“There was one star in the void of blackness of my time with Farren. Or two, I should say.

  Ulises, Farren’s business partner, was married to Ariadna. Together, they had a daughter; Lili. Almost as soon as I met them, mother and daughter, they became the only breaths of pure air in the endless suffocation that was my life.

  Ariadna was still a teenager, not yet nineteen when I first visited her home alongside my husband for a luncheon with the farmer families. Her child was five. Ariadna was encouraged by Ulises to make conversation with me, for I’d been behaving rather antisocially and he didn’t wish to present a bad image to their clients. So she came, shyly and smilingly, to sit beside me with her little girl grabbing onto the fabric of her skirts.

  We became inseparable, as quickly as that. Like drowning cats, we clung to each other for respite and support where there was none anywhere else.

  Because they lived a short walking distance from our house, we were able to see each other quite frequently, often escaping from our homes to visit the other in the middle of the day or night, to speak, or just to spend some time in welcome company, for once.

  I helped Ariadna a lot with Lili during those initial years, for she’d never had to care for a child before as I’d had to look after my younger siblings back on the farm. She’d had an easy life in the capital, in Ajon-Khall, when Artlan sat on the throne. Her family had owned a draper’s shop, selling fabrics and whatnot, and, as an only child to a somewhat well-off family, she had lived a childhood of comforts unlike any I ever knew.

  But when the Sun came and they had to run, Ariadna’s life came crumbling around her, and she found herself married to Ulises within two or three years of her family’s downfall. She never even blamed her parents for selling her off to him, either. She insisted that they’d only done it to ensure she could eat, even when they could not.

  And so she became stuck in a situation very similar to my own, with the one major exception: she was not barren. So she and Ulises had Lili within their first year of marriage, and he was jovial at first. He’d gotten himself a beautiful, young, fertile and docile wife for nothing more than a few gold coins, and his business was thriving.

  That is, until I came along.

  I was a pebble in his shoe in two different ways. There was the fact that his only partner could no longer contribute to their shared pursuit for his ever worsening mood and his lack of a well-presenting family, and there was also my influence on his own women.

  I was angry, frustrated, full of contempt and rage. I felt I’d been dealt a bad hand with Farren, and when Ariadna started listening to the tales of my experience, she began to relate. Her relationship with her husband deteriorated rapidly from our sharing, and that was the seed that sprouted and grew into a much darker fate for the three of us: Ariadna, Lili, and me.”

  Leroh slept and slept. His body wanted him to do so, and so did his mind, and so he slept, extensively and dreamlessly, for what felt like too long before he finally managed to convince his eyes to pry open.

  He was surprised to see the whole day had passed him by when he looked around the unfamiliar room, still drowsy and a little confused from his ill-timed rest.

  Beside him on the bed but still seeming oddly far away, Teela slept curled into a waning Moon’s shape. The bed was large, much more spacious than their little mattresses of stuffed straw which rested atop wooden pallets back home. The whole room was primed for comfort and uninterrupted relaxation. Leroh had been able to fall asleep almost immediately upon closing his eyes, surrounded by the lulling cleanness of the room and ensconced in the soft nightgown of nice-smelling cotton that the Mantis had given him.

  Or just Mantis.

  He smiled to himself. Now that Teela had brought that detail to his attention, he would never be able to stop hearing the difference!

  The woman herself, Mantis, was also asleep. She’d had a low, rustic cot brought up to their room, and she now lay asleep atop it in the opposite corner of the room with her knees brought up to her torso and her arms hugging her shins. Her chin-length tresses of hair fanned messily around her head and over her face and, peeking through those fine strands of amber, the ruby color of her lips shone vividly like a fresh stain of blood. Leroh stared at her for a moment, unsure of why.

  Then he knew. He hadn’t seen her asleep before.

  His eyes thoroughly examined her positioning and the features of her face revealed through her messily strewn locks of hair. The Mantis. Mantis. He’d never imagined her looking so vulnerable, so young and unthreatening, almost like a normal human being; but, in her sleep, that was what she was. It was strange. Unsettling was not the right word for it. Confusing.

  That night, they had another feast. Or so it seemed to Leroh.

