Petals slowly drifted down from the plum tree. Its boughs swayed back and forth in the air toward the square of grass surrounding it.

A fountain burbled on the opposite side of the courtyard, with a bamboo lever occasionally thunking against the stones artfully placed around it.

Eli sat staring at the tree, her heart thrumming against her chest while she did her best to remain as calm as possible.

It was the morning of the second day since they’d arrived on the doorstep of Lord Kim.

Tam was still unconscious, and Luca was beside himself with worry– though it was a blessing that Jeong and Bong were with them and able to take turns distracting the boy.

Especially because…

Lord Kim was on a devout mission of convincing Eli to become the next empress of Zinfera.

She had firmly refuted him over and over again… And yet he persisted.

And she couldn’t flee.

Not until Tam awoke.

Her hands curled into fits against the pretty ivory skirt she wore that was more than a decade out of style, but was far more conservative than the tight skirts that had become the trend more recently. Of course this reflected Lord Kim’s nature… Being a follower of Acker, they tended toward more conservative outlooks.

Though the one particular detail of their religion that served Tam, and Eli well…?

Acker followers believed witches to be closer to the Goddess and Green Man and deserved the utmost reverence and respect.

Depending on the degree of devoutness, some even believed it acceptable for witches to take same sexed partners as they were believed to be capable of balancing any terrible imbalances in such a preference.

The soft tap of porcelain being placed on the boards of the raised walkway around Lord Kim’s house made Eli turn her head, effectively pulling her from her spiraling thoughts.

“I heard you are quite fond of tea.” Lord Kim was in the process of sitting beside Eli, while his manservant was setting up a short table behind them with maids waiting behind him to finish placing it, one was holding a white teapot with a wicker handle, and the other, a three tiered tower stacked with cakes.

However, Lord Kim had set an already filled cup beside her.

It had a lovely, soft orange hue, and had steam curling up invitingly….

Eli raised an eyebrow at it, then allowed her eyes to drift upward to meet Lord Kim’s gaze.

“A white tea with peach?” she asked as the sweetness of the fruit melted into the softness of the white tea in her nose.

It instantly made her mouth water.

Lord Kim didn’t mask his surprise before letting out a chuckle. “Lord Tam was not jesting that you are an avid tea drinker.”

Her gut twisted, but Eli masked her emotional reaction by plucking up the cup and lifting it to her lips to sip.

It was smooth, and its sweetness wasn’t overpowering, but rather light, and pleasant. It was perfectly balanced with the softness as she suspected it would as it glided warmly over her tongue.

“I know he cares for you, very much,” Lord Kim continued.

Eli’s posture straightened and her eyes slid to the nobleman in silent warning.

Lord Kim held up a hand as though conceding to stop commenting.

“I know I have argued my case for you to inherit the throne a good deal the past two days, but I realize I have failed as a scholar by not approaching the matter from the very obvious point… Why do you not wish to take the throne?”

The tea suddenly tasted bitter, and so Eli set the cup down– albeit a little harder than she meant to as the servants behind them worked.

“The expectation that I would aim to succeed the throne was foisted on me as a child, and my fate since then has always been at the mercy of others. Out of curiosity, If I were still the eldest daughter of the Nam family, would you still have such expectations of me?” she questioned while struggling to keep her voice even.

Lord Kim’s face stiffened.

“Our emperor’s mother thought you were deserving of far more than what your former family could provide you.”

Eli bit back a horrible laugh.

But her silence and the twitch of her lips told Lord Kim just how she felt about that thought.

“Then, Your Highness, what is it you do want?”

“I have already said it, if I say it again, will you listen?”

Lord Kim frowned. “You are unmarried. You will not share a bed with Lord Tam, and I ask about your greater ambitions.”

Eli gave a huff of a breath then leveled the Zinferan nobleman with a hard stare. “As a self appointed scholar you should review your philosophy. Look beneath my answer.”

Yet again, Lord Kim was stunned.

He continued staring at Eli; however, his thoughts gradually climbing to her point.

“You… Wish to be the next duchess of the Ashowan duchy.”

Forcing herself to acknowledge that Lord Kim was finally trying to understand her point of view, Eli indulged him.

“In your time coming to know Lord Tam, what is he like?”

“He was pretending to be someone else most of the time he was in my company,” Lord Kim pointed out flatly.

Eli shook her head, while a genuine smile started to sprout at the thought of Tam. “He was more himself as Mr. Voll than he ever was as a nobleman. So who was he?”

Lord Kim gave the question another moment of thought before a fond smile of his own lifted a corner of his mouth and he looked out at the flowering plum tree.

