“So there it is…” Kaiji said when the walls of Komestra came into view, they were thick grey slabs, unlike other cities that used small interlocking stones, Komestra did not. Rather, these were enormous rectangular blocks that were then affixed together with molten metal to seal them in place. The overlapping pattern was the same as other cities, however the scale was anything but.

The gates were still off their hinges, and black marks where burning had taken place was still marking the massive wall. They rode through the gate and over broken streets. A wild dog rushed across Kaiji’s field of vision, a bone in its mouth that still had a skeletal hand attached. ‘So they still haven’t taken care of all the dead… well, it was a big city…’ Kaiji considered it as passively as she could.

Some of the buildings had burned wood leaning against them, but less than most other cities might have. Ashes, however, were still plentiful, strips of cloth, cut, ripped, or burnt, occasionally blew past.

A flock of birds scattered from atop a building as the carriage rolled beyond. “A family or more, died there…” Kaiji muttered regretfully.

“Kaiji… where are we going?” Priceless asked, taking her mate by the hand.

“We need to inspect the condition of the part of the city we intend to move people into. The part of the city our mistress owns includes the palace… and my home. It’s strange to think about that still, you know. It belonged to me for over a century and a half. Then one very bad day, and it’s all gone. Shog’nai fatalism might have a point.” She managed a chuckle that, to Priceless’s surprise, had no bitterness to it.

“We’re going to inspect the palace, and then my old home. If you don’t mind.” Kaiji gave a little smile and entwined her dark purple fingers with those of her companion.

“Of course not… I’d like to see where you lived, as long as it won’t hurt too much to show it to me.” Priceless gave a gentle and understanding smile, letting her chin drop down and her eyes turn up to the demon-elf she loved.

The district, simply put, was ransacked. Broken doors and damaged homes, evidence of fire in the form of ash lay everywhere, rats squeaked and ran past to hide in dark places that had not been illuminated by the light of day for months, not since the day the fires died.

Kaiji counted off the buildings, up and down the winding roads, occasionally stopping, leaving the carriage, and then returning. Priceless dutifully scratched off numbers by the degree of damage Kaiji instructed her to, her dainty fingers flew over the paper like a bird in the air.

It was a cold, emotionless affair, and that did not change when the carriage pulled up to the palace. Kaiji waited for the coachman this time, and emerged with the dignity of a state official, her hands folded in front of herself with great calm, she slowly ascended the red and white marble steps of the palace.

“So much blood here…” Priceless said as she hurried after Kaiji, the dark, crusted red was now, barring magic, permanently embedded into the white marble.

“We fought hard here.” Kaiji muttered, “It was near our last stand… I was defeated further inside, all the great cities worked hard to bring us down, but it was Prince Rasgen who saw to the final blow.” The demon-elf actually let out a gentle laugh that rang off the columns within and sounded on and on ever more distantly down the bloody great hall.

“I suppose you were taken before this but… the palace held out for two more days after the rest of the city fell, and would have held out for a third, or even longer, if Prince Rasgen hadn’t offered to land the final blow. Goodness knows how he got my slave to take the stones that expanded my mana supply. Or maybe the slave was an agent long before that. But then…” She pointed to an open room up ahead, the floor was soaked with dust and dried blood.

“You called me good before, but Priceless… I’m not that good. You’re good. I do this.” She pointed to the red curve along the floor on both sides of the door. “I cut the throats of nursing mothers who crossed my Prince and made Diana a slave the day she was born. I helped orchestrate the alliance that brought down the slave rebellion generations ago, and I sent all the survivors back to work. There are worse, more cruel people than I… my beloved,” Kaiji touched Priceless’s lower back, “people who do twisted things for twisted pleasures. But that doesn’t make people like me, or like our mistress, exactly ‘good’. I just happen to love someone who is good.” She guided Priceless’s lips to her, and savored their comforting receptiveness.

Priceless only reluctantly broke from the touch, “That’s better than anything else I’ve ever gotten, which is good enough for me, my Kaiji.”

