"'Stop poking around in dangerous places?' Pah! Stop making dangerous places so worthwhile to go poking around in!"
-Uru Farlight
I was wrong to say our sire would be the only one to suffer the next few days. Phaeliisthia’s relatively harmless pranks weren’t the reason—even if Tyaniis had looked absolutely miserable stuffed into a set of gaudy clothing courtesy of her own going “missing.”
No, we suffered from a single incident.
Up until now, at least from what little I could tell, the plan laid out by our sire, Ussyri Noksi, and Phaeliisthia had been proceeding apace. Even with the alterations made at the start of Tyaniis’s visit, there was a clear itinerary. We were even scheduled to have Phaeliisthia take us to the headwaters of the Greatriver for Kyrae next week.
The problem was that someone very unfortunate had followed our sire to Uzh.
“You cannot possibly be considering letting her in?” Tyaniis hissed.
Roused from our early lessons by a rather urgent Zinniz, my sisters and I had followed Phaeliisthia and our sire to the estate’s front garden. The latter was up high on her lower body, peering out as if to see down the river to the city itself.
“I am considering it as is my duty,” Phaeliisthia responded coolly. She had her arms crossed in front of her, one golden talon tapping her forearm impatiently. Her eyes closed for a moment, then she opened them and turned to Zinniz. “Tell Ussen Anqi Ziilant we will prepare to receive her.”
“Phaeliisthia!” Tyaniis demanded.
I felt a surge of power and my sire grunted. Chains of golden light manacled her hands and bore her lower body to the ground.
“Do not presume to order my decisions, Tyaniis. I maintain neutrality, not pacifism. The entertainment value of you and your daughters will only get you so far.”
Seeing my sire struggling, I slithered closer to our furious tutor. “Are we just entertainment?” I snapped.
Phaeliisthia whirled, and the back of her hand flew toward me, only for it to stop close enough to my face that I felt the wind and thought for a moment that it had connected. Phaeliisthia’s eyes were wide, then they narrowed, and finally they closed, her brow scrunching up. With a wave of her hand, golden sigils appeared and shattered, freeing Tyaniis, who gasped.
I felt two people next to me, and I realized my sisters were there, each holding a hand.
“She didn’t hit you, did she?” Kyrae asked.
I shook my head, too confused to reply.
“Sire…” Ssiina sighed, sparing a glance at Tyaniis, who had mostly pulled herself upright.
“Zinniz,” Phaeliisthia spoke over me, her eyes avoiding mine. “Take them to the library and activate the wards.”
“Phael—” Tyaniis started.
“They will be safe there,” Phaeliisthia continued, cutting her off. She turned again back to my sire. “Go. I will not go back on my word. Our plan remains in place; I shall merely stymie their questions awhile until they bore.”
I balled my hands into fists. Her imperious tone bothered me. The Phaeliisthia I liked shouldn’t act like this. “Apologize,” I whispered before I even realized it.
“What?” Phaeliisthia turned slowly around.
“Apologize, Phaeliisthia. To Tyaniis. To me.”
The look of contempt died on her face, and in the brief instant I met her eyes before she shut them, I saw only pain. “Alright,” she said. The word was soft, ephemeral, barely a whisper. She lifted her horned head and rolled her shoulders. “I apologize, Issa, for nearly hitting you. And I apologize to you as well Tyaniis. Such action was hast—” Phaeliisthia cut herself off, then chose another word. “—uncalled for.”
She did not bow. She did not acquiesce. But Phaeliisthia’s musical tone rang sincere.
My sire looked from her to me. I crossed my arms under my chest and, after a glance at my confused sire, I nodded. “Apology accepted.”
Phaeliisthia, for once, looked stunned. She opened her mouth and closed it before massaging her fingers into her forehead. “Go now, please. I will meet my guest personally.”
“Your guest?” Ssiina asked. “Aren’t they here to try to undermine Sire’s power?”
“Yes, my guest,” Phaeliisthia answered, speaking quickly. “Unfortunately, they are not foolish enough to ask after you—merely me. As such, I cannot deny them fully as per my treaty with the Empire. I can, however, make up any little lie that I wish about your presence here and the reasons for it. Now go—there is a very fine difference between fashionable lateness and true tardiness, and I walk that line as we speak.”
Ssiina bit her lip and we shared a glance.
“I don’t like it,” Kyrae muttered.
“Neither do I,” Phaeliisthia replied as a silent Tyaniis slid past her. “For all your sire’s faults, I do not believe a lack of honor to be one of them.”
Tyaniis froze, golden eyes glancing sidelong at Phaeliisthia.
The enigmatic woman merely tilted her head and offered a coy smile. “Quickly now.”
Sighing, Tyaniis followed Zinniz and pulled the rest of us in line behind her, Kyrae hopping between emerald-scaled tails.
“Zinniz, was it?” Tyaniis asked once we were inside the manor.
“That is I,” Zinniz responded without turning around, turning deftly down the hall that led toward the library. A hand motion at another flighty servant sent them slithering off toward the kitchen.
