The Imperial City came like a storm: winds to herald its approach, shadows to darken the land, and clouds to carry it onward.

On the grassy knoll below rode two dozen servants, soldiers, and scribes in the green and silver of Mydea’s house. We must look like ants to them, if they care to spot us at all that is, she thought.

“We’ve arrived just in time,” her twin brother, Aspyr, said with a grin. “I told you, didn’t I?”

Mydea rolled her eyes, stroking the white coat of her pegasus, Snowscorn. “You rode us hard to do so. We could have avoided some pain if we left a day earlier, as Grandmother advised you to.” It would’ve been a disaster to miss the Imperial City sailing over the horizon after they’d ridden so far south to seek an audience with the Empress.

“This was always a gamble. We’re here all the same now, and that’s what matters,” Aspyr said, urging his pegasus downhill with his legs.

Mydea kept pace with him, while the rest of the party followed after their lord and his standard—a jagged shield with ashen wings stretching to either side.

“Ah, it seems Lord Principal Black’s men have finally noticed us,” Aspyr said.

Coming up the road was a knight in glittering silver, proudly bearing the skull on black of their liege. A half dozen squires and mages-at-arms rode with him.

Mydea sighed. “I was hoping they wouldn’t.” It was impossible not to run into a patrol of course, these lands being so close to his keep, but a part of her had hoped they could slip by without incident. Even ignoring the stream of merchants and messengers flowing to and fro, they were hardly the only lords making their way to the Imperial City of Aelisium after all.

Aspyr raised a fist, bringing their party to a halt, and waited patiently for the knight to reach them. “I doubt Lord Black has much room for us in his thoughts.”

“It’s not him I worry about, but his daughters,” Mydea said, brown fingers brushing aside a lock of hair from obstructing her line of sight. “You know they hate us.”

“Only Vivyan does, really,” Aspyr said. He shared all her features, and diverged only in how he preferred his hair styled. While Mydea’s flowed down her back in waves, Aspyr kept his short and trimmed. “Besides, the Empress is near and I am still a lord. They wouldn’t dare do anything improper.”

That still leaves so many things they could do, she thought. Her green eyes creased ever so slightly as Lord Black’s men reached them.

The knight made a show of squinting at their sigil, before peering at them one by one. It was utterly ridiculous.

Sir Alexios, the captain of their guards, moved forward. “Our master is the Lord External of House Kolchis,” he declared. “Let us through.”

A mistake, Mydea knew, and an opening.

“I know of no house external by the name Kolchis,” the knight said with a nasty grin. He turned to his companions. “Has Lord Eminent Pleonexia named one recently?”

Aspyr remained quiet on his saddle. It would be beneath his dignity to speak with a mere knight, but it did not escape her how his fingers brushed against the hilt of their mother’s sword. For a heartbeat, she feared steel would be drawn in anger as had often been the case at the athenaeum...

“You play word games!” Alexios said. Mydea could hear the scowl in his words.

Still, she breathed a little easier when Aspyr’s hand remained still.

“No games, sir,” the knight said. “I say only what I know to be true: that there is no house external by that name.”

Lord Black’s retainer chose his words with care, speaking no falsehood, yet refusing them reasonable courtesy. He clearly knew who they were, but was using an excuse to not identify them. Captain Alexios would rather die than shame their house by declaring them a house nominal. Even worse, Lord Eminent Pleonexia never left hot iron unstruck, and such a public admittal would be touted as proof that Kolchis was a house external by his warrant and not longstanding tradition.

The day could only end in one of three ways: an ignoble return home that their vassals would see as weakness, a ruinous war, or the dangerous gamble that was duelling.

Mydea cared for none of these, and since her brother could not act, she would act for him.

“Have the hystors not taught you your sigils, sir?” she asked with a sweet smile.

The knight narrowed his eyes. “They did.”

“Clearly not well enough then. The house of your lord and mine are both sworn to the same man. Our lands are not even so far apart, yet you act as if we are strangers,” Mydea said. “The Thalassian Athenaeum will be distraught to learn they’ve failed one of their students so.”

The man’s neck had turned a deep shade of purple as his veins popped out. Still, he dug his heels in his silence.

Mydea’s smile grew wider. Did the man think shame her only weapon? Blame was always useful, though perhaps not the best here. A lowly knight would not dare act like this without some backing. “My brother is Lord Aspyr of House Kolchis. Lord Black was there when my brother succeeded our mother, and swore his oaths to Lord Pleonexia. Shall you need time to ask him yourself?”

