Amir-
I write now a letter that I cannot post, though we brought pigeons enough from Malokat that they could, should I give one this missive, return to you in a matter of days. No, Amir, I cannot send this letter because I have been forbidden to do so. That will soon change, I have been told, but for now, I write simply because I have no better way to organize my thoughts. Rani, you’d know her as Saamet Bansal, would normally be my ear in circumstances such as these, but I’m afraid things have… soured between us, of te. Saamet Divan has been taken by the Commander here—a seasoned soldier who actually seems interested in learning how we do things over in Thandar—and so he is unavaible either. And so, I write to you, in spirit. I am unsure how much of this I can rey to you in my next letter, so I will endeavor to expin myself here.
There are individuals on the Court who are not human. I have thus far kept my reaction to this at a minimum, though I’m sure my initial shock was apparent as it has since been expined to me. They are not monsters, or demons, so they say, but friends, long time allies of the royal family. King Adrian called them Tíreile, and they’ve been residents of Odhran’s Reach for as long as the human residents have been here, if not longer. They are strange people, the Tíreile, limbs ever so slightly too long, fingers that hook slightly at their tips into what one could almost call cws. Each on the Court introduced themselves kindly and eloquently, but their voices were odd, and each word slipped through pointed teeth in a way that left me feeling off bance.
Each Tíreile on the court is linked with one of the Thomonds. I am unsure of the details of this link, called a pactbond by His Majesty, but it is a powerful, arcane thing, if his words are to be believed. There are others not on the Court, each bound to some important person in Seighart or another, the contracts of which are detailed on the skin of the human in the form of tattoos written in some otherworldly script. It is due to one of these bonds, or the ck thereof, that I am unable to deliver this letter to you, Amir. For their safety, each individual with intimate knowledge of the Court, servants and all, must make a lesser such bond with an oath of secrecy, to ensure word of the Tíreile does not reach unsympathetic ears. This is why the Ambassador never mentioned them, not through malice or deceit, but because he truly was not able to. Our own Ambassador on the Court, Farah, neglected to do so for the same reason.
I have been informed that I may make my pact with any Tíreile I wish, though until I do, each and every message that I send will be screened by the King’s spymaster, Aed. The same will be true, I suspect, of my second and third, though Rani has yet to be told of all of this, and I do not wish to be the one to do so. King Adrian, perhaps as a jest, recommended that I form a bond with my bride-to-be’s pactbound, Oriole, though she, from what I have thus far seen, would have little to do with me. The same is true, brother, of my fiancée, Princess Aoife.
How best to describe her to you, I wonder. She is a handsome woman, certainly. The images shown to the Dané, and by extension to us, seem to have been some years out of date, which I will tell you here first, is not to my detriment. Aoife Thomond is at once all sharp angles and curving lines, ashen blonde hair shorn into a swooping masculine coiff. She is short, much shorter than I, and has a soft, comely figure, but she carries herself with jaw set and back military straight. I would not be exaggerating to say that I found myself captivated, to my delight. I had resigned myself to a loveless union that would benefit each of our nations in turn, but to have the chance to court one as lovely as the Princess is a privilege, not a punishment. I only wish she felt for me the same way.
We have yet to have the chance to properly speak, you see. Somewhere along the line was a miscommunication, and the Princess was unaware that I am a woman. Whether that is not to her preference or simply unexpected, I do not know, but she did not react well to the reveal. Her pactbound Tíreile, Oriole, a woman (I was not certain, at first, as her countenance is neither particurly masculine nor feminine) with a mess of fiery hair and, as another noble was so kind as to inform me, a personality to match, stormed off in the midst of my introductions. Princess Aoife followed her out. In the time since, I have seen neither of them, despite my having been shown to my quarters which lie within their branch of Drachlás. They cannot avoid me forever, but I fear this may be an omen of what our union may entail. I would not protest it, as it is more than I deserve to live a life of luxury in a pace like this, loving wife or no, but even so, I cannot help but hope.
