A Song of Silk and Shadows
By Fakeminsk
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(patreon.com/fakeminsk)

Synopsis:
The old king is dead. As the great houses of Sangriferia manoeuvre to claim the Garland Crown, the fate of the realm rests on the slender shoulders of Aubriella Malveil, a young lady of the Crimson Court already burdened by secrets of her own.

Chapter One
One: The Old King’s Death

News of the old king’s death spread swiftly across Sangriferia.

In the gambling dens and weather-battered taverns of Fishtown, rough men cashed in bets on the monarch’s demise. In the halls of Houses great and small, lords plotted and prepared for war. The so-called barbarian kings of the Northern Reaches summoned councillors to their wind-swept longhouses to decide whether the death of this weak monarch was an opportunity to exploit. And in the glimmering darkness of the candlelit Obsidian Halls, the veiled virgins of the Twilight Lady began the sonorous week-long dirge that would carry the dead king to the afterlife.

But it was to the capitol that the news spread fastest, where the fashionable ladies of the Crimson Court stood, as still and sculpted as ornate columns in the opulent chambers of power. Only a year ago—but no, not even a year, not so long as that—fashion had followed the example of Princess Elowen and her unbridled spirit: long hair fell freely and the most daring women abandoned dresses and skirts in favour of clothes in the style of the princess’s riding breeches and masculine tunics. But with her tragic and scandalous death—the inevitable outcome of a father’s inability to restrain his daughter, some whispered—the liberated fashion died, as did the deviant habit of women in trousers.

Her mother, the young Queen Kalia favoured dresses, in the style of her homeland across the Stardrop Seas, elegant and free flowing, flattering to her boyish figure, tight in the waist but fluttering and shimmering like butterfly wings as she flew and danced through the many-chambered quarters of the capitol. Briefly, following her daughter’s death, the parties became ever more lavish and vibrant and wild, the desperate reaching for life that follows death. But it was in her ever-more tightly braided hair and the ever-darkening clothes she wore that her grief expressed itself, the wasting grief that eventually consumed her a short six months later.

With both Princess and Queen gone, who to dictate the female fashions of Sanguinna, the capitol, the so-called Castle of Blood sprawled across the high, flat expanse of Blood’s Rest overlooking the sea and city below? Strong-willed, striking yet distant, it was the Lady Teneira of House Malveil who took charge. During the funeral of the Queen, some doubt remained as to whose influence would reign supreme, as the ladies of the great houses vied, subtly yet fiercely, for dominance, through the cunning cut of a veil, the design of a dress, the drop and colour and texture of a skirt or daring flash of a patterned stocking.

All doubts were firmly dispelled at the Festival of the Sisters the following week. Teneira’s main rival, the Lady Timora, had yet to show her face following her debasement that evening.

Gone, then, the ruinous liberty of the Princess’s masculine attire. Some say her preference in footwear endured, in the form of delicately heeled shoes and boots, no longer designed for locking into stirrups but rather for showcasing the skilful sway of a woman’s slow walk.

(Or perhaps, some said, always men, for hooking a woman’s thighs around her lovers’ torso, for the aristocratic sluts of the Court to grip as they knelt, arms behind their back, and serviced their men.)

Gone too those loose and flowing dresses of the Queen, so well suited to wild dances and rushed walks along gardens and courtyards and gleeful chases through sun-dappled meadows. Instead, it was the memory of her grief that endured. The tight weave of her hair and the dark, heavy fabrics she wore at the end: both inspired the fierce constriction of the fashion that followed. Under Lady Teneira’s knowing smirk and baleful eyes, crushingly restrictive dresses once again seized women in their silken grasp, restricting them to the shallowest breaths and mincing gait as they hobbled in their towering shoes. Weighed down by jewellery, the heavy dangling earrings and gilt chain belts, decorated most meticulously with cosmetics, breathless in the tight grip of corsetry, the ladies of the Crimson Court became like finely sculpted figurines, poised, positioned and painted, shaped into the exquisite form that the Lady Teneira presented so naturally.

And so when the news of the old King’s death reach Lady Aubriella, it was not shock and horror alone that left her breathless.

“My lady?” Her handmaiden, the always attentive Maya, held Aubriella by the elbow. Her eyes sparkled with mirth. As a servant, she was dressed far less severely, and moved with enviable freedom. With her simple grey tunic and mousy-brown hair, she all but disappeared into the background when not directly addressed.

Together, they withdrew to one of the secluded alcoves of the Whispering Gallery. The curved walls were carved with reliefs of the great figures of the past: Talgart Atrebar, the Brave, who drove off the heathen barbarians who once skulked along the shores of the Aelgis river that now ran beneath the capitol; Aelasandra Lannorin, the Pure, whose divine visions brought the Seven Sisters; Alaric McAlasdair, the Ravenshield who seized the North. Above them all, Sangrifiera, the Sister of Sacrifice whose death brought peace, the lost Goddess after whom the Kingdom and capital city took its name.

In passing the great carved and painted history of the kingdom’s founding, Lady Aubriella’s hand, as always, reached out to brush the figure of the Ravenshield. Glittering nails, long and shaped, lingered over the bearded, fierce figure of Alaric. She felt the carved detail of the hero’s strong features beneath her graceful touch, the wide jaw and clenched muscles. He raised his massive axe, Kral, in defiance against the massed enemy hordes of the North.

Aubriella sighed, and then grimaced, her painted lips forming a worried pout. The Whispering Gallery was named for the way sound travelled along the curved walls, and people at opposite ends of the expansive chamber could hear each other’s voice. The sound of her complaint was undignified; ladies didn’t sigh, unless with pleasure; or complain, unless with desire. It wouldn’t do for other courtiers to hear.

Fortunately, the main vaulting chamber was largely empty, though the many alcoves were not. The Whispering Gallery was also named for courtiers’ tendency to use its many private nooks—from which sound most certainly did not travel—to whisper and plot in private. More nobles fell to whispered plans formed in the alcoves of the Gallery in a single year, it was said, than in a century of open combat.

With her handmaiden guiding her by the elbow, she retreated towards the nearest alcove. Aubriella glided rather than walked, her many months of training and punishment smoothing—reshaping—her stride into one that was slow and sinuous. The tightness of her dress, coiled in shimmering swaths of fabric down to her calves without vent or slit, allowed only the daintiest of steps. Every move appeared affected and deliberate, somehow both coquettish and demure. A lady, at least under current fashion, never rushed, even if she wanted to.