“That won’t be necessary,” the man said quickly. “That would be the House Nominal Kolchis, correct?”

Stubborn, aren’t we? “Do you really not know your sigils?” she asked again. “There are less than a hundred people who may call themselves lords in the Deeplands, and there are no other houses like ours.”

His trap cracked wide open, the knight could do little else but nod his head and step aside.

It was not a total victory, but their path to the Imperial City was now unimpeded and without loss of face.

The further they rode into Aelisium’s shadow, the more soilborn peasants they saw hard at work gathering an early harvest. They always made a tidy sum selling to the merchants of the city. After all, whoever heard of a city that did not need for more food? One of the larger villages they passed was host to a stewardess of an Imperial Palace even, judging by the star and storm displayed on her surcoat. The village headsman and the bureaucrat appeared to reach a price both were happy with, for a glow suffused the nearby storehouse.

In the next moment, she heard voices filled with fear and wonder that the food had just vanished before their eyes.

They used Appropriation, she concluded. Empress Alcymede had taken their lord’s younger brother as one of Her princely consorts, so of course House Pleonexia made their signature spell available to Her.

The spell was an impressive sight even for those of them who had graduated from an athenaeum. To the soilborn who toiled much and grasped little, it must have seemed a divine act.

“We’re close enough to ascend,” her brother judged, pointing to their destination: not Aelisium itself, but one of the ancillary clouds that kept position relative to it.

Sir Alexios began barking out orders. Only half their party had winged mounts, so those without would have to await their return in one of the villages.

Beneath her, Snowscorn flexed her powerful wings in a burst of movement. “A little longer,” Mydea said softly.

She whinnied.

“Your pegasus grows impatient,” Aspyr said. “We shall leave the logistics to you, Captain Alexios. Join us when you can.”

“My lord—”

Whatever their poor captain wanted to say was cut off as both their pegasi broke out into a gallop. White wings longer than she was tall unfolded, and with three powerful flaps, Mydea was sunward bound. Their escorts took several seconds longer to become airborne, and if Snowscorn wasn’t inclined to wait, they’d have been left far behind. As it was, Snowscorn contented herself with leading the flock.

The rhythmic beat of wings, the feel of suborned winds against her skin, the thrill of the ascent … it was nearly perfect. A damn shame Aelisium blots out the sun, she thought, keeping a gentle, but firm grasp on the reins.

Unimpeded by wind or witchery, they arrived at the summit before long.

For a castle on a cloud, the dry air was a surprise, though the cold western breeze pushing the city along was not.

Mydea swung one foot around so that she was seated side saddle, then testingly stepped on the ground. To her delight, the pavement was soft, springy, and most assuredly solid—not mere vapor. It was silly of Mydea to worry—she’d never heard of someone falling out of the Imperial City before ... someone who wasn’t pushed off that is.

There were a dozen of them all in all, and including Captain Alexios only half were guards. Three servants came along too, as well as a scribe in case anything needed recording.

A stablehand came by offering to settle Snowscorn, and Mydea accepted only out of propriety. Still, she kept an eye on him to ensure it was done properly, even as her brother spoke to a man clad in burnished bronze. The golden star marked him as an officer of the gatekeepers to Aelisium, through whom all people—from skyborn royalty to strawborn commoners—passed. Only the Empress, and those in Her presence, were permitted to land within the city proper instead of a subordinate cloud.

The people of the Imperial City, at least, seemed above petty regional squabbles as passage was given before long. A drawbridge was lowered from Aelisium proper, though it sloped upwards due to the difference in elevation.

“Mind your steps, my lady,” a gatekeeper said as she walked past.

The bridge was ten men abreast so there was little chance of falling. Nevertheless, Mydea couldn’t help but peek over the edge. Ants indeed, she confirmed for herself as she traced the people below with her eyes.

Then they were through the gates and the greying marble walls, and Mydea gasped.

A hundred thousand souls lived in open defiance of nature from the fair-skinned Syngians to the duskier tones of Old Ilyos and every shade in between. Knights in polished silver patrolled the air, gleaming like stars in the sun’s light. Pennants of a hundred houses found perch in every high place, perpetually aflutter with the wind, and even without. In the distance was the Starlight Tower, and all of them lived in its shade.

