Guardian of Uzh? I didn’t know what to make of Phaeliisthia’s words.

More importantly… she was going to be our new tutor. Already we were drawing eyes, and this outlandish woman had a sort of presence beyond even my sire.

Kyrae elbowed me, and bowed low. “I am Kyrae. How should I address you, Honored Guardian Phaeliisthia?”

I jolted and stopped staring. Thankfully, Phaeliisthia deigned to respond first, placing her hand above her sternum and drawing up as if preening.

“Oh, aren’t you more polite than Nok-Nok said you’d be!” She strode forward and made a motion for Kyrae to rise with one taloned hand. “You may address me as Phaeliisthia for now. I do not bother myself with titles.” She tittered, and then her eyes landed on me.

“I’m Issa!” I tried to inject as much pep as I could. “It’s nice to meet you, Tutor Phaeliisthia!”

The terrifying woman’s white eyes narrowed. She pointed downward. “Bow. Properly. I take no title because I do not need one, child. Respect should be implied, but I will demand it if need be.”

A terrifying pressure seemed to emanate from Phaeliisthia, and I practically threw myself on the ground. The black stone of the street filled my vision, but I heard Phaeliisthia sigh. Even such a simple gesture sounded musical.

“Tyaniis,” she said in an exaggeratedly exasperated tone, skipping any formality. “Issa is the special one, yes?”

Special one? I guess shouting about the fact I’m cursed in public isn’t a good idea. Ussyri Noksi probably wrote ahead, but I feel like she might not have needed to.

It also didn’t escape me that Phaeliisthia addressed my hssen sire without any title or formality in her tone. The silence that lingered was short, but poignant.

Still bowing, I heard my sire shift behind me. “She is.” The words were level, and no remark was made about the slight.

Light footsteps tapped around me, their source humming musically. The pressure transformed into a warm, liquid feeling that washed over me, and I resisted the urge to shiver at the suddenness of its naked touch. Phaeliisthia’s sandaled feet circled around, then stopped directly in front of me.

“Rise,” she commanded.

I rose slowly, and met her gaze hesitantly. Surprising myself, I kept looking into her odd white eyes without blinking or turning away, focusing on the black slits of her pupils.

Phaeliisthia cocked her head to one side and smiled, showing twin rows of sharp teeth. “Not hopeless, then. I do so love a challenge.” She spun on one foot and started to walk away, humming. “Follow. We’ll talk more at my estate.”

I blinked finally and glanced at Ssiina, who’d gone pale. She opened her mouth and closed it again as our sire pushed us into motion after Phaeliisthia. The woman paused to squeeze Noksi again as she passed, and practically dragged the ussyri along with her.

“Follow,” my sire whispered. “Stay quiet and polite. Phaeliisthia may be unusual, but she is not known to be unkind.”

“Really?” Phaeliisthia responded without turning. “Oh how far I’ve let my reputation slip!”

“My apologies if my whispered words caused offense, Phaeliisthia,” Tyaniis’s formal tone sounded almost hasty.

Is she… is Sire Tyaniis nervous?

Phaeliisthia laughed musically. “There’s the reaction I’ve worked so very hard to cultivate.”

I watched as Sire Tyaniis set her jaw, but she kept quiet. My thoughts jumbled, a mess of things to ask and words to avoid. So many things wanted to come out, but none did as I slithered along with our group.

To be fair, the city distracted me: Uzh was gorgeous. Even more so up close.

The path we slithered along wound around verdant bushes, ancient trees, and rope-like vines half as big around as my lower body. Bright greens and browns moved in the breeze as if alive, playing with light and shade such that their vibrant colors seemed to shimmer. I could feel the deeper shadows with my power distantly, and life thrummed through them. Small animals and huge insects both darted around in and out of sight. An immense dragonfly buzzed right over my head, swiftly chased by a bright purple bird.

