Note: Before biting into this fic, please read the foreword on my profile page.

"And so We issue these decrees, which shall henceforth be the foundations of our society and the stability which shall mark it:

Chapter One: Dramatis Personae

"That the seraphim, who resisted conquest with unparalleled ferocity and unity of purpose, shall be charged with the defence of the kingdom...
-Second Societal Decree, Ladies Carrinth and Laaren

11.3.2572 SE

Waste was aptly named, like most other realms. Barren lifeless desert stretched eight kilometres wide and forty long, the sun fixed in place all year round. Its long sides did not connect to any other, so flying north to south would bring you back to where you began.

Its east point linked to the much larger realm of Coral, almost entirely covered by ocean, which was home to a great number of aquatic creatures both sentient and primal. Flush with life as it was, its residents were not predisposed to entering the bone dry realm.

The western point connected to Eden, home realm of the Illia and seat of their Empire. A natural bottleneck, Waste would have been annexed by them if Coral's peoples hadn't been wise enough to be unnerved by the idea of an Illian territory directly adjacent to theirs, and rich enough that the Avatar of Light had decided good relations was more important than a realm devoid of life or resources. Fessa could see Her point.

On Waste's end, the link between the two realms was only eight kilometres across. On Eden's end, it was forty nine. Treaties prevented the Empire from having a true military presence, but it was too obvious a checkpoint to disregard, and for this reason herself and Ryda (And also Trita and Culava and Lokano and Sero, back at camp) suffered the heat.

Waste had barely any moisture at all, but they'd managed to gather together a cloud big enough for two. Fessa's red hair was tied in a braid that reached down to the small of her back, her pale freckled skin protected by seri magic from burning in the sun. She'd drawn her knees up to her chin, eyes watching the sky. Her unfolded wings lay across those of Ryda, who lay belly down peering lazily down at the dunes some distance below. The other woman's skin was a darker shade than the desert sand they were nominally keeping watch of, hair black and cut to the earlobe. Both wore the Flock's Righteous Forces uniform of sky-blue leathers (Fessa with the white shoulders of a medic) with wings dyed to match. They also had short swords at their hips, wide tight quivers strapped to their thighs, and daggers sheathed handle-down bound tightly to the forearms of their off hands. Their primary weapons were too bulky to sit comfortably with: short glaives a metre and half in length tipped with blades suited to both slashing and stabbing, and longbows just as tall (All were wrapped with seri hair to prevent them from falling through the cloud). Half their initial training had been learning how to move without stumbling on their own weapons.

"This is, without a doubt, the worst posting ever," Ryda declared.

"At least it's peaceful."

"Peaceful was nice for the first, like, five minutes. Now it's just boring."

"Still," Fessa soothed (Though she'd started to feel the same way) "It's better than drilling all day. Or flying in Wild."

"I liked flying in Wild, though. You know I can't turn down a challenge."

Fessa's wings folded at just the thought of those skies, the ceaseless chaotic current of magic that made flying near impossible. She missed a lot about that realm, but not that. Never that.

"Damn Cyrra anyway," Ryda muttered.

Fessa started to say something, but lost courage before the first word was entirely out of her mouth. Ryda shoved her in that way she showed support. Fessa's wings brushed open over hers again. "It's just, you did kind of call her a lot of things in front of the whole murder..."

"She deserved it." (Well not really, Fessa thought) Ryda's wings flexed open, Fessa's snapped shut in response. "I'm stiff. Let's patrol."

"But we just went on pat-" Ryda evaded the complaint by rolling off their cloud. Fessa scrambled over to peer down in a more anxious imitation of what Ryda had been doing just a few moments before, watching said seri free fall. Their post cloud was just over four hundred metres from the ground, and as usual Ryda seemed interested in clearing that distance in as little time as possible; her wings were tight against her back, profile slim, facie toward oncoming death below. Three hundred metres. She'd be fine, she was always fine. Two hundred. Fessa's fingers gripped the cloud as if it were solid. One hundred. Fear pushed adrenaline through her veins. Blue wings snapped open at the last possible moment, velocity expertly redirected to forward momentum, and Ryda drew level twenty metres from the ground. The image of red-stained dunes vanished just as quickly from Fessa's mind, replaced with the exhilaration of shared joy. She quickly holstered her glaive in the loops between her wings, took her bow in her hand (Ryda had grabbed her own weapons without Fessa noticing), and followed in a less dramatic fashion.

Some seri, like Ryda, lived to fly. Some saw it as a superior alternative to running when speed was needed. For a weak flyer like Fessa, it was a chore. Fessa's descent was slow and cautious, but Ryda rose nearly to her level ahead with a few beats of her powerful wings anyway. She made an unnecessarily sharp turn to make sure Fessa had followed (She didn't know why, she always did). A gust of wind caught Fessa off-guard before she'd properly gotten her wings. She spent a few seconds trying to recover from that, then several more tumbling when Ryda zipped by her close enough to catch her in the wind tow, going at great speed in the opposite direction they were supposed to patrol.

"Ryda!" Fessa screamed, half in terror and half in indignation, desperately flapping to try and regain stability and avoid death below (Or rather, to try and avoid the further indignity of being rescued by her friend while en-route to death below). By the time she reduced the odds of that embarrassment to an acceptable minimum, Ryda had completed her third wide circle of her. This was how Ryda waited, and for Ryda waiting always meant growing impatient. Once Fessa had her wings back, the other seri angled back toward their marked patrol route and took off at speeds Fessa couldn't dream of matching.

She followed at her own pace, heart still hammering in her chest, but that little voice she couldn't turn off even when she wanted to noted how she'd recovered even faster than the last time she'd pulled that stunt. Ahead, Ryda's form was rapidly dwindling to nothing. Had she continued at her current rate she might have rounded Waste's narrow width and come up behind Fessa, but before the seri abruptly stopped before she could disappear. Then began to circle in a search pattern. Puzzled, Fessa quickened her pace. They'd gone on a lot of patrols in the weeks since they were assigned here, but none had actually turned up anything worth mentioning (She was afraid her letters to the girls were becoming boring).

Ryda stopped searching and shot back toward Fessa like an arrow. For a moment she thought they'd collide in midair, but the other could brake as well as she could accelerate and it was only air that blew into Fessa. A weaker flyer would have broken her wings, but Ryda wasn't even breathing hard. "You remember anyone mention a caravan coming through today?"

