“Yeah, thanks, what on earth did you do to keep you standing?” Emek asked, coming over to Nysad to get the necklace.

“I used the healing spell and the ghost one. Sorry,” she told him. Emek make a face, slipping the other coins off of the strip.

“It took my years to get those things,” he told her sourly. Nysad pouted slightly and Emek stared at her. And then he lightly kissed her cheek, “Not to worry, I’m sure you’ll be replacing them.”

Nysad looked like she was going to hit him for that, but she didn’t have the chance to as there came an explosion from the side of town that the house was. They tied up Jaranth before setting off at a run towards the house.

~*~

Kess stared around her at the devastation. She had gotten everyone out as fast as she could, Jaranth had disappeared soon after, and Kess had managed to loose her horse, mostly because she wasn’t accomplished at riding, and had gotten down after everyone was out. She had one thing to do now, and that was go find Nysad and Emek. She knew that Nysad had a reason to get everyone out of the village, but it didn’t mean that she was going to listen necessarily. Kess wanted to help in the end.

She was moving towards her house, just to see what had happened there, when the explosion occurred. It was nearby, close enough to make the ground shake beneath her feet. she almost fell over, her eyes wide as she stared at the street where it had come from. the glass had exploded outwards, the street littered with molten glass.

“Kess!” there was a yell from behind her and she turned to see Nysad and Emek running towards them. She moved towards them, but they were moving towards the house, and she was oblidged to follow them by the urgent movements of Nysad’s hands.

They arrived out of breath, leaning against the wall, and panting. Nysad looked too pale, as if she was about to pass out. Her hand on the wall suddenly jerked away and she staggered back. Emek pulled away more slowly, a troubled look on his face. Kess, of course, felt nothing when she touched the wall.

“Kess,” Nysad panted from the ground where she had fallen. “How… how do you get in?” she asked, completely out of breath.

“Front door, back door, how do you want to get in?” Kess asked.

“Passages in wall,” Nysad said. she seemed worn out. Emek knelt beside her.

“You sure you should do this like this?” he asked. But Nysad pushed him away and stood, properly. Kess noticed for the first time that Nysad was walking on a foot that wasn’t really there. There was a ghostly outline of a foot and Kess wondered how long that would last.

“Yes,” Nysad said. she was wheezing softly as she forced herself up. “Just make sure that I wake up this time.” She met his gaze and Kess looked away for a moment, not wanting to intrude upon them. she wasn’t sure what happened, but Nysad turned to her suddenly. “Let’s go.”

~*~

It was dark in the passageways and Nysad moved with more ease then she had in a long time. The ghost foot would only last a little while, a few hours at most, but all the same it was useful to have something that resembled a foot, she couldn’t afford to have something snap.

They were climbing up towards the feeling of darkness. They came to a door and in the yellow glow of the light Nysad, Emek and Kess stood together, staring at each other for a moment.

“Kess…” Nysad glanced at Emek. “I’m going to unbind Emek, so that if I have to do a binding spell that’s not delicate, he’ll protect you.” She was staring at Emek. The daemon stared back, nodding slightly. he wasn’t going to try and kill either of them when he was unbound. Nysad swallowed. They still didn’t know what they were facing, running into this without anything but a sword and a small idea of the amount of power. She could feel it through the walls, making her feel sick.

“Nysad—I know you’re in there!” a voice, deep and grating came through the wall, echoing about them and making her head feel like it was going to split open. “Why don’t you join me out here Nysad, we have a lot to talk about.” Nysad watched in horror as the door was pulled open, she didn’t have time to unleash Emek, she was dragged out with the other two. She looked back, catching Emek’s eyes and reaching out for him. She had to loose the binding, but she couldn’t as they were dragged into the main hall.

~*~

There had been erected a chair at the end of the hall. In it sat something so bright that Nysad couldn’t look at it without her eyes watering. She turned her head away but the daemon laughed. Nysad saw for a moment, Kess’s eyes filled with tears, streaming down her face and landing on her dress. Nysad saw Emek beside Kess, staring straight at the daemon in the chair. For a moment Nysad tried to reach out to him again, to loose the spell binding him, but then the daemon laughed again.

It was an awful noise, like his voice, echoing and grating, running though their ears and making their minds want to crawl out of their other ear and die on the floor. Nysad wanted to scream, but her throat was closed up.
The glowing being was pulling them forward and Nysad needed to get away from this. she reached out, or at least tried to. Her fingers found Kess’s and she squeezed hard, almost as if she was trying to get the other girl a message, and she was, but it wasn’t going to get across, was it?

There was a force, pulling her apart suddenly and she clung, hearing Kess’s cry of pain and trying desperately to keep a hold of her, but there was no chance as they were ripped apart and Nysad was left alone standing before the gleaming white form.

“Ah Nysad, its been so long since we last met,” The daemon said and then Nysad remembered. She had heard this voice and there was betrayal there and she felt like she was going to fall apart with the pain. “Remember little Nysad, you’re brother called me forth, your brother came to me and asked me to get rid of you,” she had fought him off, had hit and screamed and tried to get away from him as he had stared at her with such hatred. Pain flared in her stomach as she turned and stared directly at the glowing form.

Why had he hated her when all she had done was love him? she didn’t say anything, tears streaming down her face. She reached behind her, finding Emek, bound as he was and pulling away the binding. She didn’t have time for anything else as the daemon pulled her closer again.

“Now you will bow before me and my binding to your brother will be finished.” The voice was deadening and Nysad couldn’t find a name as she was dragged forward by this form she didn’t know or couldn’t look at. She swallowed, closing her eyes and looking for the right spell. There was nothing, only the hurt that was a hundred years old.

“Bow before me!” The creature yelled as she came before his throne and there was a force pushing her down. She fought, but there was no real chance for her as she found her knees bending. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. she didn’t let herself fall to her knees.

And then she felt the ghost foot run out, and she staggered forward, almost into the daemon’s lap. White hot heat hit her as she came to close, her body recoiling. She pulled away as the daemon started the binding on her loosened for only a second and Nysad let go of the only spell she knew in that moment.

The daemon screamed as water hissed out of seemingly no where. It writhed away from the throne and Nysad turned to look at Emek. “The sword,” she yelled, her voice going hoarse in the effort. Emek had it in his hand and threw it. Nysad watched it soar and then darted out of the way, waiting as it impaled the writing form on the ground. The daemon screamed and Nysad reached out to grab the sword.

“You will be bound,” she snarled in the effort, her body was going to give out soon, she was going to end up on the ground, she had no balance. She fell to her knees, but the sword remained in the daemon.

Emek yelled something from behind her and Nysad didn’t really hear it, but she got the impression that he was protecting Kess as she let go of the binding. She had it, she knew it. it was not the same as the last time, but it was just as effective. She stared at the form on the ground before it slowly faded into nothing. She didn’t have the energy to look around as she lay down on the ground, the sun. The sun wasn’t up, nor would it come through the window. She sighed and closed her eyes, lying there and allowing herself to drift off to sleep.

~*~

There was a silence in the hall. The stained glass windows weren’t letting in any light as Emek let go of Kess. He stared at the figure on the ground before running over to her. her long hair was spread out around her face in a halo, her face calm and blank, eyes closed as if asleep. She lay there, and Emek stared at her, willing the sun to shine down on her face.

A weak beam of light crept up to her face and Emek willed it stronger, willed her to wake up. but there was no flutter of eyelids, nothing but her stillness. Emek felt like he was going to die slowly there on the ground beside her still form.

“Nysad, wake up, please,” he whispered. The beam of light was growing in strength, as if able to understand his need, but there was no response from Nysad, who lay there, as if dead. She was simply a body, with no spirit, no joy in it, but she was still living.

Kess moved forward slowly and knelt down beside Nysad. “There once was a King and Queen,” she said softly, “Who had no children and were therefore very sad. And so when the Queen had a daughter they were very happy.” She was whispering and Emek was staring at Nysad’s face.

“And then one day the Nysad came and told the King that his daughter was the next Nysad and there was a great fear in the land for she was heir to both lines. And the King had to let his little princess go. And so she traveled the lands and the people came to love her so. she was their princess and their Nysad. They waited for the day when she would be their queen with expectancy and joy for the day to come.

“But it never did, for she went to a castle in the north and never came out again. and she was trapped in sleep for a hundred years, lying in the tallest tower in the dark for someone to come and break the curse.”

Emek was lightly tracing Nysad’s hair, barely listening to Kess, but he knew what she was doing, telling Nysad’s story as the children would hear it. there seemed nothing to wake her, the long sleep would come again and he would remained trapped until it happened again, and the country would go to ruin.

“And the vines grew around the castle, and the binding remained and the statues of people who had been working there remained, standing as they had when they were caught, waiting for the Nysad to be awoken. And so many years passed until she passed from memory and into legend.

“And then one day a prince came to the castle, and hacked his way through the vines and came upon the sleeping people and walked without thought to the tallest, darkest tower. And he threw open the shutters, and pulled back the drapes and saw her lying there, asleep.”

“And then he kissed her.” Emek said softly. His thumb stroked Nysad’s pale cheek. She was asleep and he didn’t know what to do. he wanted her to wake, to be again. “And she woke, and there was great joy throughout the land that their princess, their Nysad had returned.”

“Kiss her,” Kess said softly. Emek looked up at her, his eyes hurt. It couldn’t work, it wouldn’t work. It was all a fairy tale after all. It wasn’t even true, the end was fabricated and there would none by him and Kess to know what had really happened. “Try it,” she said softly.

Emek bent over Nysad and lightly brushed his lips over hers. Nothing happened as he sat back and they stared at her, lying there in the room. light pooled around her as if she was soaking it up and healing. But it couldn’t be. The light would have woken her by now, it only took a moment.

“We should move her,” Emek said dully. He rose and stared down at Nysad, her face covered with the white light and the rest in strange colors of the stained glass.

It was in that moment that she gasped suddenly, rolling over, as if to protect herself and curling up, her breathing ragged. Emek was down on the ground again, reaching out for her as Kess stared.

“Nysad—“ he said quietly. Slowly she uncurled and turned to look at them, eyes wide and slightly confused. And then he saw the recognition light in her eye. She was awake. “—you’re awake!” he said.

Nysad smiled slightly and shifted so that she could face them both. “I am.” She said, almost wonderingly. “The curse was broken by the kiss.” She murmured under her breath, “You forgot that part Emek,” she said with a slight smile.

Emek laughed and grabbed her, pulling her into his lap and kissing her properly. “Do you think you can forgive me for missing that bit?”
Nysad considered for a moment. “Yes, I think I can.” She said with a smile, before kissing him back.

THE END

The man was half dead on his feet. Nysad glared at whoever had made him stand, before there could be any movement she growled softly. “Someone get this man something to sit on, and some water.” One of the men started before running off as Nysad hobbled further into the room. the man’s eyes were glazed with tiredness, and Nysad wondered if he had had any rest. He had been riding, that was obvious, and the look he gave her was almost unseeing.

