In the time before the fall, when Llon Llyrith was a byword for learning and when elves still held kingdoms and territory of their own, many small groups of intrepid heroes achieved great deeds and became bywords for courage, their victories living on in legends, commemorated in statues and song.

One such band were known as the Veiled Alliance. While they were friends before, it took a great change to their home realm to bring them together as a unit.

What is perhaps curious about this is that some of them were at the heart of that change.

*

Tir Cyfoethog was, at the time, one of the grander and wealthier nations of the time; its heart was where Muchkan sits today, but the source of its riches, the city of Grisial, no longer exists and nor does its people; where it could once be found lies within the Shrouding Mist. I tell you this, dear listener, simply so you understand the extent of the Cyfoethogan lands; the events leading to the creation of the Mist date from centuries later, in the decades that first followed the fall, between the Ages of Enchantment.

The Cyfoethogan royal family jealously guarded the titles of nobility passed beyond it, and had done for some time. You will be familiar with our neighbouring nation of Naakibhin, where with the death of each King, the noble families gather to elect a candidate from among them, and where they keep their titles; the Cyfoethogan model was almost precisely opposite, where when the Emperor or Empress died, their heir had the right to revoke titles and duties from the aristocracy and bestow them on other lines, changing the power of a family or even banishing it back to the peasantry.

It will be obvious, I am sure, that such a policy is unstable. Cyfoethogan philosophers considered this a great benefit, saying that it ensured its nobility were always motivated to serve the nation, and that if a line began to fail of intelligence, creativity, or courage, another line still strong in these characteristics would be elevated in its place.

Around one decade before the tale I wish to tell you, some things occurred in Tir Cyfoethog of which you must be informed for what I have yet to say to make sense.

The House of Onyx ruled the Cyfoethogan Empire, supported by the Houses of Rubies, Sapphire, Jade, and Gold. The Emperor was young, and the various Houses had settled in to build long-term plans and be ready to advance their aims as well as those of the Empire; this much was typical with a young Emperor in peacetime.

The Emperor then then started to show signs of an ailment. What exactly was wrong isn’t clear, as it was not diagnosed successfully at the time; nor did prayer nor magic do more than slow its progress.

Suddenly it was clear to all nobles that the change of power - and with it, a potential change in what line occupied what House - could come very soon. Usually this meant a change of strategy to one focused on short-term gains, something the Empire also saw often when an Emperor or Empress rode to war.

The House of Gold this time took a very different strategy. At a formal feast they hosted, they suborned the Emperor’s food-taster, poisoned him, and slit the throat of his bride; his son and heir apparent, then a callow youth we would now call a teenager, fled the hall before he could be detained. All was on edge for a while, but as days became weeks and weeks became months, it became clear to those of Tir Cyfoethog that Glacien, the Crown Prince, had fled the land.

In this way the House of Gold took upon themselves the crown of Empire, with the Houses of Rubies, Jade, and Sapphire unwilling to make a move. As a way to placate potential uprisings, the House of Onyx was left extant, with the first Golden Empress saying she would welcome Glacien back to restore his House should he ever return.

As for Glacien himself, he had already formed his own assessment of the situation and of what he, a young boy of fifteen, could do about it, and had determined not to lose his life in the attempt.

He had been well enough educated, and he found a position at the court of the Duke of Bugail, a small island separated from the Cyfoethogan Empire by two other nations and a narrow sea. The Duke, a distant cousin, welcomed Glacien’s education, already strong, and granted him a position in his cabinet, but with the requirement that Glacien never speak of his heritage or of the title owed him, for Bugail could ill afford to become the target of the Cyfoethogan military.

*

As my listeners have doubtless anticipated, the change from Onyx Emperor to Golden Empress greatly improved the lot of the House of Gold, but this was not the only winner. While the House of Jade had lost some of its political power in the fallout from the Usurpation, the Houses of Sapphire and Rubies both saw benefit, and the House of Sapphire in particular came to fear what might happen if Glacien, surely still alive, ever mustered an army with which to retake his crown.

In particular, Ceidwad, the second daughter of the House of Sapphire, had played with Glacien when the two had been children, and it seemed to her in memory that he had been a stubborn one and a cruel one. She had perhaps forgotten that children tend all toward cruelty, and that those children who never need to hear the word ‘no’ are often more stubborn than most.

In any event, Ceidwad had, from the point she reached adulthood and began to cultivate her own personal power within the House, invested heavily in a loose network of spies, informers, and gossips.