“Do you remember when we last saw this place?” Aspyr asked.

“How could I forget?” she said. They had just turned seven when their Grandmother brought them to meet the Empress. “If I recall, we didn’t spend much time in the city.”

“We didn’t spend any time in the city,” Aspyr said. “Grandmother rushed us to the palace, then rushed us back home.”

“We ought to seize the opportunity present then. Shall we be on our way?”

Aspyr nodded, looking every which way before gesturing with a hand to one of the wider roads. “I think that ought to bring us to a main thoroughfare, and we’ll find our way towards the palace from there.”

As they walked, it seemed to her that the ground here was more solid than where they’d landed. She let out a jolt of magic from her feet, snaking it beneath the pavement where it found soil. I suppose it’s comforting, she thought, that the palace’s foundations are more than mere air.

Her ears picked up on a rhythmic clanging and chanting that grew louder with each step. The road was lined on either side with runesmiths and enchanters, and above the din of their work was a deep, familiar booming born of artificers and arrogance. The wind shifted, and the scent of the city morphed from a pleasant, earthy tone like fresh rain to one of smoke and sacrifice.

“It almost reminds me of the athenaeum, except with more everything,” Mydea said to her brother.

Aspyr nodded, looking every which way, before pointing out a tower plastered over with white lime and bearing the sign of the hystors: a hexagram drawn with a single stroke instead of two overlapping triangles. “That would be because we are near the Aelisian Athenaeum.”

Her brother’s sense of direction proved a steady guide, and soon the street intersected with an even busier road, one filled with laden wagons. Some of the carriages even moved without the aid of any beast of burden!

The press of bodies did not abate as they strayed further from the athenaeum, much to Captain Alexio’s chagrin as he ordered the guards to ring around them. Still, it was hardly a surprise that the stalls and stores here proved more robust considering the variety of goods and good foods on display. The fruits alone numbered more than all the trinkets near the athenaeum. Apples, pears, and grapes from the Everbloom, coconuts from the southern beaches, and even pickled mangoes from the Primemarch, a region on the opposite end of the Empire that she’d only ever read about.

Yet despite all that was there to witness, everywhere she looked were people going about their daily business and heedless of the impossibility that was their reality. She pitied them, for familiarity with Aelisium had robbed them of all awe. Was there anything left in this world that might make their hearts leap?

“Ah, it would be splendid to live here with all the creature comforts one could dream of,” Aspyr said.

Mydea grinned as she was served a pickled mango on a stick. “Are you thinking of joining Her Highness’ harem?”

“She has many consorts already,” Aspyr said.

“I’m sure they can find room for one more.” She took a dainty bite of the yellow-green fruit and her face scrunched from the sourness. Mydea forced it down her throat. “Besides, there would be plenty of death and duels about to keep you entertained too.” Life in the capital was not any less dangerous than on the Empire's edges, just dangerous in different ways.

“I would hardly be able to keep my lordship if she were to take me,” Aspyr mused. “Well, I suppose that’s fine. I have you as my heir after all.”

“Already planning to leave all the work to me I see,” Mydea said.

He shot her a dazzling smile. “That’s what siblings are for. Alas, such talk is senseless. Her Highness would benefit little from having me.”

“Perhaps one of her kin will take a liking to you. I believe Princess Mirah is nearly twenty,” Mydea said.

“Dreaming is free,” Aspyr said. “How about you?”

She snorted. “My chances are slimmer than yours, I think, unless I happen to stumble upon an errant prince. Would that he could fall in love with me after a glance, or an act of kindness?” That sounded like the plot of one of those novelettes her sister liked.

The reasons that made marriage to the Empress improbable were the very same reasons that made any marriage between the Empress’ kin and House Kolchis unlikely. If it’d been during the reign of their Grandfather, certainly ... or even during their Mother’s time over a decade ago, when their status as a house external was not yet thrown into question…

Mydea shook her head. It was pointless to dwell on the days of yore when there were present concerns to sort out.

From the corner of her eye, she spied on a woman drawing water from a well. Is it sourced from the cloud it floats on? she wondered.

Edifices on raised plateaus or flattened hills dominated the skyline in every direction, from the Starlight Tower where the Empress held court to the Imperial Athenaeum where Her kin learned the mysteries of magic. Kept separate from the athenaeum itself was the Archive and its great glass dome—which was an oddity. Mydea did not know of any other athenaeum that stored its grimoires so far from the school itself.

