"Log, PF plus three Tellurian days. Lieutenant Seward reporting in.

"Jacob's getting worse. Everything we've found so far to eat is Tellus-native, and most of it's poisonous. Six of the other twenty-nine have fallen ill so far. We're not even seeing Terran animals or plants, but I know there's an automated genotype seeder site not far from here. I saw it from orbit.

"It's just my luck. We landed in a damned jungle, and every ounce of water we've found so far has been tainted by the alien flora and fauna. We went to half rations today. Hopefully that will buy us another week.

"I'm still wrestling with the message. AIda would have had it decrypted in just a few minutes.

"I miss that little sprite."

--Recording recovered from Site Resh, reconstructed 1887 CE (restricted access)

----

13 Tumbling Blooming, 1886 CE

Libraratory, Acerbia, Prison Cells

Tvorh was in the antechamber outside the cell when Rosabella and Oralie arrived, stretched out and snoring on an uncomfortable-looking bench of steel against the wall. Legate Morvin stood a few meters away, studying the ocular display on the graphene screen set into the wall. Cornartis sat next to Tvorh; he tapped his heart upon sight of Rosabella.

Tapping his heart. What an appropriate salute for a man in need of a wife to give to an Ambassatrix of the Sodality. Rosabella mustered the passions of the bedchamber as easily as Dux Dorsin mustered legionnaires, and she tried to expend those desires as responsibly as a marshal might spend his men.

"Captain Cornartis." Rosabella swept into a light curtsy as Oralie strode toward Legate Morvin, ignoring the man's salute. "A delightful surprise. I expected that you would have departed."

"I'm a man of action, Ambassatrix. I can do the most good where others are in the most danger, and from what I hear, the woman in that room is quite dangerous." A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. "And since this is my first time in the libraratory..."

As a militia leader kept at arm's length from the political power in Acerbia, Cornartis wouldn't have had many opportunities to enter this holiest and most fascinating of ruins. Rosabella chose to let out a throaty chuckle. "Some say that curiosity is two steps from death."

"That far?" Cornartis asked. "That's an improvement from my day to day, then."

"I hope the company has not been dull," Rosabella said, stealing a glance at Tvorh.

"I like it quiet," Cornartis said. "So we get along well. Right, Erus?"

"What?" Tvorh started at the sound of his title, leaping to his feet. Even with his face half-covered by Aoife's hairsilk scarf, the boy looked worried and exhausted. What horrors had the woman beyond the door of the cell inflicted on him?

"Sleeping on guard duty, Tvorh?" Rosabella asked gently. The boy flushed and turned his face to the ground. Rosabella could practically smell the shame. What on earth was the trouble? She had never seen him like this. "Thank you for saving her, Tvorh," Rosabella said.

He blinked at Rosabella.

"Senrii is awake. She's all right."

Tvorh put a hand to his head as if stabilizing it, like a sudden weight had suddenly taken flight from it and he didn't know how to keep himself upright. "Okay," he murmured. "Good."

Rosabella turned back to Cornartis. "I take it you have not yet made Era Oralie's acquaintance."

At the sound of her name, Oralie, who was huddling with Captain Morvin at the viewscreen, turned and nodded. "Captain," she said, then looked back at the monitor.

Everyone was distracted, it seemed. Not that Rosabella blamed them. Only decades' worth of wearing masks had trained her to keep her own composure in times like this, and had it been her daughter who'd been run through, Rosabella still might not have weathered it any better than Oralie.

But one could not lose a daughter one did not have.

Rosabella stood on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the graphene screen. Its strange lights and colors showed a golden-walled room. White mist crawled across the floor, looking like puffy clouds or white waves on the shores of Scota. That would be the aerosol containing the genophage cure.

Near the far wall of the room was a tangle of green vines that brought terrible memories of torture to Rosabella's mind, and it took her a moment to realize that instead of being a sarcophagus of death, these vines merely wrapped around the wrists and ankles of a blue-skinned woman.

The screen was too small to do justice to the woman's shapeliness, of that Rosabella was sure. Of course a remnant of the Last Era would be the height of human comeliness. The Sodality's records--or perhaps legends--said that the genophage struck when man's control over his own genes had reached its zenith, and this woman had been chosen to be kept in stasis, shunted forward in time from that era. She had to be an ancient Generosa.

Or a criminal.

Or both, like Magus Dux Ilhicamina Generosus Ortus Nxtlu had been.

