The death of Minister Ulmin had General Leaman on edge. ‘Could my Prince have really done this?’ It was an uncomfortable question. ‘Under different circumstances, I would think of the foreign gash that screwed his wife but… she has nothing to gain from it. Nobody knew of his intent toward her but he and I. And as I am still alive, I must not have been targeted. Besides, how could she have gotten from her home to that estate and back again? Lodira took hours and it wore out her and the horse alike.’ He dismissed the foreigner as a suspect easily enough and sat down at his desk.

From his desk he took out a piece of formal parchment, and then his quill and ink were brought closer. What he had to write was simple. ‘To the Tlalmok Ambassador, who bears the natural order in all things under the laws of heaven, I send greetings… and information for your discretion.’

He then wrote of the death of the Tlalmok merchant as it was relayed to him. ‘With a little luck, he’ll send that onto the Tlalmok, their bureaucracy is thick, but it’s only a matter of time.’ General Leamon let the ink dry, then folded the document, placed his seal on it, and summoned a messenger. ‘Now my will is done. Even if she comes for me one day, I will have killed her.’

It was a satisfying enough feeling that he couldn’t help but take himself to the baths to reward himself, and he felt every bit as good as he hoped, for the rest of the day.

The Contessa Lodira had no idea how long she was in her room, it felt like forever, the half elf twins would visit her now and again to see to her needs, but it was painfully clear to her that her luxuriant quarters were not in any sense ‘optional’. The dark purple sheets and soft mattress were a cold comfort, a comfort that was not warmed by the thick blankets provided to her.

She looked at the tray of food that sat next to the bed, better food nobody outside of a royal house would eat, but to her it might as well have been rotten. Fresh fire roasted tomatoes, thick meaty stew made out of the fattiest beef and fresh, piping hot bread with a drizzling of butter and a thick garlic smell wafting from it… it felt almost sinful not to eat it. But she could not. She simply lay on the bed with her hands folded over her belly and stared up at the stone ceiling. ‘They can’t believe I did it. Surely my Rasgy doesn’t believe I had anything to do with it…?’ She immediately dismissed the notion, knowing it would occur again later, as it had already come and gone a dozen times.

She could hear the shouting about the city as word of the massacre spread. She knew as she turned her face to one side to look out of the window through which daylight shone to caress her resting place that she should have felt guilt. Not over the death of her husband and his household, but over her actual feelings about it. ‘I shouldn’t be glad he’s dead… but… I’m free.’ She glanced at the door out of the corner of her eye, then back to the window, ‘Sort of free, that is.’ She bit her lip, ‘Was it so wrong, what I wanted? Why did any of that have to happen? If I had just… if Rasgen had just stated his intent when we were young then maybe…?’ She cursed the what ifs that haunted her silent minutes even more than she cursed the husband whose death now brought her out of one hell and into another.

She fidgeted with the dress she now wore, though of fine make, being solid green silk that was slit at the thighs, it felt confining in the extreme, like the room itself.

She sought distraction, and picked up a book from a nearby shelf. A popular romance of a traveling hero and a slave he acquired, it had been a gift to her from Sobella, the former slave had always joked that she was the author and it was based on her life with Prince Rasgen. The Contessa tried to read it, but that knowledge only depressed her more. “Sobella, if you were here…” Lodira trailed off on that useless thought. The Prince had sent her away, and that knowledge terrified her, even if Sobella had gone willingly, even if there had been no choice… part of her comfort in the arms of Prince Rasgen was the sense of power and safety he exuded. Now… she stared out the window and wondered why she ever felt that way.

She was still wondering that way when the Prince entered the room, his face was agonized, twisted. He came to the side of her bed where she lay still, and knelt there. His hands came up and clasped one of her own, he drew it away from where it was folded over her belly, bringing it close, he kissed the back of her hand. “Loddy, my Loddy… people think you did this… but I know… I know you didn’t.”

She looked at him, her hazel eyes as shining pools, “You know how little that matters, we have enough friends that I’ll never be publicly accused, but my life… my life as I knew it is over. It’s so… so stupid. He’d have died in a few years, maybe a month or two, given his age. Why would I kill him?!” She exclaimed in a tiny, cracked voice.

“I had nothing to gain… but that doesn’t matter, does it? You’re done with me, and I’m done here… my family will make me come home… and what will father do…?” Lodira asked with dread and shaking lips, “my whole reason for him marrying me off to your advisor was… well our city needed these ties… now nobody will want me… or at least even those who want me, won’t trust me. What good am I as a noblewoman now…?!”

Prince Rasgen gave her hand a squeeze, and he kept squeezing, over and over again, matching the rate of her beating heart. “Just… just stay with me, let me stay here… a little while. Could you… could you…” She looked at him bitterly through fluttering, shaking lips, “if you care about me, maybe pay someone to marry me? A good dowry might keep my family at bay… please…”

Rasgen didn’t answer, all he did was continue to squeeze her hand while he struggled like a knight errant on a quest, to find some worthwhile words to give her.