I felt almost like I was in the jungle more than a city, even as we reached the edge of the square-turned-park and drifted onto a wide slitherway of warm black stone. People watched us pass, most fixated on Phaeliisthia, who smiled and waved, offering topical words with a golden laugh.

Further in the city, we passed a frankly unnerving market. On the surface, the street looked to simply be packed with stalls and light on customers—walking space and sight given freely to use without disturbance. But I felt an absence in the shadows: the alleys were clean and empty between sturdy-looking stone buildings and crisscrossed by canals. I didn’t notice anyone lurking for coinpurses, even as I kept a tight guard on my own.

Strange to have money I didn’t steal, but was given.

Not that I didn’t notice some people out of the light, or that everyone in the market seemed of wealthy class, but the place didn’t feel alive in quite the way I was used to. A market should be like a living, breathing thing: rife with parasites, but fat with blood.

This… this was more like an exotic pet, clean of health and thin of body. I felt safe, but I also felt exposed.

I’m not sure I like this.

Ssiina meanwhile, definitely liked the market. She tugged on my sleeve and pointed at all sorts of stalls and people. While a stall selling fresh flowers did catch my eye for its vibrant colors and scents, I didn’t have much attention left for whatever other unnecessary thing she fixated on.

Kyrae seemed taken by some of the brightly-colored clothing, but was mostly like I was: wary and on edge. She kept her hands firmly to her sides and her eyes forward as we slithered (and walked) past laden stalls.

Our group took a turn after the end of the market street, and Phaeliisthia helped Noksi into an aazh. The small riverboat was shaped differently than I was used to, and Noksi surprised me by actually dipping her tail into the water at the stern. Phaeliisthia took a step up to the prow and sat down languidly, facing backwards.

The strange woman gestured to another boat behind the one she and Ussyri Noksi were in. “I assume you know how to use an aazh, Tyaniis?”

“I… do,” my sire answered reticently.

“Marvelous!” Phaeliisthia clapped her hands. “Just follow Nok-Nok and we’ll be there in no time at all!”

Ssiina blinked, wide-eyed, and glanced up at our sire. I did too, not really understanding what my sister was on about. Surely Tyaniis won’t have an issue with how large she is. That boat looks like it can fit the rest of us, too.

“Dyni,” Tyaniis whispered to the air, “Follow by tail. We’ll be heading northwest.”

I looked around for Ssiina’s bodyguard, but found her nowhere. A moment later, Kyrae tugged my hand forward. Ahead of me, looking for all the world like she was trying not to feel patronized, Tyaniis had slithered onto the aazh and was lowering her immense tail into the water.

Ssiina slid on first, and Kyrae and I after. Ussyri Noksi and Phaeliisthia were already underway, when Tyaniis started.

“I presume you know how to swim, Kyrae?” my sire asked. “I don’t foresee a problem happening, but I do not know if Phaeliisthia has another ‘test’ devised.”

Kyrae nodded. “Of course I can!”

“Good!” Tyaniis nodded seriously.

I felt like something was… off, especially at the way Kyrae smiled lopsidedly at our sire. Tyaniis gave a strained smile back and Ssiina giggled.

“What am I missing?” I asked, more than a little frustrated.

Ssiina’s giggles turned to laughter.

“Don’t—” Tyaniis warned, the usually intimidating woman’s commanding aura lost against her compromised position and in the face of Phaeliisthia’s weirdness.

“Sire’s never s-swam an aazh before, Issa,” Ssiina managed to choke out between giggles. “She’s nervous she’ll flip us.”

“Really?” I asked, looking between the two hssen.

Sire Tyaniis nodded hesitantly. “I know how to, I just haven’t done so.”

“Well Ussyri Noksi is building up a big lead, Sire,” Kyrae said.

She called Tyaniis “Sire!”

Tyaniis closed her eyes and drew in a breath. When she moved her tail, the boat lurched. I grabbed the smooth wood of the side of the boat, and Kyrae slid down lower. Without looking up, Tyaniis moved her lower body again. Another lurch.