Fortunately, the nearest retreat was empty, quiet and dark, one of many quiet recesses that lined the central gallery. Along this side of the Whispering Gallery—the women’s side—ten archways led to small chapels dedicated to either one of the Sisters, or to the Twilight Lady in one of her three incarnations. The other side of the Gallery was for the men and therefore dedicated to the Old Gods, or the New. So it was that Aubriella took refuge under the auspices of the Sister of Submission, Untera.

Even there, in quiet and seclusion, she knew better than to give in to the grief and anger and fear that threatened to overwhelm her. As a lady it was a duty—an honour, even—to beautify the halls of the Crimson Court. As a woman she must always present her best self; as a girl, to know her place and obey; and as the youngest and only unmarried child of House Malveil she carried the reputation of her adopted family on her slender shoulders.

Such unworthy shoulders, she was often reminded; a shame to the family; a clumsy, inelegant fool, a stupid girl, weak and soft, and so very stubborn and slow in learning the finer skills of feminine aristocracy.

“My lady?”

And there was Maya, of course. Without her handmaiden, Aubriella knew she would be lost. Maya, so quick to spot any infractions; Maya, so eager to report her failings to House Mistress Castigen. Maya, who delighted in dressing her Lady, in pulling corset lacing savagely tight and then slowly and sensuously sliding stockings up her slender legs before attaching them tautly to the dangling tabs. But also, Maya who deftly deflected the most inappropriate insinuations (or outright lewdness, or aggressive advances) of privileged men and young courtiers, who guided her unfailingly through the labyrinthian back passages of the ancient palace, and who helped the inexperienced Aubriella manoeuvre the intrigues of court.

“I need—” To breathe, Aubriella wanted to say, to take in great gasps of air; but bound tightly in her corset this was impossible. To sit, to relieve the agony of burning calves and instep, but though the alcove was generously lined with padded seats, this too was impossible. A lady—especially one under Castigen’s tutelage—did not sit. Rather the opposite: it was an indicator of dignity and class, of aristocratic demeanour, to bear the challenge to its extremity. The greatest ladies were those who wore their corset the tightest, who walked with confidence in the most precarious of shoes. They did not sit—or kneel, or lie—unless at the bequest of their better, or a man or in the privacy of their own chambers.

Yet she felt the all-too familiar panic seize her, one brought on by both the constriction of her clothing and by the restrictions of her position. Aubriella’s hands fluttered at her side. She felt she might faint. A sudden, insane desire seized her—a need gripping her with all the unyielding insistence of the corset around her waist: to rip off these clothes, tear away the restrictive garments, kick off the shoes and scream, howl and rage through the whispering halls. I never agreed to this, she wanted to say, this wasn’t part of the deal.

An impossibility, of course: the corset was locked, the shoes’ lacing too intricate and unreachable in her current dress, the bodice tightly tied off behind her back. There was no escape, from either the fashions of Court or her role as a Lady. And the price to pay for such—insanity, for such disobedience—the punishment: Aubriella shuddered.

She shuddered and so she reached for the Litany of Submission. It was inscribed in heavy gilt letting over the silvered oval mirror mounted on the wall of the alcove. Untera, Sister of Submission: this was her chapel, and she invited its occupants to gaze upon themselves and yield. Even without the written reminder, Aubriella knew the litany well. It had been drilled into her as part of her training prior to joining the court.

“With downcast eyes, demure under your dominion,” she began, and the words felt heavy and her tongue thick despite months of practice. She’d little to do with the Sisters before joining House Malveil – at most, a prudent prayer to the Sister of Slaughter in passing. But never the other sisters. “I surrender to you.”

In the mirror, Aubriella saw herself and even after all these months she marvelled at what she had become. Another sparkling jewel for the Garland Crown, the embodiment of social etiquette and feminine decorum, beautiful and alluring; a flirtatious, vapid tease; a pretty, painted face; a frivolous, weak, useless girl. Her fingers curled into tight fists at her side, the long, sharp nails digging into the soft skin, and with fists clenched Aubriella squeezed her eyes shut and fought back tears.

“The litany, my lady.” Maya’s came from far away. “In submission,” the handmaiden began. “I find strength.”

“In submission, I find strength,” Aubriella repeated.

“In obedience—”

“Freedom,” she finished.

Down the ash-slurry cobblestones of Sooton Road, where artisans and craftsmen hammered and carved and wrought their wares, Aubriella knew what men thought of aristocratic women. A woman of court was a decorated vase for every flower with a prickly thorn, said the potters. A pot for every brush, to the painters; a bin for every nail to the carpenters. Along the high-walled barracks of The Walk, soldiers joked of scabbards oiled for every blade: dagger or rapier, broadsword or bastard.

“My weakness is my strength,” Aubriella continued, and with speaking her tongue loosened and the words flowed more freely. “Through surrender, I assert my true nature; my nature is manifest in the truths of the gentle grace that guides me to my place.”

The words were taught to every girl from their earliest years. From the expansive fields of the southern reaches, where warm winds and gentle rains coaxed rich golden harvests from the land to the storm-battered port cities and fishing villages nestled in the rocky crags of the West, girls—but especially those of noble heritage or aristocratic aspirations—were taught from an early age their place. Only in the wild North, where both men and women remained too proud and fierce to submit did women spurn the Sister’s words.

Aubriella continued the litany. Maya nodded in approval and remained silent as her mistress continued the recitation on her own, finishing and repeating the words with growing confidence. Her gentle murmur filled the small space with the melody of her lilting voice. With each repetition she felt her earlier panic subside. The words quashed her thoughts and fears.

Orlando, she thought. My King. This wasn’t—your protection—I can’t—like soap bubbles over a bath, her fears rose and popped and faded. Only the mantra remained, the litany, and as her fear and resentment subsided it was replaced by a desire—the terrible wanting—need, even—to submit, to surrender; to achieve the promised strength that might finally bring the peace and tranquillity for which she desperately yearned.

And for the first time since taking on the role of adopted daughter, she felt the first brush of newfound calm sweep over her, like one walking slowly through the trailing wisps of a morning fog. Surrender, yield, submit and obey – words once difficult now dripped like honey from her lips and she felt a pleasant tingle deep in her belly, a spreading warmth beneath the steel boning and metal clasps and straps and buckles and lace and ribbons that contained her. Docile, passive and meek; submission and compliance: Aubriella completed the litany a fourth and final time and closed her eyes and sighed.

A presence moved within the Chapel. The presence entered her, settled within her: it brought a comforting stillness.

A deep breath, and Aubriella gazed upon herself in the mirror.

She was beautiful.

