The servant who helped dress me in the morning eyed my nightclothes but didn't question them. Because I was expected on a hunting trip before full day began, I was allowed to go a little longer without wearing a proper lady's gown. To be a proper representative of the royal line, I was obliged to be draped in screaming yellow scale patterns, but I could suffer that as long as I was allowed to do it in pants.

A small tea service was brought up along with some of the seasons first pears, while my hair was being pinned in place, but before I had the opportunity to enjoy them a runner came to summon me into the king's illustrious presence. Rather than being led to the grand hall where my father conducted most of his public business, I was directed to the Blue Tower.

It wasn't entirely blue, but the stones had been treated in such a way that it blended perfectly with the sky where it rose above the line of the Atlan ridge when you entered the city. This created the image that a turret was floating suspended in the air above the city. From the Blue Tower, my father could see all of Euphoria that was not folded inside of the stones themselves. It was also where he did most of his diagramming.

Exactly five hundred and twelve steps ascended in a spiral to where he worked. There were no landings or intermediate levels, and I was winded well before I reached the top. About thirty steps below the apex, I sat down and caught my breath so I wouldn't be puffing when I met my father. We hadn't had a real private conversation since he'd shown me my sister, and I was nervous to be summoned this way. There wouldn't be any chance of hangers on or servants overhearing anything that was said, which meant the subject was almost certainly something I didn't want to talk about. Had Ling explained the bifurcation to him? It would be worse if he'd done a reading and discovered it for himself. No matter how powerful my father was, or how unavailable, I'd never been afraid of him. Consciously, I still wasn't. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was no longer safe, that I had never been safe, because our relationship had never been what I thought it was.

Euphoria was founded on the principle of the greater good and I'd never questioned what that good was. A part of me had always assumed, without really considering it, that what was good for me was also the greater good. Perhaps I could be forgiven that error, having been raised in luxury with the world bending to my whims. Seeing my twin had altered that perception. The way the world is isn't the way the world has to be. It could have been me. The spin of a single compass arrow could have changed our places, could have emptied my eyes and filled hers with life. Now I knew that I was safe not because my father was king and he loved me, but because my father was king and the continuation of the kingdom depended on me. It was a fine distinction, but an important one. As my personal feelings diverged from what he believed to be the best path forward, I knew what was more important to him.

Wasn't that the way things should be? Wouldn't I want a king to be a person who put his own well being, and the interests of his blood, aside when it meant favoring the realm he was sworn to protect? That was what kings were for. I knew that, and I also knew that thinking of him as my father, I would rather he was able to put me first, however selfish that might be.

I adjusted my vest and went in.

The Blue Tower was a not a comfortable place, it was a room for work. It consisted of little more than a single cluttered space and eight exactingly placed windows that allowed for a complete panoramic view of the city in a sea of clouds.

The walls were plastered with scrolls scrawled with my father's flashy calligraphy. It was the one place where his pride slipped free from the dignified mien that wrapped him in all other aspects of his life. Here he was free to be the best, most brilliant man in the world; the wielder of destiny and master of daemons, without the epaulets. There were multiple compasses of varying complexity and design stacked on platters like leaves on an ascending vine. When I arrived, he was tearing up a scroll and burning it in a brazier beside one of the windows.

"Father," I said, bowing deeply.

"Daughter," he said, turning and inclining his head a fraction. "I see you are ready for the hunt."

"Yes." There wasn't anywhere to sit, and not many places to stand, so I remained waiting by the door.

"What do you think of Master Caldwell?"

Self important dope. "He wears his heart for all to see."

"The famous Kanto honesty." My father's mouth twitched. "You will grow accustomed to it in time. I actually find them refreshing, on occasion. They possess a directness our people studiously avoid, sometimes to our detriment."

"Blunt instruments serve many purposes," I said.

"I called you here because your training with Master Ciao is at an end."

This wasn't at all what I'd expected. "Have I done something wrong?"

"There is nothing left he can teach you."

"His wisdom far exceeds my own." I liked Ciao. I felt close to him.

"Advisors have their place, but what you must study in the future is beyond him. It is time I taught you the manner of commanding daemons. Some formal training is necessary, and you cannot be without this knowledge when you become queen."