Oralie stood up straight, put her fists on the small of her back, and stretched. "Very well, Legate. I'm prepared. Open the door."

"What?" Tvorh said.

Oralie gave him a withering look. It was utterly unlike her, and it made Rosabella's heart flutter to see that forgebone resolve from the Uxor Principis. "I am your Era, Tvorh. Address me appropriately."

"I mean--yeah. Of course, Era. It's just... dangerous."

Oralie's voice softened. "The Legate has apprised me of the dangers, but I must confront the woman who tried to murder my daughter. This is a matter of familial loyalty. You have sisters, so surely you understand this, Magus."

Tvorh seemed almost to wince at the reference to his sisters. "I do, Era."

"She's bound." Oralie turned back to the screen. "I doubt she will be able to do much harm."

"I don't know about that," Tvorh said. "So I'm coming with you."

"As am I," Rosabella put in.

"I'm a Maga," Oralie said. "Surely I can handle a single bound girl."

"Convincing people to handle her is exactly how she attacked us," said Morvin.

"I'm aware," Oralie said. Rosabella frowned. That must have been part of Oralie's conversation with Morvin, which Rosabella had missed. Oralie's sky-blue eyes met Rosabella's. "But I've withstood such temptations before."

Rosabella had never intended to use her pheromones on Oralie, but she had been young and without control when Dorsin's betrothed had been presented to the court almost four decades ago, and Oralie had been so beautiful. As beautiful as she was today.

"Legate Morvin, open the door," Oralie commanded.

"Yes, Era," Morvin said, turning back to the screen. "Erus, could you ask your mom to keep the autoturrets spun up? Just in case we need them."

"As you wish," Meghan's disembodied voice announced.

Cornartis nodded to Morvin and stepped up alongside Rosabella, Tvorh, and Oralie as the door slid open. White misty waves spilled out into the antechamber. Tvorh shook his head at the militia leader. "You really shouldn't do this if you aren't a Magus," he said. Then he muttered, "Probably shouldn't if you are, either. Fathers of my fathers, this is crazy..."

Cornartis looked like he wanted to argue, but he held his tongue.

The three Magi stepped into the misty room.

The captive's skin was a terribly literal take on the term "blue-blood," but somehow it was beautiful. Her hair, a royal purple, hung down past full breasts and luscious curves. If Rosabella were the sort to feel jealousy, it surely would have overwhelmed her at the sight of this exotic, dangerous creature.

The woman raised violet eyes at the Magi as the door dilated shut. Those irises made Rosabella shiver with both pleasure and fear, for all at once they were the eyes of a beauty, a predator, and a deity.

Godhood was overrated, Rosabella knew.

"So this is the monster that tries to slaughter my family," Oralie said, approaching the vines. The captive held still, meeting Oralie's sky-blue eyes without flinching. Indeed, the woman raised her chin haughtily as if challenging the Uxor Principis as Oralie studied her.

Oh, to be studied by those eyes. By either pair. Blue as the Tellurian heavens, or violet as lavender flowers...

Lavender, a scent which Rosabella had known from her youth.

Oralie reached out and touched the angel on the neck.

Lavender... it was the memory of her mothers’ laughing playfully in the kitchen as Rosabella came in from the rocky fields bearing a basket of treasures that she had found.

Oralie cupped the angel's cheek with her hand, and the blue woman smiled, showing sharp, pearly teeth.

Rosabella's heart pounded lavender. Lavender that made her want to glide across the room, to touch Oralie's wrist, to gently release the vines from around their captive's limbs...

Just as Oralie's fingers were working to do even now...

To lay them both down on the floor, where the mist would flow over them, mist colored lavender, to hide their deeds from prying eyes...

Tvorh wrapped his arms around Oralie. Such a sweet embrace as he tried furiously to wrestle her fingers away from the bonds...

Lavender to delight Oralie and their captive and Tvorh and--

Tvorh? Shock shot through Rosabella like a lightning bolt, driving away the lavender. Rosabella loved Tvorh and cared for him. She would do anything to make up for her failure to protect him. But she didn't want his flesh.

Not unless lavender was pumping through her veins.

"Help!" Tvorh grunted as Oralie writhed this way and that. He was a small young man, and the pheromones had taken Oralie deeply. "She's trying to release her!"

Rosabella reached deep inside herself and called on her anti-lavender. It, too, had its roots in Rosabella's distant past, another of the scents of Scota.

