Palace of Governance, Acerbia

"The girl is testing us, Dorsin," Rosabella said.

Dorsin dropped his pen, flexed his fingers, then took the implement back up and began writing again.

He surely had his reasons for ignoring Rosabella, but she likewise had her own. Expedience needed to bow before duty. "Just as we're testing her, my heart." Rosabella glanced about the room.

Dorsin's office in the Acerbian Palace of Governance was as sparse as his chambers in Thorssel had been when Rosabella had shared his bed years ago. There was one photograph for each of his children hanging in a line beneath a single photograph of Oralie; the tiny colored vines that made up the four photographs spread like tiny roots across the white wall, intertwining with one another.

Pictures embracing. A family in miniature. What would that be like?

A quotation from The Heavenfall--the original text, not one of the myriad reinterpretations such as the opera Rosabella and Oralie had attended a year ago--hung over the door. On the wall facing Dorsin's unornamented desk, five passages from the General Principles of Gens Nethress had been quilted into hairsilk. Oralie's doing, that.

"Just like you, my heart," Rosabella murmured.

Dorsin's eyes flickered up from the stack of papers. "Ambassatrix?"

Rosabella gestured at the chamber. "At a glance, someone ignorant would think there is not much to see in this room. You hardly decorate your walls. Your chair is strong, sturdy, and utilitarian. But a fool would miss the purpose of the room." Rosabella leaned forward. "You, my heart. The room exists to serve you."

Rosabella remembered the first moment she had seen Dorsin. Shirtless, his chest covered in sweat and blood, a forgebone sword in one hand, a forgebone pistol in the other. Grenades swaying at his belt. Muscles rippling beneath the surface as the Symbiont empowered his skin. Such a contrast to the lavish gilded bedchamber that imprisoned her: soft curves cut with sharp blades, silken sheets stained with drops of her blood.

"And you are dangerous, my heart." Rosabella walked her fingers across the tabletop toward the stack of papers and Dorsin's hands. "To judge you based on this room or that pen would be a terrible mistake. We should not judge Thiyyatt by the fact that she appears helpless at this moment, either. She is studying us."

Dorsin groaned and leaned back, pressing the palms of his hands over his eyes. "I will never be rid of you, will I, Ambassatrix?"

Rosabella smiled at the fond resignation in the words. "Not so long as you and I both remain in Acerbia, Princeps. But take heart. At least you do not have to endure my nightly activities."

"Please, Rosabella," Dorsin said. "No more temptation. I can't bear it."

"No more than I can, I'm sure." Rosabella put a hand on her hip. "Saffron-spiced rice and liver with mint jelly."

"I'm sorry?"

"Your dinner, Princeps."

Dorsin barked a confused laugh. "I think you have me mistaken for another lover. The kitchens provided Hallardite fish as the main course today."

"Not today. Last night." Rosabella leaned forward over the desk. Oh, how she loved this man. Oh, how dangerous it was to love him. "Did you know, I intended at first to speak to you about my Synapsis with Oralie? I was... shall we say, with you in the bedroom last night. Everything she tasted, I tasted."

Dorsin blanched.

After all these years, he was still a chaste man. Others might say prudish, but Rosabella loved him for his dedication to his General Principles as much as for his...muscles. "And you have lost none of your prowess. In fact, my heart, I daresay you have gained some. I am sure that thirty-five years of practice will provide some benefit."

"Please, Rosabella," Dorsin pleaded.

Rosabella slid gracefully back into her seat. "It troubles me, my heart. I had intended to ask for your help in determining why, now that Oralie has bound the Symbiont, our Synapses have grown so strong. They are increasing in frequency and intensity, Dorsin." She reached across the desk and took his hand--not as a lover would have, though she longed to, but as a vassal to her liege. "It needs to stop."

The tension went out of Dorsin in a great breath. He slumped.

"And I will ask," Rosabella added. She patted his hand and released it, but couldn't keep herself from stroking a thumb across his knuckle as she withdrew. "But you have more pressing concerns right now."

"I noticed," Dorsin said wryly. He glanced at the desk. "Senrii left a number of matters incomplete before she departed... two weeks ago." A secret mission. Rosabella nodded. She wouldn't press. Dorsin held up a sheet. "Budgets for the Urban Cultivation department, because we still need to grow new homes to replace the ones destroyed when Nxtlu conquered Acerbia years ago, never mind the destruction from last year's battle."

Tvorh might have lived in one of the homes lost during Nxtlu's conquest. "A worthy goal," Rosabella said.

