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This is a work of fan fiction set in White Wolf’s Exalted fantasy setting and is no way meant to challenge White Wolf’s copy rights or trademarks. The characters Joyous Gift, Mirror Flag, Ribbons of Sorrow, Shield of a Different Day, Spinner of Glorious Tales and Weaver of Dreams of Victory, as well as the city Great Forks are trademarked White Wolf Property.

By Munificent Perception

Somewhere on the border of the Confederacy of Rivers:

Dawning Daughter was strong, fast and to her parents’ endless worry, utterly fearless. On occasion she vanished for days at a time into the cloud forests that bored tenaciously into the compacted granite of the surrounding mountains. The young girl had even once strayed ten miles away from the village into the high country to catch a glimpse of the rainbow-shrouded Demen’s Demise, an abandoned outpost where the laws of Creation had broken down and the air was as likely to be filled with jeweled songbirds as with whirling shards of onyx. It was soon after this, on the occasion of her 13th birthday, that she was approached by a god.

In the coming years there were those who would say that it was her name — an overly religious one in the opinion of some — that had drawn the attention of Yu-Shan’s gods. In Nexus, a former lover claimed that her naming had been a deliberate and heretical act of maternal hubris. However, the prostylizing monks of the Immaculate Order had made few inroads into the Cloud Forest Mountains, and it was not unknown among Dawning’s people for a child’s naming to reflect her parents’ gratitude towards one of the Incarna. Dawning had been born at sunrise after a long and difficult labor, in which her father and the village women had feared for her mother’s life. In the mother’s thoughts, such a name was an appropriate expression of thanks to the deity who had dominated the skies at the moment of her infant’s uncertain First Breath.

Wiry, with coffee-colored skin, amber eyes and peach hair, Dawning was standing alone in the mountains, looking down on the village and the well-built stone house of her family, when a falcon landed in the branches of a tree above her. Startled, she backed away respectfully. The raptor was enormous, far larger than any mountain eagle she had seen, and it fixed her in place with its predator’s gaze.

“Winemaker’s daughter.” Its voice was every bit as hard and weathered as the living wood it perched upon. “Destiny singles you out on the Loom of Fate.”

The god’s powerful golden eyes and talons glittered as the divinity took flight and attacked. Sharp pain punctuated burning humiliation as Dawning futilely fought to defend herself. When she ran and her back was raked by the diving raptor, she wept not from fear but frustration — the angry injustice of not being able to strike back. No matter how fast she darted and wove among the trees, the falcon always struck her, until finally, glimpsing a diving shadow out of the corner of her eye, she dove as well. This time there was only the powerful hiss of air being rent as she rolled herself into a ball; then sprang to her feet and continued running.

She skidded to a halt when the hunter alighted on a branch in front of her.

“Good. Well timed. More practice,” the little god said as it launched itself towards her. Now, when it did strike her, it only butted hard against Dawning, sending her stumbling to the ground, bruised instead of bleeding.

Finally, when the attacks stopped and Dawning Daughter hunched over against a tree, retching, she managed to gasp out, “why?”

“You mean what,” the falcon answered. “What am I teaching you?”

The angry 13-year-old glared back. “No, I wish to know why.”

The small god returned her gaze, and though it could not smile, she heard something like humor in its voice.

“You have a destiny, and you will have many enemies. You also have divine patrons in Yu-Shan who wish to remain anonymous. At their behest I am teaching you avoidance, so that you may learn to dodge the blows of grown men and things stronger than men. In this world of gods, ghosts and demonkind there are always beings more powerful than men.”

“Stronger than the Dragon-Blooded?” she asked.

The bird cawed into the air, as if trying to laugh.

“Yes,” it replied. “There are many things stronger than those mortals Exalted by the blood of the Five Elemental Dragons.

And with that, the day’s lesson was done.

Dawning Daughter was angry with herself when she found the wounds that the falcon had inflicted to be scratches and not the gashes she that had imagined. She washed off the crusted blood in a creek and went home to receive a loud scolding over the condition of her clothing. She explained to her mother that she had slipped and stumbled down a granite outcropping. This did not stop her from being switched. Even in a prosperous village, food on the table was not always a certainty, and many villagers considered themselves lucky to have two sets of work clothing and an embroidered tunic or jacket for feast days.

Time passed as the Tapestry of Creation played across the Loom of Fate. On the valley’s steep eastern slopes, dark tea leaves budded, curled and ripened, while on its southern hills the wine maker and his wife fussed over their vines, nervously eying the skies for signs of early freezes or late frosts. Moving around them in a ceaseless whirlwind of girlhood energy, Dawning Daughter grew up as a child truly blessed.