“A man who loved the study of the stars, adored his wife and son, and was excited to talk about ideas… He found adventure by exploring the mind and its possibilities.”

“And at home? When he didn’t have to do work for his family, he stayed up with Luca and I telling us stories of the stars, and in the morning we had long breakfasts with Jeong and Lord Bong, talking, jesting… During the day, I reviewed expenses, studied, and managed paperwork with my choice of tea. I went on walks, became overly invested in Luca’s education…” Tears started to tingle in Eli’s eyes as she thought about their time in Junya. “I finally felt… Happy.”

The confession made her throat close, and her heart ache.

“You want a peaceful life with Lord Tam… You wish… For simplicity,” Lord Kim concluded gently.

Eli lowered her chin and nodded, tears falling from her eyes. She flicked her thumbnail against the other one and clenched her teeth together to stop her jaw trembling.

“All my life I have been directed and forced into roles others wanted me in. I’ve let it happen… And even Chin warned me that those without ambitions of their own will be swallowed by others that hunger for more.” Pausing at the vivid memory of the day Chin has said this to her, Eli licked her lips and forced herself to continue.

“Perhaps in another life, I would have been passionate or… Whole enough, to want to change the world. But I’m tired, and the world has taken enough from me already. Can’t I just… Be happy? Can’t I make Tam and Luca’s life better and make my own decisions? Can’t I have peace? If this is what I want, is it enough to stop being eaten by others?”

She dragged her eyes back to Lord Kim, and she saw the pained compassion and understanding in his eyes. “Or do I not deserve to have what I want?”

Lord Kim looked back at the plum tree in the courtyard, and allowed silence to drift effortlessly between them.

Eli was rather glad for it as well as it gave her a chance to blink back tears and get ahold of herself once more.

Tam… I need you to wake up.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

*

It was midday, and Eli stood with her hands braced on the table in front of her that had a map of Zinfera unfurled and weighted down at the corners.

She stared at Bong and Jeong who gazed back seriously.

“Imperial soldiers and witches are patrolling the streets, and all exits leaving Junya are blocked. Even the ships are stuck at the docks. We should have left the first day…” Bong lamented with a shake of his head, his eyes trained on the map.

“The first witch could even come herself given that everyone thinks the dead men on the docks were killed by the devil,” Jeong worried openly.

Eli nodded as she listened, but her eyes remained fixed on the map. Her mind whirring through possibilities.

“You two could leave easily enough,” she pointed out. “Only Tam, Luca, and I are the problem– how are things with Lord Guk going?”

“Lord Kim says his reputation is sinking faster than a gem cargo ship filled with holes. Apparently he keeps blurting out random truths, then complaining about how his skin itches. Whatever did our dear Tam do to him I wonder,” Bong chuckled thoughtfully to himself.

“He used a form of itching powder in his clothes, and sheets. He then replaced some of the soaps in the lord’s quarters so it’d have the same component, only more potent. As for the blurting of true thoughts, he infused a drug derived of the silo mushrooms into the lord’s hair oil. As a result, Lord Guk is hallucinating regularly.”

“Wouldn’t the maids also be affected as they are applying it to his hair?” Jeong wondered worriedly.

Eli shook her head. “They apply it with a comb.”

Both the Ryu brothers gave a breathy, impressed laugh.

“You could have disguises and try to leave that way,” Bong suggested.

Eli shook her head, and lifted her face up.

“No. All we need to do is wait until Tam wakes up. We can escape with Lord Kim’s help, but we need Tam to be able to disappear and reappear again for it to work.”

“I still don’t trust Lord Kim,” Jeong mumbled.

“Beggars can’t be picky,” Eli reminded him grimly.

The two men sighed and nodded, then Bong spoke. “I agree that your plan to get the three of you out of Junya could work, but where would you go from there?”

Eli’s eyes narrowed and her finger tapped the table. “We travel south of Gondol, go around it, and then try to find a fishing boat or low ranking merchant that’ll take us to Daxaria once we round up to the far west side of the kingdom.”

Both Jeong and Bong tensed. “You want to go near Gondol?”

“I do not want to. But it will be a very confusing path to track. Because any of the people chasing us will either think I’m avoiding Gondol, or heading straight for it. But going around the long way? It makes so little sense they won’t bother with it. And it will take so long, that you two will be able to go contact your father, and ideally get the message out about what is happening to Lord Finlay Ashowan. Then even if we can’t get a fishing boat, at the very least we know help is on the way.”

“It’s a tricky plan… And the longer you’re traveling, the more likely it is that you’ll be captured,” Bong pointed out seriously.

