TheT/Nil
The Threshold, south of Chiaroscuro. A small train of horses and a pair of wagons wound its way through the gullies and over hills. The wagons were empty now, but set to return laden with long delayed tribute. They had departed with the blessings of the ruler of Chiaroscuro, flowery, and ultimately meaningless, words. Not one of the visitors from the Blessed Isle wanted to be there. They were impatient to get on. None of the Exalted wanted this delay – only Maret. What else did she have but the largesse of her betters?
Anjis Maret came along as one of a Circle, one she was nominally a part of, but forever barred from, for all intents and purposes. Her stalwart brother, Anjis Pren, the twin sisters passionate Ledaal Niloba and sweet Ledaal Linopa, they were all Exalted, but Maret had never felt the grace of the Dragons upon her, despite her noble bloodline. Maret was a brilliant negotiator – for a mortal. She was a peerless swordswoman – for a mortal. Maret was exquisitely charming – for a mortal. The twins would never say as much – Pren would never so much as think it – but Maret knew people. Even Exalted people. She could feel it.
They found a use for Maret’s lamentable mortality. The Dragon-Blooded were imposing people, while Maret was pleasant enough looking and well-spoken enough to put people at ease. It was only a minor mission, anyway – they were to check on Ledaal Larajo’s holdings to the south, and prepare for him to make a personal visit at his leisure. So the pretty patrician girl did most of the talking, backed by her imposing Exalted companions. It was the story of her life, really. When all else would fail, they sent for Maret.
It was too damn hot. That’s why there was no real civilization here. Maret was used to the relatively mild seasons of the Blessed Isle. In the Anjis compound near Arjuf, all the year round was more pleasant than this. Here, the sun seemed quite determined to make Maret’s fair skin an angry red. A broad hat capped her thick black hair, but in front of her, Pren was bared to the sun. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that Niloba and Linopa were similarly exposed. Mela’s Teeth, the twins seemed to thrive on it. It wasn’t surprising, Niloba being a Fire Aspect, and Linopa being Wood. Apparently, only the lowly mortals had to deal with sunburn.
“You’re looking fairly miserable there, sis,” Pren was blunt as usual, yet another reason Maret was allowed to do most of the talking. “I guess this means you won’t be visiting Larajo’s new place very often?”
It had been two years since Maret had shared a bed with Ledaal Larajo, but that still stung. She reflexively turned her head away from her brother.
“Oh. Damn. I’m sorry, Maret.” Pren’s blocky face was honestly contrite. “I thought you and he were…”
“We are. Perfectly fine,” Maret was quick to assure him. She even made a credible effort at a laugh. “Who knows better about political expediency than me?” Concubine to an up and coming Ledaal lord – that was Maret’s claim to fame. She shared Ledaal Larajo’s life for three years, practically man and wife while they waited for her to Exalt as her brother had – sometime Exaltation came late, after all. It never happened, of course. So, here she was, checking on his businesses, since his family had arranged a proper marriage for him. Maret was known to have a good head for business. For a mortal.
Three Dragon-Blooded, and a cadre of mortal warriors, guarding a couple empty wagons. It should have been an easy journey, but Maret felt unquiet nonetheless. Behind her, Niloba made sarcastic remarks about the barbarity of Chiaroscuro’s nobility and Linopa laughed in that musical way of hers. In front of her, Pren’s broad back was relaxed, the gait of his horse slow and even. But something was wrong.
The sun was heading down, the next village was just around the bend, through a narrow gap in the rocky hills that surrounded, and suddenly the horses were rearing and balking at the fiery-maned lions that swarmed about them.
There was confusion, but it was short-lived. The highborn of the Realm, mortal or Exalted, were warriors born and bred. Pren leapt down from his horse, sword already in his hand, and his anima flared, encasing him in light like a glittering diamond. Niloba charged, lance at the ready, and lions scattered, while Linopa rallied the mortal guards with a few sharp gestures and shouts of command.
Swords rang as Exalted and unExalted alike fought the lions. The mortals acted as one under Linopa’s command, and they might have broken if not for her steadying presence. As for Pren, he was literally a guiding light, carving a brutal path through the enemy with hammer-like blows of his sword, his fists, his feet. As the lions roared and leapt, Niloba leapt from her horse, her anima limning her whipcord body in flame, and she wielded her jade-tipped lance like a long spear, scattering the attackers like dust before a storm.
Maret alone stood in waiting. She was hardly idle – her straight sword flicked and slashed and stabbed, and no lion went away unscathed, if it went away at all. As mortals went, she was a master of the blade and she could kill the lions with impunity. While she was no expert on the breed, she was fairly certain this was odd behavior for lions. This was but a distraction for something else.