I hope that things are going well at home, Amir. I will save most of my pleasantries for a letter that you will see, but even so I must extend my good wishes here. Though Badr and I were always closer than we were, you are all I have left, excluding, of course, the Dané. You and I both know she’s never been much of a mother, though (words I say only with the knowledge that there is no chance of her reading them), and so instead I rely on you, my st family and, it would seem, one of my st friends. I look forward to reading your letters, once things settle a bit.
With Love,
Samira
Samira set down her quill and leaned back. Her chamber—and it was just the one chamber for now, she would be moving into the Princess’ chambers after their marriage, after all— was spacious and comfortable, as was to be expected. They had brought in a grand writing desk at her request, which she appreciated; the one that had been there to begin with was far too small, and cked the requisite space for her to spread out and really “move in” to the space. She couldn’t get too comfortable, given that she would vacate the room soon enough, but she had spread her writing implements and the few books and personal effects she had brought across it either way. The bed was vish, and she had confirmed as much the previous evening when she had been shown to her quarters after sending Isa to check in with the rest of the Dastena. The room was lit, as there was not enough light streaming in through the window in the early morning, by a single sphere, connected to the ceiling as if by roots. The sphere glowed softly, and lit the room pleasantly enough, despite its bizarre appearance. She had fumbled around in the dark the previous night before Róisín had carefully coached her through the pronunciation of a word— aitum or ayetam or something like that— which had caused the globe to brighten.
Standing, she moved to the window. There was only one, but it was rge, maybe the length of both her arms outstretched across, and ran from waist height up to the ceiling, with a gentle arch. This branch of Drachlás was high in the air, nearly a hundred feet, by her estimation, and as she looked out she was reminded of the gentle swaying of the tree as the breeze caught on the leaves. Each member of the family had a branch dedicated to them and their pactbound, she had been informed, and the Princess’ (and Oriole’s, she reminded herself) still had plenty of room to expand further out along the bough, should she desire more rooms of her own following the wedding. An armory, perhaps, to keep up the illusion that she was still a soldier. She hadn’t explored the other rooms avaible to her yet. They were not hers, not yet, and without the Princess present it felt as though it may be a breach of privacy, intruding where she did not belong.
From this height, she could see the rest of Seighart, even the tallest buildings not reaching the lower boughs of Drachlás, and as she looked out over buildings spider webbed with pathways, bridges, and decoration, she wondered how many of them knew. The Tíreile were an inextricable part of their city’s history, and yet any with such knowledge were magically sworn to silence. It couldn’t be a perfect system, and no secret could be kept forever, but it was clearly effective enough that the most the rest of the world had heard were the rumors of demons that had reached the border. That was putting aside the simirities between them and the creatures that had harried her Dastena in the Reach too. Even so far away, the waters of the Fraylough glittered a beautiful blue. That must be magic as well, Samira thought, and the whole of the oasis, for there could be no other expnation for its presence.
She’d have to make a pact too now, she knew, or at least she’d been told as much. The King’s, to Lady Daphne, took the form of a close friendship, his Tíreile serving as advisor and matriarch to the cn after the passing of his most recent wife. One of his sons had married his pactbound, which made Samira wonder at the possibility of children between them, which she put from her mind for now. She did not yet know the nature of the bond betwixt Princess Aoife and Lady Oriole, but one, it seemed, would not be without the other, and so she would endeavor to befriend both. Each pactbond was different, Aed had said, and the nature of hers could be as simple as just the agreement of silence, or as eborate as she wished, which was something to consider, at least.
Pact Keeper Aed was both spymaster and advisor to King Adrian, and for as little as Samira knew about him, she knew she did not want to get on his bad side. He had been the individual lurking behind the throne during Court, and while all the Tíreile she’d met so far had put her on edge, he was somehow worse. Not to say he had been unpleasant; far from it, as he had expined things to her after the nobles had dispersed he had been kind and patient to her questions. The problem was how very old he seemed. Each of the Court’s inhuman members had had a sort of ageless beauty about them, as though frozen in the midst of their prime, some with fine lines around their eyes, and others more youthful, but none, not even Daphne, who had to be nearly the same age as King Adrian (who himself seemed off puttingly young, another problem for ter), were old. That was with the exception of the Pact Keeper. Even ignoring his whitening hair and the lines that ran tracks across his face, his eyes, a blue that might’ve once been bright, were dull and tired, as though he had seen centuries pass, and he was weary of it all. Perhaps he had. He had supposedly been the pactbound of King Odhran himself, though that would pce him at over 300 years old.
