Epilogue

Prince Rasgen stood at the balcony that jutted out from his private quarters and stared out over the city as the sun rose over the horizon. The golden rays of the morning light shone brightly over a world he no longer wanted to be part of. His entire body ached as he watched the distant gate at the north end of the city begin to open for the day. He stared intently, hoping against hope to see, even at a distance, the faint outline of Lady Sobella.

But there was nothing. The buildings, the wall, and then the great distance beyond, all conspired to steal from him one more small glimpse of the retreating heart of the Prince.

Her words still echoed in his ear, ‘Marry, pick a worthy woman, someone who will bear for you heirs that can inherit the throne! Be the Prince you’ve always been, the prince you were before I knew you! Be that after I’m gone…’ Her many abjurations struck like darts to the center of a board, perfect blows that stung deeply from their sharpness.

He wiped his face with a cloth and stared out into nothingness long after he was sure that Duchessa Aiwenor and his consort, Sobella, were well and truly distant from him.

The words of the Duchessa struck him no less hard than the words of the woman who told him to think of her as dead when she was out of sight. “Endure, eh? Marry? Who? My Contessa is already married. She would be acceptable… but who else?” He flung his arm out in frustration at his line of thought and smashed the back of his hand against a bottle he’d left out the night before. It flew in a great high arc off the thick stone rail of his viewing post and shattered on the stone below. To him it was only a tiny noise, but up close he was sure it was startling, had anyone been there to hear it.

He gave a derisive grunt, “Nobody would have noticed, a Pasenian rising before the sun is up unless on guard duty is all but unheard of.” He muttered with not a little bit of frustration at his hedonistic city.

“If life is its pleasures, and my pleasure is taken from me, what is my life?” He asked himself the question rhetorically, and heard the whisper in his ear of the vanished Sobella, ‘Your duties.’ As if she were still there.

And that turned his mind to the one who went with her. “Nua Calen Aiwenor… my new Duchessa, a rising power with a relentless will and a sense of duty to match… you would probably answer just like Sobella would. I’ll have to ask the question of you, just as soon as you get back, and of course… decide on a suitable reward.”

The Queen of Vexation sat with her tail lashing behind her on the throne. Her dark purple skin deepened as rage built up, her volcanic temper boiling like metal rendered to liquid by the forge of an inattentive smith. The clawed gloves she wore dug deep gouges into her throne of stone and her solid eyes stared with fury at the council members that tried hopelessly to calm her.

"I'm vexed. I'm terribly vexed. And do you know what happens when I'm vexed?" The demon-elf Queen snarled from her seat in the private council chamber with her ministers."

"People lose their heads." The Prime minister muttered, keeping a close eye on their Queen's tail under the guise of keeping his head down. It was still relaxed, but... 'If it stiffens, someone will definitely lose their head.'

"People lose their heads! That's exactly right!" The Queen said and jabbed her thumb down on the table and swept her purple eyes around the room to the tailless counterparts. "So why... oh why, are people behaving in such a way as to vex me so! Komestra is gone. I brokered that alliance myself. I gave the word. The last word. So how... how ministers... can it be getting rebuilt?! Those people were supposed to be sacrifices for the next fifty years, or even the next thousand years if the 'Komestrans are natural slaves' story took hold. Explain to me how you let this happen?!”

“Queen Vexian, please, let me explain!” Prime Minister Jain exclaimed, his dark purple palms hid the sweat running down his skin, but his faint shaking fingers gave him away as he waved his palms up and down in front of himself, desperate to placate their sacred Queen.

She pounded her hardened fist against her seat and stared daggers at him through her purple eyes. “Go on.” She said in a quiet looming voice of doom.

“There was a foreigner, she showed up a while ago! She did… a lot of things, and she...she is the one behind what is happening now at the ruins of Komestra! You did everything right! We perfectly obeyed you! I… I swear!” He took a step back, the other ministers cringed, the tail, which had slowly been stiffening, began to relax, and the Queen of Vexation, propped her head up on her fist when she leaned forward.

