rowyn

As they walked back to the entrance hall, Ardent tried to puzzle out all the implications of that audience, and determine the true nature of Skein’s game. A tiny part of her whined, This is why I left the Moon Etherium! To get away from all these twisty contradictory motivations!    

She squared her shoulders and quashed it. When they reached the entrance hall, she still hadn’t sorted her own thoughts. “Ugh. I need some time to think.” Ardent rubbed her face with one hand. “And somewhere to think. You all right with going to a shrine?”

“I would be glad to,” Miro said.

Ardent sent messages to the golem attendants of a few different shrines, and selected the one that told her there were no visitors at the moment. She teleported them to it as soon as she and Miro reached the foyer of the Midnight Palace.

It was the Moon Etherium’s oldest shrine, and though it was the least impressive of them it was far grander and larger than the shrine at Try Again. It had a traditional Moon-Etherium look: rows of silver benches on a star-dusted midnight floor. The ceiling and walls had cartouches to represent the different major Ideals: Persistence, Duty, Truth, Justice, Loyalty, and Love. Between each, stained-glass scenes illustrated the major and minor Ideals. Each was exquisitely rendered, and from a time when mastery of aether was still primitive and such things required much more manual skill and labor. A rich mix of different incenses scented the air, the residue of many offerings.

The only attendant was the golem, which surprised Ardent. When she’d last lived in the Etherium, there’d always been a volunteer confidant at this shrine, to talk to anyone who came by if they needed advice. Now the golem said there were only confidants on schedule for a few hours a day. In case it wasn’t obvious enough that the Moon Host doesn’t care about the Ideals any more.

The shrine had several altars, so that multiple people could engage in private meditations at once. Since none were in use, Ardent went to the front one. She lengthened the leash for Miro to several yards, but did not unchain him. The Moon Etherium’s oldest shrine was a sacred place and should be safe, but she didn’t trust it. While she was being paranoid anyway, Ardent cast reveal-spellwork, and looked for signs of any watchers. There weren’t any. Either Fallen doesn’t think I’m a threat, or she doesn’t want me to think that she thinks I’m a threat. Ugh, my head hurts already.

Miro could have chosen another altar, but he took one of the seats instead and bowed his head.

Ardent set out the Ideals before her, though Truth knew it was there more as apology than observance. She knelt before the altar and lit a candle for Love first. Do I ask for your help? Apologize for the way I’ve abused you too? Tell you I don’t have time for you now, please come back later?

Love’s carved eyes watched her with a kindly, accepting expression. Ardent imagined her words: You’ve been telling me to wait for twelve years. How’s that been going for you?

I don’t love him, Ardent answered herself, and wasn’t sure she believed it. Pretty sure I’m still in love with Whispers Rain.

Do you still think the one is exclusive of the other?

Ardent sighed. Right, I’m not settling this one today, either. She lit a candle for Truth next.

Part of her wanted to tell Miro everything that had happened with Skein, but she couldn’t. Not because she didn’t trust him, but because it wasn’t her secret to share. And she didn’t know exactly what it meant.

I can’t tell a Sun Host fey that the Queen of the Moon Host has lost control of her own Etherium. I can’t tell him that Fallen may’ve tricked Skein, perhaps into thinking that when Fallen tore apart the Sun Etherium and built her own, Fallen’s new one would be subordinate to Moon. Or maybe Skein is just so scared of Fallen that she doesn’t dare oppose her. But I know now they’ve been discrediting the Sun Etherium to make what Fallen will do to it palatable. Forgivable. Acceptable. And maybe Skein’s just now figuring out how untrustworthy Fallen is, or maybe I’m just the only person she thinks might have a shot at stopping her. Hah. Maybe there’re other agents she’s putting into motion, but she wants to keep them all deniable so that Fallen won’t take it out on Skein if we lose. Skein’s hedging her bets: pretend to be on Fallen’s side so that Fallen won’t make her a target, and covertly oppose her in the hopes someone else can stop her. Clever enough. Cowardly. But clever.    

The satyress looked to Justice. Maybe it’s not justice to rescue Skein from her own terrible decisions, if that’s what’s happening. But it’s sure not justice to let Fallen succeed. Ardent lit a candle for Justice and stopped trying to solve her problems by conscious thought. She meditated on the Ideals instead, contemplating each one with familiar abstract litanies, centering herself upon them.

When she’d finished meditating, or at least decided more meditation wasn’t doing her any good, Ardent rose and walked back to Miro. He lifted his head and started to rise at the jingle of the leash, until she waved him to sit again. She sat on the bench beside him instead. The section resized itself and the space around it to accommodate her, without displacing Miro. She asked him, “How’re the Ideals observed in the Sun Etherium?”

“Much the same as here, I believe,” Miro said.

“So, badly?”

He smiled. “Perhaps.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to slight you, hon. Or Sun Host. Just kinda curious, since you look like you’re meditating but not to an Ideal. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Everyone’s got their own way, doesn’t need to be same as mine.”

“Praying,” Miro said, quietly.

Ardent blinked at that. “What?”

“I wasn’t meditating. I was praying.”

“Uh…you mean like mortals to their gods?”

“Exactly like that, yes.”

“Huh. I didn’t know the Sun Etherium had gods any more. I mean, I know there’s some barbarian villages where fey have religions, but I thought both Etheriums were pretty secular now.”

“Sun Etherium is, yes, but there are still a few religious fey left. I practice Vya Aymthial, the Divine Way. It’s a mortal religion, from the world of Thial.”

“When were we last on Thial? I don’t even remember that one.”    

“Thirty-two years ago. We were synchronized with it for several months. My father and I travelled it for two months, gathering stories, books, and research materials. We ran into a Vya Aymthial missionary, and she converted me.”

Ardent smiled. “That must have been one persuasive mortal. Not like the lure of eternal life’s much of a promise to a fey.”

“Well. It was a persuasive religion.” Miro hesitated, then said, “The missionary had soulsight. Just like me. She said that Vya Aymthial’s first prophet also had soulsight. That the Divine had given it to him to help show other people the Path. Vya Aymthial has a tripart god: the Divine, the Guide, and the Path. The Divine is the power behind all things, the creator and the universe. The Guide is the force that shows the difference between right and wrong, the one that helps you know what to do. And the Path is the way you’re supposed to go, to accomplish the goals of your life.” He gave a little shrug, as if he’d said more than he’d intended to. “Anyway, their holy book taught me a lot about soulsight and the meaning of what I can see. And their message, that people should love one another and do what will create the most good in the world, resonated with me.”

Ardent nodded. “That’s what you meant when you were talking to Sessile. About your purpose.”

He blushed, his long ears pinkening. “Yes. And also…that the Path isn’t the same for everyone. Sometimes there’ll be things that need to be done that aren’t the right task for me, because of my skills and limitations. Sometimes they are. I just have to try to figure out what’s what.”

The satyress reached out to take his hand. “And saving your dad is your Path?”

“I think so. Part of it.” Miro laced his fingers between hers. “Yours too, I hope. Not that I expect you to believe in the Divine Way.”

“Yeah. Mine too.” Ardent offered him a smile.

Miro smiled back for a moment, then his expression sobered. “What did the Queen want, my lady? If I may ask?”

“It was complicated. But I got this.” She took the carte blanche from her locket and showed it to him.

Miro stared as it activated. “That’s genuine? It has her aether signature?”

“From the queen’s hand to mine.”

“But – how did you convince her to offer it? What did you give her?”

“An oath. Don’t worry, sugar, it was nothing I wasn’t already doing, and nothing as ridiculous as the one you swore to me during High Court.” Ardent put the token back in her locket. Miro still had the same worried look anyway. She twisted to face him, curling one leg atop the bench, and held out her arms in invitation. He entered her embrace with a gratifying eagerness and snuggled into her lap. She stroked his long indigo hair. At least this still makes sense. Wait, no, this never made sense. Nothing in my life makes sense any more, least of all this. But it does feel right. Which is more than I can say for anything else.

Ardent blew out a breath. First things first. She glanced around the empty shrine. Guess this is as good a place as any to try this. Not like my apartment’s safe any more. Maybe a shrine’ll be auspicious. “I’m gonna try to ward you now, sugar, all right?”

He chuckled. “Oh, no, don’t protect me, my lady. I am so looking forward to the next abduction attempt.” He grinned. “I mean, it did end very nicely for me.”

Ardent made a face at him. “Hush, you.” She kissed his nose, and then made the basic gestures for ownership and warding over him. Even before she was through, she knew it wasn’t working. She tried feeding what Sun aether she still had left into the spell, but it was as if the spell couldn’t even start. The magic wouldn’t go into it. She might as well have tried to soak up water with a rock instead of a sponge.    

“No luck?” Miro asked, watching her face.

“No. Not even with Sun aether. Aether knows you’re a fey, and you shouldn’t need this kind of protection anyway.” She compressed her full lips into a thin, unhappy line.

He made a thoughtful noise and withdrew from her arms. “Or perhaps aether knows I am not a possession.” Miro rose to his feet, then knelt at her hooves and said, “I give myself to you, Ardent Sojourner, in all ways and all things, to use as you see fit.”

“What – Miro, what are you doing, you can’t—” Ardent bolted upright, staring at him in horror as he repeated that insanity two more times. “I don’t want to own you!”

Miro flinched at her words; he looked pale and shaken, head down, still kneeling. “I know. Please don’t release me from it yet, my lady. If my lady would be so kind as to try the warding spell again?”

I don’t want this to work. She almost released him anyway. Instead, she leaned forward, breathing shallowly, and made the warding gesture again. Before she was partway through, she knew it was going to work, and hated it, and hated the Moon Etherium, and the Sun Etherium, and aether, and the entire justice-lost fey race.

“My lady?” Miro had turned his face up to watch her, his expression worried. “It didn’t work?”

Ardent realized she was crying. She wiped her eyes with the back of one brown hand. “No. It did.” I don’t want this. It’s too much. “Miro.” There has to be a way, some way to make it more bearable. She chose her next words carefully. “This is my command to you. You are to behave exactly as you would had you never given me this pledge. You will act in accordance with your own best judgment. You will give no more weight to anything I ask of you than you would have without that oath. Nothing I or anyone else says in the future can or will change this command. Do you understand?”

Miro relaxed visibly, and rose to his feet. “I do, my lady. Ardent. Thank you.”

“All right.” She let out a breath. The ward was still intact upon him. “C’mere, let me do a better version of the ward.”

He sat beside her obediently. “Yes, my lady.”