Her eyes were a loamy, deep hazel, flecked with green as vibrant as the fertile hills of her homeland after the snows thawed and the rivers ran gorged with meltwaters. Large and expressive in the dimness of the room, there was something—haunted, in those eyes, anger or sadness yet lurked behind her new-found composure. Many had commented on those eyes in recent months, mostly men, holding her hand and speaking of her beauty with great earnestness, of the jewels buried in the rich earth of her gaze, of gardens veiled behind the thickness of fluttering lashes.

And they were right to do so, she realised: her eyes were beautiful and deep and deserving of praise. Especially considering the effort she made to highlight them, the effort of taming her heavy brows, the recently acquired skills with cosmetics, the feathering of browns and greens on the eyelids, the touch of bronze, the careful line of the pencil along the lids—Aubriella felt for the first-time genuine pride in her newfound artistry.

The same for her lips, full and skilfully painted in the dark reds popular in court, a rich velvety burgundy that contrasted with the natural paleness of her skin. Her nose, thin with a little upturn. High cheekbones and a wide forehead. A narrow, weak chin; she smiled, wryly.

But it was her namesake, the lush and luxurious reddish-brown hair that cascaded over her shoulder and down her back, that demanded
attention. Jealousy, from other women of the Court, especially those forced to rely on the nob-thatcher—the wig-maker—to fill out their threadbare scalp to meet the demands of fashion. In a court following Lady Teneira’s preference for the tight coils of elaborately woven braids, Aubriella enjoyed the freedom to wear her hair loose and full.

She watched her reflection pull long nails through thick tresses below the glittering hair net adorning her scalp and understood why. She’d cursed her hair and the effort needed to maintain it, the hundred daily strokes to subdue it, and the constant distraction of it tickling her cheeks and neck, the way it fell across her eyes, the demand for her constant attention. But in a Court filled with fiercely tamed and rigid women, her hair burst free like wildfire. Every unconscious poke, prod and sweep back of her hair drew the admiring gaze of men—and the ire of women.

Long, heavy, dangling earrings reached nearly to her shoulders and though she once found the weight nearly unbearable, they now felt comfortable, the tug at her lobes a constant reminder of her place. The large, square-cut emeralds twirled slowly, surrounded by clusters of tiny, sparkling diamonds, all set in gold burnished to a bright gleam. Around her neck, a heavy pendant decorated with another gleaming stone, a conspicuous display of wealth nestled between her breasts.

Her breasts. For so long now she’d blushed with shame and embarrassment at their size, at how swiftly they’d grown and then the way corsetry and other female trickery exhibited the fullness of her cleavage. But beyond the shame she suddenly found—pride, pleasure even, in her curves. Why deny the reality of what she saw? Her tits were gorgeous and—she bit her lip and flushed—they felt good, when touched. She felt her nipples tighten, her hand drifting upwards, the gentle warmth in her belly slowly creeping along her neck; and the reality of her femininity—the reality that men gazed upon her tits with lust and desired her and that their heavy, strong hands—to submit to that touch—could bring—what harm in yielding, after so many months of resisting…?

A warning throb below stilled her hand.

“I suppose,” Maya mused, her voice cutting through Aubriella’s distraction. “With the old king dead, there won’t be any further objection to your marriage.”

Aubriella shook her head. Submission to her fate, acceptance of the sacrifice she’d made those many months ago, yes, maybe; but this—to marry—a man!—of Lord Edmund Malveil’s choosing….?

“Surely Lord Malveil has greater concerns than the marriage prospects of an insignificant girl,” Aubriella whispered. “The King is dead.” And then stopped, and swallowed, and felt an almost overwhelming grief seize her by the throat. The King was dead. King Orlando—dead. Her King; her friend, once.

Maya shrugged. “Dead, and every house lord, minor and major with pretentions for the Garland Crown will be plotting their little plots and to what end? The throne is Edmund’s. Has been for years.”

“The support of the East rises and falls with the sun.” Aubriella repeated the well-known proverb. “And the Western houses won’t abide a king with daughters tied to southern thrones.”

“And what of the North?” Her smirk was unbefitting a servant. “Where does the North’s loyalty lie?”

“With the stone and the snow,” she answered, softly and to herself. “With wind and wyrd.” Then, because a lady didn’t say such things, she answered louder, “The McAlasdairs won’t stand for it. Angus can’t accept Malveil’s claim. The minor houses would rebel.”

“Lord McAlasdair, lady,” Maya corrected. “Earl of the North. Remember your place.”

Aubriella clenched her hands tightly together to stop their fluttering and nodded.

“My Lady Aubriella?” A voice, at the entrance to the chapel; a male presence standing just outside the threshold, a servant shadowed by the lights of the Whispering Gallery. “Lord Malveil requests your presence.”

She knew the request was anything but. She dismissed the servant with a graceful nod of the head and took a moment to compose herself. The peace she felt following her recital of the litany remained incomplete. For the first time, she felt able to suppress certain instincts and accept her place as a young girl, her role as a lady, and her position within House Malveil. But her anxiety over the future remained, as well as grief over the death of the king.

Aubriella turned to leave. Her reflection flashed in a second mirror placed opposite the first. Her image multiplied and cast itself backwards into an infinity of echoed selves. And it seemed that across the many versions of herself she glimpsed some that reminded her of who she used to be—and many, who she might yet be: an adornment to a great man’s arm; a decorative addition to a House; the demure bride; the servile wife; even the tired and devoted mother. Her breath caught in her throat. Yet she also glimpsed other selves—few and hard to discern among the many—that somehow exuded a greater strength—reminding her of a past best forgotten—and in reflection the inscribed words of the litany appeared changed, though blurred. But it was nothing more than a trick of flickering candles and darkness and when she paused and looked again, she saw nothing more than a dim and ordinary reflection.

“Not yet,” Maya murmured at her side.

Aubriella looked at her quizzically.

“The Sisters are slow to reveal themselves,” Maya added, as though it explained anything.

Aubriella looked to her handmaiden, and back to the mirror, and felt a sudden gulf between them, as though teetering at the edge of a chasm she’d hardly known existed. Swallowing against her fear, Aubriella nodded and with Maya at her side began the long, torturous walk to her Lord’s chambers.

Two: The Axe of the North

“Leave us.”

With a wave of his hand, Edmund Malveil, Earl of the South, Lord of House Malveil, dismissed the servants and sycophants, courtiers and councillors, lords and ladies that littered his hall. The guards were last leave, hesitating at the door.

“Leave!” he shouted. “Do you think I have anything to fear from—her?”