It never occurred to Dawning not to go back up into the mountains. As often as she could, she would slip away, winding her way upwards until she inevitably encountered the falcon.

“Will you make me faster?” she asked the spirit one day.

“No, I will not. I will teach you timing.”

Dawning waited. She had learned that this small god respected patience.

“Fighting is not about being fast, fighting is about striking your enemy when and where he is weak. Strength, little one, is not constant. It comes from your breath, and like your breath it rises and falls.”

With that, the raptor launched itself into the air and beat its wings laboriously as it spiraled upwards. Once it found a steady updraft, it circled far above Dawning Daughter. She tensed, sure that the spirit was about to attack her, but then it tipped and dove into the valley below her. She watched, her heart pounding, as the hunter plummeted and then opened its wings a little. Just before it hit, the god flared its wings wider, and the dive changed into a sweeping curve. The power built up in the spirit’s plunge struck both downwards and forwards, snapping the spine of a rabbit and carrying both predator and prey aloft. The attack had been fast, but there had been a dreadful coordination to it: a pulling together, concentrating and unleashing of force.

The dead rabbit plummeted to the ground in front of Dawning. She removed her belt knife, carefully slit open the animal’s abdomen and chest; then removed the entrails with as much dexterity as any hunter in the valley. When finished, she placed the heart and liver on a flat rock beneath the falcon's tree.

“Good. You do have manners,” it said as it flew down to the ground to feed from the small sacrifice.

“What will you make me, then?” Dawning Daughter asked.

“Hard,” it replied, its beak shiny with blood, “and adaptable. You are learning the realities of battle; the waxing and waning of strength; and of how distance shapes that strength. You are also learning the advantages of firmness and fluidity. I will teach techniques built on these realities. In mastering these you will become strong in body and mind.”

“Hard,” said Dawning.

“Hard and bending,” replied the divinity.

Two years later, just after she had turned 15 and became a grown woman, Dawning Daughter killed a man. 18 years of uninterrupted peace in the valley came to an end as the remains of a war spilled over into its spaces. One of the Scavenger Lands kingdoms had attacked a rival and unleashed some artifact of the First Age on its enemy. Hailstones and lightning had destroyed crops in not just the targeted land, but had reached into two other kingdoms, causing misery for all concerned. The city of Lookshy’s Seventh Legion responded. They had sent professional troops and their Dragon-Blooded officers to bolster the peasant armies of the aggrieved kingdoms. Wielding the elemental Essence of Creation, the exalted of the Five Dragons had shattered the army of the aggressor and taken the artifact for themselves. It was a band of fleeing, starving former soldiers that forced their way into the valley.

Despite her having come of age, Dawning Daughter’s mother had refused her permission to join the defenders at the village gate. Instead she was given a naginata — a staff with a curved steel blade on it — and told to protect their home, where the children of the village sheltered behind its granite block walls. The fighting at the gates was fierce, and during the confusion a band of men tore down a section of the wooden stockade that encircled the village. They then ran amok and drew off defenders from the gate.

Dawning stood in front of the house, listening to the sounds of horror and pain, when an armored man on horseback rounded the corner of a nearby farmer’s home. He was filthy from months of living out of doors, and the wildness in his eyes spoke of his having abandoned the laws of civilization. He turned and aimed his mount at the five men and women who guarded the stone house. The others sought cover inside. Dawning Daughter took stock of the situation as the horse and rider bore down on her, heavy hooves thudding and mud flying. She moved to stand behind the knee-high rim of the Shoguante-era fountain that was the household well. She could see the calculating glint in the rider’s eye — aware that his saber could not span distance of the fountain — as well as his nervousness at her outward calmness.

Her heart pounded in her chest and ears, her mouth was dry as stones, but it never occurred to Dawning to be afraid.

Coming up on the stone fountain, the rider veered away, seeking another victim to ride down. In that moment, Dawning Daughter lunged forward on to the fountain’s rim. The naginata’s staff covered the distance as she struck between the bottom of the leather breastplate and the top of the thigh-protecting greeve. Blood flowered outwards as she spun with the horse’s momentum so that that the motion of mount and rider would not tear the weapon from her hands. The man’s mouth opened silently in a noiseless scream and his sword dropped from his nerveless hand as the horse slowed to a trot.

