Tyaniis gripped the ship’s railing hard enough to dent the wood, her knuckles pale. She barely paid any attention to the gorgeously dense mangroves and their hordes of colorful birds as they slid past. Excitement over seeing her daughters warred with worry. Had she abandoned them with Phaeliisthia and shirked her duties as sire?

That such an act was no different to how distant she’d been with Ssiina turned the hssen’s stomach. Worse, she feared she’d placed Ssiina in yet another gilded cage, and constrained Issa and Kyrae beyond what they knew.

Will her daughters have come to hate her?

She couldn’t escape this worry either: these days if it wasn’t her daughters, it was Ussen Ziilant in Kii’Zhaal and her allies, or fear of her sister’s rejection of Tyaniis’s proposed adoption that kept her awake on sleeping nights.

Add to that the endless rabbit hole of connections, back-alley dealings, and corruption she’d been doggedly chasing in pursuit of the origin of the idol that cursed Issa, and it was a wonder that she’d held it all together. Or perhaps not so much. For the first time since Hinssa had died, Tyaniis felt like she was looking ahead, like she could work towards something.

And then Phaeliisthia had traveled to Amaranth and back last rainy season. Whenever that old lizard left Uzh, it caused a stir, and she’d forgone her usual spree of getting under scales and breaking fangs in favor of a direct, purposeful trip. On one hand, it meant she was more than likely upholding their bargain, but on the other…

Phaeliisthia was planning something. There were few things she would need to plan that wouldn’t cause a massive stir, and Tyaniis had a very uneasy realization that it probably involved not only her, but her daughters as well.

Hence why she could now hear splintering from the abused wood under her sharp nails, and why she was coiled so tightly it almost hurt.

“Hinssa,” she whispered into the wind, looking up at the sky and shielding her eyes with one hand. “Why is everything so difficult without you? Why am I never certain of the right choice to make?”

Hssen Tyaniis Ssyri’Jiilits did not find an answer on the wind, and she stayed alone with her thoughts, her anxiety keeping the crew well distant until their ship pulled into the city of Uzh.

***

“My reward spot’s a secret until Phaeliisthia takes us there and that’s final,” Ssiina said, crossing her arms.

I skipped a rock out into our glade’s pool. “Really? I mean, mine’s a secret because I’m still reading Uru’s journal and finding new places, and even then, it needs to be secret. But Kyrae told us hers: the start of the Greatriver that runs through elven lands.”

“Why should whether Kyrae tells us or not be any more important a reason than you not telling us?”

“Ssiina, Issa; it’s fine,” Kyrae huffed as she emerged from the pond, shaking her long, wet hair wildly. “Maybe Ssiina will get inspired when she sees the headwaters of the Greatriver.”

I hissed when some of the splatters landed on me. “I just got dry!”

“And you’ll dry again. You two always sit in the sun for hours.”

“Yesss,” Ssiina drawled. “It’sss wonderful. And I can asssure you where I will go is far more exotic than a ssspring in our back garden.”

Kyrae rolled her eyes. “Snakes.”

“Elvesss,” I shot back, wearing a cheeky smile.

Kyrae splashed me and Ssiina in response. Our hssen-raised sister dried herself off with a quick sigil while I moped about the bright sunlight disrupting the shadows I could’ve shielded myself with. Not that I’d ever truly complain about the end of the rainy season.

Well, except for the fact that the festival in Uzh hadn’t been as nice.

Kyrae sauntered over and plopped down between me and Ssiina, resting her head behind her arms. Just these past weeks she’d started using magic, under Phaeliisthia’s careful instruction on some small aspects of her body.

Ssiina and I had both told her we didn’t think she needed to, but Kyrae was insistent. And I had to say the results made it seem like us lamias were wrong. Not that she looked terribly different. A slight jawline adjustment, a tweak of the shoulders in and the hips out a little maybe, but that was all.

And I didn’t mean the herbs either, though I’d defy anyone to look at Kyrae now and not recognize the young woman my sister was… and I was.

Confidence.

That was the change. Even a month ago, had the weather permitted, Kyrae never would have dreamed of wearing what were nearly underclothes and swimming in front of both her sisters. Now? She almost made me want to get into the water again with how much fun she was having… and I was barely warm.

According to Ssiina, who would be considered fully adult the moment our sire debuted her to hssen and ussen alike in some grand ceremony, I was almost there. And Kyrae too.

She’d grown a small bit in height, but the biggest changes were to her build and face. Gone was the young, gaunt look she’d shared with me. In her place, well… I’d heard more than a few whispers about all of us at the last festival. Pretty was one word used. These days, she wore her black hair longer and her green eyes had more life to them. I’d been told by Ssiina that mine were the same. It certainly helped that my long hair was nicely kept, my scales were polished, and my body glowed with health.

It had only been a little over a year, but it felt like longer. Phaeliisthia’s estate was our home, and the enigmatic woman felt at times like a great-aunt with questionable fashion sense.

“This is nice,” Ssiina said softly after a long, blissful silence.

I hissed contentedly in agreement.

“No, I mean all of this. You and Kyrae. I think I’m actually excited for Sire Tyaniis to visit, but I’m almost scared to get my hopes up.”

