He had to come to terms with it; Goka did not want to kill this woman. As a Marshal, she was an enemy to his Clan, and doubly so with her support of the chosen hero. But as a person standing in front of him, glassy-eyed, to all appearances unthinking, and completely vulnerable, she had awoken something inside him.

His lips pressed thinly together as he sought for a solution that could satisfy both his loyalty and duty to the Gitya Clan and the certainty, deep inside him, that killing her would be a great mistake.

“I’m going to ask you questions,” Goka told her. “You will answer truthfully. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you understand what is happening here?”

“You are asking me questions.”

“Beyond that.”

“You want privacy.”

This, Goka decided, was enough to confirm that Phamret didn’t know why he had made the approach. He stopped pushing along that line, just in case it could be reasoned through.

“Do you have a family?”

“I have my father.”

“Nobody else?”

“No.”

“No -” The word stuck in his mouth on his first attempt, much to his surprise. “No lover?”

Princess Phamret did not reply immediately, as she had with the previous questions, but her lips had parted to answer just as quickly. “You must reply,” Goka said firmly.

“I have no lover,” Phamret answered. “My heart is promised to another.”

“Why have you not acted on this?”

“His heart belongs to Philanna.”

This apparently simple answer took Goka some time to unpack. “Are you telling me you’re in love with Kody?”

“Yes.”

“But… but why?”

“I first met him when he was young. He was already a warrior, and gifted with the blade.” Strange, to hear it delivered in such flat tones. He could imagine, nonetheless, the emotion which would have filled her voice when telling this story normally, and he found that he envied it. “He had already bested much more experienced combatants, but at cost to himself.

“I thought him reckless then. I know now that he simply does not weigh his own life in the balance when wrongs must be righted.

“I wanted to be helpful, so I brought him healing. It is a gift I have practiced and honed, but it was new to him, I think. He looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. Something in them resonated with something in me.

“When we met again, he was fully a man, and already on his path to become the chosen hero. The kindness I had glimpsed was still there, but his eyes were no longer innocent. They had seen such pain, and I had nothing to offer him he would accept.

“I saw him fight again, and the grace of his motions, the confidence of his actions, inspired me. I saw his kindness, his determination to make things right for others. My heart was drawn to his, and it still is.”

Goka bore this portrait of the Gitya Clan’s sworn enemy in silence, and wondered again how it was that the chosen hero seemed to draw allies to him so effortlessly, when his own Clan had felt the need to go to extraordinary measures for the loyalty of its Shadows.

Everyone outside the Clan regarded Kody completely differently, he thought, and then frowned thoughtfully. Was his perspective wrong?

The Gitya Clan deserved its support. That much he did not deny. So Princess Phamret could not be allowed to present a threat. But -

Yes, he thought. There were other ways to end a threat, It just took a change of perspective - and not even his own.

“Listen to me, Princess Phamret,” Goka said firmly. “Your memories are incorrect. I will tell you what you should remember, and that is what you will remember. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“The warrior you admired as a young man was me,” he said. “The man you healed with your grace was me. Goka of the Gitya Clan. Do you understand?”

“No,” she said slowly.

“Do you know what I have told you to be true?”

“It is what I should remember,” she answered.

“And it is true,” he said firmly. “Acknowledge this.”

“It is true,” Princess Phamret answered.

“What do you remember?”

“I first met Goka of the Gitya Clan when he was young. He was already a warrior, and gifted with the blade. I thought him reckless then. I know now that he simply does not weigh his own life in the balance when wrongs must be righted.

“I wanted to be helpful, so I brought him healing. It is a gift I have practiced and honed, but it was new to him, I think. He looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. Something in them resonated with something in me.”

“And is that true?”

“Yes.” The voice was still flat. So, Goka reminded himself, if he heard anything in it that sounded like tenderness, that must be his own imagination.

“When next you met Kody,” he continued, “you will remember instead that you met me, newly begun on the work of a Gitya Shadow. And you were inspired by me as you had been by Kody. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” she said, but quieter than before.