Two more former soldiers, both wearing leather and steel, came running up the street on foot. Again, Dawning Daughter used the fountain. One man leaped into it, the other started to circle to her right. She darted around the latter, placing him between his comrade and her. She employed the superior length of her weapon to dive her opponent backwards into the fountain. Then she abruptly swung the weapon in a wide arc to strike the leg of the second man who tried to step out of the fountain and around his fallen companion. Tendons and muscle gave way beneath her blade. She impaled the man who stumbled over the fountain; then finished the one whose ligaments she had severed.

Soon after the battle, Dawning Daughter left her village. The falcon had announced that her instruction was finished, and she now wished to see the world beyond the valley. Her parrents gave what coins they could afford and walked with her to the creek canyon road that led downwards and outwards to the world.

By the age of sixteen, she had become known for her skills at unarmed combat, which were said to rival even those of the monks of the Immaculate Order. She fought women and men in those cities where fighting for profit and entertainment was allowed. She took work as a bodyguard and soon gained a fearsome reputation for wielding a pair of hooked swords. By the age of seventeen, she had made her way to Nexus, the free-port city state that lay at the heart of the Confederation of Rivers. She became a protector for wealthy merchants and used her skills to earn a well-paid living. It was during a trip out of the city that she was again visited by the spirit of the falcon.

“Girl, you must wake and flee.”

“Am I dreaming?” Dawning Daughter asked, sitting upright in her sleeping roll.

“Yes you are, and you must wake. The assassins of the Wyld Hunt are coming for you. Your destiny has been defined, and your enemies have seen you among the stars. Now go.”

For the first time, the falcon god sounded wary, as if it was now he who was in awe of Dawning.

With that Dawning sat upright again, now in the waking world. She had been sleeping by the wooden stairs attached to the wagon of the Guild merchant prince whose life she was guarding.

The spirit had said the Wyld Hunt. But why her? The Wyld Hunt was for slaying the Anathema, those demon-possessed mortals who stole the Essence of the moon and the sun to perform wicked acts of magic. Was her association with the falcon some special blasphemy that made her one of the Anathema? The Scarlet Empire’s Dynasts and their state religion, the Immaculate Order, forbade the worship of spirits. Be that as it may, much of Creation’s population still sacrificed to divinities, even if they happened to live in an area not ruled directly by a god-king.

There was no time to waste on ponderings, however. The sentries around the camp were startled as she went riding past, but their job was to keep people away from the caravan at night, and not to prevent their paymaster’s bodyguard from departing.

During the moon-lit hours of the pre-dawn morning, Dawning pressed the horse to its limits, seeking to place as much ground as possible between herself and the camp. She rode until the beast stumbled, unable to see. She left it there and fled upwards into the forested hills. The sun came and brought warmth to her cold limbs. She pushed herself relentlessly, sweating as she picked the roughest and steepest country to traverse. If the Dragon-Blooded wished to chase her here, they would have to make a choice between armor and speed.

The afternoon found her still moving, on the run for over twelve hours, and the shouts of her pursuers not far behind her. As she pushed on through the steep leafy countryside, she felt less and less weary. The burning of her limbs seemed meaningless beside the smell of the sun-warmed loam and the illuminated dappled green of the leaves above her. Without hesitation she scampered up rock faces and jumped effortlessly from boulder to boulder. The afternoon air became a warm and tangible thing that buoyed her. What finally startled her from reverie was a radiant flash of sunlight that dazzled her as she leapt over a small creek. The air was cool and dark here under a thick canopy of leaves. Puzzled, she turned back, looked in the water and was nearly blinded. A circle with emanating sunburst rays shone brightly on her forehead, and when she touched her brow, she found that her hands were surrounded by golden fire.

Even before the vast voice filled her being, Dawning Daughter knew that she had been chosen by the Sun.

Some days later, to the west…

His name was Holvic Kagi, and he was angry because the dawn had not come. There were only the dead under the leaden sky, scrabbling at the fortifications and pulverizing the mortar in the gaps between stones with unfeeling fingers. They had already undermined one portion of the mining camp’s stone-reinforced earthen walls. The outer layer had crumbled there and allowed the restless dead to tear into the tamped soil of the wall’s inner half. As the dirt slumped and collapsed, the first of the shambling corpses forced their way up and over the mound.