While her own primary intention was simply to find Glacien, wherever he had fled, she rapidly found herself supported in her activity by her family, and with good reason; it was rare that a month went by without some useful tidbit reaching the family.

Their investments began to prosper, and while Ceidwad would have considered blackmail despicable, it was nonetheless carried out by members of her House using the intelligence provided, simply without telling her.

In this way, Ceidwad’s repeated requests to her web of correspondents that if they sighted anyone who might match Glacien’s description were tolerated by her elders in the House and seen as simply a flight of fancy, but one which kept a worthy member of the House valuable.

With her suspicions focused where they were, too, it didn’t occur to Ceidwad that her family might be using her, or might be amused by her achievements.

Now, it happened that Ceidwad’s first agent in Bugail, a travelling merchant who spent much time in the port city that served as the Duchy’s capital, was friendly also with Duke Mortin, and had been privy to the secret of Glacien’s identity almost from the beginning.

He did not, however, pass this information along, foreseeing troubles for the Duke if he were to do so. And so Glacien grew to adulthood without further interference from the Cyfoethogan Empire, and even some way into his adulthood; and if many at the Duke’s court wondered why a tall, well-proportioned young man with the manners of a courtier and no visible lack of income had not taken a wife or husband, well, it was unusual enough to provoke comment but not so unusual as to cause censure.

As the playwright has it, though, there’s no summer that is not followed by a winter, and when that merchant fell prey to pirates, Ceidwad hastened to replace him with another, which she achieved by funding the purchase of three sloops for a merchant who until then had traded only on the continent, but who now could reach out to the islands, and who understood that the generosity of her patron relied on her eyes remaining open, and anything she saw that was worth knowing drifting back to Ceidwad.

And so in the early summer of the year in which our tale takes place, the merchant Dendaris bustled into Ceidwad’s chambers upon her return from the island, in order purely to blurt out “I’ve found him.”

*

She probably should have sent an agent rather than going herself, she decided once actually on the ocean. But like many of the nobility, Ceidwad had been tutored in magic, and she had ideas in mind for how to resolve this without provoking war with Bugail.

Not, of course, that there was any question who would win a war between Tir Cyfoethog and Bugail, but there would be deaths, and the Cyfoethogan armies would have to march across a neutral nation, provoking much upset. It was bad for business.

Ceidwad hoped to head all of this off with a single spell, and she had nobody she could command who also held magical knowledge enough; the closest she had was the other secondborn daughters of the Houses, who were similar enough and had built enough bonds of friendship that she was confident of her ability to gather them into an alliance if needed.

For now she hoped to solve the problem and present her Empress with a complete solution, the better to earn her praise and to see favour heaped upon the House of Sapphires.

In the capital of Bugail she made no secret of her approach. She was announced by name and rank to the Duke when she paid her call upon him. She allowed her gaze to slide easily over Glacien - he might have been obvious enough to her, knowing as she did who he was, but he would feel so much safer if he felt himself unknown.

In that first presentation she didn’t even mention that she was looking for him, by name or description or even by concept. Instead she spoke to the Empress’ respect for the Duke, presenting herself as an official emissary. She raised questions about trade and spoke of the rumours that the mountain at the heart of his island contained rich seams of orichalcum, something that the Houses of Tir Cyfoethog would be very pleased to gather in more of.

And so it was that Duke Mortin saw no reason to look below her surface.

Over the next several days, she contrived to find reasons to speak with three or four of Mortin’s courtiers before she ever came near to Glacien. She wanted him to feel confident in his own mind that he wasn’t under suspicion; he would know who she was, but if he believed she had no idea who he was or even that Glacien was still a factor, it’d be much easier to inspect him.

She was helped in this by the fact he seemed to take no interest in her; to be genuinely uninterested. Whenever he’d crossed her path, he had been focused on something else. There was no moment where he would realise he was under inspection and turn away; there was no moment where she found the reason he was in a particular place near her implausible. He was just going about his daily work.

He appeared to be a clerk or some sort; while he spoke to Mortin regularly, his attention was on paperwork, on records and administration and accounts. He worked longer days than most, and spent evenings drinking at court; it was impossible from what Ceidwad could see that he be working on a force or on allies that might allow him to return to the Empire with any hope of taking back his birthright.

It was all enough that for a short while, she even wondered if this was truly Glacien; but, when she finally did make an excuse to sit down and consult him, looking over assays of the orichalcum ore that had been carried out by alchemists in his pay, she recognised the slim onyx band around his right ring finger. This had been a gift given to all members of the House of Onyx early in their lives; that someone who so closely resembled Glacien should wear a duplicate was implausible at best.