Dorsin set that sheet aside and picked up another. "Reports from the Lesser Treasury. Thaler after thaler bleeding away." Another sheet. "From the Greater Treasury, as we spend our carats on the necessities that only other holdings can provide." Another sheet. "From the Peer Treasury, an approximate accounting of the number of favors that the Duchy of Acerbia holds on other Gentes."

More and more sheets. "Requests for libraratory access from our own and other Gentes. Lenaa is particularly interested in receiving a report on a Chimera early warning system using libraratory technologies. Funds for fueling the Thunderhammer cannon. Local inquirers report a breakthrough in gengineering--some kind of new biomobile, it seems." Dorsin sighed. "Senrii left it all unfinished, and now that she's been..."

"Temporarily injured," Rosabella offered.

"Well." Dorsin slapped his palms gently against the table. "It falls to me to see to it. Rosabella, it's too much for Senrii. I've never been able to get that girl to do anything that she didn't want to do, and all she's ever wanted to do is study gengineering and new and more efficient ways of killing a man without his noticing."

Rosabella smiled. "She reminds me of someone."

"Nonsense. I was more interested in studying how to kill face-to-face."

"And female anatomy rather than gengineering," Rosabella added without thinking. Dorsin flushed. "Forgive me, Princeps. I forget myself. I am out of sorts." Rosabella would get nowhere with Dorsin if she didn't help him relieve this anxiety somehow. "Have you considered asking Oralie for her assistance?"

"She's had enough stresses in her life recently, Rosabella."

"And enjoyable experiences as well, Dorsin." She gave him a mischievous look. "She is an uxor principis, and she has a lifetime of experience being involved in your administration. Why not make her Senrii's regent until your daughter heals, and then her tutor?"

Dorsin nodded slowly. "I'll ask her."

"Oh, Dorsin. No woman respects a man who asks, especially not when that man is a powerful Princeps. Treat her as your valued vassal and assign her her duty." Rosabella playfully flipped a strand of hair behind her shoulder. "And then watch her as she goes about it. Her joy or frustration will tell you whether the duty suits her."

Dorsin said nothing.

"You may express your gratitude for my wise advice now, Princeps," Rosabella joked.

"Yes, I'm sure I may, Rosabella." Dorsin tapped his cheek, looking thoughtful. "The first matter you mentioned. The captive."

"Yes, Regia Puella Thiyyatt of the Western Hives."

"The princess," Dorsin said, using the Modern West Valley term. "Erus Tvorh told me that she seems to have a powerful bond with the Symbiont."

"Just so, Princeps. I believe she could break loose at any time she wished, yet she remains in our custody."

"Our?" Dorsin asked, the corner of his mouth quirking.

Rosabella's own heart had betrayed her. "Your custody, Erus. I warned her of the danger to her from the genophage. She is wiser than she pretends to be, Erus. The tantrums may be a ploy to see if she can overwhelm our wills, but I doubt she will try to escape without assurance of survival." Rosabella uncrossed and crossed her legs, though the motion was wasted with the table between Dorsin and her, never mind her opaque dress. "Why not bind her survival to our own?"

"Enlist her help in finding a solution to the genophage once and for all?" Dorsin sounded thoughtful.

"A portable cure that does not denature. A vaccine." Did Rosabella dare to hope for more than that? "Or even a permanent solution to Chimerization."

"We know the Last Era inquirers were working on a cure." Dorsin tapped the table idly, a gleam in his eye. "They got halfway there. My family is alive because of the aerosol."

"The girl would have a wealth of knowledge about Last Era sites, if nothing else," Rosabella said. "She looks young, but we have no idea how old she is. She may know gengineering methods lost to us or at least where to find them described. Her Symbiont..."

"She wanted Tvorh," Dorsin said. "The most powerfully bound Magus that Gens Nethress has known in recorded history. She tried to mate with him when she first escaped; did you know that?"

"I did not," Rosabella said. How had the boy resisted her? The same way he'd bound the genophage in a single treatment, surely: by force of will.

"A strong bond, with obvious experience using it..." Dorsin mused. "Yes. Our outer holdings are suffering as my family hides in this city, afraid to leave for fear of being ravaged by the new genophage. If there is a chance to free my Gens from Acerbia, we'll claim it or die trying. We'll make an offer to her." He scribbled out a note to himself. "Tvorh will be our intermediary."

Rosabella didn't know if that was the best idea or the worst one, but it was Dorsin's decision. "Another matter for your overworked lordship," she said. "I had intended to introduce you today to Captain Cornartis."

"The militia leader from Hallard?" Dorsin asked as he wrote. "The one who organized the resistance with Aoife when we invaded?"