Nysad was glad for it, as the man hurried in holding out a chair and Nysad glared at him as he placed it carefully behind the man. What had happened to the country when they didn’t offer a seat to the nearly run dead? She gently pushed the man down and told him to drink some water. The man complied, not really understanding what was going on.

When he was more comfortable, the glazed look no longer the prevalent thing on his face, Nysad knelt down, awkwardly and took his hands. “The message?” she asked, as if he was a small child who needed coaxing. The man didn’t seem to take offense by the tone and nodded.

“The village of Horth is being torn apart—“ guilt started in the pit of her stomach. She had promised Kendra and Arnad that they would be safe, what if they weren’t? “—there’s something… something terrible there.” the man’s eyes were wide. “I knew that there our daemon hunter was up here, where is he?” Nysad gritted her teeth. She was going to rip the fat little man’s head off of his head when she got a chance. Daemon hunter indeed. He was not only capable of exorsizing a ninth order daemon or less, but he was now out of his area and leaving his people to the ravages of daemons.

She slowly got up. “Thank you,” she told him. “I will get the message to Lord Horth. Why don’t you go rest?”

“Thank you mum,” the man said. he gave her a strange look. “May I ask, who you are?”

“I am Nysad, fleur de la mort.” Nysad said stonily. The man stared at her, and Nysad knew that his mind was trying to get some connection. There had been no news of a new Nysad, surely there would have been a huge announcement, after all the country had been lacking a Nysad for a hundred years. “I’m also the heir to the throne,” she said. “As soon as Lord Horth gets out of my way.” she turned then.

“Delkal, I need Lord Horth in here now, and this man to have his own room to rest in. he is allowed to order from the kitchen directly. I would also like Doctor Marlon in here. I need to talk to him briefly, tell him to bring the foot with him. Also, can you get Narla,” Narla was her personal maid, the girl who had helped the first morning. She bit her lip trying to think. “And I’m going to need a skiff to get down the river. Thank you.” She said with a smile to the man. Delkal nodded and headed out of the room. he would divvy up the work accordingly and return in good time.

~*~

Narla was the first to arrive, cap askew and her dress off kilter. “Sorry miss,” she said, trying to straighten herself and Nysad waved her off.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you Narla, but I needed you to do something for me. In my room is my sword, the one with the green stone, would you mind getting that for me? and packing a few clothes, riding equipement?” she asked. Narla nodded, wide eyed.

“Of course miss. Are you sure about the sword miss?” She looked almost frightened and Nysad suddenly got the idea that this was not something that Narla did constantly, getting swords for leaders. Carrying them either. Well, when she got the chance she was going to correct that mistake. Narla was trust worthy, as far as Nysad had seen, and she wanted the girl to be capable of coming with her on this excursions. It would be a lot more of a help to have Narla trained to do so.

“Yes, thank you Narla. I want you to be the one that brings it Narla, no one else can touch it.” Nysad said and Narla swallowed nervously.

“Yes miss. Of course miss.”

“Thank you Narla,” Nysad said as the girl scurried off. Delkal returned with Doctor Marlon who looked slightly nervous beside the tall man.

“Majesty?” he asked, glancing around the room.

“The foot, can you connect it to my leg?” she asked. Marlon nodded and helped her into the straps and elastics. As it had been when she had walked into the chamber room, it was awkward, her steps small and halting, remaining mostly on her good side. “I have to ride hard, when we get to Barnon to the river and then down to Horth.” She said, looking at Marlon. “Am I going to hurt myself doing it on this foot?”

Marlon’s jaw worked. “Probably.” He didn’t want to deny her that though and she knew it.

“Will it be beyond repair?’ Nysad asked. She wanted the truth, not some approximation that would make her happy. Marlon had been the most outspoken and seemed the most unlikely to lie.

“It could be, if you rode on it too hard. Is there a way for you to be on the horse behind someone?” he asked, “so you don’t have to have your feet—foot in the stirrups?”

Nysad sighed, she hated riding like that but she wanted to be able to walk again, the discussion with the doctors had stimulated her and she knew it could happen if they worked with a wizard perhaps. She nodded. “I can. Thank you Doctor Marlon.” She nodded his dismissal and stored his name away for later use. His uses would not be forgotten when she had her throne and crown. She was going to be sure of that.

“Delkal, can you ride?” she asked, turning to him. Delkal shifted, uncomfortable, and Nysad got the impression that he could but didn’t want to admit to it.

“I can majesty.”

“Why do you want to stay Delkal?” Nysad asked. If it was fear, she would understand, but make him come. She wasn’t going to have him cowering behind her power.

“Well, my wife, you see, she’s quite far along in her ninth month, and its our first child—“ Nysad held up a hand.

“Never mind, you’re to stay.” Nysad ran over the possibilities in her head, her mind fliting around and trying to think of the best thing to do. she couldn’t very well ride by herself. “Who do you suggest I bring, apart from Lord Horth of course.” She asked, looking at Delkal.

“Me,” the voice was from behind her and Nysad licked her lips. His voice.

“And me,” it was a more feminine voice, but Nysad knew it just as well as she knew his voice. Delkal was looking at them funnily. Nysad turned to stare at the red head and the daemon.

“Are you sure?” she asked. She was more asking Kess, because Emek wasn’t coming. She was going to refuse him, she couldn’t be near him, not after that night. She had spent so long trying to forget him and now he was standing there, looking at her. she avoided his gaze.

“We’re both coming T—Nysad.” Kess said, her jaw set. Nysad wondered if she could deny Kess, it was her home after all. But she didn’t want to drag the girl into any danger, it would be awful to have her killed in the effort to bind the daemon.

There was a scurrying at the other door and Lord Horth came in, followed by the pallid form that was reminiscent of Kess, but wasn’t. there were a group of men behind them, a grizzeled commanding man who Nysad knew was the man who had gotten the fake Kess pregnant. They were married, some small ceremony, supposedly a runaway marriage. Nysad doubted it.
Kess’s face remained blank as she moved to Nysad’s side, followed by Emek. Delkal looked confused, but he excepted Nysad’s judgement finally and fell in behind the three. They stood there, staring at the group moving towards them with stony disapproval.

“You called for me at the most—“ Horth’s eyes found his daughter in the group and for a moment Nysad thought he was going to go purple in rage, his lower lip trembling for a moment before he pressed his lips together and glared at Kess for a moment. “—inconvenient time,” he finished, though less forcefully.

“Did I?” Nysad asked, her voice cutting, accusatory. “Daemon’s don’t wait for your convience Lord Horth,” she said, but the tone that she said ‘Lord Horth’ in made it an insult.

“I wasn’t aware there were any daemon’s,” Horth’s eyes narrowed, kept on his daughter’s form. Kess was staring at the pale reflection. She seemed like she was trying to keep herself from crying. Or maybe it was laughing, Nysad didn’t have a chance to look at the girl.

“Apparently. The village of Horth is being attacked by a daemon of great power, and who is there to protect it, Lord Horth? Your position as the Lord of that village is to protect it, and yet you are here, squandering the days away as Horth is destroyed.” She snapped. “And as the daemon hunter of the village, and therefore Lord, you are going to come with me to bind this daemon. I think it fitting, do you not?” she asked.

Horth’s eyes bulged. “I am in no position to leave the capital—“

“You are and you will be ready to go in an hour,” Nysad snapped. “if you are not, then you will be dragged forcibly from the room—“

“I will not have a woman order me to do anything, you lying filthy whore.” Horth shouted at her. Both Delkal and Emek started to move forward but Nysad pushed them back, glad that she had the foot. She glanced at the door, Narla should be here with her sword soon. “Waiting for a sword perhaps, Nysad?” Horth’s tone was just as nasty as Nysad’s had been.
And then something happened that no one expected, Kess stepped forward and very calmly hit her father in the nose, breaking it cleanly before stepping back. She smiled slightly as she stared at her father’s form. He had staggered back, hand on his nose, his face going purple.

“You—you—“

“Father, I don’t think you understood what Nysad was saying,” Kess said, that satisfied smirk on her face. She was standing there as her father tried to jump forward on her, but the guards around him grabbed him. The grizzled captian and the young woman stood there. The woman was holding her stomach as if gripped in pain, and Nysad thought for a horrible moment that she might be going into labor, but the woman was just protecting her stomach.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” The captian yelled at Kess. He was taller then her by quite a lot and Kess smirked at him.

“Don’t you recognize me Jaranth?” she asked, “I’m Akessina, more so then that pale imitation. I’m sorry you have to deal with all of this. How much did my father pay you to keep quiet?” The woman was mouthing wordlessly as the door banged open and Narla stood there, holding out the sword and staring around her wildly.

“Majesty!” she cried, she looked like she was on the brink of tears and Nysad moved as quickly as she could to the maid. “I’m sorry I took so long, but some men came and said I couldn’t take the sword, and I didn’t… I didn’t know what to do.” her face was tear streaked and Nysad gently took the sword out of her hands and hugged her.

“You did the right thing. Thank you Narla, it won’t be forgotten.” Nysad smiled, trying to calm the panic in Narla’s eyes. The girl looked up at her with a weak smile. “You have the rest of the week off, if you want?”

“No, I don’t want it off; work hasn’t been this exciting since you came.” Narla said. Nysad smiled suddenly, chuckling.

“All right then, you can stay while I sort this out then,” Nysad said. “And then we’ll have to think of something to keep it exciting while I’m away.”

~*~

The trip to Horth was grim. Lord Horth had managed to get Jaranth as his personal body guard. Jaranth was silent and angry, bitter about the lies and deceit that had been presented to him. he was also stupid, Nysad had noted.

Nysad had spent most of her time avoiding Emek, which made her spend more time with Kess. Kess had a lot to say, her adventures in the city were complicated and involved a lot of her going to the library afterwards to figure out what had happened. Nysad kept quiet and nodded and grinned, and laughed as appropriate, but her gaze was slightly off, sometimes running over to the dark form at the prow of the boat.

She didn’t talk to Emek until they got to the second river, at which point he was the one that came up to her. they had a strained conversation about the food before Emek left and Kess appeared, giving Nysad a look.

“You two should just shag again and get it over with. I don’t like tension like this in the air.” She said as Nysad stirred the rice around the pot. She gave Kess a look.
“No, we… no.” She said, but she didn’t sound positive about her response. “He’s a daemon and I’m trying to get my country back and the people certainly wouldn’t understand that.”
“So don’t tell them,” Kess said cheerfully, holding out her bowl, Nysad put rice in it.

“No, its not possible. I… I can’t.”

“Ah but you want to.” Kess said, swirling the contents of her bowl around. “Don’t you.” She gave Nysad a wink and wondered off. Nysad stared after the red head. Where on earth had Kess come up with the idea that Nysad wanted to sleep with Emek again. apart from the fact that it was true—no! no it wasn’t true. She pushed that thought out of her head and she tried to focus on something else. the only problem was, she discovered, was that she didn’t have anything to concentrate on now. well she did, but that would be defeating the purpose of ignoring her conversation with Kess.