The pudgy finger indicated Lady Aubriella, standing with hands clasped before her and eyes demurely downcast. She stood at the bottom of the wide stone risers leading to her Lord’s seat. She could not have mounted the stairs to stand level with him even had she wanted or dared to, the tightness of her dress and the precariousness of her shoes making each step an exquisite challenge.

House Malveil’s halls at the capitol were lavish with conspicuous wealth accumulated over three generations of royal favour. Rich tapestries covered the walls, elaborate depictions of the House’s glorious past. Gold glistened in the dancing light from a dozen heavy braziers, and the bright fire burned in the jewels adorning Edmund’s crown, sceptre and rings. Crown and sceptre lay piled on a table near Edmund’s throne, discarded and ignored on a heap of fur-lined cloaks and richly embroidered clothing.

In contrast to the rich opulence, the Lord of House Malveil slouched in his heavy seat, a corpulent, slovenly man, unshaven and dishevelled, dressed in the full trapping of wealth worn with absolute disregard. Once, he’d been regarded as a handsome man, a powerful man: tall, strong and fearsome, with dark eyes and a perpetual smirk. A tapestry triptych portrayed him at the front of the King’s armies at the Battle of Trath Hill, steeped in blood and slaughter; carving a path through his enemy; and the final encounter with Lady Jahara, single-handedly defeating the heretical acolyte and fallen mother—a tale as fanciful as it was glorious, securing his house’s dominance for another generation.

But those days were far behind him. Now, Edmund drew a sharp contrast with the surrounding fashionable trappings. His sister, the Lady Teneira Malveil, dictated the fashions of Court and the decorations of his hall, but she exerted little influence over him and he often seemed to derive a perverse, almost childish pleasure in ignoring her efforts at cultivating style and sophistication.

Above all else, he exuded boredom—a dangerous, cunning ennui that found diversion in games played for their own sake. He exerted
power because power existed to be exerted; for no greater reason than that.

They were alone now. Earl Edmund Malveil slouched chin in palm and drummed the armrest with his fingers. Heavy rings glinted with the rhythmic movement. He stared down at the demure girl, his adopted daughter Aubriella, who remained standing with eyes fixed on the floor. Her handmaiden also remained. It never occurred to him to dismiss the servant; she was ubiquitous at her mistress’s side, and he almost instantly forgot her presence.

He’d once diverted himself and taken pleasure in watching Aubriella’s gradual acquiescence to her role, her struggle and shame, the slow but inexorably erosion of her former stubbornness and submersion under layers of silks and lace, weighed down by jewellery and the constant, grinding minutiae of her life at Court. To see her there so tightly ensconced in femininity should have brought him exquisite joy, but it had been nearly a year now and instead he felt only the first stirrings of the old boredom. Yes; boredom, even though he had planned for and anticipated this very day for the past year. There was little pleasure for Edmund in bringing a plot to fruition, not when its completion meant the utter defeat of his rival. He felt instead a rather strange sort of sadness; a familiar feeling, for this was hardly the first foe he’d destroyed.

“House Mistress Castigan reports you are doing well.” He watched the girl carefully, judging her reaction. “You make a very pretty bauble for the Crimson Court.”

Aubriella bobbed her head. “Lady Castigan is too kind, my lord,” she murmured. She had yet to meet his gaze.

“How so?”

“I remain a clumsy fool,” she said. “A silly and stupid girl.”

Her response sparked his interest. Her previous—antagonism and seething resentment was absent; what had changed?

“True,” he conceded. “And yet I am plagued by courtiers expressing their interest,” he added. “They extol at length your charms and beauty: the sparkle of your eyes and the divine glow of your face and the fiery radiance of your hair. They speak of the sweetness of your breath, the allure of your full lips and the hope of a honeyed kiss.” He barked with laughter. “And your tits; yes, they speak of your full, snowy-white tits and your tight ass and the promise of a wet aristocratic cunt beneath those tight dresses.”

Aubriella remained silent.

“In other words, these men desire marriage, adopted daughter.” Edmund leaned forward, the chair creaking beneath his weight. “What think you of that, hmm? Of marriage?”

Finally, Aubriella raised her eyes. Auburn curls tumbling back over her shoulder. Earrings twirled and between the emerald flare of gemstones, she stared up at her lord and in her eyes burned hatred and fury and shame and fear. But the flush of emotions was quickly suppressed. A flutter of the eyes and her placid calm resumed, but the flash was enough to briefly excite Edmund.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and swallowed nervously. Her hand fluttered at her side before smoothing down the front of her dress. “It is an honour,” she finally said, “One I have never dreamed of.”

“Never?” Edmund sneered. “I’m sure. Well. Think on it now, girl, it’s why we brought you into the family. The men are lining up. They want to fuck you, Aubriella, spread your legs and plant their seed in your belly and secure an alliance with House Malveil.”

He watched her shiver and took some delight in that, as he did in the thought of the girl perched in her towering shoes and bent over some insignificant minor lord’s table with her ass in the air, dress hiked up around her waist and legs spread and trembling in anticipation. Or on her knees, face impaled on the man’s cock, moaning with indignity and need.

“After all, the king is dead, and the vultures are circling. Like—” He paused, as though in remembrance of old words. “Like flies to shit.”

Aubriella’s eyes dropped.

“Isn’t that what you used to say? Hmm?”

Again, she remained silent.

“Answer me!”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Yes, my lord,” he mimicked, in a little girl’s voice.

But what she said next took him surprise. Her tone was gentle—tired and a little sad, but entirely absent of her old anger. “How can you hate me so much?” she asked.

Her question angered him. It angered Edmund because he read in the question an implied power over him, a power he no longer held over her. To be able to provoke hatred, love, or any strong emotion within another was to have power over them, he knew, and he felt the diminishing of his own influence over this girl.

And all the possible answers rushed forward from deep within and filled him with old anger and resentment. He could say: because not long ago, your presence was a constant reminder of what I used to be. Or: because of my dearly departed wife and the whispers that once filled the Court. Or: because your stubbornness and stupidity and blindness would have ruined us all, your love for that fool of a dead king would have destroyed this kingdom and denied me what is rightfully mine.

Or perhaps even: but I don’t hate you and never have; that this is not hate; this is power and the nature of power is to be grasped and used or it is lost. Once, you had this power; you failed to use it; and now you are mine.

But instead, he said, “because you insulted me,” which was also true—the pettiest and therefore most true of his reasons. “Behind my back and to my face. You were so full of yourself, so high and mighty, above us all and looking down at the Court, at courtiers, at the nobility and at men—at men like me.

