In the morning it was time to be moving on.

They rose at first light, dressed, and ate a quick breakfast of bread and cheese in the inn’s common room. Ryn made sure to sit at the opposite end of the table from Nuthea. She didn’t say anything to him, and that was fine by him.

Before they left the town they stopped by some shops to stock up on supplies, buying enough provisions for their trek through the mountains, and taking the opportunity to furnish themselves with some new cloaks. Cid had all the coin for it and didn’t seem to mind spending it--apparently he had done quite well for himself working as a healer in Nonts. They bought cheese--this place was big on cheese--salt beef, and some hard waybread that the shop vendor promised them would keep over their journey.

Then they set off. Back the way they had come, South and East, to the river they had jumped into from the train, and then alongside it, towards the Pelnian mountains. For a while they discussed the idea of following the train track, but in the end decided against it. That would be a foolish move when the Empire would probably be sending more trains up and down it to transport troops. So they stuck by the river instead, which had its source in the Pelnaian mountains taking them towards them as they walked upstream.

As they walked, their conversation grew stilted, then non-existent. Ryn was still sulking with Nuthea, he knew, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t sure if he would ever speak to her again. He just wanted to find General Vorr, kill him, and then be done with this whole group of travelers. He had no idea what he would do after that, but he didn’t need to think about that now.

All the same, he continued to practice his flames by himself and his swordfighting with Cid in any spare moments available. The healer said he was improving fast. Maybe he would finally be good enough to best Vorr the next time he met him. Or maybe Vorr will finally kill me instead, he thought once in the depth of the night when he was on watch, and then at last I’ll be free of this pain and grief.

They kept an eye out for Imperials, but never spotted any. Apparently none had bothered to follow them, not even the lady Shadowfinger. They relaxed a little at this discovery, but Vish didn’t let them stop keeping their eyes out for Imperials, just in case.

A strange sense of foreboding seemed to hover over the party, Ryn thought, but foreboding of what he could not be entirely sure. The end of their journey together, perhaps, which they all must know was coming now they were so near to Manolia, but never spoke of. Or maybe it was the prospect of crossing paths with General Vorr again. Or maybe it was a premonition of something...even worse? Were that possible...

Once in the light from their evening campfire, Nuthea approached Ryn while he sat a little way off from the rest of the group.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice her until she was standing a step away from him, casting a shadow over him from the firelight.

Her lips were tight, her face solemn and ringed by an orange halo that blended with her golden hair.

Surprise embarrassed Ryn into talking to her, something he hadn’t been accustomed to doing lately.

“Er, hello. What do you want?” Damn him if he didn’t sound like a child. But gods, damn me if I don’t care.

Nuthea crouched so that he was on his level; a rare condescension that presumably showed she was trying not to talk down to him. For once.

“Ryn,” she said softly, inaudible to the others who still sat or lay nearer the fire. “I… I wanted to apologise to you, again. I’m so sorry for what happened between me and Vorr. I never intended to tell anyone about the location of the Fire Ruby, let alone someone who would go there and destroy a whole town to find it. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how he got it out of me. I never meant to cause any harm. But I know I have, and I know I didn’t tell you earlier because...because I was ashamed. But I’m sorry for that, too. I’m so sorry, Ryn. I’m so sorry for all that you lost. But we can’t go on like this, with you not speaking to me. Can you ever forgive me?”

Irritation had been burning in Ryn’s belly the whole time Nuthea had been giving him her token apology and even as the tears had started to roll down her cheeks, but when she said the word ‘forgive’ a memory suddenly shone in his mind. The Way of the One is to forgive, she had said to him as they lay next to each other in the darkness aboard the Sirran train bound for Manolia, before he had found out about what she had done.

For a moment, just a moment, another path opened up to him in his imagination, a different path to the wide, dark, thorn-littered road of bitterness and hatred that he was currently walking; it was an unfamiliar path, a narrow but smooth and straight path paved with bright white stones. Maybe I could forgive her, he thought. Maybe I could let her off the hook. Maybe I would feel better. Maybe that would be better. Maybe I could even forgive the Empire, and the Emperor, and Vorr...