Holvic had positioned himself in the middle of that gap. He was a giant of a man, a dusky-skinned, black-haired descendant of southern soldiers wielding a great sword named Enlightenment. The two-handed weapon had been carved from of a shard of the translucent, dark-red First Age glass that made up the ancient toppled towers of Chiaroscuro. There was weight behind the two-arm span of the blade’s sharp edge, enough weight to smash through bone, pierce corpses and sever unliving spines. The dead lay two deep around Holvic when a zombie finally managed to lunge past and clutch the banded plates of his lamellar armor. There were few living men capable of withstanding the might of the dead, and Holvic was one of them. He leaned back, widened his stance and with one hand punched the pommel of Enlightenment into the dead thing’s face. Bone collapsed under the impact, and Holvic pulled himself free.

Behind him, the tired men and women of the besieged Kagi mercenary company stood awestruck. They were skilled foot soldiers, heavy infantry for hire, trusted by the Seventh Legion to operate from the city of Lookshy. It had been at the urging of the Legion’s General Staff that they had taken work with the beleaguered city-state Thorns to gather intelligence, and now they found themselves facing the undead warriors of The Mask of Winters as the Deathlord’s troops erupted into the lands of the living.

Even before this dark day, there were none among the Kagi ranks who were not already impressed by the son of their captain and commander. Holvic was among the truly gifted. Physically adroit, perceptive, fast to respond and utterly fearless in the press of battle, his devotion to the way of the sword was such that the elder Aric Kagi had given the family blade over to him, the youngest son, well before his own retirement. Many of the soldiers knew that Holvic's dedication would have likely set him on the path to becoming one of the warrior-monks of the Immaculate Order, if not for the family’s devotion Eastern and Southern gods of war.

Now they watched his death struggle, the final battle of his life. There could be no retreat, for the sheer numbers of the moving dead would not allow it. The enemy poured in two at a time, and any attempt to change out, to let another to take his place, would provide the opening needed for the zombies to push past. As it was, there were already too many of his father’s soldiers laid out on the ground behind him with their limbs green and rotted where the claws of the dead had scored their flesh in earlier skirmishes. Now there was only the motion of destiny, the cleaving of unliving foes and the perfection of the way. Holvic’s arms ached and threatened to cramp as he devoted himself to discovering if victory could be won through force of will alone.

Then the Nemissary smashed him to the ground with its cold iron mace. One moment there had been only the unthinking attacks of shambling corpses, and then the giant had appeared in their midst. A hulk of rotten flesh encased in black iron, it was animated not by some sorcerer’s necromancy but by the sheer will of one who had died and yet refused to give his body over to the earth.

Holvic screamed. His crushed ribs sang with pain as the javelins of his companions split the air above him. The leviathan refused to be slowed by the attacks, and the darts glanced off the dark plates of its armor. It towered over Holvic, raising its black mace. In that moment the Nemissary was immolated. Light like molten gold poured over the creature of the underworld, slagging its armor and causing its bones to shine radiantly from within the tattered casement of its flesh.

Holvic rolled away, shielding his eyes as the dead thing flared brightly and burned away in streamers of oily smoke.

“You.” The voice that spoke was one of roaring surf and angry armies, and Holvic's very existence resonated with its power. “You who have followed the sword, you are my Chosen now.” Holvic shook uncontrollably. “Know that I turned my eyes from this world out of wrath and wounded pride. No longer is this so. You are my priest. Go with my light and better this world as you see fit.”

With that, Holvic opened his eyes and stared upwards at the black, unnatural clouds that shielded the battlefield from the day. Essence, the life blood of Creation sang through him as he pulled himself to his feet. It flowed through his armor, making it as light as a cotton robe and eased the throbbing of his abused body.

Behind him, his companions were nearly blinded by the brilliance of the noiseless white and gold flame that burned around him. In the air above, the holy image of a golden bull raised its head and bellowed to Heaven as Holvic Kagi strode forward into the ranks of the dead.

Weeks later in the city Great Forks…

My life ended the day the Dragon-Blooded arrived. It was not as if this was entirely unexpected. There had been omens of change; not just for myself, but for all Creation. It had been just over a year earlier that the Scarlet Empress had vanished from her Seat of Splendors on the Blessed Isle. Everyone who drew breath knew that her absence portended a myriad of changes for the world. Soon after followed the first eclipse to be seen in over a millennium. Then, just weeks ago, the dead overthrew the Eastern city of Thorns. They say that the corpse of some long-dead behemoth spearheaded the assault, dragging its rotten hulk over the earth until it butted its fortress-sized bulk up against the city’s outer wall. Even the demon who later came to me, her very presence deforming Fate and Creation, cast signs of her coming in the manner that we mortals have shadows under the light of the sun.

Nevertheless I had held out hope that my life would continue on as before, until Sesus Bera and his daughter appeared.