“They looted this place thoroughly, no wonder Rasgen’s economy stayed ‘kind of’ afloat when the mistress flooded the market with platinum coins. I’ll bet Sado’s treasure room is mostly in his coffers. He probably took out loans with the City-State banks of other cities ‘just in case’ clever Prince that he is.”

Priceless looked around the palace, as they continued to pass through its halls, Komestran columns were interspersed throughout, half columns that were waist height on which some vessel or work of art must have once sat, or full columns that seemed utterly unnecessary but looked very nice, stuck in recessed alcoves.

Lighting came from skylights, many of which were shattered and left glass fragments scattered about everywhere to crunch under the feet of the slaves of House Aiwenor.

Occasionally a scurrying animal would make it past, until finally they had seen everything except the throne room.

“Do we go in…?” Priceless asked as Kaiji lingered outside of the place where the doors lay toppled and debris obscured most of her view.

“I… I practically raised the Prince… and he suffered in there… no. I can’t. I will go in that room again only if my mistress orders it… or if I go in there to see her sit on the throne where she belongs.” Kaiji gave the sharp statement with a long, bitter look at the way in, before slowly withdrawing herself with a backwards walk away from it, as if it would bite her if she looked away.

“Alright… let’s go see your old home… and maybe, maybe the mistress will give it back to you one day.” Priceless put her hand on Kaiji’s shoulder and turned her to walk away from the place her lover dreaded to see.

Kaiji only laughed, “I’ll show you where I lived of course, and it will be a bit nostalgic, but I don’t want it anymore. Better a cage at the foot of my goddess’s bed, than a wealthy estate even a bowshot distant from her service.” Kaiji said it almost defiantly, before taking the lead again and returning to the carriage.

She barely noticed that Priceless had not affirmed the statement, and added, “Just a quick walkthrough and then… then we can go home. It can’t take that long for the mistress to get back now. If we head the fastest route, we’ll be home well before she crosses the border, perhaps a week, or even just a few days, depending on her route.”

“Yes… that will be… wonderful.” Priceless replied when they had seated themselves again, and then she too fell quiet for a very long time.

Diana went and knocked on the door to Sado’s room as loud as she could, her small fist pounding on it over and over again until he answered it with a sword out and only his night clothes on.

“Sado…” She fell into his arms and looked up into his eyes, in the light of the candle he’d come to the door with, he could see the torn dress and the cut over her eye.

“Diana, what the…?” He cut the question off. He didn’t need to ask.

‘If he were a better actor… this wouldn’t be necessary.’ Diana mused, and explained anyway. “I went out, I was with the Prince’s cousin in the garden, it was… it was nice, but we were there for a long time. When I came back, the Prince… he was waiting for me…”

“I’ll kill him.” Sado said savagely, and made to move past her, she put her hand on his chest to stop him.

“No! If the slaves of the Duchessa Aiwenor kill the Prince of Hanak’sen, we may end up starting a war between it and Pas’en… and that’s if our mistress isn’t held responsible when she comes back, or if we’re not killed for it ourselves!” Diana exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.

“Then… we go. We leave tonight, we can send for the things we leave behind, just put on… is there anything in the wardrobe?” Sado asked her brusquely.

“What about our task… we’ve acquired no one, forged no ties to their merchants… we’ll fail her…” Diana reminded him pointedly.

That gave him pause. He froze solid for just a moment, looking at her injured eye and torn dress, he drew himself up over her, “You are Diana of Komestra, I may not be Prince of Komestra anymore, but I have my duties still all the same. I can’t protect everyone, but I can protect you. That means getting you out of here. I always knew Prince Yanmelu was a jealous lecher, but this is a new low. If only we had purple tags though, I doubt even he would have considered this…” Sado swore and tightened his hand on his sword. “He probably did it because I was your bodyguard, he always hated me. I’ll take responsibility for the failure and your injury when we get back. Solution’s lash will fall on me, you will be safe.” Sado said decisively, and asked her again, “Now, is there anything you can change into, we can’t let that tear or your injury be seen, it would be too suspicious.”