But then, as quickly as it had appeared in his mind, the path disappeared, replaced by an image of Vorr’s fat, grinning face. No. The thought of Vorr triggered the thought of his mother’s death, his father’s death, of the roofs of Cleasor burning, and the flames burned in his belly too. Mother. Father. Hometown. Find Vorr. Get Vorr. Kill Vorr. Get away from Nuthea.

He shot Nuthea a scornful frown and, without saying anything more, turned his back on her, shuffling around so that he had his back to the fire, and her. He pulled his cloak around him and lay down on his side to go to sleep, still facing away from Nuthea.

What had he been thinking? How could he forgive her? She had done him too grievous an injury. She had been responsible for the death of his mother, his father and his entire hometown, all because she had been attracted to the monster who had ended up killing them.

After a while, in the darkness behind his closed eyes, he heard the soft squelch of Nuthea’s feet walking over the ground away from him, back to the others.

*

It took them three days’ hike to reach the Manolian border.

First the rolling foothills of Zerlan rose to mountains. These were actually easier to cross because instead of having to climb every single mountain they simply used the position of the sun to make sure they were still heading south-east, and kept to the lower slopes, cutting a path through them that wove below the summits. They soon parted ways from the river, which at one point turned abruptly north in a small valley and up towards the snow-dusted higher slopes, but this didn’t matter as they had filled the water flasks Cid had bought them in Nevva and they were nearing their destination anyway.

Although they would not need to traverse any snow themselves since, as Elrann explained, they were cutting across the south-westerly edge of the mountain range where it was not quite so cold at this time of year, things became more difficult when the mountainsides grew wooded. For in time they reached a place where a blanket of tall pines covered the slopes; a beautiful convergence of mountains and forest that they had no choice but to plunge into since it lay between them and Manolia.

The unharvested, dense trees hid the sky, throwing them even harder onto their trust in Elrann’s sense of direction, but now and again they opened up into a clearing, or the rise of an incline offered them a gap in their covering, and the party was able to check the position of the sun again as its rays slanted down to greet them for a few moments. The forest also had the benefit of concealing them from any Imperials who might be around.

Proceeding thus, on the afternoon of their third day walking, they sighted Manolia.

They saw it even before they saw the station-town that the Sirran train they had been on had been heading towards. As they came to the edge of a rocky crag where the ground suddenly fell away in a vicious drop, and the treeline with it, taking care not to stumble over the edge they were given a glimpse of the space between the lower slopes of several mountains. And there, beyond them, beyond where the mountain range ended, in the distance, was a gigantic, grey, stone wall.

Ryn thought it was a natural feature at first, so vast was it. He thought that the earth must have pressed together from two sides and, with nowhere else to go, pushed up into the air to form an enormous cliff shelf. But as he looked more closely he saw that the edge of the shelf was entirely straight, and all the same height along the top, and that it stretched out of sight on either side--it could not be natural, it had to be man-made. Or ‘woman-made’, Ryn supposed, from what he had heard from Nuthea about Manolia back when he was still talking to her. It was impossible to tell how tall the wall was from this far away, but it looked to be at least the height of a mountain.

“There is the border wall of my homeland,” said Nuthea as they all stood side by side staring at it. “Our journey is nearly at an end.”

“Treasure, glory and beautiful women, here I come,” said Sagar, and licked his lips.

“We need to stay out of the way of the Imperials,” said Cid.

“That will be easy,” said Nuthea. “We can avoid Plessa, where the train will have stopped, entirely, and make for the secret passage in the north-eastern tip of the wall. It is not actually all that far away, as the wall is not as wide as it would seem, since the land contracts here as it forms the Manolian peninsula. And it should be easy enough to stay out of sight of any lurking Imperials in this tree cover. Let’s go.”

They set out then on what Ryn hoped was the last leg of their journey before they reached Manolia, turning from the crag to descend the last part of the slope they had been walking on, then turning north-east to walk in parallel with the wall. Nuthea seemed to know this part of the world well enough to be able to guide them confidently without Elrann’s help any longer.

As if in assistance of their plight, when dusk began to fall a thick mist began to spread over the mountains. It started high up, around the peaks, glimpsed as roiling white fingers through the gaps between the trees, and then rolled slowly down to meet them, cloaking the wooded slopes in fog. If there were any Imperials out looking for them, it would be even harder to spot the party now.

The only drawback of the mist was that it limited their own view as well and meant that they had to walk closer together to keep from losing sight of each other, so Ryn was no longer able to hang back from the group and walk at a distance from them. He heard every word of their occasional, nervous conversation.