  The same woman who had brought them food earlier came into their room bearing a tray laden with all sorts of things that made Leroh’s mouth fill with saliva at the mere smell of them. Then she retreated for a few moments, and brought in another tray! It was all unbelievably delicious, the sort of food that makes one forget his woes. And, with some shame to admit it, that is what Leroh did. He pushed all thoughts of death and repayment and punishment out of his mind. He crammed those memories and worries into a mental chest, and hid said chest behind the locked doors of a mental closet, securely to be stored until, hopefully, a long time had passed. Or, even more hopefully, forever.

  He ate and ate, then slept and slept some more. It was bliss.

  For five days they stayed in that state of indulgent leisure, and Leroh told himself that he kept quiet about it for the sake of obeying Mantis’s will, but, in truth, there was more to it than that. He was enjoying himself.

  Mantis kept them well. She fed them three times a day, and each meal was as substantial and flavorful as the last. She bought them clothes! On one sunny morning, Leroh and Teela awoke to two piles of fresh garments, tailored to fit their sizes roughly, resting at the foot of their bed. They each received two green tunics of soft cotton and two pairs of comfortable linen trousers, along with brand new boots of soft goatskin to replace the awfully tattered footwear they’d left Pirn in. Teela even got a new dress. It was simple and unpresuming, similar to the one she’d worn before, but in a pretty green color that matched their tunics, and it came complete with a white smock to wear underneath and a nice green ribbon to tie at the waist.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  At one point, Mantis sat Leroh and his sister down to have a serious talk, and it was a worrisome thing at first. But then proceeded to emphatically forbid them both from ever sharing the name of her Goddess with anyone. That was all she wanted from them. Her eyes looked crazy and her expression was one of barely-contained fury, and so they both easily agreed to her demand. Apart from that, however, the woman was nothing but patient and amiable with them, for a change.

  And by far the kindest thing that Mantis did for Leroh during those days was to afford him freedom. She kept to herself, and allowed him to do the same. And even though Teela preferred to keep to their room at the inn most of the time, Leroh had no such preference. He went out to explore the village every single day.

  He walked the streets with confidence, taking reassurance from the fact that the community was one of free folk like himself. God servants were only ever present in passing in such settlements, and their behavior was less hostile than out in the open, or in their respective holy grounds. The Gods had some grudging respect for such communities, for the most part, and so Leroh knew that this was a very rare opportunity for him to explore a new place filled with new people without too much fear. He took it with eagerness.

  He walked around aimlessly, familiarizing himself with the layout of the village. It was exciting to an almost childish degree to traverse streets he’d never seen before, to peruse the stalls of street vendors and the humble facades of the little houses and businesses.

  One day he even dared to borrow a few coppers from his sister, which she had to dig out of her little stash for him, and made his way down to a tavern he’d discovered the day before. In several different aspects, it was nearly identical to the Oak’s Shade, with only one crucial difference: Leroh was only a customer there, not a bar-boy. He was one of the people destined to be treated kindly and preferentially, a paying guest. And so he sat at a table near the door and drank two mugs of ale with a foolish grin on his face, keeping his ears wide open to any potential interesting chatter that he might overhear.

  What he heard, however, were words plainly directed at him: “Ain’t ya the one as arrived with that God-pet bitch the other day?”

  The man who spoke was alone, sitting a few tables across from Leroh with a bowl of steaming stew in front of him, untouched. A familiar tune had started playing then, from the other side of the room, a sharp plucking of strings that should have elicited pleasant emotions but didn’t. The song was one of many similar ballads of adventure and hope and new love, one whose words Leroh knew as well as any minstrel worth his instrument. It was sung at his mother’s tavern, as in every other in Yriaa, at least once a day, for the young people seemed to enjoy its cheerful tone, and the old, perhaps, its simple, warm message.

  One strong, one brave and one clever,

  Their swords freshly forged,

  Their days at their morn,

  Their hearts yearned for purpose, they tell it

  Leroh would have rhythmically tapped his foot on the spongy floorboards and sung along under his breath if not for the suggestion of danger in the air that had arisen with the melody. The bard’s gaze was on Leroh as he sang, his eyes full of hate. The other man, the one who’d spoken to him from across several occupied tables had continued to stare, too, his food neglected entirely.