Samira leaned forward to press her forehead against the cool gss, and closed her eyes. Perhaps Badr, not Amir, would’ve been the best choice for this. Amir was, as anyone who knew him would’ve said, the archetypical socialite, flitting between members of the court at Malokat and beyond like a butterfly that never tired. Women all across Thandar were vying for his hand, and odds were others beyond their borders would’ve jumped at the opportunity to marry the eldest son of the Char line. Badr though, he was suited for situations like the one that Samira now found herself in. Mystery and danger were his forte, and she had never once seen him lose his head despite the stress of his work. Even during the battle that killed him. As she had looked back, riding away with the remains of her own Dastena, even as he shouted for his own to hold the line for her retreat. Even as she watched a sword be driven through his chest, never once did he falter.
She would never be as brave as he was, she knew, but she would try.
The barracks for the city’s military, known as the Wyrmguard, was situated just outside of the walls of the garden that ringed Drachlás. It was not a quaint building by any means, but next to the pace it seemed rather squat. Only two floors, with a single guard tower that looked over into the pace garden, to keep watch for intruders that the guard who normally watched the pace might miss, Samira suspected. Otherwise it was a retively practical building, as Seigharthan architecture went, and she hoped she would be able to spend some time there keeping her skills sharp. She doubted it, but one could hope.
Commander Berach, head of the Wyrmguard, had been delighted at her request to tour the barracks. She wasn’t sure how it would go, given that she—and Róisín, who had been tailing her, having apparently been assigned to attend to her, which rankled Samira somewhat—had simply shown up at the interior door that faced into the garden and asked to see the pce. The Commander, to her relief, seemed like a man who had legitimate combat experience, having expined that his career had started patrolling the roads of the Reach that lead Northwest to Auchwain, which were as, if not more, dangerous than those leading East to Thandar. When she had asked what exactly it was that was so dangerous out there, he had simply given her a haunted look. Otherwise though, the man was tall, scarred, and currently garbed in a simple ceremonial breastpte over loose ornamental attire. Samira liked him.
“Your soldiers, your Dastena, I believe Saamet Bansal called them? Quite something to see, My Lady. Bansal herself managed to throw one of my boys over her hip when he tried to rile her up, it was impressive!” He chuckled, leading her through the building. It was rgely made up of bunks, between four and twenty to a room based on rank, but here and there he had paused to show off rooms filled with weapons, armor, and spaces for indoor practice if weather did not permit them to train in the central courtyard that the barracks was built around. He led her now to the pair of rooms that had been cleared for her Dastena, which she had been itching to check in on since they had separated from her and Isa the previous day.
“Please, Commander. We are both military minded. I am a Daamaret, not a dy. Not yet at least.” Samira said, ignoring the subtle elbow Róisín poked into her side. “As for Saamet Bansal… Rani is one of the finest soldiers I’ve ever met. Her and Saamet Divan, Isa, have gotten me through situations that I never could have on my own. I owe them both my life several times over.” A fsh of memory ran through her mind, Rani holding her hand tightly, pulling her toward her horse as Badr shouted orders, Shivan forces continuing to crest the horizon in a wave with no end. She shook her head.
The Commander nodded approvingly. “No protest there, Daamaret. It will be nice to have someone who actually knows a thing about combat in the Court. I will not speak ill of the royal family, of course, but a new perspective, and perhaps a voice sympathetic to the challenges the Wyrmguard faces, would be appreciated.” He turned and gestured through the open doorway that he had stopped before. “This is where yours have been setting up. Two rooms, connected, 30 bunks total, should you have need of the extra, currently 23 occupied.”
“23?” Samira asked.