Ceidwad finished her conversation with him without once raising a stink or even deviating from the topic, and left him to his evening. She was confident that she’d laid the groundwork for her plan successfully.

*

In the Duke’s palace, the guards patrolled only the outside. It wasn’t what Ceidwad was used to; in the Imperial Palace very few rooms were proof against the entry of the patrol, and those rooms instead had two guards stationed outside at all times, alert against a cry for help. All her life, her House had done the same, either from interest in security or from a desire not to be outdone, and she had simply expected that when she left her bedroom one night to make her way to another, she would find her way blocked by guards, would have to judge by how they carried themselves whether stealth or magic or bribery was the best solution available.

In the end, this was simply not needed; there was nobody out there watching. She simply made her way through the dark corridors, counting her steps, keeping to a map of the palace she’d formed through her memories.

The door to Glacien’s room looked like any other, and he wasn’t important enough to have guards outside. Ceidwad slipped inside, almost silent, and tiptoed into the room, where the moons shed just enough light through the window for her to find her way to his bedside.

She had worried that her footsteps would wake him, but he seemed to be slumbering deeply. She’d caught him at the right time, one of those bouts of deep dreaming where external noise just became part of the dream.

She was close enough, she decided. It was time to start work. It was time to start the enchantment.

Her magic was mostly subtle, which was not to say that it did not have power - Ceidwad was often baffled that others didn’t see this. She favoured small, manipulative charms over brute-force power casting. But, equally, that could be more useful here. Killing Glacien would be a problem. Erasing him wouldn’t leave proof for the Empress that the issue was solved, and so she’d have no recognition.

But if Glacien became devoted to her…

Well, if that were to happen, she could steer him. A long-term risk for the Empire would become a benefit, and one under her control. She could unify Onyx into Sapphire.

She sketched a rune in the air above him, drew power from her soul, impressed it into the form, and thrust it upon him. Dedicate yourself to me.

Ceidwad frowned. The energy had been pushed into him, but her sense for magic didn’t suggest it had taken.

She repeated the process. Dedicate yourself to me.

It didn’t seem to take, once again. She looked at him a little more sympathetically than before. Was this some weakness of his, she wondered? Had he fled because he hadn’t the emotional investment to dedicate himself to a cause?

She drew on more power. Dedicate yourself to me.

Ceidwad was smiling at his sleeping form now. It was such a shame, she thought, that he was so far away. That political power, the jawline, the tousled hair… he’d seemed intelligent, when they spoke earlier, if not passionate or enthusiastic about his role. But then, who would be enthusiastic about a role like his? Clerking, when he was meant to be ruling, or at least (at this point in his life) being groomed to rule?

Bugail was no place for him, she decided. He belonged in Tir Cyfoethog, belonged in the thick of politics. And he clearly didn’t understand that about herself.

She cast the charm again. Dedicate yourself to me.

It really was ridiculous that she had had to come all this way just to encounter him, she thought. He needed to be back in the capital. He needed a position of power. Somewhere from which he could rule, and under which she could serve.

It was at this time that it occurred to Ceidwad, belatedly, that her spells had perhaps gone awry. She turned this idea over in her head, examining it closely. Was it possible that she’d made a grave error?

Was it possible it was she who’d been affected, not him?

Her thoughts hadn’t changed, so far as she could see. Her position was the same. She’d always understood how important Glacien was, what a tragedy for the Empire the fall of Onyx had been.

She knew full well that he should be on the Throne. She always had. But she had, all the same, reached some conclusions as she stood over his sleeping body, as she poured her power into him.

And that, it seemed to her, was a perfect demonstration of how it should be. What power she had was his. What power she had always should be his.

She cast her charm, once more, on herself. Dedicate myself to Him.

She let her own power slip through the defences she had spent so long building up. A shiver ran down her spine, a private delight. Ceidwad considered her own state of mind and decided that, yes, she was ready now to show him how dedicated she was. That last charm, deliberately cast, had purged the last of her doubts and concerns.

Just as he deserved from her; just as he doubtless expected of her. She couldn’t imagine she had been able to deceive such a superior specimen as he.

Settling to her knees, she crawled slowly under his blanket, navigating in darkness by the heat of his body until she found his thigh with one questing hand. Moments later her fingers instead clasped his cock, which she could feel hardening in surprised affection.

Ceidwad found herself delighted. If he was hardening for her so quickly, that was proof he approved of her, wasn’t it?

She inched closer until her lips could part to receive him. There was a slow, grunting exhalation from outside the blankets, from what she instinctively thought of as ‘above’ it wasn’t quite echoed by the sigh of contentment that emerged from her, escaping around his cock.

