“I realise now that I have been somewhat remiss, but in my defence, it has been a rather eventful four days since you came to live with us, and we have been pressed for time as a result.”

Katsumi felt her brow crease in confusion. Immediately upon returning to the Drunken Whore from the events that transpired in the Silvern Basilica, before she even had a chance to dress herself once more, Madam Tsuyu demanded her presence; these were the first words the woman had spoken since then, uttered as she produced a key from the sleeves of her yukata to open the locked room on the second floor to which Katsumi had been led. “Madam Tsuyu, I’m afraid I don’t follow…”

“Mm. Well, in light of the nighttime antics you young people have gotten up to, let us simply say that the past few days count as an impromptu evaluation,” the woman continued, either missing or ignoring Katsumi’s strangled cry at her rather cavalier wording. “You have promise, little dragon, and your skill in such arts seems to be growing with the experience. In the ordinary course, as I would not have you serve on your back, I would count your prowess as satisfactory. Yet you now find yourself courting my daughter, and I must confess I find my standards raised by this knowledge.”

Where has this come from?! Katsumi cried within the privacy of her own mind, not trusting her voice.

“This is neither an indictment, nor a criticism of your suitability as dear Ástríðr’s…‘girl friend,’ I believe you children call it? Indeed, I do not believe she could have chosen better. So I bid you not to worry your head over such a thing,” Madam Tsuyu clarified, the room before them unlocked, though the door itself remained closed. “In the ordinary course, I am given to understand, it is my duty as a parent to evaluate you and give either my blessing or disapproval to your little arrangement. Consider what is to follow this moment, then, to be an expression of my blessing, unconventional though it might be.”

A lump formed in Katsumi’s throat and dropped into her abdomen. “Madam Tsuyu, I appreciate your approval, but I fear I should be ill were I to find myself straying from your daughter’s bed.”

Tsuyu laughed, and her jade eyes glittered with mirth; a flash of white, like an elongated tooth, Katsumi caught as her plum lips opened, but it was gone when she blinked, and she decided it was likely a trick of the light. “Is that what you think this is? My dear girl, while I am flattered, I suppose, that is not at all what my intentions are here. Suffice it to say that were it my intention to bed you, you would not leave my chambers with breath still in your body.”

Madam Tsuyu’s smile this time was as playful as it was shark-like, and Katsumi realised two things: one, she had not imagined the elongated teeth, and two, Madam Tsuyu was not a hume as the drahn had at first been given to assume.

Fortifying her composure, Katsumi met the glittering green. “Then may I ask what your intentions are?”

“You may. I might even answer,” the inhuman woman rejoined. “Truthfully, it is a gift. A dowry of sorts, you might call it. A boon for you and her both. When I am through with you, my girl, Ástríðr will not so much as consider another.”

The comment pleased Katsumi, before the guilt at her initial reaction seized her, and then directed her words. Her lover might wish to keep her close and by her side, but that did not mean Katsumi had any right to feel jealousy over the idea of Ástríðr bedding others. “I am not Ástríðr’s keeper, Madam Tsuyu. I shall not stray from her because the very notion of doing so sickens me; she is under no obligation to reciprocate. If she wishes to bed as many women as time will allow, that is her prerogative. I am hers; she is not mine. I understand my place, and as such, I have no intention of infringing upon her freedoms.”

“Methinks you protest entirely too much, dear girl,” Tsuyu replied teasingly, her eyes glittering with good-natured mirth. “I fear your heart may well be branded to your sleeve. But insist as you like; I intend to instruct you all the same. Follow me.”

The older woman’s long fingers turned the knob of the door, and then crossed the threshold into the revealed chamber that lay beyond. As bidden, Katsumi followed suit, feeling the door close behind her. Madam Tsuyu was already sweeping into the centre of the room, so Katsumi attributed the door’s motion once more to magic as she made to follow her employer.

“I made certain to air out your bed the morning after you surrendered your maidenhead, together with Ástríðr’s this morning, just after the four of you left. I have been on my back many times, for a very long time, and for a few decades have I run this bordello especially, so suffice it to say I am well-acquainted with the residue left behind by activities of such a clandestine nature. Tell me, Katsumi: are you acquainted with the utility of your mouth as an orifice? With the skills attached to its use in the course of bringing pleasure to your partner?”

Katsumi felt the question as if she had just walked into a solid wall. “I…I’m sorry?”

The expression that Madam Tsuyu wore then was more than a little bemused. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then. But perhaps that’s for the best. A blank slate has no bad habits to unlearn, after all. It does, however, mean we’ll have to start working out where your limits are as they currently stand.

“It may surprise you to learn, little dragon, that there is more to coupling than that which may result in childbirth,” she continued, turning her back to Katsumi as she walked from the centre of the chamber to the far wall, against which rested a wardrobe built of dark wood. Katsumi looked around to attempt to discern the room’s function, and yet each thing she laid eyes upon further complicated the issue, as none of these had functions she could discern.

There was a large X-shaped piece of wood at one wall, with manacles built into it for security. In the corner was what appeared to be a podium that had been sheared in half, and a long triangular prism was secured to its top, the sharpest point facing skyward. The rack on the back wall with paddles and ropes, whips and crops, canes and what appeared at first glance to be cattle prods but were in actuality branding irons, suspended from it was perhaps the item in the room with the clearest purpose bar the wardrobe. Even the futon set in the corner opposite the prismic semi-podium was perplexing, as this room was clearly never meant to be a chamber for sleep. The walls were painted a deep, almost stony blue, unassuming and understated, and for the life of her, she could not understand why this room was so important.

“Look down.”

Katsumi tore her gaze away from a far corner of the room to see that Madam Tsuyu was smirking fondly as she held a long, wide, but not especially deep wooden box in her hands. The older woman jerked her head down to the ground, and Katsumi looked down, finally noticing that she stood in the centre of a circle that seemed to encompass half the floor space, layered with so many different languages her brain struggled to even separate them, a startling number of different shapes, Euclidean and non, inscribed within various rings that got progressively smaller and more complicated as they drew closer to the centre, with smaller circles at points where the different shapes met the circumference of each ring. “What…?”

“This is our all-purpose ritual room. It is thaumaturgically and sorcerously isolated from the rest of the building, and indeed, the rest of the world. My husband uses it from time to time in the course of religious observance. I am not quite so pious as he, though I like to think I do my part. Since gaining her benison from the Crystal, Kyomi has gotten a great deal of use out of this as well. In time, when she is ready, she will invoke and bind each of her Summons by making use of this circle’s various configurations.”

“I thought she summoned her creatures from her grimoire…?”

“Eventually, yes. But a Summon does not respond to a call from so paltry a source. A proper ritual is needed—an item as a catalyst, the price paid in blood. Place a catalyst at the correct station, and the circle changes its configuration accordingly. Blood is given in tribute, and the invocation commences. The invocation ends once an accord is reached, and the proper information then appears in Kyomi’s grimoire. With my dearest husband’s religious observance, the process is a bit different, but we seem to be drifting rather far afield of the point,” Madam Tsuyu explained. “Regardless, in the time between rituals, this place also stores implements that most often find use in Kyomi’s eminently capable hands. Now, to instruction—as I was saying, there is more to coupling than activities that risk conception. The nights my daughter has spent bedding you have been fortunate, as she has been impassioned. And yet, there will be nights when she is not quite so eager, or perhaps quite so euphoric. On days like those, as her paramour, it falls to you to see to her well-being. One of the physical methods of this falls under the umbrella of ‘foreplay.’”