There was a lull, and Maret rode forward to warn Pren, but it was already too late. The road before and the road behind were blocked by tall and slender warriors on lions as big as chargers. Their warlike panoply shone in the waning afternoon sun in a blinding array of colors and their uplifted spears were nothing more than delicate spindles, but Maret had no doubt they would pierce flesh and jade and bone with little effort. The Fair Folk had come.
The first wave of lions was gone as if they’d never been – and likely as not, they never had been there, just illusions to distract while the fey marauders maneuvered into position. In the stillness of that moment, a single faerie lord, wrapped in orange and red gossamer, his skin like obsidian, and hair like fire, rode forth.
“We are the Folk of the Ravening Flame, and we require a tithe.” The Fair Folk noble’s blazing eyes flicked hungrily over the gathered folk, lingering on the Chosen among them. “Ten mortals or one Exalt. Fight, and you will all be taken anyway. You are outnumbered. Comply and live. Bargain for your lives.”
“We will give you nothing-!” Pren started to say, fist raised. His diamond-bright anima roiled and rumbled like a nascent earthquake. He would have said more, but Maret had dismounted and begun to walk forward.
“I will bargain,” she told the Lord of the Ravening Flame, and she realized in that moment she was smiling. Something about this moment was making her feel more alive than she had ever felt before. Not training with the great warriors of the Blessed Isle, not her socializing among the demigods of the Realm at the side of her Dragon-Blooded lover – nothing was like this moment. Maret knew the Lord of the Ravening Flame was hers. She could feel it down to her very soul.
“Will you, little girl?” The Lord of the Ravening Flame dismounted to meet her. Maret wasn’t tall – she was considered practically petite by Blessed Isle standards. The Fair One towered over her. He was taller even than the Ledaal twins. She had to look upward to meet his eyes, cool blue to mad blazing red.
“Do you offer yourself?” he asked. “Forgive me, but you are not… high value currency.”
But for Maret and the Lord of the Ravening Flame, everything was so still and quiet now. Even the waning Sun seemed to have stopped in its track. The eyes of all Creation were on Anjis Maret and the Lord of the Folk of the Ravening Flame, or so it felt to her.
“I offer something infinitely more valuable,” Maret told him. Her blood raced, but she was thrilled, unafraid. “I offer sport. I offer a challenge.”
Fire flashed in the eyes of the faerie lord. He leaned forward, close enough for Maret to note how unnaturally smooth his skin was.
“A… challenge, little one?”
“I posit to you here that I am the best fighter here,” Maret kept her voice quiet, but it rang with the challenge nonetheless. “Including my noble Exalted companions. Including you.”
A strangled gasp was torn from Pren. “No!” More softly, gentle Linopa echoed his gasp. But none of them dared come forward. Maret was doing the talking, and she did it best of all of them.
The fiery eyes searched Maret, looking for some duplicity, some trick, but there was none to be found. She had waited all her life for a challenge such as this, a moment to prove her worth in the eyes of her spiritual betters.
“Name your terms,” said the Lord of the Ravening Flame.
“We will duel until one of us yields,” Maret replied. “Sword to sword. If you yield, we will go free, and you will trouble this region no more. If I yield, I will deliver to you the caravan and more. I will be yours to bring more souls under your sway. Of course, if either of us kills the other, the deal is off.”
“Confident, aren’t you?’ The noble fey flashed sharp teeth. “I accept your terms.”
Maret touched her hand to his, and something welled up within her. She felt hot, flushed with bright warmth, and suddenly, she could see it – ghostly white and bright golden light writing runes of binding into the air, swirling around and between the pair, sanctifying the accord before Heaven. Maret knew, without knowing how she knew, that the oath could only be broken now on the oathbreaker’s peril. And the Lord of the Ravening Flame knew it, too.
“Your kind have named you well, Deceiver!” The Lord of the Ravening Flame’s slim silver sword flashed from its sheath. “You have drawn me into your snare. But can you hold me?”
Maret was dimly aware of Pren’s anguished moan behind her. “Oh, no, Maret! Oh, no, no…” and she shoved it from her mind as she lifted her blade. There was no time to dwell on what she had done, or what she might have become. She could feel her forehead burn – she knew the mark of the Anathema would be shining upon it.
The Lord of the Ravening Flame rushed forward like his namesake, the point of his sword seeking Maret’s flesh. She felt her Essence guide her away from the blow, but still the attack cut through her shirt. Never had she faced anyone so quick. Maret grinned anyway.
“Struggle, mighty hunting cat, all you like, but you are firmly caught now!”