She turned around and stared out at the water, refusing to look at Emek.

~*~

The riding and then the boat ride were done in almost silence. They were less light hearted as they moved closer to Horth, knowing that there would be destruction and horror there. Nysad just hoped that whatever daemon had come loose had stayed in Horth. If not, then there was a bigger problem on her hands. She studied the group as they moved on horses towards the village. They had slowed to a walk, not wanting to be noted quite yet. Nysad was questing, feeling for the power.

There was the tinge of it everywhere, the reek of daemon’s presence hit her over and over again as she tried to find the source, but it was all so confusing. There was a moment of pure terror in her as she thought it had swallowed the whole town, but then she felt someone pressing against her back and closed her eyes taking a deep breath. Emek was holding on to her for that moment and she leant back into him. “I can’t find it, there’s too much pollution of its stink,” she told him quietly. Emek nodded slightly but said nothing.

She felt like she was walking into a trap, and the scary thing was, she felt like she had done this before. She licked her lips and glanced at Emek. She was going to say something, but then stopped at the hard look in his eyes. He wasn’t directing it at her, but at Horth, who was muttering under his breath.

White snow fell from the sky as they moved closer, and Nysad stared. It wasn’t cold enough for snow, there was too much heat. She reached out and grabbed a snowflake and found it was ash. Her heart clenched as she pulled away. Kess was still, her eyes cold as she stared at the red glow on the horizon. The daemon had ripped apart her home, burning it to the ground. The single place she felt safe.

Horth, for all his weakness, looking up, went pale. They moved closer and the fires could be seen now, raging through the village, burning everything. There were screams of terror from the people. Nysad suddenly leant back, grabbing the riens and pulling them to a stop.

“Kess,” she said, “I want you and Jaranth to gather the living people and get them out of the village. I know its not glamorous, or pleasant, but you have to get them out.” Nysad felt a wave of déjà vu run through her mind. She had said something like this before. Who had she said it to? “Lord Horth, Emek and I will deal with the daemon. When they are out of the village I want you two to stay with them, no matter how long it takes us to get out, do you understand?” she asked.

Roger, she had said it to her brother. “Get them out of the castle, the binding will kill them.” She had told him and he had done nothing. The skeletons were staring at her, accusing her of their deaths. She felt her stomach roiling as she stared at the village. Her brother had betrayed her, hadn’t he? He had done nothing to save the people, but had gotten out himself, to run away home to tell their parents that she had deserted. She felt like she was going to throw up.

Emek grabbed her arm as she leant over. “Swallow,” he told her, putting a water skin to her lips. She drank before she could let the bile rise to her mouth. She couldn’t throw up, she simply couldn’t, she had a duty to do and she would do it by the gods.

“What’s the matter?” Kess asked softly as she moved to their sides. She was pale, her blue eyes cool, but it was to protect herself from the hurt.

“Nothing,” Nysad rasped. “Lord Horth, dismount, we will go in together.” She nodded to Jaranth and Kess. “Go ahead, don’t be afraid.” She whispered, she only hoped that they would not get caught in anything that might happen. Actually, that was untrue; she just wanted Kess to be safe. Jaranth she included as an innocent, for now.

~*~

Lord Horth did not like Emek, well he didn’t like Nysad for that matter, but he shied away from Emek, much to Emek’s amusement. He kept moving closer to the old man, until Nysad called him on it, saying that it wasn’t funny. Horth and Emek were walking with Nysad on the horse. She wasn’t able to walk really, and so she got the third horse.

As they reached the crest of the hill and stared down over the ruin, Nysad felt her stomach flip. The closer they got the more ruined it looked. The ash got thicker as well as they moved, catching in her hair and eyelashes, making it hard to see through the haze. She didn’t need to see though, just to move towards the source. There were daemons everywhere though, prowling through the streets, each as power as the next. Tillek was there suddenly, staring at the small group with hungry eyes.

“You’re back then Nysad, Emek, Horth,” the woman said narrowing her eyes. Nysad kept her chin up, ignoring the woman. She didn’t care for the red eyes. Horth shied away and Emek smiled coolly at Tillek.

“Yes,” he said, red eyes meeting hers. “We’re back.”

“You won’t bind him!” Tillek yelled after them. “There is no way you can bind him as long as you live fleur,” she spat out after them. Nysad turned in the saddle, wiping the dust and ash off of her eyes to see Tillek clearly.

“I remember you now Tillek as I will when I am done here. do not stay here if you value your form as it is now.” she said calmly before turning around. there was a scream of rage from behind them and the daemon flung herself at Horth. The little man was bowled over and Nysad, finding him at the horse’s feet, nudged quickly to avoid the man’s head getting under the hooves. The daemon was ripping cloth trying to find the neck.

Emek was on her then and there was no hope for Tillek. The daemon was just barely a second order daemon, and Emek had her, wrapping his power around her, flinging her high up to hand from the roof of a standing house. “Where is He?” Emek yelled, his voice deep and powerful making Nysad shiver as she glanced down, trying to find Horth, but he had run away, down the street.

Tillek’s voice was rasping she struggled against Emek’s power. “Let me down!” she screamed and Nysad stared at her. Then she drew her sword and dismounted, wincing slightly as her foot hit the ground, but she didn’t let her face show the pain.

“Let her down Emek.” She said, keeping her eyes on the daemon. “Slowly,” she amended. Emek looked at her and Nysad knew that he thought that they should just leave her here and make her deal with the larger problem, but Nysad nodded, her face set. She obviously had an idea. Emek looked dubious but complied finally, lowering Tillek slowly.

The woman seemed please by this until she saw Nysad’s sword. She began to struggle again. “NO! He’s in the house, Horth’s house!” Tillek screamed, trying to pull away from the sword. Nysad glanced at Emek who nodded and stuck Tillek back where she had been before.

“If you’re lying daemon,” Nysad called up to her, “I will come up there personally and rebind you with more limitations then you could imagine, so that when you are formed you are the ugliest whore you have ever seen.” She laughed softly, as Tillek’s legs waved in the air and she remounted the horse.

“So what are we going to do?” Emek asked. “We can’t very well just go in and knock on the door and say ‘We’re come to bind you’ can we?”

Nysad bit her lip, resisting the urge to smile. “If only we could, it would make life much easier.”

“Well there has to be some way of getting into the house other then the front door,” Emek said, “Come on, you spent years in that house, every winter your family would be holed up in there.”

“Oh so you’re an expert on my family now?” Nysad asked, looking down at him in the white haze. Somehow the ash didn’t bother her nearly as much as it should have. Perhaps it was the reminiscence of snow falling that kept her from finding the situation very serious.

“Well, not an expert,” Emek said modestly. There was the sound of hooves on the paved ground. They were coming up fast, perhaps slightly muffled but clear enough. Nysad glanced down at Emek before pulling out her sword, turning her horse to turn and look at whoever might be coming. She couldn’t see through the smoke, but she could hear. It was always better to be safe then sorry.

The form coming through the mist had a sword out and Nysad pulled her horse to the side, wanting to avoid direct contact. She could ride a horse; it didn’t mean that she was good at fighting on top of one. She shifted, changing the angle of her blade as Emek too moved, more agile on his feet as they watched the man coming through the smoke and ash.

It was Jaranth, to Nysad’s horror. She touched him, trying to find a daemon in him, but found none. The man was attacking them of his own free will and Nysad felt sick as she stared at him. She moved again, her horse struggling against her hold on it. the blade that the grizzled man was carrying just barely missed her neck. She glanced at Emek, as Jaranth pulled his horse around.

“Stop!” she yelled, but there was a gleam in Jaranth’s eye that didn’t speak of daemon procession, but blood rage. There would be no stopping the man till he either died, they got away, or he passed out. No reason or logic would get through to this man and Nysad felt her stomach twisting. They didn’t have anything that might protect them from this man, so it meant running away.

She pushed her horse forward quickly. She was trying to get Emek up with her as the man began to move towards them. in her effort to grab Emek’s hand, her wooden foot got caught on the stirrup. She felt Emek reach out and grab her before she could fall to the ground, her other ankle twisting in an effort to get out of the stirrup and then snapping. Nysad bit her lip to stop herself from screaming. But, if it was any consolation, she was off the horse and therefore out of Jaranth’s sword range for the moment. Her own sword had clattered the ground, falling down by Jaranth’s horse’s hooves. Emek was the one watching that as Nysad whimpered pitifully into Emek’s chest.

“You have bad luck with feet,” he muttered at her, putting her on the ground as the horse that had no rider trotted back and forth in agitation, keeping Jaranth back. Emek pulled the leather thong over his head and handed it to Nysad. “Find the healing spell there.” he told her. “I’ll deal with this.”

~*~

The difficulty was that Emek had nothing to defend with. It was just an effort to get Jaranth off of his horse, and away from that sword. Emek considered the situation for a moment before letting his body shift and molecules part ways from each other as he forced himself upwards and towards the large man. He settled behind the man before becoming solid, his hands grabbing and pulling at the man.

What Emek hadn’t accounted for was the man’s strength. Jaranth was far stronger then Emek was, and therefore could throw Emek from the horse, which he did with ease. Emek pulled away, trying to avoid the horse’s hooves. It wasn’t that they would kill him; it was that he didn’t like getting hurt. Daemons weren’t killed by humans, but they could end up getting hurt by being trodden on by a horse, or beaten to a bloody pulp by someone. And unlike human’s, cuts took months to heal, bruises faded over weeks, and Emek just didn’t like looking like someone had beaten him up awfully yesterday. Perhaps it was just that he was vain.

Jaranth was trying to get the horse to move, but Emek was moving too much and trying to get some sense of equilibrium so he could disintegrate and not get hurt by the horse. The horse was nervous; the other one was pacing too much. There was another clatter of hooves as yet another person came up on horse back. Nysad’s horse reared, backing away and making Jaranth’s horse do the same, nervous tension in the air was making both of the horses too nervous and now Jaranth was clinging to the horse with his legs.

Horth was sitting on Kess’s horse and Emek could hear Nysad getting up, her breathing ragged as she went for her sword. she had done something so that she could walk properly, probably using on of his spells, but he didn’t have the time to think about it as the horse’s hooves came down. He rolled, avoiding having his head smashed in (that would be pleasant to have to heal, he wondered how long that would take and who would look at him while he was healing it. maybe that was the to get himself killed).

This wasn’t a fair fight, Emek thought as he forced himself up off the ground, looking like a ghost he was covered so much in ash. He wiped at his eyes quickly, dodging the horse and then the sword. it nicked his shoulder, blood starting to trickle down, a red line over the white he had become.

