Aed had produced a series of padded chairs from somewhere while Samira was poring over the helpfully annotated version of the Tíreili dictionary that they had provided. It was a beautiful nguage, if overly complex by Samira’s standards. Rather than individual letters, or even individual words, instead characters in the written form of the nguage represented full concepts, ideas, or the verbiage required to connect them. As such, it was possible to make incredibly dense sentences, as was a necessity for the sort of contract that she was about to draft. The first part was retively simple, the binding of her silence conveniently already written out on a sort of tempte that the Pact Keeper had prepared in advance. She wondered just how many such forms they had squirreled away somewhere, if each and every person who entered the court was required to make a pact.

  The more complicated part was the part that she wanted. Samira wasn’t even sure if it was possible, really, but when she had floated the idea to Aed they had nodded enthusiastically. The problem was, given the breadth of options avaible, the specific manner in which she constructed her part of the Pact would impact the manner in which the magic took shape.

  “So this one here,” Samira said, gncing up at Aed, “Means cutting?” The script in question was a pair of long horizontal lines, curled together in a braiding figure, then each curved gently away from the other.

  Aed tilted their head from side to side ponderously. “Approximately. Dalechte is a bit more abstract, the separation of two things. That could refer to cutting something, in the right context, but it could also sift contaminants from water, or remove the color from an object.” Grabbing a sheet of paper, they sketched out a swirling sentence. “For example, pced between the figures for liquid water, liùsge, and contamination, grime, and disease, sair, the ‘magic’, when provided power by a properly worded pact and the correct retional terms, is what’s used to keep the water’s of the Fraylough clean and clear.”

  Samira nodded, writing some hasty notes down on the paper she had been provided. Oriole watched on with her usual mixture of amusement and contempt, draped zily across the chair she had pnted herself in, and Aoife was engrossed with a book of her own, having muttered something about new cuses. Samira finished recording her thoughts. “So if I were to, for example, use the term inne, referring to a tool or implement, the retional term for function, nìomhar-” She began.

  “Gnìomhar.” Aed corrected. “You pronounce the hard g at the beginning, but continue.”

  “Right, gnìomhar, and then dalechte, that would create an implement meant for cutting?” Samira asked. Internally she was deeply excited to execute her idea, but she attempted to keep her visible enthusiasm to a minimum.

  “Not quite. That series just defines an implement made for cutting. Without retional terms, or an implied process, it wouldn’t have an effect. Begin the term with cruthadh, creation or manifestation,” They drew a sort of starburst shape that had a trailing series of lines, “And then add a location, size, material, duration, and any other relevant modifiers, and yes, you would get what you’re after, I suspect.” As their words went on Samira’s growing confidence faded a bit, though her excitement remained.

  “Ah. So…” Her eyes shifted back to the page before her, hands tracing shapes in the air with a quill, unsure where exactly to begin.

  “What you’re looking for, Daamaret, isn’t on the page. That dusty old thing can’t make a pact for you.” Oriole quipped, gesturing as though bored with one hand. Despite her aloof affectation, there was a sparkle in her eye as she spoke. “There is an art to it that books cannot adequately describe, a fact that the esteemed Pact Keeper disdains. Though I think ‘cruthadh gnìomhar stàil dalechte am làemh gus an cearuir as’ would do what you described.” She gnced back toward Samira. “Clever way around the Court’s distaste for letting the nobility carry weapons though. They can’t take a sword from you if you summon it from thin air.” Just as quickly as the praise left her lips, her expression soured again. “I prefer cws, of course. More dexterous, harder to be disarmed. And one can’t overlook the style factor.”

  Still absorbed in her book, Aoife scoffed. “Not everyone has the fir for the dramatic you have, Ri. I think it’s a good idea.”

  Samira nodded, finding the words that had spilled from Oriole so freely despite the serpentine sound of them in the book. Some of the sounds weren’t even ones she was entirely sure her own nguage used, and she dreaded having to speak them aloud. Aed had said that more experienced users of pact magic—drathesìthe, she corrected herself—merely had to invoke the words of the contract in their minds to manifest the effect, but a novice would need to speak them in order to focus enough for it to work. She would make a fool of herself, she was sure, a fact that Oriole, who was proving to be more ornery than an active threat, would not miss the opportunity to relish.

