We are the gilded circlet that rests upon Novem’s crown. Without Novem, we are naught but shiny metal, prone to deformation at the slightest pressure. With Novem, we are divinity itself.

  Risha, in all her precocious thirteen-year-old glory, had regarded those words as quite presumptuous when she had first heard them. Presumptuous, and at once self-deprecating.

  The royal family had been blessed by the High Daimon for millennia, granted a mandate of governance over all others in Novem. Concurrently, to presume that they were anything more than gifted mortals was, as she had thought, the height of foolishness.

  She should’ve known that her father had been speaking in metaphors, as he was wont to. Anyone who knew him for long enough would also know that Arumaben the Discerning was rarely direct with his words.

  Alas, thirteen-year-old Risha had not known this, at the time. She would come to learn of this particular quirk of her father’s in the years that followed.

  What happens, father, to a Novem without a circlet?

  The gloomy thought suited her current mood quite nicely. She was currently in the safety of her room, mindlessly caressing the Iruni fabric splayed across her lap, the emerald sequins dotting its surface shifting like the scales of a fish in the breaking light of the early morning.

  The fabric had been his last gift to her, before his disappearance. Before she and everyone else in the family had felt their connection to Novem’s High Daimons fluctuate dangerously. Before the burning within them, once a raging bonfire had dimmed to mere embers.

  Risha stood up from the mattress and glided towards the window with grace born from her blessed line and years of long practice. She stared through the smudged windows at the vista beyond.

  The Suncrowned Manse was a sprawling building, grand in its construction and blinding in its radiance. It was almost a city in miniature, and Risha, from where she stood, could not see where the Manse ended and the capital began.

  She blinked and then exhaled. Ashe flooded her veins with the coolness of ice and the hair-rising intensity of primeval awareness. Her eyes sharpened, and her view became something…other.

  The world was almost discolored, prismatic, and kaleidoscopic in a way that was disorienting to one who was not used to the Sight. She saw legions of ephemeral eidolons, whirling through the air, riding the rays of the sun, slumbering in the solidity of the earth. Their forms were alien and indistinct, most of them on the very edge of formlessness, if not for the light of ashe that pulsed from the center of their being.

  Risha looked up at the sun, squinting at it as directly as even a pair of enhanced eyes like hers could manage, which was not much better than normal naked eyes could manage against the sun itself. What she saw, or rather did not see, did not surprise her, though it disappointed her and pushed her to the precipice of despair.

  There was something almost wane, listless, about the light of the sun. The High Daimon, who was the patron of the Royal House of Ese, was surely still in existence, or else the very sun itself might’ve vanished from the sky, plunging the entire world into eternal darkness.

  No. The High Daimon was still there, even if she could not gaze upon his glory as she had been able to just a few weeks ago. He had simply…turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to House Ese. He had withdrawn his patronage, divested himself of their worship, and retreated to his gilded halls to continue his ashe-forged function with little regard for the well-being of the mortals who previously thrived under the auspices of his enduring light. That much was true, uncontested; the useless lines of golden tattoos that had since lost their unique luster could attest to that fact.

  What Risha wanted to know was why. Why?

  What had they done? Had they offended their patron, somehow?

  After centuries of whimsical rulers and the transient nature of some of those who had borne his blessing without fear of losing it, what offense had they committed in this age that was so egregious as to make him turn his face away in disgust?

  “Ba-Risha, Your Serenity?”

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  Rishia startled out of her trance and looked towards the origin of the voice.

  She blinked rapidly; tears had gathered in her eyes sometime in the last minute without her knowing.

  With a second to compose herself, she focused on the one who had called her, though she already knew who it was.

  “Dunyari,” she greeted with a smile, approaching her brother. He stood reclining against the door frame. How Risha had missed the opening of her sangoma wood doors was a mystery to her, but at least she knew that no one but Dunyari would have the audacity to enter without her permission.

  She flung the Iruni dress on the camwood hanger next to her bed, and the beads that decorated it rattled with the disturbance. Almost unthinkingly, she swept her brother into her arms, hugging him tightly. He hugged her in return, the few inches of height that he had on her allowing him to settle his chin on her head.

  They stayed in silence for a moment. Risha’s throat was suddenly clogged with emotion, and it took a surge of willpower to wrestle it down. When she did, she disengaged from her brother and responded sarcastically;

  “The last time I checked, I am to be referred to as Your Ascendancy, am I not?”

  Her brother simply laughed at her. His face was rougishly handsome and was made even more so with the exoticness of the golden Oyanri markings that decorated it. The Oyanri markings that was now all but obsolete, since House Ese had been abandoned by her patron.

  “Until the ceremony ends, you’ll always be my Serenity, sister.” He said, moving backward and smiling down at her.

  “Besides, it suits you.” He continued.

  Risha easily spotted the mischievous twinkle in his amber eyes, and she knew that she could not allow him his small victory.

  “Need I remind you which of the both of us has led troops to battle?”

  “To suppress some fringe bandits, yes,” was his sharp rejoinder. “Quite the perilous quest, I am led to believe.”

  “Indeed. I lost two good horses that day.”

  With that, the both of them devolved into laughter, a surge of humor that momentarily chased away the darkness that hovered over their shoulders.

  When the laughter subsided, Risha finally noticed the parchment clutched in Dunyari’s hand. He followed his gaze to it, and when he spotted it he seemed to come to a realization, as if remembering something he had almost forgotten.

  “Ah, our uncle told me to give this to you. I was led to believe that it is quite urgent that you read it. In private.” He seemed to stress that last word, and when Risha raised her eyebrow at him inquisitively, he shrugged. “I’m just the messenger.”

  “Except you are no mere messenger, but my brother and heir until I am with child,” Risha said in slight confusion, taking the letter from him and attempting to open it. She was stopped by Dunyari.

  “He must’ve had a good reason for wanting whatever was written in there to be for your eyes alone, Risha,” he said, wrapping her hands with his. “I’ll give you some privacy, but before I do, I have to ask, as you okay?”

  Risha looked up at him, at his eyes, widened in concern. She knew what he was asking. She knew she should answer him, lay bare the troubled thoughts and secrets that she carried within her, lest she give them leave to fester. Unfortunately, she could not bring herself to speak. She simply nodded.

  Dunyari remained as he was for several long moments as if he was waiting for her to collapse under his scrutiny. When that did not happen, he simply nodded and exited the room.

  “If you would give me leave, Your Serenity.”

  Once he had left, closing the door behind him, she sagged against the sangoma wood, trying to put order to her thoughts. She opened the letter in hopes of a distraction.

  Ba-Risha,

  An esteemed visitor has arrived and is waiting for you in the Per Ankarise. Please attend to him, for he brings with him news of some import. See to it that he has everything he needs.

  Kuyomi Un-Ese.

  The Voice of Spirits Sanctified.

  Risha wrinkled her nose in irritation at her uncle’s imperious tone. She loved him, truly, but the way he always seemed to expect his every instruction to be carried out without question was jarring at times.

  Still, she wondered who this stranger might be, and what important news he might be carrying with him. Most importantly, what exactly was he doing in the Per Ankarise?

  Risha frowned thoughtfully. Could he, perhaps, hold the answers to her questions? Had her uncle also noticed their predicament, and had taken steps to investigate the cause?

  She had no choice. If she wanted to satisfy her curiosity, she would have to meet with this stranger.

  “Inse.” She muttered the spirit-tongue word for fire, and an eidolon of flame rose from the rings on her finger, consuming the parchment in heat and flame. Waving the ashes away, Risha gave a cursory look around, before walking through her sangoma doors into the hallway beyond.