A startled male hand patted at his thigh, then touched her shoulder, then her head, all through the blanket; she shivered at his touch, and his hand withdrew in surprise.

Ceidwad felt it would be very rude for her to stop what she was doing, unless of course she was told to do so, and so she continued her focused sucking, her head moving like a well-maintained machine even though she had very little experience in the task she had set herself; it was, all the same, something she’d heard described, by a married friend, as the concession she made to her husband.

Ceidwad couldn’t in conscience even aspire to marry Glacien, so far above her did she consider him to be. But she could - would - please him; and when his hand delved under the blanket and found her long curls were loose, when he swept off the blanket and stared at her in recognition, she met his eyes for a moment then swept them back down demurely.

Glacien curled his fingers into her hair, and she took it as approval of her service. Her heart thrilled to it.

“We’re going to have to have words,” he told her. “Shortly.” And then he fell silent, or at any rate, he stopped talking, though the grunts and the quiet moans he made in response to her work thrilled through her as her need intensified, until finally, she was drinking his gift down greedily.

*

Much as Glacien had expressed an intent to question her, he was already fatigued even before she slipped into his chambers, and afterwards, he returned to slumber before he could ask her more than what she was doing, and indeed before she had finished answering.

Briefly she laid her head on his chest, her hand by his side, and attempted to sleep like that. But…

…it felt wrong. No; not wrong exactly but arguably worse. Just by occupying the same bed as him, Ceidwad felt oddly presumptuous.

She left the bed and settled to her knees at its foot, then curled up with her head pillowed on her hands on the rug, and she slept beneath his feet.

There was great consternation the next morning when she was not in her room and the maid assigned to her swiftly discovered this, and then just as swiftly learned that she did not appear to be in anyone else’s room, Ceidwad having hidden herself when someone came to ask Glacien if he’d seen her.

For his part, Glacien had not admitted to his nocturnal visitor, but he had looked directly at the wardrobe in which Ceidwad was concealed as he gave his answer, and he had spoken slowly and uncertainly, as if he were unsure what the best answer would be.

Ceidwad sadly could not fault him on this. She had found the time to think about her actions, as she dwelt at the bottom of his bed, and had realised that by coming to him in the night like this, declaring herself for him, and forfeiting her right to stand as an emissary from the Empire, she had created a potential problem for him. The Empress, she knew, did not understand why Glacien was worthy of all devotion.

She waited silent, demure, and nervous, in his rooms throughout the day, while Glacien was outside, making notes for archives, doing things she knew to be completely beneath him.

They would speak, he had told her, once he had the time. She could not gainsay him, and so she waited.

*

He did not return before dinner. She wondered if he had deliberately delayed his return, or if he had chosen to draw things out. Whether she was being judged in some way; it would feel unfair, but she would understand, completely understand, if that were something he’d decided.

It would be his right to decide, after all. She was his. This was not an arrangement of equals, whatever accident of birth might have once suggested she deserved to be there.

When he opened the door she stepped forth from the shadows and sank to her knees, bowing her head, letting her gaze and her face be hidden in her curly locks.

She heard him sigh as he closed the door. Watched, from her lowered position, as his feet approached her, stopping a little way back from her - in fact, it seemed to her, stopping just far enough back that she could not reach out and touch him, if she were to try.

As if he suspected her of sinister motives toward him. Her, Ceidwad, his most dedicated and humblest slave.

“Would you care to tell me,” Glacien asked, “exactly what is going on?”

That was a broad question, it seemed to her, and one that would be complicated to answer; on the other hand, she thought there was a simpler version of the answer that she could safely give. “I am here to serve you, my Lord.”

“Explain.”

“You deserve better than this, Lord. You deserve your birthright.” She heard him snort disdainfully, and wished she could see his face; it would be easier to know how to explain if she could read insights from his face, but she wasn’t worthy to do so. “I am here to help you achieve it.”

“What?” There was a disdainful laugh. “I find that very difficult to believe. Convince me.”

For a moment she almost reached forward for his cock again. Her married friend had told her that a man’s cock was the best way to convince him of anything. She remembered laughing, remembered making a mental note of it in case she ever had to manipulate her…

…did she have a fiance? Had her family been in the process of marrying her off? Her memory said so, and yet that was clearly something she would have fought. A wife has a duty to her husband, and that could not be allowed to split the duty that Ceidwad held to Glacien.