From the bleak realm of Gulch there were harpies, who delighted in eating their oft-sentient prey alive. Ryda'd had some good times there. From the developing realm of Frontier were the giants, four metres tall and prone to burning villages down for the sake of it. Nice enough place, she'd decided. From the great forests of Wild were horror locusts, swarming insects that devoured crops and flesh indiscriminately. Good flying. From the pleasure-laden realm of Dune there were camels, and for that Ryda could not forgive it.

"With the Avatar as my witness, if one of those things spits on me again, I'm killing all of you," Ryda promised with absolute sincerity.

"Why kill us?" Asked a captive. "Kill them!"

Six males knelt, hands clasped behind their heads. Four agri, two seri. Ryda had designated two agri Brown and Browner for their hair colour, the two who'd shared the same camel the Lovers, the seri missing half the fingers on one hand Stubs, and the last Wings because by then she'd stopped caring. With a deft motion Ryda reversed her polearm and smacked Browner in the ribs with its shaft. The blade was pointing back toward the group before his cry was finished. "Speak when spoken to."

"Please don't kill anyone, Ryda." That was Fessa, behind and above with a notched arrow pointing in the group's general direction. "And... You did kind of speak to him."

Ryda grit her teeth. Then a camel spit on the back of White's head, which alleviated her mood enough to concede the point. Grudgingly. "Fine. So long as nobody's stupid, nobody dies." Her glaive stayed where it was. "You all fourths?"

"I'm a citizen," said Stubs. Judging by his scarring, he'd probably worn blue leather like hers to get it. She allotted the man a smidgen of respect, then took it away once she remembered why he was kneeling.

"Not for long." She gestured with her glaive. "Smuggling'll get you knocked right back down."

"Smuggling what?" Stubs' good hand slowly went to fetch his papers from his vest - or to reach for a weapon, in which case he'd be breaking the stupidity condition. "You haven't actually searched us yet."

"Do you want to get stabbed?" Brown hissed.

"Brown has a point, Stubs."

"She just finished promising not to kill any of us, why can't I ask a question?" His hand stayed in his pocket and Ryda opened her mouth to remind him about the stupidity clause of that contract, but Brown interrupted her.

"Look at her you drunk. Narrow shoulders, long fingers, blue-gold eyes, the calf-thigh ratio: She's itching to stab you."

"Wait, I thought blue-gold meant friendly?"

"It means emotional. Everything about her screams-"

Ryda stabbed Stubs.

"My leg! You Laarendautter!" Wings gave him a harsh look, but Ryda didn't hold it against the cripple: nobody was pleasant company immediately after their blood started spilling. White burst into wine-scented laughter followed by Browner, but the Lovers just kept their eyes to the ground.

"Enough with the anthromorphology lesson. Fessa, keep an eye on them." She reached into Stubs' vest and grabbed the thick wad of papers he'd been reaching for before his hands became preoccupied with applying pressure to the new hole in his leg. She took a few steps back and rested her glaive on a shoulder as she sorted through them. Citizenship papers - Hey, Raido, what a coincidence - some mail with Reef City postage on them, and an item manifest. Bingo. "I'm searching the train." Unlikely as it was that an unregistered caravan traveling through a border realm would be legitimate, it was generally good practise to acquire evidence before making an arrest. Unfortunately, that meant getting within biting range of the camels.

Her leathers had several new marks on them when she finally dropped the large unmanifested sack in front of the man and males. The Lovers tensed, Stubs cursed, Brown's face twitched like he was trying to hide a rueful smile. "Seaberries," Ryda named the heavily taxed delicacies. "Let me guess, misplaced your papers? I hope you enjoyed your freedom."

"They're yours if you let us go." The wound strained Stubs' voice. "Declare 'em at the border, sell them at Diamond, you'd make two months' pay in a night. Each." He glanced between the pair, focused on Fessa over her shoulder. "You wouldn't send me back to chains for evading some tariffs, would you?

"They're just seaberries, Ryda... " Fessa used the same tone she had before. She had a soft spot in her heart for, well, everything, and Ryda knew she could use the money. So could she, in fact. But she glared back condemnation nonetheless.

"I don't take bribes. We're impounding their convoy."

One of the Lovers choked up, the other tried to hush him.

"It'll be fine, just a few lashings remember?" Brown's tone was a reprimand, and it drew Ryda's attention. The agri was drunkenly sobbing now. She looked at the camels. The agri was right: Stubs would lose his citizenship and probably be sent to hard labour, but the rest would receive light punishment - under Illian law the leader always took the brunt of the blame - they'd just be whipped for failing to report a minor crime and sent to another trader.

And why not register? The rest had been perfectly mundane, and even when a man led it a train of camels was rarely subject to thorough inspection. They were planning to slip through the border, which was a much larger risk than saving a few coins in tariffs was worth. And if their timing wasn't a coincidence, if they really had only been caught because Ryda hadn't waited another half hour to make her patrol as scheduled, then that meant they had very expensive information. "Fessa. Check the camels. Close. This doesn't add up."

She heard Fessa start a question, but then Brown tried to leap to his feet. Blind instinct directed her glaive to a spot between his ribs. He collapsed, shouting in pain, and she wondered dully where the blood had come from in the instant before she remembered Wings was still in fighting shape. Adrenaline drove her to rectify that, but her mind had caught up enough that she almost involuntarily twisted the weapon as she swung it - The flat of her blade cracked Wings' skull. An arrow flew past her shoulder.

"Carrinth's sake I didn't even do anything!" White cried, grasping his wounded arm.

"OhmygoodnessI'msosorrymyfingerslipped-"

"Fess!" Ryda first turned her wide eyes to Stubs. His own shot back hate but he remained unmoving. Wings was out cold, a thin flap of scalp shaved from the rest. Brown was in no state to fight. The others might have been able to take her, but looked more like scared lambs than wolves. Slowly, the young soldier regained control of her breathing. Her heart, she assumed, would return to a healthy pace shortly. She kicked off the ground, flying up and back, until she was beside Fessa. The girl's hands shook, but she'd notched another arrow.

