The next few days were hectic ones, the population of the grand estate of the former Duke and current Duchessa ballooned until the barracks were full, the servants quarters were full, and the grounds were like a bustling anthill to any watching stars. However, Nua had not forgotten the request from Diana of Komestra. It was in the waning hours of the evening when she summoned Kaiji to her office.

Her demon-elf appeared and prostrated herself as she seemed to do, then rose to her knees. Nua was quite blunt. “Tell me about Diana.” She said with a neutral face, the faintest displeasure underlay her voice, and Nua could feel the tension on the other side of her desk.

Kaiji tensed so much her muscles locked up completely. “Mistress, have I displeased you… I, she…”

“I said, tell me about Diana.” Nua gave the order a second time. “Did you not understand, slave?”

Kaiji’s head slumped. “Her family was noble once. They had a fine barony. But you’ve seen how idealistic Prince Sado is?” She waited until Nua nodded, and then continued. “If Pas’en is known for its debauchery and casual treatment of sex, Komestrans are known for different passions, a martial people, they… we, have always believed in our own liberty. It was hard to keep these ideals away from our slave population. The war with the slaves started in a Komestran mine, but not ‘all’ the rebels were slaves. Diana’s grandfather was one of the ones to support the rebels. That’s how they did so well, forcing the then… seven great cities, to cooperate to put them down.

“And?” Nua asked, holding the nervous Kaiji and trying to pin down her shifting eyes.

“Acting on the orders of Sado’s grandfather, I had the family purged. All of them except for the daughter and her husband who were living in Kai’sen.” Kaiji acknowledged that without evident emotion, but given her darting, half panicked gaze and sensing Nua’s displeasure, she filled the space with words.

“That doesn’t tell you about Diana, though… there was a coup attempt, when Sado’s father was in charge. I… I knew the coup was sponsored and that its architects would appear in the city. It was the only way to get the ones in exile. So we faked their success. Diana’s mother and father entered the city, entered the palace, and that was that.” Kaiji snapped her fingers sharply. “We had them. I had her husband killed immediately, but Diana’s mother begged for her life, saying she was pregnant.”

“With Diana.” Nua drew the obvious conclusion and nodded along.

Kaiji bowed her head and replied, “Yes, mistress, with Diana. I took pity on a mother begging for her child’s life, and kept her prisoner until her daughter was born. I let her hold Diana, nurse her and then…” Kaiji snapped her finger again. “I slit the mother’s throat. I then took Diana and had her raised in my house as one of my servants. That was the end of the baron’s line. Diana knew nothing about any of this until I told her most of it some years ago. After I had her trained as a courtesan and spy in my service when she showed an incredible talent for manipulating desires.”

“I see, but that isn’t all, is there, slave?” Nua asked with a thoughtful look, “After all, the reward Diana asked for, it wasn’t your life she wanted.”

Kaiji’s eyes turned away again, and her jaw tensed. “No, she wouldn’t. When I told her the truth, I thought she would resent me, after all, I killed her family. But she didn’t. Maybe because she knew I took a risk by letting her live at all. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t cut a baby’s throat… her mother had to die, so did her father, so did the rest of her grandfather’s house. They made their choices and became enemies. But a baby? No… I hesitated. I had her raised, taught, gave her the best education I could. She became a strange combination of skilled slave and daughter, no word exists for that.”

“That is probably for the best.” Nua replied in a dry voice with a deadpan face. “But that explains why she doesn’t want your life. She seems to have been fond of how she’s lived. What does she not know?”

“If I had to guess, it would be the person who sold her parents out. We knew their coup attempt was coming long in advance, and they were betrayed. But my mistress, I never kept that secret, even I don’t know who provided the information. There were meetings with… someone. But while documents were left behind, nobody could ever recall… anything meaningful. Who he was, or she… what was discussed. We tried to find out, but we couldn’t. I couldn’t.” Kaiji kept her eyes away until she finished speaking, before turning her eyes to Nua again.