I should begin by introducing myself. I have already done so for two of my Circle, Dawning Daughter and Holvic Kagi. Where they each have but two names, I have had many. I am most commonly known by the name given to me by the temple priests upon the occasion of my 15th birthday, Passic. My fellow students in the House of Learning — Great Forks’ university — often called me Shady Scholar due to my proclivity for studying only after the sun had set. They claimed that this was due to my rising late each day, but I hold that it was because the hours of daylight are full of things in need doing and not studying. As for my birth name, I know it not. I have never met my parents. They were apparently quite poor and had sold me into slavery soon after my birth. I can not say that I have forgiven them for this, but at the same time I have never harbored strong sentiment against them either. It is hard to miss that which you have never had and hate those whom you do not know. And anyway, it is not an uncommon practice for families with too many mouths to feed. The name I am most proud of is Taut. This is the family name of the man who had sensed some potential in my infant self, who had purchased me and then given me to his wives to raise as one of his own. He did not have to do that. He could easily have kept me as a laborer to scrub the house’s stone floors, or to work alongside the slaves in the fields around the city. Instead he had given me the name of his ancestors, making me as much his son as if I had carried his blood in my veins.

Berdi Taut. If you live in Great Forks or have had business with the dealers of antiquities within the Scavenger Lands’ Confederation of Rivers, then you have heard of him. Like many successful scavenger lords he is a banker, an organizer of expeditions and a tomb thief. He assembles the bands of laborers needed to excavate the fallen cities of the First Age, and pays priests or shamans to propitiate the spirits of the earth into relinquishing their property. He employs the soldiers who protect the workers as well as the heroes who brave traps and ghosts to bring the relics up to the light of day. Most importantly, though, he has the knack for knowing who will be willing to buy the artifacts he finds.

Two years ago he decided that there was more he needed to know about the world. One day, without fanfare, he announced that I was to attend our city’s great university and learn these things for him. It was an honor that should have impressed me more than it did, I suppose. I did enjoy myself in the House of Learning, even if I ultimately proved to possess a less-than-scholarly attitude. Rather than bemoaning the subjects I should have studied with greater diligence, I will tell you briefly of those topics I took pleasure in and therefore mastered with little effort.

The mysteries of mathematics and the sacred geometry of the heavens bored me to tears until I realized that these had some application in divining a glimpse of future fates in the motions of the stars. After that I became increasingly enamored of occult studies, though much of, well, nearly all the subject matter I studied within this area was not on the House of Learning’s curriculum. I can make a charm or a fetish that will shield you from bad luck, perform acts of geomancy, draw wards to fend off hungry ghosts, and perhaps even affect a small change or two in my surroundings. At first, the most enjoyable part of the required curriculum was the university’s martial art. I achieved a basic proficiency in the style before I was distracted by the art of the bow, or rather a young woman of many charms who was enrolled in a salon where archery was taught. Here I did find a talent that fast became a prodigious skill. I must admit, though, that the chance to flaunt my abilities on the range and especially at the hunt probably contributed to my approaching this area of instruction with proper assiduousness. I also found that I possessed a flair for language. In addition to my native Riverspeak , the language of the Scavenger Lands's Confederation of Rivers and merchants across Creation, I speak Fire Tongue, the language of the South’s civilized lands, and I know the rudiments of Old Realm. I am conversant with the basics of demonkinds’ circles, the nature of the Fair Folk, as well as something of the lore of the unseen hierarchies of gods and elementals who maintain the world. I know the five magic metals and their and of their value to the Exalted.

It was these same topics that brought me so much trouble. What I learned was of interest only in so much as I could find a use for that knowledge. When I discovered an application for some bit of old lore, I could easily be distracted by trying to put it into practice. After translating the tattered remains of an ancient text on the metallurgy of the Shogunate, I found myself wondering how much of this technique was still practiced. So I went and found out.

The answer was, not as much as you would think. It did take some wine, a bit of flirting, and perhaps even a small romance with a young lady who was apprenticed to one of the city’s artisan smiths to discover this. You can imagine the scandal that followed when I was found out. They were horrified to learn that a student had intruded into the privileged domain of a tradesman. Though in the three weeks before I was discovered, I found that I could make a knife, a necklace or a ring just as well as any journeyman, much to the annoyance of my lover. Despite this display of talent, the uproar nearly earned me an expulsion from the university. They were, as the headmaster had screamed at me — his rattan cane clutched in an upraised hand — teaching thinkers, not soot-faced laborers.