Too obediently. She started to gesture, stopped. “Back up, sugar.”

He did so. “My lady.”

“Stand on your head,” she told him, and he moved to comply. He didn’t even look confused. “No, stop, Miro, what are you doing?”

He stopped, frozen with one hand on the floor. “…obeying.” With a visible effort, he pulled himself together and sat, carefully, on the bench. “I don’t think contradicting your own future orders quite worked.”    

“Justice find it!” she swore. “I can’t do this. I’m going to release you.”

“Please don’t,” Miro said. He put a hand over hers. “It’s not as bad as that. See, I can even argue with you. Give me another silly command.”

“Turn a pirouette.”

Miro remained seated. “See? I don’t have to obey—”

“Do it now!” Ardent snapped.

Miro twisted sideways to face her on the bench, and clenched a hand against its back. He turned no further, meeting her eyes. “All right, yes, it feels wrong to disobey. But I am not forced to. It’ll be fine, Ardent. It doesn’t have to change anything. And we both know you are putting up with this for my benefit, not yours.” He touched her damp cheek, his index finger caressing beside the corner of her eye. “Everything you have done in the Etherium for the last three days has been for my benefit, and my father’s. I am the one taking advantage of you, Ardent.” He gave a little self-conscious laugh and looked at his hands. “Did I unintentionally put you deeper into my power by trying to put myself into yours? I am sorry, Ardent. Of course you should release me if you wish.”

Ardent smiled weakly, covering his delicate hand with her own larger one. She lowered her eyes and took a deep breath. “Is crazy contagious? Because you’re starting to make sense to me and now I’m really worried.” He laughed. “Fine, when you put it like that it doesn’t seem quite so awful. But Justice, Miro, I will be glad when this is all over. I’m going to finish warding you now.” And be very careful in how I phrase things, from here on.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Ardent strode from the entrance hall of the Palace of the Moon to Skein’s private quarters, silently snarling at the Queen’s teleport blocks in the Palace. They arrived at almost exactly the scheduled hour. Diamond of Winter awaited them in her antechamber, with a scowl on its crystalline face. Cope with it, glass-guy. You want people to be more prompt, you can let them port to the meeting spot. And we’re not even late. Technically.

The adjunct made them wait for a quarter hour anyway, during which Ardent checked her remaining messages. There was one from Whispers Rain that made her heart melt. Rain thanked her for the lovely evening, and asked after Miro’s health, and whether or not she’d been able to do anything about the intruders. I wonder if sexual jealousy is part of the Sun Etherium nowadays? I think marriage is still important to their High Court. At least it was when the Sun Queen made a big point of divorcing Jinokimijin and tumbling him from the High Court, forty-odd years ago. Whispers Rain had never been the possessive sort: she loved sharing, and was always encouraging Ardent to get into other relationships, whether friendships, casual flings, or romances. That was one of the reasons Rain couldn’t leave the Moon Etherium: too many other people there that she loved.

Ardent had been born in a time when jealousy was still seen as normal in the Moon Etherium. Fey had paired with just one other fey in relationships that were, at least in theory, sexually exclusive. To hear White Rose, who was her senior by at least a century, talk of it, it was a rule more observed in the breach. They contended that multiple relationships were common even then, but rife with lies and hypocrisy. After immortality became available to everyone by the middle of the eleventh century, exclusive, permanent, two-person marriages became increasingly rare. By the twelfth they were no longer held up even as an ideal.

Ardent’s own view of a single enduring marriage was more idealistic, and she’d held onto the desire for one for some decades after they became unfashionable. She’d been given to possessiveness and jealousy then, too. Rain was the one who’d broken her of that habit. Rain, who behaved as if sharing a lover was not merely a hardship to be tolerated but a gift to be treasured. If I’d tried harder, returned to the Etherium more often, could I have made you see Try Again as a lover with whom you shared me?

She had no idea how Miro felt on the subject. Given the state Rain and I were in when he interrupted us last night, he can’t have assumed he’s my only lover at present. I’ll have to ask him about it some time later. When we’re in private.

After shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Ardent opened her next message from Play. It was also from last night. “Thought some more about how to stop your pet from getting stolen. There’s no way to ward a fey, far as I know. But if you keep him on a leash all the time, you can ward the collar and leash, so someone’d have to break or bypass those wards to cut him loose of you. Anti-theft wards aren’t as secure as anti-trespassing, but they’re pretty good. Another option: shift him to something small, so you can carry him close. That’d extend to him some of the benefits of your own evasiveness and invulnerability. Not as much as your clothing gets, but still. About what your bag would get, while you’re carrying it. Anyway, you’ll want to keep him close to you. We still haven’t come up with a vault that’s as good as a fey is for keeping things safe.”

There was one more message from Play after that, this one from the morning. “I can’t do anything else for you,” it said. “Don’t message me. Don’t visit me. Stay away from me. And from Storm, too.” Startled, she read it again, and then a few more times. It was so unexpected that she found herself studying it for signs of a cipher, some hidden message in the blunt, unambiguous text.

Miro touched her arm. “My lady? What’s the matter?”

Ardent shook her head; she didn’t want to talk about it here, where they would be overheard. He didn’t press her on it. She was still pondering the implications when Diamond of Winter finally called her in to attend the Queen.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Afterwards, Miro curled on top of Ardent, feeling better than he had in weeks – or ever, perhaps. He pulled a blanket over them and all but purred as Ardent stroked his hair. He raised his head enough to look into her face and smiled, absurdly happy. Even the sobering thought of the Path that lay before him could not dim his joy in the moment. “Thank you.”

Ardent laughed and kissed his nose. “You’re welcome. Silly man. Thank you.”

He snuggled down with his head beneath her chin, resting a hand over one of her delightful breasts. He loved the way they felt; that unfashionable droop left them much softer and squishier than the more popular high, firm ones. Then again, they’re part of Ardent. I would find a reason to adore any shape she wore, he thought, wryly. Miro gave a contented sigh, then said. “We should return to the Moon Etherium.”

Ardent wrapped her arms about him. “Oh, sugar. If this was supposed to make me feel better about taking you back into that pustulent blighthole, I have bad news for you. How about I go back alone and nose around? I can see what Play came up with.”

“We know Fallen can break the wards on your apartment. That must be an ability she powered with the phoenix rose. It’s only a matter of time before she unlocks its capability to bypass other defenses we take for granted. Like fey evasion. Which you’ve already proven can be bypassed with channeled power. I know you don’t like it, Ardent. But you need a channel of your own,” Miro said, softly.

She grimaced and sat up, still snuggling him. She pulled over some pillows to lean back against. “Tell me what exactly happened to you last night.”

Miro hesitated. “Promise me we will still go back to the Etherium after I do?”

Ardent made a face at him. She laid her fingers against his cheek. The furrows were gone now, the flesh healed as if it had never been injured, but Miro realized she was tracing where Cat had clawed him. He shivered, and she stopped, curling her legs and arms around him to cradle him closer. “I don’t want to see you hurt again. I need to know what went wrong. How to keep you safe next time. If there is a next time.”

“Safer,” Miro said, voice low. “Perfect safety is not an option available to me – or you, even, given the phoenix rose. But we still have to go back.”

She sighed, closing her eyes. “Safer, then. Sorry, Miro. I’m not as good at being insanely brave as you are.”

He looked into the radiance of her soul, bonfire-strong, unscarred by fear. Not because she’d never been afraid, but because she’d never allowed fear to compel her to do something she knew was wrong. You are much better at bravery than I am, my lady, he thought, but he didn’t try to tell her that. Instead, he took a deep breath and explained, as dispassionately as he could, the events of the attack.

She swore when he described his inability to contact her. “I never should have stopped messages. And we need to give you a way to contact me despite a stop, too.”

“You thought the apartment was secure. So did I. There’s no reason to blame yourself, my lady.”

Ardent compressed her full lips in a grim expression. “Go on.”

He went through each event in order, including that the assailants had not believed him when he said she’d sent the message he received from Play. Miro did not speculate on Whispers Rain’s involvement. Ardent didn’t remark on the timing either, except to snarl at it as unfortunate.

When he finished, she sat in silence for a moment, still snuggling him in her lap and stroking his back. The fur on her legs was pleasantly soft against his skin, not at all like a goat’s. “I’m wondering if we can use Sun aether to ward you, like an object,” she said at last. “It works on golems, but not on mortals. I’ve never tried it on a fey. And it might not help, since they still hurt Sessile. But it’d be better than nothing.”    

“I am certainly amenable to the attempt,” Miro said. Ardent sighed again, and Miro turned to straddle her legs and hug her. “I am open to alternatives, if you’ve come up with any. But in their absence…”

“We should get back. I know, honey.” Ardent kissed him, gently at first, and then passionately. “I suppose I can’t distract you again.”

Miro smiled, and nuzzled her neck, then breathed into one of her long, elegant ears. “Oh, you could, at least once more.” He chuckled. “Probably several times. I’d hoped to be a trifle more focused on our central problem – locating the phoenix rose. But apparently the emphasis there is on ‘a trifle’.” Moments from the investigation of the previous days flashed through his mind: talking to the farmers; tracing Ocean Discourse; dancing with his father. He straightened in Ardent’s lap. “Is my father’s journal with you, or is it at the apartment?”

Ardent gestured to the pile of things on one of the chairs. “It’s in there.”

Miro gave her a quick kiss, then scrambled out of bed to find it. “My father was able to give me some clues while we were dancing last night, which promptly dropped from my worthless mind until just now. I need to look them up before I forget again.” He pulled the notebook from the heap, and sat in the opposite chair to flip through it.

Ardent walked over to him, still nude, and folded her arms on the back of his chair as she leaned down to look over his shoulder with him. “What did he tell you?”

“One uses a phoenix rose via extractors. It’s kind of a way of filtering the creature’s power so that it can be used by a fey. The little cage we saw in the immersion last night was one such extractor. They require specialized components, varying based on what one can do with them. I know which ones Fallen is and isn’t gathering, but I can’t remember exactly which ones are for what. Here.” He stopped on the section about extractors, and scanned down. He conjured a pen to his hand to put an X beside all the extractors that required one of the items Jino had said Fallen wasn’t gathering. Then he went back through and put a tick mark beside any that used ivory or alabaster.    

Only one extractor needed both. “What does that one do?” Ardent asked.