Then it clicked in Katsumi’s head, and she flushed crimson. “O-oh… I… I see…”

“Calm yourself, dear girl. It is not so onerous as all that, I assure you,” Tsuyu scoffed. “We will start small, and I shall be here to guide you through your learning. Now. First, we shall start with oral sex, and I should like to see where you are with regards to your natural aptitudes for it before I begin giving instruction, so, within this box are artificial members of varying sizes. You will take these down your throat one after another until we come upon one whose size is prohibitive for one reason or another. We will work our way up from there.”

The older woman moved to open the box, but paused with her hand on the latch. “Oh, and each size increase comes with the added benefit of the next being a more faithful reproduction of my daughter’s endowment. In case you needed motivation.”

The box opened.

Katsumi stared at the contents, and swallowed. She looked to the largest, and marvelled for a moment at the fact that she had taken something like that within her at least thrice before with little to no issue. Still, if it meant Ástríðr would look at her more, would praise her more and make that mortifying pleasure with its almost narcotic allure shoot through her… She nodded to herself, steeling her mind and affirming her resolve. She could do this. She would do this.

Madam Tsuyu deftly plucked forth the smallest, at twenty centimetres long. “Now then, little dragon, shall we begin?”

The afternoon had begun to wane when Mother finally released Katsumi from their little meeting. Ástríðr understood what had to have transpired behind the closed door of the ritual room, and her anger simmered at the thought, but when Katsumi descended the stairs from the second floor, coughing a bit but having no more difficulty with meeting Ástríðr’s eyes than was normal for the girl, she exhaled in relief and sagged a bit as the unconscious tension fled her body. Despite what prior experience told her Mother’s training entailed, it seemed nothing untoward had happened between Tsuyu and the girl, which, while unexpected, was far from unwelcome.

Kyomi and Kagura were still deep in either negotiations or arguments—it was sometimes difficult to discern one from the other when it came to the vii twins—over who got what cards for their decks, so Ástríðr made sure to pick a table that was not only out of earshot, but also out of the space that would be adversely affected by the raised voices the siblings sometimes adopted when their contrasting opinions on ‘card theory’, whatever that was, ignited a conflict or five. On that table was a platter covered with a silver domed cloche, beneath which was a meal she had tried—and failed, as she was famous for not only burning, but charring, water—to prepare with her aggravated energy over the intervening hours. Thankfully, Father had interceded and started anew from the beginning, leaving only the most elementary tasks of food preparation for her to complete, and now she could share a meal with her beloved.

Upon catching sight of Ástríðr’s expression, which she hoped was inviting, Katsumi smiled and beelined for her table, sitting across from the elf with a prim sort of elegance that she envied somewhat. It was lacking that same grace that made the sword difficult for her to learn, to the point where though she was proficient with it, she would never be able to master the weapon, at least not without expending more time and effort than she considered worthwhile.

She lifted the cloche, and smiled as not only did Katsumi’s eyes widen, but her tail set about to swishing absently. “Did you make this?!”

“I wish I could say yes, but it was my father who prepared this, I’m afraid. I’m hopeless in the kitchen,” Ástríðr confessed. “The most I could do was prepare the components.”

“Ingredients,” Katsumi corrected off-handedly. “But thank you. I’m sure knowing you had a hand in this, however small it might have been, will make it taste better. Itadakimasu!”

The girl picked up the utensils and began to cut into the layered and tender meats, smiling when it hit her mouth even though she winced a tad as it slid, morsel by morsel, down her throat, while Ástríðr sat and attempted to force words to come to her mind.

After a few minutes, during which time, almost half the platter, meant to be shared by two, had disappeared, Katsumi’s smiles began to change tone, from excited to sober to somber, and finally to melancholy. It was at this last stage that Ástríðr finally found her tongue once more. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s silly. Just…” the girl sighed, the conflict clear on her face. “I recognise some of the meats here, some of the spices, and all of a sudden I started thinking of what I could make with them. But I haven’t…I haven’t cooked in years now. It was one of my few joys. Haruhi was horrible in the kitchen, you see, and while our parents were out or abroad, sometimes over a span of hours or days, one time for two weeks during a significant anniversary, I’d be the one to cook, or we wouldn’t eat. But Haruhi, useless though she was with food, always found ways to make it fun, filling the house with music that we’d sing and she’d dance to…

“And then she was thrown out. I made sure I kept track of where she was, leaving food I made for her where she could find it, and hanging back to make sure she got it. But eventually, I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep checking on her and doing what I could while watching her wither away, powerless to do anything more. When she…died…well, that was when I stopped cooking altogether.” Katsumi sighed, and it was simultaneously in the present moment and years away. “It seems idiotic, but I find myself missing it.”

Desperately, almost violently, she wanted to wipe the shadows of sorrow from her love’s face, but she withheld such actions, knowing that not only did she need to give Katsumi time to hurt, so long as she didn’t begin to spiral, but also that she knew next to nothing about what she liked outside of the bedroom. And so, instead of slavishly following her impulse, she noted, “This is the first you’ve spoken of anything you like doing.”

“Well, there’s a reason for that,” Katsumi replied, smiling with a bitter edge. “It was not an exaggeration to call cooking one of my ‘few’ joys. Even now, I struggle to recall anything else, I’m afraid.”

“There must be something,” Ástríðr pressed, praying the girl didn’t notice how desperate she was to help.

Katsumi was midway through shaking her head, when she caught sight of the twins’ table, and paused for a bit, her countenance adopting a contemplative cast. “What is that?”

“It’s a card game. Heroes, I think,” Ástríðr replied, willing to follow where this non sequitur led, so long as it wasn’t down. “It’s made in Rosenfaire, for children. There are shops in the other Free Cities to sell them, but they’re few and far between, given how new the entire concept is. Heroes just so happens to be the first of its kind.”

“…I was never one for games, I’ll grant you,” Katsumi replied at length. “But the way they hold them and shuffle, I recognise several of the methods they use, though admittedly not by name. Kyomi in particular. Kagura has the dexterity for it, but not the head, it seems.

“When I was younger, we had these superstitions. Silly ones, childish even, attributing personality traits to blood types or somesuch nonsense. We had foreign ones, too, though the popularity of those really varied. I had a deck of cards involved with a foreigner superstition, or tradition, I suppose, called Tarot. I learned about them and got a pack and taught myself the spreads, the associations and the interpretations, the shuffles, and so on. It brought me a measure of peace, though for the life of me I could never figure out why.

“It just seemed as though the world suddenly made sense with the cards in my hands. I could feel my sorrows and woes bleed from me when I took the time to draw a spread or the like.” Katsumi’s gaze was far in the distance, her mind fixed on the subject of which she spoke. “Some boiled the cards down to mere fortune-telling, reducing them so as to make them easier to ridicule. But it wasn’t true. Not entirely. The Tarot wasn’t merely for fortune-telling, but rather for revealing hidden truths, whatever those truths were at the time. Fortune-telling was a part of it, yes, but never the whole. The cards…they were important to me, in ways that defy words.”

Then, with a blink and a sigh, she returned to herself. “And you?”

“I’m…simpler, in some ways. Father made certain to train me to fight since the day I broke the arm of a bully several years my senior when he tried to withhold a toy of mine. I know axes inside out and backwards, but I’ve known music since I was a sprat. One of my earliest name-day gifts was a pan flute. I can play anything from a lute to a mandolin to a guitar, and though I’ve never really gotten to use keyed instruments, I’m sure I’d be able to play them, too, given time,” said Ástríðr. “I’d say I’ve gotten quite good at drawing, though I’m told that some of my sketches of live subjects are more…anatomical than intimate. My skill with painting is only passable, I’m afraid.