Emek growled softly in his throat, disliking the binding that kept him from feeding on this man. He couldn’t hurt him in the ways that daemons were wont to do. He glanced over at Nysad who was managing fairly well against Horth, because she had a sword and he didn’t. she was starting in on his feet. Emek grinned. Nysad was going to have a thing about feet wasn’t she? Just because she only had one, she was going to inflict it on all the others. Well, as long as it was the enemy and not him. Emek liked his feet.

Jaranth was bearing down on him and Emek crouched before jumping, disintegrating in the air and landing behind Jaranth again. His fingers closed around Jaranth’s neck, and he was fighting against both the binding and a stronger man. But Jaranth over used his strength, flinging both of them onto the ground. Emek jumped up, backing away from the man with the sword. he was still bleeding, his shoulder starting to hurt now.

“Come on daemon, try me! your binding won’t let you hurt me!” Jaranth yelled as Horth fell from his horse. Emek watched as Nysad darted forward only to recoil, her face ashen. Horth was probably dead.

“Nysad!” Emek yelled and she looked up at him, their eyes meeting for a moment. Jaranth was moving closer and Nysad moved closer, muttering under her breath. Emek watched in curious fascination as Nysad brought the sword to Jaranth’s back.

“Don’t move, or I’ll skewer you like the pig you are.” Nysad said, almost kindly he noted. “Now Emek, there must be something we can tie Master Jaranth too.”

“How about with?” Emek asked, looking around as Jaranth’s eyes widened. “Make him drop the sword.” Emek added. “It’s unnerving for me to have a sword in my stomach.” Nysad nudged Jaranth with her sword and the man dropped the sword quickly.

“Don’t you have any rope?” Nysad asked. “We could tie his ankle to something and leave him there. I still have your necklace.”

Her cheek against the floor, her body sprawled in a very uncomfortable position on the floor. She had fallen asleep, her world in a dream and now there was only herself. she reached up to touch her hair, found it still full of the knots and sighed. It had been a dream. Emek hadn’t been there and she didn’t know why she had wanted him to be.

She pulled herself up and stared at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t a pretty girl, she never had been. Her eyes and hair were too black, her face too pale, almost always red because she was outside doing her job. She looked less like she was one of the walking dead now though, she supposed, since she had seen herself in the mirror in the castle.

She wondered what she was doing, what the point of all this was. She was going to fix a country, but why should she bother? There seemed to be so much work and too little reward. She just wanted to remember herself. she had very little in the way of who she was. A few childish memories, the knowledge to bind daemons, a habit that had become ingrained. It was too hard to pull away the knowledge from her and now she half wished it had been.

The door was opening behind her and she stared in the mirror as Emek entered the room. She closed her eyes and pushed the thoughts of the dream away. She shouldn’t be thinking about that. There were obligations and her people and her position to think about before herself. Not that she could ever have something from Emek. She didn’t know what she was thinking.

“Nysad,” his voice was going to make her turn around to face him. Nysad preferred the mirror him, the one that she didn’t have any thought to. The one that she could pretend was a figment of her imagination. But she had to turn, she had to face him. She pressed her lips together and found that she couldn’t move.

He was slow, with that movement that reminded her of a cat. He was slow coming but he was behind her far too quickly. She could see his red eyes in the mirror clearly. Their eyes met there and held each other’s mirrored gaze. Nysad felt her breath catch as his fingers lightly traced the air above her arm to stop at her hair. he lightly brushed it aside and Nysad fought with the urge to let this just happen. His lips were light against the bruise and she leant slightly against him without thinking.

But then thoughts came flying back and she turned, too fast, her body swaying as she tried to gain her balance, or lack there of, back. She grabbed his shirt and met his eyes. He stepped closer so that she wasn’t about to fall over and she let go, her other hand finding the vanity’s edge and clinging to it. She stared at him with large eyes. “Don’t.” she whispered.

“Why not?” he asked softly, leaning slightly closer to lightly kiss the corner of her mouth. Nysad felt like crying. She didn’t want to say no. she wanted this to be right, she wanted to have him to herself, but there was no chance of that. So she remained still, not leaning into him, but clinging more tightly to the vanities edge and staring at him.

“You… no… we can’t do this.” There was a soft gleam in the red and black and Nysad could guess at its meaning. Panic was there suddenly. Maybe this wasn’t about emotion to him; maybe it was just a ploy to get her to unbind him. she felt her lower lip trembling.

“Why not?” he asked again. his lips were at the corner of her eye now. and she had to close her eyes, resisting was so hard now. she just had to push past it, she had to tell him. she took a deep breath, her mind spinning as she tried to think of the words that she needed, but they didn’t come, and she was lost. She opened her eyes and looked at him and felt her heart squeeze.

“What happened when I fell asleep?” she asked suddenly. Emek stopped what he was doing and stared at her. there, a strange expression crossed his face, half angry, half hurt. But there, it was all an act, it was a broken image and he wanted nothing more then his freedom. But who didn’t.

He pulled away. “That, T’nar,” he said and the word made her flinch. “Is something you are going to have to remember on your own. It is not a memory I can give to you.” Emek was leaving and Nysad half wanted to reach out and grab for him, but there was nothing to grab, his form had disintegrated and he was gone. She couldn’t feel his presence in the room any more.

She had achieved her aim, getting him away from her, but what was the price? What had she done?

~*~

Emek walked quickly. He was trying to get away as fast as possible, his legs taking him to some place he didn’t know. He had seen a lot in fifteen hundred years. He had seen this city spring from a little village to the capital of a country. He knew the streets like the back of his hand and could walk without a care towards wherever he wanted. However, he had no idea where his feet were taking him now and he didn’t care.

Nysad had been doing something, he wasn’t sure what it was, she had wanted something from him, not the things that he wanted to give. He couldn’t give her the memories she needed. He had been there, for sure, but there was a difference between him being there and him knowing what had happened. He had been there for the whole thing, and yet he had missed the action.

He had felt the shock of power running through the castle, the imprisonment of all those people, the dark presence that had no name. He knew something had happened, but the spell, what else might have happened evaded him. Nysad had been sleeping when he had found her, on the floor, her body limp. There had been no sword, just the girl, lying there as if dead. And he had taken her up to a room and laid her down. Part of him had been aware of the spell, that if she wasn’t touched by sunlight she wouldn’t wake. He knew that with that amount of power unleashed only the light would be able to heal her enough for her to wake. And yet, he could just pretend that he had been doing it out of kindness to her. That she couldn’t lie there on the floor of the ballroom as if she was dead.

He was at the river, his body taught as he stared at the fast deep water. They had crossed another river, back before coming to Barnon, and now there was this one. His fingers went to his neck and he found the leather band there. He picked it out of his shirt to stare at the trinkets that had been collected. He had spell coins, and a single ring. His fingers flitted through the coins till he came to the one that he had found with Nysad.

Untying the knot at the back of his throat, he pulled it off with the ring. “May you never remember Nysad, fleur de la mort.” He said before throwing both of them into the river. The coin skimmed the water once before sinking under the water, pulled along by the current. The ring disappeared to the bottom of the river, to be swept out to sea.

~*~

The days that followed were slow and agonizing. Nysad sat for the petty court with Delkal, who was now her champion to the parliament. She bound daemons, slept, and waited. Emek didn’t come back, Kess was no where to be found, and while she had disliked their company before Barnon, she missed them now. she wanted someone who she could trust, and there was no one in the capital who she found trustworthy.

Delkal was good enough to be her champion and planner, but she would never call him trust worthy to her inner fears and hurts. She just found often in the mornings that forcing herself up was like pulling teeth, but she knew it was necessary. She spent a lot of time in the library avoiding the tomes about daemons that beckoned to her, she focused on the laws that had been passed by Roger, and trying to remember. What had happened in that castle?

But of course, asking herself that question was not going to help her. She finally ended up in the infirmary where she talked to the doctors about creating a foot that she might be able to clip on to herself every morning that would enable her to walk about without the crutch. She explained the concept of the wooden foot that she had used for the horse and the doctors agreed it would be useful for her to have both feet. They agreed to help her.

It was while they were deep in discussion about how to replicate the lost foot that Delkal entered and came to her. “Majesty,” Nysad liked that he called her that, despite the fact that she had not yet been crowned and that there was still debate as to who exactly she was, or thought she was.

“Yes Delkal,” Nysad said, turning and shaking her hair out of her eyes. She had been debating that if they used her remaining foot as a way to measure they could surely create a foot that would replicate the original foot. The doctors had disagreed saying that all feet were different, even a pair could be two different sizes. She had pink spots on her face and she was very much alive, her mind busy working through the possibilities that the doctors were thinking off. She also didn’t notice the look on Delkal’s face. He was pale and looked almost shaky.

“There’s a disturbance in the north, there’s been a castle up there that no one could get into and now there was just a runner in to say that there’s a daemon that’s gotten free and none of the daemon hunters can stop it.” Delkal said. Nysad stood up, grabbing her crutch.

“Where is he?” she asked, waving Delkal to lead on. She moved as fast as she could to get to the audience chamber. This was what the Nysad was here for. To bind the daemons that would not stay bound.

The day was ridiculously long. Nysad felt rather like collapsing on the floor and sleeping there. She had once said that she had slept enough for several people, ad yet, here she was too tired to even stand. She knew that it was because she had bound a daemon the day before, and her days before this had been lazy and relaxed. She didn’t even have the change for dinner (something she remembered as a custom).

She was dead on her foot when it came to the end of the day and Delkal led her down to the dungeons. Nysad stared at the daemon caged there. She was sure that Delkal thought she would just wave her hand and it would all become magically better. The daemon was unbound, and only contained by spells that she had laid over the previous Nysad’s spells a hundred years ago. She stared at the black mist, a third order daemon.

Shifting on her crutch she leant in a bent form and pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to get the headache out of her head with pressure points. For a moment, it almost worked, but the dull ache remained when she took her fingers away again so Nysad found it a complete waste as she closed her eyes and thought.

She knew it was her duty to bind the daemons, knew that her country depended on it, but she was so tired. She was swaying, ready to just drop the crutch and slid on to the floor and curl up to sleep. The fact that she would be willing to collapse right about now did not bode well for a binding. She had to be at least partly awake for it to work, and she couldn’t even think past saying a simple word. Her mouth shaped, but the effort required to get out the word in this state seemed pointless.

“No.” she said finally. “No, I don’t think so.” she didn’t even bother to reach out to the daemon though she could feel its attention on her. She knew that it was going to try and get her the moment she opened the door. She didn’t think she would have the strength to fight it off, and personally she valued her life.

“What?” Delkal looked at her, shocked and disappointed. Nysad shrugged, turning herself and beginning the arduous task of getting up the narrow passageways.

“I can’t do it tonight.” She said.

“Why not? Are you not a Nysad?” Nysad stopped, debating anger and indignation or tired resignation. She turned, face blank as she stared at the tall man. He was staring at her with a hard glint in his eye and Nysad wondered if he was testing her then decided that it didn’t matter in the slightest. She was too tired to be anything but angry.