“How do you know this land so well, princess-girl?” Elrann asked her, apparently impressed. In spite of the fog, Nuthea still seemed to know exactly where she was going.

She did not answer straight away, but when she did she said “I used to gaze out at these mountains every day from my bedchamber in Orma, the capital city of Manolia, where we are heading--it is not far from the border wall, on the other side. I know them well. I know their names. I know where Plessa sits in relation to them.”

“It’s a good thing, too,” said Sagar, “or we’d be fodder for the Imperials by now.”

And sure enough, when Nuthea announced that it was time to walk all the way to the bottom of the mountain they were on, and keep walking until they came out from underneath the trees to a plain where the forest ended, there in front of them, suddenly looming like a visitor they had not known had been at their door, was the Manolian border wall again.

It was even more immense up close. Now Ryn could see for sure that it wasn’t a natural feature of the landscape, but hewn out of a smooth, grey stone: If you looked closely enough, you could see the weathered lines in the places where massive rectangular blocks of it had been joined together. It must have taken an age to build.

And what was that noise? A gentle susurrus, rising and falling to and from a larger swell from moment to moment, not unlike the wind and yet not the wind. He looked to his left, north-east along the wall, and there, just visible through the descending dusk and lingering mist, was the dark blue shimmer and crashing white foam of the sea.

They walked the last stretch of misty land that lay between them and the wall.

“What are we looking for, then?” said Sagar. “A secret door?”

“You will know it when you see it,” said Nuthea.

They drew up to the face of the wall near its extreme north-eastern tip. Here its edge suddenly stopped and fell away to a rocky coastline where the white spray of the crashing waves glittered in the air. A vertical pole about as tall as a person came into view. It stood a little way away from the wall, and near enough to its edge that they got a bit wet from stray droplets of the seaspray. It had the sheen of metal rather than stone, though it had been camouflaged against the wall from a distance so you would not have known it was there if you were not looking for it. It was thin and straight, except for its tip, about head height, which ended in a metallic sphere that was slightly wider than the pole itself.

“Is it this?” said Sagar.

“Yes,” said Nuthea. “This is the lock to a secret passage through the wall. Only Manolians with the Gift can use it. Stand back.”

They did, and Nuthea spread her feet and opened her hands.

“Bolt!” she yelled.

Bright white lightning leapt from her open hands to the sphere at the top of the pole, a single shock of discharge. In the same instant that it hit it ran down the length of the pole into the ground, and the whole pole shone white for a moment, then returned to its metal colour.

Silence, but for the foaming sea.

Of course Sagar broke it first. “Well that was a pretty trick, princess. But how does that help us?”

Even as he spoke two upright rectangular sections of the wall in front of them slid backwards with a rumbling scrape, revealing a dark, person-sized opening in the stone.

“Okay, that’s pretty clever, I suppose...” said Sagar.

The party followed Nuthea into the darkness of the passageway.

Once she had stepped inside the wall and gone a few paces, she checked that everyone else was in, then turned to her left and pressed her hand against a certain place in the stone that she knew to look for. The stone she had touched depressed into the wall of the passage and the doors behind them slid shut all of a sudden. They were plunged into dimness, lit only by a blazing torch that was mounted on the wall of the passageway a few steps further in.

“Princess Nuthea!” exclaimed a female voice.

Ryn almost jumped out of his skin. Sagar and Vish put hands to their swords.

In front of them stood a tall, broad-shouldered woman clad in a golden breastplate over a gold-dyed tunic and skirt. She wore a golden helm too, with a guard that came down over the bridge of her nose. Like Nuthea, she had long, golden hair. All the gold on her glittered in the flickering glow from the torch on the wall. She carried a metal spear, taller than herself, with a vicious, twinkling tip. Her approaching footsteps had been masked by the sound of the tunnel doors sliding shut.

“Kathuna!” Nuthea said, and ran forwards. They embraced and kissed one other on each cheek.

Sagar, who had stepped forward when the woman had appeared, turned round and gave Ryn a leering smile. He mouthed the words “Beautiful women!” and his eyes flashed mischievously before he turned back round.

