“...adrift and lost in freedom’s rings

the mortal slain and wisdom earned...”

Karyeh Njuyek Gusya III

2:3:1:3/5, III:IX

The lantern flame buckled around Deira’s incense, and she lit a candle with her burning stick before she reset the glass. Tomorrow, she’d beseech the aid of the thief lord Grishem, but Kingard’s assurances failed to stifle the dread at her first real meeting. Three days of freedom hadn’t graced her since the age of seven, and that sassy girl languished through decades of mind-warped oblivion, a ghost beyond repair.

Deira lit a second candle, waving smoke across her body and toying with the stunted point of one ear. Assigned by the Colkh’rak, two generations of human sires diluted her royal bloodline. Though empress of a Rishin dynasty, she more resembled the pale elves of the mountains. Grishem of Lowtown had no cause to endorse her rule, let alone restore it.

Placing the last candle around her saltwater bath, she slipped from her robe and eased into the steamy brine. Her magic book from A’lara’s tower had revealed this searching ritual, and she’d found the needed items in her dresser drawer. Deira hummed three notes in exact sequence, repeating them on the same breath until her lungs creaked. Who am I? she asked in tune, breathing deep to hum again.

Into the void behind her eyelids, Deira surrendered her scrutiny of the ritual, and the melody raised her from her body. The vast darkness twinkled, and stars wafted through her presence like dust in a sunbeam. Radiant clouds swirled around gleaming cores, and her burning search dissolved into trifles from a shallow place and time. Here in Mother’s world, light and shadow danced in concert, their clockwork steeped in loving sanctity. Redeemed of the folly of a short-lived mote, she laughed and drifted home.

Sticky heat roused Anelle from bed, and she shuffled for the inn’s bathing chamber, plucking at her sodden nightshirt. “Vith? You in there?” The ship’s cook rattled the locked door with a touch of ire, her honey-gold hair clinging to her damp back. “Sharis? ...Anyone? Hello?” Grumbling, Anelle returned to her vacant bedroom and emerged with a roll of lockpicks. This is Deira’s fault, I bet.

When the bathroom door popped open, Anelle cackled and sprang to her feet, hazel eyes dancing with glee. “Still got it!” But inside, three spent candles ringed the tub, and the empress lolled in the placid water. “Sorry, I... Uh, Deira?” Closing the door, Anelle tapped the woman’s cool cheek and rocked her by the shoulder, the lady’s unnatural pallor stark against her light tan.

After a moment’s hesitation, she slapped the empress across the face. “Deira, wake up!” Hands shaking, Anelle tugged a fine chain from beneath her shirt and rubbed its stone pendant. “Kigal?” Her captain had crafted the stone for emergencies, but she hadn’t triggered it in years. “Does this thing still work?”

“–Anelle! What’s wrong?” Muffled and hollow, his voice echoed from the stone. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m – I’m fine, Kigal. But I just found Deira stock still in the bathtub. There’s some magic involved. Come quick!”

The stone grated as his chair scraped the floor. “I’m in the west tower, be right there. Is she breathing?”

“No! That’s why I called you!” She dropped the stone and plunged her hand into the water. “Her bath’s gone cold. Kigal, I’m... scared.” Seizing the plug, Anelle drained the bath and threw a towel over the empress, flicking her in the jaw until Kigal knocked at the door. “Just get in here!”

He burst inside, disbelief wide in his sky-blue eyes. “Mother, this is... She did some kind of ritual, love.” With a reluctant tap on the cheek, Kigal implored, “Lady empress? Hello?”

Anelle groaned her exasperation and smacked Deira’s face. “See? Nothing.”

“Let me get Kingard,” he decided, growing pale beneath his deep tan. “Try to get some clothes on her. I’ll be right back.”

“Clothes?” echoed his stunned first mate.

“Yeah, what if he needs to move her? Just – clothes, Anelle. I’ll be back.”

Cursing under her breath, Anelle snatched up Diera’s robe and rolled the empress onto her side. She stuffed the robe beneath Deira and shoved her over, grasping the hem and working it around her. “At least you’re lighter than a pile of sticks,” Anelle chided, foisting Deira’s flaccid arms through the damp sleeves. “Do you eat, or just run on moonlight?”

She tied the robe, and Kigal barged inside with both Jorn and Kingard in tow. “Deira, you fool!” cried the elf, lifting her from the tub to drape her across the floor. “Where are you? What did you go looking for?” Eyes closed, Kingard waved a hand over Deira’s face, questing after the glittering trail her search left behind. “Deep, too deep...”

“What happened?” Kigal probed from the doorway, scrubbing at his stubble of white-blond hair through the faded bandanna tied across his brow.

“She’s dead. Her soul’s been wandering too long. Jorn!” Trembling, the young man knelt beside Kingard. The elf grasped Jorn’s wrist and guided him along the faint gleams in Deira’s wake. “Can you reach her?”

Jorn shuddered, engulfed in strangeness. Stars exploded around him, great swaths of light spinning like brilliant tops in the void. With Kingard’s help, he discerned a thread of presence and dragged it back, past stars and suns and their own two moons until–

A gasp wracked Deira’s form, and her spine arched against the sudden vitality within her. She choked on nothing and writhed onto her side, fists clenched and pounding the stone floor. Heavy sand supplanted the onslaught of pins and needles, and the empress lapsed into stillness from head to toe.