“Was she that bad?” I asked without thinking.

“Issa!” Kyrae hissed.

Ssiina giggled. “It’s fine, Kyrae.” Our hssen-raised sister blinked as if surprised by her own reaction. “I… huh. This is nice.”

Now, I was curious, and I pushed myself up a little, looping my lower body once over itself under me. “What is?”

“You two.” Ssiina gestured around. “Sisters. Friends. This place… And it wasn’t that Sire Tyaniis was bad. She was just… absent a lot. I never really felt like she cared about anything since Mother died and you went missing. I wondered sometimes if her body was going on, but the sire I knew had left it. If that makes sense?”

“Maybe?” I answered without any real surety, my mind trying to figure out why her words seemed familiar. I didn’t say that I wished I could remember Mother.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I know what you mean,” Kyrae said softly, turning her head to smile at me. “She’d given up. Stopped caring. Issa and I saw that sometimes in other street folk. Honestly, I almost went there when Issa’s cursed powers were going to her head. I was worried I’d lost her and I almost just… gave up.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” I placed the tip of my tail over her legs.

She smiled and ran her hand down a jagged line of scales. “I’m sorry to bring this up, but that night with Nyss. When you came in and… I thought I’d lost you, I…”

I curled my tail and pulled Kyrae into a hug. She let out a startled “eep” sound. “I think you almost had. But… as awful as everything was, I think it saved us.” I looked back over at Ssiina. Her golden eyes were full of tears and she looked away quickly, blinking rapidly.

“I’m sorry you two… I forget how bad you had it. It makes me want to just… to just… I don’t even know,” she finished exasperatedly.

“Hey.” I pulled her into the hug too, sandwiching a wet Kyrae between the two of us. “Just because we had it bad doesn’t mean your bad is less bad.”

Ssiina giggled. “Do you pay any attention to diction lessons?”

I shrugged. “When I need to. What? Do you want me to impart some morsel of profound wisdom every time I open my mouth?”

Ssiina blinked in shock and I stuck my tongue out at her.

“What Issa means,” Kyrae interjected, sliding up and free from the most crushing part of the hug, “is that you suffered too. And we’ve never truly let you tell your story. What was it like?”

“Well,” Ssiina started, “I guess it was just a lot of loneliness. Dyni, whenever she was out of the shadows, was my only real companion. Sire ensured I never wanted for anything… except love. As the daughter of the presumed next jii’hssen, I’d been sequestered away as a young child. And then… well, after Sire rejected the position, I became a social pariah.

“Even if Aunt Ssyii made everyone well aware she would pursue no vendetta towards Sire, and openly tried to bring her back into society, Sire kept away. And that kept me away, too.”

“Ssiina…” I closed my eyes and pulled her close. “Your sisters, new and old, are here for you. Friends and family. And I’m certain our sire will work hard to learn to love again. And she will. I’ll make her if I have to.”

Ssiina hiccupped and held me close. “Thank you, Issa.”

“Issa,” Kyrae said with a smile. “All that reading and all this tutoring really have made you think more.”

“For better and worse,” I nodded sagely. “For instance, I have your legs trapped, but Ssiina is only loosely in this hug.”

Ssiina’s teary-eyed face blinked gecko-like at me. Horror dawned in Kyrae’s eyes just as I used all the strength in my tail to launch both of us back into the pond. We came up spluttering, and Kyrae laughed even as she dunked my head under again.

Tomorrow would be another intense day of combat training, but more importantly, it would be Sire Tyaniis’s visit. We needed to goof off as much as possible to make sure we were ready for a day of serious discussion. Only I knew that Phaeliisthia was going to broach the topic of enrolling us into the academy at the Spring of All Life tomorrow. While I’d told my sisters of the plan, I’d been too scared to make it seem like more than a ghost of an idea. Too scared to lose what we had.

The seeds of change to our idyllic small world were about to be planted.

***

Phaeliisthia’s red-scaled servant led Tyaniis through the estate’s lush garden, and the hssen struggled to remain impassive. The immense, emerald-scaled kelaniel’s emotions roiled underneath her stern countenance as she slithered close enough to see the dark stone manor through the trees.

“Your daughters are practicing in the courtyard,” the servant said in a neutral tone, glancing back over his shoulder with what Tyaniis thought might’ve been a smirk.

“Take me to them, please,” her voice came out clipped and terse.

The servant bowed. “Of course.”

Slithering through the manor, Tyaniis tried to calm herself. But when she left into the bright afternoon light of the courtyard, her composure cracked. Ahead of her, her three daughters, one of them an elf, were practicing with blades.

A pit formed in her stomach when she realized just how much they’d grown. Ssiina had finished blossoming into a near-replica of a young Tyaniis, albeit significantly smaller. Issa looked achingly like Hinssa, although the young ra’zhii would clearly pass her mother’s size.

Kyrae, who Tyaniis had debated adopting in the beginning, had grown past her boyish awkwardness and shyness into a young woman that reminded Tyaniis of years long past, where she and her partner had visited a newbloom friend. Like back then, Tyaniis would only know if she was told.