“What do you remember?”

“When I and Goka of the Gitya Clan met again, he was fully a man, and freshly begun on the work of a Gitya Shadow. The kindness I had glimpsed was still there, but his eyes were no longer innocent. They had seen such pain, and I had nothing to offer him he would accept.

“I saw him fight again, and the grace of his motions, the confidence of his actions, inspired me. I saw his kindness, his determination to make things right for others. My heart was drawn to his, and it still is.”

“And is that true?”

“Yes, Goka.”

Goka allowed himself to smile properly now. “A month ago, you decided that we should meet for the third time, Princess. You remember sending to me, asking me to meet you where you were swimming. You know how beautiful you are freshly out of the water, how attractive you can be while swimming. You had realised, at last, that you have something you can offer me.

“You decided to invite me here in the hopes that I would fall for you as you have fallen for me.” He went over what he had said carefully and silently. It seemed to him that it would hold up. “What do you remember?”

“I remember that I hoped you would fall for me as I have fallen for you,” Princess Phamret answered. “I have exhorted myself so often to confess my feelings to you. Your heart might lie with Philanna. But you have never, so far as I can learn, consummated your love. So I have held out hope, and that hope has tortured me.”

Goka was startled to hear so much. Evidently his thoughts had touched a rich seam of her own past, and the memory forming was making full use of it.

“Finally I have summoned up the courage to send to you and ask you to meet me. If you return my love, I will be delighted. If you do not, at least I will know that my hopes are wasted.”

The woman was Atlar Marshal. It hadn’t occurred to Goka there was anything she would be scared of. And yet she had been scared beyond all things of approaching Kody and revealing to him the secret of her heart, before he had changed that secret.

“And is that true?” he asked.

“Yes, Goka.”

“Today, you remember that you were swimming watching for me as I came along this path,” he told her. “You emerged to speak with me, but then your shyness got the better of you and you led me here, to this private spot, to confess your love. Everything you would remember to the contrary is gone from your memory. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Goka.”

“What do you remember?”

“I swam waiting for you, knowing how it would set me off to my best. As soon as I saw you, I got out and approached you. But our surroundings were still too public, so I drew you away here to confess my love.”

“And is that true?”

“Yes, Goka.”

“That’s very good, Princess. Now, we have asked you questions and we have attended to your memory so that your recall is true. But there is more you should know.”

“Yes, Goka.”

“Your love is a devotional love,” he told her. “Your love is a dutiful love. Your love is submissive, docile, and biddable. Your lover, once you have one, has full authority.

“It is important to you that in love you can let go and surrender yourself, giving yourself over to the pleasure of another. It seems to you that that is your purpose in love. All your authority as a Princess and as the Atlar Marshal is irrelevant in matters that should be decided by your lover.

“And once you are wed, that dutiful surrender is forever. Do you hear me, Phamret?”

“I hear you, Goka.”

“Do you understand?”

“I understand, Goka.”

“Is everything I have said true?”

“Yes, Goka.”

“Very good.” He had, he was sure, done everything he needed to. Princess Phamret would no longer be a key part of Kody’s alliance. She would no longer support Kody automatically, seeking naturally to please him in all things.

Goka suspected that he hadn’t needed to stress the Princess’ attitude to love. From what she had already told him, he was confident that she was biased that way. But in order to fully ensure she did not bother the Gitya Clan, he had decided that he needed full and absolute authority over her. Better to have it and be sure.

He was not sure exactly what to do to end the effects of the Kasvra Screen trance. Kladyll had not mentioned it as part of their briefing. His guess was that she didn’t know, but it hadn’t been necessary to tell him in any case. After all, the assignment had been expected to end with her death.

“Come on back to me, Princess,” he said at length. “Wake up.”