“Your Saamets have a separate room down the hall, officer privilege. If you’d prefer I can have them moved into the general quarters, but keeping leadership separate is beneficial in my experience. The closer they get, the more the soldiers start to think of them as peers, and that’s how you get folks disobeying orders. Nobody wants that.” He smiled. That wasn’t really how a Dastena worked, she wanted to remind him. Their effectiveness increased as each member of the unit got closer, learned how to work together. Even so, privacy was nice, and she would not deny Rani and Isa the privilege. Gods knew they deserved it.
As she walked into the room, a hoot rang out from one corner, and then a chorus of them, as her soldiers stood from where they had been idly chatting and rushed towards her excitedly. Samira had to throw out a hand to stop the Commander from drawing his bde as she smiled broadly at the group. He looked unimpressed, clearly not used to such a level of familiarity with the rank and file of his own military, an unfortunate factor that Samira hoped her influence could correct. It was good to see them in high spirits, and she made sure to greet each of them warmly. She had gone over their roster this morning to make sure she had the names of the ones she had not served with before. She didn’t have to, but it was worth it to see their joy at being recognized by a commanding officer. Rani was in the room too, she noticed, as she finished shaking hands with the st of the Dastena, but the Saamet resolutely refused to look at, or even acknowledge the fact that Samira had entered beyond a nod, immediately going back to penning a letter at one of the tables that dotted the room.
Having heard the commotion, Isa appeared in the doorway and waved merrily. He once again looked sleep deprived, no doubt having been caught up with filling in the rest of the group on the previous day's events after she had dismissed him. Samira reminded herself to tell him to take a day to recuperate. He had a tendency of working himself ragged, which she admired and admonished in equal measure.
“Daamaret!” Isa grinned, “Good to see they’ve already let you out of the pace!”
“Not for ck of trying, I’m afraid.” Samira tilted her head towards Róisín. “This one keeps reminding me that I need to do… something in a bit. Don’t quite remember what, it didn’t seem important.”
The servant groaned. “You need to be fitted for a wardrobe, My Lady. Princess Aoife and yourself are scheduled to have the first sketches for your portrait done in a few days, and you haven’t anything appropriate to wear.”
Samira ughed lightly. “My parade armor will be fine, Róisín. Besides, a portrait hardly seems like the highest priority right now, does it?”
Róisín huffed, looking defiantly up at Samira. “As a dy of the court you will be expected to dress in a noble’s finery, not,” She gestured vaguely up and down, “Like some sort of brute! And the portrait will be unveiled on your wedding day, it is of great importance, My Lady.”
Samira sighed, preparing a retort, but Isa swooped in to save her. “Daamaret, perhaps don’t antagonize the person responsible for making sure you know what you’re supposed to be doing throughout the day. Instead,” Isa turned, looking excitedly towards Commander Berach, who had been watching the exchange with amusement, “Perhaps the Commander can show us the trophy room he’s been speaking so proudly of since we first arrived in the barracks?”
Berach’s eyes lit up immediately, and he swept out of the room, gesturing for Isa, Róisín, and Samira to follow. “I hadn’t forgotten! I simply wanted to give the Daamaret the time she needed to ensure we’ve been treating her soldiers well. Please, you really must see, it’s the pride of the Wyrmguard, of Seighart itself. It is truly something to behold!” He excimed.
Samira chuckled, and bade farewell to the Dastena. Something in her ached at separating again so soon, but she couldn’t linger, and Rani had seemed as though spending any more time together in a room would result in something unsavory. And so, once again she found herself following the Commander, at least joined now by her third, which was a relief. Despite his being needed elsewhere, Samira considered asking if he could join her throughout the pace, especially given his own need to be sworn to secrecy. A thought for ter.
The trophy room was, externally, much like many of the other rooms, a wooden double door set into the wall, a simple sign above which read “TROPHY” in pin text, carved into a dark wood pque. The Commander fiddled with a keyring, finding the right one and fitting it into the lock. The interior, as he swung open the door, was anything but pin.
