Thraysdee, the 13th of Falling, 768 A.E.

  Whispers carried to ears half-covered by curls of dark hair – hair that was dangerously long for an Elegian woman not born into nobility. In this shrine of Juria, garishly attired with sheets of the thinnest silk the color of rouge fluttering like liquid in the slight breeze, there were always people.

  This woman’s eyes were closed in silent devotion to the Goddess of Royalty and Empires, as well as of Beauty. Her dusky skin was that of an Elegian who had been out under much sun, as her lined hands and prematurely aging face attested to, as did her sun-lightened hair. She was not praying for the beauty of her youth to return, for she was still youthful in body. No, she was praying for her disgraced exile in Miniya to come to an end.

  On her left shoulder were the threadbare flashes of her uniform – they were all she had kept as a memento of her former position as the embodiment of the Empress’ will. The golden threads picked out a distinctly feline design: a Sandcat. The desert felines were extraordinarily patient and fierce, willing to lie among the shifting sands until they were completely covered so they might spring upon unwary prey be it human or animal. The Sandcat design meant that she was one of many who were given – indirectly of course for she was not worth direct conversation with the Empress – the orders of the Empress by an intermediary. The intermediary in turn likely received them from one of the more trusted aides who attended the Empress directly, though there were often even more steps between the Empress and the intended recipient. Or at least she used to receive such orders before her disgraced dismissal to Miniya.

  Three Yarres had passed since she had disobeyed orders that she had known to be wrong, and even though the result of such a dangerous choice had been positive, she had borne the wrath of an Empress who would not be questioned by a lowly officer. Only the fact that her disobedience had saved the lives of at least a few hundred of her fellow soldiers and officers had earned her exile to the far corner of the Empire instead of death.

  Even now, toiling as a common bodyguard for a corpulent merchant who made his desires for her flesh very evident, she did not regret her choice. Every Dee, she told herself that any orders that are given should be subject to change upon surveying the situation you are thrust into. Often orders are no longer adequate after you are better informed. The Empress could not have known prior to the engagement that she was ordering certain death for her soldiers. It would have resulted in failure to achieve the goals she had ordered be achieved, and dead men certainly cannot do anyone’s bidding.

  Every Dee, she told herself that the Empress was merely saving face and didn’t want to let a minor officer look smarter than she was. And it wasn’t that she was smarter than the Empress, she just had better information at the time decisions had to be made. Some Dee soon, she was sure that the Empress would recall her and confide in her that she had made the right choice and that her long-awaited reward was at hand. All of her suffering and humiliation would be rewarded – secretly of course, but Sagira was not a woman who wanted fame.

  Whispers tickled at her ears distracted her from the same prayer she’d said every Dee for the last three Yarres. She opened her eyes and regarded the statue of Juria that stood before her, chiseled out of the whitest of marble, flawless and shimmering like moonlight off a pool of honeyed milk. Juria’s knowledgeable eyes looked out with understanding on those who looked to her regal features. Her lush lips curled in a slight smile, and her cheeks were ever so slightly dimpled as she considered Godly matters. She was a striking image of femininity, yet she was not weak for being so scandalously beautiful and forthright about knowing she was perhaps the most beautiful creature in existence.

  Sagira had always preferred this likeness of Juria to the hundred others she’d seen scattered across the Empire. There was something about the balance of her features and the realistic curve of her bared left breast that was appealing to her sense of aesthetics. The artist must have had an eye for realistic detail, whoever they might have been. It was as if the Goddess herself had posed for the sculptor, and every detail had been lovingly and faithfully rendered onto the lifeless stone, and in doing so the Goddess and sculptor had granted a measure of life to the cold rock.

  But todee whispers drew her mind away from the statue of her beloved Goddess. When she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate once more, the voices overrode the unvoiced words within her head, her litany to Juria pleading for things to be put aright.

  “The foreign queen is in the market again?”

  “Yes, and with her Ox-Man warrior-servant as well.”