“Have I done something to displease you… if you want me to get the whip… I keep it on the wall of my room… a memory I treasure.” Kaiji’s dark lips formed into the tracings of a smile.

Nua however, hid only that a part of her was shaken. ‘Shouldn’t Diana resent her? Maybe… but then, shouldn’t Kaiji resent me?’ Her thoughts were disorganized, uncertain… lost.

So lost that as she stared off into space, Kaiji was turning around and exposing her back. The demon-elf’s voice was cracked when she spoke, “Whatever I have done that displeases you… I ask for punishment. Only tell me what it is, so I don’t do it again… my lady.” Kaiji’s tiny voice shot through Nua like an arrow.

Nua’s hands closed into fists for a moment, she closed her eyes tight as she could, and then forced herself to relax, looking at the bare, unmarked purple skin of Kaiji’s back as she sat on her heels. ‘She’s confused, of course she’s confused, here I am seething and she thinks it’s at her. All she wants is to serve me well, and you’re so lost in your own thoughts that you don’t even notice her fear.’

Self recrimination ran through Nua’s mind. She recalled her now distant thoughts of one day letting Kaiji go free, but as she looked at the woman now, it was only a memory. Not a fresh resolve to do it. ‘I may not be able to let her go, but… she came clean with Diana. I can give her the same, and let that mean whatever it does to her. If I am going to sin, I should be an honest sinner and tell her the truth as well.’ That… that was her resolve.

“Put your shirt on, Kaiji, and leave. Soon, I will summon you, so don’t plan on sleeping too deeply for a while.”

The office felt far more empty and massive when Kaiji fled the room, than it ever had before.

Prince Sado hunched over the two books, his eyes darting from one to the other and back again. He paused and took a wooden cup of water and drank it down quickly. “I miss wine.” He muttered, and flushed redder than the wine he missed. ‘I’m sure the ones sent west to feed the Tlalmok would miss their lives if they could.’ The spectre of his failure haunted his moments and he cast his eyes toward the window. In the main building of the estate sat the one who both saved his life and broke his spirit.

It renewed his will, and he managed to roll his eyes, remembering the smack to the back of his head by a frustrated teacher when he was a boy. ‘I have a renewed respect for the teachers who tried to pound some knowledge into my ignorant head. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.’ Sado thought and tried to translate one written word to another. “At least the book isn’t a long one… a handful of fables, a hundred lines per section, and barely anything of worship, rewards, or the afterlife.” He said with a breathy sigh of relief.

Still, it was bizarre, not how different that it was, but as he understood a sentence, “Weakness can never create justice…” He recited the sentence out loud, briefly drowning out the sound of his quill scratching the paper. He looked outside again, in a little while, soldiers would be massing for training… ‘ And I’ll be getting the piss beaten out of me by my mistress’s bodyguard.’ He touched his forehead gingerly, it didn’t hurt now, but the way she fought was so strange, constant fluidic motion that avoided or deflected everything until she hit him where she wanted, making his strength into her own.

“A fraction of the way of fighting crafted by the Demon of the West, and refined by the most powerful monk and the most powerful swordsman in the world.” That was what Solution had said when he asked. The more he fought, the more he translated, the more he saw… his eyes turned outside where a soldier helped up another after putting him down and taking up position again, ‘The more it all begins to make sense… but it’s just too impossible. Too much.’

Or so he thought until a few days later when a mass assembly of the slaves of her estate was called together in front of the manor.

Sado stood in front of the company of men assigned to him and rendered the salute he’d learned, and snapped out behind him, “Company! Atten-tion!”

The sound of his soldiers moving in one body and pounding the ground beneath was as heartening as a wardrum announcing reinforcements.

Soldiers flanked the common laborers, and despite their numbers the open grounds were barely taken up. In front of them, Duchessa Aiwenor, dressed in her war gear, ascended some hastily assembled stairs to an equally hastily assembled platform.

