Rasgen sat on his throne all day. He awoke at the crack of dawn after his conversation with Lodira and his promise to pay her dowry. The hour after they were done, messengers were racing out to every noble house in the city which had spare eligible sons that the Prince was so convinced of her innocence that he would personally pay her dowry.

From there, the birds had been sent out to alert friendly cities of the same. On the third day, he expanded his list even to the nouveau riche such as the chief officers of the Lur’gin Slaving company and others who enriched themselves in the war. ‘Surely the chance to rise to a noble title, and the promise of a dowry from a Prince would be enough to draw a suitor to her?’ Or so Prince Rasgen hoped. So… at his throne he remained, seeing to the business of governing, asking after the status of the investigation, all but begging for news.

And yet… no bird flew with an offer, no one interested sent a letter.

Until the fifth day a messenger in earth tones entered and knelt before the throne. The eyes of the court were cast to the lone figure in the thick round hat and formal leggings that marked the fashion of the north. His sandy hair and slightly zitty face showed he was still exceptionally young. And yet he carried himself with dignity born from ample practice. As soon as he was permitted, the cracked voice of a boy entering manhood, broke the silence. “I, Maril, third son of the Marquis Leon De’Ruan, bear a message from the Count Antor Valoisin, father of Lodira, regarding the series of unfortunate events. Will the Prince accept the words of his ally?”

Prince Rasgen snapped his fingers, pointed to a guard, and gestured to the boy, he did not dare speak, unsure as he was that he could keep dignity in his voice. The guard approached, halberd in hand, and the messenger reached into a leather satchel at his side and drew out a letter. He extended it to the guard, who in turn brought it to the Prince.

Rasgen broke the seal, the wax cracked with a tiny noise and he unfolded the trifold document to read the contents. In the flowing northern script, every bit as formal as the lad’s obviously rehearsed speech, he read his worst concerns.

“I understand.” Prince Rasgen stated formally, “You will stay one night here as our guest, and then depart in the morning.” The crowded court of nobles great and small raised no objection, and his stern eyes brooked no argument. “See to the young man, afford him guest quarters suitable to his station, and the same for the carriage driver who brought him here.” Rasgen then slowly pushed himself up from his throne, “I am adjourning for the day.” He stated with equal resolve, and did not wait for an escort to follow behind him as he left the great hall.

Lodira barely ventured out of the room in which she stayed, while Prince Rasgen did not visit at all. It was a more or less unofficial confinement in which she did not leave unless she was unlikely to see anyone. The curious half elven twins returned regularly to give her food and wine, all of it good, as well as to assist her with changes of clothing.

But they offered no details, and she hadn’t the courage to ask for them. The beautiful Contessa was, for the first time in her life, truly alone, and she despised it. Sometimes she would simply lay on her bed and cry into her pillow, feeling guilty that her tears were more for herself than for the dead, but unable to either stop them or change their cause.

The soft silk sheets and silk clothing might as well have been a bed of straw and a crude sackcloth, after the better part of a week. She read every book in the room by the third day, and on the fourth she asked at least for the twins to, “Bring me something different to read, I can hardly stand it…” The twins traded quiet doubtful looks, but brought her several volumes worth of books.

So she laid in bed, stretched out on her back with a book hovering over her lovely hazel eyes. Escaping into the fantasies within the soft pages became her only relief, and the time between books became minutes of dread. ‘Has father received the Prince’s letter yet? How much has the Prince offered for my dowry? Do people still think I could do something like that?’ The last question at least, was a futile one and she snorted dismissively almost immediately. She knew the answer. ‘Yes, of course they can. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous it is. I’m painted as a shameless harlot who cheated on her husband in the open, so of course I’m capable of killing an entire house and sleeping in his blood all night. It makes perfect sense…’ The thought was venomous in its sarcasm, so much so that it almost poisoned even herself to think it.

But she knew quite well it was easy to believe the worst about someone, and so much fun to do where gossip was concerned. ‘By now, rumors have probably bound me to all kinds of terrible things.’ Her small pale fingers formed into fists of fury at her side, she clenched her teeth tightly and tears of frustration ran down the side of her face to stain the pillow underneath. ‘They’ve probably blamed me for everything from my husband’s death all the way back to the birth of the Tlalmok Empire…’ She groused in her private thoughts and looked out the window, cursing the city that carried bile everywhere her name was uttered.

‘It’s not fair! It’s not fair!’ She wanted to scream. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Her father’s cold, stern voice echoed in her mind right after, the stern, stuffy old bastard had barely a kind word for her in all her years. In a masochistic sort of way, she savored what was no doubt going to be a shameful infamy to him. ‘He’ll squirm and deny… truthfully at least. But at least that bastard will remember I exist, and he’ll be sorry he made me a tool.’