Miro recognized the name his father had given the device: The Harbinger. It also required some of the things his father had specified Fallen wasn’t gathering, but that meant nothing. She might not have been gathering those because she already had them in sufficient quantities. He turned the page to look at the description again anyway. “It’s…transformative force. You use it to take an existing kind of power and change it into a smaller amount of a different kind of power. At the weak level, you could siphon the aether out of an enchantment, or a ward, or a golem, and turn it into something else. Since it’s acting directly upon aether, aether is not an effective defense against it. A good ward or a powerful enchantment would take longer to destroy, but it wouldn’t be proof against it.”

“So…what would the something-else that it gets turned into be?”    

“A new form of aether. It might have the properties of Sun aether in the Moon Etherium, or it might just be less of a different sort of aether. Dad wasn’t sure on that part of the theory.” Miro stared down at the notebook.

“If he’s never been able to do any of these things, how does he have such precise theories about them?”

“They’re mathematical permutations. It all follows logically from the things that can be done with firebuds, albeit on a scale so small that it’s only perceptible via aether.” He closed the notebook and stood.    

Ardent braced her hands on the chair back to prop her torso just high enough to put her head level with his. “And at the strong level?”

“Mm?” Miro met her eyes, wishing he’d taken her up on her half-joking suggestion of distracting him. That it wasn’t too late. Once was not nearly enough.

“Of that extractor. You said the weak level could do what we saw your attackers do, to my wards and to Sessile. What could it do at a powerful level?”    

“Ah. Right. It could destroy an Etherium, and create a new, weaker one.”

Ardent straightened so fast she cracked her head against the ceiling. She blinked at him. “Oh. Well. That’s not ominous at all.”

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Ardent gave a breathy little laugh and shaped a glamour to light the interior. She smiled down at him, still holding his hand. “Just gonna get you a little farther out, then I can patch you up.”

“It looks much worse than it is,” Miro assured her.

“That’s great, because you look like a mortal who lost a fight with a thresher.”

“Are threshers very dangerous?”

Ardent laughed. “Don’t get into any fights with them. Especially if you’re mortal. Or as vulnerable as one.” She swallowed, her smile strained by worry.

Sessile’s motion ceased. “We’re here. Should I surface?”

“Yes, thanks, Sessile. Shift to the mortal world only.” They ascended into a dark wood, the shape of the leaf canopy above barely visible. Ardent curled her caprine legs onto the bed beside Miro, and leaned over him. “I haven’t healed anyone but mortals and animals in the last couple of centuries, so…here’s hoping I remember how.” She dismissed the bandages over his face, and wrote in aether over his skin. Miro sighed and closed his eyes again as the pain faded. Ardent worked her way down his front, then had him roll over and did his back. She made a few extra passes around his head, biting her tongue in concentration. “There…how’s that?”

“Much better, my lady. Thank you.” Miro shifted to sit upright, and covered her hand with his. “We can go back now, if you please.”

“You’re still shivering.” Ardent steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s nothing. Just nerves.”

Ardent shifted a little closer and kissed his forehead. “You can stop being insanely brave now,” she whispered.

Miro shook his head. “Not yet,” he answered, just as softly. “When my father’s safe. Then I can stop.”

Another breathless laugh. “Look, we both need sleep. We can do that just as well in the Broken Lands, where you’re as invulnerable as any other fey. So let’s stay out here for tonight, and in the morning we can talk about what’s next. All right? The thrice-blighted Moon Etherium will still be there tomorrow. More’s the pity.”

Miro bowed his head in acquiescence. “As you wish.”

Ardent let out a breath. She moved his hand to rest on her wrist. “Here. Channel from me.”

He blinked at her. “What? Why would I—”

“I brought my boots, I’ll walk back to the Etherium and fill up again after you channel from me. There’s no reason for you to be helpless out here.”

I’m not helpless. I have you. Her pulse under his fingers was strong and steady, her skin warm, the aether palpable and inviting as an oasis to his no-longer-dulled senses. Miro swallowed. “As you wish.” He scooted back to make more room for her in the bed.

She hesitated. “We don’t really need…I mean, we’re not in an Etherium, and I’m not even High Court, so…” He raised his eyebrows at her, and the satyress gave another nervous laugh. “Never mind.” She lay down next to him.

Miro pressed against her side. He curled one leg over her thigh and rested his hand against her throat, feeling her pulse. “Tell me if it’s uncomfortable.”

“Mm hmm.” Her breathing was not quite steady, her pulse quickening. Miro relaxed, opening himself to her aether. It flowed in, and he gasped at the pleasure of it, the relief of being quenched after days of acute thirst. His awareness of Ardent beside him only increased as aether enhanced his senses. Her back arched to press her throat into his fingers, as if eager to pour herself into his body. Her lips parted, breathing in quick gasps, body writhing against his in a way that was deeply sensual, unimaginably alluring. His own pulse pounded with growing lust, his erection throbbing against her hip. Ardent made a tiny whimpering sound, her arm clutching at his side. Miro tore himself away, panting, afraid he would lose control entirely if he remained. She whimpered again at his withdrawal, her back arched as if to lure him back. He moved further away, putting a foot of empty bed between them, and fought to control his breathing.

Ardent slumped back against the bedding. Dark eyes fluttered open, and she turned to him with a slow, half-lidded smile. “Mmm. Love, but you’re so good at this. If it feels even half this delicious for you, then I finally understand why you’re so willing to channel for me.” She stretched her arms lazily over her head, the generous curves of her breasts shifting under her chiton. His fingers itched to caress them, to explore their inviting softness. He fisted his hand around the blanket instead. “I’ve still got more, if you want. It won’t hurt me.” Her husky contralto beckoned with the promise of a warm reception. She reached out to caress his cheek, but at his stiffness, her face fell. Ardent withdrew. “Sorry, I shouldn’t—”

Miro caught her hand, unable to bear the rejected look in her eyes. “I would love to,” he said, hoarsely, kissing her fingers. “I just – if it’s half so intoxicating for you – I can’t take advantage of that.”

She raised her eyes to his, then lowered brown lids, a smile flickering and fading on full lips. “Fair ’nuf. I should run back to the Etherium an’…” The satyress swung her legs off of the bed and almost fell out of it. Miro scrambled to grab her shoulder and steady her. “Whoa.”

“It can wait.” Miro tugged gently, and she half-toppled back to lay her head in his lap, lower legs still off the bed.

“Dizzy,” she said. “’s a nice dizzy, though.” She reached up to pat his cheek, and he turned his face to kiss her palm. Ardent smiled, then curled onto her side and nuzzled his stomach. “I forgot to make a bed for me.”

“I’ll make one.” Miro started to gesture.

She put her hand over his arm and he paused. “Do you have to?”    

Miro swallowed, trying to will his renewed erection away. “…no. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Ardent gave him a lazy, dreamy smile that did nothing for his ragged self-control. “I’m sure I don’t mind, sugar.”

He did use aether to float her into a more comfortable position in the bed, straightened out lengthwise. He made a new blanket to put over her, and slid under the first set himself, figuring an extra layer of cloth between them was advisable. Miro decided the toga she’d put him in already was comfortable enough to sleep in.

“Mmm.” Ardent watched him with sleepy black eyes. “Lights out.” Her light-glamour vanished, leaving them in darkness. “Oh, Sessily, you sleep too, little girl. Gotta conserve aether out here.”

“Uh-huh, m’lady.” Sessile went still, and her walls turned opaque, making the darkness absolute.

The mattress shifted as Ardent moved closer to him, until she could wrap an arm over his side and snuggle into him. “G’night, Miro.”    

“Sleep well, Ardent,” he murmured. Given all his conflicted feelings and the rush of adrenaline from his escape, Miro did not expect to sleep soon. But the warmth of Ardent’s soul, and her body pressed close despite the blankets between them, comforted him. The unwanted arousal faded as she slept, and soon he was asleep as well.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Miro woke to darkness and a sense of wrongness. He pushed off the bedclothes and sat at the edge of the bed, trying to figure out what had woken him, trying to decide if it was nothing and he should go back to sleep. Perhaps it’s the wrongness of being sense-blind that woke me, he thought, dryly. He rose and drew on a dressing gown anyway, and had started for the stairwell to the living room when he saw a fey stranger with an ugly soul coming down it. Miro ducked back into his room and conjured a messenger to send to Ardent: “Intruder in the apartment. Please come.”

Instead of winking out to deliver the message, the will-o-wisp reported, “Ardent is not accepting messages at this time.”

Miro cursed inwardly, and instructed the wisp to relay as soon as it could: “Intruder on the bottom level, perhaps several. Includes a fey we saw at the party talking to Fallen: flying merman with black and white scales. Please come.” It had been too dark to make out the fey’s shape on the stairs, but soulsight needed no light. Miro reviewed his other options quickly: I can teleport, but only to where I already am. I can message my father, who can’t message me back. I could send a message to Play Until Collapsing Dreams, or Contemplation After the Storm, and hope that doesn’t make matters worse. I can hide.

He ducked into the wardrobe and closed its door, sinking down to its floor. He heard the door to the room open, and voices talking. “He was staying in this room, don’t see him now. Check the bathing chamber?”

“Didn’t we just go through the bathing chamber?”

“I assume there’s a private one.”

A third voice said, “Search the bedroom, too.”

Miro sent a message to Play Until Collapsing Dreams. “Intruders in Ardent’s apartment. At least three. Ardent blocking messages. Please help if you can.” The wisp winked out as someone yanked open the armoire door.

The strange fey had a monstrous shape, even by the standards of the Moon Etherium: a kind of giant wolf with tentacles rayed out from their back, and a scorpion’s tail. They grinned at him. “Found him!” they yelled.

Miro considered yelling for help, but even if Ardent’s room wasn’t soundproofed – and why wouldn’t it be soundproofed? – the intruders were unconcerned about being overheard and could have rendered the area soundproof themselves. Instead, he rose and stepped from the armoire with all the Sun Etherium dignity he could muster. “Good evening, gentlefolk. May I inquire as to the reason for this visit?”

The other two intruders entered the guest room behind the wolf. One, who’d been the merman with the ugly soul at the party, was in the shape of a six-armed humanoid panther, head crested by horns. In his upper right hand, he held a short rod with purple-striped white petals bound to the top. The third fey had a minotaur’s form. All three had corrupted souls and thick obligations, though the mer-turned-panther was the worst of the lot. The panther-man parted his jaws in a fanged-tooth grin at Miro. “Heh. You may not. Bull, is he watched?”    