"I want to learn." It was what made a king a king, and set Euphoria apart from all other realms. My father had relationships with the daemons of the earth and sky that protected us and helped our people to prosper. If I was going to rule after him, I needed to continue those relationships. It wasn't propitiation. A king treated those spirits as his subjects, commanded them, and expected to be obeyed. His will, I now knew, was enforced by the power of Ahriman, who kept the other spirits in line. While I wanted nothing to do with the Lord of Misfortune or his favors, I did want to know how it all worked.

My father spent a few minutes giving me a survey of his more specialized compasses and how they could be used to call up specific spirits and communicate with them. But I was expected by young master Caldwell, so our lesson was brief.

"We will have to visit him again," my father said, meaning Ahriman. "He will expect your pledge before you can command daemons in his name."

No. "When?"

"Tonight, after you return."

My heart butted heads with a rock in my throat, so I just bowed and he let me go.

I had five hundred and twelve exhausting steps to walk and think. What he'd said wasn't really a surprise, it was the natural next phase in my approach to queenishness. But so soon? I felt like I'd come to some kind of conclusion about my decision, at least I recognized that marrying Thomas and sacrificing a piece of my humanity to Ahriman was the right thing to do for the kingdom. It was the right thing. The matrilineal line had been making that choice for almost a thousand years. They would have argued with themselves too. It wasn't an easy choice, but it was the right one. Ling had out and said that I would destroy Euphoria if I didn't make that choice. It was right.

By the time I met Thomas at the docks, I was ready for a break. He had his hair tied back in a topknot, and his sanso sword was laced shut at his hip. He didn't smile.

"You look tired." He said.

"Thank you." What a cad.

Our ship was huge, a part of the fleet, with multiple ballista mounted along each side. It hadn't been used in war for centuries, but had been repurposed as a fishing vessel. The ballista fired harpoons powerful enough to spear manta and even the largest koi. It was a gruesome sight I had generally managed to avoid. Yes, people ate the meat and used various organs and jellies from the hunts for medicines, but it was still horrible. I'd been a vegetarian for about three years after I'd first seen a wounded manta flopping on the docks, but I'd eventually accepted that the practice was a just one as long as the carcasses weren't wasted. Hunting for sport alone was unacceptable.

"You live your whole life this way," Thomas said, "not appreciating your gifts?"

What? We'd boarded the old warship, Thundercleaver, and it had been loosed from its moorings. As far as actual hunting went, we'd be little more than observers. A vessel of this size was crewed by dozens of experienced skymen. They'd allow Thomas token duties if he asked for them, but we weren't necessary.

"Pardon?" I said, hoping it wouldn't lead to a lecture.

"I have been dreaming of this for years." Thomas waved at the cloud bank we were coasting atop. "A ship that sails the sky, a weapon to hunt beasts that exist nowhere else in the world, and to you it is boring. You are like a child that has been raised on faerie milk, and will no longer suffer its own mother's."

I closed my eyes. Took a second. "I've got other things on my mind."

"You are always thinking other things. You are dishonest. It is a trait common among your kind."

The Thundercleaver rocked up as we went over a sudden swell, and mist spray washed over us as we broke the formation. We were headed toward a dark cluster that meant the presence of krill, the manta's favorite food source.

"I am not dishonest." Did he talk to everyone this way?

"You hide your true thoughts behind a screen of flattery and politeness."

"I..." I thought about it. "I don't think it's dishonest to be polite."

"Politeness is a means of disguising ourselves. It is necessary only in a society where people expect to be lied to, and therefore would be offended by the truth."

"I do not believe bluntness is necessarily a virtue."

"See? You say something without saying something. That is offensive to me, but you call it polite. I would rather your words and your eyes said the same thing, rather than this dishonesty."

There was a shadow beneath the white fluff we rode, and it was headed toward the krill. Men were already at the ballista, ready to spear the manta as soon as it revealed itself.

"I think you're uncouth," I said. "I think you ignore the feelings of others and call it honesty."

"Better." He nodded, and walked to the prow to observe our progress.

I didn't need this, a lecture on foreign manners, a hunt, any of it. In twelve hours, I'd be signing my soul away, consigning the soul of a child yet to be conceived, to endless torment. He thought my eyes were lying? Wait until he learned the truth. Or would we lie to him as well, because he was an outsider? What's one more lie anyway?

The manta breached. It had a fifteen foot wingspan, slate grey, and a gaping mouth lined with gills. It was an alien creature; serene, majestic, and about to be murdered. They didn't attack humans or our vessels, they were only dangerous in lightning storms.