“Because you bloody well ran me into the ground today and I don’t have the energy to bind a daemon tonight. You want me to bind a daemon, you give it to me in the early afternoon, or right after lunch. Its not ideal timing, but if you’re running me this hard, you can’t expect me to have the strength to also deal with a daemon. I’m not that strong and I don’t think even you have that sort of stamina, you big ox.” She snapped before licking her lips and turning around. She started to limp up the corridor. There was a soft chuckle from behind her and Nysad was glad that Delkal found her pain funny because she certainly didn’t.

“Your Majesty,” Delkal called behind her, “I will unsure tomorrow does not end in such a manner for you,” he said. “Perhaps then there will be a binding.”

Nysad had stopped when he had called her ‘Your Majesty’. She turned her head, not wanting to deal with the effort to move her body and stared at him. But he was deadly serious and that made Nysad want to smile. He thought she was queen, the words emphasizing this. So she had Delkal on her side, it was a good thing to know she had allies. She didn’t know how many more she would make.

~*~

Nysad decided that despite the fact that she just wanted to collapse on her bed, she should brush her hair. it was starting to form knots that would rival the ones that she had had when she had woken up. that made her think about this braid of hair in the bottom of her bag and the fact that she no longer had that bag. Which made her think about Kess, and thoughts of Kess were connected with Emek.

She had resisted thinking about him all day, not wanting to have to deal with what had happened. they had been drunk, of course, and she had rationalized it as such. She didn’t think she had any emotions connected with it, and yet… she felt like there must be some sort of connection between her and Emek for it to have happened. her fingers lightly trailed over the yellowing bruise, it was fading now and for some reason that made her sad.

She couldn’t do anything with Emek again though. He was a daemon and certainly not the type of person that would make a proper consort. Not that Nysad was even thinking about marriage, but she had to consider the possibilities of what Emek would have to be in order for them to continue. But she didn’t want them to continue. She wanted to remember what she had been like before going to sleep o that she could complain about the fact that she was so different. She didn’t know and it bothered her. she wanted to change where she was, so she wouldn’t have to deal with a drunken mistake.

Because there were things to deal with. Emek’s audacious kiss and the brief emotion that she had associated with it. she didn’t want to have to deal with it. she just wanted Emek to go away. She liked where she was, it was a matter of certain things changing. Emek and herself not sleeping together and Kess being here, and not mad at her.
The door creaked open and Nysad glanced in the mirror to see him. his eyes were glowing softly in the dim light and she watched him, running the brush through her hair in neat even strokes.

He walked slowly, like a cat treading ever so carefully along the carpeted floor. His dark hair was flopping in his red eyes and his expression was strange. He walked up behind her, meeting her eyes firmly in the mirror. She stared at him as she felt his soft heat behind her. she wanted him to lean forward, or for herself to lean back, but there was something keeping them apart.

Emek held out a hand slowly and wrapped around Nysad’s hand. He took the brush from her and she let him, watching the process in the mirror as he brushed the hair away from her next to let his lips lightly graze over her skin.

Thunk.

Nysad groaned softly as she pulled her eyes open. She had been asleep. Her face pressed up against the vanity. And now she wasn’t, and that was a great disappointment.

That wasn’t an option, she discovered, as the door was slammed open and Nysad counted to three before the voice said, “Wake up.”

Slitting her eyes Nysad turned over and looked at the man in the doorway. She couldn’t really see him between her eyelashes. Unfortunately it meant she was going to have to open them and actually look at this person who had entered her room and was looking around. Nysad felt almost exposed; there was a strange man in her room while she was wearing a nightgown. Of course, she had wandered around in a nightgown for almost a week, so now she simply did not care.

“Who are you?” she asked, groggily as a maid entered, curtsying to the man and then to her. if she had been in a better state of mind she might have been offended.

“I am Delkal, the man that you forced the daemon into yesterday and head of the parliament. If there were a king—“ Nysad noted the word with some worry, was she always expected to be a boy? She was a woman and therefore she was going to act as she saw fit, even if it meant dealing with boys. Ew. “I would be acting as manager of his time.”

“Well, since I’m the princess soon to be queen,” Nysad said with some steel in her voice as she pulled herself up, she knew that the maid was just waiting to pounce on her, to wash (or at least brush) the knots out of her hair. she rose and the maid pulled her behind a screen. “You might as well tell me what I’ve got today.”

“You will very doubtfully be the queen, as there are laws—“

“Passed by my brother that lessens the blood lines. I was heir long before he was—“

“It is not my decision,” Nysad got the impression that Delkal was disappointed by this. “The Parliament must decide. And there is another claim to the throne. Lord Horth had come forward and said that his daughter is pregnant.”

“Who is Lord Horth?” Nysad said as the maid began to get Nysad’s dress off of her. Nysad shrugged away from the girl, getting the shift over her head and grabbing for the screen to hold herself up. The maid blushed furiously, having forgotten the lack of foot. “You must remember Lord Delkal that I have been asleep for a hundred years, and no longer know the names of the Lords on the Parliament.”

“Lord Horth married King Roger III daughter and has the best claim under current law.” Delkal said haughtily as the maid began to measure Nysad. She almost wanted to bat the girl away, but knew it was for the best. She would at least get clothing that fit her this way. The words about Lord Horth were slightly startling. That would make Lord Horth Kess’s father, and yet, Kess certainly wasn’t pregnant… was she? Which reminded her that she had to find Emek and Kess before she started in on too much strenuous day work and get them out of the city. They would probably despise her if they stayed around too long.

“Current law is not my concern. I was heir before my brother ever was and as the Nysad I have more right then the son of the daughter of a daughter.” Nysad said. “I’m direct blood, and raised to be royalty. Ruling now, not in eighteen years when there’s a boy who doesn’t understand the concepts of the people because he’s been trained to be a spoiled brat as he is a puppet. You can not hide from the people like that Lord Delkal. Ow,” she muttered the last under her breath as the maid managed to stick a pin into her leg.

“Sorry Miss.” The maid murmured, and Nysad frowned at her. Was the maid trying to get her to shut up, or had that been unintentional? She didn’t really want to figure it out as the maid rose. “I’ll be right back miss with dress’s for you to chose from.” she curtsied and the look she gave Nysad was warning. Nysad wondered what the girl was afraid of. Delkal seemed unlikely to hurt her.

“We are currently unsure as to who you really are, though you do bare a huge resemblance to the last fleur de la mort—“

“Interesting you should say that,” Nysad said sarcastically. “Last time I checked I was her.” She was studying herself in the mirror. The nose was not helping her case.

“Well there can be no assuredly without a wizard. Ours is currently out of the city.” A forestallment and Nysad gritted her teeth. She wanted control of this country; she was tired of seeing the ruin that the fools in parliament had created.

“Call on Barnon’s.” Nysad said. “I hear he’s in the city.” There was a silence and she could tell that Delkal was not comfortable with this idea. She was starting to wonder if Delkal really disliked the idea of her being queen or if it was just because it was against the rules. Perhaps they were not all fools in parliament, just foolish in their judgment. She was going to figure out a way to get it through their thick skulls that she had the right to rule and they were denying her it.

The maid was back, a pile of cloth over her arm in different shapes and sizes. She put them down on the chair and held out the first one to her. Nysad inspected it. “What do I have to do today then Delkal. You can’t deny that I am the Nysad, can you? I’m sure there’s something big that’s been waiting a hundred years, more or less?”

This got the man talking. she tuned him out after the starting with breakfast. She wouldn’t remember anyways, so he might as well say it now, and then resign himself to repeating it over and over again. She was not the type to listen patiently and remember everything that had been said.

The green dress was pushed aside as was the red one. she studied the blue one for a while before deciding it was too light and waving the maid aside to dig through the pile. She came up with a brown over dress type thing, with no sleeves and a scoop neckline. She slipped on her shift and the brown dress on top and looked at the maid. “Do you mind tying it up in the back? Thanks.” She said as the maid pulled the dress so that it was more shaped around Nysad’s body.

“You’ll be doing some binding in the evening,” Delkal was finishing the itinerary and Nysad frowned. She half wished she had timed it, to see how long it might actually take during the day, but she didn’t really want to know all of that. It would mean that she would actually have to listen to something she wasn’t going to remember and then have to re-listen to it only to forget it. She just had to hope that the list would get shorter and shorter.

~*~

Breakfast was a strange affair. There were guests for breakfast, she discovered. Lord Horth seemed very interested in meeting her at once, as they were now rivals only to discover it was a girl he had locked up not too long again.

Their conversation was strained and bordered on impolite before his “daughter” arrived. Nysad stared at this pale, limp thing that was supposedly his daughter. Did that make Kess the lair or him? The girl had red hair, but it wasn’t fiery in the same way that Kess’s was. She looked plainer then Kess did with something strange about her. She had pallid eyes, glazed and almost stupid. They reminded Nysad of a cow’s eyes. She really shouldn’t be mean to this girl, who ever she was, but this was not Kess.

Nysad wanted to know what this man had done to this girl and what had happened to Kess. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen the other girl in a long while. She wondered if she should find Kess before she was whisked away to do something else, but Delkal was watching every moment, his eyes trained on her every movement making her want to scream at him. instead she calmly waited for a chance to get away.

After breakfast was a petty court of sorts. She had to wait to do any bindings until the evening so she wouldn’t waste the day away recovering. Nysad wondered why that didn’t spark a bell in her head as she was shown around the castle (which she knew and repeatedly pointed out things to Delkal that he had missed, much to his annoyance) and then she was forced to sit through lunch with all the Lords and their women. Nysad had never had a more boring lunch and wanted to find Emek to get into a fight with.

She excused herself from the table and went looking for Emek before Delkal could come out and find her wandering and wasting the precious day.

~*~

She found him in the dungeon finally. He looked annoyed. “You shouldn’t have bound me again.”

“What? I needed an excuse to kiss you again,” she said innocently, but the tone was implying the joke.

“Ah yes, I’m irresistible.” Emek said with a grin. Nysad sighed softly, twisting a piece of hair around her fingers as she gnawed on her lower lip. She still had the bruise from that night, the place where he had bitten her tingled lightly at the thought of it.

“We were so very drunk when we did that,” she muttered. She turned to the lock and missed the look on Emek’s face. Something strange and incomprehensible had crossed his face at that moment. “Have you seen Kess? I think we need to find her and keep her away from her father.”

“Well I’ve had plenty of opportunities to look for her in my cell. Can you get me out?” Emek whined, the look passing from his face quickly as Nysad looked up. there was a longing in the look, a need for something more then just her blood. Nysad wouldn’t see the look again, or ever, Emek promised himself. He was not about to let anything become complicated for himself, or her.

“Yeah, why else would I be down here?” Nysad asked.