Her panic, as it always had, drove Ryda's own to the rear of her mind. She first unstrapped her bow from the small of her back with one hand, then threaded her glaive through the loops that kept it between her wings. Her fingers fumbled, but Fessa didn't seem to notice. She was staring, terrified, at the seven below them. When Ryda had both bow and arrow firmly gripped in one hand, she put the other on her shoulder. Fess looked to her like a cripplewing in midair. "I'm sorry for shouting earlier." That didn't seem to make a difference. Ryda had never been good at reassurances. "I need you to go back to base. Get reinforcements."

Fessa looked to the direction of their camp, then back at Ryda. "I... I can't..."

"Okay, that's fine. I just-" she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, hand went from shoulder to arrow then drew back to her jaw, but it was just Wings stirring awake. Fessa's bow arm was shaking so much Ryda worried she'd loose another arrow, but when she relaxed her string so did Fess.
"Can you search the train for me?" Ryda hadn't noticed the camels departure until after the violence was done, but they'd gone from a gallop to a slow trot a few dozen metres away. "It'll be okay. If anyone looks at you funny, I'll shout and put an arrow through their eye."

Fessa managed a nod. They flew together until Ryda was positioned between the errant beasts and their prisoners, where she stood guard.

"What the hell happened?" Wings asked.

"No talking!" Behind she could indistinctly hear Fess' soothing voice. The girl had a way with animals. If the Righteous Forces had use of cavalry or beasts of burden, she would have more likely been a stable mistress than a medic. Ryda's eyes never left the seven, though they didn't seem keen on making a break for it. Smart. A seri in the air was only vulnerable to missiles, magic, and other seri - the earthbound had none of the first two that Ryda could see, and neither of their flyers were in fighting shape. After what seemed like forever but was probably less, Fessa drew beside her. Ryda didn't look away.

"I didn't notice until I took everything out and it was still heavy." Her voice was subdued, but had much less fear. Fessa calmed animals, and they calmed her. Even camels.

"Notice what?"

"Look." She did. Fessa was holding an empty travel bag, with the interior lining cut open and held apart so Ryda could see inside. "They're all like this."

"Laaren's cunt," Ryda breathed. "All of them?"

Fessa nodded. "I think I can go get help now."

Secreted away in the dividing leather, where their bulk would almost certainly pass unnoticed in a full pack, rows of spearheads glittered in the desert sun.

"That the magister, who ruled vast tracts of land and raised great cities with their cunning and magic, shall be charged with the administration of the kingdom...
-First Societal Decree, Ladies Carrinth and Laaren

Her long strawberry blonde hair was perfectly styled, her skin cultivated to a gorgeous milky tone, her white dress the height of fashion. Rinnai would have been the image of refinement if only she could stop twisting her head around in all directions. No city had more wealth nor power than Domin, and few could compete for size in either area or population: buildings of stone, timber, and even clay fought for every centimetre of available space, forced to a great press by the massive stone walls that protected and confined them. Even the main roads were crowded with people. Merchant queens and members of government and military officers were carried by servants in litters or pulled by fine stallions in carriages like her own, while elevated wooden walkways to either side were filled near bursting with free citizens and fourth castes alike. The crowds of oft-visited Abun sounded like crickets in an empty field compared to the clamour that these masses made, its domiciles small and insignificant compared to the towers she craned her neck to see the top of. Beyond those structures the sky shimmered with the thousand enchantments that protected Domin in ways mere stone could not. Occasionally the road would open into market squares where the air was filled with hundreds of aromas and the cries of stallkeeps hawking countless wares. 'After I have done my work,' she promised herself, 'I will go on the shopping spree to end all shopping sprees.'

If there was one complaint she had for the metropolis, it was the stench. In the stretches between squares the dominant scents were of urine and vomit and unwashed bodies, which had been strongest when they first passed through the South Gate. As the palace closer the air became fresher, the people slightly fewer and greatly better clothed, the buildings better kept if just as clustered.

The Bright Palace itself was a wonder to behold, whiter than Rinnai's gown and shining in the sunlight above the city. Some said it was plated in silver, but she knew from Terresui that it was just marble polished every night by stonemasons. Occasionally it would be blocked by a particularly tall building, but in every market square there was a place for the peasants to look up and wonder at structure. 'Though they seem more interested in the price of fish than the palace's splendour.'

Then abruptly Domin's opulent inner city opened to the Diamond, a fifty metre wide ring of mostly cleared ground that surrounded the hill's base. 'It's not shaped much like a diamond at all, really.' The buildings facing in towards the ring were only the finest of shops and the most luxurious of homes, where some of the richest private citizens and highest ranking public administrators in the empire called home. It was a community of crème de la crème, and Rinnai knew that if a woman had the platinum she could spend all her days without ever venturing into the city beyond. Some did. It made her envious, but also sad for reasons she could not properly define. The conflict threatened to overwhelm her thoughts until the cart began to incline and she was reminded of her destination.

She looked up to the white marble walls of the palace and smiled when she saw Terresui's form for the first time in over a month, waiting on the ramparts above the portcullis. Rinnai couldn't wait to see her friend again and neither, as it turned out, could Terresui.

Two flashes of magenta light occurred at once, one where she had been waiting on the walls a hundred metres off, and another where she appeared perhaps half a metre from Rinnai's face. Rinnai shrieked, Terresui gave a tackle of a hug. Not the most dignified reunion, but her driver managed to keep from falling off his seat.

"You're finally here!"

Having decided that she was not likely to suffer complete heart failure after all, Rinnai regained the presence of mind to return the embrace. "Am I late?". 'Deep, even breaths Rinnai'.

Terresui pulled away. Magi's sight obscured pupil and iris alike, two discs of magenta beneath furrowed brow. "You said you would be here at midday. It is twenty one minutes past."

"It's an eight day journey, dear."

"Still." Terresui remembered her enthusiasm. "Oh, it's so good to see you!" Another, briefer, hug and she sat back on the cushioned bench across from Rinnai. "It's been so long since we've seen anybody. I mean, since we've seen our friends. I mean, since we've seen our best friends. It's been really nice catching up with our old friends in the Palace, but we were never as close to them as we are with you, and you know how people get distant when they only talk through letters for a while so even though I still have friends here I started feeling lonely after four days anyway and I think Sprig started feeling lonely after six days and wow I'm talking a lot." Rinnai had missed that nervous smile.