“That doesn’t make you feel any guilt? Not even a little?” Sobella asked, struggling to understand ‘why’ she was asking or what she was even hoping to hear from the curious escort she’d found herself sharing a horse with.

“No. None.” Nua shrugged, “I didn’t force them to go to war, to seek conflict, to trade in lives. I didn’t conceive of Prince Sado’s dreams, nor did I make him too inept to bring you all around to it. I also didn’t force your Prince to side against his friend, or your cities to reject him. You all did that yourselves. I am guilty of…” Sobella listened to the cold recitation of Nua’s declaration of her nonresponsibility, only to feel the stirrings of shock when her escort began to declare misdeeds of her own. “I’m guilty of a lot of things. Things I never imagined myself capable of, I have enough of my own sins to live with, I don’t need to bear those of others too.”

Sobella could think of nothing to say in response, and wondered idly, ‘How long till my letter reaches Rasgen? How will he respond to it? How is he doing at all? Has he chosen a bride? Is he already setting me aside?’ She turned her head and looked behind them at the growing distance between herself and her life of relative safety.

“It won’t do you any good.” Nua said with her eyes scanning the horizon in front of them, the tiny thuds of horse hooves scattered little dust clouds far below.

“I’m sorry, what?” Sobella asked, turning to face the way ahead again.

“It won’t do you any good, looking back that way, I mean.” Nua spoke with a soothing tongue, and though Sobella could not see her escort’s face, she could hear the hint of sadness that underlay it all. “It may seem beautiful, but that kind of thinking will only lead to these last days being bitter. I know what it means to say goodbye to someone you’re not ready to let go of, and I can tell you from experience, you don’t want to dwell on that.”

Sobella absorbed that unexpected and unlooked for advice, then faced forward. Nua’s head didn’t move, she sat as stiff and stern as Sobella had come to expect, yet the advice passed on didn’t fit. It would be fair to say that she felt the conflict nagging at the back of her mind for quite some time as the day wore on.

Nua felt the touch come unexpectedly, Sobella’s chin sliding forward over Nua’s armored shoulder and coming to rest there. “Sobella…?” Nua raised a golden eyebrow.

The demon elf woman rubbed the horn at the side of her head, against Nua’s jaw. A knowing smile forming over her lips while she displayed that little physical affection and tightened her hold around Nua’s waist.

“I was just thinking something… something very nice about you.” Sobella said generously, snuggling up a little closer.

“Well… that’s good, I suppose.” Nua replied in bafflement. “Is that why you’re rubbing your horn bone against my face?” It was difficult for her to keep either her discomfort or her amusement repressed, and it was clear Sobella could tell.

The demon-elf woman removed her discomfiting closeness and replied in turn, “Yes, it’s just that I noticed that you don’t really enjoy cruelty. I’m sure it’s no secret to you that we had some of your slaves spoken to after you came back alive. And of course, we saw what was left of the man who infuriated my mate and destroyed my life. You may do cruel things, but you had to learn it. Given a choice, you’re kind of sweet, really.” A coy smile formed on Sobella’s face, “That’s a big relief to me, if you want the truth.”

Nua snorted, “Sweet. I haven’t been called that in I don’t know how many years.”

All conversation halted, Nua felt her companion go completely stiff as they crested a low rise and saw the great open lands in the distance. Laid out before them, the road reached a single small fort of stone. “There it is… the place we call ‘Penitent’s Pass’.”

To call the place a ‘fort’ was almost a mockery of the term, there was no ‘wall’ really, just a series of guiding points that led to a large building constructed out of great megalithic blocks of red stone. Around various points, several beastmen stood by looking bored out at the lands of the east.

“Why do they call it that?” Nua asked, taking in the wide open plain in front of them.

“Because…” Sobella choked up, her voice caught in her throat, and it was all she could do not to cry, she pressed her forehead into the golden strands that cascaded down the back of Nua’s head. “Because those who come that far, to that place, regret that they were ever born.”

“Yes… I suppose they would.” Nua said, hushed as she looked the mockery over. ‘I see. They’re confident nobody will invade, so all they have is a processing place for sacrifices to send west. No fort really, just a few paper pushers. I’ll have to remember that. It’ll be useful information in about eight years when I come this way again. The confidence of the weak who think they are the strong.’

Despite Sobella’s despondent state, Nua looked on the works of the mighty Tlalmok, and felt no despair. Only eagerness. Bearmen walked idly, passing the time and watching bored and indifferent beyond the border. One hand drifted to her knives, caressing them with trembling fingers while she counted all the ways she knew to kill them. She was shaken out of her reverie when Sobella spoke.

“It’s… it’s time.” Sobella whimpered out and reached behind her into the pack dangling from the side of the horse. She drew a white covering with nothing but a hole for the head to pass through, and brought it down over herself, the front and back had the emblem of a tooth dripping blood, the standard of the God-Emperor.