Rosabella had scented it again and again when the time was not right for love; had smelled it when Fiona would wrap her arms around Deirdre in the fields and Deirdre would gently rebuff her; had released it herself now and again when an amorous supplicant would presume too much. Through the pounding of her heart, Rosabella persevered and released the anti-lavender.

Unlike Rosabella's pheromones, the anti-lavender of the women of Scota required conscious effort to release, and the body didn't store much of it; just enough to put a halt to inappropriate moments before they progressed too far. The anti-lavender was weak compared to the mind-rending scent blasting in waves from the captive.

So Rosabella dug deeper and called on her SOPHIOS to lend its power to hers. The Symbiont burst awake, restructuring her body to produce more of the anti-pheromone.

Rosabella's consciousness unfogged as the scents canceled out. Oralie stumbled back as if she'd been struck, keeping her feet despite the fact that Tvorh had practically wrapped his arms around her to keep her from releasing the captive.

The girl's eyes, which had been so arrogant, grew wide. "What is this blasphemy?" she shrieked. Or rather, Rosabella thought she did. It had been decades since she had studied High Post-Exarchian, and there had almost certainly been drift in the language from its Last Era form.

"You..." Oralie whispered.

"That's what she does," Tvorh said. "She tries to control us like that."

Oralie straightened up, though Rosabella could tell how shaken she was. "I am back to my right mind. You may release me, Erus."

"Bow before your imperatrix," the blue woman commanded. Another burst of lavender filled the room.

Rosabella canceled it immediately.

Tvorh shot a pleading look at Rosabella, which took skill considering that he had no eyes. Rosabella nodded. "Perhaps, Era, Erus, you should return to the antechamber and leave me to deal with our guest."

Oralie looked the girl up and down. "Release me, Erus." Tvorh did so reluctantly, and Oralie straightened herself fully, brushed down her sleeves and the front of her dress, then formed a forgebone spike from her palm and lunged at the blue woman.

"You tried to kill my daughter!" Oralie screamed, a battle cry so horrifying that Rosabella cringed. Tvorh caught Oralie's other wrist, spinning her about.

The spike almost brushed their captive's nose.

"Let me go," Oralie demanded as Tvorh dragged her backward, her voice breaking with anger and frustration. "Let me show her what I do to those who harm my family!"

The door opened for Tvorh to drag Oralie from the room and then closed behind them, cutting off Oralie's screams. Rosabella turned back to the blue woman. "Now," Rosabella asked, "where were we?"

The woman stared at Rosabella with unblinking violet eyes. She was a serpent, and that gaze made Rosabella shudder inside.

Rosabella reached within for one of her dozens of masques--that of the goddess: unflappable, imperturbable, dangerous beyond words--and stared right back. "Your name."

She spoke in Modern West Valley. Between saving Senrii and breaking to find a meal, Tvorh had indicated that the woman had bound nerves with Senrii and now spoke the language, if haltingly. It was time to put that to the test.

The woman, the girl, the angel, the snake, seemed to realize that her hostile gaze would gain her nothing. "Name," she mused to herself, trying out a new tongue. "My... name. I am."

Rosabella waited patiently.

The blue woman raised her chin again. How could a captive look so haughty? "I. Am." She stared up past her eyebrows in challenge.

Rosabella smiled and stepped forward. She reached out a long fingernail and stroked the woman's cheek. It was warm; an unexpected contrast to the cool color of her skin. "Aoife would call that blasphemy. She says that to an Adonist, 'I AM' is the oldest name of Adon. Or Yesh. Whichever god they worship."

"Adonist," the woman said, seeming to ignore Rosabella's finger as it traced down underneath her chin and up the other side of her jaw. This would be difficult, Rosabella realized. "Adonism," she tried.

That was an alteration of the word, one she hadn't heard yet, but had figured out. The girl was a fast learner.

"Blasphemy." The blue woman gave a shark-toothed smile. "You blaspheme. Bow, blasphemer."

Now they were getting somewhere, though the girl was filling in High Post-Exarchian words for those she didn't know. Rosabella stepped back. "Your name," she repeated.

A staring contest ensued.

"My Wisdom," the woman said at last. "I could tear free. I could rend you."

"You wouldn't get far."

The woman cocked her head.

Rosabella gestured offhandedly toward the captive's naked body. "Smooth flesh. Unblemished. You are terribly beautiful." She made sure to observe these facts dispassionately, as if she were critiquing a piece of artwork--which, in a sense, she was. "But you were not when we brought you in here. You were torn and bleeding. The genophage had you in its clutches."