Urgh. How can he be thinking about that now? He’s got a one track mind. He could see what Sagar meant, though… The woman had very round hips, and the way her metal breastplate had been moulded didn’t exactly...underemphasise some of her other features. She wasn’t as beautiful as Nuthea, though. Her jaw was wider, and she didn’t quite have the same striking angular cheekbones, Ryn could see even under the helmet she wore. Also she just wasn’t Nuthea. Not that any of that mattered. Why was he thinking this? He wasn’t even interested in Nuthea any more.

The two Manolians had begun a rapid interchange.

“You’ve come back!” the woman called Kathuna was saying. “And you’ve brought these...people with you?”

“Yes, these are my friends, Lady Elrann, Grandfather Cid, Captain Sagar, Master Ryn and Vish.” Why did she say Elrann first? Why did she say Sagar before me? “I...well, there’s no time to explain now--Kathuna, the Morekemian Empire is seeking to invade our country! I must see my mother to warn her!”

“Calm down, calm down!” said Kathuna, putting out her hands in a steadying gesture. “We know. We’ve been watching the Imperials for a few days now. They have been mustering troops at Plessa on the other side of the border for some time, bringing them in by train. It’s fortunate that you chose to come back this way, the same way you left. But maybe you knew to avoid them?”

“You mean they’ve been mustering troops but haven’t attacked yet?”

“That’s right. I’ve been here at the passageway on guard duty for a week and I’ve had no word or sight of an attack, only that the Morekemians have been gathering in Plessa.”

“Oh, thank the One! I’m so glad we’re not too late!”

“Too late for what?” Kathuna tilted her head to one side. “Where have you been all this time, Princess? What have you been doing?”

“I’ll explain everything in time. I must get to my mother as soon as possible all the same--I have some other information that I need to share with her.”

“Of course. Follow me.”

What else does she need to tell her mother? Ryn thought as Kathuna took the torch from the wall and they followed her down the passageway. I thought she just needed to get back to warn her people about the Empire? Actually, he didn’t care, he decided. It wasn’t like it mattered. It wasn’t like he was going to talk to Nuthea to find out what she meant.

“I’ve got so much to tell you,” Kathuna was saying to Nuthea. “So much has happened while you’ve been away.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“Well, as I’m sure you expected, the Queen was furious when she discovered that you’d left the country. I was questioned thoroughly as Guardswoman In Charge of the Border Wall, but you’d given me enough information to construct a sound alibi, so thank you for that. House Aluna were furious as well. Vivenna vowed to go and find you and bring you back to Manolia herself, but her mothers wouldn’t let her. They were so offended that you’d run away from the wedding that they withdrew their proposal altogether.”

“Oh, thank the One!” said Nuthea. That is a relief!”

In spite of himself, Ryn had lots of questions. But he couldn’t voice them what with his pact of silence with regards to Nuthea.

Fortunately Sagar voiced them for him. “Huh?” said the pirate. “Who’s this ‘Vivenna’ person?”

“Vivenna Aluna is the woman Princess Nuthea was engaged to be married to,” said Kathuna.

“You were engaged to be married to a woman?!” Ryn could not help himself from blurting out, breaking his pact of silence without another thought.

“She was,” Kathuna answered for her. “By the arrangement of their families, as is our custom. I have heard this is not so common in the primitive lands, but this is how we do things in the Motherland. In the Motherland, women rule and reign supreme while the men serve, as the One intended, rather than the other way around. We have little need for men, except as servants and surrogates.”

Ryn’s throat went dry, and for the moment his questions dried up too.

“Hang on a moment,” said Sagar, suspicion suddenly seeping into his tone, “you’re not about to try to enslave me, are you? I was promised gold, gemstones and beautiful women in return for escorting the princess back here!”

“You were promised what?” said Kathuna.

“Never mind that just now,” said Nuthea, and laughed nervously, a sound that Ryn had never heard before. “The promises I made to you will be fulfilled, skycaptain. And do not worry, Ryn, Vish, Grandfather. You will not be made to be servants here either. You are here as my guests. Manolia knows that not every country in Mid follows her customs, and my mother should be able to tolerate men in her presence--so long as you behave yourselves and are polite.” She shot Sagar a pointed glance.

“Okaaay then, princess…” said Sagar warily.

Vish grunted the barest acknowledgement.

“I’m starting to like this country,” said Elrann.