Weapons and armor, belled with the names and deeds of their previous owners lined the walls of the long room, but dominating the bulk of the space were skeletons. Skeletons as a word felt too small. These were vast, twirling around the room in various poses, massive snake like creatures with broad fins that protruded from their sides, now reduced to osseous remnants of what beasts they had been before. At the far end of the room, dominating the entire wall opposite the door, was a single skull, 20 feet wide and nearly as tall, a gargantuan thing of teeth and spikes. Samira could not help herself and gasped, a reaction mirrored by Isa and Róisín, who clearly had not seen this room herself before.
“Gods,” Isa muttered, “What were these things?”
The Commander, chest puffed proudly, stood with his back to the bones that tticed the room. “Wyrms, Saamet Divan. The ancient enemies of Seighart, the very same beasts that King Odhran Thomond made war against all those centuries ago. The very same from which the Wyrmguard get their name! We defended this city from these monstrosities in the years before King Odhran, and afterward,” He grinned, “We drove them from the Reach entirely.” He stepped backward into the room, gesturing to each of the skeletons in turn. “Each of these was a great enemy of the city, each sin by past members of the Wyrmguard.” He reached the end of the room, and turned, holding his hands up towards the skull. “And this, the greatest of the wyrms, sin by King Odhran himself with his bde, Drachlás.”
“These are what makes the Reach so dangerous then? We were lucky not to come across something of this size.” Samira marvelled. Even the smallest of the Wyrms in this room was rge enough to swallow a soldier whole. She shuddered.
“No, Daamaret.” Berach said, “No wyrm has been seen in centuries. As far as we know, the ones in this room were some of the st to terrorize Eidei. The greatest legacy of the Thomonds; the elimination of the sole great threat to Seighart.” He procimed.
Samira stood, staring up at the eyeless sockets of the skull of a creature that had been dead for centuries, and in her chest, for a reason she could not describe, she felt hollow.
Samira had grown up in a noble family, and she was not, by necessity, unused to the process of being fitted for clothes. For the Chars it had been a utilitarian process, she and her brothers ushered into the seamstress’ chamber and then out in a matter of minutes, and functional, if a bit fancy for her tastes, clothing would appear in her wardrobe over the course of the following days. During her campaign in the South, stopping by a local tailor to get her clothes mended was even quicker of a process. While they had, at first, fumbled for fine thread or offered to repce garments outright, Samira had eventually gotten through to most of the tailors in the South of Thandar that when she arrived she wanted quality results rather than the option that was most aesthetically pleasing. If quality just so happened to also mean quick patching of holes, all the better.
This was not the case in Seighart. Samira had spent the better part of the st few hours having each and every part of her measured, then measured again. She hadn’t even known there were so many different types of fabric, let alone know them well enough to have an opinion on which she preferred. If she had to make a choice between two different patterns a single more time in her life she would threaten to draw a bde on whoever had the gall to ask her such an inane question. That is, if she was permitted to carry one. Something to ask the next time she had an audience with the Pact Keeper, or one of the other nobles who actually knew what the rules were inside Drachlás. Even something small and mostly ornamental would put her more at ease; as things stood she felt naked wearing her parade armor without a scabbard at her hip. Even the parade armor was only acceptable until “more proper arrangements could be made”. The idea of spending the rest of her life in silk finery made her chafe.
Even in the midst of combat, Samira had not felt so tired as she did dragging herself up the stairs back to the branch she now shared with the Princess. Each step felt leaden, and she was not even physically exhausted. Rather, the mental strain of politely smiling while the seamstress, whose name she had already forcefully shunted from her mind, asked question after question, was what weighed her down. Finally reaching the point on the spiraling staircase that corresponded to her, she paused, and looked down. The servants, the poor things, had to take these stairs every day, multiple times a day, ferrying messages, delivering food, and more. The workout was intense. If she needed to keep up her exercise, simple walking from the base of Drachlás to its highest floors would be sufficient, she expected.