Miro didn’t recognize any of the three forms, but he knew the panther’s soul, and the minotaur’s looked vaguely familiar. They cared enough about being caught to use disguised forms. That’s something. “The hour is quite late, and you are intruding upon my space. Kindly depart,” Miro said, more to establish a tone of civility than out of any hope of compliance. The wolf lolled their tongue, amused.

The minotaur ignored him to fiddle with a crystal ball, tracing runes over it and twisting it.

The six-armed panther tapped one foot impatiently. “Well?”

“Give me a few minutes.” Bull tapped the crystal’s surface. “It’s designed to check for the wielder, not a random other fey. And it’s slow anyway.”

As the other fey were looking at Bull, Miro dove between the minotaur and the panther towards the open door behind them. The humanoid cat roared and made a grab for him with his left set of arms. He wasn’t accustomed to the extra limbs: the lower two were clumsy and the upper one didn’t have the reach as Miro somersaulted across the floor. He came to his feet by the door and ran for the stairs.

Aether swirled into a wall of rock before him. Miro pulled up short as his hands hit it. “Really, Sun boy?” The panther stepped through the bedroom door. He gestured, putting a stone wall on the corridor behind him, and another to cover the door opposite his bedroom. “How far do you think you can get without aether?”

I can still straddle to the mortal world and walk through this wall, Miro thought, but they can straddle too, and they’ll have aether-speed on me. And that trick will only work once. What is my strategy, here?    

The panther stalked towards him. When the other two fey joined them in the corridor, the feline put a wall over the door to the bedroom, too.

A will-o-wisp messenger formed by Miro’s head. Right. I’m stalling for time and hoping someone rescues me. He reached for the message. It was from Play Until Collapsing Dreams: “Can’t port in without permission. Trying to bypass Ardent’s block. Hang on.”

“What’s that?” The panther grabbed for the message, but the will-o-wisp dissolved into mist at his touch. He snarled at Miro. “Who’s talking to you, Sun boy?” He’d taken a large form, almost a foot taller than Miro, and glowered down at him.

Miro kept his back straight. I will not cower. “My lady Ardent Sojourner. She checks in on me periodically.”

“Hah. She’s got better things to do right now than talk to you. And how would you answer?”

The wolf-beast conjured a messenger. “She’s still blocking, Cat.”    

Cat narrowed his eyes at Miro, and tried to grab him. Miro didn’t have fey evasion, but the Moon Host fey was clumsy enough in his unaccustomed form that Miro was able to dodge the first hand. Miro feinted a counterstrike, which Cat evaded automatically, and dodged to the left. A brief scramble ensued. It ended when the panther slammed cage walls into place on either side of Miro, then seized him by the throat from the front. “Don’t lie to me, light-brat.”

Miro clawed at the panther’s fingers ineffectually. The panther-man took his wrists in his extra hands and dragged them down with aether-fueled strength. The panther raised him from the floor and slammed him back against the stone wall, grinning ferally. Miro fought for breath, spots swimming in his vision after the impact.

“Don’t break him, Cat. We need him alive,” the lupine said. “How’s that check coming, Bull?”

The minotaur approached Miro, circled the crystal over his face, then drew back. “Sorry, gonna be another minute.”

“Take your time,” Cat growled. “I always wanted a fey toy to play with, anyway.” He loosened his grip on Miro’s throat slightly. “Who sent you a message? What did they say?”

Miro gasped. “That you’re a clumsy buffoon and Fallen should find a better class of minion.”

The panther-man bared fangs as long as fingers. “Wrong answer, cat toy.” He unsheathed the claws of one free hand and ran them lovingly down the side of Miro’s face, drawing blood. “But you get it, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. Fear. You can act arrogant, but you know how helpless you are.” He closed, pressing the length of his body against Miro’s. “Can’t evade. Can’t escape.”

“Wait, how’d he know Fallen sent us?” the wolf asked.

Any time you would like to bypass that block would be lovely, Play. Miro closed his eyes. “Well, I know now. And you can’t do anything, little kitty. I’m no good to your mistress dead.”

“He’s not being watched by anyone,” Bull reported. “Still waiting on the tracking.”

“That’s all right, cat toy. It’s more fun playing with your prey while they’re still alive and squirming,” the panther growled. He licked a broad, abrasive tongue over the cuts on Miro’s face, then shredded Miro’s robe and night shirt dramatically under two sets of claws, lacerating the skin underneath

“Uh, Cat, what are you…” The wolf edged nearer.

“Just having some fun. Haven’t you ever wanted to fuck a scared fey?” Cat flipped Miro around, evading without effort Miro’s vain attempt to kick him. Cat slammed Miro’s face against the wall, and shredded the back of his clothing, leaving shallow furrows in the skin. Miro gritted his teeth under the urge to scream.

“No. That’s disgusting, Hunt – Cat. Stop that.” The wolf drew closer and slid their tentacles between Miro’s body and the panther-man.    

Miro wished he could think of something else brave to say, wished he weren’t grateful for the intervention, wished he wasn’t just as sick and scared as Cat had taunted him with being. He could have made my clothing disappear but it was more fun to tear them. Just playing, with a sapient possession – Miro opened his eyes as he suddenly realized who else he could contact. If I can get out.

“He’s not being tracked, either. Can we just go now?” Bull asked.    

Time to use that one chance. Miro shifted to the mortal world. He fell through the wall, Cat’s hands, the tentacles—

—the floor.

He heard the fey shout and grab for him, but fey who never left their Etherium had no reason to shift to the mortal world, and were not quick to think of the possibility. By the time they realized what had happened, he was below the floor and conjuring a farspeaker. “Sessile, port to me NOW!”

Before he’d finished the message, Miro struck a ward – the fey below Ardent had made their wards impenetrable in both worlds. He scrambled and slid to the edge of the ward. As he dropped into empty space, Fallen’s second-rate minions shifted to the mortal plane and flew after him.

The air beside Miro shimmered, and then Sessile uncurled out of nothingness. She blinked. “Help!” Miro shouted at her, in freefall. She snaked after him. The lupine ported to him, and Miro twisted away from his tentacles as Sessile caught up to them and chomped her mouth neatly over Miro. “Port, top of the Etherium,” he told her. “Keep falling.” Still floating in freefall inside of her, Miro grabbed for one of the ridges of her interior segments, and pulled himself to one of the chairs. He tried to seat himself as best he could, wincing at the touch of the backrest against his lacerated back. Through Sessile’s glamour-window-walls, he could see them plummet past the towers and skybridges of the Moon Etherium. “Pull out of the fall now, please, gently. As if you’re hauling a fragile cargo you didn’t want to break with a too-sudden stop.”

“Um. I can’t actually fly,” Sessile said, sheepishly.

“…right. Can you port to the ground and earthswim to slow the fall?”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Please do so.” The scene outside shifted from the glamour-lit cityscape to the road before the palace. They plunged through it and into complete darkness. Miro lurched forward in the chair as Sessile began to decelerate. “Is your interior warded?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Might be safer underground anyway. Although that justice-lost cat has an airswimming form and is probably familiar enough with earthswimming to do so casually. “Please let me know if anyone makes contact with you or tries to enter, all right?”

“Sure! So…why are they trying to kill you, m’lord?”

“I think they mean to capture me so Fallen can have another channel. Can you teleport into Ardent’s bedroom?” Miro did not have much hope that Sessile would have better luck than Play, but they should at least try.

A moment’s pause, then: “No, she’s not responding to the request.”

“Are you able to port about at random?” Miro asked.

“I’m not so good with random. Can you give me a place?”

“The Promenade?”

Sessile grunted. “There’s someone on me.” The scene outside changed from darkness to the Promenade. The arched crystal bridge with its shop-portals was a brightly lit jewel against the night. The golem juddered as she hit the street, almost knocking Miro loose from his chair. She hadn’t quite finished decelerating from their earlier freefall. He twisted to look around them, and saw Cat clinging to Sessile’s tail.

“Blight take him. Can you shake him off?”

“Probably not.” She thrashed her tail, but he didn’t jar loose. “He’s…ow…he’s hurting me.” She sounded suddenly small and scared. Bull ported in near Cat and clung to a couple of the long spines adorning Sessile’s back. Cat was doing something with his rod against Sessile’s side. Miro saw an actual hole, not just glamour-transparency, start to peel open on her flank where he was prodding.

“Make a fuss. Yell for help. I’ll try to draw them off you, Sessile.” Miro jumped out of his chair and yelled at the gap with a bravado he did not feel, “You want me, O Pitiful Inept Hunter? Come get me.”

Then he snapped his fingers on both hands, and disappeared.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Comfortable as Ardent’s guest bed was, it was nonetheless far less comfortable than the satyress herself. Miro lay sleepless in it for some time, wondering if it was possible Ardent was attracted to him or if he was misinterpreting friendliness and a kindly tolerance. And even if his wild optimism was justified, was it worth it to complicate matters further, with his position already so precarious?

To distract himself from his problematic infatuation, Miro directed his thoughts to the problem he’d come to the Moon Etherium to solve. Alabaster and ivory, he remembered. I need to check the notebook for exactly which extractors need those. But Ardent might already be asleep. I shouldn’t disturb her for this. It’ll keep until morning. His mind drifted from that to his father, and then to the Sun Etherium.    

§

It had started twenty-five years ago, at one of Miro’s mother’s lavish breakfast gatherings.

The Sun Queen did everything attended by an array of sycophants, favorites, and courtiers. Miro had long ago lost her favor and was seldom subjected to a breakfast invitation, but he’d been summoned today. In theory, he did not have to go. In practice, it was less trouble to attend than not. He arrived exactly on time, sat at the far end of one of two lesser tables, and waited for the event to end so he could leave again.

But before that happened, the Sun Queen craned her neck about from her throne at the high table, and beckoned to him. “Come here, Mirohirokon. I’ve a question for you.”

Miro braced himself and approached with all the equanimity life as a Sun Host prince had drilled into him. He knelt to her, as was the queen’s due. “Your majesty.”

“Dear Tiqo—” Eletanene favored her youngest child with a smile that did not strike Miro as genuine “—has urged me to acquire a new garden for the Palace of the Sun, in that new plant-sculpture style. You have a friend who dabbles in that, don’t you, Mirohirokon?”

“I do, your majesty.” Miro’s closest and oldest friend, in fact. Miro had no desire to bring him to the Queen’s attention.

His mother wrinkled her golden brow in a frown at his reticience. “Well? What’s his name?”

Obviously, I should have concealed this friendship twenty-two years ago, when I formed it. At age six. It was not as if he could conceal it now. “Lilaqalilan, your majesty.”