“To avoid the Lords of boredom?” Emek asked. Nysad rolled her eyes, but enjoyed the name.

“Yes, well. I can’t really say I enjoy your company now can I?” She asked, sarcasm evident in her voice. The tone was not as sarcastic as before and she softened the words with a slight smile. “Here,” she touched the lock and murmured some words. There appeared to be no change.

“Useful you are,” Emek said with more sarcasm then nessacary. Nysad gave him a look that implied that he was stupid and should die awful deaths of muder.

“You can disintergrate now and go find Kess for me. When you do find her can you pull her up to my room and keep her out of sight till they pull me into the room. then you better wake me up.”

“I will if I can, you sleep like a log.” Emek said, before he slowly seemed to vanish, but there was a light brush against her cheek before Emek reappeared. He made a face. “The new binding makes it harder.” He told her, deep seated resentment in his tone. Nysad shrugged.

“You try to kill me when you’re unbound, none of this guilt tripping, you hear?” she told him. Emek pouted before leaning forward ever so slightly. his lips grazed against hers before he was moving swiftly up the corridor. Nysad stopped, two fingers on her lower lip as she stared after him. Emek was a strange daemon, she thought. Any other thoughts were pushed far, far away in her head.

Kess was quiet at the bow of the ship. She was telling herself her favorite story from her childhood, quietly under her breath, as she had done then. She was alone, for once, and glad for it. she wasn’t so much an awkward person in social situations, after all her father had held functions and she knew the art of conversation, or listening since most of the men that came talked her ear off. She just preferred to be alone. She could do whatever she wanted here in the darkness and she sat, staring at the river water as it ran by.

She wasn’t looking up at the sky, the thought of all those stars was terrifying. She kept her eyes to the water. She had good night vision, her days spent in the walls of her house making it necessary. She smiled slightly as she leant her head on her hand. She didn’t mind this, the brisk breeze blowing her hair and making her shiver, for sure, but that wasn’t the point. It was so liberating to sit here and let the breeze take the soft sounds leaving her lips.

The princess had been cursed as a child. She had been told that she would fall asleep for a hundred years. The King had been terrified of this possibility and had refused to let the princess out of the castle. But then the Nysad had come and told the king that his daughter was the next one and there was no escape for her. she was going to have to leave.

And so she traveled the lands, and the people came to love her and waited for the day when she would become Queen and take a husband. But that day never came, because she went to a castle and then there was the old woman who had first predicted the sleep and she said it was time, and while the princess fought, there was no escape. And so she fell asleep, and the castle fell asleep with her. for a hundred years she slept.

The princess was forgotten, and the castle was as well. The vines encircled the walls and kept all those that tried to enter out until the prince came. He hacked his way through the vines and came into the sleeping castle. And he walked among the sleeping people and up to the tallest tower and slowly he pulled open the curtains around the princess’s bed and looked upon her sleeping face. She was so beautiful and so he couldn’t help but kiss her.

And with that kiss, the curse was broken. The castle awoke with the princess and there was a great celebration. The prince and the princess got married and were crowned the king and queen and so the country was returned to greatness under their leadership.

“That’s all wrong,” the voice was soft, but all the same Kess jumped and looked around. Nysad was standing there. it was her turn for the watch.

“What do you mean?” She asked, confused.

Nysad’s face was pale in the moonlight, her nose casting a strange shadow over her cheek as she stared at Kess. “There was no prince, and the castle didn’t sleep with the princess.” She moved forward, hobbling on her crutch.

Kess titled her head at Nysad, looking even more confused. “It’s just a fairy tale.”

“Not to me. It’s a lie to me.” Nysad stood there, her shadow falling over Kess and she looked up and staring at Nysad’s silhouette. For a moment she almost choked but she resisted the urge. She had the undeniable sense that she had seen Nysad before. Not just back at her house but somewhere before that inauspicious meeting. As if Nysad had been there early in her life. or maybe a picture of the girl.

“How?” Kess’s voice was small and Nysad looked down at her and shrugged.

“There was no prince,” she repeated, “And the castle was trapped, not sleeping. They all died there. rotting away as they screamed, trying to find some escape and yet unable to move. A horrible death.” Nysad was shivering visibly.

“How do you know that? Its just a fairy tale, I mean, its been around for years.”

Nysad’s lips twitched. “We’ll, since I’m the princess, I would say that I’ve been living it.”

Kess stared at her, blinking. The memory of a short woman with wild black hair coming into the room screaming in rage came to mind. Her mother, fighting her father, her grandfather. There she was, just three and she remembered it, there were no words, just her mother fighting, and looking like this girl above her. “That’s not possible,” Kess said. “That would make you… that would make you….”

“Your great aunt, isn’t it strange?” Nysad slid down to the ground and shrugged. “I thought you should know before we get to the capital.”

Kess swallowed and blink repeatedly. She didn’t have any words. Well, she had one. “What?”

“Well, since I’m going to go yell at people about how they ruined my country, I’m assuming you’d figure it out and stuff.”

“Wait, you mean…” Kess was still fixating on the great aunt part. “But you’re not old.” She said.

“No, I’ve been basically in a time freeze for a hundred years, means I don’t age and I keep on living. Basically my body is still twenty. So is my head because I didn’t really do anything for a hundred years. And before you ask, I have no idea what my life was like before. I can’t remember any of it. its probably part of the spell, or at least it has to do with the fact that I’m not very good with long term memory.” She was joking, but Kess was staring at the water now.

“I don’t believe you.” She said suddenly, standing and moving away, her heart beating fast in her chest. Her great aunt, who she had always wanted to meet, was sitting there and still Kess felt like she was going mad. Nysad had just said that she was a hundred and twenty. That was simply not possible.

~*~

They arrived in the capital in four days. There was a heavy silence between all three of them as they got off of the little boat. Nysad had tried desperately to talk to Kess about what had happened. Kess however wasn’t listening. She had returned to the silence that made them all think about when she had been so cold and quiet. Nysad worried, Emek worried and Kess turned away from them both.

Nysad hobbled down from the boat to the docks and looked around. she was going to have to do something now. she was here in the capital and in order to get any sort of recognition she was going to have to find those in power. But there was a slight problem with that, she didn’t know who was in power and how she was going to convince them that she was in fact the princess that had been assumed dead a hundred years ago.

All she had was a sword and the daemon’s words. She hoped it would be enough.

Dark presence’s plague at her and Nysad frowned, shifting through them, teasing out the ones that were more familiar and looked at Emek. She had grown used to his presence and he too was glancing around to see if there was anyone he might know.

It had been a while since she had felt this bombarded by spirits. Barnon was practically empty of daemons, the cities defenses of the walls and the river were enough to keep all but the most power daemons from entering. But the capital was festering with daemons and they were all hungry. Some turned their attention to the new comers and Nysad could almost feel the shock waves going through the city. The Nysad had returned.

“Right, we better get going.” Nysad said with more authority then she felt. She was here and she was going to get this city and this country into shape. She smiled slightly as she started to move. Or she would die trying.

~*~

Nysad was not attractive, Emek decided as he watched her bickering with one of the clerks. She was a tiny fireball though. One would have thought that Nysad’s fiery temper would be better placed in the red head, but Kess was surprisingly docile and delicate. She wasn’t a fighter in the same way as Nysad was. Of the two, Kess was the prettier one by far. She had the slight and delicate features, perfectly aligned, with the bright blue eyes. She looked like her father, Emek thought idly.

Nysad’s hand was suddenly at her hip, fingers wrapping around the hilt of her sword and Emek darted forward, placing a hand over Nysad’s and holding on tight so she couldn’t draw it. that certainly wouldn’t do.

“You listen to me you little fat man,” Nysad was snarling as Emek grabbed her hand and pulled it away from her sword. She whirled and tried to hit him in the stomach, managing to loose her crutch and tottering for a moment before changing the movement to a grab for his shirt and wavering there. Emek considered dropping her.

“Excuse me,” he told the clerk, “I think that I’m just going to have to drag her away.” The clerk looked half hurt and half glad.

“You better take better control of your wife!” the man said, his voice high and squeaky. Nysad growled and tried to turn, but Emek was dragging her away. Kess came behind them holding the crutch Nysad had dropped.

Emek picked her up, cradling her against his chest like a baby and muttering obscenities under his breath. “When are you going to figure out that this isn’t a hundred years ago Nysad? You have to let me talk.” He said as they got outside of the government building. He put her down carefully and she swayed there, holding on to him as Kess was just out of her reach.

“No! I don’t need a henchmen—‘

“You can’t bloody walk Nysad, you have to remember you have no foot and that you can’t draw your sword and smash your way through as you’d like to. You have to play by the rules before you can change them!” Emek snapped.

“I HAVE TO CHANGE THEM FIRST!” Nysad yelled. She grabbed the crutch from Kess with an effort and turned, moving off very fast into the crowd. Emek stared after her before balling up his hand and punching it into his other one.

“Well,” Kess said. “Are we following her?”

“We better, or she’s going to get into more trouble.” Emek sighed. When had he started to be nice? He hadn’t agreed to babysit the princess.

~*~

They were drunk. Nysad and Emek that was, Kess was not in the slightest drunk. She was still on her first glass of wine, expertly nursing it so that she would end up drunk like the other two.

Their table had gone through three bottles of wine, most of it drunk by Emek, but quite a bit had gone down Nysad, and as she was so tiny she was even more hammered then Emek was. Kess watched them with slight distaste as they burst into laughter about something. She didn’t quite understand what had happened and was sure even if she had heard when Emek had said, she wouldn’t have found it funny.

Emek waved the waiter over and asked for more wine. Kess grabbed the mans arm before he could move further then a few steps. “Can you just take this bottle and fill it with water, they’re too drunk to drink any more.” The waiter’s eyebrows rose and Kess sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it. Just don’t bring them more wine? Thanks.” She said, making a face and rising. Emek was eating the soup with his fingers.

“You are both so embarrassing.” She told them as she rose. Emek was trying to give Nysad a piece of meat and she was staring at him. Kess rolled her eyes as she walked away. She went to the water pump and filled the bottle with water before returning, muttering under her breath. She got to the table and stopped.

Nysad’s lips were locked with Emek’s. For a moment, Kess could rationalize her thoughts, could say something. But then she lost all coherency as the bottle slipped out of her hands, smashing on the floor into thousands of sharp pieces. Kess didn’t notice the waiter yelling behind her, the people staring. She was out of the door and walking fast. She was simply getting away from them.

She didn’t know why it hurt her so much. There was no reason for every beat of her heart to squeeze a tear out of her eyes. She felt like she was falling, falling until she hit the bottom, staring up and finding that there was no light above her.

~*~

There was something about Emek in this light that made him really attractive. Nysad’s focus was hard to find when she was drunk, but here it was and it was the daemon beside her. she wasn’t aware of Kess and her annoyance, she was only aware that Emek was feeding her. His fingers were on her lip and they were staring at each other and Nysad could see that glow in his eye. The red deep fires in his eyes that was the daemon behind them. The hatred for her binding, the other emotion that she didn’t quite understand.