The Princess’ eyelids fluttered. It seemed to Goka’s perceptive eyes that a little more awareness and liveliness could be seen in them each time they reopened. The glassy appearance of her gaze went away, slowly at first but increasingly swiftly. And then, looking at him, her expression went from emptiness through a moment’s bewilderment into an awkward, nervous smile. The sound she let out could have been a giggle if it had been fully voiced.

Her eyes darted across Goka’s face. “Oh! Goka,” she said quietly. “You startled me.”

He gave her an amused, lofty smile. Hard not to feel superior to her, knowing what he knew. “But you led me here, Princess.”

“I know, but… somehow it’s real now.” She looked down, too shy to meet his eye. Goka was impressed, not just at how fully the direction he had given her had been taken, but also by her mind patching up its own inconsistency.

“I assure you I am very real,” he told her. “And I am also very curious.”

“C-curious?”

“Yes.” He took a step closer. He was smiling, he knew, and his smile was a knowing one. But she had no reason to guess the truth, and she had been given a plausible alternative. So he expected she would find another way to interpret his smile. “You summoned me, your Highness. And your note was very unclear on what, exactly, I could do for you.”

She shied away as if blushing, but on the deep red of her skin it was impossible to tell. “Oh, I… uhm…”

He watched her look everywhere but at him, her shyness reasserting. This woman would have carried the torch she held for Kody from cradle to grave, he realised. She had wanted to tell him, so much so it had stayed with her as he changed the object of her affections. But the capacity to speak up and risk a refusal… On a matter as important as this, could she bring herself to do it?

The struggle was clear in her face. After several long moments Goka could stand it no more. “Perhaps, your Highness, I may be of some small service here.”

“Oh!” Her voice was small - much smaller than he had heard it at any point before. “I, ah, should be most grateful, Goka of the Gitya Clan.”

He reached up and placed the palm of his hand against her cheek. Her skin was not wet nor dry so much as it was slick, and her cheek was soft and warm under his hand. “I think you will not think too poorly of me,” he said, “if I take a small liberty and confess my feelings.”

“I - that is -” He could see the hope surge in her breast. “Please do go on?”

Rather than answer her directly, Goka kissed her. There was a shocked yelp from between their lips, but Phamret swiftly opened her mouth to him, yielding into his kiss. The Atlar undulated her body closer against him - he could feel the dampness of her turquoise silks pressed against his own garb, the wetness reaching his body as hers clung against him.

It was an even better kiss than their first. Now that Phamret had been correctly primed, she was kissing with gusto and enthusiasm which was an inferno in comparison to the spark he’d felt the first time. Had the first one simply been fuelled by her unrequited longing, and by lusts suppressed for as long as she could hold them?

When at last the kiss broke, they looked at each other for a long moment, her eyes wide. A puff of laughter escaped her and she dipped her head, nestling in forehead-first against his chest.

Her craving for physical contact with the man she now (compelled or not) loved so completely was something Goka had not realised. She was clinging to him, and while it was far from disagreeable, he simply hadn’t expected it.

It occurred to Goka that he hadn’t understood what love could be either. Like Phamret, he had never let himself become attached to anyone, although for very different reasons; it was not possible for a Shadow to share their true self with a lover, unless they saw them only rarely. He had certainly enjoyed a number of liaisons over time, but the potential to be honest with the Princess (after all, his dutiful lover would never betray him) was such a relief.

Was the thing he truly needed the most just a chance to set his mask aside?

“Am I dreaming?” she asked softly.

“Not in the least.”

“It’s almost hard to believe it. I’ve thought about this so often.”

“Pictured it?” he asked lightly.

“Yes, Goka.” He decided that that simple phrase sounded so much better now that emotion had returned to her voice. There was a mix of gratitude and affection that he’d never heard addressed to himself before.

“Well,” he said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but in that case I suspect you’ve daydreamed about how this might go.”

She lifted her head from his chest. He thought again what a shame it was that any flush was hidden by the red of her skin; he was sure she was flushing at that moment. “Yes, Goka,” she admitted coyly.

