“Really… so that’s… freedom.” Priceless asked with a whimsical smile. She touched her purple tag with reverence. “If I lose this…”
“Don’t.” Kaiji said and her hand darted out to touch the back of Priceless’s hand.
“What?” Priceless replied with surprise, clutching the tag instinctively.
“Don’t think about that as even a possibility, just don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.” Kaiji repeated herself and leaned closer each time.
Priceless moved her mouth several times, reminding Kaiji of the way a fish moved its mouth beneath the water.
The demon-elf sat back where she was and simply replied, “Trust me, you do not want to think the direction you’re going. Yes, that’s what that feeling is, I used to have it, even now, you don’t ‘entirely’ have it.” She folded her arms in front of her chest, “But believe me, if you start thinking about losing what you’ve got now, you’ll drive yourself mad, you’ll make mistakes… you’ll act irrationally, and then you’ll make your fear come into reality… there’s only one end that happens after that.”
Priceless looked at her dumbly.
Kaiji raised her thumb and drew it across her own throat. “You either lose your mind and attack the person you blame, or you do it to yourself in despair. The purple tag is the highest achievement of a slave’s life, only a handful in the fifty-seven… well, fifty-six now… for now… city-states, ever get it. Take it for granted, live in fear of losing it, and either way, you’ll destroy yourself.”
“How do you know?” Priceless asked doubtfully while she played with her tag still.
“I was the Prime Minister of Komestra, right hand to Prince after Prince, I’ve given slaves purple tags on their behalf, and I’ve taken them away. I’ve had to see to the disposal or creation of a number of bodies after each. A jealous bronze who thought they were in line for the purple might try to kill their rival and either be hanged or slay themselves. A purple who failed badly or grew complacent about their duties, seeing themselves as if they were their master? Then they’re cast down over it and take their lives because they can’t bear the fall.” Kaiji’s face was stern, but slowly softened.
“Priceless… I love you… dearly, I couldn’t bear to see your fall and I would not survive your loss. But never forget this… our status is given and taken away as easily as the words can form on our mistress’s tongue. If you lose that… remember… you belong to me, and as long as the mistress and her laws rule supreme… that is as secure as you can be. Think of your tag like you do your limbs.” Kaiji advised in as kind and sage a voice as she could.
“But… I never really think of my limbs… not really.” Priceless replied, scratching her head.
“Right. Make it the same, it’s just part of you, use it, but don’t fixate or obsess over it. Just ‘be’ that status.” Kaiji replied, and went back to staring out the window, relieved that the subject had moved on.
She felt Priceless’s arms enfold her waist, and a head come to rest on her shoulder.
“You’re such a good woman… how did I get someone like you…” Priceless whispered, and nibbled at the lengthy ear.
So she was quite surprised when, without looking, Kaiji shook her head and denied it saying, “No… I am not especially good. I’m just good to you.”
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Prince Rasgen was halfway back to his room before he realized exactly what General Leaman said. “No… no… of course he couldn’t have meant it like that.” Rasgen muttered under his breath while the twins undressed him. Instinctively he looked around for Sobella or Lodira to speak to, only to realize a moment later that… no, they were both gone.
They were down to his boots, each kneeling at his feet and unbinding the laces that held them fast. With no one else around, he looked down at them, “I have a question. You have served here for many… many years, you remember General Leaman as a young man, you remember him as a man, you remember him as a middle aged man, and now you know him as an old man. So… I have to know your impressions…”
They looked up at him with silent, wide, questioning eyes. “Master?” The collared one asked.
“Would General Leaman be the sort of man to… to do some kind of harm to the Duchessa?”
The two pairs of ears wiggled, and as one they touched their throats, one found a bronze collar, one found naked flesh. Their bright blue eyes met his and their long hair swayed when they looked at one another, then back up to him without moving from their knees.
In all his years, he could barely recall a moment when the twins had been anything but cryptic, humorous, and dutiful, and that did not change in this moment.
The collared was the first to speak. “If you hurt one of us enough… she might break and confess the secret of the collar we trade.”
Her sister spoke up where she left off. “If you hurt one of us enough, she might… might run away and leave her sister behind to suffer alone, taking her freedom and fleeing with it.”
The collared twin spoke again, “But still we both kneel at your feet, and call you master, and undo the laces of your boots. We do not flee to Da’nak, we do not betray you, we do not betray each other… and not you, nor your father, nor your grandfather, has thought to hurt us. Why, Prince of Pas’en?”
Rasgen became very quiet as their fingers finished the laces and he stepped out of the boots as they held them to the floor. “Because… because we have cherished you… my father told the story from his father, of how you were both taken in battle, and he brought you here as maids and released your families as a show of faith. My father always said you made him laugh when he was little…”
“And we cherish you…” The collarless half elf interjected. “Your grandfather did more than your story says, and we loved your father from the time he was a little babe in the cradle. We nursed him when his mother died.”