“I don’t know, probably, traditional Hanak’sen clothing in various sizes for guests…” She muttered and darted her eyes behind her to the dark empty hall.

“That will do, nobody will be up for hours…” Sado said decisively.

“Fine, I’ll hurry and meet you in the carriage.” Diana agreed and rushed out of his room.

When she returned to her quarters, she swept open a drawer, snatched out the basic supplies she knew would be present, paper and ink, and scrawled a hasty note to General Yanlim and another for the servant who would surely come to wake her in the morning. She then stripped off the torn dress and laid it over the chair, from there she placed the folded note for the General and the note for the servant.

She threw open the wardrobe, changed into the clothing that she still couldn’t help but pause to call ‘absurd’ again. And then made her way out of the palace, into the carriage, and they were gone within the hour.

General Yanlim got up with a broad smile above his bearded jaw and stretched out contentedly, the previous evening, he recalled with enchantment. ‘Never has a woman so fully understood the struggles of a noble… she’s beautiful, charming… like she was carved by an artisan and brought to life by the breath of the stars.’ It was a blissful thought, a thought that was interrupted by a knock on his door.

“Enter.” He called out and groaned as he felt the relaxed sort of soreness leave his body as he finished stretching out his arms over his head.

A servant entered, a familiar young man seen many times over as he was chiefly responsible for guiding and assisting guests. However his face was anything but the customary neutral.

He held a folded note in his hand and extended it outward into the room.

General Yanlim strode over, snatched it away, and opened it, he held it in both hands and read it over. It was a crude, hasty scrawl with drops of ink scattered, obviously written by someone in a rush.

‘General Yanlim, our time was brief but wonderful, my bodyguard, however, has ordered our swift and immediate departure… after I returned to my room, the Prince was there… waiting for me, and he…’

General Yanlim read over the note several times, stopping each time he read her description of events before he could finally move forward.

‘...so I ran to my bodyguard after I was left alone on the floor, and he has said since I am not safe with your cousin, I am to be returned to Pas’en. While he swears he will take responsibility, and take the punishment in my stead that is sure to follow, I wanted you at least to know the truth. We will send for the rest of our things but… please destroy the dress, I don’t want to see it again, not as it is. I want to remember our brief beautiful hours in the garden, without the memory of what I wore. That is tainted, and never won’t be. ~Briefly yours, Diana’

“Take me to her room, speak of this to no one if you value your head, boy.” The General snarled, and followed the now shaken young man straight back to her quarters. He walked in and saw the chair… the wine, a tactic his cousin often used to make people pliant. He went to the dress, it was ripped at the shoulder, and then he looked to the right of it, the wooden dresser. His hand fell to the corner and then came away, he turned his palm up and found it stained red.

Hoping against hope, he lifted his hand up so that the stain was close to his nose. ‘Blood. Diana is telling the truth… Cousin… what have you done? Why have you done it…? No, it could still be a deception, there is one thing that will tell me if he really did this…’

He whirled on the escort, “Leave the palace for the day, you’re ‘sick’ and are at home waiting for the healer to arrive.”

Small rapid, fearful nods answered him and the young man fled as fast as his feet could carry him without running.

Tir sat in the wagon, as it rolled past building after building, ‘At least he let me wash that finger before we left…’ Tir was thinking, as she rolled through the drab colorless city. However identical the structures were, however lifeless the people, it had been her home once, and she knew after a short time that something was wrong. ‘This isn’t the way to the graveyard…’ Tir thought, and looked around with some anxiety, trying to work out what they might be going to. ‘OK, they prepare the honored dead for burial at the temple grounds but if we’re going that way, then this is the long route. Shog’nai people ‘never’ take the long way anywhere. The graveyard is closer to the temple. The only thing in this way is the…’

Her face paled. She looked over to the front of the wagon. “Sir…” she said to the young man who drove it. “Sir, where are we going… I was supposed to pay my respects to Albaer, steward of Count Valoisin, before going to the holding area for transport. This is the way to the commons for the… shipments to the Tlalmok. The Steward’s body… it should be, should be at the-the legacy graveyard for the Valoisin household.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders, “The clerk said you were to go see this place, if that’s it, then this is where Albaer’s gonna go, slave. Bodies’r gonna be in shortly, so… guess we’can wait, you know.”