A knock on the door had her wipe her eyes and sit up. “Come in.” She said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Can I even tell anyone to go away?’ She wondered.

Prince Rasgen entered the room as quietly as possible, he closed the door gently, his face was strained, his eyes red, his hair had obviously been ‘recently’ done. He crouched down next to her, taking her hands in his.

“So… what happens now?” She asked him with a quivering lip that she did her best to stifle.

He held the letter between shaking fingers, and she took it in delicate fingers that shook no less than his own. She glanced at him, searching his eyes for strength before she opened the tan parchment and read it. When she was done, she dropped it from her hands and let it drift like a leaf on a windless day, down to the floor.

“So my bastard father wants me home.” She uttered the words with supreme bitterness, “Perhaps ‘wants’ is the wrong word… he is ‘ordering’ me home though, isn’t he?” She asked rhetorically, so the Prince did not answer.

She sat up in bed and put her arms around the back of Rasgen’s head, then drew him to her bosom and lowered her cheek to the top of his brow. “You tried to find someone, and couldn’t.” She did not ask, it was a simple statement of fact that cut her to her heart.

“I tried… I sent birds everywhere, messengers all over the city, even to wealthy commoners… I offered a dowry fit for a young Prince, I offered my personal favor, I swore to the stars of your innocence…” He said through a choked up throat and wrapped his arms around her body.

“I know you did, I know you did, Rasgy… I could always count on you. That’s why I’ve loved you since we were little, remember that time you slapped that nobleman for insulting me and challenged him to a duel for smacking my bottom?” She gave a warm, lovely smile that he couldn’t see, but felt anyway.

“Yes, grandfather took a switch to mine for going too far in humiliating the cocky bastard.” Rasgen reflected with a half laugh at the now pleasant memory.

“Turns out I liked it when you did it.” She giggled, “Since then, all I wanted was you… first kiss, first love, first lover… it should have been us from the beginning. I swear I didn’t have anything to do with my husband’s death… but I’m the worst of wives… I prayed every night that he would not wake up in the morning. He wasn’t a bad one, and that made it worse… but all I wanted was you… and he was in the way. Everyone knew it, and now… I got my prayer answered, and it’s the curse that keeps us apart forever? I despise the stars even more now than I did on my wedding night!”

Contessa Lodira dug her nails into his skin, and he didn’t care. “Now… now, nobody wants me, and those who might, won’t take a chance on my guilt… how can things be worse… oh right, they can’t be…” She blinked back tears, and Rasgen tried to comfort her.

“He might have softened, he’s been getting up in years, you know… maybe… maybe this is out of concern for you.” Prince Rasgen proposed, and Lodira gave a bitter, pain filled laugh.

“My father never cared for anything that wasn’t useful, and guess what I’m not to him now?” She cursed, “My only hope is that one of my siblings will take me in and I have little enough hope of that, they’re just like him, after all.” Lodira took the sides of his head and tilted it back so that he looked up at her. “We have this night, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do.” The Prince answered as he understood her meaning.

“Then if this is goodbye… then make it one I’ll remember for the rest of my life, this after all, might be my last happy night.” She whispered urgently, and lowered her lips to his.

For the next few hours, until they would fall asleep together, she thought of nothing else but the warmth he brought to her, and committed what she was sure was her last happy night to memory, so that she could keep it with her until whatever unhappy end the stars brought her to next.

For five days, they ate, slept, and rode, and in that time, encountered no one. The eagles’ cries sometimes split the sky, the howls of common wolves split the night, the sound of common deer in their long springing run as they bounced from spot to spot in their endless search for food and water… it was as if they were alone in the world on a journey to nowhere.

On their second night, with the crackling flame still going, Sobella laid out her bedroll close to Nua’s own, erasing distance between them, and she asked the unexpected. “Can I borrow your lap, Nua?” The question wasn’t asked with hesitation, which was at least unsurprising, Sobella’s bold nature was never more obvious than with physical expression.

“If… that makes you more comfortable… yes.” Nua replied, and sat herself up against the log, “I can sleep sitting up when I need to.”

Sobella inched herself closer, her bright red eyes illuminated in the dark as she inched herself back a little closer, lifted herself up at the elbows, then lowered herself so that her head was propped up on Nua’s muscular thighs. She was closing her eyes when she said just a little louder than the crackling flames, “Hey… Nua?”

“Yes?” Nua asked, covering her mouth with a yawn.