Eletanene’s brow smoothed, returning her face to flawless perfection. She smiled, expression slight enough that it created no new wrinkles in her skin. “Lilaqalilan. I shall hire him, then.”

Next to their mother, Tiqo clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, thank you, Momma! You won’t regret this!”

“Your majesty is most considerate.” Miro regretted it already.

§

Lilan was excited about the commission, despite Miro’s misgivings. The pay was excellent, and while no one in the Etherium needed money, per se, luxuries like golems and custom-made art, particularly well-designed clothes, were much in demand.

Lilan had been plant-sculpting almost since the art form had been invented, just twenty years ago. It was an art practiced by making small alterations to a plant as it grew, and allowing nature a part in shaping the final work. Because it was such a new art, Lilan’s youth had been less of a hinderance in cultivating his reputation as an expert.

Ama, Miro’s favorite sister, shared his concern about their mother’s motives. “Tiqodomiqon’s been badgering her about plant-scultping for months. It’s all Tiqo talks about. She wants to learn it,” Ama told him one afternoon. They were just outside the Etherium, flying in bird form with one of Miro’s other childhood friends, Talo.

“So perhaps your mother wants to buy Tiqo the credit for designing a garden?” Talo said. “If Tiqo wants to bully Lilan into designing according to her specifications, Lilan’s not got the spine to stop her.”    

“Oh, I wish. Mom hates plant sculpting. She thinks it’s an undignified pursuit.” Ama canted the brown and beige wings of her peregrine’s body and turned in the air.

Talo and Miro dipped to follow her. “What if Tiqo changed her mind?” Talo asked.

“Her majesty is not known for changing her mind. Especially in response to badgering,” Miro said, grimly.

“What Miro said. The best possible option is that she’s decided to tolerate it for Tiqo’s sake.” Ama flapped her wings to level out.

“I hope so. For Lilan’s.” Miro did not ask what Ama considered the worst option. He could envision plenty of those himself.

§

The Sun Queen gave the new garden a good location, at the top of a Palace tower where it could get plenty of natural sunlight and even rain, if Lilan wanted. Lilan gave it a greenhouse shield, which could be attuned to be transparent or opaque, and to permit, filter, or block wind or rain. From the outside, he kept it screened by privacy wards, to preserve the mystery.

Not that Lilan minded if people watched his work in progress. Miro dropped by often to visit, sometimes helping and more often distracting his friend. Lilan’s typical form was of a fashionably handsome man: tall, with a muscular build, dark oversized eyes in an oval face, bronze-gold skin, and deep red hair. He had long, mobile ears that he canted up and down to reflect his mood. Miro had always liked Lilan’s soul, blues and greens full of kindness and gentle affection. He had an eagerness to please that made him good company, if unassertive. That was his soul’s greatest weakness. His fear of being disliked made him easy to manipulate. The occasional streaks of corruption in his soul were the result of times he’d done things he knew were wrong because someone else had talked him into them.

Tiqo did come to help with the garden, but not because the Sun Queen commanded Lilan to work with her. Nor did Lilan object: Tiqo accorded Lilan the deference due an elder fey and a master artisan, which he found endearing. The fey teen was more eager to learn the art than to impose her own vision over Lilan’s, and she was not so obtrusive as to be in the way. Tiqo had a healthy soul, especially for one of Eletanene’s children. She was full of enthusiasm and energy. While she’d been spoiled by too much deference and attention from fey courtiers, it didn’t mar her company most of the time.

The garden grew and blossomed into a mix of fanciful shapes, most organic, with some touches of mathematical regularity. A canopied tree that had each branch fork into two exactly half the original length, at a forty-five degree angle, and each of those fork again, and again. Tree “families” paired two trees of different breeds and surrounded the pairs with a brood of miniature trees that blended their traits. Bushes so dense with flowers that their leaves were obscured. Miro loved it without reservation, a little microcosm of everything that made life in the Etherium worthwhile. And since it was not yet open to the public, it contained none of the people who made life in the Etherium unpleasant.

“You can’t truly like it just because no one else comes here,” Lilan teased him one day. Lilan was working in one of the flower beds, adjusting the spells on the blooms so they’d be more natural and less rigidly controlled.

“Why not?” Miro lazed on his back in one of the garden benches. He batted away a messenger bird made of folded paper as it loomed close. “You should put up a wall that won’t let farspeaking work in here, too. That’d make it perfect.”

“Only for you, Miro. Besides, it’s not as ‘safe’ as you think. Your mother’s been in here a few times.”

“She has? What did she say?” Miro propped himself up to look at Lilan.

“Not much? I can’t tell if she likes it or not. But she hasn’t said anything bad, and she’s been quite understanding about it taking time.” Lilan had his ears canted down. “Princess Tiqo did turn into a mouse to hide from her one time, though. Apparently her majesty told Princess Tiqo at the start that she wasn’t supposed to be involved with the garden at all.” He glanced at Miro. “I told Tiqo I wouldn’t tell, but that she shouldn’t come any more. And now she’s showing up in the form a of a giant bear of a man and calling herself ‘Domi’. Domi claims to be a gardener the queen assigned if I need help. I dunno. Should I keep pretending I can’t tell it’s her?”

“I don’t know, either. I wish you hadn’t taken this job.”

Lilan laughed. “But you’re my biggest fan, Mirohi. You wouldn’t even have this garden without the commission.”

“You’d’ve made another garden. It’d still be great.”

“Not like this. I couldn’t have afforded all the assistants and special plants and tailoring on my own. I know you hate court intrigue, but how bad can it be? It’s not like I’m a courtier. I’m just a gardener. Seriously, though, if you think I should keep Domi out, I will. I don’t want to make trouble.”

Miro shook his head. “I don’t know what’ll make trouble, Lilan. I truly don’t.”

§

After several months, Lilan finished the garden, or at least pronounced it ready for public viewing. To Lilan’s gratification, the Sun Queen planned a large party with an exclusive guest list to celebrate its completion. The party would be the first time the garden would be seen by more than the handful who’d watched its development.

As the artisan responsible for the garden, Lilan received an invitation to the celebration. Miro was not invited, which did not entirely surprise him. Queen Eletanene wasted no love on him, after all. Still, after she’d made a point of asking his best friend to do the work, leaving him off the guest list seemed a little tasteless even by her standards. But at least Tiqo will be there; Lilan will have one friend already, and probably make more on the strength of his artistry.

On the afternoon of the party, Miro was working with his father in Jino’s laboratory. They were dispensing firebuds to various extractor prototypes when Miro received a message from Tiqo: “Miro, Miro, you have to come to the garden. Right now. Justice, please, it’s a disaster, please come.”

Miro summoned a farspeaker scroll to write out his reply. “What happened? I’m not invited, I can’t get in.” The scroll tore a square of itself off, folded itself into a paper bird, and winged away. Aloud, he told Jino, “I have to go, Dad, something’s happened with Lilan’s project.” He teleported to the Palace foyer, then shifted to a sparrow and flew through the corridors and up the stairwell towards the tower top.

Tiqo’s reply came “I know, I opened a gap in the wards on the southeast tower wall, by the peonies. Please, Miro, I can’t – just come.”    

Heart in his throat, Miro flew out one of the windows and winged his way to the southeast wall. He half-expected to see the garden in ruins, but it looked fine. Miro ducked down and wriggled through the gap in the wards, still in sparrow form. Tiqo was there, dressed in an elaborate jacket and full-skirted gown, but with tears on her cheeks. He landed on her outstretched hand. “What happened?” he asked again. From the interior, the garden still looked as splendid as ever. The party didn’t look like a disaster, either. Most of the attendees were clustered near their queen at the center of the garden, laughing uproariously.

“It’s Momma,” Tiqo whispered. “I tried to—” she gulped air “—make her stop, but I, I can’t, she’s horrible—”

Miro launched into the air and flew towards the group. Queen Eletanene was presiding over the crowd with Lilan frozen at her side, her hand gripped about his. “Now, tell us what inspired this group?” the Sun Queen cooed, her voice full of false sweetness. “Ooh, wait, I know. Pubic hair! Just that kind of thin tangly sparseness. And now I know why that little concealed stream is right there!”

The attendees swarmed about her laughed even harder. Lilan did not even try to respond. A few of the partygoers looked embarrassed or sorry for him, but even they had a hard time not smiling. One courtier offered a contribution: “All it needs is a few rabbits! To represent lice!”    

“An excellent suggestion! Do make note of that for the revisions, Lilaqalilan. Now, what’s next…”

Miro moved to Lilan’s side and shifted back to his fey shape as the Sun Queen continued her brutal dissection, mocking everything that was beautiful, elegant, and graceful in the design. She must have spent a lot of time working out the right quips, finding insults with just enough resonance to make the crowd smile, perfecting the delivery of her satire for maximum impact. Miro put an arm around Lilan’s shoulders and ignored everyone else. “Let go of her hand,” he told his friend. “We’re leaving.”

The crowd had stirred in surprise at Miro’s appearance, and his mother glanced over her shoulder to see the source. “But Mirohirokon, he can’t leave now. Why, we’re not even halfway through! There’s so much left of this abomination to explain!”

Miro ignored her. “It doesn’t matter that she’s queen, Lilan. She can’t make you stay. You don’t have to listen to this. Let’s go.” Lilan turned to him, oversized eyes brimmed with tears, features otherwise lifeless. He slid his hand from the queen’s grasp. Miro shifted himself into a bird and Lilan into a mouse to carry him away. The queen would make him pay for this, Miro knew – she’d find a way, just like she’d found this way. But at the time, it seemed more important to help his friend. As soon as they were outside of the Palace’s teleport blocks, Miro teleported them to his house.

§

Alone in Miro’s home near the edge of the Etherium, Lilan disintegrated in Miro’s arms. “I don’t understand. If she hated it, why didn’t she ever say so? She was there a dozen times. I’d’ve changed it. Or stopped. Or anything.”

Miro led him to a couch and pulled him down, holding him, with no idea what else to do. “It doesn’t have anything to do with your garden, Lilan.”

His friend shuddered, slumping against his chest. “You didn’t hear her, oh Love, she despised it, everyone did, they just laughed and laughed—”

“Shh. Shh.” Miro kissed the top of Lilan’s head, helpless to soothe him. “It doesn’t matter what she said. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, or your work. She’s making a point to someone else. Me, maybe. Tiqo, probably. To show Tiqo what she’d do if Tiqo took a hobby her majesty didn’t approve of. Your work is wonderful. Nothing she said can change that.”