“I did warn you that Manolia was a Matriarchy on our journey from Nevva,” Cid said quietly to Ryn and Sagar while Nuthea and Kathuna continued talking with each other. Ryn supposed that the old man had, but he hadn’t really been paying attention--he had been too preoccupied with his thoughts of revenge, as usual. “I should hasten to add, not all Oneists take this view of the roles of the sexes--that men should be subservient to women. I, for example, do not... It is a doctrine that is peculiar to the Manolians. So you will need to...tolerate a certain amount that you are unfamiliar with while you are here, too.”

Ryn didn’t really care that much. Why should he?

At last they reached the end of the passageway. It had gone on for a surprisingly long amount of time--the Manolian border wall must be massively thick. This time Kathuna was the one to depress a small place in the wall, and two hidden doors in the stone that barred their way swung open.

Bright sunshine greeted them as they stepped out into Manolia and were hit by a wave of warmth. At the same time, the air felt clearer, crisper here, as Ryn sucked a big gulp of it into his lungs.

Mother. Father. Hometown. Find Vorr. Get Vorr. Kill Vorr. Get away from Nuthea.

Built into the border wall on this side near the edge of the passageway was a small stable that jutted out from it, hewn from the same grey stone. Here they were greeted by two more female guards wearing the same tunic and armour as Kathuna, and again with the same golden blonde hair. Ryn supposed that Nuthea wasn’t that special after all.

Although they don’t wear that royal circlet, and their hair doesn’t shimmer quite like hers does, and they’re just not her… Urgh, why am I thinking this? Shut up, Ryn!

Kathuna introduced these guards to them as Rana and Thula. They each went wide-eyed with recognition of Nuthea at once, but rather than peppering her with questions as Kathuna had done they looked away or down at the floor, seeming to go bashful and awkward in her presence.

The stables held yellow chocobos and chariots with curved silver fronts and big golden wheels. Was everything made out of gold in this country?

They were able to fit four to a chariot, so they took two, with Kathuna and Rana driving two chocobos each, while Thula stayed behind to take her turn on duty guarding the Border Wall passageway. Ryn made sure to take a different chariot from Nuthea, and held on to the side of one with Cid and Vish as Rana lashed the reins and the chocobos cawed and began to run.

And then they were galloping over the Manolian plains, plains of lush green grass, out of the shadow of the Pelnian mountains, towards Orma, which Rana announced was Manolia’s capital. The bright sun’s rays blazed down from a clear sky. It was definitely hotter here than in Zerlan, but the breeze from rushing along in the chariots whipped at their clothing and kept Ryn cool.

White buildings rose up in the distance, gleaming in the sunshine. Ryn squinted. He could see the vertical lines of pillars, rounded domed roofs. Orma was built somewhat differently to the towns and cities he had visited on his journey thus far. Instead of tall towers, the buildings here were all wide rectangles, which must be why they hadn’t seen them sooner.

Soon the chariot wheels were clacking over streets of paved white stone. But not dirty, off-white like the stone that Sirra had been built out of. The road and buildings here practically shone, and almost hurt Ryn’s eyes to look at. He supposed that the stone must be quarried from the Pelnaian mountains, but the Manolians seemed to take better care of it than the Imfisi in Sirra.

Indeed, now and then they passed someone scrubbing at a wall or a patch of floor with a mop, or lifting one to clean a window.

That was when Ryn realised that all of the people doing these things were men. Men dressed in simple, dirty, servants’ clothing--brown breeches and overalls, or just rags. Cid hadn’t been joking when he said that the women were in charge here…

The women, for their part, appeared to walk the streets at leisure, and were dressed either in flowing white togas or, occasionally, the same tunic and armour that Kathuna, Rana and Thula wore. Some of them did double takes when they saw four foreign men riding along in a couple of military chariots. Some noticed Nuthea and gasped and muttered to each other, turning their heads to watch her pass and pointing after her.

The chariot turned onto a much broader road which led up a small hill to a domed palace.

Ryn knew it was a palace for its opulence and position. Three white buildings sat next to each other at the top and centre of the hill, sunlight blazing off their many windows and their domed roofs, making the air above them shimmer.

Of course, the domes were made of--

Gold. Like Nuthea’s hair.

“Shut up,” Ryn mumbled to himself.

“What was that?” said Cid next to him.