It was soon after this incident that the Sesus Bera, scion of the Scarlet Dynasty and Dragon-Blooded aspected of wood, arrived with his daughter and entourage. It was early in the evening, with a summer twilight glow illuminating our city of temples, when I looked out my chamber window and saw them entering the courtyard of my father’s villa. Still till this day I can not think of Bera without recalling the great Redwoods of the East. He was an enormous man, broad and towering, with the eternal smell of pine sap hanging about him. There were light patches of bark on the backs of his hands and neck, and a deep green shot through his thick hair. He had a broad smile, which he displayed as my father approached him and a powerful laugh that followed soon after. His daughter, though, was so different that she appeared not to be of his blood at all. Sesus Leda, aspected of Air, was almost ethereal. Slender, pale-skinned and blonde with highlights of blue, she was so thin and aloof that even in her jade-alloyed armor you would think that a stiff breeze might carry her away like a feather. She smelled of cold mountain winds and lilacs and bore a heavy Dire Lance of white jade and ironwood.

That alpine scent, the smell of my enemy, which still puts the hair up on the back of my neck.

There is still a pair of introductions left to make before I can continue with my story. And as it was at the time, the tales of these two would soon be entangled with mine own.

Later that same night…

Wendai and her six sisters followed the river highway as they rode towards the city of Great Forks. Even though the sun had set hours ago, the former captain and her companions pushed onwards. They did not stop to enjoy the summer night's restful air, nor did they fear the robbers and highwaymen who occasionally preyed on the road's traffic.

Around the seven women’s shoulders, over breastplates of bronze-gilded steel, were draped the red, tasseled cloaks of the virgin brides of Ahlat. Each garment was embroidered with Fire Tongue script down the right edge, proclaiming the sworn sisters to be veterans, discharged after ten years faithful service. The former soldiers' skin colors ranged from bronze to black, and their hair was either long and straight, worn pulled back in tails, or short and woolly, woven tightly in cap-like coifs. Each former Guardswoman carried a spear and a long oval shield. Six were also armed with bows, slung across their saddles, while a long quiver buckled to the saddle of Wendai’s mount held ten javelins of superior quality.

Born to a wealthy family, and raised among a people who saw the world divided into warriors and slaves, Wendai had become enraptured with her tribe's songs of militant glory at an early age. On her 17th birthday, she had tested for the honor of serving in the Brides. Her extraordinary natural endurance was only exceeded by her near-legendary ability to confound her age fellows by thinking quickly on her feet, so it had been no great surprise that she managed to best her competitors in trials of stamina and problem solving. Afterwards, when the divinations of the Leopard Seat's priests had confirmed that Wendai had never known congress with a man, she had been granted a place in the year’s cohort. Thus she had become a Guardswoman and heard the thundering whispers of a war god speaking marriage vows in her ear. The Brides comprised the nation of Harborhead's royal guard, and the members of its all-female corps were ritualistically married to Creation’s southern god of warfare. They were sworn to war without fear at their king's behest, and violently devoted to their divine husband.

After being initiated into the unit’s battle drills and mysteries, Wendai had served with blood-spattered distinction. She was a fearless assault fighter and had often succeeded in breaking through enemy lines with her ferocity. She had taken spoils and slaves, but it was her exploits under the dark mystery of night that had won her renown among the People. Whenever the call had gone out for a volunteer to scout the way or for a heroine to assay to enter the enemy’s camp, it was Wendai who had pushed forward. At first there had been few who had dared to accompany her, but over time, a small cohort of fellow night friends had formed around her. Those who had survived their tumultuous service had left the Guard together at age 27, bound in vows of sisterhood. Seeking adventure and wealth, they had traveled northwards for two years until they found themselves among the wealthy, fractured kingdoms of the Scavenger Land.

Now, they were embroiled in times far more interesting than they had sought. Alongside Wendai rode her mentor of just over a week, the wandering woman. The rake-like mendicant had a proper name, which Wendai promptly forgot whenever the traveler was not around. The woman did not design to accompany the former Guardswoman and her companions with any regularity, but came and went, finding her charge and hirelings without error when she needed them.

“Are you sure we will arrive before your enemies?” Wendai asked, measuring the height of the waning moon above the horizon. She was both alarmed and pleased by the good time they were making, by how their mounts, which should be either lame or drooping with exhaustion, held their pace easily, as if carrying panniers full of supplies and women in armor was of no consequence to their endurance.