She noticed that a strand of hair had strayed from its allotted place. She glared at it with as much hate as she could manage in the space of a second, then brushed it back over her shoulder. "Where is Spriggy, anyway?"

Terresui's assistant was not at his usual place by her side, which Terresui found out only after Rinnai pointed it out. "Fiddlesticks!" She 'cursed' after casting her gaze about wildly and even checking the road beside them. "He is not going to be happy." Terresui was often either leaving Sprig behind or taking him along with her when she hadn't meant to, which she'd said was because after having him for so long she sometimes forgot that he wasn't actually a part of her. Rinnai had, after a few days consideration, decided this was an endearing display of affection rather than a mortifying lack of empathy. Terri looked at her like the poor girl had just committed some great indiscretion, so Rinnai gave her a reassuring smile. That seemed to relax her.

'And yet when you do commit great indiscretions you look at me like I'm the silly one.' Sometimes she reminded Rinnai of Pree, but only sometimes, and much of the rest of the time she made Rinnai herself feel like the fool. "I see you're dressing up more." Terresui's dark blue dress was more fashionable than her usual attire, her long black hair shone with oils Rinnai had rarely seen her use back in Barleytown, her lips were coloured the same shade as her eyes, and come to think of it those brows were much less bushy than usual. Plucking them must have been torture.

"Oh, yes. For today. Since you're here, and I was excited, and... What?"

"Well if you're going to dress up, you really should remember cosmetic." It had taken Rinnai a bit longer to notice the absence with Terresui's dark complexion, but her cheeks and eyes were bare of adornment. "No matter: I need to touch up anyway, we shall correct the issue then."

"Great." Her tone lacked the brightness it had a moment ago. She looked over her shoulder to the rising portcullis. "Great," she said in an even less enthusiastic voice.

Sprig waited for them there, young wood held together and pulled by arcane threads unlike anything an Illian could weave. Some superficial similarities existed between him and the three races of Illian. Two legs, two arms, a torso of curled branches greatly resembling ribs and spine surrounding the glowing green magic that was his core, and above that a series of twisting branches formed an almost conical head, faceless but for the pointed end that Rinnai thought of as a snout. One day he would be larger than most houses, but for the moment he was just under four feet tall. When he and Terresui showed up in Barleytown nearly two years ago he'd been the first entling Rinnai had ever seen up close, and a complete alien to everyone else. Even now staring at his core for too long strained her sight.

Rinnai had trouble reading his emotions, being that he had no face, but apparently Terresui could feel a glare. "Sorry about that!" Terresui departed the carriage as soon as it had stopped moving. "It's just that I saw Rinnai and got excited and I thought I teleported you with me but I guess I forgot again-"

"Spriggy-Wiggy!" Rinnai descended from the carriage gracefully, drew his attention artfully, and diffused the situation flawlessly. 'Still fabulous.'

"Oh, hey Rinnai!" His magically-sourced voice reverberated, and the magi could hear it with both their minds and ears. "How've you been?"

"Bored to tears dear, truly." She squeezed a shoulder-looking knot of wood. "First you two leave us for Domin," 'Not that I can blame you.'"then Ryda and Fessa enlist, and since Aij became the Arrapti matriarch she's hardly left Eastabun at all so it's just me and Pree most of the time. But listen to me prattle on when there's work to be done. Where can I find the design plans?"

"Oh, I have them right here." Sprig opened his ever-present courier's bag and sorted amongst the other things he carried around for Terresui. Rinnai took the moment to look around. She'd forgotten how many guards there were. Steel plate painted gold covered the agri with their pikes, mail treated the same way protected the sight-eyed magi with their spellswords, and the winged seri wore white outfits with a simply absurd number of weapons attached to them. Some few were women wearing badges of rank, but the overwhelming majority were fourth caste males. Most of the latter wore helmets, so it was only the seri true whose surgical scars were evident beneath shaved hair. She preferred not to look on them.

The rustling of papers brought her back to the task at hand. Sprig held up several scrolls, which she took hold of with kinesis. The papers glowed violet in her sight as she unfurled them, one hand across her waist the finger of her other placed thoughtfully below her lip. Three plans levitated before her: one detailing the proposed mess hall she was here to help direct, another detailing the storage room it was to be built on top of with notes regarding the supports, and the third an overview of the rest of the palace so she could see where it would be in relation to everything else. It was the last that drew her attention.

"It seems a bit out of the way," she said finally. "Everything seems out of the way, actually." She parted the plans to the side so that she could see Terresui, who seemed to have had some train of thought interrupted. "The barracks, the armory, the training grounds, everything your guards use is spread across the palace," she clarified. "Just off the top of my head I can come up with floor plans twice as efficient, and it looks like the new mess hall will be even further from everything than the old one."
"That's intentional, look." Terresui stepped around the plans to Rinnai's side. She illustrated with her finger. "See, when a shift's guards wake up in the barracks they have to go this way," she traced a seemingly meandering path through the labyrinthine halls of the palace, "for their first meal. Then they go here," another long trail with almost no overlap with the first, "for morning drill. Then they either go here, here, or here," she sketched these routes faster, but Rinnai saw that they did not intersect at all, "for pay, briefing, or equipment checks. Finally they spread out to wherever their duties take them."

"And there are three shifts?"

"Six, overlapping."

'With the guards scurrying around like this off-duty, they hardly need patrols.'"Clever," she said aloud, "If inconvenient for the guards."

Terresui looked at her like she'd said something strange. "Their duty is to protect us, this helps them do it better. Besides, most of them are true anyway: they don't mind."

Rinnai moved a sheet aside so they could look at one such guard. His back was straight, wings neatly folded behind him, glaive perfectly erect, and gaze almost lifeless. Rinnai moved the sheet back.

"Yes, well. Shall we press on then?"

Terresui had been quite pleased with herself that morning when she looked in the mirror, with her shiny hair and thin eyebrows and beautiful dress and coloured lips. But standing with her eyes closed, putting up with Rinnai's primping and chatter about the proper way to ash her eyelids, she remembered why she considered fashion to be such rubbish. Carrinth never wore cosmetic and rarely bothered to update her wardrobe, and she told Rinnai as much. Rinnai responded with "Lady Carrinth could turn herself bright pink if she wanted to, she doesn't need cosmetics with magic like that keeping her beautiful." That almost made Terresui want to learn the spells necessary to do the same, but she knew it would take more effort than it was worth and besides studying aesthetic spells always made her feel vaguely dirty[1].