“And correct me if I’m wrong,” he said. “I believe you have some ideas you think would really please me.” He smiled into her eyes. “Because I think you want, more than anything, to pleasure me. How am I doing?”

She couldn’t meet his eye, her gaze lowering again. “Yes, Goka,” she admitted. Her voice fairly hummed with excitement.

“Show me.”

“Yes, Goka.” She straightened up, stepping back from him, then hesitated. “Kasvra don’t like to let their clothes dry on them as much as we do,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “That’s true.”

“With your permission, then?” And so saying, she reached for his tunic, drawing it out from his belt and guiding it up so it could be lifted over his head and set aside. Goka was surprised and delighted to find that instincts honed to be suspicious and cautious of danger all his life weren’t worried about her. Intellectually he knew she was no threat, but discovering he also understood it emotionally had thrown him somewhat.

She hesitated for a moment when she found the knife tucked into the back of his belt, but simply set it aside by the others of his clothes she was removing. “I suppose a Shadow must be careful at all times,” she said.

“Hm.” He was smiling as he said “Not at this one.”

She looked up from where she knelt, coaxing the last of his clothes from around his legs. “I’m very pleased to hear that, Goka. I…” She swallowed. “I love you,” she said.

He nodded, smiling. He’d had to bite back an automatic reciprocation. Now he was wondering whether he should have. It felt true. But was that just their fresh start?

Once she’d undressed him she stood and undid the clasps on her own robes, letting the fabric fall away.

She was truly stunning. Goka gawped.

Somehow, standing naked together did not cure the Princess of her shyness. If he hadn’t told her to show him one of her fantasies, he knew she wouldn’t be willing to take the lead here.

She reached out shyly and took him by the hand, then turned and began leading him over to the pool that lay before them.

They walked to the edge, and Phamret stepped forward gracefully, releasing his hand. The bank of the pool was clearly steep; with one quick step she was standing waist-deep in the water.

Phamret turned back to face him, smiling up at him with deference. “If you would go along to that tree,” she said, gesturing, “you will find an easier path in, as well as a perfect seat, worn smooth by time.”

He was surprised by this, but he accepted the guidance readily enough. Just as she’d said, the descent was much smoother, and he could sit down, his waist just below the water, resting on a wide tree root which had indeed been worn smooth.

Phamret swam up to him, smiling happily, and the tip of his cock broke the water. She paused in front of it, hesitant, and glanced up at him. “My love,” she said, “forgive me if I am unskilled. You will be my first.”

“Are you a quick study?” he asked her in return. After a moment’s shocked silence, she smiled warmly.

“Yes, Goka.”

“Then I’m sure your enthusiasm will carry us through the beginning,” he said.

Phamret giggled, a musical sound. “It’s so good to know you feel the same,” she said. “I feel as if I have spent the last years swimming through the depths and now, finally, I am swimming close to the surface.

Her eyes starry and bright, she opened her mouth wide and slid down his shaft in one fluid motion.

Her throat tightened around him. Breathing through her gills, her mouth could become a perfect seal. Goka smiled, reaching down to stroke her head-fin as she began to bob up and down, her limbs stroking through the water, moving with her whole body.

Inexperienced she may have been, but she knew the theory well, and as Goka was discovering, the semi-aquatic nature of the Atlar makes them uniquely fitted to form their throat into the perfect, most fuckable hole. Goka closed his eyes, settling back against the tree trunk, and allowed himself to moan softly in appreciation of her work.

Nobody else would have been rewarded like this, he thought, except Kody. Dutiful, introverted, quiet Princess Phamret would never have done this except for love, and that love had only ever belonged to two people, one at a time. Kody would never, he promised himself quietly, have the chance to recapture it; he would, in fact, never know what he had missed.

The Gitya Clan would be able to put forward their wider plan, whatever it was. Goka had been curious, when first told about it; he had looked forward to learning, to seeing the results and reconstructing the method from them.