“No, I’m not the least sure,” the wandering woman replied brightly. “In fact, I’m certain that my rival and the Dragon-Blooded must already be in Great Forks.” The traveler appeared disheveled, dirty and very much in love with the open road. With her constant dogged humor, she seemed as if she could not be bothered with the cares or troubles of the world, nor the comforts of civilized life. Now, however, Wendai could at last detect a sense of purpose lurking behind the cheerful vagabond's demeanor.

“If they’ve arrived before us, why continue and invite an encounter with a superior force?” Wendai asked warily. At this close range, she could see that the wandering woman’s tawny-colored eyes shone with bright points of white that reminded her of nothing so much as stars. Wendai’s own eyes were a dark scarlet brown, and her red glossy hair stood in strong contrast to her mahogany skin. She was fair of face, and there were many who would have called her beautiful but for her unflinching gaze — her fierce eyes saw far too much for anyone to be overly comfortable in her presence.

Behind Wendai, her six sworn sisters and two slaves rode in the nervous silence that had become characteristic for them since Wendai’s Exaltation. The Sun’s blessing had come upon her eight nights ago, when they had been stalking the trail of a great wolf of the forests that had menaced their camp. They each had been straining to see into shadows made all the blacker by dappled splashes of Luna’s silver light, when Wendai had realized that the old dire wolf had flanked her. Standing as still as silence, she had glanced slowly to the side and looked upon the huge creature. Its eyes had been illuminated by an inner light as it crouched, ready for the spring that would take Wendai's life.

Her intended prey, she had realized, was a God-Blooded beast of the forest. This was the offspring of a nature divinity and an ancient wolf, and it was he who had been stalking Wendai and her companions all along. The warrior had smiled her terrible smile as her heart accelerated its beating, and a fierce joy filled her. She had been a soldier, courier, assassin and heroine of the battlefield. If she should die in the jaws of this half-divine beast under the black sky, it would be a fitting end to the story of her life.

Only she had not yet been prepared to concede who was prey and who was predator here.

The massive creature had sprung, and Wendai ducked beneath its lunge with impossible, Essence-fueled speed. When she had come to her feet with a javelin in hand, her opponent had twisted, landed and jumped again at her, as nimble as any great cat and as massive as any prize bull.

Heat and light had filled Wendai as she leaped backwards and sailed between stout branches, just beyond the great wolf’s reaching jaws. She made her cast mid air, the javelin wrapped in a blaze of shimmering purple light. The shaft pierced the creatures’ breast and passed through its heart before the radiant steel point erupted from its hindquarters. The beast was dead before either of them had touched the ground. As Wendai had stood before the sprawled brute, the ghostly green and purple fires of the night sky had enveloped her, and aurora borealis burned in the black sky above her — a sign of the Sun’s blessing on the world, even during the hours of darkness.

Wendai shivered in her saddle as she recalled the ecstasy that had accompanied the voice; of how its words had released her from old allegiances and granted a calling to police Creation’s dark hours. Beside her, the wandering woman continued to speak, answering Wendai as to why they should proceed towards Great Forks.

“We continue onwards because there is much chance and uncertainty at work,” the Wandering Woman said, though she sounded puzzled that this should be the case. “Even if we do not reach your fellow Chosen first, the Dragon-Blooded may not succeed in their mission of extermination...And there is one thing more,” the wanderer continued after a weighted pause, “I have called in a favor from hell to see our charge safely through.”

The next day…

In the outdoor heat of a merciless noon, Fia dreamed and drowsed. The courtesan was grateful that her costume allowed the light breeze to cool her more effectively than most of the Guild entourage’s hunting outfits. She was dressed for the chase, but her riding dress was both shorter and slit higher up the sides than needed, and her sleeveless silk wrap cut lower than conventional propriety allowed for. Among her fellow courtesans — today employed by the guildsmen to provide entertainment during the day’s rest pauses — there were one or two who could perhaps claim a fairer face or figure, but none who came close in sheer exoticness.

Fia's unmarred skin carried the golden sheen of the world's seafaring western peoples, and her cobalt blue eyes and hair betrayed her elemental ancestry. A boyish forefather had been seduced by the power of a water nymph, and nine months later, the by blow of their brief union, Fia's grandmother, had been laid at his doorstep by the feckless spirit. His young wife had murdered him in a fit of jealousy, but perhaps out of compassion, or perhaps out of fear of retribution, she had taken the blued-haired infant as her own. The mercurial nymph had passed on several qualities of her nature to her mortal descendants, and water was the most sensual of the elements. Its flowing nature and grace could be seen in Fia's movements, whether in pouring tea, when her clients leaned forward, chests clenched with held breaths to study the vulnerability of her exposed neck and neckline, or in her dancing, which commanded the highest prices of any mortal courtesan in the city. It also infused her voice with longing — so much so that her owners often hired her out not for the beauty of her presence or the charm of her wit, but to sing prayers and dance in Great Fork’s temples on behalf of employers.