Sprig waited for them outside of the bathroom, at Rinnai's insistence. Terresui didn't much see the point since firstly they weren't going to get undressed at all, secondly Sprig had already seen her underdressed more than a few times as matter of course, and thirdly he was an entirely different species so what did it matter anyway? Rinnai had said it was 'the principle of the thing'. Terresui meant to apologise to him, but when they came out she sensed Sprig's amusement at her made-up appearance and decided he might've been made to wait a bit longer without undue harm.

The two women chatted as they walked through the stone halls she had grown up in, and as she listened to Rinnai tell her about Pree's antics at the Seeding Festival she thought how odd it was to hear that voice at home.

The palace had not always been home. She had spent the first six years of her life in the midcity, her birthmother a scholar and her tiedmother a bureaucrat, until the young girl's gifts were brought to the palace's attention. Birthma Cerrui was given a grant that would last her ten years, Tiema Arrelai was given the top job in her department, and Terresui was given to the Lady of Dawn as protégé. Under her care Terresui's full potential was unlocked, discussing politics and magical and economics with some of the finest minds in the empire while learning spells from some of the most powerful sorceresses in the known realms. But Carrinth worried that peers were not enough, so after thirteen years spent in the Bright Palace and a lifetime spent in the realms' greatest metropolis she was sent to a town so small it wasn't even on some maps. There she met her best friends, and together they grew closer than she'd been with any other mortal, but it had never been home.

The Palace's white brick walls and half legion of ever-watching true made her feel secure. The offices of the Five Ministries and the governors which constantly came and went seemed to put the whole Empire at her fingertips. The Academies of Study and the brilliant minds which gathered there challenged her. Domin's place in history as where the Ladies Carrinth and Laaren had founded the Kingdom of Eden tens of centuries ago reminded her that she was a part of something much greater. Most importantly it was where her sworn ruler, encouraging teacher, and loving caretaker lived. The choice between home and friends was one of the most painful she'd ever had to make, but not one she had ever doubted.

She couldn't have both home and friends, she knew, but for the few weeks Rinnai would be here she could almost forget that.

Before the pretense could make her sad, something Rinnai said shook her other thoughts away. "Wait, where did she get a four foot tall chicken?"

"I truly haven't the faintest clue. The Caiykens hadn't the faintest clue. Truth be told I'm not even sure Preeknew where that chicken came from but there it was, each feather dyed a different hue and Ayb riding it up and down the streets like a racer. I was terrified the poor girl would break her neck, but you know how the Arrapti are at festivals[2]." Rinnai shook her head.

"Forget 'blood shows', it should be 'hard work, insane play'!" Sprig added.

"Fitting, but doesn't roll off the tongue quite so well."

Terresui agreed with both sentiments. "So what happened to it?"

"Apparently it threw Ayb, which Aij claimed was 'an affront to the family', so she and Ryda teamed together to take it down. I'm not sure of the details, I had a bit too much wine and left for bed before I did something undignified."

Sprig sniggered. "Who'd you go with?"

"None of your- I mean how dare you even imply-!" Rinnai stuttered.

'Bonne?' Terresui only heard Sprig's voice in her mind[3].

'Lirai would kill her. Must be one of the Boch's.'

"I can feel you whispering." Rinnai's violet sight was nearly as sensitive as Terresui's own, which modesty aside was pretty impressive. She rolled her violet eyes and sighed. "NOT that it is ANY of your business, but it was Flita." She twirled a finger in her hair nervously.

That gave Terresui pause. "Aren't her and Clochasra..."

"Sisters!" Rinnai cried, aghast. Terresui thought she'd yank the hair from her scalp. "Really Terresui what sort of girl do you take me for?"

Time for a subject change. She grabbed Rinnai by the arm, focused on the west storage room, and in a flash they were there. She'd remembered Sprig this time. "All right Rinnai, time to start earning that consult commission. Don't want me to look bad for recommending you, do I? I mean, you. I mean... Rinnai?"

"Carrinth's Wing!" Sprig cried, seeing the problem at once. "Not on the apples!"

Teleportation was a jarring experience. If someone wasn't used to it, and if taken by surprise, it often resulted in something called translocative nausea by the academics, and flash sickness by everyone else. Next time Terresui would have to remember to give her passenger some warning in advance.

And save a barrel of apples.

"That the agricultists, who fed and equipped the entirety of Eden through tireless work ethic and prudent sense, shall be charged with the provision of the Kingdom...
-Third Societal Decree, Ladies Carrinth and Laaren.

A woman and a man stood before a large, rusted liquor still. The woman was taller and better muscled than most, hair cropped short. The sun had bleached it and darkened her skin, which was besides as dirty as the workwoman's garb she wore. The man was a giant that towered over her by more than half a metre, with arms as thick as a bear's and nearly as hairy. Dirty blonde hair to match hers fell unkempt to the collar of his sleeveless red tunic.

"Busted," Bom told her. Aij spat. A dozen patches marked the still's frame, and this was the third time in as many weeks one had started leaking vapour. The metal was too worn, the time and coin spent fixing it too high. They'd have to scrap it.

"I'll miss the old bitch." A lifetime of memories passed through her mind. "Remember that time playing hide and seek when you got stuck under her?" Her brother nodded. "And Ayb getting trapped on top trying to run when she dyed my hair blue? Or that month my entire arm was bandaged wrist to shoulder because I tried to catch myself on it when it was on?" The corner of her mouth fell. "Come to think of it, that thing's always hated us. I'll be glad to see it gone."

"Yup," Bom agreed, and walked off toward the distillery's west exit to fetch some rope and other things. Aij knew it was to fetch some rope and other things because that was what needed to be done and lay south, and Bom knew she knew because they'd grown up together, which she knew for the same reason. Aij wouldn't have normally thought any of this except she knew Rinnai would be meeting with Terresui about then, so the Lady's student was on her mind. Explaining just such an incident with Bom to Terri had been one of their more memorable conversations.

'So he didn't need to say anything because he knows you know he knows you know what he's doing,' Terresui had summarised confusingly.