  The whole affair was altogether so vile and called so much attention to Leroh from the other tavern-goers that he saw no option but to depart in embarrassment and fear back to the inn.

  Aside from that mishap, however, the time they spent at the village was decidedly lovely. Leroh imagined coming back with Tem and Kird, riding their horses out to the nearby settlement and staying at the cozy little inn for a few nights. Perhaps someday they’d be able to afford such a jaunt, and their parents would have a lighter hand in controlling their lives to make it possible for them to leave if they so decided.

  They might be able to find their future wives that way, Leroh dared to hope. And it wasn’t a completely outlandish idea, even.

  From what he’d gathered during his short stay, the women in the small settlement were much friendlier than what he was used to back in Pirn. They often smiled at him, or looked at him in passing sheepishly from the corner of their eyes. One such lady even ventured to greet him with a warm “Good morning. I hope our people are treating you kindly on this fine day, mister,” when he walked past her stall of artisanal ceramic bowls at the market square. Leroh only thanked her and hurried away with a warm flush spreading across his face, but the interaction gave him much to think about and to desire.

  And so returning home to his mother’s wrath and the arduous routine of work was shamefully not even on his mind the day that Leroh awoke to an unusual and foreboding scene: Mantis and Teela sat at their small table in the middle of the chamber with their arms crossed over their chests and their matching expressions ominously serious. Leroh sat up on the bed, a sense of dread spreading outwardly from his gut.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  His sister sighed and kept her eyes squeezed shut for a moment. Then she spoke. “I need to tell you something. It’ll upset you.”

  “What is it?” he repeated, more shortly.

  “Mantis has to leave now, to carry on with her duty to her Goddess. She has found us a place to live here, a hut just inside the village. I went to see it; it’s not too bad. It seems secure. We could fix it up, make it—no, nevermind that. Forget that for now. What I’m trying to say is we must stay here, and Mantis will leave. She says she’ll come back every now and then to check on us, but we should be safe here, anyway. She’ll give us money for—”

  “Wait, no. Wait! What are you talking about? Live here? Why would we live here?”

  “Pirn,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away from him, keeping her gaze low. “We don’t have a home anymore. There’s nothing to go back to. They burned it.”

  “What are you saying, Teela?”

  Mantis had to reply, for his sister hid her face in her hands, lowered her head to her chest and started to weep then. “Pirn was burned down.”

  The words meant nothing to him. Leroh shook his head in confusion.

  “There was a raid.” Mantis spoke slowly to him, like a parent explaining an adult concept to a very small child. “After the Solar event, when the Sun darkened in the sky, his servants had to appease him to avoid further displays of his anger. An event so major had to have required an immense sacrifice to satisfy him, to prevent something worse. So they raided Pirn. Plundered what they wanted and burned the rest. I have to assume they took all the people back to him as a…large offering. As many of them as they could transport, at least.”

  Leroh said nothing. She was mistaken. He shook his head again absentmindedly and tried producing words but none wanted to come out of his mouth. None of it made any sense at all.

  Teela continued crying as she spoke, still not looking at him. “We didn’t want to tell you until you’d had a chance to recover a bit. You looked so tired at first, and then you were so cheerful. I didn’t have the heart to tell you, Leroh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Leroh knit his brows and bit his lip for a few breaths. Then he attempted to talk again, “I—we…we have to…go home now.”

  “We can’t! That’s what we’re telling you,” Teela yelled, hysterical.

  “We must. My friends—my Mother…we have to go to Mother.”

  “She won’t be there. They will have taken her to the capital,” Mantis said.

  “Why? I don’t understand. Mother—we must go to her. She’s alone—”

  “Leroh, listen to us,” Teela said, composing herself just enough to raise her face to him. Tears were pouring unencumbered down her cheeks. “Mother was either killed during the raid, or she was taken to the Sun capital by the Sun servants.”

  “Then we go find her,” he muttered.

  “The Sun will give her two options, Leroh,” Mantis explained. “She will be forced to swear to him, or to die. Either way, he’ll have her. They are all his now, the people of your town. If you go looking for her, the best thing you’ll find is your mother enslaved to the Sun.”

  No. The best thing he could hope to find was her body decomposing among the ashes of his home, Leroh knew.