“As far as money goes, I deal in a valuable commodity for extra funds. We don’t need them, of course—Mother and Father could sustain themselves, Sonja, and me in far more affluent trappings comfortably for a few generations yet—but after a certain point, it didn’t feel right to continue to live here without giving back a bit.”

“I must confess, I would not know one end of a musical instrument from another, as much as I have wanted to learn in the past,” Katsumi remarked.

“I could teach you, if you still have that desire,” Ástríðr offered.

Katsumi’s face bloomed into a small smile. “I think I’d like that. Though, I must confess, I’ve never seen you go into battle without a flute, as much as you seem to have a talent for closer combat. I…”

The words died in Katsumi’s mouth, and it looked as though she was choking on them as she averted her eyes and her face once more assumed the shade of red it had taken when Ástríðr had her with her back pressed up against a wall, entirely at her mercy. She could not stop a predatory grin forming. “You what? Don’t leave me in suspense, my love. I’m suddenly very interested in what you were about to say.”

“…” Katsumi’s fading-bruise lips remained so tightly closed they began to purse as she continued to scrutinise the floor.

“I’m waiting.”

“…I-I’ve…shown you mine…but…you haven’t shown me yours…?” Katsumi finally mumbled, looking for all the world like she wanted to sink into the chair and disappear, but was going to spontaneously combust instead.

Teasing the girl was like manna, but even manna had to be taken in moderation, so Ástríðr decided to spare her lover further mortification for the moment. “Kagura has noted that fighting Aunt Yuriya is the best foreplay she’s ever had. If it’s anywhere near as good of a pre-game as she claims, I suppose it’s worth a shot. Then again, I guess it’ll be a disappointment regardless; after all, I’ve never encountered an aphrodisiac more potent than you are all on your own.”

Given the frankly concerning shade of red Katsumi assumed, she supposed her ability to be merciful needed a lot more work. “What?! I don’t want you getting the wrong idea! It’s not like I wanted to use sparring to get you to sleep with me again or anything like that, idiot! You just seem to have a talent for violence that I wanted to share with you! That’s all!”

“Tsundere~!” Kyomi called in a sing-song voice.

“Urusai!” Katsumi snapped, crossing her arms and making a face that could be charitably called a pout. “…Uso tsuki…”

Kyomi nearly collapsed out of her chair with how hard she was laughing.

Then she yelped in shock and went entirely to the floor with a crash.

Looking supremely pleased with herself, Kagura leaned over to Kyomi’s side of the table and started rummaging through her sister’s cards. “Ya know, if you guys really wanna get acquainted outside of the whole breakin’ furniture and tearin’ sheets routine, can’t go wrong with a good old-fashioned sparring match. Cuz, well, it’s kinda hard for people to bullshit when they’re tryin’ to kill each other, after all.”

“…How long have you been listening in?” Ástríðr found herself asking.

“I mean, you guys are kinda hard to miss,” Kagura said, pointing to her long leporine ears illustratively. Then, her eyes went wide. “Ooh! Cursed Blade!”

Ástríðr looked for all the world to have been born with an axe in her hands given how she wielded it.

The weapon was a large, hafted thing, brutish yet elegant, with two heads like a labrys, and yet each head was bearded and artfully figured, the designs and the construction of the bearded heads fully Norse in origin, were Katsumi to venture a guess. The span from one edge to the other across the breadth of the weapon was nearly the distance from Ástríðr’s waist to the crown of her head, and the shaft of the great weapon, while appearing slender in her beloved’s grasp, was in truth quite thick and robust. To look upon it, Katsumi could not fathom lifting such a thing with two hands, let alone twirling it and performing handling tricks with only one as Ástríðr was at that moment.

It suited her.

“Got this one as a name-day gift when I reached my majority,” Ástríðr mused. “It’s a custom to give an elf entering adulthood a weapon to commemorate the occasion, something about ‘cutting their way to the future,’ or something equally sentimental. Of course, part of the tradition is naming the weapon, and so I did. This is Eisentänzer. Say hi, Eisentänzer!”

Katsumi struggled mightily to suppress her nascent grin as she reached to free Deatheater from its scabbard on her back, the weapon sliding silently out into the air. Summoning it earlier that day had come naturally at the time, and yet she found the feat impossible to replicate; when she went to retrieve the sword, she could have sworn her weapon was sullen at being called so. The afternoon was beginning to wane, the sun three-fourths of the way through with its daily path from one horizon to the next, well-worn and unerring, and the black blade of the dark sword seemed to shiver as it glinted in the light, shimmering like water across the many patterns of its workings, before it rested with its point against the earth, balanced gently in anticipation. The sullen irritation it held was now dispelled; it awaited the hour much as she did. “To first blood, then, or to forfeiture, whichever comes first.”

“Of course,” Ástríðr assented. Then, she paused. “Are you sure you want to go through with this, my love? There are other ways.”

“I’m afraid I shan’t be dissuaded from this course,” Katsumi replied, sliding from parade rest and into battle. “If you feel yourself unequal to the task before you, forfeiture remains an option. I shall not think less of you for taking it.”

Ástríðr’s eyes narrowed, the glint that sparked there like the beginnings of a blaze truly fearsome to behold. She shifted the greataxe from its perch on her shoulder and into a posture that was threateningly relaxed, both hands on the shaft of the oversized weapon that was held down near her waist, the massive head at a level with her hips. “And suddenly I do not feel so conflicted about this. Just remember, babe, you asked for this.”

The tension wound the air to a fevered pitch, nearly sparking, in the sheer moments that followed and stretched on to a seeming-eternity.

Then the tension snapped.

Deatheater flew upwards to deflect the falling of the axe upon Katsumi’s head; she remembered how her body moved as though caught in the grip of memory that morning, turning every last bit of Sonja’s momentum against her and feeling none the worse for it, as the angle of her parries were so very precisely calculated that the deflection was executed without any part of her weapon ever coming into contact with the shearing force of the sword, and here she did not fail to replicate the feat.

Yet it was with a great deal of readjustment from moment to moment that the hit was averted, and even then Katsumi’s fingers tingled as though remembering a sledgehammer. And then Eisentänzer was upon her once more, Ástríðr adapting with a speed that made Sonja’s treachery seem comparable to contesting a tortoise, leaving Katsumi hard-pressed.

She registered the ache in her jaw, and the fact that she did not have the leverage to parry this time; one foot went back, planting itself, her tail working to settle swiftly as the dancing edge closed on her.

It was nearly too late; even so, the greataxe sparked upon Deatheater, and with a trial, its course was both diverted and thrown loose. Yes, there was the opening, and Katsumi entered the critical distance, surging forth to break Ástríðr’s flow.

In the span of that moment, Katsumi felt her leg catch, and she left the ground to the open air; then a sharp impact jolted saliva out of her mouth as she was shot to the ground.

Quickly.

Her tail lashed forth, hooking Ástríðr’s grip for a painful beat, giving Katsumi leave to place her hands onto the ground and spring backwards, recovering out of the leg sweep in a low crouch sudden and jarring enough that her tail was unequal to the task of keeping her upright, one hand planting itself onto the ground as her other was thrown out just a bit behind. She was unarmed, her sword on the grassy ground just behind Ástríðr. “Deatheater! To me!”

The sword stirred and shot towards Katsumi’s open grasp; yet, Ástríðr was in motion already and would reach her before her weapon could cross the distance.

When charged, especially by a musclebound, berserking Amazon just barely in excess of two metres in height, the terrifyingly-sized keen greataxe carving a sweet, shrill song of bloody rapture that rent the air, it is nearly beyond the capacity of the mortal psyche to do what is necessary. Instinct screams to retreat, or to avoid laterally, by some means or another. Of course, the only true way to survive the surging tempest never even occurs to them.