'I... Think so.'

And then Terri had told her what depth of recursion was.

Aij shook her head, a wistful smile on her lips. Magi had a way of overthinking simple things so that they became complicated, and Terr was worst among them for it. But Aij hadn't wasted time spent considering that caste-race's foolishness by standing around, so when her mind left her absent friend it came to immediately appraise the four males she found sitting on the ground a short distance north of the distillery, amongst some of the fruit trees they made great vats of cider out of.

They appraised her back, with a particularly wary eye on the bullwhip at her waist. They were passing time as males were wont to do, with a large bottle of grain alcohol half-drunk between them and its empty brother laying on the grass. Three agri and a seri, unless one or more of the three was a magi too incompetent and drunk to maintain sight. Doubtful, and even if it were true she didn't think it would matter: four males and two Arrapti were enough for the job. "There's some work to be done, boys, up and at 'em."

The three agri got up quickly enough, but the winged male remained in place. "C'mon mistress," he pleaded, "we've just had a full shift harvesting. Why not take some dicks from inside?" Magi women ran the empire, but for some reason it was the seri males that gave the most lip.

"They're working. Five hours to night, harvesting starts at dawn, means by law I've got four hours of your time left. Now..." Her hand came to rest on the coiled leather at her side, which spurred him to rise with a push of his hands and a flap of his wings. Seri enjoyed that bit of show around the flightless, though it could be quite embarrassing when they bungled the maneuver by putting too much or little power in one wing. They often did this while drunk.

His companions sniggered at the flop. Red faced, he found his feet with more conventional methods. She bade them follow her. One of them fell against a tree and laughed. Another rushed back to remember the half-bottle they'd left behind. The seri kept trying, and failing, to relate a particularly long joke. Aij's whip cracked the air twice before she'd herded the males to Bom. By that time her brother had already begun draining the still, secured four ropes to a pair of sturdy rafters, tied pulleys to the still, threaded the ropes through the pulleys, thrown the ropes over two more rafters closer to the still, and begun detaching its base from the floor. The Arrapti family motto: 'Blood Shows.'

Step one: Fix ropes to statrafters
Step two: Attach pulleys to still
Step three: Thread ropes through pulleys
Step four: throw ropes over rafters

Aij helped him finish the last task, then assigned the four males to the two ropes attached to the still's left side as soon as it was drained. Herself and Bom took the right. The four males were used to hard labour and strong, but Aij was stronger still, and none of them could match Bom's power. He led the pull until they had raised it to a foot higher than the cart's deck. The males were all too drunk to be trusted, so she handed her rope to Bom. 'Depth of recursion' came to mind again as she quickly slid the cart under the boiler and rushed back to grab her rope from Bom's sweating hand. The still landed with a thud, the cart just strong enough to keep from buckling under the weight.

"Right. You," she pointed to the Seri. "Find Rey, tell her I've got some scrap for the Mellug's." Arrapti Rey was being courted by Mellug Jen, so she could probably get a good price. "Tell her that if she gets more than twenty copper a kilo I'll even let her stay in town for the night. The rest of you can get some horses and rig 'em to the cart." The males groaned, but did as they were bid. Work had done something to sober them, it seemed.

She looked at Bom, who was rubbing the soreness from one of his oversized biceps. Bom looked at her. The recursion depth stayed at ground level. "Yeah?" He asked after a moment.

"Pree'll be here soon, can you clean this up for me?" Bom nodded. Aij left him to it.

It was a ten minute walk from the whiskey distillery to the road that led to Barleytown and Pree was supposed to be arriving soon, but that girl was always either very early or very late so Aij didn't worry much. The path was well worn, but today she walked beside the hard dirt. A passing fancy struck her, the sort she would normally ignore. Pree must've been rubbing off on her early that day. She took off her boots and stood barefoot in the soft earth. Her eyes closed, her toes burrowed into the soil, and she sensed the land.

She could feel it all: The road that went from Eastabun Distillery through town and to Abun itself, the thickets lining that road until they split off where Arrapti land ended, both marking the border and acting as windbreakers for the vast fields of grains that stirred in the gentle breeze. She'd have to tell Dorn that the rye was being overwatered, then ground him a week for not noticing himself. She also felt, dimmer, the complexes of breweries and distilleries that those fields fed into, the living quarters and dinner halls, the silos and stables and the multitude of other things that kept the small town they named a distillery operating. Aside from a clear idea of Barleytown and a general sense of the great pulsating mass that was Abun, the world beyond Eastabun was unintelligibly blurred. Aij's geomancy did not seek what she didn't care about.

The almost countless acres of her family's land composed most of Barleytown's modest dimensions, and nearly half of that town's population was in her employ. Still more did most of their business providing goods and services to Eastabun and those who worked it. All told the Arrapti family produced nearly one litre in five of alcohol drank within the empire and two in five doled out as pay by the government to the males in its vast military and public works force. Their net income was equal to more than an insignificant portion of the royal treasury's. Eastabun's Arrapti were responsible for half of that, the trunk of the family tree: an old tree whose branches spread across the empire and beyond, whose roots were dug deep, whose care was entrusted to her and her alone. Aij felt soft earth between her toes, fresh air on her face, and a great oak upon her shoulders.

A young woman half-skipped down the road, loose white clothing bouncing along with her and fool's-gold rings clanking around her wrists and ankles. Her short curly hair was yellow today - not blonde, but yellow like dandelions - which made for a sunny change after the dark green it had been all last week. To each side of the road were thin thickets of fruit trees separating the fields beyond from the road. Some days Arrapti workers tended or picked them, but today it was just her and the birds and possibly a hidden sellbow or two but they only bothered you if you were sneaking or stealing and besides they knew Pree was a friend of Aij so they never bothered her even though they'd get mad at her sometimes for loudly greeting them whenever they didn't hide well enough to escape her attention. But she didn't see any archers today so she just whistled along with the birds, imitating their song. The thickets weren't deep, but they were long, going halfway back to Barleytown half an hour behind her. It either ended or began just ahead depending where you started from, but before it was in sight she heard the patter of soft shoes on hard earth and turned to see two youths running towards her.

"Pree!" The first made an elegant flying leap toward her, an earth-coloured missile in stylish silk dress.