“I dedicate my life to you, my Lord,” she said simply. “I dedicate my body and my mind to you, my skills and my knowledge and my beauty. Any part of me that pleases you, you may drink your fill. Any part of me I must improve, I ask you to tell me.” Still kneeling, she leaned forward from the hips, planting her hands and then her forehead to the floor before him, ass up above her feet, her whole world reduced to the wooden floor before her eyes and the absence of his voice, for which she waited. “I pledge myself to your service, with no reserve or let. I am yours, and anything of my House or otherwise that I can deliver to you is yours.”

“Did your House send you here?”

“No, my Lord.”

“Why did you come here?”

This was a difficult question to answer, because it involved more of those memories that were clearly inaccurate. “I… had been looking for you,” she said slowly. “My spies found you. I came here. And I…” Here there was only confusion, and she could not allow herself to be confused on this. “And I want to serve you,” she said in the end.

Glacien gave a noise somewhere between a snort and a sigh, and Ceidwad knew it was sceptical, and she felt guilty, somehow, for what she had done, founded though her actions were on only the best of motives.

At the top of her vision she saw movement; saw him lift a hand slightly, hold it out, palm to the ground, fingers extended. Saw the glitter of his ring.

“Is magic involved?” he asked after a long pause. Her head still low, she nodded.

“Yes, my Lord,” she said.

“Well… in that case, I’m minded to understand,” he said. “What I don’t understand is what use you expect me to make of you.”

“My Lord, I can give you back your throne.”

He was, again, quiet for some time. “Why would I want something that has cost me so much in losing it once?”

She opened her mouth, but hesitated. “What other service would you want, my Lord?”

“I’m going to have to think about that,” he said. “When will you be expected back in the Tir?”

“In a month or so, my Lord. Two months at the outside.”

"Trouble’s going to come if you’re not back there.”

“I’m afraid so, my Lord.”

Glacien sighed, and Ceidwad was afflicted again with that strange guilt. Things she had done - actions she had taken without his approval - had brought trouble to his door.

She had done this, and there had been a perfectly good reason, she was sure, but she was no longer sure what that reason had been.

“How much magic was involved in this, Ceidwad?” he asked, and while his tone was hard, her soul thrilled to hear him use her name, to hear him acknowledge her.

She tried to remember. “I worked my charm five times, my Lord.”

“I’m… probably not going to dive too much deeper into what charm you mean,” he muttered. Internally, she quailed; he didn’t sound happy with her at all, and all she had done was try to serve and please him. “But that sounds like a lot of power.”

“You deserve my best, my Lord,” she said, hoping to find the combination of words that would end with him being pleased with her again.

“For that, I thank you,” Glacien said, and his voice held dry amusement, and Ceidwad began to think that, perhaps, everything would eventually be alright. “I need to think about this. And you, Ceidwad - whatever else you are, you’re not just a pretty face. I want you to think about this, too: How do we prevent the wrath of the Empress coming down on Bugail? How do we keep my cousin the Duke safe from your mistake?”

She nodded quietly. “As for the rest… you were a surprise, last night, but a welcome one,” he said. “You can share my bed nights. You can stay in this room, so long as we conceal who you are from gossip. I welcome thoughts on that, too.”

“I have one, my Lord.”

“Say on.”

“Turn your maid away,” she said, and hurried on, “Say you have another. A servant from your homeland, sent to you by sympathisers.

“I have some money in my coinpurse and, like me, it belongs to you. Spend it on some clothing to suit my new place, and I shall dwell in your chambers and I shall carry out the tasks you desire - all tasks you desire, including those another servant would reject.

“And I shall be better hidden from those at court who might wonder about me, and might take the wrong meaning from my presence.”

“Hmm.” Glacien stepped forward, reached down, and took her by the chin, tilted her head back to meet his gaze directly. She flinched and squirmed excitedly under his gaze. “You’re a very strange person, Ceidwad.”

“Yes, my Lord,” she returned immediately, “but I am yours. And, as you say, I am pretty.”

“I said there was more to you than that,” he said, and Ceidwad was again ready with her response.

“You flatter your slave, my Lord.”

“Slave?” He seemed startled.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Hm.” He half-smiled at that. “You’ve put us both in a complex position,” he said. “We’re going to have to solve the problem of the threat your actions pose to this Duchy.”

“Bugail is not under threat if you are on the Cyfoethogan throne, my Lord.”

“We’ll see,” he said. He had a strange expression on his face at that. Fleetingly she wondered if Glacien did not want the throne, but this was obviously untrue. There was nobody better suited to it, nobody who could be better suited to it.

Ceidwad was sure she could solve this problem.