Atop it, with her hands folded behind her back, shoulders squared, eyes searching every face and every eye, piercing them with eyes of her own that had come to glow with golden holy light that spoke of her profession, he understood Kaiji’s claim that she was a goddess.

“My people.” She said in a soaring, musical voice, “You have worked hard for me, and I am proud of you. I did not call you here today to tell you that! But… I would be remiss if I didn’t say what you deserved to hear!”

She let the sentence hang for her servants to take in, and went on, “But now I come to you with an announcement, two, in fact. The first is this, that I and my Breakers have been awarded the task of escorting the Lady Sobella, consort and beloved of Prince Rasgen, to her final end as Tribute to the Tlalmok.” She held her hand out to stop any response and still any dark and satisfied mutterings.

“I know, people of fallen Komestra, you may hold the Prince of Pas’en to blame for your fall, and desire to revel in the aching of his heart. But it was Sobella who pushed for the anti-cruelty laws that keep many of your family members from the worst of possible suffering. And more than that, in giving her up, Prince Rasgen preserves many of your lives, who would have to go if he tried to keep her!” ‘OK so I’m lying a little bit about that last part… but… it doesn’t matter, I don’t need them having hard feelings toward Prince Rasgen.’ Nua relaxed further as she got into her speech.

“This great honor, to be entrusted with his dearest love, is well earned. However, there is more. A few, such as the former Prince Sado, and the former Lady Kaiji, and Freyjin, know this already. But, since the earliest opportunity, I have been buying up the lands around what was Komestra! Towns that are ruins, can be rebuilt. Village farms that are now but ashes, can be replanted.” A thousand mouths dropped open, stunned beyond their ability to speak, but Nua gave them not a moment to register it before she piled on.

“On your arrival in my service, all of you were questioned about families and friends, missing children and parents. The reason is… I am going to buy them. All of them. You are my people, they will be my people. Villages and towns will be rebuilt, and I will begin the rebuilding of Komestra. In short… where blasted walls stood with stones toppled so that no stone stood atop a stone, we will build new walls, better walls! Where bridges fell, we will make them again. You. Are going. Home!” She shouted the impossible claim and the thunderous roaring was so powerful that when Sado looked up at the sky and saw a cloud moving on, he was sure the force of their shouting had moved it.

When the crowd began to calm to her raised hands, and the impossible was promised by a golden haired angel, she showed she was not done. “I have always believed that loyalty given requires loyalty in return. It is true, I own your lives, but now I ask something else of you, something I cannot buy, something far more valuable of my servants than your bodies alone. I ask you to give me your loyalty, throw your hearts to my will, follow me! Follow me wherever I go, and if I march you into hell a second time, know that I will walk into it first, and follow me anyway!”

Sado could feel it, and as he looked up at the stage, where Kaiji, Freyjin, and Priceless knelt at her back, he knew they could too. The winds of the world turned the wheel of change, and without knowing it was coming, it blew him to his knees. He went down, bowing his head for a moment in a gesture that swept those around him, spreading from one to two to ten to a hundred, who bowed their heads as he did. And from his throat came a shout he truly meant. He felt the veins bulge at his neck, his vocal cords stretch and expand, his lungs open out as he took in the longest, deepest breath of his life, and he roared up at her as if he were calling out to a god of salvation. “Aiwenor! Aiwenor! Aiwenor!” He might have been the first to kneel, and the first to shout, but he was not alone.

He roared her name like it was a battlecry ripped from his throat before the armies of the other six great cities, he roared himself hoarse, until he felt his voice was nearly gone.

And from where he shouted, he caught the eye of his mistress’s bodyguard, beautiful and bright, dreadful and full of power, he knew she caught his eyes in return. Within the look they traded, he heard what she was saying as clearly as if she were whispering it into his ear after one of his many thrashings at her hands. ‘Now, at last, you begin to truly understand her vision.’

And he embraced it like a father did a newborn son.