Katsumi snarled, eyes blazing to life, as she lifted up onto the balls of her feet and launched herself forward, looking to all eyes to be bound headfirst into Ástríðr’s path. The edge of Eisentänzer clove through the air, looking to catch her in her abdomen; Katsumi, however, lashed her tail down into the ground only long enough to flip herself back, and neither the breadth of a hair nor the space of a moment could fit in the margin by which the points of her horns evaded contact with the weapon.

Just clear of the greataxe’s twin heads and not a fraction of an instant later did Katsumi’s arm shoot up and pluck Deatheater’s hilt from its flight; thus secured, her other hand scraped the earth to turn her once more, the strain tearing her arm rather painfully from her shoulder socket, but giving her leave to plant her feet and gain control once more. The dislocation smarted, and would prove her end if she didn’t ameliorate the situation immediately.

What do I want?

Shoulder back in socket, both arms working.

What do I have?

An elf with her back turned for the moment, stress on moment.

How do I use the latter to achieve the former?

In a pinch, slam the shoulder at the correct angle with sufficient force into an unyielding object.

Ástríðr began to turn, using Eisentänzer’s momentum to lend celerity to her rotation. Darkness surged beneath Katsumi’s feet, her charge a streak of scarlet-and-sable. The very moment Ástríðr’s foot was planted to secure her balance at the end of the turn, Katsumi slammed into her chest shoulder-first.

She could have charged into a sheer cliff and found more give, but then, that only aided her cause. The snap of her shoulder joint rejoining anew was pleasing to feel reverberating through her horns and her bones, and the residual tenderness was surmountable in a way that the ongoing dislocation would not have been.

The threads of darkness snarled and spun out into chaotic oblivion, and Katsumi now was left to capitalise upon her inadvertent yet planned recoil to chain into an attack.

Of course, the smirk on Ástríðr’s face was indication enough that she had miscalculated.

Ástríðr turned away ever so slightly, lifting her leg and tucking her knee into the air; then, her foot lashed back down into the earth. The earth responded, sharp, jagged, curved teeth of stone shooting up so quickly that Katsumi could not so much as take a breath before continuing to retreat, pursued by stony spikes that fended her to a distance.

Her lungs were ever so slightly beginning to burn, her thoughts beginning to fractal in hopes of conceiving by some miraculous gamble, some providence of random chance; yet Ástríðr did not seem strained in the slightest. Indeed, although her eyes were alight with hungry, savage motes of blood-joy, the curl of her lips was unmistakably indulgent.

Katsumi was being toyed with.

She drank deep of the darkness that roiled within, her blood racing acid-hot through fleshy veins, burning through her in agony beyond description, and she took it in as invigorating cordial. Her teeth ached as her jaw became yet more occupied, fangs poking into her gums; her scales seemed to advance, and though they were only as thick as her soft flesh, as always, their strength was obvious, and adamant would shatter from strain before so much as impressing them. Her nails grew, and on both her fingers and toes they were sharp and blackened, more akin to claws than the hume-like plates they had once been, while the air she exhaled misted as it left her mouth and nostrils, and her sight was many times sharper than it had been, provoking an idle wonder as to how a bird of prey might perceive the world, and if it was similar to what she saw at that moment.

Her tail lashed, and she bent her knees, tongues of writhing shadow and lashing dark swirling in agitation at her feet, pressing against the earth and taking to the air.

A front-flip truncated her arc that she might manage to not overshoot her target, and yet a lazy underhand swing of the greataxe with naught but a single hand gripping its haft halted her and sent her reeling back.

Her feet touched the ground for but a moment before springing back into something almost akin to a cartwheel, her distance gained.

It took half the span of a gasp for Ástríðr to once more close the distance, Eisentänzer shrieking towards her once more. With no time, Katsumi threw forth her arm, and the greataxe’s bite was stymied, the scales on the limb holding firm and steadfast. She cast her arm out, overpowering the one-handed swing and sending the weapon into recoil. Darkness wreathed Deatheater’s blade, an underhanded swing of her own surging to provoke a retreat; yet, Ástríðr’s off-hand closed once more at its appointed place.

In a split second before doom descended, Katsumi noticed her lover’s tempestuous aura fulminating ominously, and saw that in batting aside the hewing armament, she had begun the motion of the weaponskill her lover prepared at that moment.

“Gale Force.”

The greataxe flashed forth into Katsumi’s side, and a trio of flaming, sparking rings, each large enough to capture her entire range of motion, closed in on her, spinning with such unnatural speed that it seemed the world itself was torn apart in their manic revelry. They tore away at her clothes and even through her scales, drawing forth small, thin ribbons of blood that stung harshly, far more so than they ought.

Ástríðr was turned away, wrenching her weapon upwards across Katsumi’s body, from hip to shoulder, and then with a jolt did the greataxe pull free; just as swiftly as they had appeared and enclosed upon her did those rings of lashing wind and revelling lightning spin away from her and into the ether from whence they were drawn.

Katsumi was thrown back a ways, landing harshly on her rear, and released the darkness back to the pool that was now almost a physical presence, just to the left of her sternum and sharing company with her lungs… The scales retreated once more, the claws following suit, her pupils dilating as her fangs slipped back into teeth and her blood cooled from the frothing, dissolving corrosion to its normal state. Breath could not come quickly enough of a sudden, and blood ran freely down her limbs and torso, no wound deep enough to be a cause for concern of itself, but when considered together, presenting something of a strain.

Ástríðr drew close, a slight swagger in her lope as her weapon returned to its shouldered perch, and much to Katsumi’s chagrin, the only expression she could muster was sullen wincing. “Best two out of three? Or are you satisfied?”

Katsumi huffed, blowing an errant lock of raven hair out of her face. “Why does Sonja think she can protect you again? Seems like it really ought to be the other way around.”

“My idiot sister had her uses once upon a time. Turns out, metallokinesis is a damn useful ability to have in a large number of situations. Go figure,” Ástríðr explained glibly.

“…Is it not customary to help a lady stand?” Katsumi jested.

“Yeah, probably,” replied Ástríðr. “Not now, though. You can stay there a little longer, I think. I quite like the sight of you on your knees.”

Katsumi had just enough time to curse the knowledge that Madam Tsuyu had bestowed upon her not even an hour ago before mortifying flames engulfed her mind and her face. She turned her head aside, and heat spread across her chest, the impulse to deflect swelling to overwhelming proportions. “I thought we were here to get to know each other! Isn’t that why we did this whole sparring bout to begin with?!”

“Yes, well,” Ástríðr began, leaning over and gripping Katsumi’s chin, her grasp gentle but firm as she tilted Katsumi’s head up to meet her smouldering stare. “At the moment, I find myself desiring to ‘know’ you in a rather…different sense.”

Katsumi’s breath stilled, her lungs betraying their purpose as her chest constricted around a writhing core of desire, of want, of adoration, a need for which lust was far too small a word, and for a few moments stretching on to the end of days, her cheeks seared as she could not physically pry her eyes away from Ástríðr’s piercing gaze, and she would have been similarly incapacitated, she knew, were the hand on her chin to disappear entirely. Then the older woman’s silver brow quirked. “Your blood… I thought it was simply a trick of the light every time I saw it, but no, my eyes have yet to deceive me, it seems. I didn’t know drahn bled black…”

Katsumi’s eyes went wide as she brought an arm up before her. Surely enough, when she looked, streaks of Stygian fluid with the consistency of blood streamed from her open wounds, wounds that she could feel and was aware of, but that awareness was entirely apart and fully distinct from pain.