"He has lived in Acerbia for five years, to my knowledge, but he is Hallardite, and well-regarded by them." Rosabella's sources were not nearly as numerous in Hallard as in Acerbia, since the Free City had long refused to come to an agreement to host the Sodality, but she knew that much.

"He watched over the captive today, didn't he?"

"Yes. Dorsin." The Princeps looked up at Rosabella. "He would be interested in helping to broker an alliance."

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"Excellent." Dorsin put his pen down, rose, came around the desk and began to pace. "With our forces stretched so thin, we need his men and arms sworn to Nethress's use. Plus, we must have access to Hallard's dig sites. Their findings are the most informative of all modern inquiry, almost more than our libraratory. No city of heretics should have sole access to such a vast swath of historical knowledge, but if we could synthesize new conclusions using libraratory data and the Hallardite archaeological data--"

"He wants the right to preach Amricianism and Adonism in Nethress holdings," Rosabella said.

Dorsin stopped pacing. "What? We endure the spread of heresy on the frontier, but... here?"

"I told him that would be your reaction and proposed instead that he consider a more formal alliance, one that would allow him the decades to make the case that his religions wouldn't undermine your control. I... may have proposed that Senrii would be a good match."

Dorsin stared at Rosabella for a moment. Then, for the first time in ages, she heard Dorsin laugh. It had an edge to it, but it was a laugh. "You know how to get a man's attention, Ambassatrix."

She tilted her head. "Is it working, my heart?"

Dorsin chuckled and shook his head. "I can't promise anything, but I'm willing to make his acquaintance."

"And our Synapsis problem? Dorsin, I don't like this any more than you do." It was a lie; if Rosabella could only feel Dorsin through Oralie's experience, she would accept it gladly, even those times the experience included uncomfortable silver sand grains and the heat of two strange suns. She knew, however, that it would scandalize Dorsin to be so felt, and the Synapsis was certainly distracting, whether during the hours of Rosabella's half-sleep or at odd hours during the day. "Is there anything in your libraratory or Gens archives that might shed some light on the phenomenon?"

Dorsin bit his lip. "I'll send word to the Takahashi digitizers to grant you access to the libraratory data. You ought to see what they're doing for us, Rosabella. Information dumps into crystal-lattice storage. Data retrieval by keyword. It's a new era."

"Don't say that too loudly, my heart, for if others agree, then what will we call the Last Era?"

"The Penultimate Era, I'm sure." Dorsin's wry smile--so rare, so precious--made Rosabella's heart soar.

"Thank you, Erus."

"I wouldn't do this for just anyone, Ambassatrix," Dorsin said.

She caught his hand. "I know."

He paused, standing over her as Rosabella stroked her thumb across the back of his hand. Those fingers, so thick gripping a forgebone sword...

So gentle, tugging the garments from her shoulders...

So powerful as they closed around Rosabella's neck...

She shook the fantasy from her head and dropped his hand. "I will take my leave, Erus."

Dorsin paused, as if not sure what to say. Had he felt the moment as well? "See Oralie before you go," he said at last. "I am sure she could use your comfort."

Rosabella hadn't a single arachnid gene within her body. How, then, did she manage to always spin such complex webs to catch the ones she loved?

***

14 Tumbling Blooming, 1886 CE

Libraratory, Acerbia, Hospital Cells

"Won't even let me get up," Senrii grumbled. "Like I'm an invalid or something." She pushed herself up on the mattress.

Piotr's hand touched her shoulder, pressing her gently back down. There was something in the great black giant's touch that Senrii liked. She couldn't place it, couldn't define it, but she liked it.

She'd tried to climb out of the bed three times already just to get him to press her back down.

"Your wounds are still healing," Piotr said.

"Course they are." It had only been a day since she'd suffered them. "Honestly, I'm kinda surprised they're as good as they are. I guess experimental treatments are good like that."

Piotr said nothing. Stupid dumb Tutela, always so somber.

"Look, could you chat me up or something?" Senrii groaned.

The even look on Piotr's face didn't change, but he did draw back slightly. "Chat you up, Era?"

"I mean chat with me. I didn't say chat me up. Don't change my words around. Aren't you sworn to not change my words around?"

"That is not included in the wording of my oaths of Tutelage, Ductrix."

"Whatever. I--"

The door swung open.

"How are you feeling, Senrii?" Tvorh asked as he motioned Aoife down into a seat next to the bed, then took one himself. When they'd dropped into combat, Aoife had been wearing rugged combat clothes and a sensible braid. Now she was back in the half-covering, half-revealing golden strips and strands of her Sodality attire. Senrii felt a stab of jealousy. Nobody should be able to clean up that well.