  “Warrior, surely not? Ox-Men are all pacifists and laborers. They care not for war-making.”

  “Then explain to me the massive maul he carries across his shoulders.”

  “It must be a mason’s tool.”

  “His eyes are not those of a simple laborer. He defends her, I know it.”

  With a heavy sigh and a frown of disgust, Sagira swiftly rose to her feet and stepped away from the footstall of the statue of Juria, kissing the fingertips of both hand and pressing them to her temples as she bowed and backed away. Then she turned on her heel and strode swiftly toward the entrance of the shrine. Her calfskin-soled shoes whispered on the pocked stone floor as she approached the silken curtains that dimmed the morning sun that filtered through the pillars of the shrine and entrapped the jasmine incense smoke within.

  She brushed aside the curtains and glared at the source of the whispers, if the half-volume gossiping of the youths before her could be considered that. The two girls’ cheerful expressions wilted upon coming under her stare. This was a pleasing thing for Sagira, who always worried that she might have lost some of the intimidation she used to summon in her former position.

  “What is this nonsense you speak of queens and Ox-Men warriors so loudly that you must disturb those who seek a Goddess’ insights?”

  “In the market… a foreign girl…” One of the pair began to stammer.

  Sagira frowned at the girl, noting that she was likely no older than fourteen. Her hair was hardly more than two knuckles’ worth of a finger length long. Her features demonstrated her lowborn nature with such a blatant flair that it was admirable. Her friend was of a similar status and stupid on top of it. Foreign queens would not visit Miniya of all places, and their assertions made them even more na?ve.

  It’s the fathers of girls like these that I serve now, Sagira thought harshly, the thought making her face sour even more, which in turn scared the girls even further. They shrunk away from her, clinging to each other’s arms.

  “The West Market or the East Market?” Sagira demanded, her curiosity baited by the outlandishly stupid claims. Ife and his fat wife would have to wait for her if they wanted to leave their house with a guard. Besides, a quarter Ouer wasn’t much of a delay, and it pleased her to inconvenience the pig as much as possible anyway.

  “The west.” The uglier of the two girls answered hastily.

  “Good. Now run along and go play with dolls or be about your chores. Bother the pious no more. Juria has no need of hearing any empty-headed nonsense you might spit at her todee anyway.”

  The two of them bobbed their heads obediently and hurried off. Sagira smiled to see the backs of their heads as they ran down the street, and it sounded like they were crying. Only when she set off down the street toward the west market did she realize that they had probably been laughing at being bossed around by a woman in a bodyguard’s mantle who wore her hair longer than she should.

  She cursed under her breath, wondering why Furestus had taken such a liking to her when he pulled her down from her former glory. Then she hurried to see who this supposed queen was.

  The name ‘West Market’ was something of a misnomer, being that it was actually further east than the East Market. It took its name from the thoroughfare it sat on, which was named the West Lane. Sagira had always hated that name, for surely any road that ran west also ran east. It wasn’t even a one-direction road either.

  She looked around the marketplace. It was a colorful collection of canopied booths and wooden shelters with canvas awnings of the regular merchants, as well as the open-air displays of food, jewelry, clothes, and other things displayed on broad tables or stone benches that were rented out daily to temporary vendors.

  Around her all sorts of Elegians went about their daily business of buying, selling, and bartering. Hundreds of voices combined with the noises of animals in cages or tied to posts, the clatter of craftsmen going about their trades, and the creak of wagon wheels. The result was a remarkable cacophony that only ears accustomed to such noise could stand for any length of time. Even a cool sea breeze and the weak sun in this last week of Falling couldn’t dampen the need for commerce.