I held on, more in danger of laughing myself into the water than falling in. Soon enough, however, we smoothed out. I even dipped the tip of my tail into the water as we moved along. This canal probably didn’t count as the Hssyri river, but it paid to be safe.

“You’re doing great!” I called to my sire, watching the gorgeous city start to move by on either side. “Way faster than the llessen I’ve ridden with before!”

Somehow, Tyaniis didn’t seem to take my compliment well.

By the time we exited the stone-lined canal into a stream flowing from a walled garden, however, I could swear my sire was smiling. Now surrounded by plants, the relative silence of the city ended in an explosion of bird calls. The vines and branches that had dipped into the water turned into walls of leaf and wood.

Flower petals of red, pink, yellow, and white drifted by on the water. Above, red-leafed trees cast the whole tunnel in a shade of ochre. We turned a corner, and I started to see fish cutting just below the water’s surface: big ones with white and red scales.

Next to me, Ssiina and Kyrae wore the same wide-mouthed expression. Uzh was beautiful; this place was otherworldly.

The canal meandered on for a few more lazy turns and terminated in something I hadn’t expected to see: a pool with a waterfall tumbling down rocks perhaps twice my length above us. The biggest tree I’d seen yet, a red-flowering willow, clung to the side of the rock near the top, and its flower-filled branches cascaded down with the water, dropping the red petals that had so predominated our passage into this grove.

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Ahead, Phaeliisthia was sitting on a black stone bench by the shore, watching Ussyri Noksi affix the boat to a small stone dock. She wore a soft sort of smile; the expression odd on her.

Our sire pulled in closer to the dock and my sisters and I helped get the aazh tied off. Kyrae was better than me with knots, but Ssiina was hopeless. When it was done, we all moved from the dock to the clearing by the shore, almost in a daze.

“Your garden is marvelous, Phaeliisthia,” my sire said reverently, trying to salvage some of her dignity.

Phaeliisthia smirked. “It is, yes. However, this place is ill-suited to conversation. Come.” She gestured over her shoulder toward a stone-scattered path that wound up through the trees.

Mesmerized, we followed, Ussyri Noksi taking the lead. The path wound around back up toward the stream lazily, and each corner held some new and strange plant.

“Isn’t this the most beautiful garden you’ve ever seen?” Ssiina asked excitedly.

I nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like the brightest parts of the jungle, but everywhere all at once.”

“What about the gardens of the Emerald Palace?” Kyrae whispered, picking up her pace to match ours.

Ssiina glanced at our sire, who’d taken a position at the rear. “The garden there is really nice, but it’s too… ordered, I suppose. Here, but for subtle signs, the look is natural, vibrant, alive!” My hssen-raised sister’s eyes drifted away from mine, back to the enchanting garden around us.

Even as we left the waterfall behind, the scenery grew hardly less impressive. What appeared to be dense undergrowth revealed pockets and gaps filled with everything from mushrooms to immense ground-resting flowers. Overhead, a canopy formed, dripping with blooms and buds.

It all looks natural to me.

Ahead of us, the trail opened into a clearing, dotted with immense trees and coated in flowering groundcover. Large, flat stones marked paths: one to a pool above the waterfall, and another to an immense villa of black stone. The red-flowering willow was closer here, and its petals almost seemed to glow. Below them, the water rippled. A spring?

The villa drew my attention first, even as Phaeliisthia led us in the other direction. Immense wooden beams supported an oddly peaked roof of thin stone tiles, and the shuttered windows had what looked like sheets of parchment over them. Two large doors that faced each other marked the front of the façade, and they were closed.

By the pool sat a stone circle with a trellised roof of vines in bright pink bloom. Coiling and seating were arrayed under the black stone around a table, and someone I assumed to be a servant had placed themselves by the outer edge, chin down demurely. They were a small-looking lamia with unusual red scales; I guessed “he” once we got closer. I couldn’t tell if he was lania’el or not, but his size seemed to point that way.