"Swebei!" Pree spun as she grabbed the young one, a fatal error which allowed the second to tackle her exposed side. The pile of girls fell to the ground in a dusty, writhing heap. Ayb had her sister's strength and when Swebei's mouth got close enough to Pree's ears she gave a shout that left them ringing, but in the end the two children were both pinned to the ground under her. Nobody beat Pree at horseplay.

"We give!" Ayb declared after several attempts to wrench free, while Swebei just lay there gasping for air. All three wore children's smiles as Pree pulled them to their feet.

Ayb's skin was the same tanned peach of her siblings, but red pigtails and brown ringed blue eyes set her apart from the older Arrapti, even if her hair seemed a bit lighter and her eyes a bit darker than they'd been a few months ago. Her cotton clothes were way less fancy than Sweb's, but they were both just as torn and filthy as the girls were bruised and scraped. Ayb caught her breath first. "What brings you out here?"

"I need Aij's help with some shenanigans," Pree explained offhandedly.

"Good! She could do with a bit of fun. You okay Sweb?"

Swebei, bent over with her hands on her knees, raised an appeasing hand. The two agri waited until she straightened. She closed her eyes, and when they opened her green eyes had been replaced with pink. "I still have trouble with my sight," she said.

"Well you're only twelve!" Pree felt Ayb tugging on her hand, which reminded her she was already running late. She followed the girl's lead.

"Miss Terresui said she had sustainable sight when she was seven!"

"How old was Rinnai when she got susceptible sight?" Ayb asked sensibly.

"Sustainable," Swebei corrected. "Thirteen."

"Well there you go!" Pree mussed up the young magi's already hopeless hair. One problem down, one to go. She just needed to find oh there's Aij! She was walking down the path barefoot with her boots in hand. She had that troubled expression she wore too much these days, and didn't seem to see any of them until Pree waved and called her name.

Aij blinked back from wherever her thoughts had taken her, and raised her free hand to return the greeting. They ran up to meet her, Pree with long springy strides. Spring-sprinting had been difficult to learn, but definitely worth it. She skidded to a complete stop less than a metre in front of Aij, who had known her too long to flinch. "Thought I'd find you down here. Didn't expect these two though." She appraised the damage their tussle had done to the two youths. "Rinnai is gonna kill me when she sees that dress," she said wryly.

"I'm pretty sure you can take her, she's got a glass jaw." Swebei loved her sister more than most magi, which meant she'd demand a very high price before selling her to slavers.

"Glad to hear it. Now get you two." Swebei looked set to argue, but Ayb tempted her away with promises of a pond full of frogs. That sounded fun, but Aij seemed to want to speak in private. She waited until the two had crossed through the trees before speaking again. "Alright, you're here, I'm here, tell me what you wanna tell me." She turned around and began walking back to her home, Pree followed.

"I have this plan, a really good plan, but I need your help with some of it because I don't think even I can pull this off by myself."

"And by 'help' I assume you mean 'coin'." Aij's voice was tired. It was always tired.

"Well, yes," Pree admitted. "See I'm planning a party, and I was able to get all the party supplies, but I don't have enough money for a band and what's a party without music, right? So I just need a couple silver to pay the pipers." Pree chuckled at her own joke, but Aij didn't. "Okay okay, I wanted this to be a surprise, but it's actually a get together for the six of us!" She threw her hands in the air. Aij's face didn't soften.

"How do you plan for that?" She asked incredulously. "Terresui can't leave the capital for her studies, I can't leave Barleytown or even Eastabun most of the time for my work, Fessa and Ryd are off in Waste, Rinnai'll be kept busy for weeks in Domin...;"

"Fessa says they've got a few days leave coming up, so if the party's in Domin then we can all be there!" Pree raised her hands again, to the same effect as before.

"Alright, there's at least two problems with that. One: Domin is eight days travel each way. I can't be away from Eastabun for anywhere near that long. Two: Domin is expensive, Pree. I don't know if you've looked at the prices but I know you don't have the coin to rent someplace for even a night, and I can't put up family gold without a return." Aij's face went from hard to sad. Pree wanted to see it warm again, that was half the reason she was throwing the party in the first place. "I'd really like to see everybody Pree, really I would, but one of my stills just busted and with it being harvest season and all..." Aij bit her lip, eyes downcast. "Ryda and Fessa have a whack of leave coming up this winter, and I'm pretty sure Terresui can get a week or two off if she gives the Lady enough notice..."

"But I already have a place! I've been sending letters to Sprig ever since Rinnai got the offer from Terr, and he says he swung us one of the palace's banquet halls!" Aij went from sad to surprised to thoughtful, which Pree knew was progress. "Like I said I just need the silver for a band is all, and I know a girl there who used to play here so I think I can get a good deal."

"Just checking: By 'the palace' you mean the Bright Palace?"

Pree nodded. "Yep!" She was pretty proud of herself for that one, even if it had mostly been Sprig's work, she'd have to get him a big thank you gift like maybe some primo fertilizer or-

"Here's the deal." Aij had unknowingly interrupted but Pree forgave her instantly. "I'm in, but only if you add a couple names to the guest list. Maybe more than a couple."

"But, but I wanted it to just be a party for the six of us!" Pree loved meeting new people as much as the next girl okay so a WHOLE LOT MORE than the next girl probably but even she just wanted a private party now and then.

"Wish I could, Pree, but I can't just up and leave in the middle of harvest without a real good reason. Send out the invitations and not only will I pay for the band, but I'll pay for a flying litter to boot. Should cut travel time in half."

Pree pouted, but she knew she'd have to agree. She didn't really need the band, but a reunion with only five of them wouldn't be much of a reunion at all. "Fine," she acquiesced without much delay. "Who do you want me to invite?"

"That males, whose avarice and brutality led to the turmoil that preceded Our rule, be placed on the lowest rung of society, to be used regardless of race in whichever way is seen fit, and that the lowest agricultist woman shall be above the highest magister male."
-Fourth Societal Decree, Ladies Carrinth and Laaren

Nour did not need a light. His complexion was so dark as to be nearly pitch, intense eyes fiery amber, features hard and strong. From an early age he had displayed a fondness of the night, most at home when surrounded by the darkness others shied from. The crescent moon of the Night Guard adorned his breastplate, scratched and faded though it was.