  Various things caught her eye – glassblowers at work, finely wrought silver work, an exquisitely balanced set of throwing knives, imported Aynglican handguns, and a dozen of other things of varying prices. She rarely came to the market, choosing instead to buy things at a slightly higher price near her apartments in Ife’s manse, but in doing so she saved the headache of bargaining that was necessary in a place like this. Wandering the marketplace made her hands itch; she wanted to dig into her wallet and pull out a few Empresses to spend. All around her she saw coins exchanging hands – the round golden Empresses, the triangular silver Empresses, and the pentagonal bronze Empresses.

  Sighing, she walked away from a smooth-talking silk scarf salesman that almost had her talked into buying something totally unfitting for her person. Still, the whirling design of red and black had been pretty, but it would have been more fitting for a daintier, more feminine sort of woman. At this thought, Sagira shook her head and groaned loudly, earning a few strange looks from shoppers around her.

  “Pretty,” she muttered to under her breath, “What am I even thinking? I haven’t time for this.”

  As she looked out at the sea of faces around her, her eyes carried to an imposing figure standing half again as tall as everyone around him. She’d been looking for a foreign girl with long hair, which the obvious sign of nobility among the Elegian people, that the two foolish girls would have mistaken for meaning the same thing among foreign women. Until this point, distractions aside, she had seen no one that fit that description. Yet all along all what she should have been looking for, she realized, was an Ox-Man. She’d never actually seen one up close before, let alone wanted to walk up and talk to whomever he was supposed to be guarding, so she hadn’t realized how big they were.

  Oh, she’d heard that they were bigger, but words didn’t translate into reality as well as actually seeing something you’d only heard about before. The Ox-Man was powerfully muscled, with biceps of a similar circumference to her waist, and he was tall. His brawny body must have been near three Mayters in height, and he was half or more of that measure in width. She was trying to gauge in her mind how much the horned man-creature might weigh when the crowd parted in such a way that she was granted a brief glimpse of the Ox-Man’s master, staring through the crowd right back at her.

  “She can’t be looking at me.” Sagira thought aloud. “There’s just no way.”

  Yet, when the passersby in the crowd parted in such away to offer her another brief look at the reed-thin girl with pale skin and long shimmering hair, the girl was still looking her way. Sagira sighed and elbowed her way through slow-moving customers who were also being distracted by the Ox-Man and foreign girl’s presence.

  It took her only a Mynette to get to the Ox-Man and the girl, but part of her had half expected that they’d have vanished into the crowd by the time she’d made it to where they had been. Of course, something as big as the Ox-Man wouldn’t make an unnoticed getaway, but something about this meeting seemed destined to her – a frightening notion.

  Upon closer inspection, the girl was smaller than she’d originally thought. The girl had strange coloring of eyes, skin, and hair. She was certainly not Kerathi, and she didn’t appear to be Mueran or Aynglican either. Perhaps she’s a mix, Sagira considered. Whatever she was, she was young, no more than fifteen Yarres of age, if that. There were no womanly curves on her. Her body was that of a child yet, but her expression and face wore some kind of recent distresses rather openly, and that made her seem older because of the guarded way she carried herself.

  “I heard rumors of a foreign queen and her imposing guardian, and I wanted to see her for myself.” Sagira announced in Low Elegian, the common tongue, when she was close enough to speak. She lifted her eyes to the Ox-Man, who hunched over behind the girl protectively. “The guardian is rather impressive, but it’s clear you’re no queen.”

  “I never claimed to be one.” The girl responded in crisp syllables of High Elegian.

  Sagira smiled in wonder that this foreign girl would know the tongue of nobility and the high servants of nobility. She responded in kind, “You hold more surprises than your appearance then.”

  The girl nodded. “One of them is that I came here looking for you todee.”

  Sagira’s mouth hung open in surprise for a number of Saycunds before she snapped it shut. Her mother had always told her that to leave one’s mouth open was to invite flies to wander in, not to mention you look stupid while doing so. “You knew I would be here?”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “Not you specifically, but someone. I was led here to meet the one who would help us.”

  “Us?” Sagira asked, somehow feeling that the girl meant more than just her and the Ox-Man when she used that word.