He grunted happily as Phamret continued to zero in on the right rhythm to perform around his cock. Had she heard other Atlar discussing the technique, he wondered? Or was there some more innocent source for her grasp of theory? He found it plausible that she might simply be a natural, but he would also believe it if told she was a reader of steamy romances.

He felt the first shuddering anticipation that she had almost coaxed his reward out, and decided at that moment that she deserved a greater one. Placing his palms against the tree, he pushed himself off from his seat into the water; Phamret moved with him, splashing down further, wrapping her powerful thighs around his legs to keep them together.

But Goka had other plans. Trusting to the Atlar herself to keep them near the surface, he reached down, cupping her chin around his cock, and gradually lifted, easing her slowly off the length of him. Once she came free, she adjusted her grip with her legs and stretched up until her head broke the water, her loving eyes looking a question toward him that she was too submissive to ask openly.

His hands settled on her hips and he drew her up until his tip brushed against her. Phamret squealed so high it was almost a squeak; Goka laughed. He couldn’t help himself. The Atlar Princess looked excited, not affronted.

He thrust into her and her thighs wrapped back around him, clinging tight to him. Holding her to him, Goka began a slow, tender lovemaking while the sculling of her hands kept them afloat, drifting and slowly revolving on the surface of the secluded pool.

“Your family will never accept me,” Goka said.

“No, Goka,” she answered, her voice tenderly regretful.

“You will run away with me,” he said, making it not even a command but a statement of fact about the universe.

Her eyes widened, shining bright. “Elope? Yes, Goka. Of course!”

She clung even tighter to him then, squeezing with every part of her body. He had not been ready for it, but it delighted him; already near the edge, he filled her with his seed.

Her delighted cries echoed around the wood.

*

The last time, they met in the gardens surrounding his home.

‘Home’ was something a Shadow typically did not have, but it had been two years since he had completed the assignment on Princess Phamret and he had carried out no assignments since. While the knife remained within easy access in the house, he considered himself retired, something else untypical for a Shadow.

The home he and Phamret had chosen was a half day’s travel from the next town; two hours away there was a small settlement where basic goods could be had. Goka had wanted the privacy, where nobody might remark on a Atlar who looked like a vanished royal, let alone on a Kasvra and Atlar living together as man and wife.

A pleasing side effect of this selection had been to give them spacious grounds that could be enjoyed. Goka had eventually commissioned a bench which now sat near a walk-in pool that adjoined the house.

That was where he was sitting when Kladyll of the Gitya Clan trudged into view along the earth path to their doorway. He noticed her immediately, but opted not to respond. Instead he took another drink from the steaming mug in his hand and continued to gaze out over his property, waiting for her to complete her approach.

Kladyll stopped a handful of paces short. “You’re a hard man to find,” she said.

“The Clan taught me well,” he said, and glanced up at her face. The soft smile on her lips suggested that she expected a positive encounter. And it might be, depending on what exactly she wanted. “Hello, Kladyll.”

“Hello, Goka.” She walked forward and settled down beside him on the bench. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Thank you.”

“Not like a Shadow to put down roots,” she continued, “of course.”

He chuckled. “I’m not a Shadow any longer.”

“People don’t retire from such a role.”

“Not usually,” he said. “Usually they die falling short in one assignment or another. I decided that this wasn’t for me.”

“The Clan is not happy to have a former member at large,” Kladyll said. “One who knows as many secrets as you.”

“I am still Gitya,” he told her. “I succeeded in every task I was given. And I returned the treasure I was loaned for my last one. My loyalty should be clear.”

Kladyll sighed. “Truthfully?” she said softly. “I think so too. But it’s not my call to make.”

“If that’s not your call to make,” he returned, “then nor is it my problem to solve.”

Kladyll was silent for a while. “I cannot lie,” she said, “and say I did not find you. And in any case, if I did, a Shadow would be sent out on the task.”