Pushing off from the table Eli folded her arms and glanced out the window of the second story they were on, only to be met with the sight of fresh green leaves that brightened up the otherwise unremarkable room they were standing in filled with maps and books on shelves that lined the beige walls.

“It will be the less traversed road, so there will be fewer patrols. We will just have to be careful to not alert anyone of our presence.”

Jeong and Bong glanced at each other uncertainly. “That’ll be difficult. Tam is a tall man, and being of Troivackian descent he definitely sticks out.”

Sighing, Eli silently agreed. “True. In that case, we most likely will have to travel off road, and I’ll have to go into the towns on my own for supplies.”

The two Zinferan’s frowned. “That’s too dangerous. I’ll come with you,” Jeong proposed firmly.

Eli gave a half smile. “While appreciated, wouldn’t that leave Bong too exposed?”

Bong shook his head and lifted his somber gaze to hers. “If anything it’ll be better. No one would think of me traveling on my own.”

Thinking about this briefly, Eli eventually bobbed her head in assent. “Very well.”

While she didn’t want to show it, Eli was secretly glad to have Jeong join them. If Tam were to disappear, she’d be worried about guarding Luca sufficiently on her own.

“Alright. So all we need to do is have Lord Guk experience his big bout of madness at the festival, and we can utilize the imperial soldiers’ presence. The more witnesses, the more word will spread. With Lord Guk out of the way, the figurehead for naming Junya a capital removed, ideally Soo Hebin will be stopped from expanding her power anytime soon.”

“Lord Yangban’s presence is a problem,” Bong reminded. “He could most likely pick up where Lord Guk leaves off. Which is probably why he is here in the first place. To make sure the remaining lords agree to the change in capital no matter what.”

Hearing the nobleman’s name had the familiar effect of making Eli’s gut roil.

“It’s too bad we can’t kill him,” she commented darkly.

Both Jeong and Bong looked up startled, but after a moment of processing shrugged and nodded in agreement.

The man was a key figure in pushing human trafficking in Zinfera, and because of that, had amassed power and used it to support his equally rotten family member, Soo Hebin…

“If Tam were here, there might be a chance we could make that happen. The way he dealt with those men the other night? It was…” Jeong trailed off, his eyes losing focus as the memories of the recent attack playing in his mind.

“It was like he was death itself. Snuffing them out,” Eli said aloud, her expression cool.

Both the Ryu brothers looked at her, at each other, then back to her.

“Are you alright with what happened the other night…?”

Eli’s hand tightened around her sleeve, then released. “I don’t enjoy violence, but I was more so just…” she trailed off.

What had she felt when Tam kept disappearing and reappearing, dropping lifeless bodies on the ground as he moved? She had been frightened at first. She wouldn’t pretend otherwise, but then she had then felt…

Electrified.

As though rushing excitement and giddiness had filled her.

Why was that?

Was it just the awe of seeing such power?

Was it shock?

Or was it simply gladness that Tam had at last seemed to master the void…

Eli gave her upper left arm an idle rub as though chilled.

“I think what we all are feeling is… hopeful.”

Her eyes snapped up to Jeong who had a subtle smile quirking his bow shaped mouth. “I think we all have heard countless stories about the abilities of the Ashowan family, and how they are capable of turning the tides however they choose. And yet Tam always seemed to fall through the cracks. The rumors always said he was strange and troubled, but… It feels like we are starting to see the start of great power in him, and it’s hard not to feel like we may have a chance. A chance to fix Zinfera.”

Jeong’s words left both Bong and Eli in stunned silence.

But once she had overcome the heavy insight into what they were all feeling, she added.

“Fix Zinfera, then Luca, him, and I are getting out of here, and then… Forgive me, but the only problems I want to deal with from then on, is how to stop Luca getting influenced by the three hellion Daxarian princes.”

Jeong and Bong couldn’t help but grin at this. “What? You don’t want farm animals finding a way into Tam’s home?”

“Or for Luca to experiment with setting people on fire?”

“Or try putting sea slugs in someone’s bed?”

“No. No I would not like any of that,” Eli snapped. “You haven’t told him those stories, have you?”

The two brothers were suddenly unable to look her in the eye.

“I think I’d like some lunch now, hm?” Bong nodded hastily to his brother, then moved quickly over to the door with Jeong scampering behind him. Eli’s glare bore into their backs.

With a final grumble she cast one last glance at the map.

I can do this. I can get out of Zinfera after getting rid of Soo Hebin, and then… And then I’m going to get what I want. No matter what.