Any lingering doubts about Kyrae that Tyaniis had vanished in an instant. The way she and her sisters moved in concert disabused the hssen of any idea that she could be something other than a sister to Ssiina and Issa and a daughter to Tyaniis.

And so, with relief at war with anxiety, Tyaniis allowed the servant to lead her to a coil outside the circle where her daughters were practicing. Tyaniis laid herself around the warm, smooth stone and watched with growing interest, motherly affection, and a throbbing pang of guilt for her role as an absentee parent.

Tyaniis was also more than a little concerned for her daughters’ safety: Phaeliisthia didn’t watch over them as they struck practice dummies.

She was sparring with them.

Issa and Ssiina used shorter blades, while Kyrae used a single, longer blade. Real bronze blades, hopefully dulled, flashed in the light. Phaeliisthia gave Tyaniis a wink, but the hssen’s girls were facing away from her for the moment.

And so she watched them. Some old part of her ached that she wasn’t the one to teach them, ached that she had sheltered Ssiina so much. No, sheltered was the wrong word.

Abandoned was more accurate. Ssiina’s escape attempts into the city, something that had only started after Hinssa’s death, were doubtless the fault of a void in her life. Tyaniis bore the pain of guilt and regret—it wasn’t her place to deny her faults.

Now, it was her duty to correct them. As such, she did not assert her presence. Rather, she watched from the sidelines with a soft smile resting impossibly on her hard face. More and more, she knew what she must do, the things she would not flee from.

A formal adoption needed to happen. Ssiina needed her debut, and Tyaniis had to prove she was not broken by Hinssa’s death. For a moment, it was as if her late partner herself was coiled right beside her, calling her grousing “cute” and insisting that she smile more.

Can I actually make her proud?

Tyaniis blinked to clear her blurry vision, despite the clear summer skies.

***

Duck, sway right, turn my lower body, push with my tail, arm straight—not that straight!

The flat of Phaeliisthia’s blade rapped hard against my elbow and it popped painfully. Our tutor said nothing, waiting only a fraction of a moment before forcing me back even as she casually deflected a strike from Kyrae and swayed away from Ssiina’s blades.

I hissed in frustration at the next strike she deflected.

I need to surprise her!

I ducked low and swept in as fast as I could, ignoring my defense. Phaeliisthia’s pale thigh came into view just in front of my blade—and she moved unexpectedly, revealing Ssiina’s arm.

I couldn’t stop and I cried out as my dull practice blade hit my sister’s upper arm with enough force to bite in. The world spun and some of my breath left me.

All I could register was the pommel of our tutor’s blade as she pulled away from my sternum.

“Issa,” her warning was sharp and radiated disappointment.

“Ssiina! I’m sorry, I—”

“Issa,” Phaeliisthia warned again. “Tell me what you did wrong.” A golden glow emanated from above me and Ssiina’s whimpering trailed off into a pained sigh.

“I used too much force! I couldn’t pull back in time to—”

“Wrong,” Phaeliisthia tutted, her eyes briefly flicking behind me. “Anyone?”

I risked lifting my head and looked at my other sisters. Ssiina was holding one arm out, her face a little pale. Despite this, when my eyes met hers, she forced a smile. Hesitantly, I looked at Kyrae.

My elf sister shook her head. “Issa acted out of frustration and made an attack without telegraphing to her allies or understanding what they were doing.”

I winced, lowering my head again. “She… Kyrae’s right, Tutor Phaeliisthia.”

“At least you understand, Issa.” Again, Phaeliisthia’s white eyes looked over my shoulder. “And I do believe that will be it for today. Despite my magic, Ssiina should rest, and you three have company.”

A chill ran down my spine. She couldn’t possibly be right behind me, could she? How could I not have noticed, even if there are no shadows under the midday sunlight?

I gulped and turned around. Coiled tensely, Sire Tyaniis seemed even larger than I remembered. Next to her Zinniz looked positively petite. I expected a glare or a sharp remark from my golden-eyed sire.

Instead, she wore an uncharacteristically friendly smile, strained as she looked at the blood on Ssiina’s arm.

“I-I’m sorry,” I squeaked.

Tyaniis shook her head. “Issa, daughter mine, I am disappointed, yes, but the important thing is that you learn from this. Irresponsible as Phaeliisthia may seem by giving you real blades, she knows what she is doing. My biggest regret is that I did not teach Ssiina, and I could not be there to teach either you or Kyrae.”

Her smile grew warmer. “Please, let today be a joyous day. I have much I wish to tell you, and much more than I wish to hear. I have many, many years of ineptitude to start making up for.”

And then she did something unexpected: Sire Tyaniis bowed her head to all of us. “Again, I formally apologize for my terrible job as your sire—all of your sire. Will you give me another chance—a chance to make up for my failings?”

Kyrae and I couldn’t answer; we were struck still.

Ssiina however, bounded forward, launching into our sire, arms wide. “I will, Sire! You… you look just like Mom scolded you.” When she brought her head up, it was full of tears.

Tyaniis ran her fingers through Ssiina’s hair. “In a way, daughter mine, I think she did.”