‘So they will know who she belongs to.’ Nua felt the disgust well up in her again, and for a moment, she hesitated to take the one Sobella offered.

“Please…” Sobella mouthed and reached around to drop one like her own in between Nua’s legs so that it draped over the horse and saddle. “Please!” She mouthed again, more heavily enunciated than before.

Nua finally nodded and snatched it away, she flung it swiftly over herself as Sobella had just done. She wore a grimace as she did it, but kept it out of Sobella’s eyes, not wishing to burden her with worse than she already endured.

Before urging her horse forward again, Nua turned around and caught Sobella’s dark purple cheek with the touch of her cursing hand. “You represent Pas’en, and Prince Rasgen… remember that. And if that doesn’t help, as long as I am with you, you are safe.”

Sobella gave a fragile, shaking smile and forced herself to straighten up, her hold on Nua’s waist relaxed and ceased to be a full embrace. Instead it was only two hands lightly resting on the base of Nua’s thighs. Sobella took one long, deep sniffle, then gave a sharp nod. “Go on, I’m ready.”

Nua lightly tapped her heels into the dark flanks of her horse, and the plod became a dignified trot that caught the eyes of the beastmen at the border.

They scrambled into positions, aligning themselves by a pair of large wooden posts in double lines. Nua furrowed her brow, black and brown bearmen, and at the end, a large pandaman, all stood straight, towering over her.

As the horse drew closer, Nua understood why an expensive warhorse was being used… ‘Nothing less than a warhorse would be willing to go a step closer.’ She thought and clenched her jaw.

Finally a few feet before the path made between the two ranks, she saw a large wooden yoke hefted overhead at the start and finish of the row.

With nothing else for it, Nua rode forward, eyeing the ravenous stares and almost ‘lecherous’ looks, not with fear, but with a hungry stare of her own.

‘Are you hungry, partner?’ Yersin asked, ‘Say the word, and I’ll feast first, then you can come to my cottage and feast on what I prepare for you!’

‘Thank you, but there’s nothing as savory as the kill you make yourself.’ Nua answered, and she could practically feel his agreeing nod from within his realm.

It did at least throw them for a loop, to see the hungry look in the elven eyes that glowed with a very faint, golden light.

She passed to the other side beneath the yoke, and stopped her horse before the pandaman. Up close she could see he wore nothing but a single badge with a red tooth and a gold tooth with the base capped with a white crown.

“You’re the commander?” Nua asked rhetorically while jerking her head back behind her toward Sobella. “I’m the escort, I’m bringing this one to the emperor as his tribute.”

The Pandaman held out his massive paw, “How nice, a demon-elf, I’ve heard they’re utterly succulent…” He licked his lips, “but that wood elves are almost as good to eat… how about you let us take her in, and you… you join us for dinner here?”

Nua watched the corners of its mouth pull back and its palm come up and open, offered out to her like he was granting her a great kindness.

Fear. Sobella felt it rage through her like a roaring flood from the moment she saw the very first beastman. The bearmen with long claws, thick fur, and a hungry look in beady eyes. Her breathing quickened and she clung more tightly to her escort, her arms wrapped tightly as they could around Nua's slender waist. The bearmen guards felt her fear, savored it, and licked their lips as if to torment her when she looked over her escort's shoulder. She felt her body try to shrink down to hide itself, the warmth of her escort being the only thing to give her courage.

So it had gone, until they reached the end.

Confronted by the predator beast, Nua seemed utterly nonplussed, no more than she had been when confronting the bear on their first night together. If anything, she felt something else off her escort. Something wholly unexpected. 'Contempt.' Nua's head was held high and she looked down her nose at the bearman from atop her horse, the way some lords looked at beggars in the street. "Captain Aiwenor of the one god’s great empire, bearing the tribute to the Tlalmok emperor as a favor to her hosts in Pas’en, has no time for the company of peasants." She said and casually reached into her saddlebag to draw out the letter from the prince. Nua handed the document over to the pandaman who looked at her in turn like she was a strange and unfamiliar creature. Numb with rage or disbelief, he nonetheless took the letter.

Nua stared at him with icy calm, the golden eyes pulsed like twin beating hearts. As her words sank into his thick skull, his eyes filled with rage.

“Careful… meat. Or I’ll find out if you taste as good as you talk. Maybe I’ll start with that insolent tongue.” The pandaman cracked his knuckles with a flexing of clawed hands.

Nua’s hand went smoothly to her bone hilted dagger, “I’ve never had any complaints about my flavor… but having tasted one of your idiot cousins across the border just a day or two ago, I’ll bet you taste better than I do.”

Nua then gave her lips a long, slow, almost sensuous lick and stared at the pandaman from atop her horse like he was a fresh kill waiting to be eaten.

‘Of all the bad beginnings to going over the border… this is perhaps the second worst I imagined…’ Sobella thought as the two stared one another down.