“You mocked me—openly!—and made a mockery of the games we played, believing yourself better as though there was greater honour in the open blade than the veiled knife. Perhaps you should have paid more attention and learned to play.” He laughed, an ugly sound from the back of his throat. “If you’d played the game better perhaps it would be you, sitting comfortably in this high chair and me in bonds of silk below.” His mockery died on the tongue, the idea of him—in her position—perched and pinioned by fashions of his sister’s choosing an impossibility, a hideous farce. He could never consent to such a fate; not as the fool below had.

“Weak, you called us.” He sneered at the girl. “Soft, you called us.” With elbows on both knees, he leaned forward in his seat, fingers interlaced over the bulge of his belly. He gestured with a single, ring-laden finger. “Who’s soft now, Aubriella?”

“I am,” she whispered.

“Show me.”

Her eyes widened. He saw a terrible dread there, the fear of humiliation, and it briefly excited him. But her fear faded quickly, sinking beneath the same placid calm she’d carried with her into his hall. She stared back at him and he stared back at her and then slowly she raised her hand and brought it to her chest. Her fingers slid within the low neckline of her dress and curled into the softness of the flesh she found there. Under the watchful eyes of her lord, Aubriella pawed at her own breasts.

“What do you feel?” he asked.

“Softness,” she said.

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Close your eyes,” he ordered. “And keep at it, girl. I want to hear you.” He allowed himself a moment of pleasure, watching Aubriella grope herself. Her mouth parted and she sagged slightly, a quiet moan escaping her lips.

But the pleasure was fleeting and because her question still annoyed him, Edmund diverted from the script he’d long planned for this encounter. He reached down by the side of his seat. He retrieved an axe where it lay affixed, one of a pair mounted on either side of his throne. Unlike many of the weapons lining the walls of the hall, this one wasn’t ornamental. It was an ugly, brutal thing: a simple wooden shaft with a metal ball, dull iron and pitted at one end. The other end was edged and jagged and hooked. It was a weapon designed to kill rather than decorate.

Edmund hefted the weapon. It was heavy but weighted for throwing. Below, Aubriella continued to pleasure herself at his command. How long, he briefly wondered, would she keep at it? But her debasement already bored him. With a grunt, he tossed the weapon. It fell with a loud clatter at her feet.

The young woman’s eyes flew open.

“Take it,” Edmund ordered.

With some difficulty, Aubriella retrieved the weapon. The precarious height of her shoes and the tightness of her dress made bending or kneeling difficult. Slowly, and with exquisite grace born of incessant training and practice, she reached for the axe. She wiggled within her dress and bent slightly at the knees but mostly from the waist, with her ass high in the air. Heavy breasts hung pendulously, threatening to slip free of their bodice, and jewellery spun and sparkled as her hair cascaded nearly to the stone floor.

Her fingers curled around the shaft. Their delicate paleness and vividly painted nails drew a sharp contrast with the dark wood and cold metal. With just as much care she straightened, and stood, with the axe held loosely in her hand.

Edmund could see the strain in her slender arms and shoulders, yet she carried the weapon with ease and comfort. Weapon in hand, she seemed to visibly relax. Her entire posture changed and despite the cripplingly long and shaped nails that were the fashion of Court, the weapon somehow sat easily in her grip. When she looked up at him, he felt a delicious thrill of danger.

“You thought us weak, once,” he said. His mocking smile was gone.

From behind her veil of auburn hair, glimmering with its decorative net of precious stones, Aubriella considered the axe.

“Who’s weak now?”

She looked up at him. He thought he saw her tremble with the desire she must feel. Edmund watched her judge the distance between them and evaluate the weight of the weapon and her grip tightened slightly and—

With a dull knell against the stone floor, the axe dropped to the floor.

“I am,” she murmured.

“Good girl,” he said, and felt both elated and disappointed. He gestured at the weapon on the floor. “That axe belonged to our great rival,” he added. “It belonged to Duncan McAlasdair, the Axe of the North.” And he shifted his great bulk back into his chair, rubbing at an unshaven cheek with one hand. Edmund sighed. “And what happened to the Axe, I wonder, hmm, girl? Can you tell me that?”

Her gaze dropped once again and she hid behind the lustrous fall of her hair. “He is dead,” she said.

“Dead?” he repeated.

“Yes, my lord.”

“And how did he die?”

“In service to his King,” she answered. “Doing his duty.”

“He died a failure,” Edmund spat. “And a traitor.”

Aubriella flinched but remained silent.

“Castigan’s taught you well, hasn’t she?” Edmund said and laughed, though the girl’s newfound composure continued to annoy him. “Tell me, girl: where’s that celebrated pride and arrogance now, hmm? The stubbornness? The anger?”

Her lips moved in response, too quiet to hear. He leaned forward. “What’s that? Speak up, girl!”

“… my true nature," she murmured at the threshold of his understanding. "My nature is manifest in the truths of the gentle grace that guides me to my place.”

“Enough prattle!” He growled in the back of his throat. He recognized the litany, of course, and had heard its women’s words on their lips often enough. And though her apparent submission made his plans all the easier, there remained something unnerving in Aubriella’s newfound capitulation to her role.

“Undress,” he ordered.

Aubriella started. “My lord?”

“You heard me,” he barked.

This, too, had never been part of his script, the orchestration of his foe’s final debasement. Edmund had seen her naked often, from her initial imprisonment in the dungeons below these very Halls, to the days of her training, blindfolded and broken, in the dimly lit and cloyingly scented back rooms of the pleasure dens of Petal Street.

She gaped at him for a moment, lips forming a very pretty painted ‘O’ of dismay. She looked around for an ally and found only her handmaiden Maya once again at her side. But the handmaiden remained impassive and offered nothing. A slow flush blossomed across her chest and crept up Aubriella’s neck.

“My lord, it is—” She struggled to find the word to adequately express her feeling. “Improper.”

“For a merchant to inspect his wares?” Edmund sneered.

“I am— more than goods to trade.”

“As you are mine,” he answered. “I give you to my friends. You are an unmarried woman; my daughter; you are chattel.”

“But—”

“Do as I say!” he roared, his voice echoing across the chambers. Spittle flew and he heaved himself to his feet, gesturing imperiously at the girl below. The door to the hall flew open; a guard stood at the threshold, sword half-drawn from its scabbard: “OUT!” Edmund thundered, and the door slammed shut once more.

He spun back to Aubriella. “Undress! Or I’ll undress you myself.”

Aubriella, aristocratic lady of the court and his adopted daughter, flushed and trembled with must have been the effort of suppressing her rage and humiliation. And yet she submitted, eyes dropping away from her lord’s mocking, angry glare.