“Mistress,” he intoned once Phaeliisthia walked closer.

“Ensure drinks and meals are prepared for six guests. Inform the kitchen that Nok-Nok is one of them.”

The servant nodded and slithered off toward the villa.

Wait, six?

Phaeliisthia turned her head toward an area of denser trees across the pool. “I will permit you to join us,” she said softly, before turning to my sire, anger flashing across her features. “You, Tyaniis will take your ‘guard’ and leave after our meal is concluded. It is only out of an understanding that I would do the same for my Nok-Nok that I am allowing you to stay that long.”

“I understand, Phaeliisthia,” our sire replied. She didn’t apologize.

“Marvelous!” the horned woman clapped her hands together. “Before we eat, there is much to discuss. Have a seat or coil wherever you like.” She gestured to the large, circular stone table and the spaces around it.

From across the large pond, I watched Dyni appear out of the canopy, taking the path around the water.

Phaeliisthia took a seat cross-legged, and with her back to the pond and willow. Ussyri Noksi coiled next to her, a soft smile on her face, but her complexion was flush with embarrassment. I decided to coil right next to Phaeliisthia on her other side, then my sisters next to me. Dyni coiled between Ussyri Noksi and Sire Tyaniis, with the latter taking up the space directly across from our horned host.

“What education do each of you have thus far?” Phaeliisthia addressed my sisters and me. “Is it wise to assume I should start from nothing?”

“I-I have a formal education as befitting my station, Phaeliisthia,” Ssiina said with well-practiced deference. “My strongest subject is history and my weakest is magical theory.”

“That makes sense. You do seem a bit like what I heard of your sire at her age, if I’m to be honest. Why are you here then?”

“I w-wish to stay with my new sisters… and help them!”

“Do not lie to me, child,” Phaeliisthia said in a voice that was sickly sweet.

Ssiina bristled. “With all due respect, I am not lying, Phaeliisthia.”

“A lie by omission is still a lie, child.” The horned woman put emphasis on the last word.

Ssiina winced.

“Now, tell me: your real reason.”

“I…” Ssiina trailed off, looking to our sire, then Ussyri Noksi, and then Phaeliisthia for an out. No one spoke up, so she took a deep breath. “I want to get away from the palace: to see the Empire, maybe the world.”

“Better. Now… why must you come to me instead of merely staying in the city and visiting your sisters?”

Ssiina closed her eyes and looked down at the stone table. “I was hoping you could teach me sigilcraft when Sire Tyaniis couldn’t.”

Phaeliisthia clicked her tongue. “No. Your sire may not have much talent for sigilcraft, but I believe her to be an adequate teacher. For someone as stubborn as Tyaniis’s child to admit a fault, I will assume your struggle to be significant, and to come from a place of mental ineptitude.”

Ssiina flushed with embarrassment. “Y-yes, Phaeliisthia.”

“Giving up so easily then? My point is proven.” The horned woman sighed.

Ssiina’s eyes went wide, but before she could speak, Phaeliisthia addressed me. “And what of you, Issa? You want to control your curse-granted powers, do you not?”

Tyaniis and Ussyri Noksi both hissed warnings.

Now or never. I shrugged. “I do.”

“Honest. Good. Though I wonder how much of your success is learning from your sister’s failure.” Phaeliisthia chuckled darkly. “No matter. I will teach you.”

“Phael!” Ussyri Noksi cut in, suddenly. “You can’t! She’ll—”

“Succeed or suffer a fate worse than death for trying. If it is what she wants, I am not going to stop her.”

“What she wants…” Ssiina mumbled under her breath.

Phaeliisthia’s eyes snapped to my hssen-raised sister. “Is there a problem, child?”

Ssiina looked up, eyes bright and defiant. “I want to learn how to fight with blades and sigilcraft, Phaeliisthia. Not the stupid duels hssen have, but real fighting. I want to know how to sneak around like Dyni and blend into crowds like my sisters.”