Tir fell silent, he had a point. ‘It has to be wrong, it has to be. Albaer served this family for his entire life, he earned a rest in a grave, a ‘proper’ grave, he shouldn’t be just meat to be frozen for shipment to the Tlalmok… this has to be a mistake. I’ll see. I’ll see that it is, I’ll watch them unload, see his body isn’t there, and… then…’

The boy was young, a teenager, no collar, but spoke like a common peasant, he also tried very, very hard not to look back at her. A faint smirk of amusement came over her despite her worry, and it was slowly turned into pity. ‘Taught to be joyless, endless control over his desires, in a few years, his youthful enthusiasm will be gone, he’ll be another walking corpse.’

The wagon pulled up to a large warehouse where wagons were lining up.

Tir waited, and waited, and waited, as the nameless dead were taken out by masked iron collared workers and carried by shoulders and feet under the supervision of the priests. Tir checked face after face as it was carried past her. Within, the bodies would be preserved until they could be sent west to abate the hunger of the beastmen and further supplement the living tributes and the ranches. Her head turned left to right over and over and over again, while she just stood there, a slow creeping fear, a certainty she did not want to acknowledge, came over her.

‘Albaer…’ She whimpered the name at the nude body of the old man, the heavy injuries of his collision still marking his front, his arms just left to flop limp and pale. He’d just been dropped into a neatly organized stack. The shipments of the dead were quite simple: A thin stone base wide enough for one or two people with several holes at the corners and center into which thick wooden poles slid. The dead would then simply be piled one atop the other, then more poles would be slid horizontally through holes in the vertical ones, and then short poles pushed in through holes in those that would go upright… and a simple thin stone top would be affixed to the top of the vertical poles. Instant box for transporting meat.

She watched them carry in Albaer, his milky, dead eyes staring back at her until Tir could not take it. ‘Anton… a few coins, just a few coins and he would rest in his city… that’s all it would have taken. Did you do this to punish me? Or did you just not care, now that he was no longer useful to you?’

Tir came to no answer to that question, but she was not at a loss for words.

“Sir…” Tir collapsed into the seat at the back with a heavy thud, “take me to my pen, I just… I can’t watch, I just want to go. You’ve kept the bargain struck. Please take me away from here as fast as you can go.”

She held her head in her hands and defied herself not to weep, striving to goad herself to rage, and finding that felt far, far better than misery. ‘Anton wants to see ambition? Before… all I wanted was to poke at his pride and enjoy my life, all I wanted was freedom, and to throw myself into everything I loved. But this was the last straw… the last one… he was the only person before the Prince and Sobella to give a damn about me, the only one… at least… enough to…’

She killed the thought, the Prince had not even allowed himself to be politically inconvenienced… and it stung.

‘No, there is no one left… not my grasping siblings and their spouses. Not my father, not my Prince… but if I have no one, then no one is in the way…’ She wiped the tears of anger from her eyes and glared in the direction of the house she grew up in. ‘I will burn that house to the ground one day. And I hope you’re inside when I do. Lodira lived only for pleasure. Tir… will live for vengeance. I will be sold to someone wealthy, someone powerful, work my way up, I will make them an enemy of Shog’nai… and it will be the next Komestra!’

That whole day, Nua ran without stopping. Her long, slender, powerful legs took her through the countryside with the girl in her arms, all the way until nightfall came again, and she found herself in front of a lake, the still waters caught the light of the sun and the wind cooled her hot, sweating skin. Number Four had at least been compliant, barely moving at all, though she had wet herself against Nua’s clothing without bothering to say she needed to relieve herself.

It stank, it was sticky, and very uncomfortable, making the lake a welcome reprieve.

“Alright… Number Four, now we bathe.” Nua said and began to disrobe.