“Sorry, nothing…” Ryn said, his cheeks heating.

They drew up in front of the palace, and the Manolians reined in the chocobos right in front of its massive golden doors. Another pair of guardswomen ran forward and began to protest, but then Nuthea jumped out of Kathuna’s chariot.

“Hush!” she commanded the women. Suddenly Ryn saw where her air of regal authority had come from. “It is me, Nuthea.”

“Princess!” the guards exclaimed at once, halting in their tracks just as Kathuna had done.

“What do you wish of us?” one of them said when she had re-gathered herself.

“That is more like it,” said Nuthea with a curt nod. “Escort my companions and me to my mother at once.”

The guards looked at each other, then at Ryn, Sagar, Cid and Vish.

“But princess,” said one, “there are...men with you...”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” snapped Nuthea. “You heard what I said!”

“Yes, princess!” the pair yelped in unison.

“Please, come this way!”

“Your mother’s council has just been in session, so you should still be able to find her in the throne room!”

One of them knocked a short, particular rhythm on the massive doors to the palace and they eased open.

Ryn barely had time to take in the splendour of the palace’s rooms and corridors as they were swept down them by the guards in the wake of Nuthea, who paced through them like a woman possessed by some maddening spirit. The floors and walls were polished white stone, the ceilings held up by pillars of blue marble. As they ascended a curved flight of stairs, a huge, gold-framed mirror reflected the dishevelled forms of Ryn and his traveling companions back at themselves. They looked severely out of place in such an impressive palace. Several more guardswomen posted at key points frowned quizzically at the party as they approached but then inevitably deferred and allowed them passage as soon as they recognised Nuthea.

Eventually, Nuthea shocked one final pair of guardswomen into letting them through another huge set of doors that opened into a wide, oval chamber walled with the same white stone as the rest of the palace.

A second balcony level ringed the room too, built a little over half way up the high wall, with a rail to stop people falling off of it.

On this balcony Ryn could see rows of wooden benches which extended from the wall of the chamber presumably to behind the guard rail, out of sight from ground level.

Light came into the room through tall, high windows on the balcony level.

The light fell on a raised, stepped dais with a tall stone throne set into the centre of it that stood at the far end of the chamber.

Two more guards holding spears stood in front of the dais, to either side of it.

Facing the dais were arrayed, in square blocks, rows of smaller, wooden chairs.

All of the benches and chairs in the throne room were empty.

All save one.

In the centre of the dais, on the throne, sat a figure.

As big as the room was, it was hard to make out the figure’s features at first, but as Ryn walked towards it with the others, the sounds of their footsteps echoing around the vast, eerily quiet chamber, he saw more.

Of course, it was a woman.

This must be Nuthea’s mother.

The Queen stood. The first thing that struck Ryn about her was how big she was. Even as they approached her throne from across the hall, Ryn could see that the Queen was exceedingly tall--a good seven feet, he reckoned, much taller than Nuthea.

Rather than the metal breastplate and tunic of the Manolian military, the Queen wore a floor-length white dress interwoven with patterned gold thread, much like Nuthea’s dress had looked before it had been torn, bloodstained and bespattered with dirt, mud, river water and all manner of other things on their journey to get here.

The Queen’s white feet were bare where they peeked out from under the hem of her dress. Her hips were very wide indeed, and curved back to a more slender stomach. Her bosoms were gigantic underneath her dress. Her shoulders were broad.

He had expected her hair to be golden, like Nuthea’s and apparently everyone else’s here, but instead a waterfall of straight, dark hair fell down her back, stopping at her waist. She had something of the same obvious beauty in the lines of her nose and cheeks as Nuthea did, only it was a more taut, strained beauty, a crueller beauty.

On her head she wore a simple, shining, many-pronged golden crown.

In short, she was majestic, and Ryn found her utterly terrifying.

As they arrived in front of the dais the Queen fixed the party with two piercing blue eyes with crystals dancing in them--those eyes were almost exactly the same as Nuthea’s--and Ryn felt as though she was looking directly at him.

Silence, for a time. Nobody announced them or said who they were. It must be obvious, or the Queen must have already been told, Ryn supposed. Sweat moistened his forehead. He couldn’t meet the Queen’s gaze. He wished she would stop staring at him.