“Why did Phaeliisthia apologize after Issa asked her? It was my impression she loathed anyone telling her—”
“What to do?” Zinniz finished. “I would watch your tongue in these walls, Hssen Tyaniis.”
“Well?” my sire insisted.
“Issa is special to Mistress Phaeliisthia.” Zinniz cocked his head over his shoulder. He wore a sad smile. “The simplest answer is that she appreciates Issa’s irreverence and frankness.”
My eyes went wide as I remembered Zinniz’s comment the other day. Phaeliisthia was also the one who showed me her secret glade, but that was just for training. Right? It had to be. I pushed the thoughts away just in time for us to arrive at the massive wooden doors to the library.
“I do not have to tell you the rules for the library, I assume?”
A chorus of nods returned the servant’s question.
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“Wonderful. The wards are well enchanted, and this room is something Mistress is free to deny access to. Do keep from making any loud noises, however. Faultless as Mistress’s magic is, accidents have a way of being serendipitous.”
I nodded, actually understanding all of Zinniz’s words. Tyaniis, as she had the past couple of days, bit back a comment explaining things, turning the stern expression into a smile.
Zinniz opened the door and bade us enter. “Do not leave until Mistress returns for you. Not I, nor anyone else.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Before I could ask the question, Kyrae slipped inside last and Zinniz closed the door behind us. A golden glow raced from the handle, filling sigils and trace lines across the doors and then the walls with what looked like liquid sunlight. For a moment, the room was bathed in blinding gold light.
When it dimmed, I took the magic stone hand torch that waited by the door with a practiced motion, and led the others to the reading section, settling into my favorite (and the only) coil in the room.
“Why did Zinniz say not to let anyone else in?” Kyrae asked our sire anxiously. “Is it because of some magic the ussen has? Just who is this visitor that has you and Phaeliisthia so nervous?”
“Ussen Anqi Ziilant is part of the provincial faction, right Sire?” Ssiina answered. “And is an accomplished sigilist?”
Tyaniis nodded. “That is correct, Ssiina.” She tousled my hssen-raised sister’s hair.
Ssiina froze for a moment, then leaned into it.
Our sire continued, “Ussen Anqi Ziilant is the head of the Ziilant family that controls Kii’Zhaal. The Ziilant family is part of the provincial faction that desires to decentralize power from Ess’Sylantziis to the provinces. They’ve had conflict in the past concerning hssen control of a specific, large gemstone mine in their territory. Since your aunt’s ascension as jii’hssen, they’ve only grown more vocal.”
“Is this all about a gemstone mine?” Kyrae asked.
I remembered the province name “Kii’Zhaal” from my lessons. But I didn’t remember much about it besides where it was: across the river from Ess’Sylantziis and part of the heartland of the Empire. It’s pretty large, too, I think? And hilly in upriver, but flat in the downriver?
Tyaniis shook her head. “No. The Ziilant family is old and powerful, but the increased trade with foreigners benefits other provinces more than theirs. Kii’Zhaal is inland, and despite its wealth, the region does not have the same attraction to outsiders as the capital and coastal regions.”
“I knew that!” I pouted.
“Shh,” Ssiina hissed.
Oh, right! I clapped a hand over my mouth and hissed through my fingers. “So they don’t like that the hssen have a mine in their province and the refugees from the empire aren’t going there?”
“That, and they have a blood feud with us hssen since a previous jii’hssen separated from one of theirs she had taken as her partner.”
“They were in the wrong, right?”
Our sire shook her head again. “It isn’t so simple. It was long ago, and despite many attempts to repair our relationship, they continue to use it as an excuse to grab for more power.”
More power. I felt the shadows of the room around me. They seemed to reflect back my anxiety, but also a cold eagerness to smother those who would hurt me.
“Do… could they have been the ones that brought the idol that cursed me to Ess’Siijiil?”
My sire sighed and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close. When she spoke it was softer than anything else that had been said. “I believe so, yes.” She smiled, showing fangs each as long as my thumb even while her golden eyes shimmered with warmth. “I will find out, and I am not known for my mercy, daughter mine.”
I shivered, but I hugged Tyaniis back, my lower body tentatively looping over hers. She stiffened, then leaned into it, relaxing.
“Is that why they’re here, sire?” Ssiina asked quietly.
“Perhaps. I had hoped my precautions were enough to distract them from my trip to Uzh, but it seems in my frustration and anxiety that I was not careful enough.”
“S’okay,” I mumbled.
Tyaniis tousled my hair.
After a short silence, Kyrae spoke up, shifting over to lean against my tail. “Why did Zinniz tell us to only answer to Phaeliisthia?”
“As your sister said, Ussen Anqi is an accomplished sigilist, and she specializes in illusions. To copy someone’s voice would be trivial, although Phaeliisthia’s would prove significantly more difficult.”
I looked up at my sire. “Is it because of that weird musical quality her voice has?”
“Yes, Issa.”
“Would Phaeliisthia not notice what Ussen Angi is doing?” Kyrae asked.
“She would, right?” Ssiina added.