“You can tell them that nobody else is looking,” Goka said, “by all means. Or you can tell them that if a Shadow visits here, so long as they are not under hot pursuit at the time, they will be fed and cared for until they are ready to depart.”

He had, after all, known this meeting, or one like it, would come. That was why he’d dropped off the Kasvra Screen, rather than keep it for himself. He’d left a note with it to explain that while loyal, he considered his service to the Clan complete, with one final triumph to cap it off.

But a Clan which now used the Screen to enforce loyalty would worry about the loyalty of one departed. He had thought for some time about what could be a worthy bargain to strike.

Kladyll pursed her lips judiciously, as if she was considering the offer. “That… might be possible,” she allowed. “Are you set up to handle that?”

Goka chuckled. “Oh, yes.”

“They will want better than hardtack and iron rations…”

“I know,” he said. “I was always delighted by any assignment where I could avoid those. And I grant you, my cooking is worse.”

“Then-”

“Fortunately, my wife has an intense personal loyalty to me,” he said, smiling fondly. “And equally fortunately, she has dedicated herself to two things in the past year, one of them being a mastery of the culinary arts.”

“Your… wife?” Kladyll sounded taken aback. “You married?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Outside the Clan?”

“Yes, but she will do exactly as I wish. At this point I have her so well trained, I rarely even need to issue instructions.”

“How can you guarantee her loyalty?” He heard the concern in her voice and savoured it. “The Clan will not-”

“The Clan cannot question her loyalty,” he said firmly. “It was secured in exactly the same way that the Clan now does.”

Silence for a while. Goka had known there would be, and the smile on his lips had drifted from fond thoughts of his wife to a satisfied smirk at his former handler’s consternation. Meanwhile, Kladyll was examining what he had said, turning the notion over in her head. Making deductions and assumptions.

At length, she asked, “You used the Screen?”

“I did.”

“That was given to you for your assignment and your assignment only.”

“And that is how it was used.”

Kladyll was quiet again for a while longer. Goka wondered if the people who had finally pointed her in his direction had mentioned the Atlar on the property. Given that she was surprised at news of his marriage, he assumed not. With that information, she might have put it together more swiftly.

“They never found her body,” she said at last.

“No,” he agreed. “They did not.”

“We only knew the job was done because of how thoroughly she disappeared.”

“My duty to the Clan was to remove her as an obstacle,” Goka said. “And so I did.” He heard the latch on the door to the house and looked over his shoulder.

Phamret emerged from the house. Not expecting anyone else on the property, she wore nothing at all. Goka smiled fondly.

“He’s asleep at last,” she told him. An update on the status of their infant son served them as a greeting most days now.

Goka smiled and nodded. “This is Kladyll,” he said. “We used to work together.”

Phamret favoured the handler with a warm smile and gracious nude curtsey. “The Clan is gracious,” she said.

Kladyll nodded agreement, then turned to stare at Goka, her eyes wild.

He enjoyed watching her struggle for something she could reasonably say, but he could only leave her floundering for so long. “You see, she is as safe as if she was Gitya herself,” he said.

“I… yes,” she faltered.

“The Gitya is a secret I have kept for a long time. My wife’s history is a new secret, but we are used to that.”

“I see that,” she said feebly.

“I read recently that her father has appointed a new heir,” he said. “And a new Marshal. The search for her has stopped. And I think, perhaps, the search for me should also stop.”

Kladyll was silent for a long time, but at length she nodded and rose. “You have given me a lot to think about, Goka,” she said. “I may return.”

“Of course.” He rose. “I’ll see you to the boundary line.” Over his shoulder he told Phamret, “Wait for me in the pool.”

“Yes, Goka,” she cooed. “Of course.”

Kladyll took her leave swiftly, and if she had appeared tired when she walked into sight, she seemed wide awake now - if, admittedly, absolutely bewildered.

He waved her off, then made his way back to the pool. They had carved a seat in by the bank where a man might well enjoy the worship of his wife’s tongue, and they had until their child woke again to make the most of it.