He was the one that started it. his fingers on her lips and then her tongue around them, pulling them into her mouth and sucking softly, getting the last taste of the stew off of them before he pulled them out and their lips met, hungry and biting. It wasn’t even about the emotions that should have accompanied this kiss (that didn’t exist, Nysad supposed) it was just that they both wanted something from the other.

It was just a matter of figuring out what, exactly, they did want.

The sound of glass shattering didn’t affect her, but Emek pulled away and looked after the red head. Nysad’s lips trailed down his jaw and over his neck and for a moment it seemed like Emek might pull away, but then she bit into his skin, and he was suddenly very attentive to her. His lips finding her pale skin and then up to meet her lips. They were hungry for flesh and Nysad felt needy suddenly, her eyes drooping closed as his lips trailed over her neck. Her fingers came up to tangle in his hair and then clenched as his teeth went into her skin. He was pulling her up, sucking on her neck as blood pooled. She knew it was wrong, that she was feeding him in such a different way, that she could end up a dried husk by the end of the night, but somehow she didn’t even care.

~*~

Light streamed through the window, hitting Nysad’s face and making her turn over and hide it. She had the worst headache she had had in a long time. Hangover, she thought with a lot of distaste. What had she been drinking last night? Surely someone would have cared enough to take away her glass. Roger should have been aware that she was drunk, why hadn’t he pulled it away from her.

She sighed, slowly pulling an eye open and staring around. The thought of her brother and all the memories she might have had flew out of her mind. She stared at the room around her. This wasn’t her room in the palace. The memories of what had happened last night were choppy. There was Emek… and… Nysad frowned, turning over so she was on her back, staring up at the ceiling, not letting herself panic.

And then it all came back. Actually, that was technically untrue. She remembered what had happened since she had woken in the castle, she remembered for the first time her own name and there were recollections of a ball, parties, her little brother’s face, but there was nothing of what she considered her more resent history. She couldn’t remember the last Nysad and that was when she had been eleven, so it was quite a few childhood memories, but they were blurred by time and very much a child’s memory.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she stared up at the ceiling. She was happy, in a way, satisfied, though her body ached slightly (Emek hadn’t been gentle, and she hadn’t wanted him to be). But there was her childhood, so happy and she didn’t know the end of the story.

Slowly she forced herself up, her head still aching, her mouth not feeling at all good and pulled out a dress. For once it fit, if not perfectly, it was not too long and it actually fit across her chest. Strange indeed. Emek wasn’t there, and she didn’t think he would be as she studied herself in the mirror. She had a bruise on her neck from where he had sucked on her, dark and purple where his teeth had sunk in.

They had been so drunk, she thought idly as her fingers ran over the bruise before she let her hair down, effectively covering the mark. Nysad stared at herself before hopping over to the bed where she started to go through the bag. The foot that was supposed to go with the horse was there and she strapped it onto herself before strapping on the sword and looking at her hands.

Then she stood up and walked out of the room.

~*~

Parliament, Nysad discovered quickly, was in charge. She walked with more ease then she had in months as she started up the hill to the castle. Her face was calm and her pace steady. She was going to do it today. She didn’t care what anyone else might say, she was going to go and take back her country.

The first office was empty and Nysad didn’t even notice, walking with care through the corridors. She knew this place, the memories of Roger and herself running through these halls were there and she could touch them, something that she was glad for, her steady gaze broken slightly with the quirking of the corner of her lip.

The main chamber was filling slowly as the Lords entered. She walked past them, not seeming to care that their gazes were all locked on this strange girl who was walking among them. she really wasn’t aware that she was the last woman to enter the chamber, a hundred years ago, and now she was the first since then. She walked with a purpose to the front of the room and waited, black eyes placid almost. Her eyes darted over the seats that were being filled.

She was perfectly aware that anyone that heard what she was about to say was going to think she was insane. Her fingers found the hilt of her sword. The proof was going to be in her argument. She hoped that there were enough daemons in the city to convince them. She tested the rooms near by and found at least ten. Glad for the knowledge that she wasn’t alone, Nysad waited.

A tall man walked up to her and gave her a look. “Who do you think you are?” he asked voice deep and resounding.

“I am Nysad, the fleur de la mort.” Nysad said assuredly. “Who are you?” she asked, not looking at him and tightening her fingers on the hilt of her sword. The man was staring at her and she could tell it was the nose, her face, her small stature. She didn’t look like the fleur de la mort.

“Are you insane? Get out of this room.” The man said. he had a slow drawling accent and it would have been pleasant if she hadn’t been here for a purpose.

“This country has lost its way,” Nysad said, voice calm, “I am the Nysad. I am also T’nar deRobert. And since this is my country I believe I have to step in and fix what this Parliament and my brother have ruined.”

“The princess died a hundred years ago.” At this Nysad turned, her black eyes going icy and cold.

“Are you saying I’m dead? Am I not living breathing flesh right now?” she asked sharply. The man stared at her.

“You really are insane.” Nysad tugged at the sword and brought it out, but not in a way that would imply that there was a danger to him. The chamber was quiet and Nysad knew that they were all watching her and the man as they talked.

“Do you see this sword?” she asked. “It is the only blade in the country that will cut through daemon flesh. Do you want proof, there are about ten different daemons I could call in here and bind for you. Would you deny me then of life?” she asked, eyes narrowing slightly. The man backed away, eyes wide.

“Guards!”

“Emek!” Nysad yelled and everyone stood still as the daemon slowly sauntered into the room. his eyes were glowing red as he stared at her and Nysad didn’t even look at him. The Lords were frozen as the bound daemon walked towards the black haired girl in the center of the chamber.

“You call T’nar?” It was as if they had rehearsed this, Nysad knew where he would be, where he was standing and how he was looking at her. but the call had been spontaneous, she hadn’t really been aware as she called him, her power over him was less complete now.

she turned, eyes finding his and reading the hunger there. Nysad knew that her own eyes were just as hungry, that she wanted him, but it wasn’t the time. Her mind was flicking through what she did remember. No, Emek’s binding wasn’t there so it didn’t matter. She was about to unleash a first class daemon in the Parliament and she didn’t care. As long as he was just as hungry for her. he could go for her when unbound, and then she would bind him.

“You could have at least chosen an easier daemon to bind,” Emek said in an undertone in a way that indicated his own self importance. Nysad made a face at him.

“Do you believe me?” She snapped to the lords. The man who had stopped her was staring at the daemon. If he believed her there would be a doubt, but if he didn’t then there could be a loose daemon in the building. They had all seen loose daemon’s and all knew the horror of it. the less daemon hunters could barely contain them now. But if this was the Nysad…

“No.” the man said and Nysad found the spell binding Emek and flicked the catch.

“I release you from this spell!” she said with more calm then she really felt. For a moment Emek was still, holding his human form, and there was a breath of relief from behind her. but then there was a scream of rage and hatred as the form dissolved, white fire replacing the place where the man had been.

Emek in his daemon form was simply white mist. He reformed himself over and over again, making Nysad’s stomach roil as he dove towards her. She stood ready sword out. Emek formed around it, trying to reach out to grab her around the neck. She swung sideways, catching the white mist and causing the daemon to scream in rage and retreat.

The men of the council were scattering. “DO YOU BELIEVE ME NOW?” She yelled as Emek locked the doors. She could feel him do it and smiled ever so slightly as the men reached the doors screaming in fight.

The tall man was suddenly caught up and Emek was dragging him into his white mist. Nysad pulled her hair away from her neck and let him see the bruise. “Emek, you will be bound again!” She snarled. She pushed up and yelled loud and furiously. The words were not in any language the men knew but they watched as the tall man came to the ground suddenly and there was something strange about him.

“Damn you Nysad!” the man yelled. “Freedom given can not be taken away.” He was stumbling, as if he didn’t know how to move exactly. Nysad smiled as she moved forward.

“Indeed it can Emek. You cannot kill me; you cannot take another’s life.” Her sword was forward and she was moving forward. They were closer and closer together and then there was a strange noise as the foot fell off of her leg. She swayed and reached out to grab at something. The man was close enough and her fingers clutched at his shirt.

“You have to stop doing that,” the man snapped and Nysad pulled as far back as she possibly could with her sword arm and rammed it straight into the man’s stomach. He screamed, and yet no blood bloomed from his stomach. She dropped him and pulled the daemon out of him, speaking in that unknown tongue. She was swaying on her foot as she bound Emek again. He was forming, forming into the boy that Nysad knew.

She grabbed his shirt before she could fall over and pressed her lips against his. It was a caste kiss, if anything, and it was the final binding. She tried to step back, but there was no footing, and she fell, her sword clattering the ground as Emek stood over her, a defeated, strange look on his face.
It was the last thing she saw before she blacked out.

~*~

She was walking among the skeletons, her head bent. She couldn’t look up and meet the holes that had once been eyes. She was walking properly, strange indeed, without her crutch. She looked down and saw a foot, a real foot, instead of the wooden one. she didn’t think more about it as she looked up. Her eyes met the bright blue eyes of another girl.
“Kess!” the girl turned and ran. There was the sound of shattering glass. She looked down at a piece and stared at her red eyes.

“You are mine Nysad,” it was Emek’s voice and he was staring at her. she could feel his eyes on her. When had he said that before? He was moving forward and she was running backwards, staring at him because she couldn’t look away. And then she found that her foot wasn’t there and he was getting closer and closer and the betrayal was thick in the air.

“Roger!” she screamed suddenly as she looked up and saw him. “Roger what are you doing?” but she didn’t know why she was screaming that, because she couldn’t see what he was doing. And Emek was there, his steel toed boot on her head as a steel coin with a square cut of the center swung in the infinite black.

Nysad woke her body in a sweat, her mind panicky. She looked around, confused mostly. She was in her room. Her room from when she was a child. She stared at the drapes and then sat up, staring around the bright room. She felt like no time had passed since she was eleven. She was so confused.

Flopping back on the bed, Nysad covered her face with her hands. She really just needed to sleep a bit longer.

The library was huge, Kess stared around her in amazement and slight fear. When she had first gone out of the town she had been terrified of the sky, but then she had woken up one morning and considered, under a blanket, that if she was going to let the sky scare her anymore she would be an idiot. her stomach still clenched and she got nervous when she looked up, but she forced herself not to panic, taking deep breaths. It was much like the library. She had never seen anything so huge and grand.

Of course there was a difference. Kess loved books. They had been her only true friend since she had taught herself how to read. she knew it was not allowed for women to read, but she knew how and so when they were admitted to the library (with Emek in tow, as he was the only way they would get in) the two girls had taken off in different directions. Kess had come to the history section, fingers running reverently alone the spines of the books. She wasn’t sure where Nysad had gone, but thoughts like that were beyond her. She pulled out a book and crept into a darker corner where no one would see her reading. She didn’t know how strict it might be here, the enforcement of women not being allowed to read, but apart from that, it was simply a habit of hers. She didn’t know how to read openly.