The crowds distilled the closer they were to the palace, but somewhat paradoxically, the more stalls and shops could be found. That was until one realized the things being peddled were worth a sum well beyond most of the strawborn commoners. No, this section of the market catered almost exclusively to the stoneborn aristocrats who flocked to Her Highness and Her kin like clockwork.

Finally, they stood before the palace itself and its gate of flawless white platinum. Those that barred their path were unlike the city’s gatekeepers for each bore a mark of nobility next to their white star, and were encased almost entirely in runesteel—a ruinous luxury for most houses.

The noblewoman in charge hailed from the neighboring isles of Nysia though she spoke the High Speech without an audible accent, and knew their sigil by sight. “The House of Kolchis,” she said, nodding amiably to them. “Might I ask what business you have here?”

“We come to greet Her Highness, Empress Alcymede, and seek an audience,” Aspyr said, stepping forward.

“I regret to inform you that the Empress will not be holding court for a fortnight,” the knight said. “You are welcome to stay in the Imperial Palace if you should like to wait until then.”

Mydea’s brows furrowed.

“That is unfortunate,” Aspyr said. “A moment please.” He stalked back towards her, green eyes narrowed with worry.

“This seems out of character for Her Highness,” Mydea murmured. It was a long time to go without accepting audiences, especially when Her Highness was known to hold one each week. Might it have something to do with the search for a consort?

Aspyr bobbed his head. “It feels as if the fates conspire against us. Still, we cannot turn back now that we are committed. Too many people have seen us, and Lord Pleonexia is wise enough to suspect our plan.”

“But two weeks?” Mydea asked. “Two weeks at the very least? There’s no certainty we would receive an audience as soon as Her Highness is available, and even if we did, Aelisium would’ve drifted so far west that at minimum we’d have to add another week to our journey home. We cannot possibly leave Kolchis unattended for so long. Grandmother is too sick to rule for you anymore, and Father would not be listened to.”

“I know! I know.” Aspyr sighed. “You do not have to remind me of our recalcitrant subjects and how long they’ve shirked their taxes. My absence will incite their spirits into further rebellions.”

If the Empress would acknowledge them as a house external, they could borrow Her power to bring the disobedient back in line. Their liege would either have to back Her or break with Her, but by then it would not matter. The former would see their rights restored—which would be well worth any reasonable punishment he might concoct for going around him—and the latter would leave him too occupied to do them harm in the immediate sense.

It was desperation that had driven them to this ploy, but what other choice was there when the man continued to deny them their due? Each day of delay chipped at their ability to defend the edge of the Empire. Was House Kolchis to wither on the vine?

“Damn that man,” Aspyr cursed in a low voice. “I am already of age, and he continues to find excuses to not acknowledge me. How does he expect Kolchis to see off the Tuskar Tribes if he hobbles me so?”

Perhaps he doesn’t, Mydea thought grimly. “He is paying us back for our grandfather’s slights against his father.” Yet … if her brother could not act, she would act for him.

Brother sighed again. “At least you are with me. We will handle this like we always have: together.”

“Perhaps not,” Mydea said. She swallowed. “Send me back to rule in your place.”

Aspyr’s brow rose. “Explain.”

“You must stay here, and keep trying for an audience. As the Lord of Kolchis, only you can do this,” she said. “So send me back. I am our mother’s daughter. Our vassals, those of them that keep faith with us, will heed me.” With each word Mydea spoke, her heart pounded louder and louder against her ears.

Would he trust me with this? she thought. He might not, for there had never been a need before, and who among the stoneborn had not heard of jealous siblings and greedy kin grasping at one’s inheritance? They’d certainly been no strangers to the idea growing up. Several seconds passed in silence.

Then Aspyr unhooked the scabbard from his belt. “Take it,” he said.

“What are you doing?” Mydea asked even as she breathed out in relief. “This is our mother’s sword, and you are the lord of our house. It belongs with you.” She had never been the better sorcerer between the two of them either.

“Will anyone sworn to us doubt you speak for me if you have this by your side?” he asked. Aspyr pressed it into her hands. “Take it. One more sword will do me no good when I already have six here,” he said, gesturing to Captain Alexios and the other guards.

Mydea nodded slowly.

“It’s time, I think, that we emulate the words of House Pleonexia,” Aspyr said. “We’ll have our due.”