“They don’t, I don’t think. Else, people would have noticed, and we’d be called ‘blackbloods’ in addition to the usual litany of entirely derivative racial epithets,” Katsumi mused. She brought her hand up and clenched it into a fist as she thought. “No, this is not a function of being a drahn; rather, it is most likely a product of the covenant.”

“…That probably warrants examination. Diseases of the humours aren’t things to be screwed around with,” Ástríðr remarked, worry creeping in at the edges of her tone. “It’s not quite as bad as if you were, say, a black mage, but the fact that your race subsists on the magic of your blood makes it almost as concerning.”

Katsumi shook her head. “I think not. I think…this is expected. If it were truly a malady, I do believe that either Mercédès would have volunteered that information, or she is similarly afflicted; given that we were not given cause to suspect this, and that there are not kyūdōgi-clad sentinels bashing down the door at this very moment, I’d fain to say I’ll survive it.”

She leaned back into the grass, rolling onto her shoulder-blades, and from there she sprang to her feet. A few flicks of her tail and she was upright, though she yet only came up to around Ástríðr’s oddly prodigious bust, and she imagined that the rather vast difference in height would look comical to an onlooker. For perhaps the first time, Katsumi was intimately aware of how diminutive she was in stature, especially compared to the company that she kept—or that kept her, as was the case with her first love.

She sighed. “Did you at least get anything out of this?”

“I learned how fun it is to trounce you,” Ástríðr replied with a teasing gleam.

“I have a long way to go,” Katsumi said by way of half-hearted defence. “Forget it. Want to just adjourn to the kitchen? I feel we may get better mileage out of simply exposing ourselves to each other’s interests through mutual instruction than from sparring.”

“What, you don’t want to fuck?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Katsumi protested. “It’s just that we have all night to do that, and if at every occasion and opportunity we elect to…engage in those activities, we’ll never get around to the purpose for which we came out here and sparred in the first place.”

“If you say so,” Ástríðr said, crossing her arms and cocking a brow.

Katsumi stopped, closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was reciting the next words to Madam Tsuyu in preparation to say them to Ástríðr, rather than face the mortifying reality that she was in fact saying them to her. “…I’ll have to wear an apron, you know, and I don’t exactly have a lot of clothes that I’d feel comfortable getting dirty with cooking residue. If, as I am thusly attired, you find yourself compelled to…capitalise…upon such a state of vulnerability, I would be loath to hold that against you.”

There was a protracted pause that followed, and Katsumi hesitantly opened her eyes to better gauge Ástríðr’s reaction to her rather salacious proposition. The visible struggle that twisted Ástríðr’s face as she attempted not to grin was at once galvanising and paralysing. “I’ll be honest. You’re really cute when you get all flustered, but it’s impressive to hear you say that with so little hesitation. A little surreal, too.”

Katsumi shrugged. “What can I say? Facing you, I grow weak.”

“You’re late.”

Katsumi looked up at the dreary grey sky, the curtain of night thinning as dawn approached, and regarded the woman before her with some degree of skeptical incredulity. “I left as soon as I got the missive, and it’s not even dawn yet…”

Dame Rienna’s approximation of a smile amounted to a pressing together of her thin lips and a slight lift to the corners, imperceptible if one wasn’t expressly looking for it, and Katsumi got the sense that the knight-captain and princess dowager was exaggerating her usual expression for her benefit. “If you aren’t early, you’re late. The fact that I had to send the missive at all was an issue in and of itself. You were not previously informed, it seems—I am not surprised she neglected to mention that yesterday, as Her Grace always has enjoyed these little games of hers—and so I shall be lenient for today, and today only. You will be here before the break of dawn three days a week, and at no later than the hour of midmorning exactly will you be here on the Beherit. Being as it is a day of respite, I should think you would have no obligations, and so it is at that point every week that we shall begin to recover lost ground. I would have preferred to have you training more regularly and rigorously in an ideal scenario, but given the irregularities of the situation, that will have to suffice.”

“Wait, training?!”

“…I had not thought you a dullard, girl, and hard of hearing you are not,” said Rienna.

“I was asking for you to elaborate,” Katsumi clarified. “When last I checked, one in your position of power has better things to do than tutour an adventurer in swordplay.”

“I do indeed,” Rienna allowed. “However, here I must enumerate several caveats to the situation at hand that render such an observation functionally irrelevant. First and foremost, you are no mere adventurer. Or did you believe the sobriquet of ‘Fallen One’ idly given or misattributed?”

Katsumi froze, but in moments had control of herself once more. She needed more information, and quickly. “And the second caveat?”

“The second caveat is that even given who you are, it would be a waste of both of our times to aid you in learning swordplay. No, my task here is to instruct you in all the myriad elements and varied complexities of warcraft. Or did you think Her Grace travelled to the Rouge, exposing herself and all of you to possibly perilous scrutiny, without at least a handful of reasons to do so, the existence of which rendering the trip a necessity?”

“I take it Tandem and Madam Tsuyu assented to this on my behalf,” Katsumi surmised.

Rienna nodded, a quick and severe bob of her head. “Indeed. They would be the people to ask, considering the fact that you are their ward in the eyes of the law, and they are thus solely responsible for you as it relates to the matter of your education.”

“And here I thought Maelnaulde lacked standardised schooling…”

“We do, as the lowborn are far too numerous and far too varied in means for such an arrangement to be even remotely feasible. Members of the peerage, however, are a different matter entirely, and it simply wouldn’t do for the principal cadet branch to defy House Lucerne. The station of House Desrosiers is shackled with such responsibility, I’m afraid,” Rienna explained. “To put it simply, as I’m now certain this is the first you’re hearing of any of this, the education of highborn children is strictly regulated, and falls under the purview of investiture. As the newest member of House Desrosiers—Tandem is anointed, and therefore ennobled—Tsuyu and her husband were expected to make arrangements with regards to your education, and as a cadet branch, after a fashion, the Desrosiers family is expected to consult with the Lucernes on such arrangements.

“Congratulations, Katsumi of the Fallen Rain. As of this moment, I am charged with your education,” Dame Rienna finished with a bow that was barely more than a tilt of her head, but was also somehow laden with subtle mockery. “There is much you must learn and little time in which to learn it, but I believe it to be at least within your capabilities. Do not disappoint me.”

Katsumi crossed her arms. “What’s the occasion?”

Rienna quirked a brow. “Pardon?”

“The name with which you addressed me tells me that you were at least as aware of my existence and arrival as the Apostles. If I am not mistaken, Frey, the one who found me in the Crystal Chamber near to the shore, was of their number. If they were given leave to expect me in such a way, and you are privy to the same source of information as they are, why now, and not shortly after my arrival?”

“Why don’t you tell me? Enthrall me with your acumen.” The knight crossed her own arms, levelling a flat stare at Katsumi.

Assessment, then. She could work with that.

“An alliance,” Katsumi ventured.

Rienna blinked. “And how do you come to that conclusion?”

“You did not secure me earlier, as that would have engendered suspicion you would have rather avoided. But that does not mean the urgency of my acquisition was in any way diminished. I know very little of the geopolitical situation of this world, but, as the newest member of a cadet branch, as you said, and the only one capable of procreation that is not either promised to a notorious marauding murderer or a high-ranking diplomat in Maelnaulde’s service, neither of which possessing toes upon which it would be wise to step, especially in the midst of such tense negotiations, my ovaries are a valuable diplomatic tool of the state by default,” Katsumi explained. “As I am now tied to House Lucerne, you wished to lay claim to me to seal an alliance by virtue of marriage, with myself as the offered bride.”

“Top marks for effort and the chain of logic you followed, but no,” replied Rienna. “Though I suppose it is unrealistic to expect more of you considering your position of, shall we say, relative ignorance.