Senrii took her irritation out in nervous energy, wrestling with the bed for a more comfortable position. "Disappointed. They spit me and then don't even have the decency to roast me."

"You know," Aoife began, "cannibalism fantasies, while unusual, are not unheard--"

"Why'd you bring Little Miss Sunbeam, Tvorh?" Senrii asked, grimacing as she shifted beneath the bedclothes.

"Because the past few days, I've had to fight just to get a moment with him," Aoife said. "And that moment included blood and guts and you getting spitted, Ductrix. It wasn't a very pleasant date."

"Date?" Tvorh asked.

"And this's more pleasant?" Senrii asked.

"Well, no," Aoife said. "But obviously, if a girl is going to find the chance to take Tvorh to the vidalities with me, she has to be around him at all times. There's obviously only one solution."

"Talk my ear off?"

"Stick to Tvorh like glue."

"Make sure to use some of that glue to stick my ear back on once you're finished."

Tvorh finally managed to get a word in edgewise. "But you're all right, Senrii?"

"Aside from the chirurgeons not letting me walk, or maybe talk, or probably breathe, I feel fine. Just a little-- ow. Just a little sore, is all."

"Don't encourage the Ductrix to strain herself," Piotr said, putting out a massive hand. Senrii frowned at it.

"Well," Aoife said, leaning over and fishing in her bag, "I know just the thing to cheer you up."

"What? Are you going to be quiet for a whole ten seconds?"

"Of course not!" Aoife sat back up, cradling a psalterion in her hands.

"I should have known that it would be opposite of you being quiet."

"Yup! Now shut up, Ductrix, and let me play." Senrii gave a half-hearted protest, but as soon as Aoife's fingers touched the strings, her will to argue melted away.

The girl's playing was good. She had a good voice, too, even if she did waste it on a sappy song about a love dying in childbirth.

"It's Adonist, isn't it?" Senrii asked when Aoife's fingers fell still.

"What gave it away?"

"The reference to the 'bright land' at the end. Sorta a giveaway."

"There are other religions that believe in life after death, Ductrix."

"With all of your references to Adon and Yesh? Aoife, you're not great at hiding it."

Aoife blushed slightly. "Uh. Sorry. I just--"

"How does the Sodality feel about that, anyway?"

Aoife gave Senrii a suspicious look.

"I'm serious. They fine with other religions?"

"Apotheosis isn't a religion, Ductrix. So it's not incompatible with them."

"I don't think that's how philosophies work."

The door to Senrii's room slammed open again and Dorsin's voice, frayed with anger, knocked Senrii out of her reverie. She'd been so comfortable, too. "This is a family matter, Ductrix, and I will not have you--" He stopped just inside the door, catching sight of Senrii. She was giving him her best, Anything else you want to scream about in my room? look, and it appeared to work. A look of chagrin came over his face.

"Hey, Dad," Senrii said. "What's all the shouting about?"

Dorsin didn't seem to have anything to say. He just stepped aside and let Oralie enter the room.

Followed by Maga Ductrix Eztli Generosa Orta Nxtlu.

"Ductrix," Eztli said, "please allow me again to offer my best wishes for a speedy recovery."

"Yeah," Senrii said. "Thanks. And, um. Thanks again. You know. For the rescue and all."

"Think nothing of it. I'm sure you would do the same for me."

Senrii wasn't sure.

"Now that you've said your piece, Ductrix," Dorsin said to Eztli, "please retire and let me speak to my family."

She held up a finger. "In a moment, Princeps." She reached into the folds of her red and black skirt.

Dorsin stiffened. Okay, maybe Dad was a little bit paranoid. No way Eztli was going to pull out a gun and assassinate Senrii here, now, in front of everyone. Was she?

She pulled out a piece of paper. "Our agreement, Dux."

Dorsin looked at Eztli like she had two heads, which would have been an interesting gengineering experiment. "I am familiar with it."

"Stating that all information derived from libraratory records is to be considered the joint property of Gentes Nxtlu and Nethress."

"And?"

"This Regia Puella Thiyyatt, Princeps." Eztli put the paper back into her skirts. "I require access to her. She may have important information for me. Do you agree to this, Ductrix Senrii?"

Fair enough. "Sure, why not?" Senrii said.

Dorsin looked like he hadn't even heard her. He just stared at Eztli, obviously thinking. "She is not information," he said at last.

Senrii ground her teeth. Overruled, just like that, in her own Duchy. Oralie stepped forward and clasped Senrii's bicep. Patience, the grip seemed to say.