Queen Vexian’s voice became a low, terrible purr like a cat pondering whose eyes to claw out. “A foreigner? So… what you’re saying is, you’re ‘not to blame’ for what may now become my failed efforts at keeping all of Da’nak safe from the Beastmen! That it is some foreign piece of shit that has undone years of work?! That is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes, my Queen! That’s exactly right!” The slender Prime Minister stared at the very relaxed tail of the last royal demon-elf, his breathing began to slow as he sensed her understanding.

“How foreign?” Queen Vexian turned her sharp featured face toward her Prime Minister.

“Very! Very foreign!” He exclaimed with a squeak, “From what we can tell she’s from clear on the other side of the continent, some emerging empire. She’s never even heard of Da’nak before! She’s ignorant of this sacred city! She knows nothing of the fates given by the stars that made you the only Queen in the city-states!”

Queen Vexia’s body lost some of its tension, her tail, far from stiffening, began to sway side to side, she drew herself upright, and swept her hand up over her face, brushing some of her black hair aside and running that hand vainly over the horns that thrust from her forehead and curved backward behind her.

Her once angry purple eyes shut lazily and her voice became regal and as relaxed as if her whole body had just been massaged. “I understand, of course… how can some foreign trash from some trash empire possibly be expected to know of our noble station? She can’t, of course, but that’s alright, we’ll just have to enlighten her.” She gave a cocky, arrogant laugh. “Send her an invitation to come to Da’nak.”

“Ah, she’s escorting a sacrifice to the Tlalmok… your Highness, she’s not going to be back in Pas’en for a fair bit… if she even survives the journey. The Tlalmok only care that the sacrifice arrives, they don’t care if the escort makes it home or not.” The Prime Minister spoke delicately and backed just out of reach of the long claw gloves, bowing repeatedly as he drew back.

“I see… well if she survives, invite her, if she doesn’t, we’ll undo her stupidity.” Queen Vexia waved the matter away, “Just keep an eye on Pas’en for now, just in case anyone else poses a problem, but without her, how much trouble can some mere servants cause?”

“Little, surely very little, your majesty!” Prime Minister Jain, said hastily, and returned to his seat.

“Alright, next item!” The Queen of Vexation demanded, and the next shaky legged minister stood up to make his report.

“Are you alright?” Nua asked, looking part of the way over her shoulder. Sobella’s arms were around Nua’s waist, and she was holding on far tighter than she needed to under the circumstances. The horses hooves made a steady clip clop noise as they trotted forward over the hard packed earth, their pace was easy, slow even.

“Of course not.” Sobella said in a tiny voice.

“Right… that was a stupid question, forgive me.” Nua bowed her head forward, “Hold on to me as tight as you need to.”

“Is it a bother… there is just no way this can be hurting you…?” Sobella asked while leaning back a little.

“No, it doesn’t. I’m just not used to people touching me unless… never mind.” Nua stopped and looked ahead at the long open road, large trees were open on either side, the dirt road was wide enough for six horses to pass abreast, and in the distance, large mountains loomed higher than the clouds.

“Fine, it’s fine.” Sobella inched back and released her hold on Nua’s waist, and let quiet rise around the slow noise of horse hooves.

After a minute or two, Nua finished her thought, “Unless I’m killing them, or they’re trying to kill me, or I own them and therefore control them. The only exception to that, is my teacher. Go ahead, I suppose I’m killing you in a way, so wrap your arms around me if it makes you feel better.”

It was a slow, hesitant act, Sobella’s arms went half way, pulled back a moment, and then went the rest of the way. “Is that why you didn’t sleep with the Prince?”

Nua’s heart did not pound even a beat faster at the bluntness of the question. However she answered as if it had, with a dry retort of, “Lady Sobella, if you want the answer to that question, we’re going to have to get to know each other a fair bit better first.”

“We’ve got time, at least some.” Sobella answered in turn, her voice becoming a whisper at the end.

“Yes, we do.” Nua reached down and patted the hands that locked around her waist, and neither felt the need to say anything for quite some time. They just looked toward the distant horizon, where somewhere out there, the Tlalmok Emperor was waiting, and enjoyed the view while they could.

-End of Book II ‘Trust & Betrayal’-

Next:

Who Endures: Book III ‘Hellscape’