“There is to be a marriage, and an alliance, but you are not the bride,” Rienna continued. “The bride is Jeanne Evalach Galatyn, Duchess and Heiress Presumptive of the Grand Duchy of Rosenfaire—the Grand Duke of Rosenfaire, Lucien Hauteclaire Galatyn of the Heirs of Zilart, is her older brother. She is to be married to Mercédès in half a turn of the moon, in what will be perhaps the most politically significant joining in the last several centuries. In observance of this, Mercédès, and by extension, Maelnaulde, is holding a series of celebrations both before and after the date of the nuptials. Predictably, the other two of the Free Cities, the Federation of Emberlet and the Republic of Bantamoor, are sending their most illustrious adventuring companies to participate in the tourney, and Her Grace thought it would be a powerful symbol for Maelnaulde to have a favoured adventuring company of their own to take part; of course, this only works if said company is suitably qualified to not only represent Maelnaulde, but also sweep the tournament. If the other member cities are attempting to intimidate us with a show of strength, we must not only respond in kind—we must demonstrate to them the sheer futility of their posturing.”

“While this is all very interesting, Dame Rienna, and it is very interesting,” Katsumi began, “I fail to see what this has to do with me.”

“Come now, girl, you’ve just proven you’re smarter than that,” Rienna replied without missing a beat.

“I…” Then it all clicked. “You want us to represent Maelnaulde?!”

“You see? I knew you weren’t a dullard.”

“…So that’s why now,” Katsumi realised. “We’re not in a position to represent the principality, and so you’re going to train us until we are.”

“Correction: I’m going to train you until you are,” said Rienna. “My esteemed daughter’s favourite plaything will receive her own remedial attentions, but doing so personally would be a waste of my valuable time. You, however…

“As for the rest of them, dearest Yuriya knows to get her charge in fighting shape, you’ve seen your paramour, witnessed her prowess first-hand, and Kyomi is and always has been far more powerful and proficient than she allows others to believe. Yet, though a warrior is comprised of five limbs—a hume or elf warrior, for the sake of argument—of them, the head is the most important, for it is the head that will direct the synergy of the other limbs. It must thus be trained the hardest, be pushed the furthest and the most fervently, for the demands placed upon it in battle shall be the greatest.” The knight fixed her pitiless, relentless maroon scrutiny to Katsumi’s wide violet eyes, and with a series of quick, indefatigable strides, she closed the distance between them, leaving Katsumi with no retreat, transfixed by the severe woman. “Ástríðr Desrosiers may well be a great warrior—near peerless for one so young, in fact—and she is certainly passionate. But she is no leader. She lacks that ephemeral quality that shall make men eager to fight and die by your command, that od that will spark fires in the hearts of all those who lay eyes upon you. I say this to you: You have within you the strength of heart and of mind to be a great captain, a legendary and unrivalled soul of war. And before I am done with you, there shall be no one who will contest that.

“Even the most precious and beautiful jewel of breathtaking splendour must be polished and cut to achieve its fullest brilliance. That thing within you, your dark soul—I will draw it out of you, piece by piece. This I swear to you.”

Then Dame Rienna backed away, and tread across the packed sands of the training ground towards the racks against the side of the sand pit adjacent to the striking dummies, upon which rested a full array of blunted steel weapons. The walls of Ridorana Monastery enclosed the courtyard, creating a secluded space far away from the cares and woes of Maelnaulde proper, a buffer only aided by the fact that not even the highest echelons of nobility were permitted within the Coronet without invitation. That said, Katsumi could feel the eyes of the sentinels from the day before upon her from the darkened corners of the corridors beyond the pit’s boundaries. This was their space, she felt them thinking, and though she might have been blessed as they were, she was not one of them.

A two-handed tourney sword flying at her snapped her from her daze even as she caught it effortlessly. Dame Rienna approached her with her arming sword in one hand, her scutum in the other. “It might not be quite as well-balanced as that kriegsmesser you normally swing around, and it’s not half so fine besides. But I believe it will do the job.

“I know where you are currently, and Yuriya corroborated that assessment, so we’re skipping the warm-up. I’m going to come at you armoured, with live steel. Your job is to incapacitate me with that training weapon and unarmoured before I do the same to you. Once you can do that, oh, I’d say twenty consecutive times, we’ll move on to the next stage,” Dame Rienna explained. “There will be many times where you will find yourself with no choice but to face such a foe that puts you at a significant disadvantage. If you can learn to surmount such fetters, well, I’d say you’ll be truly on the path at the end of which lies true indomitability. We will go every day until you can go no longer—not until you think you can go no longer, mind you, we go until you can truly go on no longer. It would be foolish to trust in the goodwill of your foe to grant you respite amidst a mortal struggle, and you would be more fool still to trust it should they grant it. Do you understand, girl?”

Katsumi nodded, smoothly moving into her battle stance.

Rienna didn’t smile, but her nod as she mirrored the move from conversation into battle was unmistakably approving. “Very well. Then shall we begin?”

Their appointment was at one hour past midday. The instructions were very precise; they were to be neither a moment early, nor a moment late, or the whole arrangement would be called off. Sonja was indisposed, and Ástríðr reassured Katsumi that the obligation was no more than the remedial training Dame Rienna had mentioned earlier that very day. The appointment was with the woman who was, while a relatively unknown up-and-comer, without question, the best blacksmith in not only Maelnaulde, but all across the Free Cities—as Prince Mercédès had assured them multiple times in the missive she sent to inform them of the appointment and its relevant details.

The manor they arrived at, precisely on time, was architecturally capricious to say the least, and the forge it boasted was so massive that the billowing plumes of black smoke coming from its furnace were visible from half the city’s distance away. From what little Ástríðr had explained about her father’s illegitimate daughter on the way there, the house was a reflection of its primary occupant. From the front steps, Katsumi could hear the clashing of hammer upon anvil, the hiss of quenching, and a very enthusiastic mezzo-soprano yelling sets of orders and exclamations with almost indecipherable speed. The din was quite the sensory affront, though not unmanageably so, but to a great enough degree all the same that she was genuinely shocked when the door opened as they approached.

In the threshold there stood a…butler. Given his state of dress, there was no other way he could be described. The man’s skin was a hue like Katsumi’s own, and while he was not remarkably tall for a man, he was tall enough to be imposing. His hair was inky and from the front seemed to run down his back unbound, his features sharp and dour, though not uncomely, and covered on one half of his face with long bangs parted on one side. His wine-red gaze was narrowed and lidded, yet it seemed that it stripped away falsehoods all the same, and upon the thin bridge of his slender, scholarly nose, were perched a silver-rimmed set of pince-nez.

“Welcome to the Blackwood Townhouse. I am Taliesin Blackwood,” the butler said after a moment, his voice low, but his diction crisp enough to be heard even through the noise. “It is good to see that you can be punctual. Miss Rhiannon was expecting you. She is…quite inspired by the prospect of the commissions Her Grace has made in your name. If you will follow me.”

Taliesin turned away and led back into the house, his hair flowing like silk with the small motion, and Katsumi noted idly that it was bound, somewhere on the order of two-thirds down, with a small red ribbon, and his hands were covered in white gloves. She did not know why that mattered, especially since such garments were expected of someone in his position as far as Katsumi could tell, but her mind focused on it all the same, as though attempting to use it to unearth a long-buried recollection.