  “My companions are passing our time in Miniya earning our passage off the island while Bedros and I search for the allies that I came here to find.”

  “So, you are in some sort of trouble, and somehow you knew that help would find you here todee? That must make you some sort of seer or mystic if you can understand and see such portends.” Sagira remarked cynically.

  “Believe it or not, but my enchantments have not led us wrong yet, not badly anyway.” The girl replied, and there was no hint of humor in her tone.

  “Enchantments?” Sagira echoed, intrigued by the mention of auguries and signs.

  “This is not the place to explain.” The girl stated simply, folding her hands together in front of her.

  Sagira nodded, glancing at the crowd of curious onlookers and listeners who watched the exchange between their countryman and the foreigners. “Why don’t you and Bedros,” she used the name she’d heard mentioned in reference to the Ox-Man from the girl’s own mouth, “follow me somewhere quieter then…” She trailed off, waiting for the girl to provide her name. Ife would have to wait. This was too interesting to pass up.

  “Anthea.” The girl answered at the prompt, inclining her head slightly in greeting. Then, she cast an indecisive look from Sagira back to her companion Bedros.

  “If you’re worried about where we’ll go, we can send a runner to your friends to tell them where you are. If you have someone to inform of your whereabouts.” Sagira offered.

  “But if you truly meant me harm, then telling you where they were would nothing but harm.” Anthea replied.

  Sagira scratched at her head. “If you’re not sure, then we might as well not continue this conversation.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Anthea said, shaking her head. “What I meant is that it’s not necessary. If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. I’d be pleased to follow you, but for Bedros’ peace of mind, why don’t we send a runner to tell the others.”

  Sagira grinned widely at this, bobbing her head. Her smile was nearly as much comprised of metal replacement teeth as real ones, something Anthea found somehow charming, so she grinned back just as widely. Only Bedros seemed unhappy about the meeting between the two, and then only as a precaution and out of protectiveness of his charge.

  Even still, he followed the two of them through the crowd, though they parted rather easily before his oncoming bulk and because of the unique company he kept. People’s desire to stare was far less than their desire to not get trampled, so they made a habit of moving aside, and then looking.

  Ife, Sagira’s oversized employer, was waiting for them when they reached his manse. Sagira had tried to avoid him by using the servant’s entrance so they could go straight to her apartments and talk, but that was not to be.

  Instead, his considerable bulk was stationed just inside the entrance, beyond the marble pillars that marked the ends of the walls to either side of the entrance. He was waiting for her with his meaty arms crossed over his rotund belly. Anthea took a step back upon seeing the sour look he had for Sagira, and the even sourer look he had for the company she was keeping.

  “You were supposed to be ready to escort us at the tolling of the fifth Ouer. That has come and past, and here you are cavorting with these… interlopers.” Ife growled in thickly accented syllables of Lower Elegian, his jowly face shaking as he spoke.

  Sagira regarded the heavyset man with disdain, waving off his protests. “For what you pay me, you’re lucky I show up at all. Now if you don’t mind, I have important matters to discuss with these good folks.”

  Ife’s eyes bulged and his face turned a mottled purple and red as rage built in his body. “How dare you speak to me in such a way! I took you in off these streets when no one else would have you. You’re a disgraced warrior with a mouth that doesn’t know when to be shut, and with your work ethic it’s not a surprise that you were sent here in disgrace.”

  “Let’s not bandy words, Ife.” Sagira said boredly, but forcefully enough to make the man realize she was serious. “You took me in so you could show me off to your friends, as if you were flaunting the will of the Empress by employing me. As for having no place to stay, I have three outstanding offers of pay equal to what you pay me to escort you around.”

  “You’re dangerously close-” Ife began, jabbing a thick finger in the air at Sagira.

  “Close to what? What will you do if you release me from your service? Who will accompany you and your wife on your shopping runs? Next time you want to show off your wealth by having me tag along while she buys a melon or a new comb, what will you do if I’m not there?”