As if hearing Ryn’s thoughts, the Queen transferred her stare to Nuthea at last. Her expression was hard, her mouth a thin line. She drew in a deep breath.

“Why?” the Queen said in a clear, proud voice that was deeper than her daughters, and had a very slight tremor in it.

It was an odd sort of greeting. The silence lingered on for a moment longer.

“Mother, I’m so sorry!”

Nuthea suddenly broke out into a run towards her mother’s throne, moving as if to climb the steps, but when she was still yet ten paces away her mother held up a hand. The two guardswomen on either side of the dais stepped forwards and crossed their spears in front of Nuthea, barring her way forward.

“Stop there, child,” said Nuthea’s mother. “You do not so easily approach my throne.” Her motions and speech seemed stiff and restrained, as if she was dealing with some great inner conflict or holding some force of emotion at bay. “You had the favour of this throne once, Nutheanna, but you discarded it carelessly, and your actions...your actions have had consequences.”

“Mother, I’m so sorry for the pain that I’ve caused you,” Nuthea said, her own voice trembling a little. “And the Aluna family. But I couldn’t marry Vivenna. I didn’t love her. And anyway, that is not what I have come back to Orma to talk to you about. Mother, I have important information to share with you about the Primeval Jewels--”

“Speak carefully!” the Queen interjected all of a sudden. Was she shaking very slightly? Ryn could not tell why, whether it was anger or some other emotion that she was holding at bay. “We are in the presence of servants and...foreigners.” She glanced ever so briefly at Ryn and the other members of their traveling party, then quickly looked back at Nuthea.

“We can speak freely in front of these people, mother. They are my friends, and they know everything that I have to tell you anyway--well, most of them know almost everything...” Huh? What does that mean? “They helped me return here after I was captured by a Morekemian officer.”

There was an intake of breath, including from the guards in the room.

Tension radiated from every line of the Queen’s body. “You were already… you were captured by the Empire? How did you escape?”

“That doesn’t matter just now, mother, what matters is what I have to tell you, and my friends can hear it because they helped me get back to Manolia.”

“Yeah,” said Sagar, “about that--some of us were promised a reward--”

“Not now, Sagar!” Nuthea snapped without even looking at him. “You will get your reward in due time!”

Sagar turned a very pleasing shade of purple.

The Queen sat tight-lipped a moment longer. What was she holding back? Why was she sitting so tensely? “Say what you have to say, and take care over your words.”

Now Nuthea seemed to struggle to get the words out in turn. “Mother, I am so sorry. An Imperial Officer called Vorr captured me because, while I was traveling outside Manolia after I ran away, I inadvertently revealed to him my knowledge of the Primeval Jewels. I told him that we had the Lightning Crystal, and I told him where the Fire Ruby was hidden. He captured me and took me to Efstan to find the Fire Ruby, which he...which he did successfully. Mother, the Morekemian Empire know about the Jewels, and they have the Fire Ruby. I’m so sorry. The One forgive me, I’m so sorry...”

Silence.

The Queen’s face remained tense, but unmoved, her eyes on the floor.

“I’m sorry, I know I let you down,” Nuthea said after a while. “Say something, mother!”

The Queen lifted her eyes to regard her daughter with such an intense stare Ryn wondered if lightning was suddenly going to manifest from her eyes.

At last she spoke, in a hushed voice, the tremor now barely concealed. “Is that all you have to say to me, child?”

Huh?

“Yes…?” said Nuthea.

At that the Queen’s tight shoulders slumped ever so slightly and she seemed to relax a little.

From the way she lifted her face and smiled sheepishly, Nuthea seemed relieved too. “At least I didn’t tell them where the Earth Emerald was hidden,” she said quickly.

“NO!” yelled Nuthea’s mother out of nowhere, high and shrill, her face going bone-white. “DO NOT SPEAK OF THAT! YOU ARE IN DANGER!”

Something fell from above like a diving swallow and hit the Queen in the front of her neck. She fell forwards at once, making a horrible choking sound, and writhed on the floor, clutching at the arrow that protruded from it.

Ryn looked around and up in horror.

The arrow had come from the balcony.

A score of black-armoured Imperial soldiers clutching crossbows looked down on them from where they had been hiding behind the rail.

A deep, sadistic laugh rang out through the throne room.

From out behind the ivory throne, where he must have been hiding all this time, stepped General Vorr.