Phaeliisthia’s eyes seemed to sparkle. “You surprise me, child. Good. I had thought Tyaniis’s progeny would want to escape the same gilded cage that strangled her own ambition, and I do so love to see myself correct.”

Tyaniis hissed an intake of air. “Ssiina!”

“Sire!” Ssiina whirled, facing Sire Tyaniis with a tear-streaked face. “I want to be able to protect myself! I want to go see our Empire for what it really is, not what my tutors tell me!”

“Where did you get the idea—”

Ssiina shifted up straighter, and stuck her arms straight down by her sides, hands curled into fists. “From you, Sire. From Mother. Ever since she died, you’ve put me in smaller and smaller cages. I. Want. Out!”

I glanced from Ssiina to Phaeliisthia, who wore a predatory smile.

I wasn’t sure what our sire would say, but I wasn’t disappointed when Tyaniis bowed her head after a long silence. “I apologize, Daughter mine. You are right. I had hoped Dyni would be enough, that if I let you indulge your fantasies you would come to desire an easier life away from danger. It seems I was wrong.”

Ssiina nodded sharply, then hiccupped. “T-thank you, Sire. I love you.”

Tyaniis’s eyes shone with tears. “I love you too, Ssiina.”

“While those two are making up for lost time, how about we discuss what the elf among serpents desires, hmm?” Phaeliisthia turned her full attention to Kyrae.

She slouched under the pressure of the horned woman’s gaze, then took a breath and drew herself up. “I wish to learn magic. To help keep Issa’s curse at bay, but also to defend myself and show that it was a mistake to throw me away.”

“Throw you away?”

Kyrae gritted her teeth. “I won’t talk about them.”

Them? Kyrae’s parents? All I could remember was that Kyrae didn’t want to talk about it—she’d said she put it behind her and was done.

Phaeliisthia tapped her chin. “Such strong motivation. It seems I will have my work cut out for me to see such resentment does not lead you astray. I wonder: how much of your politeness and neutrality is born out of a lack of self-worth?”

Kyrae’s brow furrowed and she looked at Phaeliisthia’s grinning gaze with confusion.

“Magic will work faster than herbs, dear, and ‘newbloom’ is a very symbolic word. Though, a bit misleading I find. The truth of a person would be more accurate, but I suppose language made in support but without understanding can lead to such things. Not that now is the time for moral philosophy.” Phaeliisthia shrugged her hands out to her sides.

“But,” she continued, “I believe that is all I needed from my students-to-be. A fine first evaluation, if terribly concise. We have a hssen who desires to escape the shackles of her station, an aspiring user of extraplanar shadow magic, and a young woman who wishes to find both magical strength and herself. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure you would all be interesting. It is lovely to be surprised.”

Kyrae leaned into me, closing her eyes and squeezing my hand hard. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t put my tail in my mouth and just tried to be there.

“If you have any questions about Uzh, this estate, or your tutoring, I am open to hearing them.” Phaeliisthia said, relaxing her shoulders. “We have some time still until our food is prepared.”

“Uhm, Phaeliisthia?” Ssiina asked softly, done whispering with Tyaniis and wearing a blushing smile.

“Yes, dear?”

“This island we’re on: I didn’t know there was land like this out here in the delta.”

Phaeliisthia laughed, delicately wiping a fake tear from the corner of one eye. “Such a marvelously simple question. There are actually many islands in the delta, mostly low-lying domes of earth. This island, however, is special: old stone and a freshwater spring, the remains of some ancient formation. Much of the stone in Uzh is quarried from upstream, but this island and my home are as one.”

“Wow! And this garden: do you tend it yourself?”

Phaeliisthia nodded. “I do, yes. Of all the fleeting hobbies, gardening is the one that never seems to wane.”

I felt a little emboldened by Ssiina’s dramatic change in attitude. She was coiled tighter, and confidently upright.