Lilan shook his head. “I can’t, I can’t ever do this again. I think I’m going to be sick.” He conjured a basin and bent over to retch into it. Miro held back his hair until he finished, then cleaned his face with aether and magicked away the waste. “Justice, is this what she did to your dad? I never knew. I never knew how horrible people can be. Court’s not always like that. Is it? It can’t be.”

It can be. “It doesn’t matter, Lilan. It’ll be all right.”

But it wouldn’t.

§

Queen Eletanene paid Lilan the balance owed on the commission, of course. She would not have it said the crown did not pay its debts.

On every feyour, she’d had a little picture drawn and a quip written, in mockery of the garden.

Miro found the scrip two days later, scattered across the floor of Lilan’s foyer, spattered with blood. Lilan was dead in the bathtub, with his wrists slit. As Miro wept beside the tub, he wondered if this last twist of the knife had been because of him. Was this the price Eletanene had exacted because Miro had taken her prey away before she’d finished?

Later, at the funeral, his father had said, “It’s not your fault,” but Miro was never sure that was true.

The Sun Queen did not attend, nor did she express any hint of remorse or apology for her actions. She did not even offer condolences to her son.

Tiqo came to the funeral, in the giant male form Tiqo’d called “Domi” before, but this time identified as Tiqodomiqon. The garden party was the last time Miro ever saw Tiqo in a female form. After that, he was always male. If Eletanene’s performance had been intended to terrify Tiqo into obedience, it had the exact opposite effect. Tiqo studied the methods of justiciars, after that, although there was no chance the Sun Queen would ever make him the Justiciar. But Justice was his obsession now.

Miro’s too, in a different form.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

After Fallen left Ardent’s reunion party, Jino went blank. She wanted to be forgettable, forgotten, irrelevant, unobtrusive. Fallen had made Jino brand herself on her first day in the Etherium, and it was not an experience Jino was eager to repeat. Especially since Fallen had waited a day before taking her out of the Etherium so she could speed the healing of it, and only then because it had been infected and looked bad. Fallen could not abide disordered things. Even healed, it still ached, and sliding down the streamers when dancing had made it worse. She’d thought that worth it at the time. Mirohirokon needed a victory. Maybe Jino’d needed one, too, just to prove that she was still capable of winning a skirmish. To remind herself that the war wasn’t over.

When she was alone with Fallen, though, it felt like the war was over.

Fallen had taken them to the garden of one of her palaces. This one was full of space-twisting magic that created impossible perspectives. There were trees that simultaneously grew both in front of and behind each other; flowers that blossomed from lily pads but appeared to be at the bottom of the pond, even while their muted fragrance hung in the air; leaves that reached for the sky and grew into the ground; mosaic scenes made of flowers that showed the same image no matter the vantage from which one viewed them.

Fallen paced along the steps of one circular path, dragging Jino behind her. It looked like Fallen was always walking down, and Jino felt like she was always walking upwards, but the scenery around them remained level throughout. Jino wished Fallen would stop and let her kneel at her feet like usual.

Instead, Fallen dispatched messages from a farspeaker in the shape of a crystal globe. She tapped one foot impatiently as she waited for responses, then twisted to yank on Jino’s collar. “You truly can screw up anything, can’t you?”

“Yes, mistress.” Jino made the tone of her little girl’s voice as dull and dutiful as she could.

“You can’t have resisted the cursed immersion. How could even you mess up a role so clearly laid out for you?” Fallen held the leash in her fist just a few inches short of the collar, pulling Jino’s much shorter form up to stand on her toes.

“I don’t know, mistress.”

Fallen slapped her, hard; Jino’s head rocked back as far as the tight leash would allow. “Don’t mock me, girl. Why did you lie about what your role was?”

“Mistress?”

“Stop that!” Fallen hit her again. Jino whimpered pitifully.

“I’m sorry, mistress!” Jino tried to cringe, which didn’t work well while standing on her toes and held up by the leash. “I was confused after the immersion. I thought what happened was real. Please don’t hurt me, mistress! I am bound to serve you and you alone.”

The gray fox-eared woman snorted. She put her fingertips to the side of Jino’s neck, and black needle-sharp claws sprouted from the tips. “Bah. The only thing you’re any good at is being hurt. Or perhaps making love to your son. That was a convincing kiss. Tell me, is incest common in the Sun Etherium or is it just you?”

Don’t use me to hurt Mirohiro, you vicious harpy. Jino twitched her neck against the claws, to make blood well from pinprick cuts. Voice dull, broken, hopeless, she said, “I live to serve.”

The white winged centaur from the party, the one who’d led the immersion, teleported into the garden beside them. Fallen dropped Jino to turn her attention to the centaur. “Reflections on Water. Were my instructions not clear enough? Why was Ardent Sojourner given Loreveroro’s part?”

Jino’d rather been wondering that one herself. Since Fallen had stopped pacing and released her tight grip on the leash, Jino sank to her knees at the fox-eared woman’s feet. Reflections bowed deeply to her. “My apologies, Lady Shadow of Fallen Scent. Lady Ardent refused to allow her servant Mirohirokon to be assigned the part and insisted she take it herself.”

“Insisted? By Duty, you imbecile, Loreveroro’s part needed to be done properly! If that cow wouldn’t let Mirohirokon take it, then it should’ve followed the script as part of the glamour. How stupid are you?”

Reflections hunched his shoulders. “A thousand apologies, my lady. Ophidion Memory didn’t realize how important this role was to the arc, and since the party was in Lady Ardent’s honor, she thought—”

“Oh, so this is Ophidion Memory’s fault, is it?”

“She was the one assigning parts for them—”

Fallen rested the hand holding Jino’s leash against her hip and leaned back, black eyes narrowed and a small, cruel smile on her dark lips. “Very well. Then you shall see Ophidion Memory punished for it.”

The centaur swallowed, his shoulders tensing. “I’ll reprimand her, my lady.”

“Reprimand? A mere reprimand? For ruining the entire immersion for everyone?”

“Lady Shadow – everyone enjoyed it, it wasn’t—”

“Don’t contradict me. You’ll see her blacklisted from all creative positions. Permanently.”

Reflections on Water raised his torso from his bow at last, shocked. “But that – that’s much too extreme—”

“Is it? Well. We can give her a choice, then.” Fallen smirked. She conjured a branding iron into her hand, with the inverted characters for “Worthless Failure” on it. “She can brand herself, and let the scar heal naturally. Or give up any hope of ever designing an immersion role again. Permanently.” Fallen created a fire pit in the middle of the path. “Send for her.”

Reflections looked as appalled as Jino felt. “Please, this can’t be the only—”

“Do you want to accept Ophidion Memory’s punishment for her, then?” Fallen snapped. She thrust the branding iron’s mark into the glowing coals of the fire pit. “Are you volunteering?”

The artist swallowed. With shaking fingers, he dispatched the message.

“You will administer the punishment, Reflections,” Fallen ordered while they waited. This time, the centaur did not argue.

An uncomfortable minute trickled past. The branding iron sizzled in the firepit, an unnecessary bit of drama. No, Jino thought, correcting herself. It’s necessary for Fallen’s purposes. This is all about dramatic effect. Jino’s arm ached in sympathy. She hoped Ophidion Memory chose blacklisting.

The aether near Reflections uncoiled at last, and a woman with a snake’s body instead of legs curled out of it. “Hello, my lord, what’s the matter?” she asked. Her black and red tail shifted nervously, and she glanced at Fallen and Jino.

“You…ruined tonight’s immersion.” The white winged centaur kept his eyes on Ophidion Memory, but sweat sheened on his forehead.    

She blinked. “What? But it went fine, everyone was—”

“It did not go fine. Loreveroro’s part was too far off-script. Ardent Sojourner should not have been permitted to take it.”

“But it was her party! We went over this already—”

“And you didn’t get it the last time, so we’re going over it again,” Reflections snarled. He stopped, swallowed, glanced at Fallen and the brand, then shook his head. “No. We’re not going over it again. I’m removing you from Through the Glass.”

“What?” The naga recoiled, curling her tail around herself protectively. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can. This is my creative group, and I decide who does and doesn’t belong. And you’re out. In fact, I’ll tell everyone who composes immersions to steer clear of you, Memory. I suggest you find a new pastime.”

“No! No, please, Reflections, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, please. Immersions are my whole life. You can’t – please don’t do this.” She folded her hands together, cowering before him.

“I can’t rely on you,” Reflections said, harshly.

“You can! Please, there has to be a way I can prove myself!”

Fallen made a little noise in the back of her throat, and the centaur flinched. Slowly, he said, “You…you can…brand yourself.”

Ophidion Memory stared at him, in blank incomprehension.

Reflections pointed a shaking finger to the branding iron. “With that. It’s the only…acceptable punishment.”

Fallen twisted her gray features, irritated. But when she spoke, her voice was even, almost gentle in her disappointment. “Your Queen was counting on this immersion to be perfect, Ophidion Memory. Your ill-considered actions have done great damage to her plans. But pain is a great teacher. Perhaps through that, you will learn to do better in the future.”

The naga hesitated. She picked up the branding iron, shuddered at the glowing, inverted characters. “Isn’t there anything else I can do?” she pleaded, looking from Fallen to Reflections.

“No,” Reflections whispered.

“You can put it somewhere no one will see it but you,” Fallen offered. “Stomach, perhaps. But it must heal naturally. To reinforce the lesson.”

Don’t do it, Jino thought. She understood the point to this tableaux now. It was about control. Getting the fey to do this particular thing didn’t matter. What mattered was making them accustomed to doing what Fallen wanted, no matter how little they wanted it. Fallen would make this cruelty feel like a mercy. She wasn’t using up her influence to compel them: she was expanding it. Both Reflections and Memory would feel more indebted to her after this. It’s not worth it, Jino thought at Memory. Get another hobby. Fallen’s time will pass.

Memory lifted her tunic, revealing skin above her scaled tail, and took the branding iron in aether to hold before her. She had to do it to herself; she’d be invulnerable to anyone else’s attack on her.

“Do it fast, if you’re going to do it,” Reflections said, his voice hollow.

“Don’t do it,” Jino said, and didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until everyone turned to look at her in surprise. Oops. She spoke quickly; no point in stopping now. “They can’t make you hurt yourself. You’re free. They don’t own you, or the concept of immersions. You don’t have to do this, Lady Ophidion Memory.”