Anelle broke the tense silence. “Deira?”

“What were you doing?!” Kingard raged at her weak mewl, quaking in distraught relief. “Do you realize what you might have done?” Ignoring him, Deira tightened her robe and pushed upright, her eyes on the floor. “Answer me!”

“Quit yelling at her!” snapped Anelle, draping a towel around Deira’s wet shoulders. “Maybe you should leave.”

Shocked at her audacity, Kingard quivered in silence and stormed from the room. Kigal tapped Jorn’s shoulder and jerked his head, exiting the chamber alongside him. “Good work,” offered the sailor, and the youth contrived a harrowed smile.

“...Men,” Anelle rallied, kicking the door shut and crimping Deira’s long hair with the towel. “It’s always about them. What about you?”

“Me?” the empress wondered, awash in conflict. Her boundless peace trickled from the fragile body ensnaring her, and a dire morrow loomed. Crumpling into muted sobs, she wept behind her hands, “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

Anelle rubbed her back and teased with an awkward cough, “Well, it seems you’re not a very good mage. Unless you were trying to kill yourself?”

The morbid humor baffled her sorrow, and Deira wiped her eyes. “I wasn’t,” she countered. “I just wanted to be... whole. Or maybe someone else.”

Determined to make light of the accident, Anelle slung an arm around Deira and squeezed. “Well, you’re not in pieces. You might be more whole than you thought.” The empress sank into the friendly touch, her head against Anelle’s shoulder. “Besides, you can’t waste your life filling shoes you never chose. You be anyone you want to be, from here on out.”

Deira pondered the memory of grand stars in a caring void, and the onus of her title waned. Irreverent comfort blossomed through her, and she nodded. “Okay, then. I think I will.”

“...by sea to land where daemons roar

to find his woman over shore...”

Ansoh Njyae Dynde IV:II

L 2:3:1:4/5, III:IX

Sunlight flooded Haisrir’s room, and he awoke in a dense fog, the morning like any other. Head pounding, he idled while memories of the previous day bubbled through the murk. He’d left the fortress in Sierlyn. Crisis brewed there, something about a woman. Leja!

The urgent name spilled down his spine, and he shivered out of bed. Eager to resolve the churning in his gut, Haisrir scrabbled for his clothes. With a tremendous crash, the elf pierced the ether and vanished in a whirlwind.

He arrived on a wide deck overlooking a mountain lake, the platform reserved for direct transports to the fortress. A doubled guard awaited, but Haisrir breezed into the upper hall of the palace, puzzling over his troubled fragments. The deputy constable rushed for him and he snarled, “What?”

The guard saluted, treading abreast of him. “Master Haisrir! Ah, the Dark One knows Empress Deira is missing. He sensed you leave yesterday, and... he said to commune immediately, once you returned.”

Stumbling with terrible realization, Haisrir plunged into horror. He’d meant to fetch the empress! But then what about Leja? “Yes, fine. Dismissed.” The elf stormed down the grand staircase, panic raging in his chest. At the dungeon stairwell, he abandoned hope of recalling Leja in time.

Torches smoked from the damp walls of the cavern beneath the fortress, and a rank stench festered in the stagnant air. Haisrir followed sloping tunnels carved through the mountain, and the sparse torches deserted him to darkness. Pressing through the unbearable reek, he conjured a small orb to mirror the morning sun. It bobbed in the air over his shoulder, casting long shadows over the slimy rocks at his feet.

Haisrir emerged from the last tunnel into a sickening den. The greasy floor clung to his boots, and two bloated corpses gleamed in the light, their putrid flesh adorned with jewelry. Gagging at the naked women slit up the belly, he crept through the lair of the vanquished mindwarps and extinguished his orb.

Grim fire sparked in his hand, and bleak shadows flickered in the gray light. Fighting not to breathe, he shot flames up the gash in one carcass and choked as the body contorted. “M-Masters?”

“Haisrir!” A hoarse wheeze rattled from the corpse, its jellied lips unmoving. “Why were you gone?”

The elf pulled his shirt over his nose and answered, “I tried to retrieve the empress. I went after her, but couldn’t–”

“Fool!” the cadaver shrieked, its back arching to scrape hair and scalp across the stone. “You could have died again! Do you realize what delays you’ve already caused?”

Shuddering, he mashed the crook of his elbow against the shirt at his face. “I’m sorry, masters. I thought–”

“Return to Kholl at once,” barked the corpse.

Haisrir boggled. “Abandon the fortress?”

“The empire is crippled, and we should have started by now.”

“Started what?” moaned Haisrir, desperate to leave the dungeon.

“Raising our army. Ksqqhk’gtxtf ‘gk’gt’x fqgdf.” The grating hiss seared into Haisrir’s memory, and the corpse deflated, fresh splits from its spasms oozing into silence. Communion over, the elf bolted up the tunnel, spluttering as he lunged for the cleaner air amidst the torchlight. Return to Kholl? Died again? They hadn’t even punished him.

Foreboding lodged in his core, Haisrir dashed to his room and shed his stinking clothes. Something urged him to flee, but he’d suffer when Allana fell to his masters. No, he couldn’t defect to the losing side. By sheer luck, he’d dodged reproach for losing the empress, and that sufficed. Scrapping his whims of escape, Haisrir packed and ordered his dragon provisioned for travel.