  Ife’s jaws worked as if he were trying to start a rebuttal, but every time his mouth opened only air escaped. His lips flapped a few times and he began to sweat. Sagira put her hands on her hips and stared the man down.

  Finally, Ife managed to say, “We will discuss this at length later. I am too busy now to go out anyway.”

  “That is fortunate. I’d hate to think you missed your outing.”

  “I am a busy man. Don’t flatter yourself by overestimating your importance to me.” Ife remarked smugly.

  “Fair enough.” Sagira said with a shrug, allowing the man to keep some of his dignity by allowing him to back out thusly. “Until later.”

  Ife huffed and walked away, head shaking and low mutters trailing behind him, as if he were just now thinking of adequate replies.

  Anthea raised an eyebrow and followed Sagira without comment as she led them through the meticulously maintained grounds toward a small outlying house. It was of a modest size, but set among the palms, the fragrant blooms of bright flowers, and tropical grasses, it looked quite grand. Whitish marble stepping-stones were set into the ground to form a path, and sandy gravel filled in the gaps around and in-between them. Certainly, though, it was nothing compared to Ife’s palatial, multilevel homestead set toward the front of the grounds.

  Anthea noticed a number of servants working to maintain the grounds. The male groundskeepers, who wore their hair long and dark to signify that they were of the laborer caste, were attired in loose white linen trousers, but they went shirtless as they attacked the weeds, patches of imperceptibly longer grass, and branches in need of pruning. They were either too busy or too discrete to notice Sagira’s strange company, which was something that Anthea found reminded her of Aurean servants. Servants have a way of becoming accustomed to seeing without actually taking notice and hearing without remembering.

  The front door, made of a light-colored wood, swung open noiselessly to permit them into Sagira’s tastefully decorated apartments. She had a plush yet minimalist way about decorating, whereby it was cozy and comfortable while being open and without obstruction. In such a small space, it would have been easy for most people to clutter things up, but everything had its place out of the way.

  Even Bedros, with his considerable size no less, had room to sit down on a large rug in the middle of the circle of four rattan chairs. Anthea settled herself in beside him, though she elected to use one of the chairs provided. Sagira offered them no refreshments before she too sat across from Anthea. She lounged in the chair lazily, but her muscles weren’t slack. They were like springs ready to uncoil at a moment’s notice. Once more, Anthea found herself liking the woman. She exuded strength and confidence. She was not afraid. This was a woman who knew her limits, considerable though they may be.

  “I suppose I should start.” Anthea offered.

  “Please do.” Sagira replied, smiling a smile of mixed enamel and metal. Elegian dentists often replaced missing teeth with shaped metal implants, and Sagira happened to have a few of them. It made her smile a bit predatorial.

  Anthea licked her lips nervously and lifted her eyes from Sagira’s mouth to meet her eyes. She didn’t want to look a fool before this woman that she was already beginning to have respect for. Yet she was clearly her elder and was definitely the more comfortable of the two in this setting. Sagira was at home here and from what had transpired with Ife, quite used to getting the better of people socially.

  “We came here by accident,” Anthea began, “or so it seemed, but everywhere I go I find allies. My enchantment leads me from place to place, and always at the right time we find someone who proves valuable. It has not failed me yet, and so I trust it when it leads me to you. I can see that you are a woman of skills, confidence, and perhaps even contacts despite your aforementioned disgrace.”

  Bedros nodded, understanding every word she said. If he was slow with Lower Elegian, this Higher Elegian speech was very familiar to him, having been the spoken language, he had heard all during his time serving Orestes, Anthea’s father.

  Sagira regarded the Ox-Man with surprise, realizing that he was nodding along with what she said, and not just out of coincidence or fidgeting. “There is more to this Ox-Man that I had realized. Are they all as smart as he? Clearly, I can see now the intelligence in his eyes.”

  “Ox-Men are not unintelligent, and if there are those who say they are less inclined to genius than any other kind of people in the lands of the Broken Crown, I might argue that their genius is of a different sort than ours.” Anthea remarked.