On occasion, she had been commissioned to make love to gods and placate enraged spirits.

What she had not inherited from her great grandmother was the fickle temper of water. While many who were believed to be born with a surfeit of water in their nature were capable of bursts of extreme enthusiasms and fits of stormy of anger, Fia's eyes were wells of limpid calm. Her passions were deep currents, and her patience a sea of tranquility in the realm of petty jealousies that made up the floating world of Great Forks' teahouses and performers. Today, that serenity stood her in good stead. What vexed her less-disciplined peers was that the guildsmen were not the least interested in the singing, dance or intimacy that might bring the courtesans extra coin. Instead, bottle and flask commanded their employers' attention. Wine had been drunk in plentiful quantities as a slow morning provided little game for the hunt, and now the powerful afternoon sun conspired to finish robbing the men of their wits. Rather than seeking the company of women, the guildsmen fell over each other, laughing and staggering as they regaled their fellows with anecdotes from their latest caravan crossing.

On a milder day Fia would have occupied herself with devising a feint of diplomacy to distract the men from their drinking. Today, however, between the unusual heat and the potency of the wine, any such effort would only be in vain. So Fia allowed herself to dream and remembered a day when the sun and moon had joined in a haloed sphere of darkness and glory, when all of Creation’s inhabitants had stood still in terror and wonder, and when she had known with absolute certainty that her days of slavery would end well before the days of her life. In the future, she would be free, and for the first time she would choose which strand of destiny to follow.

Unbeknownst to Fia, that day of manumission had now arrived.

Across a sun-drenched meadow, a flash of rich yellow sparked against the dark-green backdrop of the forest line. Looking around cautiously, she saw no awareness of the light on the faces of the other courtesans. Their attention lingered on the guildsmen, who continued to roll with mirth and drunkenness. Hunting hounds barked excitedly, while servants and slaves looked on with weary patience.

The mote shone again, deep gold radiating through the trees, and in that moment Fia felt a powerful tide of curiosity well up within her breast. Her heart pounded as she watched the mote flicker a third time. Torn between desire and the painfully ingrained ties of slavery, she crossed the threshold of decision, took the reins of her mare in hand and left unnoticed amidst the noise and inebriated commotion. Fia led her horse across the meadow and entered the dark cool of the forest. Mounting and then riding between shafts of sunlight, Fia pursued the flickering mote of gold as it moved ever inwards. She lost track of the hours' passage, and it was at sunset that she led her tired horse into a small clearing that contained a roofless shrine. This small, forgotten temple to the element of air was a silent spot where Essence welled up into the world of fixed shape, and within the shrine, Fia discovered the form it had taken. At first she mistook the stone that lay on the altar for a thumb-sized opal, but as she gazed upon it, it was clearly far too beautiful to be a mortal gem. It was banded with opaque red and dark silver, and lay between the encircling arms of a choker of orichalcum — the Sun's gold.

As she took the gem in her hands, the evening breeze slowed. Between the temple’s columns she could see the windblown motion of grass and tree branches moving at a fraction of its previous speed. An ancient memory settled on Fia and told her that time’s passage remained the same; that it was her perception of it that had been changed by taking up the stone. She knew that the sacred gem, along with the choker, was a gift. Out of gratitude she turned to the shrine’s westward entrance and faced a setting sun that was wreathed in a glory of plum and crimson clouds. A flickering corona of white light edged with gold sprang up around her as she held the Hearth Stone up in gratitude to the Unconquered Sun.

That night, as she slept on the shrine's floor, memories of fierce exhilaration burned in her dreams. There had been learning and hiding as she had pursued the mysteries of being and Essence, then rebellion and open battle as she had helped to unite the forces of men and Dragon Kings against the makers of the world. She remembered storming a portal of Yu-Shan, the heavenly city. Her Charms had forced gates and cleared a path for her Terrestrial soldiers through the flesh and blood of eternal ancients. There had been death and rebirth, adoration, anger, bright discovery and a burning betrayal of heart-consuming intensity that left tears on her sleeping face.

Next:Dawning Daughter encounters an obstacle with implications on the road to Great Forks in Salt Lotus: Cycle 2

By Munificent Perception

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