Edmund licked his lips and watched with keen interest. With the handmaiden’s help, off came the long, tight dress, an undertaking of no small effort. But once the laces were untied and the garment loosened and carefully tugged down the girl’s hourglass form, Aubriella was finally able to step free of it and then she stood before her lord in corset and stockings, heels and panties.

She glittered with the reflected light like a brilliant ornament, the multitude embroidered gemstones in her undergarments and hair casting back the light of the braziers. Her cheeks and lips gleamed, and her whole body flushed red with shame as she shivered in her partial nakedness.

He took an unexpectedly fierce pleasure in seeing her diminutive form and womanly curves. He knew little of such things, but the corset seized the girl around the waist like a vice; he could only imagine its discomfort, or the annoyance of suspenders and stockings, the difficulty in affixing them and the distracting tug that must accompany every move. Some part of him wondered how she endured it, the constant grip, the enforced assiduousness of every gesture and step and the incessant petty details that now comprised her life, one so different than before.

Next, the handmaiden loosened the long laces of the shoes that wound up Aubriella's calves to just below the knee. Again, Edmund marvelled at this pulling back of the veil, the revelation of feminine mysteries to which he’d never paid attention—with scorn, of course, and mockery, yet he couldn’t deny a grudging recognition of his rival’s mastery of such foolishness. To even stand in such precarious, fluting things, the tapering heel and high arch and tall platform; not just stand yet alone walk—impossible; yet hidden behind the shifting hems of their dresses, the women of the court manoeuvred in them daily. As did Aubriella, Edmund thought, and smiled.

With great care, Aubriella stepped down from her tall footwear. Then the stockings, which the handmaiden gently rolled down her mistress’s legs.

Maya stopped at that and stood next to Aubriella. Both girls stared at the floor in silence, as though in shared suffering under the oppressive glare of the man standing over them.

“Well?” He licked his lips, swallowed and pointed. “The rest of it!” he demanded.

Maya glanced up, as though ashamed to meet his gaze—or rather, ashamed by his demand rather than by her position. But her voice was clear and cool when she answered. “Lady Castigan has instructed the Lady Aubriella’s corset should not be removed without her express consent.”

“Am I Lord of this House, or she?” he roared. “Remove it!”

“It is locked, my Lord.”

“Then unlock it!” In a rage that took him by surprise, he reached down the other side of his throne. He yanked the second axe, the twin to the one that remained at Aubriella’s feet, free from its mount and brandished it at the girls. “Or must I come down there and slice her free myself?”

With unnerving, impassive confidence, the servant stared back at him before giving a little shrug and returning to her mistress. She retrieved a tiny key from a hidden pocket and with it released a lock that secured the panel over the concealed laces. A few minutes more, and she loosened her mistress’s corset and assisted her in releasing the busk closures. The corset opened and fell away and was carefully laid out on the stone floor over Aubriella’s dress, a colourful swath of embroidered steel and lace.

Aubriella nearly swooned with her release. She took a deep, shuddering breath and caressed her sides. Maya gently moved her arms up over her head and undid and removed the simply cotton shift worn beneath the corset, so that when Aubriella finally straightened and turned back towards her lord, she stood naked but for the final silky scrap of fabric preserving her modesty. Her large, rounded breasts hung free, and the scented oils from her morning bath gave her skin a luminous sheen in the firelight.

One hand drifted to conceal the delicate panties, the other trying in vain to cover her fulsome chest. Again, Edmund marvelled at—and took dark pleasure in—the extent of her transformation, at how her body had moulded itself to the enforced curves of her corsetry and retained that shape even when released from it.

“All of it,” Edmund ordered.

Maya went to draw the panties down but Aubriella looked at her and shook her head. Staring up at the man standing high above her, she slowly slid the underwear down her lithe legs and stepped free, kicking the scrap of silk aside with a flick of her foot.

They stood like that for a moment, a frozen tableau of two young women and the man standing over them.

“And so there it is, finally.” Edmund broke the silence. “The so-called Axe of the North.”

The 'Axe of the North' was tightly wrapped in a filigree prison of finely woven filaments, a steelsilk sleeve as delicate as it was strong, tautly restrained between her smooth thighs and tied back between her ass cheeks to a thin gold chain encircling her narrowed waist. Within the sheath, Edmund could she Aubriella’s cock, impressive in girth and length, semi-engorged with denial and humiliation, but painfully constrained. Castigan has explained to Edmund that the web and spiral of wire-thin threads promised pain rather than pleasure should its contents swell too large. The final humiliation was an intricate lacing of decorative bows and pretty decorations adorning the masculine organ.

"So tell me, girl—” Edmund stopped and laughed, though with little humour. “Enough of this. So tell me—Duncan—once Earl of the North, the Lord McAlasdair and sovereign of all that house’s territories and holdings; yes, do tell me, so-called Axe of the North—my soft and weak adopted daughter—what shall I do with you?”

Standing naked but for the cage around her penis, Edmund’s emasculated foe remained silent. Edmund walked towards her—towards him; it pleased him to think of Duncan, now, this foe, his conquered enemy; there was greater pleasure to be derived from flaunting his victory over the man than some insignificant girl.

“How do I marry off a girl with—that—between her thighs?" he mused as he descended the stone steps separating them. He still held the axe in his hand, and its flat edge bumped against his thigh. “What man is going to want to marry a girl with more meat between her legs than he, hmm? What do I do with you?”

Duncan continued to watch him in silence and in shame. He hugged his naked frame with slender arms and dropped his eyes to the floor. He hid behind the fall of auburn hair.

“Perhaps I could sell you to one of the pleasure palaces of Petal Street,” Edmund said. “A girl of your beauty would fetch a good price. They’d find a use for your defect, I imagine.”

Duncan gasped, looking up with eyes wide in horror. Edmund saw in those eyes the memory of the time spent in those soft-cushioned rooms. Lady Castigan’s training and punishment early into Duncan’s transformation had done a lot to break the man’s initial resistance. Edmund recollected his own visit with great pleasure, the sight of his rival kneeling before him, blindfolding, tightly bound, tits on display, mouth open and inviting….

Duncan’s arms drew tighter around his slight frame in fear. “No—you swore an oath!”

“Still, seems a waste,” Edmund continued, ignoring her. “And I suppose Castigan would be furious. Though angering that bitch and reminding her of her place could be reason enough…?” He pretended to seriously contemplate the idea and forced a grin at his enemy’s fear.