The girl looked confused and scratched her head, but said nothing.

“You can talk again.” Nua said gently to the little blue haired girl.

“Bucket?” She asked succinctly.

Nua pointed to the lake. The girl turned around, and her jaw dropped.

When Nua was naked, she began to wade into the water, taking the girl’s hand, she drew her in. “Just walk in, I’ll take care of you… I promise.” Nua closed her eyes tight enough to make them wrinkle, then opened them and drew the reticently walking child over the squishy mud and into the waters.

Nua’s ears twitched about, searching for sounds of danger, but found none.

“We don’t have long, I want to be… somewhere better, or on the safe side of it, by tomorrow. Are you able to sleep while I run?” Nua asked the child as she began to wash her when she was at waist height in the water.

Number Four gave a little nod. She stayed very close to Nua, and looked around while standing still with wide and confused eyes.

“Welcome to the world… little one.” Nua whispered too softly for the child to hear. A thousand questions ran through Nua’s mind, ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters, do you remember any life before that building, what else do you know…?’ She wanted to ask, but she knew what would follow.

‘She’ll ask where her breeding pair are, or when they’ll join us. Those must be her parents… I can’t answer that, not yet, not yet.’ She shook her head violently while towering over the little one, the stink of sweat began to fade away as it joined with the waters of the lake, the mud within squished between Nua’s toes and she idly squeezed them together to make it flow around and over the skin of her feet. A guilty pleasure that in other times, she would have truly loved, and still sought intuitively.

But her heart wasn’t in it. She looked west to the open lands, sure that by now the undead were destroyed and the ‘necromancer’ she had made for them to explain it all away, had been killed.

Her heart began to pound in her breast and she turned to look to the east. Number Four splashed in the water like she’d never seen or felt it before. ‘She certainly hasn’t.’ Nua realized, ‘And she definitely doesn’t understand what she was living for or what was happening… the others must have protected the smaller ones from the truth…’

That just made everything worse.

“Where’s your breeder?” The girl asked looking up at her.

Nua tensed and sank down into the water. “I-I don’t have one…”

“Why not? If you don’t make numbers, Crawlmaker will come and take you away.” Number Four said in a little girl voice that shook Nua to her core.

“And how come you have those? They’re really long?” Number Four asked, and reached up to touch her own ears, “Do we all get those, do they keep Crawlmaker away?”

“I killed Crawlmaker. And I have these,” Nua pointed with one finger up to her ears, “because I am an elf. As for what they’re for, they help me hear really well, and they can do this.” She then began to wiggle them wildly, and Number Four’s eyes all but leapt out of her head, and she laughed vigorously, grabbed her own very human ears, and began to wiggle them with her fingers.

“What’s kill?” Number Four finally asked when the wiggling stopped.

Nua thought that over, looking out into the night sky, “You know how Crawlmaker would take people away when they didn’t ah… make numbers?”

Number Four gave a very small nod of understanding.

“Well, what Crawlmaker did to them, I did to him.” Nua said with a pleasant smile on her face, ‘And I hope it was very slow and painful.’ She added the private thought, then went to shore.

She began to get dressed when the little girl asked her, “What are those things?”

“Clothes.” Nua answered, and then pointed them out individually as she reached to put them on. “Boots. Underwear. Pants. Belt. Shirt. Armor. Cloak. Knife. Throwing knives.” When she was done, the little girl screwed up her face by scrunching her lips and furrowing her little blue eyebrows.

“Yes, you’ll get them, and you’ll get used to them.” Nua said as gently as she could. “Now, it’s time to be silent again, come here, let me carry you, and we’ll get going again. Sleep if you can, but if you can’t, don’t worry, you won’t have to put up with discomfort for very much longer.”

She crouched down, and Number Four approached, somewhat reluctantly, out of the lake, scrunching her little toes into the mud a few more times when she was in the space between dry land and water, making audible little noises in the dark. She then held her arms out, let Nua pick her up, wrapped her tiny limbs around Nua’s body, and then the elven assassin began to run into the darkness again.