Her collared sister spoke up, “You will not hurt us, nor will we hurt you. We will not abandon you, nor will you abandon us, and we will not abandon one another.”
Rasgen’s face went slack as he tried to understand their words and unravel their intent.
“Now… if that is what we will do for who we value…” The pair said as they stood in unison and began to take off his shirt. “Ask how far you would go against someone you hate, or someone you fear… or someone who you think is a threat to those you cherish….”
Rasgen felt the blood run from his face. “But she’ll die out there… horribly, what if she has to fight in their arena? What if she resists when they try to hood her? What if…”
“We don’t know.” The pair answered together and began to pull down his pants. “We only know the answer to the last question, we know nothing of the elf woman.”
When they finished speaking, the Prince was undressed and with practiced efficiency, they had him into his night clothes and ready to rest. His mind was not left at ease by their words, nor did that change when he lay down in a bed that was suddenly more empty than it had ever been before.
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The expensive inn in the upper district of Hanak’sen was predictable in its decor. Water themes, boat themes, they took great pride in their engineering and construction down below where the water ran. Blues and greens, the art on the walls depicted the city’s great moments in fine detail.
The wood was clearly mostly imported from Pas’en, but was also heavily customized as finished products. The chairs featured a solid back with scale shape designs and blue cushions on which to sit. The tables were sea green marble, and for all the expense, Sado found it ‘tacky’. He kept his face carefully neutral, but a sympathetic squeeze on his arm by Diana told him she felt the same.
They approached the front desk, and raised their chins to reveal the bronze and gold collars. There was a woman behind the counter, young, perhaps in her late teens to early twenties, soft silver hair and bright green eyes. She was slender, and wearing the short loose legged attire that most of the city seemed to like, with a similarly loose fitting shirt. Her hair was up in a bun, making her look quite formal, but she smiled warmly.
‘Hanaksenian hospitality.’ Diana thought with some satisfaction. ‘Stiffnecked and stubborn, but very friendly to people spending money.’
“What can I do for you, slaves?” She asked cheerfully.
Diana took an envelope from a pouch at her side and handed it to her. “We are here on business for my mistress, this letter authorizes our travel, and allows all expenses to be billed directly to her estate in Pas’en. The letter is a guarantor from the city bank.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The woman broke the seal with a slight snap and read over it. “Very good, authorizing you to remain for a two week period… unlimited expenditures?!” The woman stammered and looked from their collars of bronze and gold and back to the letter and back to them.
Sado and Diana held deadpan faces as if to ask, ‘What?’
“Ah, yes, well, we do have one room available for our most important guests, as you’re here on business with your mistress, I assume she’ll be joining you soon, so I’ll get a second…” Sado shook his head.
Sado cleared his throat to get her to pause. “Pardon me, my lady, but we are not ‘with’ our mistress, we are here ‘for’ our mistress. She sends us on business to speak with the Prince while she is away on another matter for the Prince of Pas’en.” He finished his explanation, and the young woman flushed.
“Ah, oh, is he, is Prince Yanmelu expecting you?” The desk clerk asked, only to barely restrain parting her lips at the answer.
“No. We must simply hope he will see us.” Sado replied with a polite and humble bowing of his head.
“I see. I see. Well, the room is yours, as are the services of the inn, however as you are slaves, your menu is restricted, and since your owner is not here to require your attendance, the dining area is prohibited.” The woman remarked in passing as she laid out the guidelines of the inn.
“Thank you, my lady.” He replied and bowed to her, “Please send a message to the palace that the servants of Duchessa Nua Calen Aiwenor have come to see him on a matter of trade.”
“Of course, slave, of course.” The clerk replied and took down a brief note.
“Thank you,” Sado answered, and with Diana still on his arm, they left with the key in hand for their shared quarters.
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Lodira watched as Albaer headed for the door. She was on all fours scrubbing some dirt from the grout where Anton had passed by after coming in from the garden. Her maid outfit would need cleaning again soon, but for now there was nothing but the dirt from beneath the heel of her master, crammed into the crannies of seal between the stones of the floor. She ground her brush against the seal almost tirelessly, biting her tongue to keep from speaking to Albaer before he opened it. ‘Do you have my letters?’ She was desperate to ask, but, she reasoned, ‘I can ask him when he returns.’ She wanted to instead shout, ‘Have a wonderful day!’ Or some warm greeting… but that would make it back to Anton’s ears.
‘That joyless, sour bastard would consider it undignified to loudly express any kind of happiness, hope, or love.’ Lodira cursed, but she at least managed to give him a smile. She tried hard to make it as brave as she could muster. When the door clicked shut and Albaer had left the house for his daily tasks, Lodira’s hands continued to follow the path of her father’s dirt on the floor, to clean his house before she was cast out of it forever. The sound of the bristles scraping over grout was the only voice she had until she finished the last. Only the floor and the brush spoke to her until every inch was clear.