Nevertheless, such considerations could wait at present, as there were more pressing matters at hand; this in mind, Katsumi crossed the threshold first, and Ástríðr followed behind swiftly. It was the two of them only this time, as Kyomi and Kagura had had alternative arrangements made for them, namely a tailor and seamstress, chosen with Yuriya’s input, but according to Mercédès, they could expect to have Rhiannon at their disposal in the future if all went well. Katsumi was uncertain of what precisely that remark meant, beyond feeling that, as usual, there was more communicated in that assurance than she would be able to decipher at present.

“I have been informed that Miss Katsumi may have a preference for flavours that remind her of her homeland,” Taliesin began as he led them through the entry hall, panelled in dark wood and lit in warm tones that made the various weapons and pieces of armour on display glitter noticeably, past the sweeping grand staircase crafted of the same dark wood, over floors covered by heavy, springy burgundy carpets, and into a set of doors off to the side of the stair that led deeper into the house. “To that end, I have taken the liberty of procuring additional matcha for the occasion—Miss Fèng, Miss Rhiannon’s wife, tends to be especially voracious in its consumption. Miss Ástríðr, I do hope you have not developed a distaste for bergamot since last we took tea together.”

“Bergamot would be lovely, Taliesin,” Ástríðr replied smoothly.

“May I inquire as to the purpose of this line of inquiry…?” Katsumi asked hesitantly.

“Miss Rhiannon prefers to make her commissioners comfortable while she discusses the subject of the work with them,” Taliesin elaborated. “She enjoys taking tea during such times, and I enjoy making it. Tea brewing is…something of a hobby of mine.”

Silence endured for a few moments thereafter, until Katsumi found she had to shatter it once more. “How do you know each other? Ástríðr and you, I mean, not you and Master Rhiannon.”

“Rhiannon’s mother was my sister,” replied Taliesin. “Dearest Rhonwen, ever the free spirit, has since left and been abroad in the Maelstrom for the span of five-and-ten now, and my niece fell to my care—my remaining sister Myfanwy has never been especially fond of children, you see, though she contributes a great deal as it relates to means and opportunities for our dear prodigal sister’s wonderful sapling.

“In addition, before Dame Rienna, able as she is, became knight-captain, I held the station myself. Grand Marshal of the Principality, in fact, under Her Grace’s father, the late Prince Marique le Bel,” the butler continued. “I had been planning to retire for some time upon the event of Rhonwen’s indiscretion—her pregnancy and Rhiannon’s birth merely gave me an opportunity to exit gracefully. In that way, it was fortunate; I must confess, I had grown tired of war. But it was in that capacity that I made the acquaintance of His Grace’s champion, and that acquaintance has continued ever since, to the point where I was tasked with aiding in the tutelage of his trueborn children. I trust Ástríðr has not been lax in her training?”

“That she has not been,” Katsumi answered.

Taliesin smiled, and while it was kindly, it did not reach his eyes. “That is good to hear. In any event, we have arrived.”

Katsumi snapped her attention to where they were, and beyond having traversed a long, branching corridor decorated with arms and armaments in lieu of the more common trappings of nobility, such as paintings, statues, and tapestries—weapons of all descriptions, in fact, including ones that she remembered from history lessons in her youth, and several that defied her ability to name them, it was as the entry hall had been. Before them, though, was a massive slab of a door, the sort of which she would expect on a bank vault, crafted from iron.

“I must ask you to stand back, Miss Katsumi. Cold iron tends to be…unpleasant for your people,” Taliesin warned over his shoulder, and Katsumi stepped back accordingly, while the butler placed a hand on the spoked wheel and yanked it, sending it spinning as the sudden hiss of steam sheared through the corridor, scalding and swift with the release of pressure. Then with the groaning of machinery, the door swung open, and from what Katsumi could see, the port was at least five centimetres thick. But beyond it was…

Katsumi had never been to the heart of an active volcano, but she surmised its glow could not be far removed from what met her eyes beyond the boundary of the threshold.

Before her eyes adjusted, there in the doorway stood a woman of an age with Katsumi, though appearing for all the world a hume, which was doubly apparent given the fact that her rounded ears were clearly visible. Square-rimmed silver spectacles rested before a pair of tired yet piercing magenta eyes, sweeping and tousled hair the same peculiar purple shade as the night sky shot through with locks of bright pink covering her forehead and framing her mousey, demure Japanese—or rather, Far Eastern—features, her cutesy face entirely at odds with the unflinching relentlessness of her stare and the subtle but distinct downturn of her small mouth. Her skin was dark and tanned, though not to the point of suggesting a mixed ethnicity, and from her delicate head came a slender neck and petite body garbed in a vermillion qipao, the garment figured with golden thread and filigree in elaborate yet abstract decorations. “Uncle, this is a terrible time.”

“On the contrary, miss, as I come bringing Rhiannon’s appointment,” Taliesin gently countered, before standing to the side. “May I introduce Miss Katsumi of the Fallen Rain. You know Miss Ástríðr already. Miss Katsumi, this is Miss Fèng, the lady of the house.”

Fèng stepped forward, and Katsumi could not help but notice her feet were bare, as were her legs. Given how Katsumi could feel the heat of the area beyond even through her boots and was shielded from discomfort only by virtue of her dragon blood, she could not imagine how a hume such as the one now staring at her appraisingly could bear up under such conditions. The magenta gaze flickered up and down the drahn’s body until the hume nodded to herself. “You’ll do. Come. Rhiannon’s off on one of her fits of inspiration at the moment, but she’ll tire herself out soon enough and be ready to discuss what we’ll be able to do for you.”

“The missive insisted that we be on time, but if she’s not ready, we can return later,” Katsumi offered.

“Trust me, you’re better off just waiting,” said Fèng, waving the objection off with an errant, bony hand as she turned back to the inferno. “Oh, and for clarity’s sake, I was the one who insisted on punctuality. My wife would forget breathing amidst forging were I not here to remind her, so I am the one tasked with making the business arrangements. It’s a difficult job, but I would be lying if I said it was thankless.”

The hume walked from the house into the scorching heat that radiated ceaselessly from the massive forge, the white-hot flames leaping high into the air from the stone enclosure, made from…obsidian? Yes, massive blocks of obsidian glass surrounded the forge, and on their surface were carved an array of characters that far outstripped even the ritual room’s linguistic and organisational intricacy. A string of them were glowing faintly, a low but ethereal blue, while away from them and on the adjacent side of the forge, thrusting her bare hand without hesitation into what looked to be white-hot magma, and drawing forth a long, thin bar of metal in a large arc that ended upon the massive anvil she had nearby, was a woman.

Her skin was fair and she stood tall, almost as tall as Ástríðr, and lean where Ástríðr had noticeable muscle mass. Her long, lush, and voluminous golden hair was drawn up into a tail high on her head, yet it still fell to her waist, with more besides as bangs over a face that was, by most conventional standards, attractive. Her eyes glinted like lightning bolts in the reflection of the forge, and her full lips were pulled back into a broad grin as her body worked beneath her revealing, sheer red dress that looked to be made of silk, decorated with sweeping bands and clasps of glittering gold. Her legs, clad in loose white trousers that stopped in golden rings just beneath her knee, and her feet, shod in pointed and upturned red shoes, were planted for balance and power as she brought what looked like a large warhammer over her head with both hands, and then swung it down at the strip of metal on the anvil with calamitous force.

“Oh, good. It looks like she’s moving into the final forging before it goes into the furnace for tempering. It’s by its nature a long, slow process that is only marginally expedited by magical means, so we ought to have plenty of time to discuss matters while that’s happening,” Fèng remarked happily. She then strode briskly by the forge without hesitation, waving them to follow her, while Taliesin bowed and made his exit. “Come, there’s a table out near the fountain, away from the forge, where we can sit and wait while remaining out of her way. Rhiannon doesn’t take kindly to distractions when she is, and I quote, ‘in the zone.’”