"But what exists in her mind is, Princeps." Eztli gestured toward Senrii. "The only reason you have access to it is because I decrypted the radio message for you. And because I saved your daughter, and the princess along with her."

"She is Nethress property--" Dorsin began.

"Look. It's fine," Senrii interrupted. "Eztli's right. What harm could it do anyway?"

"A great deal." Dorsin's fingers tightened at his side.

"Once again, I remind you that I am not my brother, Princeps." Eztli gave Senrii a respectful nod and went to the door. "I will be in touch regarding my plans with the regia puella. Witness this agreement for us, acolyte."

"Um, all right," Aoife said uncertainly. "I'll let the Ambassatrix know."

Eztli obviously didn't trust Gens Nethress any more than Nethress trusted Nxtlu, if she was willing to make this a Sodality-officiated agreement. Funny, that. Everyone had her own perspective.

Dorsin waited until she was gone. "I need to speak to my daughter. Close the door behind you, please, Piotr." Dorsin scanned Tvorh and Aoife. "And take the novice with you as well."

What was with Dad giving orders in Senrii's Duchy? He was her liege, not her brain; she wasn't one of his limbs to be moved this way and that. "No," Senrii said. "They can stay."

Dorsin frowned but said nothing. He tapped the rails of Senrii's bed with his knuckles. He glanced up at Oralie, opened his mouth, closed it again, turned away, turned back.

"New dance?" Senrii offered. "I mean, I know you're not really into modern writhings, but--"

"Maga Ductrix Senrii Generosa Orta Nethress," Dorsin said, in his official-Princeps voice. Uh oh. "As your Princeps, I'm granting regency over the Duchy of Acerbia to Maga Uxor Principis Oralie Generosa Nethress Orta La Table d'Or--"

"--What?--"

"--until such a time as you make a complete recovery from your injuries and can be trained properly in its administration."

"You can't do that!" Senrii heaved herself upright in her bed. "You can't just take it away from me."

"I'm not taking it from you, Senrii," Dorsin said. "The Duchy of Acerbia remains yours. I'm simply ensuring that it's properly administered."

Betrayed, Senrii looked to Oralie. Mother patted Senrii's shoulder, though Senrii could tell she wasn't entirely comfortable with the arrangement. "Regency is common, Senrii."

"Yeah, for a six-year-old. Dad, tell me you're not serious."

Dorsin sighed and collapsed into a chair next to the bed. In that moment, he looked his age, which meant super-tired, since the genophage prevented most inward and almost all outward signs of aging. "Senrii, you've been terribly injured. And I've been lax." He pulled up his sleeve slightly and nervously twisted the golden wedding torc on his wrist this way and that. "I had expected you to enter the Comitatus after your Prime Assay, but as a Comes, not a Ductrix. Your holdings would have been small enough for you to learn on the job. Instead, I threw you off the docks and expected you to swim."

Senrii huffed, but every word that came to mind vanished moments later.

"Senrii." Dorsin let go of the wedding torc, and his hands fell into his lap. He wouldn't meet her eyes. "We lost almost sixty percent of our family to the novel genophage. Whole limbs of our family tree, sawed off just like that. By them." He glanced at the door that Eztli had exited. "Holdings were left without administration across the entire western seaboard. I knew that you were worthy of one of those holdings, and I thought by giving you a fief that I would have one concern fewer on my mind. I was wrong. I never trained you. I never prepared you."

"You could have just asked," Senrii whispered. "You didn't have to tell me."

"No," Dorsin sighed, speaking softly. "I couldn't have. To my daughter, I will always be your father, but to a Ductrix, I must be Princeps. My will is law. For better or worse." His voice rose. "What's done is done. You will learn from your mother until such a time as she decides that you are capable of handling the fiefdom yourself."

"You were in on this, Mom," Senrii said. She tried to ignore the way that Oralie's face fell at the accusation.

"Enough. We have other matters to attend to. Erus Tvorh." Dorsin snapped his fingers. Tvorh leapt to his feet.

Poor kid didn't have a clue what to make of the exchange that had just happened. He was in good company, Senrii thought.

"You are to be our ambassador to Regia Puella Thiyyatt of the Western Hives," Dorsin said. "Prepare to speak with her. I have an offer I need you to make to her."

The kid nodded. It wasn't eager, but it was forceful. Thought he had everything to prove, he did.

Too bad he couldn't see the way that Aoife's face tightened. Maybe if he bothered to pay attention to the way she obviously felt, he'd be more interested in spending some of that proof on her.