She finished of course, and traded polite words to the peasant maids about the remaining work to be done, though her eyes did not even once meet theirs. Lodira’s eyes barely raised at all as she moved about her tasks. ‘I have to get used to looking down. If I fall much farther, looking down will be just looking straight ahead…’ She mocked her own disastrous decline in status in a quiet moment and set about preparing evening tea for her father… for Anton. The steam rose from within the pot as she lifted it away from the heated surface and set it on the tray. She looked out the window, where an orange light streamed through to the hot kitchen in which she worked. Her skin was hot and her body felt slick with sweat. ‘I’ll dump a bucket of water over myself before bed.’ She thought, wondering if she stank from her work.
‘You’d think my fa- Anton, would prefer one of the other maids… why is it always me? Since my brothers and my sister walked out… it’s always me. He never speaks, not even to be cruel.’ It was a mystery which Lodira could not readily answer, and one she contemplated still as she carried the tray to the private office of the master of the house.
‘Albaer might be able to guess, he’s known my fa… Anton, longer than I have.’ She reflected on that as she pressed the side of her tray to her hip and rapped lightly on the door with a few knuckles. She leaned forward a little and said as calmly as she could. “Evening tea, master.”
An indifferent grunt from beyond the thick door was admission enough, so Lodira reached for the handle, turned it, and entered. She lightly shut the door behind her, approached his desk, laid the tray down and curtseyed. “Master, if it pleases you…”
He nodded, and she reached for the pot, she poured a cup, laid it onto a saucer, then set it opposite himself.
She then curtseyed again, keeping her eyes down, “Does the master require more, or shall I return later to collect the tray.”
“You stink.” Anton said, and she flinched inside herself under his beady gaze. But that flinch was tempered by curiosity, because he did not sound as if he was insulting her.
“You smell like you’ve been scrubbing grout and filth and washing filthy maid clothes and preparing raw meat for the cook, your outfit is filthy and you look disgusting.” Anton added.
Lodira closed her eyes, “Forgive me, master, but there was no time to wash or change as well as to bring you tea on time.”
He grunted. “It won’t save you. I don’t care how hard you work, you’re not keeping your name, you’re not getting your title back, nothing is going to change here for you.”
Lodira nodded. “I know, master Valoisin.”
“You do, do you?” He said, she heard him shift in his richly appointed leather chair.
“Yes, sir. I’ve known you all my life. You have no love for me, or any of us, a broken tool is to be discarded, and I… am a broken tool in your eyes.” Lodira answered him with confidence, but kept her eyes down and held position perfectly.
He grunted affirmatively, “Alright, then why are you working so hard? What’s the point?”
“Permission to speak freely, master Valoisin?” Lodira asked with quiet calm.
“Given.” He answered with an almost dismissive abruptness. But she could feel his eyes boring into her skull.
“Because… whatever you think of me… I threw myself into whatever I was doing. Maybe it wasn’t always right, but the actions were mine so I wanted to do them well. If this is the only life I’ve got now… if I’m doomed to be the lowest of the low… then… then the only way to carve out a life there is to excel.”
She clenched her teeth when he didn’t respond to that, and uttered, “I hate you.” She murmured. “I hate you for how you treated me, how you cowed my siblings and made them all betray me, how you’re treating me now… leaving you is the only good part of all of this. I’m no longer your daughter, but you’re also no longer my father. I’m free of you, and wherever you sell me… I am at least free to try to find happiness in that life, away from you. So… I work hard now. And I stink. I’m a filthy, lowly mess that you’re ashamed to have created…” She balled up her fists and managed to glare at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since her siblings had, in the cruelest of gestures, walked out haggling with one another over what of her inheritance each of them wanted to get from the other.
“I never felt anything about you, except when you failed, which was far too often. If you’re succeeding now? Well, then that means you really are just finding the proper place for yourself. May it keep you far from this city… in fact… since you’re going to be sold with anonymous certification of noble heritage… I should pick a name for you that ties you to somewhere far away.” Anton rubbed his chin, “I’ll think of something, for now… get out, and send Albaer to me…”
Lodira’s hatred burned hot for the sour faced wrinkled old man, but his order caught her off guard. “M-Master, Albaer has not returned yet.”
When she said that, for just a moment there was common ground between them that had never existed. That something was not right. In fact something was dreadfully wrong. His eyes sparked to life for the first time since she’d known him, and he immediately gave her an order, “Have him sought. Now.”
Lodira did not need to be told twice.
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‘Yersin, how long before your curses take effect?’ Nua inquired while she left the laughing family atop the pyramid of bones to satiate themselves on the remaining food.