“What about you, Phaeliisthia?” I asked with as confident a voice as I could muster.

“What about me?” she cocked her head to one side.

“Well, uh, hobbies and horns and such?”

Phaeliisthia stifled another bout of laughter. “’Hobbies and horns and such’? You want to talk about me? Well, I want to talk about you, specifically my students-to-be, and what you think of Uzh so far. About your ‘hobbies and scales and legs and stuff’ as might be more appropriate.”

Sire Tyaniis frowned.

Ussyri Noksi raised herself up in her coil, breaking her long silence. “Phael, could you at least tell them a little about yourself?”

Phaeliisthia raised an eyebrow and sighed. “Fine. I am the Guardian of Uzh, and I always have been since the original city’s founding some millennia ago. As far as myself, there’s a saying I’m rather fond of: ‘For the chronically old, there’s really only one thing that matters anymore: entertainment.’”

Entertainment? She did seem to like to draw attention to herself…

I stared at Phaeliisthia’s teeth again. Her horns. Her taloned fingers.

The unusual woman glanced my way. “You may speak, Issa.”

“Sorry if it’s rude, but can we at least know what you are?” I blurted, frightened the moment the words left my mouth.

Phaeliisthia tittered. “And why would I just tell you, Issa? It’s far too much fun to watch you and your sisters try to puzzle it out.”

Ussyri Noksi suddenly grew a sly smile. “She’s a—”

Phaeliisthia clapped a hand over the Ussyri’s mouth. “Nok-Nok! Don’t ruin it!” Her tone was playful, faux-wounded, and not at all like the tone she’d taken with the rest of us. “My reveal will not be so ignominiously performed!”

Reveal?

With a reprimanding glare, Phaeliisthia let go of Ussyri Noksi. The woman still wore the same smile.

“Don’t. You. Dare.” Phaeliisthia warned, again playful. “I will ensure you do not see so much as a portion of your favorite dessert if you tell them before my own machinations are underway.”

Ussyri Noksi snapped her mouth shut, her smile wiped away. “A-alright. Regardless, I want to make absolutely certain you will tutor all three of them in a timely manner. Will you?”

“There are steps that must be taken; precedent that must be followed—”

“Are you going to actually tutor them properly or not, Phael?” Ussyri Noksi seemed to regain some of her poise with the interruption.

“I was… going to get around to it!” Phaeliisthia pouted. She looked honestly wrong with puffed out cheeks.

Ussyri Noksi chuckled. “And now you’ll start teaching them faster and not waste time, right?”

“I acquiesce!” Phaeliisthia huffed. “What are a few years, anyway?”

“More to them, than to you.”

“They’ve at least four centuries left! The kelaniel probably have six!”

“And is six centuries really that long?”

“Well, no, but—”

Six centuries isn’t long?

Ussyri Noksi raised her eyebrows. “But?”

Phaeliisthia hissed a long sigh. “I see your point, Ussyri Noksi, but I am not pleased by the way you chose to make it. Do you not understand just how much such fun means to me? To jeopardize it is to strike at my very heart!”

Ussyri Noksi crossed her arms and wore a smug grin of victory. “I do, yes. And that is why I must direct your focus toward more productive uses.”

Phaeliisthia rubbed the base of one of her horns. “I miss the young girl who’d sneak out to play in my garden.”

“And I miss the strange woman who’d spend all day playing hide-and-seek with me.”

For a moment, we all stared gobsmacked at the reversal of order. Phaeliisthia side-eyed the rest of us for a moment before she decided to turn back to us and speak.

“You must understand I have a reputation to maintain and a role to fill,” Phaeliisthia said solemnly. “Now more than ever with the incoming wave of human refugees to Jii’Kalaga, there is need for a neutral arbitrator between the Temple, Hssen, Ussen, and foreigners.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.

“Because you will have a role in this too, Hssen Issa. Whether you want to or not.”