~*~

The library was familiar to Nysad and she knew exactly where she was going as she hobbled up the stairs of the library. The medical section was not where she would usually go, but she was tired of wandering around on a crutch. She was going to figure out how to make herself an artificial foot, it really couldn’t be that hard. They had figured it out for horseback riding (not that they had done anything strenuous) and now Nysad was ready to study the muscles in the leg and foot that made it possible for people to walk. Either she would duplicate it with elastics, or she would figure out some other way.

The librarian (a young man who had looked at her with a sneer and made Nysad feel like hitting him. hard) had said that tour were available, and made it clear he didn’t think that Kess or Nysad couldn’t touch the books. Nysad felt a vindictive pleasure in pulling out a book before she turned and bumped into someone. Emek was standing that arching an eyebrow.

“Go annoy Kess,” Nysad snapped, trying to push around Emek. She wasn’t in the mood for him to be breathing over her shoulder. Of course, she didn’t mind him too much; it was just that she was quite sure that the moment she sat down they were going to get into some sort of fight. It was brewing in the air around them, they hadn’t fought in almost four days, since Kess had become livelier and Nysad had started to be quiet.

“Nah, she’s being boring and reading.” Emek said. Nysad gave him a look before tucking the book under her arm and moving to a chair. She would never be able to get up if she just sat on the floor. Emek followed behind her. She sat and pointedly opened the book.

Of course, she wasn’t quite thinking this through, the page she had opened to was filled with male genitailia and made Emek begin to laugh. He was quiet in the library, of course, but he was still laughing at her. she slapped the book closed and glare at him. “Oh come on, what the hell do you think I’m doing in the library?” she snarled.

Emek’s face was pressed into lines of mirth, as his chest shook. He was trying to repress his laughter, and failing. “Oh several things come to mind.” He said. Nysad pressed her lips together, frowning at him in extreme annoyance.

“Oh please. You’re sick.” She told him, understanding what he was talking about, but not finding it in the slightest funny. Emek grinned at her and she could still hear him laughing. She opened the book again and frowned seriously at the picture of the arm muscles.

“Oh poor Nysad, wanting me to go away, I could always—“

“Shut up?” Nysad snapped. She had been right, it seemed more likely that they were going to fight now. After all, he was being a bastard and she wanted him to go and die. She wished she could remember how she had bound him so she could do it again and again until there was no chance of him ever getting out. Then she would put him in a glass bottle and throw him in the river. Or better yet find some volcano that was erupting and through him in that. There would be no escape from stone.

“Well, if you need help, I’d be willing to help. I’m sure a hundred years is such a long time for a girl like you.” Emek turned to go but Nysad had jumped up.
“What the hell do you mean by that Emek?” she snarled. She was teetering, almost falling over with her lack of true balance and it made her angrier then before, her own weakness hurting her.

“Oh, just that you slept around a lot, don’t you remember?” Emek didn’t even turn around to look at her and Nysad felt like screaming at him. She half wanted to tell him that he was a fucking bastard who had to die, but the other half was saying that he might be telling the truth. She stared after him as he walked away. Part of her wondered if he thought that she should be fighting him more. The other part was the kind that made her sit down and bury her face in her hands. Which is exactly what she did.

~*~

Kess had grown used to listening to conversations while reading. She was perfectly capable of doing it without thinking and so when she heard the sound of footsteps, she didn’t think about listening. One ear was perked as her eyes trailed over the page. The only person she actually cared to listen to was her father, and that was when there was something about her. She knew it wasn’t quite right to think like that, but she did it anyways.

“What do you mean, she disappeared?” a gruff voice asked as Kess went over the map of the Kingdom, most recently. The bridge that they had crossed was marked there, but it was also marked as a summer, fall and winter bridge. Spring was a dangerous time to be crossing, but they were heading into summer, so she supposed that it would be alright.

“There was a daemon, two of them. they came out and grabbed her and pulled her away.” The other voice was vaguely familiar and Kess frowned, blinking repeatedly and looking through the stacks of books. There were two guards standing there.

“Well what are we going to tell her father? And the Captain. He was going to get to be king, and without the girl what are we going to do?” Kess’s eyes went wider as she leant forward slightly.

“Tell the father what happened, and get him to come up with the idea that since no one’s ever seen his daughter really, that they can just find someone else for the captain. It’ll probably make him happy, Akessina has never been the good daughter he wanted.” Kess bit her lip, her eyes watering slightly.

She hadn’t thought about her father since she had run away from the guards and now it seemed, that her father wouldn’t even care that she was probably dead somewhere. She felt angry, but there was a huge sadness pressing down on her. she shivered, hugging herself as the two guards continued to talk.

“You all right?” it was Emek’s voice, soft, luckily too quiet for two men on the other side of the bookshelf to hear. Kess looked up, her eyes filled with tears.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I’m not.” Emek was suddenly beside her, scooping her up and holding her in his lap. Kess flinched slightly before tentatively leaning into him. human contact and comfort was something she had rarely had. She didn’t quite know what to do, but she went with her instinct and leant into him, burrowing her head into his chest, and forgetting completely that he was a daemon.

~*~

Nysad pulled herself together and left the library. She nodded with an icy smile to the librarian at the front desk, before she made her way onto the street. She had had an idea.
Looking up old maps she had found the place where the Wizard of Barnon lived and had decided to go talk to him or her. She wasn’t sure of the name, or of the procedure, but she was determined to talk to the wizard. The reasoning was simple: the wizard understood magic, and might be able to give her some sort of clue as to what she had done in the castle. And if not that, she considered, she could always get the wizard to help her with her foot idea.

The streets were busy, but she moved on her crutch with greater ease now and could maneuver crowds better then with the false boot she had created. She wondered if she would be able to manage to walk properly if she made the replacement foot. Or maybe she was just a tad mad.

The Wizard’s residence, in her time at least, was large and grand. Nysad stared at the house. It was large, to be sure, but it seemed dirty and unkempt. There were children in the yard, their faces unwashed, their limbs too thin. Nysad stared back at them. whoever owned the house had rented it out, a sign indicating that there were rooms to let in the house. She slowly walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

An old woman appeared eyes blue with age, hair white and soft. She was shorter then Nysad (a strange occurrence for her) and almost bent double over the door step. “Hello?” she asked in a quavering voice. Nysad felt her heart sink. Was this the wizard? The blue eyes were wandering, not focusing on anything and Nysad realized that the woman was blind.
“Yes, my name is…” she stopped, should she go by T’nar or by Nysad. Would the woman know the difference. The old woman reached out and found Nysad’s stomach, running up delicately avoiding Nysad’s lack of breasts and up to her face.

“You’re name,” she said in that wavering old voice, her knobby fingers were running over her face. Nysad almost winced as the fingers found her nose. it had healed long ago, but it was so ugly now. “Is T’nar,” the woman said. “Am I correct?”

“Y-y-yes.” Nysad stammered. Her real name was T’nar, supposedly, but she had been called Nysad so much recently that she had forgotten. Something stirred in her memory as the fingers trailed over her face. There was another old woman, older then this one even, touching her face and predicting something, she couldn’t remember the words, the image fleeting before the end. She just had the remembrance of an old woman and her mumbling something over her.

“Come in then, I’ve been waiting for you.” The old woman walked slowly, still bent slightly and Nysad wondered if the woman could have walked faster or if she was aware of the crutch. She seemed to be able to see without seeing.

“You’ve been waiting for me?” Nysad asked, confused. How could this woman know these things? A small child ran at them suddenly and Nysad shifted out of the way but the woman grabbed the boy and made him stop.

“Rilo, go to your mother and ask her to bring some tea to my room. there’s my boy.” The boy pouted and the old woman gave him a stern look (disconcertingly looking over his head). “You can play soon enough, don’t give me that look.” The boy rolled his eyes and stared to run again. “And don’t run Rilo!”

Nysad pressed her lips together, amused. “Well, he’s very energetic.” She said.

“Yes, Rilo’s mother is the resident cook here, and I think that she gives him some of the cookies she makes. There’s not a lot of sugar, but the jam she uses has enough to make me want to do a jig.” The old woman smiled. “I’m Zheas, by the way, I’m a Seer.”

“Oh?” Nysad felt disappointment slip into her voice. She hadn’t meant to do that, her mind rushing to other possibilities. She should have just left it like that. The Seer, nothing more.

“You were looking for the Wizard, weren’t you?” Zheas led them into a small chamber with a bed and small card table. “Well, the Wizard found a better occupation in the capital. I wouldn’t go to him either. He’s a treacherous leech.” There was a bitter tone in her papery voice. Nysad glanced at her in some surprise before shrugging slightly.

Wizards had been appointed by the King, or Queen to a city when they came to their full power. They were never moved from the area they were assigned to. And hadn’t Kess said that there was a power shift with the lack of a male heir? Who was in power now?

“If you need anything that a Wizard would make, you pay for it in coin spells; you can’t put a price in gold for those things.” Zheas said. Nysad frowned, her thumb and forefinger rubbing together. She didn’t know why she was doing it, but it felt like she was supposed to have something between her fingers. She glanced down before folding her hands together.

“You said you were expecting me,” Nysad said, swallowing nervously. “Why? I don’t believe I’ve ever met you and yet you know my name and seemed to be expecting me.” The door opened slightly and Rilo entered, looking disgruntled as he put the tray of tea and cookies down on the table.

“Thank you Rilo.” Zheas said. Nysad glanced at the boy before winking at him and offering him a cookie. Rilo grabbed it and backed out, returning the wink. Nysad looked up at the old woman. “He won’t be eating his supper now,” Zheas mused and Nysad felt her stomach clench, should she not have given the boy the cookie. After all she had only been trying to do something nice, and yet if it meant the boy wouldn’t eat then she was at fault. “Ah well, you weren’t to know that that boy is constantly filling up on all the wrong things.”

Zheas’s hand on hers made Nysad shiver. The old woman patting her on the hard was light having coarse fabric running over his skin. She managed to smile slightly. “You were the one my mother talked about. She was the Seer of the King, and she saw you and your brother. She gave you your futures before she left. I wasn’t born until you had disappeared, but I knew you would wake. I knew that there would be a sleeping beauty there, in the castle of statues.”

Nysad pulled away, black eyes scared. No, this woman didn’t know, couldn’t know what it was to see those skeletons. They weren’t statues; they were morbid reminders of her own stupidity. She pulled away from the old woman. “I have to go.” She said, almost breathlessly. She got up and the woman stood as well.

“Oh, don’t go quite yet.”

“I must, I have someone to meet. I’m sorry.” She was moving as fast as she could. She had to get away from this old woman, the shriveled skin, the bent form. Statues, they weren’t statues,