Yvir discovered she hated wearing armor. Smokey metal cuirass, vambraces and greaves; all they did for her was hamper every movement, stifle every limb. They'd outfitted her with the Cadrian guard uniform, a black tabard over cured scarlet leather. Better to hide any blood, she'd guessed.

She sat in a wagon that clattered over the cobblestoned streets, past Lowtown, then Hightown, to the embassy, located in the Imperial District. There was no other name for such a place, where the officials and nobles lived. No one else went there besides servants and guards. Now she was such a guard.

Every odd street or so the oxen would stop, and another person would hop onto the wagon, wearing the same armor. She wondered if they all worked for the Taorin. Chiding herself in her thoughts, she knew the answer. There was no doubt they all did. They all followed the Headsman’s rule. She didn't know his name, but knew his reputation: a man who'd killed the old Headsman and rebuilt the organization one man, one Jinn at a time.

She was the only woman in the wagon.

One of the men scoffed over the clatter of wooden wheels rolling on the cobblestones. “Aya, Jul, you see that? It’s the Headswoman herself.”

The man beside him eyed her through his headguard. “Fuck, you’re right. No mistaking those deviled eyes. I lost a lot of coin off you.”

“Looks like she’s riding with us now. You hear that, girl? You may think you’re the tits in the taverns, but that’s all you’ll be good for here.”

“Let her be,” another man said.

“Fuck you, Tuli,” the first guard spat.

The man pulled off the guard’s helmet and bashed it against his nose. A spray of blood reached through Yvir’s helm, warm on her cheek.

“Let her be,” Tuli repeated calmly. That was the end of it. Yvir would remember him, and remember to always be in his sight while she worked alongside them all. Good men were in different shades; their goodness was seen clearer with each deed witnessed. She also knew bad men always won in the end, for how could one man stand against a dozen more?

The path to the Imperial District took an hour’s stretch of winding narrow road, finally halting outside the gates of the High Square. Walls thirty feet high, separating a city within a city. Yvir had never looked past its walls.

After the driver showed a scroll to one of the guards, the gates opened for the wagon to pass through. They were greeted with shoots of trimmed bamboo, different colored flowers, and other plants that made up the dense foliage along the stone path. The soft twitter of birds and fragrant smell of pollen reminded Yvir of the village she’d grown up in.

“It’s an All Blessed forest,” one of the guards said.

The garden cleared for a vast pavilion of pagodas and stoneworks, wide stairs leading to its center, the imperial palace. Carved dragons snaked over its tiled rooftops. Red lacquered pillars lined its front. Golden silk banners each threaded with a purple, turquoise, orange and green lotus, perfect in their intersecting diamond symmetry, united colors of the Dynasty.

The wagon halted before a more humble building, low and timid in size. A formation of no more than a dozen dark-cloaked soldiers waited, suited in the same gray Cadrian armor.

A woman in front of the Cadrians turned to face them. The first thing Yvir noticed was her eyes: pitch-black irises, unnaturally piercing. Long brown hair pinned into a bun like Qein fashion. Tan skin. Long, sharp features like the facets of a daggerhead, pointed cheekbones softened by a full mouth set in a knowing smirk. In all, she was beautiful, and moved with the slow self-indulgence of one who knew it. Despite the arid heat, she wore a black cloak that covered the rest of her tall body.

“From this day forward,” she said in Cadish, her voice a warm caress to Yvir’s ears, “you aren’t Qeitans. You’ve been tasked with guarding me, and serving my interests alone, not your Dynasty. Step down.” She looked at the man whose nose Tuli had broken. “You have blood on your armor, already? Be ready for more, serving me.”

The man said in broken Cadish, “Yes, lady.”

The woman laughed. Yvir knew beautiful people were vain, and casual cruelty came with it. “Ral bless us, they’ve given me a half-wit that can’t utter a clear sentence. Know this, all of you. I am no lady. You’ll address me as Inquisitor. Your swords are mine, your employer's made sure of it. You will be used as I see fit. Those who don’t follow my command, well—your employer’s made sure of it. Why are you bleeding?”

“Inquis—tor,” the man stuttered, pointing to Yvir. “She hit me.”