“Thanks a lot.” She yawned a moment later, and drifted off to sleep, while Nua, barely noticing her own actions, rested a hand on her companion’s dark forehead, and stroked it for hours until she too, drifted off.

That had begun their normal routine, Sobella began to assist more with the making of camp as she learned from Nua about the proper placement of a campsite. Everything from avoiding game trails, and all the rest of what it took to safely encamp on the open road.

For a time, it let them forget the nature of their journey, until the second waypoint appeared on the horizon. Sobella reached into the saddlebag again, drew out the death whistle, and blew it to announce their coming.

Nua threw on the white cloth that identified her as party to the tribute, yanking it down with fury smoldering in her eyes, she touched the bone hilt of her knife and stared hard as steel ahead of her as the town grew larger as they drew closer.

As at the village before, an assembly gathered to hold up a yoke for them to pass beneath. The community was a cosmopolitan one, as Nua had come to expect, but the buildings were larger than at the village. The pyramid design seemed to be their preferred motif, with all their homes made of larger blocks of stone stacked together, unlike Pas’en however, they had little decoration in the form of color or paint. What she noticed instead as she passed through the ranks, was that ‘statues’ seemed to be very popular. ‘Shockingly good ones… they must have some truly talented artisans among the Tlalmok.’ She thought as she caught sight of a statue of a lionman in what she could only describe as a ‘heroic’ posture, back straight and claws stretched out and up as if to grab for the sun. Carved from one solid piece, it had obviously been polished smooth and then burnished to shine, coated with some kind of resin that caught the light, while keeping it clean and clear.

Nua barely noticed the Yoke, passing through the double line, while at the end of it, a hyenaman female waited. Hunched partially forward, she had a faint whine that wasn’t quite a dog and wasn’t quite anything else. Her spotted coat was immaculate, and her ears twitched around as if watchful.

“Welcome to Silence.” She gave a rough half snarl half laugh and a bow that was clearly mockery. “While here, the tribute is forbidden from leaving your quarters, you as the escort are allowed out to buy any supplies you need for the next leg of your journey.”

“I see…” Nua looked at the beastmen, they were well fed without exception, and clean. That was the other thing she noticed, like the village before, the streets were clean and even the sewage lines were empty as if they’d just been dug. Beyond where she stood, she saw other beastmen about their business, merchants selling various goods, there was little in the way of clothing, and no need for it. But it seemed that stylings for their fur were very common. Many wore adornments that dangled from their fur, particularly those who seemed to her eyes to be female. Her sense of curiosity was sparked into a roaring flame, “I may do that. But before that, I understand there is some ritual we must undertake for the tribute?”

The hyenawoman’s large dark eyes bugged out a bit at Nua’s casual reference, but she recovered quickly, “Y-Yes. That will be this evening, just before the festival begins, you are not permitted out once it has begun.” Her teeth chomped down hard at the last sentence as if to emphasize the nature of the warning.

Nua inclined her head, and felt Sobella’s hold on her tighten sharply.

“I understand, lead us to our residence.” Nua said with a chillingly flat voice, her eyes never leaving the black staring back at her.

“Follow.” The hyena woman muttered, and without calling for another in her stead, she led the mounted duo to a large building identical to the one at the village before.

When they reached the entrance, Nua dismounted as smoothly as if she were about to enter her own home. Then holding her arms up, Sobella leaned over and allowed Nua to help her down as well, the powerful hands of her escort felt comforting as steel like fingers pressed into her waist with the most gentle touch. Her hands on Nua’s shoulders, she slid easily down to the ground.

She said nothing as she led the horse within, and though Nua was about to follow, she felt the eyes of the hyenawoman at her back, and the tension of the urge to speak. Turning around to face her, the hyenawoman obliged. “I’m not going to get to eat you today, am I, meat?” There was no laughter in her voice, nor was there ‘respect’ either, it was more like an uncertainty had shaken her, an unexpected development she was not quite sure how to process.

“No. No, you won’t.” Nua replied succinctly. “You think we’re cowards and meat, but that’s just old habits, bad ones, on both sides of the border. But things change, beastwoman. Things change, heroes rise, empires fall, and nothing in this world will escape the grasp of death but what the god of death allows.” She closed her hand into a fist that cracked her knuckles. “I’ll engage your ceremony, follow your required customs… but don’t expect the usual response. I’ve faced worse monsters than you’ve ever dreamed. Been marked by them, belong to them in ways you will never understand. Consider that warning… my gift for your politeness.” Nua said without breaking her gaze until she turned around again, entered the longhouse of stone, and slammed the door behind her, leaving a dumbfounded hyenawoman in her wake.