Finally, he shook his head as though dismissing the idea. “Nevertheless,” he continued. “No. I am sure there are better uses for you. Marriage seems most prudent. It is why we needed another daughter, after all.” Though a year distant, Edmund still felt a certain—regret—at the loss, at the necessary sacrifice of a valuable pawn. “Following your failure to safeguard the original, hmm, Duncan?”

It amused him to see that the shame and regret of his supposed failure still haunted his defeated rival.

“It was—”

“Your duty,” Edmund chided. He descended the final step and stood before Duncan. He towered over the other—man—now: free of those ridiculous shoes, and with his once formidable height and build melted away, Duncan’s diminutive form barely reached Edmund’s shoulders. The larger man took Duncan’s chin between his thick fingers and forced those beautiful eyes up to meet his. He gazed into those deep, green and earth-brown eyes behind their full, feminine lashes, framed in precisely painted colours, and sought the tightly bound, furiously raving man that he knew must lurk behind the doe-like placidity. “And failing in one oath,” he added, and brushed the back of his beefy hand across his cheek, “You accepted another.”

“But not this,” Duncan whispered. “Never—"

“And so to marriage,” he continued, “as must any dutiful daughter.” From cheek to neck: he shifted his grip and held Duncan firmly by the neck and forced her head this way and that, as though inspecting for damages. “But then, to whom, hmm?

“After all, I imagine there are more than a few Lords, both lesser and great, who would love nothing more than to have the great Duncan McAlasdair as their subservient bride?” Edmund’s smile was cold and calculating, as his thick fingers roughly pushed through Duncan’s tresses. The earrings he wore, and the pendant; they were familiar to him, though he couldn’t recall why. Relics of the household, he suspected, heirlooms of the past. Castigan would have chosen them for reasons beyond him, some petty veiled code, the irrelevant language of female fashion. “As their personal plaything, hmm, don’t you think?

“Would you enjoy that, Duncan? A lifetime of mincing about in dresses servicing the needs of an Ancaster or a Mallas or a Pollox? Imagine the pleasure Lord Allan Togruk would take in your debasement? The joy that old, fat sadist would derive from your suffering? What would he have you do, I wonder? Can you imagine what he would make you wear, the bindings, the torture, the humiliation?”

“You swore an oath,” Duncan whispered.

Edmund’s touch slid down the slender form, caressing sloping shoulders and skin as smooth as that of any expensive Petal Street prostitute. He relished the way Duncan trembled beneath his touch. “As did you,” he said, and grabbed the man’s breasts. His grip was rough, and he pinched the nipple and enjoyed the way his victim whimpered. “An oath, hmm? Before the Old Gods and the New, in the full knowledge of everything that entailed.”

“Not—” Edmund twisted the nipple between his fingers, and Duncan gasped in pain, knees buckling, and moaned and swayed and squeezed his eyes shut as though to escape his predicament. “This; I never—”

“Thought it would lead to this?” Suddenly bored, Edmund shoved the man away. Duncan stumbled and fell the ground and clapped his small hands to his large breasts. “No, I don’t imagine you did. You were never much of a thinker, were you, hmm? Good with an axe; not so good with a brain.”

Shaking his head in mock disappointment, Edmund turned his back on his former enemy. “And yet, as much pleasure as it might bring me to know of your girlish suffering under some minor ally, it still seems a waste of a valuable resources. You should thank me, really: as Aubriella, you don’t need much a brain. You are, after all, a very pretty girl.

“The promise of marriage to the right family could help secure their support for the Throne,” he mused, as though this decision hadn’t been made a year ago. He turned to face Duncan, who remained crumpled to the floor with a look of resignation on his pretty face.

“But as I said—who would marry you when you have—that?” He pointed at the place between Duncan’s smooth thighs. “Hmm? Not with that; no.”

Beautiful eyes widened with realisation. “Please, no,” Duncan moaned. “Not again,” he said, and trembled with must have been remembered pain.

“But your transformation is so nearly complete, Duncan.” Edmund smiled. “Removing that final vestige of the past is doing you a favour! The pain should be mercifully brief—there’s so little that remains, after all.”

Duncan whimpered. “But it’s all I have left, all that remains of—”

Edmund sneered. “Of—what?”

Duncan stared up at him. Vivid, fertile eyes, deep and rich and yet, Edmund realised, unchanged from his previous life—longer lashes and cosmetics and naturally wider expressions may give those eyes their feminine expression, but they had always been beautiful.

Duncan sagged, shoulders slumping.

“Of—nothing.”

Edmund smile was a thin line of triumph. “Precisely. And so must it be. A sweet, tight, wet nothing between those thighs. And as for marriage—”

And here he paused for dramatic effect. His smile grew, and he felt a wicked thrill of anticipation race through him. This was his moment: the moment in which the North fell, the McAlasdairs crumbled, and the throne became his.

“I can think of no better marriage than to Angus McAlasdair, Earl of the North and sovereign of its lands.”

His moment of triumph did not go as intended.

One second, Duncan was on the floor, an utterly defeated enemy, soft and weak and pathetic, a mewling helpless, naked girl entirely at his mercy. And the next—

Duncan was behind him. A sharp blow to the back of Edmund’s legs dropped him. His knees hit the stone floor and he gasped with pain. He flailed out with his arm—still holding the axe—there was a sharp, sudden pain at the elbow—then numbness—and the weapon dropped.

It was in Duncan’s hand before it hit the ground; but then, it had always been his, Edmund remembered, the weapon had always belonged to the Axe of the North.

One sharp blade was at his neck. Edmund tensed as Duncan pressed up against him. He felt the knee in his lower back and the pillowy softness of naked breasts pushing into the thick meat of his shoulder. He felt the cold metal sleeve poking into his thigh, and a sharp prick at his crotch: the second axe was there, the barbed hooked end digging into his scrotum.

He had forgotten: forgotten what it meant to be the Axe of the North, the almost supernatural speed with which the greatest warriors of those brutal lands carried themselves. It had been too long—he had come to believe the jealous lies of Court and the casual dismissal of the stories that trickled south. Edmund had suppressed his own memories of battles long ago alongside his once friend and brother—then rival—now daughter—the way Duncan moved, the elegant dance of carnage as he flitted among his enemies and the heavy hewing of the axe, the spout of blood, the cries of agony, and his exultant songs of slaughter. One man in a generation earned the title Duncan bore; and he had never passed it on to a successor.

It had been a mistake to strip his foe of clothing, Edmund realised, a foolish indulgence to give in to his desire to see Duncan humbled and naked. Released from the tight dress that limited his stride, the corset that constricted and the shoes that crippled, the Axe once again danced and promised vengeance.

“Perhaps you’d like to join me, Edmund,” Duncan purred. “In having a wet slit of your own?”