“Rhi-Rhi can get a little…intense…about smithing. Making things that bring or prevent death is kind of her passion, and her specialty is with metal,” Ástríðr added helpfully.

“Quite,” Fèng remarked flatly. “Shall we?”

Moving past the forge rendered Katsumi amazed that not only did the hume woman, Fèng, show no signs of discomfort, but neither did Ástríðr; to look at them, it seemed for all the world like they only felt a late spring breeze, and nothing more unpleasant than that. As for Katsumi, the enchantments drew her eye unerringly, and her mind laboured at the puzzle, certain that the characters ought to make sense to her. It was akin to that uniquely agonising feeling of having an utterance rest stubbornly upon the tip of one’s tongue.

Thankfully, their arrival at the little social area, far enough removed from the forge to render the volcanic heat down to that of a strong summer sun, allowed her to put such quandaries from her mind; as Fèng beckoned, she and Ástríðr were seated, though the fourth seat remained empty in observance of their last member.

The silence was just beginning to stretch into the territory of awkwardness when the relentless titanic clamour of hammering halted, and the now blade-shaped length of metal, its white heat having cooled to a vibrant orange hue, was taken from the forge to a low stone trough and laid in there, a harsh hiss scalding through the air as pink steam rose. For two minutes it sat there, cooling, and then that bare hand once more lifted it from the trough and brought it to a nearby furnace, a squat dome that looked to be made of adobe.

With a billowing of orange-blue flames, the large oven-like structure was opened, the now-glittering, lustrous blade placed into it and then enclosed within. The woman, Rhiannon, exhaled in satisfaction, dusted her hands off, and approached with a broad smile. She crashed into the last open chair in something just this side of a heap, and sighed. “That ought to take a few hours.”

“Three?” asked Fèng.

“Mm… Best make it four,” Rhiannon replied.

“I’ll make a note of it.”

“Thanks, love. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” Then Rhiannon turned her electric blue eyes, no more than a shade removed from Ástríðr’s, to her half-sister, and grinned. “Ástríðr! What are you doing here, sis?”

“They’re your thirteen-hundred,” Fèng said off-handedly.

“Ah! Well, that’s a pleasant surprise!” Rhiannon noted. “What brings you here?”

“Armour, or so I’m told,” Ástríðr answered. “For both me and my Katsumi here.”

Katsumi did her best not to flinch as the warmth Ástríðr’s possessive phrasing provoked in her surged from her low abdomen and through her body, an endeavour greatly aided by the new pair of curious eyes turned towards her. “Well. You’re new. Can’t say I’ve seen you before.”

“I’ve been with the family for a little under a week now,” replied Katsumi. “More specifically, I arrived the night before the last Beherit.”

“Mm. Not terribly dynamic, is she?” Rhiannon remarked, turning back to Ástríðr. “She’s slight, lean, and vertically challenged to boot. I’ll admit that the horns might pose a bit of an issue when it comes to helm construction, but beyond that? You I’ve already wanted to build for, but her? She’s not the slightest bit interesting!”

Katsumi placed a hand upon Ástríðr’s arm. She had no idea if that would set her off, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and head it off in either case. “Would you like to see my weapon, Rhiannon?”

Rhiannon shrugged, her eyes already wandering about the area as her leg started jostling. “Sure. Just another boring sword, most likely.”

“A sword, yes,” Katsumi allowed, reaching up and unfastening her baldric. Unshouldering the blade, she apologised mentally to her kriegsmesser for putting him on display in such a fashion, before drawing him out of the scabbard and laying him upon the table. “The boring part, however, I think is a matter of debate.”

Rhiannon’s bored and lidded gaze widened to the size of saucers, and Katsumi could swear for a moment that her pupils had turned to glittering stars in excitement. “What is that?!”

“A dark sword,” replied Katsumi. “His name is Deatheater.”

“Spooky name. Not terribly fitting, though, not as far as I can tell,” Rhiannon remarked as she reached forth and pressed her fingers to the exposed black metal of the blade. “More a descriptor than a name, really. Bundled up nice and tight, this one is—I’d say twelve seals is going a touch overboard, but then, I wasn’t the one responsible for forging him, was I? Crystals you’re a beauty! Touch awkward, though. Don’t much like people, do you? Seems like you and your wielder are two antisocial peas in a pod, doesn’t it?”

How much longer must I endure this woman’s scrutiny?

Katsumi stiffened. …Deatheater?

Obviously.

Are you…uncomfortable? Katsumi asked the sword.

Immensely. I was more than willing to forbear it so that you would be better protected, but this woman is far too perceptive, and I feel naked beneath her gaze. It is…unpleasant.

Katsumi nodded. To Rhiannon, she said, “That’s quite enough for now, I’m afraid.”

Rhiannon pouted slightly as Katsumi took Deatheater by the hilt and slid him home once more into his scabbard, but she soon nodded. “Aye, I understand. I apologise—it’s simply been so long since I’ve seen one of his kind, and I have not seen another quite like him, so I suppose I grew a touch overeager.”

Apologies, Master.

You have nothing to apologise for, Katsumi replied. “You are quite proficient, Rhiannon. Not even the man who forged him was aware of Deatheater’s true nature.”

“Yes, well…” Rhiannon began, rubbing at the back of her head and favouring her with a blinding smile. “I’ve always had a bit of a talent, a bit of a way with weapons. Most are quite terrible conversationalists, to be honest—hearing an endless litany of blades screaming at you to let them cut something gets old and repetitive very quickly—but there are those rare few with minds of their own, and they’re almost always fascinating.”

“So, will you make her armour?” prompted Ástríðr.

“Oh, of course,” Rhiannon said with a sharp nod. “Uh, Katsumi, right? Katsumi, would you please stand and give me a twirl? I have a design in mind already, I just need to see what specifically I’m working with, you understand.”

Katsumi furrowed a brow, labouring as she was under the assumption that there would be rather more questions posed to her than to simply twirl, but she assented all the same, standing and stretching a bit to work out the kinks forming in her limbs from being seated after her morning with Dame Rienna, before doing a spinning twirl.

“Can you go en pointe?”

Katsumi nodded, and concentrated, lifting herself onto the balls of her feet, and then further, onto the tips of her toes, for the first time feeling slightly challenged with balance as her tail swished behind her, working to compensate. Then she carefully tiptoed around on that posture in a small turn, going around before meeting Rhiannon’s approving and thoughtful eyes. “Very good, very good. I have what I need. Ástríðr, I got yours earlier, so no need to worry about that. Is Sonja going to come?”

“No idea,” Ástríðr said with a shrug. “I am not my sister’s keeper.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose we’ll smash that bridge when we get to it,” the blacksmith mused idly. “Still, I’d best get to work. Got a fresh supply of mithril from the new mine that was just cleared—Mercédès told me I have you lot to thank for that—and now I think I know what I’m going to do with it. Come back in, oh, twelve days or so for the final fitting, Fèng will follow up to make more precise arrangements, I’m sure. Fèng, dear?”

“Already noted,” replied Fèng with a sigh, standing and rushing away even as Taliesin approached with a tray laden with a full tea spread. The butler placed it upon the table, bowing and making his exit once more, as Rhiannon grinned broadly and jabbed her thumb at herself.

“Mark my words, you two! You’ll both have armour worthy of Her Grace’s champions by the time of the tourney, or my name’s not Rhiannon merch Rhonwen of House Blackwood!” Rhiannon’s winning smile dazzled Katsumi’s eyes enough to leave spots for a few moments, before her attention slid to the spread before her, and her countenance shifted once more to beaming excitement. “Ooh! Macarons!”