The only harm the manta caused was to the krill. They would gulp them down by the thousands, but there were always more, teeming shoals of them feeding on the clouds themselves.

The boat men were aiming their mounted weapons as we drew closer to the manta, and when it burst out of the misty surf they fired as one. A harpoon went awry, the point passing just before the creatures massive head, but two more hit their marks. It was pierced trough a wing and through the middle, arrested with a suddenness that was jarring to watch.

The Thundercleaver bucked at the initial contact, then settled with the added weight. The ship was far larger than the manta, and its frenzied attempts to pull free were met with the implacable stolidity of a floating island.

They let the poor creature tire itself out, slowly winching it closer to the deck as its struggles weakened. Six men, including Thomas, finally dragged it over the rail and onto the clean planking. Its wings were rolling, but it was no longer able to fly. Thomas was given a long knife by one of the skymen, the honor of finishing the kill. I retreated to the rear of the ship. There would be more of them before the day was done.

"You do not care for the sport." Thomas joined me at the stern.

"It isn't to my taste."

"That is you politeness again."

"I hate it."

"Why?" His response was emotionless, totally intellectual. I was beginning to realize that was the way he engaged with the world. "Is it not the natural course of things?"

"The suffering." The dullness coming over its eyes, so familiar. "I hate the suffering."

"Animals are beneath mankind," Thomas said. "It is our place to master and control them, and thereby maintain the balance of the world. It is right to do so, and therefore good."

"We have very different minds," I said.

"That is clear."

The question was always in my thoughts, if I could pose it without giving anything away. "There is something I would like you to consider," I said, "seeing as we are so different, you could provide a new perspective to a problem that's been troubling me."

"Ask."

"What if your kingdom was at war with itself, one great house against another?"

"Men by truth bred are never at odds."

"For the sake of argument, say that they were."

The wind tore free strands of hair from his topknot, and he gave no sign of noticing. He was intent on the issue. "If I must." He allowed.

"Your house is at war with another, and you are losing," I said. "You fear your family will be wiped away if the fighting does not stop. Then, the other side offers a compromise. They will accept a truce if you are willing to give up your son."

"What has he done?"

"Nothing."

"Did he offer insult to the other house, and that is how the fight began? Did he cuckold a lord?"

"He is innocent."

"Then why do they want him?"

"For their own reasons. They will accept no substitute, and they are going to kill him, and that will end the war."

"No," he said immediately.

"But it will save your home."

"At the compromise of my principles?" His face was set. "That is too costly."

"You wouldn't do it for the good of all?"

He looked at me curiously. "The good of all is our obedience to universal law. Sacrificing a child for my convenience would be a violation of my duty."

"It isn't convenience, it's life," I said. "The life of your son weighed against the rest of your family and all those who depend on them."

"Life is as light as a feather, duty as heavy as the sky." Thomas tapped the hilt of his sword. "When we take up a sanso, we take up the duty that accompanies the blade. If I fail that duty, I am not worthy of it. If I had a son, and I failed my duty to him, I would not be worthy of a family."

"So you value duty more than life?"

"It is better to say that they do not compare. Our adherence to duty is the only measure of good that exists. Life lived in any other manner has no value."

"So you wouldn't give up your child?"

"I could not."

"Thank you for your honesty."

He gave me that curious look again, but turned his attentions back to the hunt. The hours of our travel passed slowly for me, and though they collected two more manta, neither was as large as the first. There would be a feast, of course, and much congratulations to the hunters. In the early days of Euphoria, meat from the sky had supplemented the mountain's stubborn crop yield. In those days, the sky had been home to predators as well, dragons and other beasts, now all gone except for their place in symbolic language. The hunt had become unnecessary, and yet it still mattered to people. It enlivened their spirits. It was a part of the greater good.

If I pledged myself to Ahriman tonight, there would be no calling it back. I would as good as given up my child already. When we were lashed to the docks, I made my excuses to Thomas and the skymen before hurrying away. Back in my rooms, I dismissed my servants without the usual evening preparations. I let down my hair like a commoner and dressed in the clothes Rai had given me. There wasn't much time before I'd be expected at the feast, so I gathered things I thought might be useful in a pillowcase; jewelry wrapped in silks, a few books, charcoal, and a miniature compass. My thoughts were nowhere, they hadn't caught up with my feet.

Then I was knocking on a door, and Castor was opening it.

"Joi?" He said. "Is that you?"

I took a deep breath. "I'm leaving."