Fallen scowled at her. Jino expected her to hit her, but Fallen shrugged instead. “It’s up to you, Memory,” she said, lightly. “Some prefer disgrace to redemption. Perhaps you’d rather end up like Jiji, here.”

Memory braced herself. She thrust the brand into her stomach, and screamed at the raw agony of it. Jino curled around her own arm reflexively. She didn’t mean to whimper in sympathy but it was impossible not to remember the horror of it, the way the pain of the burn went on and on, long after the iron was removed. She heard the clatter as Memory dropped the branding iron, smelled burning flesh in the air. Jino struggled not to vomit.

Memory shuddered, clutched at her stomach, and let go at once. “Ahhh Justice it hurts, it still hurts, I have to—” she made a little helpless gesture, gathering aether and releasing it.

“Don’t heal it.” Reflections knelt beside her, took her head in his arms to console her. “It’ll be all right. It’ll mend. Just let it be.”

Tears ran down the naga’s dark cheeks. “Aggh, it’s awful, I don’t think we get this kind of pain right in an immersion. It’s so much worse than being cut,” Memory babbled. Reflections almost smiled at that. “Can I cool it, at least? What do you do for a burn, I don’t even know, why won’t it stop hurting? Please, please, just heal it, please.”    

Reflections glanced to Fallen, helpless, pleading. The gray woman stepped closer, and stroked Memory’s hair. “There, now. Have you learned your lesson already?”

“Yes, yes, please, my lady, I won’t ever mess up again, just—”

“Shh. All right. I think we can waive the rest, then, Reflections?”

“Yes,” he growled.

Fallen healed the injury for Memory, and she curled up in relief, still crying. “There, now. Not even a scar,” she said, soothingly. “All better. You won’t ever disappoint us again, now, will you, Ophidian Memory?”

She shook her head, babbling her thanks. Part of Jino had to admire the way Fallen had manipulated her into being grateful for a rescue from Fallen’s own punishment. Jino wondered what she’d see now, if she’d had her son’s soulsight. You were free. But you aren’t any more, are you?

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Whenever an immersion participant was bored, time would blur for them as they advanced to the next thing they found interesting. In a big immersion like this one, that meant the whole spell made lots of adjustments in the perceptual time of each participant. It sped some participants up and slowed others down based on their various roles, so that no one had to wait on the others.

After what Ardent could only regard as the Evil Plot Revealed scene, time blurred forward. They returned to the Moon Etherium. The Moon Host mood was jubilant, buoyed by their victory. They were eager to celebrate the alliance of Sun and Moon, and looked forward to the prospect of new worlds to conquer. Ardent was sure most of the participants weren’t so immersed that they’d forgotten how this story ended. But no one Lorerevovo spoke with wanted to discuss the possibility that something might go wrong with the ritual. Perhaps they didn’t want to betray their roles, or perhaps they hoped the creators would give them a chance to re-write history with a new, happier ending.

Ardent doubted that was the plan, especially given that the creators had already re-written history in this scenario.

But her faction was keeping a close eye on Lorerevovo, so she continued to play his part and did nothing overt.

In the last hours before they entered the Etherium, she talked to Imilasisi about how they were to ‘poison the channel’. “Through a tincture of rowanwood.” That was a mythical drug that was supposed to drain a fey of all aether. As far as Ardent knew, it didn’t exist. “It won’t affect us personally, since the Moon Etherium will already have drained us of all aether. I’ll give you your dose at the feast before the channeling begins.”

The feast awaited them at the Palace of the Moon as soon as they returned. It was a lavish affair that the creators had taken considerable pains to render accurately in both food and entertainment. Ardent found the care taken in those details depressing in contrast to the liberties taken with everything of consequence about this story.

During the second course, Prince Imilasisi leaned over to murmur in Loreveroro’s ear. “I trust you’re enjoying our first taste of the Moon Etherium.” He waved a hand vaguely over Ardent’s soup, and she saw droplets splash into it from his hand. She laughed and gave him a brotherly slap on the shoulder that knocked his arm forward. He dropped the vial in his hand, bit back a curse, and dove after it as it rolled on the table. Loreveroro stood quickly and slapped a hand down over Imilasisi’s where it covered the vial.

“Traitor!” Loreveroro shouted, as all eyes turned to watch the commotion. “Fey of the Moon Host, we are betrayed! My brother’s foul ambition has led him to seek the destruction of both our Etheriums, so that he may have the phoenix rose’s power to himself alone! He has poisoned my food and his own with a tincture of rowanwood, such that when you attempt to channel from us to feed tonight’s ritual, it will cause a resonance that will devastate Sun and Moon alike.”

Imilasisi stared at his brother. “Have you gone mad? It – it’s not true!” he protested to the assembly. “It’s his plot! To ruin the day’s celebrations and the alliance between our peoples!”

“The only thing I am trying to ruin is your plot!” Loreveroro lifted his brother’s hand, revealing the vial. “That is where he stored the tincture. Test it, if you don’t believe me. But trust this: channel from us for this rite, and we will all suffer the consequences.”

“It’s not mine!” Imilasisi objected.

“I haven’t touched it. A simple information spell will verify that. Besides, I don’t care which one of us they think the villain; your plan is finished either way.” Ardent made her prince’s face grin smugly at him.

Imilasisi stood as well, his right hand still imprisoned in her left. “I don’t know what you intend to gain from this betrayal, brother – but you won’t—”

“No!” Prince Wind Rider flew across the table, a shining steel blade in his hand. Ardent didn’t realize until he was upon them why he’d screamed. She hadn’t even seen the knife in Imilasisi’s left hand. In the Moon Etherium, Prince Loreveroro had no fey evasion with which to avoid his strike, nor fey invulnerability to survive it. She felt a sudden pain in her abdomen, and looked down to see blood spilling over Imilasisi’s hand and the knife hilt in it. Then, an instant too late, Wind Rider impaled Imilasisi through his chest.

The Sun Host prince slumped backwards into his chair, dead, dragging the knife blade with him. Loreveroro staggered. “No,” Wind Rider said again, his expression stupefied by horror and disbelief. He summoned aether, pressed it into the wound in an effort to staunch the bleeding.

Oh, sugar, that’s not how healing magic works, Ardent thought. Even if you could heal a Sun Host fey in the Moon Etherium, which you can’t. Loreveroro reached out to pat Wind Rider’s hand. “It’s all right. You stopped him. The Etheriums are safe. That’s what matters.”    

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Prince Wind Rider stood at the head of two companies of fey cavalry and looked down upon the rebellious human armies of Landara. Landara’s human leader, King Aolotillo, thought he could use the phoenix rose to win independence from the Moon Etherium. Prince Wind Rider and his sister, the Crown Princess Storm Driven, were here to prove them wrong.

They had an ally in this matter. The Sun Etherium had sent a company of fey cavalry of their own, led by General Qihitinene and including two of their princes, Loreveroro and Imilasisi. All three companies were under strict orders of aether conservation. Even here and now, four hundred miles from the Moon Etherium and over twelve hundred from Sun Etherium, the fey soldiers brimmed with aether. They were prepared for this conflict.

Wind Rider and Storm Driven had reined in at the top of a slope to look down at the Landaran forces for themselves: battalion after battalion of human men. The Landaran army had captured a group of fey researchers at Bacalat and taken the phoenix rose from them, and were on their way to their fortress at Timodalat. There were at least ten thousand human soldiers in the plains below.

The Moon Etherium’s two companies totaled a hundred and ninety riders. Sun Etherium brought another hundred and ten.

Three hundred fey against ten thousand soldiers. “How do you like our odds, sister?” Wind Rider asked.

“It hardly seems fair,” she answered, smiling. “Do you think we should wait for the infantry to catch up?” They had another four companies of unmounted men on the way from the Moon Etherium, but they were most likely seven days behind at unassisted speed.

“Only if we want them to burn aether to do so. Perhaps not even then. I don’t want the bother of digging these rats out of some rock-walled den. Let’s take them here, in the open,” Wind Rider replied. His fey warhorse, Lightning, whickered and pawed the ground to signal equal willingness. Both Lightning and his sister’s horse, Thunder, had been affiliated with the Moon Etherium by their father, giving the animals fey powers that made them harder to control but devastating in battle. The horses could not work true spells, but they’d burn aether instinctively to improve their natural abilities.

The princess turned at the sound of hoofbeats. The two sun princes and their general rode up to assess the situation with them. “General Qihitinene. My brother and I think it wise to strike now, before they make the fortress. What counsel you?”

The general studied the enemy battalions before them, and grunted. “Better now than when they’ve learned more of the phoenix rose. This will be no inconsequential battle against mere humans, your highnesses. Don’t underestimate what they can do with that artifact.”    

The royals nodded. They’d all been briefed on the phoenix rose’s known capabilities. Wind Rider felt aether seethe under his skin and couldn’t restrain a smile. Yes, the humans had a potent artifact in their midst. But they were still humans. Giving a babe raw power would make the infant dangerous, sure, but hardly a match for a trained fey warrior. They’d grown up in the aether; using the arcane arts was as natural as breathing. The five discussed tactics, positioning, and where to employ their own enchantments to best effect. They opted to strike after nightfall; dark-sight consumed little aether, and the humans would be much worse impaired by the lack of light. Wind Rider shifted in the saddle of his horse, aether singing to him of battle and blood. He looked forward to the fight, to the chance to show these insolent, upstart humans the folly of resistance against fey might.

Prince Loreveroro kept directing odd glances his way. Perhaps he harbored some sympathy for the humanfolk; the fey of the Sun Etherium did not seem to embrace aether as the Moon did. Apart from the aether in their bodies and their long ears, they might have been human themselves. By contrast, Storm Driven had plated her face with scales against attackers and had retractable claws in her fingers. The trueshift that made Storm Driven’s scales possible without the continual use of aether was too extreme for Wind Rider’s tastes, but even so he had long curving horns and a prehensile tail to proclaim his fey nature.

“We won’t surprise them,” Loreveroro said. “We haven’t burned aether on concealment, and they’ve got scouts of their own. They’ll know we’re here.”

“They won’t know when we’ll strike. And they’re human. Their numbers will give them false confidence. They probably expect us to wait for reinforcements. Come, let us brief the companies on the plan.” Storm Driven wheeled her mount around and rode down to where they’d left the troops.

Loreveroro warned that the humans might choose to strike first. Wind Rider felt sure they wouldn’t; they’d hope to make their fortress before the fey were reinforced.