“I imagine she would, yes. I do not fathom what her plan might be, but we’ve little choice but to trust it.” Tyaniis’s voice soured. “I suppose she does keep her word. All this is only if Ussen Anqi gets a chance to find this library.”
“I trust Phaeliisthia,” I murmured.
Tyaniis looked down at me. “She seems to hold you in high regard as well, daughter mine. I’ll confess I’ve no idea why. But tread carefully; Phaeliisthia is ancient, and was not always known for her honor.”
I shook my head. “I think I’ll just keep being me. Zinniz seems to think it’s a good idea.”
My sire frowned, but acquiesced, changing the subject. “Shall we talk about a brighter topic? I still have not heard what happened at the latest festival. You said you returned to the merchant from whom you bought those wonderful little birds you showed me?”
As the conversation turned brighter, my thoughts turned to the darkness. Specifically, the shadows. What is going on out there? My hearts burned with the possibilities, and my powers itched like a bad shed.
An accident here would be… I glanced at my sisters, both of them stifling giggles to keep quiet. They could help me now, right? And it’s not like I’m going to do more than spy on them. My powers hadn’t yet taken issue with being used so.
Just a little eavesdropping and I’d be out. Really, the shadows were getting itchy enough that it’d be a risk not to use them—as my own of course. But I could do this much easily.
I reached out my senses through the shadows, feeling my awareness of the dark room grow to every nook and cranny. Surrounding the room was an impenetrable barrier of golden light. Carefully, I poked a corner and it flared out, burning me.
I hid the wince and tried again. This time, the barrier shifted. Did Phaeliisthia let me through? I felt the opening—nothing more than a crack between stones, and oozed shadows through it. If any other magic came knocking, both her and me would feel it. Probably.
The manor was familiar to me these days—it was the longest I’d been in one home since the orphanage and the time before I could remember clearly. As such, I directed my shadow tendril along walls, feeling out room shapes by the other shadows.
My power had a large range when I was focused like this, but it was still limited, and I felt my control fraying as I reached the dining room. At the extreme limit, just outside the door, I could barely make out voices inside.
Not close enough!
I focused, pretending to drift off as my sire ended our hug. I leaned against my own scales and yawned wide, popping my jaw and showing fangs, before closing my eyes.
I risked a little more power, drawing again and barely suppressing a shuddering chill at the cold that washed over me. For a long moment, I froze. No presence loomed in the void, and I carefully pulled the curse’s magic to myself.
The hall outside the dining room lit up in blurry grays, and I could see the closed door ahead. Slipping through the gap in the top, my shadow tendril moved agonizingly slowly to the corner of the room. There, I focused and tried to listen.
Phaeliisthia was seated at her usual place at the head of the table, a lamia I didn’t recognize sat to one side. The lania’el woman had lighter scales—I couldn’t tell the color in the darkness, and wore fine clothing and a strained smirk.
The person who must have been Ussen Anqi wasn’t particularly long, and I couldn’t make out her face from my angle, but she wore her long hair in braids, capped with gem-studded metal bands that glittered in the room’s gray light.
Neither looked in my direction, and I let out a sigh of relief back in the library. What I was managing thrilled me—I barely remembered to pay attention to the actual conversation. As I focused more, words became intelligible and I started to listen in.
“—are ever magnanimous, Phaeliisthia.” Ussen Anqi said fluidly. “However, I have good reason to believe this is a matter of great import to the empire. Continuing to obfuscate the truth could be considered a breach of the treaty.” Her voice was smooth, but my shadow perception distorted the timbre.
Phaeliisthia calmly sipped her drink, but I noticed some tension in her shoulders and neck. It was slight, but I’d been around her enough to realize that she was nervous. Surely not from just the ussen seated at the table with her. What was this treaty?
“It is as you surmised, Anqi: I have Tyaniis here as a guest. However, she does not wish to be disturbed at the moment.”
“What of those she has come to visit?”
Phaeliisthia cocked an eyebrow. “Come to visit? Doing a bit of shadowing, are we Anqi?” My tutor took a dainty bite of her meal.
Both hers and Ussen Anqi’s looked mostly untouched—this was no mere social call.
“Need I remind you that you are a neutral party?” Ussen Anqi probed smoothly.
“I fail to see what would spur such a reminder. My guests are my purview, are they not? Would you prefer I informed others of your family’s dealings with me in the past, hmm?”
I swore I could almost hear Ussen Anqi’s jaw creak as she fought back a hiss. “I… suppose not. But that is a matter that does not concern the whole of the Empire. The children that are here with her daughter could pose a risk to—”
I almost gasped, struggling to keep control over my magic. She knows! How much does she know?
“I would not be so callous or arrogant as to use surrogates to do my bidding in violation of the treaty I honor so closely.” Phaeliisthia responded, leaning forward and placing a hand on her chin. “Or are you insinuating a threat?”
The tension in the air was thick and I almost jumped when I felt Kyrae hold my hand back in the library.
“Certainly not…” Ussen Anqi trailed off.
I froze.
Quick as a viper, the ussen snapped her head around and stared up into the corner where my shadow was. Back in the library, I let out a shriek, and I lost control of my shadow magic.