  “I like that: a different sort of genius than ours. I can see that. Can he speak?” Sagira asked. Then, realizing that not speaking directly to Bedros was rude, she asked him directly. “Can you speak?”

  Bedros offered a wide grin and a shrug that was nearly a negative headshake.

  “His mouth cannot form our words, but he has some language of his own. His kind speaks in other ways known only to them and the few others they choose to teach.”

  “A pity. I feel that he might have much to say. Perhaps our world is a lesser place for not sharing their wisdom.” Sagira said solemnly, sighing deeply.

  Bedros relaxed finally, letting the tenseness flow out of his muscles now that he realized that he was among friends. There were many among lowlanders and the mountain dwellers that thought little of Ox-Men, but this one he believed in earnest when she said that she respected him. He would not need to protect Anthea from this one any more than he would from Makan or Rolf, though Rolf sometimes cast strange looks at Anthea when he thought no one was looking.

  “You seem surprised by Ox-Men, but I was led to believe that many worked here and other places among the cities of the Empire.” Anthea ventured.

  Sagira nodded. “That is true. They do on occasion, but I have never had the opportunity to meet one up close. It is not our way to attempt to communicate with them unless we work directly with them. Always I saw them from afar, scaling scaffolding built to their dimensions as they worked on building projects or restorations for the Empress. You won’t find any in this city though. Bedros here is likely the only Ox-Man that’s been in this city for Munths.”

  “Why is that?” Anthea asked.

  “I fear our Empress-in-Waiting, Sanura II, is something of a purist in terms of the company she keeps and what she wants on her island. She has had most foreigners expelled from Miniya, stating that they are untrustworthy. They may only stay for a short duration before being expelled. You have somehow avoided too much notice, or perhaps the Empress-in-waiting finds you either interesting or of no consequence at the moment. Her spies are everywhere, searching everywhere for would-be assassins and malcontents.”

  Bedros huffed and pulled his bovine features into an approximation of a frown.

  Anthea cast him a sympathetic look. “That sounds unpleasant. How do people live amidst such things?”

  “You do what you must to get by.” Sagira offered with a shrug. “Though, I am not pleased to consider what it may mean for the Empire when and if she ascends the throne after her grand aunt, the Empress Tahirah III abdicates in her favor or vacates the throne in some other way.”

  Anthea frowned as she considered what it meant if an Empress might leave the throne in a way other than willingly often enough that Sagira could so casually mention it. “If we are to be expelled from this island, that might suit our purposes.”

  “You think so?” Sagira laughed dryly. “Some people ‘leave’ Miniya in a catapult or with rocks tied to them so they sink into the sea, depending on the whims of the Empress-in-Waiting. Usually, they’re just dropped off on the Empress’ Arm with a warning not to return.”

  “Then we must seek a more pleasant means of leaving Miniya.”

  “Where are you bound?”

  “Aetheline.”

  Sagira whistled in surprise. “Aetheline? Why would you wish to go there?” Then, as she asked the question the answer came to her. The girl had been obviously foreign, but the previously indeterminate ethnicity suddenly became clear. “Oh. You’re Aurean.”

  Anthea nodded. “I am. Half.”

  “Half?” Sagira regarded Anthea with a questioning gaze to see if she was telling the truth. As far as she could see, the girl was. “I always heard legends that they could not breed with the rest of us.”

  “Then I’m a special case or the legends were untrue.” Anthea said dismissively. She was what she was, and if her word and presence was not enough to inspire belief, she wasn’t going to work to convince anyone.

  “Still, Aetheline isn’t easy to get to…” Sagira began to say, but a commotion at the door drew her attention.

  The door swung open, banging into the wall loudly as it opened too far. A groundskeeper tumbled in, stumbling to fall on his side as he entered. Rolf shouldered past another servant, this one fully attired and mostly likely an attendant of some sort who had tried to bar Rolf’s entry. Rolf lowered a hand pistol toward Sagira and a hand on the hilt of his sabre as he let his eyes sweep around the room.