Behind him trailed others, some of whom needed torches they dare not light. They stumbled and cursed while following those who like Nour were more comfortable under the moon than the sun. This was the third night they had spent travelling through Wild. How many days or weeks that equated to in the precise cycle of Eden was beyond him, but they were nearly out of rations now. His head ached with tremendous pain, but he hardly noticed. Wild was not part of the Illian Empire and never would be, despite having a direct link to that nation's capital realm: it was a place anathema to the illian race. Seri wings betrayed them, magi sight blinded them, and trying to sense Wild through agri geomancy was like trying to gather a clear image from a thousand shards of warped mirror strewn across the floor, but more painful. Few agri could even try to look at it for long. Charting maps was beyond question. The Shining Lady had made a few peace agreements with the creatures that called this place home, then turned her attention to riper prospects without second thought.

Nour was a gifted geomancer, but he had no clearer image of Wild than the Empire had managed. It wasn't a clear map that drew him forward, but rather a sense of summoning. They had made more turns than he cared to recall, often doubling back, but at no point did his purpose leave him. Those behind him had been at first swayed by his promises of a holy quest, then began to doubt his sanity, then resigned themselves to following this mad prophet when they knew they'd be beheaded for desertion if they returned to Eden. Besides that, in the unknowable time since they'd first stepped foot into the realm, not a single of Wild's numerous predators had attacked them. Whether that was due to divine intervention or a more mundane cause, none had any misapprehensions about faring so well on a trip back.

Nour had no illusions that their fear would outlive their rations, but he was not concerned. He knew he was close, though he felt no closer than when he first entered the realm. Not until he ducked under the thousandth branch he had traveled beneath that night and walked into a clearing like the many others they had seen. It was there, in that unassuming place, that his destination lay. When he stopped so did the others. Two seri, a man and a woman, dropped their packs in preparation to make camp, but he halted them with a raised finger. All looked at him with what little hope they had remaining.

They were seven in total, which was a very auspicious number he thought. The two Seri were named Janto and Yira. They were identical in pitch skin and green eyes, even their height and stern faces were so similar it was difficult to tell them apart. Naturally two so alike in mind were very close, though Nour didn't believe the rumours that they were lovers: Yira was not so perverse as to take a male to her bed. The Rocciri Siv, Sav, and Sov were triplet agri: Siv a tall short haired woman of dark eyes and skin, Sav lighter and shorter but with the same eyes, and Sov the shortest of the three with fair skin and red hair salted with white. Last was the bald oakskin Ruloi, whose beard had gone to grey. Being the only man Nour had known to make officer rank, he'd assumed their cause lost when the dutiful confronted them sneaking out of Southwatch. But the man'd had no guards by his side, and only let the deserters squirm for a few seconds before revealing his intent to join them.

Sov was the first of the three others to notice. "A link," he breathed, and his siblings moved forward until they too could sense it. Nour himself had not known of its existence until a few moments ago, hidden in a way Wild did not hide things.

"Looks like the voice in your head led us true."

"It's not a voice," Nour corrected Siv for the dozenth time, "But yes. This is where we are meant to be."

He could not tell when Ruloi's eyes switched from green to yellow, but he must have reactivated his sight because he said the following: "Carrinth cast an illusion spell here." The group's attention now turned to him, and he shrugged. "Nobody else could have cast a spell like it, trust me. Wild's magic tears at our like coyotes at a carcass, but this thing's been here for years and all I can see are a few frayed threads."

Nour wasn't surprised. It was only natural She would not want this place found. Steeling himself for what might come, he walked into the next realm.

With each step, the world blurred. The temperature dropped. The earth beneath his feet seemed to shift; now leafy forest floor, now hard dirt, now the crunch of snow. His surroundings faded from green to ghostly pale, bright fields of it as far as the eye could see. When he had walked about the distance from the small clearing's edge to its centre, he was in the realm Carrinth had tried to secret away. It was night here as well, as he knew it had always been. The ghostly fields were of course the seemingly endless expanse of snow that covered everything. The air nipped at his cheeks, but did not bite: He would not die of the cold soon. He raised his eyes to the sky, and could not stifle the gasp.

It was the night sky as it was supposed to be. Instead of a pale yellow crescent, the moon was a great silver disc that shone down like a sun past dusk, turning the whole world its cold but soft hue. The sky was not studded with a few constellations and some lonestars between them, but a dark canvas bejewelled with a thousand thousand glittering diamonds. They were a sea with beautiful reefs and great rivers of current running through them, beyond counting and beyond compare.

When finally he tore his eyes from the sight, he noticed his companions had joined him. Sov stared upward with the same look of wonder Nour must have worn, but the rest had more practical concerns on their mind. "Sky's pretty, but it's the ground you should be concerned with," Siv told him. She had tucked her hands under her arms for warmth. "Try sensing."

He did. Then did again to the same effect. It was then he realised that Yira and Janto were not beating their wings to keep the blood flowing, and the looks of distress were not from the cold. "Ruloi?"

The magi's yellow sight was turned sterling in the moon's rays. He surveyed the land with a much calmer disposition than Nour felt. "Land's dead," he confirmed. His eyes returned to a sightless state. "At least as far as I can see." He turned around to speak to the two seri, who were shuddering with strain. Yira's toes still brushed the ground, and Janto had gotten no higher. "You two can stop that now, you'll just wear out your own stores." After a moment, they did.

"So how do you plan to guide us now?" That was Sav.

Nour turned to the blanket of snow that lay before them. "The same as I always have." It had never been geomancy that propelled him. He resumed the journey, and the six behind continued to follow. Siv came to his side.

"I don't mean to critique a goddess, but maybe she could have told us how bloody cold it would be?"

Nour smiled. Seven walked across that beautiful graveyard. No new snow fell to cover their tracks, nor did any animals sound or any winds blow. Each caste-race was represented, but in a realm without magic there was little difference between them. These things also made Nour smile. When he stopped again this time, nobody moved to set up camp. Ruloi's eyes regained their sight. "Well," he deadpanned. "Looks like we found her. What now?" Suddenly, Nour realised that he hadn't actually thought about how he'd go about releasing the Dark Lady from Her sister's bindings.

'Fear not,' said the voice in his head. 'For We shall provide instruction.'

Shit. Siv would never let him hear the end of it.