Arriving at her branch, the door to each of the chambers was open, which was odd. They had each been closed, at least her own, when she had left in the morning. At once, she reached for her hip, only to find it bare, but steadied herself. This was not, after all, a battlefield, and those who come and go from the pace were kept careful track of. Odds were a servant had come by to straighten her sheets, or to dust, or some other thing that was rgely unnecessary but deemed vitally important by nobility. She would have to ask Róisín to mention to the other servants that she did not want anyone in her chambers without her being present. It did not hurt to be careful, after all. Hopefully Róisín wouldn’t squabble with her over the details of what was expected of a woman of her station, at least over this.
As she stepped into her chamber, nothing seemed amiss. That was, until she gnced at her desk, which was a mess, and not the mess that she had left it that morning. Samira rushed over, beginning to sort through the scattered papers, starting to right the books that had been toppled over, only to be startled by the sound of the door thudding shut behind her. Immediately her hand went to her hip—still bereft of a sword—and then, as she spun, to the knife that she had stowed in her boot. Just as quickly as she had drawn it and managed to turn towards the door, a cwed hand was around her neck, points digging in, not drawing blood, but only barely.
Her attacker snarled at her through shark-like teeth, and squeezed, as Samira lined her knife up with their ribs. It took her a moment, since she’d only seen this person for a moment, but-
“Oriole?” She croaked, attempting to stay still to keep talons from breaking skin.
“Silence. It is Lady Oriole, to you, and you will speak no more lest I perforate an artery.” The Tíreile sneered.
“I’ll die if you do so, but I suspect,” Samira grinned, pressing just a bit harder with the knife, parting cloth easily with the tip to press against Oriole’s side, “That I will have enough time to take you with me.”
Oriole hissed, an inhuman sound much like her voice. “Briùdell alòrache!” She leaned closer, pressing intentionally into Samira’s bde, and it pierced her skin, thin rivulets of blood running down to stain the loose white shirt she was wearing. “If you think you could harm me in a way that matters you are more of a fool than I had thought.”
“Enough! State your purpose or get it over with. I’ve had a long day and my patience is thin. Why are you here? Why this?” Samira barked.
Her attacker narrowed their eyes at her, tilting their head slightly. “You were meant to be a man.” Oriole said pinly.
“I- What?” Samira was so confused that she lowered the knife, if only slightly, “I am meant to be myself, no more and no less.”
“No,” Growled Oriole, “You-” She cut herself off with another hiss, taking a step backward and releasing Samira’s neck. “Aoife was told she was marrying a military man, a foreign general. It’s the only reason we- she didn’t protest. Expin yourself.” She began to pace back and forth in a manner reminiscent of a predatory animal, and Samira did not put away her knife.
“I’m sorry that she wasn’t told,” Samira began, “But the details of this arrangement were communicated quite clearly with Ambassador Farah, who made clear that King Adrian and all other relevant parties had been informed of every detail.” That was what she had been told, at least. “Honestly I’m not entirely clear on why this has upset you so, it is an arranged marriage, and if she has no interest in women then-”
Oriole looked toward her again, teeth bared, face darkening with rage. “It matters because she has no taste for men.” She spat. “It matters,” The Tíreile stalked towards her, hands clenching and unclenching, “Because she is mine.”
“Ah.” Samira exhaled.
“A simple loveless marriage, push out a few heirs, and then consign her husband to a lonely life wandering the halls of Drachlás. Then everything goes back to normal.” She looked Samira up and down with disdain. “But you. You are no man.”
“That I am not.” Samira said. This wasn’t a development she had been expecting. That wasn’t to say that she had expected anything that had happened since she’d arrived, but this twisted something in her gut. “If it is… the desire of the Princess, and of yourself, then I will not interfere.”
The sharp smile returned, though it was strained. “Good. But you still fail to understand. I am her pactbound. I can feel her, what she thinks, how she feels.” Oriole looked to the side, and her brilliant green eyes dimmed somewhat, as though she were focussing somewhere far away. “You will not interfere, Daamaret Samira Char,” Oriole said, the title an insult in her mouth, “Because there is a seed within her that I will not allow to grow. I felt it before, upon your introduction. Her heart is mine, but it could be yours.” Her expression fell, before sharp eyes bore into Samira once again, filled with deadly intent. “And if that comes to pass, I will make sure with every ounce of power afforded to me by my pact that you will die in agony.”