The rest of the afternoon passed in what felt like moments, as they shadowed the Landaran army. Soon, the sun closed on the horizon and the humans made camp. The Landarans knew where the fey companies were. They placed their camp over a mile from the ridgeline and prepared it to defend against a night attack. The fey waited for full dark, then sent a pair of fey in owl shapes to scout the enemy’s defenses, locate the phoenix rose, and find the Landaran’s fey prisoners. Once they had that information, they finalized their battle plans and attacked.

Glamour consumed very little aether, so they crafted illusions freely. The fey of the cavalry companies spread out and used illusory riders to triple their numbers. In the moonlit night, a host of swift-moving shadows to the rear of the cavalry, accompanied by the sound of twanging bowstrings and the hiss of arrows, made it seem that ranks of archers supported their assault. The scent of sweat and horses, previously muted by glamour for their own comfort, was now enhanced to add verisimilitude. Four fey scouts in avian shapes raised shadow armies on the horizons to the north and the east. Meanwhile the true force boiled down from the ridgeline to the southwest.

The Landaran commander was no fool; Wind Rider gave him that. He ordered his men to stand their ground, and sent only a few scouts to the north and east to verify the glamours there were indeed illusions. A shield wall of pike-wielding infantry waited behind a line of sharpened stakes set in the ground. The human cavalry ranged behind the infantry. As they approached, Storm Driven signaled a dozen fey to send aether-guided arrows into enemy soldiers to give credence to the lie of their ranged support. The arrows exploded in flame where they struck: before they’d reached the stake line, a score of Landarans had already fallen. Their commander barked an order, and the human cavalry moved out, five hundred horses racing to both left and right in an attempt to flank the fey host. They sought to get behind the fey and take out the nonexistent archers.

Storm Driven swept one arm before her, and a scythe of aether followed her gesture over the line of sharpened stakes. Hardwood wilted like blades of grass beneath her power. The fey cavalry lowered their lances and charged the shield wall. The human infantry braced for the impact.

Four yards from the shield wall, the fey folk rippled and shifted, from the silhouettes of men into monsters, no two alike. They grew scales and horns, extra arms, the tails of scorpions and striking serpents, elongated necks, dragon heads. To human eyes, their mounts changed with them, to half-dragon steeds, demon cats, griffons, nightmares. Human captains and lieutenants shouted encouragements to quailing soldiers. They’d known this would happen. But it is one thing to know you will fight monsters, and another thing entirely to fight them.    

Aether-directed lance points pierced through shields and armor to bite into mortal flesh. Fey-trained warhorses leaped into the air and soared over the line, aether-borne. The lines beyond had their pikes raised and soldiers crouched under shields. Monstrous fey knights dropped their spent lances and drew swords as horse hooves plunged into the mass of their enemies. Wind Rider burned aether to push the points aside as his horse came down atop a roof of shields; Storm Driven’s trick with the line of stakes cost much more aether on metal-bound weapons in sapient hands. In battle, aether was life. His fey stallion used its own supply of aether to steady them. The animal did not stumble even as their weight bore down on shields and human flesh, as partly-crushed men struggled to get out from under them.    

The battle lines of the human soldiers crumbled around them as fey swords and monstrous appendages plunged into their enemies. Aether turned aside the short swords and pike blades of their enemies, except for the blows that went into glamour-illusions and did the latter no harm. Lightning found ground to stand upon and reared to lash out with hooves at the humans. Wind Rider balanced in the saddle, turning the stallion in a tight circle and striking down any soldier close enough to hit. All was chaos around them. The Sun warriors conjured aether into lightning to blast at human lieutenants and standard-bearers. Some of the Moon fey sent more arrows that exploded in fire into the more distant ranks. Wind Rider was still conserving aether until they reached the phoenix rose. He hooked throwing stars from his steed’s harness and sent them with aether-precision into the eyes and throats of the enemy. Now that the battle line had broken and the mortals were in a disorderly retreat, he sought to clear a path to the phoenix rose. A beacon of glamour went up ahead and to the right; one of the fey had eyes on the phoenix rose and was highlighting it for the rest of the group.

A Sun warrior sent a fork of lightning towards it. Its wielder deflected the bolt towards a fey knight. Wind Rider was shocked to see the fey sent flying from his horse, body blackened and smoking. Why didn’t he evade? Fey evasion requires so little aether; surely he can’t have been so bereft? Is that the power of the phoenix rose?

Under Lightning’s hooves, the ground trembled and shook, then split. Wind Rider urged the fey stallion into an aether-assisted leap away from the fault lines. Lava rose through the cracks, a heat shimmer distorting the air. Wind Rider charged his mount for the knot of humans guarding their artifact. The wielder had conjured a protective ward over himself, the bird, and his defensive force. It was throwing back the fey charging it, in a kind of bubble that the humans could strike out from but that even aether-driven attacks did not pierce.    

As Wind Rider neared the bubble, he spent aether recklessly. He wrapped himself in a ward of his own and cast an earthswim spell as he dove from his steed. The ground roiled around him as he entered it, and the lava-heat beat against his ward but did not penetrate it. He swam forward until he judged himself underneath the human’s ward, and then up. As he’d guessed, the bubble did not protect them from below. The human soldiers barely had time to be surprised as he jumped out of the ground and among them, a fey demon-warrior with naked steel in both hands. Wind Rider ripped through the guardians in an aether-fueled whirlwind of steel. They dealt Wind Rider a few cuts in return, as he was unwilling to give ground and evade completely. The phoenix-wielder cradled his caged bird to his chest, struggling to adjust his spell into a personal ward. He managed to do so just before Wind Rider would have disemboweled him.

But by that time, the rest of the fey forces had swarmed upon the human. Storm Driven pummeled at his ward with spell and steel from one side while the Sun general took the opposite. One of the Sun princes stabbed at him from behind; the last worked spells to peel apart the layers of his ward. More and more fey moved into position and fueled the efforts to undo the ward. Potent as the phoenix rose was, its inexperienced wielder could not withstand the combined assault. He fell to Storm Driven’s blade. Wind Rider dropped his sword to catch the phoenix rose’s cage, a moment before General Qihitinene did. They held the cage together for a moment, eyes locked. Inside the cage, the bird made a querulous coo. It was a pretty animal, the feathers of its folded wings and body reminiscent of the petals of a red rose, its head iridescent green like the stem of a bud. Prince Imilasisi made a slight gesture, and the general yielded it to Wind Rider. “Congratulations, your highnesses,” he said. “Our prize is won, for the twin Etheriums.”

“For the twin Etheriums!” Triumphant, Wind Rider lifted the cage over his head. A cheer went up from among the fey host, clashing steel against steel for applause.

“Don’t stop to celebrate yet.” Prince Loreveroro strode back to his horse and swung up. “We still need to free our captive people.”

Wind Rider grinned anyway. They’d won the phoenix rose. The rest of the army would be only clean-up.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Miro kept his features frozen, but he couldn’t stop trembling. It was just a kiss. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter, he repeated in his head, over and over. Underneath that conscious appeal to reason, panic seethed. And when they make you fuck her, what will you say then? ‘It’s only rape. It doesn’t matter’? Why are we here why are we doing this Divine, Guide, help me. I just want to be safe. He closed his eyes and breathed Ardent in, fought to steady himself. She was still clear, pure, radiant.

And called me a toy.

She has a part to play too. You gave it to her. Don’t complain that she’s doing it.

Divine, what have I done?

Ardent held him protectively against her chest, arm across his collarbone, her fingers stroking the curve of his shoulder. Like a pet. But a beloved pet, one to be protected, cherished. She and her queen were talking, but his mind couldn’t process the words. Fallen took Jinokimijin and strolled away; Miro wasn’t sure where they went.

Abruptly, the twilit world of the glass ship and its celebratory inhabitants vanished around them, replaced by Ardent’s quiet, well-lit apartment. The teleport was so unexpected that Miro staggered. Ardent steadied him, turning him to face her as she went to one knee before him. The collar and leash fell from him to land on the floor with a clatter. He looked at Ardent blankly as she peered up into his face. “Miro, honey, talk to me. How are you holding up?” He tried to recall the last thing that she’d said before the teleport, and realized it had been “I’ll be back in a whisker-twitch.”

“I’m fine,” he said, the lie automatic, mechanical. “Why did we leave?”

“Because I’m worried about you. You’re still shaking.”

Miro raised a hand, watched his fingers tremble in the air. “So I am.”

“Sugar, it’s my party and I gotta go back there. But you don’t have to. You can stay here, where it’s safe. And you can always message me if something comes up.” She laced her strong, blunt fingers through his and clasped his hand, cupping his cheek with her other. “Wanna stay?”

Yes. He fell forward into her arms, knees buckling as she took his full weight with the stability of an anchor. Still kneeling, she cradled him close, one hand stroking his head and neck. He gasped, half a sob. “Mom can’t leave. She’s stuck there. With her.”

“Mom? Wait, you mean Jinokimijin?”

He nodded, chin rubbing against her muscular brown shoulder. “Jinokimijin likes being female too, so got to be Mom as well as Dad. The Sun Queen was useless for either. I have to go back. She’s trapped at Fallen’s side; surely I can manage at yours.”

“It’s not a competition to see who can suffer the most, Miro. I’m sorry. I should’ve stopped her, done something sooner—”

“No, no, you did well. That’s how we’re supposed to play it.” He clung to her. I’m the one failing at my part. Falling apart. Guide, the Path is hard. Please help me. “You did exactly as I wished. Your intervention was timely and well-explained.” Miro meant the words as he said them, and felt steadier for it. More like himself, as if the Guide were setting his feet back on the Path, as if Ardent was a Divine gift to lean upon as he walked it.

“Mph.” She stroked his back, unconvinced.

Reluctantly, he pulled back to look at her face. “We should return, before anyone wonders why you left.”

Ardent snorted. Her grip slackened but she didn’t let him go. “Let ’em wonder. You sure about this, sugar?”

Miro took a deep breath, held it in, released it. “I am. Thank you.” He touched his fingertips to her jawline, his hand steady again. “For asking. For getting me out for a moment. It helped more than you can know. But we should go back. I want Mom to know she’s not alone.”    

Ardent crinkled her broad nose as she stood again. “All right. But I want us to have a signal, if you need me to get you out of there again. Like this.” She touched her pinky finger to her thumb. “You do this and I’ll know you’re in trouble. And if I have to unchain you again and we get separated, then you message me if you can’t see me or if you’re not sure I can see you. All right?”

He nodded, smiling. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Mph.” She conjured the leash and collar upon him again, and they ported back to the gathering.

---

Don't want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author's other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.