"The disease," the captive said.

"The disease," Rosabella agreed.

Her captive's ocean-dark lips curled angrily. "No disease can kill a goddess."

"And what did your worshipers call you?"

"Thiyyatt," the woman said at last.

Rosabella nodded. "Then it is my privilege--"

Thiyyatt cut her off, mixing West Valley and High Post-Exarchian as her voice rose. "Thiyyatt Regia Puella of the Western Hives. For a hundred generations my blood has been pure and unsullied. The Reginae of my Hive, blessed be their names, have for ten generations been the favored consorts of the High Court. My uncles and brethren have studded Imperatrices who have engraved their names in gold for the sake of their prowess.

"I am Thiyyatt, daughter of Regina Ittu, betrothed to Imperator Puer Amaluk, heir of Imperatrix Lunja, may the Era reign forever."

"I am in the presence of royalty, then." Rosabella inclined her head respectfully. "You may call me Maga Ambassatrix Magistra Uxoris Rosabella Sodalitatis."

"Bow before me," Thiyyatt ordered.

Rosabella ignored her. "But I regret to bring you terrible news."

"Bow." Thiyyatt shook the vines. "Bow, weak-Wisdomed woman. Its odor is rank." The princess wrinkled her nose as though she'd smelled a corpse. "How were you ever found worthy?"

"Far from living forever, your Era died millennia ago," Rosabella said. "The genophage swept across Tellus and took your Generosi. Yet it didn't stop with them. You were hidden away as the genophage spread, weren't you? You were kept safe in hope that you might come free once it had run its course."

"Send me the boy," Thiyyatt said. "He is small, but the Wisdom is strong in him."

"But the disease never ran its course," Rosabella said. She smiled compassionately. "It remains with us still, perhaps in the particles of the air and the dirt of the ground, or perhaps in the Symbiont, the Wisdom, inside each and every Magus. The moment that you were brought out of stasis, you were infected."

"Bring me the boy," Thiyyatt growled. "I wish to breed."

"This complex is the only place in all of Tellus where you will be safe," Rosabella said. "Escape and die."

"Send me the boy!" Thiyyatt screamed, shaking the vines. "Send him to me! Send him to me!"

"Never," Rosabella said affably.

Thiyyatt threw back her head and loosed a howl of inarticulate rage. Her indigo hair danced as she flung her head back down. Anger and lust raged in her eyes. Lavender invaded Rosabella's nostrils.

Excellent.

Rosabella's insides quickened. She'd been exposed to attraction pheromones thousands of times in her youth--because of the lopsided population of the sexes in her home, most of the women of her isle relied on them to some degree--but they never failed to cause her body to respond.

"I am a goddess," Thiyyatt said, her voice dropping into tones of ragged lust. "Release me and give me the boy and worship me, you wretched animal."

Sweet talk and rough--it made Rosabella's flesh respond in all the right ways. Her breath hitched and she stepped toward Thiyyatt. Waves of lavender crashed against her, threatening to carry her away. Images of every man and every woman she'd ever met fluttered through her mind, temptation without target.

Thiyyatt wanted to breed, and now Rosabella's body wished to as well.

But the spoiled regia puella didn't realize that Rosabella's mind was not her body.

Rosabella's fingertips traced hot blue flesh down the girl's arm, lingered on her shoulders, stretched in a languid imitation of a choke hold over Thiyyatt's neck, and crawled past Thiyyatt's chin to play at the captive's lips.

"Worship me and release me." Thiyyatt's voice was laden with lavender lust.

That mouth, so dark. Those eyes, so royal. Teeth so white. Rosabella wrapped her hand into the vines behind Thiyyatt's head, stood on her tiptoes, and leaned in, her breath coming in fast spurts.

Deep blue lips curled in a malicious smile.

Rosabella stopped leaning in just long enough to breath the word, "No," onto those lips.

Thiyyatt's eyes went wide as Rosabella stepped back. "Your wisdom should bow to mine!" she screamed. "I am a goddess, and you are barely a beast!"

Rosabella knew little of torture but a great deal about temptation, flirtation, and anticipation. Thiyyatt had given up all she was likely to reveal for now. Rosabella went to the door, which dilated open for her.

Before exiting, Rosabella turned back. "Child, a piece of advice. Divinity proves itself. No goddess has ever felt the need to claim it."

Then she left Thiyyatt to rage and struggle behind her.

Rosabella had some ideas of how the girl might be used. She needed to speak to Dorsin more than ever.