Snarling like desert lion, the Lord of the Ravening Flame came on. He had supernatural skill and speed, his slender blade spinning in a bright silver blur. Maret’s blade met every strike, and though she was quick, her arms and shoulders soon had several nicks and cuts. She didn’t feel them at all, only the rhythm of the battle in her blood; she was learning her opponent’s weaknesses with each clash of blades.
When frustration broke the faerie’s rhythm, Maret struck away his wild swing, her sword trailing golden light, then countered her blade quick and bright as lightning. Her sword cut a hissing, smoking wound into the faerie’s extended arm.
“Yield!” Maret held her sword at the ready, point extended, left hand out for balance. Her opponent recoiled, then lunged again. And again Maret’s sword lifted in a gold-white arc of sparkling light, turned aside the thrust, and burned an actinic white as it struck back faster than Lord of the Ravening Flame could react. A long, smoking slash appeared on the Fair One’s chest.
Maret leveled her sword again. “Do you yield?”
“I yield,” hissed the Lord of the Ravening Flame, his bitterness snapping out like a physical blow. Without further word, he turned and mounted his lion, and the Folk left as swiftly and silently as they had arrived. They would not return. They could not, bound by the oath.
Twilight was fast approaching. When Maret turned to face the silent assembly behind her, she realized the white gold flame that surrounded her was the brightest illumination in that narrow defile, the light washing the stone in eerie luminescence. She could see the stunned faces of the mortal retinue, the dawning hatred of Ledaal Niloba, the pained sorrow of Ledaal Linopa, and worst of all, Pren’s starkly horrified look, his entire broad form weighted down with an unspeakable sadness. His sister had become Anathema, a demon fit only to be killed, a carrier of spiritual corruption that had nearly destroyed the world so very long ago.
“Die, Anathema!” Niloba took one step and hurled her lance at Maret with all the force of her Exalted might. Fire raced behind it as it burned through the air.
Ten minutes before, Maret would have died. Ten minutes before, Maret was only a mortal. Even as the lance left Niloba’s hand, Maret was already in the air, arms akimbo, head over heels, and the lance flew beneath her as she spun forward, to hit the earth in a fiery explosion. She landed in a crouch, arms outspread, only a few feet from Niloba now, close enough to feel the searing heat from the Fire Aspect’s raging anima.
“No! Wait…!” cried ever-gentle Lanopi, but if she meant to forestall Maret or Niloba, no one ever knew but Lanopi herself. Pren was moving forward now, but too slowly. There was time enough for one final blow. Quick as the flame she embodied, Niloba was already on the move, her hand beckoning at her lance. And the lance responded, lifting in a twist of hot air to flash back toward her hand…
Maret focused her will, her desperation, into one great leap. Screaming an inarticulate warcry, she pushed herself up from her crouch, up into the air, feet pedaling, arms still outspread. Ignoring the pain from the silent fire that surrounded Niloba, Maret struck the Fire Aspect twice in the forehead, once with each heel, sending her sprawling. Maret caught the lance in her left hand as it passed even as she landed, flipped it over, and held it over the fallen Dragon-Blood point down. Pren drew up short.
Standing above Ledaal Niloba, lance raised, blazing like the corona of an eclipsed sun, Maret looked at her brother, and felt tears spring to her eyes. She had changed, become more than she was before, but not at all as she had dreamed, and she and her brother would be separated even more than they were as mortal and Chosen of the Dragons, now and forever.
“I’m not a monster, Pren,” she whispered hoarsely. “Please, you have to believe me!” Maret tossed the lance at his feet and ran into the encroaching night.
Never one to let danger cloud her thoughts, Maret tried to find a place to go to ground and think, clambering up over rocks away from the sight of the narrow road. As the night darkened, the light around her would become more and more visible – the aura that marked her as one of the Anathema.
Anjis Maret was a child of the Realm, a distant scion of the Scarlet Dynasty. By the Dragons, her mother and brother both were Exalted! Certainly she was an indifferent follower of the Immaculate Precepts at best, but so were thousands of other highborn of the Realm. How is it that she was cursed with a demon spirit, and these weren’t? Then again, she didn’t feel possessed. In fact, she felt more herself than she ever had. She could beat Ledaal Niloba in single combat! She even felt smarter, if such a thing were possible. And in her was no bloodlust, no desire to corrupt or destroy, no hatred of the Dragon-Blooded. Yet, if she was not a demon spirit in a mortal body, what was she?