And it excited him, the female nakedness pressed up against him; it excited him, the edge at his neck, the blade at his cock. This close, the scent of bath oils and floral perfumes wounds its floral tendrils around him and Edmund grew hard and his breathing laboured.

But he dared not move. Erotic or not, Edmund had no intention of dying and knew Duncan would not hesitate to cut his throat if he called out or struggled. Olds Gods and New, but the man had reason enough to cut him down.

But for his oath, of course.

“Just like old times, hmm, Duncan?”

Duncan’s breath was hot on his cheek. “We were brothers, Edmund,” Duncan hissed. Even in anger and betrayal, his voice remained lilting and melodic. Auburn tresses tickled Edmund’s cheeks as his enemy spoke. “At Trath.” Edmund felt his gaze drawn towards the tapestry, the triptych of his glory at the Battle, guided by the gentle insistence of the blades at neck and groin. “Why don’t you tell me, you fat fucking slug, what you see there.”

“Glory,” Edmund answered without hesitation.

“Lies,” Duncan spat. “That battle was won by me.” His grip on Edmund tightened, the blades drawing closer; a bead of blood blossomed like a flowering bud and trickled down his neck. “Then, like now, by my sacrifice.”

Edmund chuckled, though he felt only disgust at the memories Duncan provoked. “You were always quick to give yourself over to—a cause.”

“For the good of the people,” Duncan said. “Out of loyalty to the King.”

Edmund laughed, a grim sound. “Serve your king, then. For I will be King, soon; the Garland Crown will be mine and House Malveil will rule for generations.”

Silence, then. “You would marry me to my own brother and provoke the fury and disgust of the Gods,” Duncan said, and his little girl’s voice was appalled.

“I would marry you to your brother and forge an alliance between our families that will bring unity to the kingdom and peace to the land for generations.”

“The people would not stand for a union steeped in sin.”

“What sin? The people know only Aubriella, adopted daughter of House Malveil.”

“The House Lords of the North would rebel.”

“The House Lords of the North will abide by your brother’s decision when your own sacred rituals reveal that Aubriella is a true daughter of the North, and that fine, worthy Northern blood flows through her veins.”

Edmund felt no hesitation in Duncan, no weakening, and the threatening blades did not waver. Yet he also felt his foe’s laboured breathing and confusion.

“The Gods would destroy us. The taint of incest would be the undoing of the House.”

At that, Edmund did laugh—a genuine laugh—at Duncan’s foolish adherence to old ways. “Still a fool, hmm, Duncan?” he said. “And such arrogance! The Gods have greater concerns than a man fucking and planting his seed in his own transformed brother. The Gods do not care, Duncan.”

“Those of the North do.”

Idiotic Northern exceptionalism, Edmund thought, and realised he was once again growing bored—bored despite the threat of death, bored by this pointless discussion with his foe. “So be it, then. Throw the kingdom into chaos. Provoke a war between the Earls of the Compass. Destroy everything your beloved King Orlando built and—kill me.” Edmund grimaced. “But for the love of the Gods, enough of your idiotic prattle.”

A long pause, and he felt Duncan’s grip tighten around him and for a terrifyingly exciting moment, Edmund thought he might actually do it: kill him; and he felt the cold pangs of genuine fear for the first time in years.

Duncan girl’s voice was loud in his ear. “Even after everything you’ve done to me, taken from me—that small and weak and naked, I still beat you. I have you at my mercy; can gut you like a fish, slit your fat slug belly from scrotum to throat and let the filth spill out onto the floor.” Both blades pushed into the soft, fat, yielding flesh beneath and in that moment Edmund realised—he’s going to kill me; I’m going to die; and his innards clenched with fear and—

“Your oath, my lady.” The girl stood before him: Maya, the handmaiden, with her attention fixed on Duncan.

“Yes,” Edmund repeated, voice high and shrill. “Your oath!”

“Not to you, you stupid man!” Maya said, and her voice rang like a bell in his ears, and when she turned on him her eyes flared and his blood ran cold. Then her focus returned to Duncan, and she spoke gently. “To Untera,” she said. “To the Sister.”

“Listen to her, Duncan!” Edmund pleaded.

A long pause, a heavy weight before Duncan withdrew the axes from neck and groin. He gave a sniff. “You’ve shat yourself, Eddy.”

Edmund groaned and heaved himself to his knees and clapped a hand to his neck and felt the blood there. And before him he saw—Aubriella, his daughter; not Duncan, his foe; even as she trembled and fell back and her eyes widened at the realisation of what she’d just done, and what she’d just given up.

With a final, primal scream, she spun and flung first one axe, and the next, at his throne. With a dull thud, both weapons embedded themselves deep within the thick wood, directly where Edmund’s head would rest when sitting.

And then with a final shudder, the girl stood meek and submissive before him once more, eyes downcast. “My name is Aubriella,” she said.

To be continued…

Author’s Notes:
This was a semi-commissioned piece off of my Patreon. Before returning to writing the next chapter of Constant in All Other Things, I wanted to try my hand at writing a shorter piece of fiction. A patron had an idea for something they wanted to see developed further. The patron provided a number of characters (Duncan, Edmund, Angus), some ideas regarding the setting and plot—and I took it from there and ran with it. I hadn’t anticipated writing Fantasy, but this has been great fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading it!

I suppose it’s a failure in terms of being a “short” piece of fiction. I’m over halfway done the next part already, so the overall piece is currently sitting at just under 16k words, and I anticipate the whole thing’ll be about double that so… not really a short story. Short story adjacent. An almost-novella.

Even worse, I can imagine spinning this out into a much more robust, better-developed story, hitting 80k-100k with it, easily. The worldbuilding has been a bit slap-dash as I’ve rushed along, and there’s a real allure to going back, thinking it through and fleshing it out properly. Same with the characters; it’d be fun to give them a little bit more room to breathe, build up some backstory, and so on.

So—a failure as an attempt to write a short story, but hopefully you enjoy it as a longer piece. Let me know in the comments or in a review what you thought of it and whether you’d like to see more. Is there a market for this kind of thing?

Or, if you’d like to see what’s already available, why not check out the Patreon, join the conversation, and see this and other works in progress?

Finally, credit given where it’s due: I read Orson Scott Card’s Hart’s Hope a few months ago, which I’d read as a teen, largely forgotten and picked up again on a bit of a whim. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it’s influenced a bit of the worldbuilding—possibly the original seed for the Sisters in this. And I was reading N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season whilst writing this, so that’s probably floating around in there somewhere. Definitely influenced the next chapter, which is written in the second person.