‘It can be difficult to say, the God-Emperor strikes me as very strong in body and will. I would give him no more than a year, perhaps two or three if he has magic items specifically meant to deal with my sort of work. But that isn’t likely. As for his sons, they are young, and the young are resilient, but their curses are also weaker, not meant to kill. But… the death of the father should break the last vestiges of their identity. I give the empire two years of peace at most, depending on the skill of its bureaucracy and how incorruptible their nobility happen to be. Having seen it now though, three years at most before civil war, unless a total purge of the royal family is done.’ Yersin answered and finished with a savage laugh.
‘That won’t happen though, not a chance.’ He added as an afterthought.
‘No?’ Nua asked as she reached the base of the pyramid. She looked back again to see the silhouettes of the three royals framed against the light of the moon on high.
‘No. Their religion is centered, from what I see, around two things. Eating, and the royal family. They give divine status to him and to his lineage, so… even suggesting a replacement is blasphemy. They’ll fall to killing each other first, only the most cynical will behave intelligently, but that is how it usually goes.’ Yersin answered, and Nua could practically see his waifish body shrug with the usual passive indifference to suffering.
‘That makes sense… forgive me, Yersin, my mind is… elsewhere right now. I never had many friends, never wanted many either. But that one that we cursed, that we hurt, that we watched over and protected until tonight? That one was a good one.’ Nua looked down at the shock of dark hair she still clutched in her fist, it alone would go home again with her.
Suffering… it came to mind again, unsurprisingly. ‘Sobella… they killed her… no… no… she wasn’t killed. She gave her life to those who didn’t have a right to it.’ Nua thought, ‘I’m lying to make myself feel better.’
She reached up and touched the base of her ears, the memory of that tearing flesh as hers were torn away, one of the most sensitive places, a spot touched only by the most intimate of lovers, and they tore them from her head…
‘Can I offer you some advice, partner?’ Yersin asked.
‘It can’t hurt. Go ahead.’ Nua replied as she made the walk to the city gate.
‘Revenge isn’t going to help you! I know what you’re thinking, but you know, back when I was people, at least one of myself would have recognized, that Sobella’s last wish was the wisest thing of all. Find something to live for. I live to spread death, if you want to call this ‘living’ anyway. Sobella’s mana was a pleasure to consume, did you know every person’s tastes different?’ Yersin asked with a growing enthusiasm.
‘No, no I didn’t.’ Nua replied haltingly when she finally reached the gate, a smaller door was opened for her by a hyenawoman who laughed and held up a smug jaw.
An impulse hit Nua in her gut, she looked up at the beastwoman, and began to sing. A song of drunken lustful lovers falling into hay over one to many drinks, it had a happy bounce of the sort that Nua was sure Sobella would have loved to sing just then. The beastwoman did a double take at the perfect pitch of the unexpectedly musical escort, and turned to follow Nua with her eyes as the elf touched the gate with one hand, and mounted the waiting horse.
Nua rode away, singing a song her friend would have loved dearly, so long and so loud that it carried over the walls to wake some of those who slept, and leave them wondering who’d had too much to drink.
The elven assassin ignored all else in the shadows of the deep midnight hour, and the sound of the small thuds of horse hooves on the dirt, she wanted only to tribute the one she was leaving behind.
When she was finally done, when her voice cracked, Yersin chose to continue where he left off as if he’d never stopped. ‘Everyone’s is different, mothers and fathers who protect and love their children? The mana I get from them is warm, strong, vibrant as the sun. While brutal, evil creatures are rich and dark like this very night. It has a strong flavor, like the tea I make you. Everyone has a flavor variant that is unique.’
‘What was Sobella’s like?’ Nua asked, her head drooping down to watch the passing ground beneath her horse.
‘Like if you could taste a drinking song. It was happy, rich, bouncy, passionate, befitting how she lived and why she was willing to die. She was, in a word, succulent.’ Yersin answered in a professional sort of voice.
‘That isn’t making me feel better, Yersin.’ Nua replied with a dry set of thoughts.
‘No, I thought not, but my point is, she was willing to do all that, because she wanted days like that for those she loved, and that included you. If you keep yourself from those days forever, you spit on her memory.’ Yersin said philosophically.
‘I was not expecting to see this side of you, or that this side of you really existed.’ Nua’s eyes were slightly wider with surprise at his sort of comforting thinking.
‘You’re going to spread death anyway, we’re partners, it’s better for me, and both of us really, if you’re feeling positive about that, revenge will only take you so far, I need you thinking long term.’ Yersin answered pragmatically, only for Nua to laugh aloud in answer.
‘That’s my partner… that actually helps. Now let’s pick up the pace a little, I don’t want this shock of her hair in this cursed empire for longer than it has to be.’ Nua answered and, stowing the hair of Sobella safely, she spurred the horse onward at a gallop, sending the Tlalmok Capital farther and farther beyond with every single thud of the hooves of her horse.