Maret didn’t sleep that night. She kept walking, ducking from rock to rock, and the light around her faded away before darkness had truly fallen. Was her brother looking for her? She knew Niloba would want to find and ‘purge’ Maret, devout daughter of the Dragons that she was. What Maret do if Pren, Niloba, and Linopa formed their own impromptu Wyld Hunt? Could she fight her own brother? The sisters she thought of as part of her own Circle, even though she wasn’t Exalted herself? Unable to still her thoughts, Maret headed steadily away from the road, angling herself back toward Chiaroscuro, where she could lose herself in the crowd, and no one would be the wiser.
Without wagons to slow her down, Maret made good time through the hills, despite the lack of a horse. By late afternoon, the great east-west road along the coast of the Inner Sea was before her, and down the slope, a great caravan passed, a Guild caravan, slowly making its way away from Chiaroscuro. An even better place to disappear. Nimbly, she jumped from rock to rock, not bothering to be stealthy. No need to make the guards overly nervous by looking like a bandit, after all.
Someone broke from the flow of wagons and horses and marching men to meet her, his horse moving at a quick canter. As soon as the distant figure started to move, Maret knew it was Pren.
She should have run, but it wasn’t in her to do so. No, last night, Anjis Maret only fled to avoid harming her brother and her friends. Now, she would stand fast, come what may.
Pren’s horse was close enough to reach out and touch, before he stopped.
“Niloba’s gone ahead with Linopa,” Pren told her, without preamble. “I swore to her I’d try to get you to turn yourself in. If you don’t, the Hunt’s coming after you.”
“Turn myself in?” Maret laughed, in spite of the moment, though without any shred of humor. “You know as well as I do about the Anathema brought to the Imperial City. They likely went the way of Her Scarlet Majesty herself.” Vanished without a trace, in other words. The official screed was that the Scarlet Empress had retired into solitary contemplation for the betterment of the Realm, but Maret had heard rumors that whatever had unnaturally extended the Empress’s long life had finally called its debt due.
“Mela’s breath, Maret, what do you expect?” Pren, never quick to embrace change, was struggling. She could see it, and felt no anger, only sorrow. She was coming to the realization that she was not cursed, but Exalted beyond the dreams of any Dragon-Blooded.
“I expect to be left alone, if we are still friends, if you are still my brother, since I can never go back.” Maret put her hand on his. “I’m not a monster. No demon has taken me… but I can’t be Anjis Maret anymore, either. Just tell Niloba you couldn’t find me.”
Pren shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, but his hand turned to grasp his sister’s. “I swore. You know I can’t do that. She’s going to come after you personally. Niloba said she can’t bear to see a demon in the skin of her friend. And you know wherever Niloba goes, Linopa follows. They’re going to try to kill you, Maret. And… you’re bigger than they are now. If it’s true,, and you’re not a monster, remember they they aren’t either, when you come.” More quietly, and more hesitantly, he continued. “Don’t stay around Chiaroscuro. They’ll start the search here, you know.”
“I figured as much. Thank you, Pren.” Maret didn’t want to let go of his hand. It would be like cutting the last tie between them, the last tie to the world of Anjis Meret, of House Anjis, of the days of opulence in the Realm. But she did let go, and let him go.
“I’ll take the long way back,” Pren told her, his horse already backing away. “Be good,” he said, as he had said to her so many times before.
She had to smile. “Now, you know I just can’t make that promise.” It had always been a joke between them. This time, it was goodbye. Pren left at a gallop, west, toward the city.
When he was no longer visible, she continued down to the caravan and fell in alongside a group of marching mercenaries. The one in the lead glared at her from under his helmet, likely mistaking her for some lost, pampered girl from the Blessed Isle, which, as a matter of fact, she was.
“If you want to buy a slave, you’ll have to wait until the marketplace.” The mercenary took a look at her bloodstained shirt. “Clothes… just walk up the train. You’ll find something.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she told her companion of the moment, “but for now could you just show me who I talk to if I want to hire on?”
The mercenary checked his pace, looking more directly at the slight girl beside him, likely taking in her fair, untanned skin, and once-rich clothing. Finally, he shrugged sympathetically.
“You’ll want to talk to Beneficent Ivory, and if she likes you, she might put in a good word for you with Seyd.” His helmeted head jerked toward the front. “He’s behind the yeddim train. Can’t miss his wagon.”
She picked up her pace, but before she got too far ahead, the mercenary called her, his voice curious. “Hey! Who are you, anyway?” Maybe he saw something familiar in her. Or maybe he saw something in her that was worth knowing, worth remembering for later.
There was a pause, then she tossed a smile she hoped was flippant over her shoulder.
“I’m nobody important. Nothing. Nil.”
“Nil.” The mercenary grunted, not understanding, and she walked on.
“Nil,” she echoed. It was as good a name as any. She took it with her to Beneficent Ivory, then on to Sayd. It was only the first new name of many.
