyri’zh Onussa said, yes,” my sister answered.

Tyaniss heaved a long, slow sigh, ending in a thoughtful hiss. “They told me much the same. Not that it was impossible, but that you would not survive—not wholly.”

I thought of my mind drifting in the crushing cold and shuddered. Both Kyrae and Tyaniis pulled me closer, albeit in different directions, resulting in an awkward tug-of-war. I grunted and Ssiina inelegantly stifled a giggle.

“What do I—we—do then, Sire?” I asked, wriggling free on Tyaniis’s side—her grip was far too strong to break. “I… if possible, I’d like to keep at least some of my shadow powers.”

Tyaniis cocked her head. “And why might that be?”

“I can do things with them! Good things—useful things. And they can help me defend myself or run away—with Kyrae even, like those times I told you about.”

Tyaniis pulled me even closer, her tail coiling around mine. “Oh Daughter mine, nothing I could say would make up for my failings.”

I wasn’t sure if I could disagree, but with how hard she was hugging me, I couldn’t get the breath or even open my mouth to plant my tail in it again.

“We will find a solution, I promise you. Powers or not, no daughter of mine will be lost again.”

I grunted.

“What comes next then, Hssen Tyaniis?” Kyrae asked, her hesitation gone, her voice bright and clear.

“Please, Kyrae, Sire Tyaniis or just ‘Sire’ is fine. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that, even if not by blood, you are my daughter’s sister.”

My hearts leapt at Sire Tyaniis’s words. She really means it! We—are we home? Do we have a home now?

“S-sire Tyaniis, then. What comes next? Will you take us home with you? What needs to happen?”

Tyaniis hummed.

“Let’s take them both back to the palace with us!” Ssiina exclaimed.

The palace? Like, the Emerald Palace? That shimmering, mysterious home of the actual living, breathing Jii’Hssen—the Empress?

“I… am not certain,” Tyaniis replied sadly.

What? Doubt reared back up, and shadows writhed, reaching for me.

“Please Issa, do not be alarmed!” Tyaniis said quickly, but firmly. “I simply want to make sure you are treated well. The Emerald Palace, and our home within, is a cutthroat place. People there are not like those on the street, though they lie and cheat the same. Their motivations are often slight things, obfuscated and unusual. You will struggle to understand them, or to avoid falling into their traps.”

I thought about all the horrible things ussen and even kss’kaa had called me and struggled free enough to breathe and speak. “Am I not hssen? How could they possibly get away with treating me poorly?”

“They are hssen themselves, or report to one. Your upbringing, your way of speech, and especially your curse, will all be targets. They will make you less in others eyes, Daughter mine. Let alone what Kyrae will doubtless face.”

I felt something stab into my hearts. Is there even a way out? Will Kyrae and I ever truly be accepted? Is happiness possible?

Shadows reached out, cloaking around Tyaniis, Kyrae, and myself. My sire did not scream. She held me, warmth against a chill wind. “I will keep you safe, Daughter mine. I will ensure you know of their ways, that you are able to turn their every jab against them, that you can use your awful experiences to be more than they ever could.”

“How?” I asked softly, feeling Kyrae slip a hand over mine in the darkness.

“I…” Tyaniis looked into my eyes, one in particular. Doubtless she saw the black void of its gaze. “You will not accept being caged, Daughter mine. Just like—"

Another body slammed into us through the oily shadows.

Ssiina wrapped around me. “Sis! Hold it together! We’ll find a way and everything’ll work out, I promise! I’ll teach you anything I can!”

“Like your sister,” Tyaniis continued. “Like your sister, or like your mother Hinssa, I know you need to be able to go your own way.”

“Sire?” Ssiina asked.

“I assigned Dyni to you for a reason, Ssiina. She will keep you safe.”

Ssiina quieted down, and the shadows did too. With Kyrae’s hand in mine, I forced them back, back into their dark corners and their cracks between stones. They almost resisted, but something about this room, be it my family or Jaezotl’s presence, helped me along.

Soon, we were back again in a rather empty space, this time in a tangled pile of scales.

“Do…” I choked on the word, my hearts beating quickly. “Do you have a way to make everything work? For me and Kyrae to come… home?”

Home. Could we really have one? Any wrong move, any wrong word, any anything could take it all away in a moment. The orphanage, our place under Nyss’s place, our home in this very city. How long until this crumbles out from under us, too?

I tried to force away the thoughts, to lean into the warmth of others around me. We need this chance.

Tyaniis disentangled the pile, and placed the three of us in front of her. “I know someone, distantly. She lives in the Holy City of Uzh, and she may be able to help, but I will also need the Temple’s blessing. She is powerful, and she is not a part of either the nobility or the Temple.”

“Who?” Kyrae asked.

“Phaeliisthia,” Tyaniis said with an odd, harsh accent.

“Phaeliisthia,” I rolled the name around on my tongue. It started with a sound that Lamian as a language didn’t have.

“Phaeliisthia,” Kyrae repeated, emphasizing her lips.

I tried the name again, finding it easier to say. “Is she… is Phaeliisthia a lamia or an elf?”

“Neither,” Tyaniis responded cryptically. “Ussyri Noksi should know more.”

My sire drew herself up and slithered toward the door while Kyrae, Ssiina, and myself all looked at each other cluelessly. Tyaniis opened the door and stuck her head out, whispering on the other side. From my shadows, I could make out, “Come back inside, I wish to determine if we can place them in her care for the time being.”

My stomach flipped. That’s right. She said the Holy City of Uzh. All I knew was that it was somewhere in the mass of mangroves at the mouth of the Hssyri Delta, on the main river channel. We learned as much back at the orphanage.

I hope we don’t need to go through Ess’Siijiil to get there. I knew the cities were close, but I had no idea how close “close” was—or where, really.

Kyrae squeezed my hand and Ssiina squeezed Kyrae’s hand squeezing mine.

“It’ll be fine,” Kyrae said with a hint of worry. “Right? Tyaniis is nice!”

“Mhmm,” Ssiina nodded. “That was… Sire never acts like that. She’s always been so distant, well, since Mother died. I didn’t know she knew how to act nice.”

Kyrae put a hand to her chin and hummed in thought, but didn’t say anything. I, meanwhile, kept my eyes on the door as it opened and the two ssyri’ssen and Dyni came back in.

“You’ll love Uzh, Issa!” Ssiina tried to assure me. “It’s really pretty up on all these big stone islands just out of the water. There are bridges and canals everywhere, all covered in flowers—at least when I went! And it should have really good fish, too!”

I nodded, not really listening as everyone took their coils again, Ussyri Noksi’s blue eyes meeting my own.

Please let all this be over. Please let Kyrae and me find a home—and soon.