  “Mistress, I tried to stop him.” The attendant said apologetically as he nodded toward the pistol.

  Bedros was on his feet in an instant, his mallet unlimbered. Anthea stood quickly, but not before Sagira, whose hands were on a pair of Elegian yataghans, curved knives the lengths of her forearm that she kept tucked in her belt. Only the wooden handles were apparent visible, the blades hidden beneath the sash around her waist.

  “It’s quite alright, Ayman. It couldn’t have been helped.” Sagira replied after giving Bedros’ weapon a wary glance. “You may go. This young man doesn’t realize yet that he’s among friends.”

  “That he doesn’t.” Anthea seconded, scowling at Rolf.

  Rolf gave Ayman a dirty look as he backed out the way he’d came, letting the gardener go with him. Only then did he reply. “I came as quickly as I could. That messenger said you’d gone off with some Elegian woman, and you know that can’t be trusted.”

  Anthea glanced at Sagira and then gave him a look as if he’d gone mad. “I do?”

  “Of course.” Rolf said matter-of-factly, as if it were common knowledge to all people and not just the Kerathi that the Elegians were an untrustworthy lot.

  “I’d like to hear the explanation to that one.” Sagira said dryly, though she looked at least mildly amused.

  Rolf cast a disdainful look at the darker-skinned woman. He saw from her stance that she was something of a warrior, but she wasn’t faster than a bullet. “Your kind and mine are long enemies. I’d not trust you with the girl I am charged to defend.”

  “Our conflict ended the better part of 800 Yarres ago, Kerathi.”

  “And you’re to be forgiven simply on account of time passed? The Kerathi have a long memory of misdeeds. Besides, we’ve had numerous small battles since those times to keep the hatred alive.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to like it, because the enchantment says that she’s the one I need to help me.” Anthea interjected, trying to diffuse the situation before it got too ugly.

  “Help? How?” Rolf scoffed. “She’s Elegian.”

  “I’m going to help by booking us passage to Rummas.” Sagira announced.

  “Rummas?” Anthea echoed in surprise.

  “Yes, Rummas. Sometimes the fastest route to somewhere is the least direct. You cannot get a ship to take you from here to Aetheline, but you can buy passage on a whaler out of Rummas that can take you close to Aetheline – as close as the Gnat Marshes on Zaraig.” Sagira explained, though she surprised herself in doing so.

  Somehow, she’d just met this girl, and already she was offering to leave her job and her home in exile. Not only that, but she was going to be going to Rummas, and then likely to the site of her disgrace. The Gnat Marshes were where she’d been ordered to clear out privateers and raiders, and where she’d fallen out of favor with the Empress. Yet in deciding on a spur of the moment to do so, she found herself happy. Her exile would be over. She’d be leaving finally, but she wouldn’t be going home.

  “Rummas is filled with Rumani whores and bandits. It’s a cesspool of the worst kind of people. They’re a nation of drunks and thieves without honor.” Rolf said with distaste, still holding his pistol trained on Sagira, though he no longer aimed it.

  “Then you’ll fit right in, because the Kerathi surely are not examples of clean living and morality.” Sagira quipped mirthfully.

  “Whaling vessel? Makan isn’t going to like that.” Anthea worried aloud.

  “Makan?” Sagira asked.

  “A Mueran friend of ours – another protector.” Anthea answered.

  “This gets more and more intriguing…” Sagira said with a sigh.

  “That’s one way to put it.” Rolf said sourly, lowering his pistol finally. He sighed and holstered it on his hip after giving Sagira one more cursory glance. “At least she’s not Aynglican.”

  Bedros let out a throaty noise that sounded remarkably like a chuckle. Anthea grinned, more than a bit relieved that Rolf hadn’t done something too precipitous, like shooting Sagira.