That cursed bastard, Yvir swore in silence. This time Tuli, her rescuer, said nothing, and did nothing.

A cruel smile crossed the woman’s face. She faced Yvir, peering through her helmet to her gray eyes. “And here I thought I’d be the only Cadric woman on this continent. What’s your name?”

“Yvir.”

“A Cadric name. Yvir. I want you to fight this man.” She pointed to the guard with the bloodied nose. “Lay down your swords. Settle this between yourselves. Fight until one can’t fight anymore. I grew tired of words as soon as I stepped into this place. Bless the day when we can settle the differences between our Empires with such honesty. Well? I thought you all understood Cadish. Fight.”

The man was quick to tackle Yvir to the ground, knocking out her breath against her armor. Old bruises flared with sudden pain. Hitting metal was as good as crushing your own bones. So the man was pulling up Yvir’s helm, and she was pulling it down with all her might. He was too strong; in desperation she headbutted him. Both their skulls knocked around in their steel helmets.

He fell to her side. Now it was a fight to see who could first clamber over the other. Yvir won. Her mind was a haze of white light, but she was used to fighting through such a dizzying state. Mounting him, she wrested off his helmet, and began to pound his face with her elbow.

“Enough,” the Inquisitor said. “You should have kept your mouth shut. Maybe you’d be bleeding less. Get him out of here. I don’t need half-wits, or weaklings in my guard. More so, I appreciate loyalty among yourselves. You’ll learn to be loyal to me. Your employer is counting on it.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon guarding the fenced gates of the embassy. Yvir never felt so sore from simply standing. Still she stood with them, silent, until the wagon returned by dusk. The weight of her armor seemed to collapse into her. When she clambered up the wagon, Tuli offered a hand for aid.

She took it; she was no fool. Allies were few and far between. The last man she’d ever relied on died with her innocence, when the holyman in her village was lynched. He’d been a good man to her. He taught her to read, write, and arithmetic. She’d loved him like a father. She didn’t know if she had any love left to give beyond her own mother. It was why she was doing all this. As the wagon jostled and relit her bruises, Yvir concentrated on one thing: survival. She had to live so that her mother wouldn’t be left alone in this world. Grimacing under the cover of her helmet, she accepted her pain. Perhaps it would mold her into something harder – it always had. She knew some people couldn’t handle such pain, leaving them brittle to break under its weight, eventually. It was why she couldn’t leave her mother alone. Not now; not ever.

The wagon rolled to a stop.

“Get off,” the driver grunted.

“We’re not near Lowtown yet,” Yvir said.

“Fuck off. Before I boot you off. Be here at noon.”

She was one of the last to leave, followed by Tuli. The moon was partly muddied by blue clouds, the sky indigo and starlight.

She shambled along the street, the man walking alongside.

“You could have said something,” she was first to say. “You could have said you were the one that hit him.”

“I could have,” Tuli said. “But then, you would’ve still had to face him someday.”

“You want to fuck me or something?” Yvir questioned.

“No.”

“Then why’d you hit him?”

“I had a daughter. Would’ve been your age by now. Died of brackenfever a few years back.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. I know you’re not.”

The man walked away, pausing. “If we’re going to survive this—you watch my back, and I’ll watch yours. You understand?”

Yvir nodded and turned away. She was too tired to think of his offer, wandering like a beggar who knew every corner, every building. They always did in Lowtown.

Several streets, alleys, and turns later, she knocked on a splintered door. “Ma, it’s me.”

The door cracked open, lantern light warming her mother’s haggard face, wisps of black hair dancing around her frightened brown eyes.

“Yvir, where in hollowed Stone were you? Why are you dressed like a soldier?”

Yvir brushed past, slumping down to their single bed in their cramped room. She took off her helmet, vambraces, then struggled out of her boots, her mother helping take them off.

“The men who brought us here—” Yvir said, “I work for them now. You don’t have to work at the sewing mill anymore.”

“But why? They’ve asked for more money, and more, how can it stop now?”

“This will end, ma.” She placed a comforting hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Soon, we’ll be free.”

“I know it will, Yvir,” the woman whispered, pressing her worn-thin fingers to her daughter’s bloodied cheek. “But at what cost?”