  “That would work, Pact Keeper?” Samira asked.

  “The nguage is somewhat ambiguous, which is a bad habit of Lady Oriole’s, but in this case it works somewhat in your favor. The space left between the words allows for intent to seep through, so whatever it is that you create will likely have a bit of personal fir.” Aed said, writing the characters down in elegant sweeping strokes. The end result looked sharp, jagged in pces, long curves in others. It reminded Samira of Aoife.

  “If you don’t mind, Pact Keeper, I had something in mind as well. An amendment to section II subsection III of my own contract.” The Princess said, holding up the book she had open and pointing to a passage. This one had illustrations, and the page depicted a humanoid silhouette in the midst of a blobby crowd, but the edges of it blurred somewhat, as though the ink had seeped in pces to obfuscate the exact shape of the individual.

  Aed scowled, though without much bite. “I will remind you, Your Highness, that both your mother and your grandfather have expressed distaste for your excursions. Leaving Seighart is dangerous and irresponsible-”

  “And I will remind you, Pact Keeper, that I am an adult, a member of the Court, and fully capable of making my own decisions as to the locale of my physical personage.” Aoife snapped before reigning in the unexpected venom. “Regardless, that isn’t the purpose of the amendment. II.III regards public appearances. I’d like to continue appearing in public as though unaccompanied despite my new addition.” She gnced quickly towards Samira. “Not that I do not wish to be seen with you, Lady Char. I have a simir such visual enchantment that affects Ri at times. If I am always accompanied by others the public may begin to doubt my capabilities on my own.” Her eyes glinted back towards Aed. “If it also makes it easier for me to evade the Wyrmguard, since the drathesìthe could be directed towards myself, perhaps to leave the city,” She smirked, “That is merely a fortuitous side effect.”

  “If it isn’t rude to ask, I’m unfamiliar with the social niceties with regards to all this,” Samira said, “What is it that you’re able to do? If the ability to obfuscate the presence of yourself and your peers is only a subsection then what else are you capable of?” The thought was admittedly somewhat intimidating. Samira was deadly with a sword, and had experimented with the powder weapons that they were working on in Malokat’s forges, but she was entirely out of her element sitting in that room. The individuals around her were able to distort their bodies, alter the appearance of reality, and who knows what else. She wondered for a moment how they viewed her. How does a god regard a human, or a human an insect? There was such a gulf between them, and yet here they were so willingly offering her such a gift in exchange for her silence about its existence.

  “Lady Char,” Aoife grinned, “It would be easier to expin to you what I’m not able to do.”

  Samira had never been tattooed before. It wasn’t something that was considered taboo in Thandar, and many of the soldiers she had fought with in the past were covered in them. It simply wasn’t something she had considered, since most were simply for aesthetics. She had briefly given thought to something commemorative after losing Badr, something that Rani had recommended, but things had moved so fast in the months following that it had never become more than an idea. Perhaps she should inquire after it with the Pact Keeper, they were an impeccably adroit tattooist.

  She rubbed her arm thoughtfully as she wandered through Drachlás’ extensive gardens. She had made excuses after the contract was done, needing some time alone after a day spent in the company of several people who clearly did not particurly like her. Her chamber was an option, but that would’ve required walking back with Aoife and Oriole, and without a doubt Róisín would have pestered her again, and it was all just a bit much. The gardens were peaceful though, and quiet. Evening had begun to fall, and glow orbs pced at sporadic intervals gave the floral environs a dreamlike quality. She wasn’t entirely sure where she was retive to the pace at this point, having just wandered down various paths until she was lost in the sea of greenery.

  Samira found a pavilion with an array of seating and tables, presumably reserved for fancy luncheons or for taking tea in the outdoors, but for now it served its purpose as a location to sit and think. She colpsed into one of the chairs, still remarkably comfortable despite being outdoor furniture, and let out an involuntary sigh. She wished, now more than ever, that one of her brothers was here. Badr especially, but even Amir’s light hearted cantankerousness would’ve been a welcome departure from everything. At least she could write a letter to Amir now. She’d have to figure out what exactly to say, but that was a problem for whenever she eventually returned to her chamber. She couldn’t do it wrong, however. According to Aed her pact would physically prevent her from disclosing information at all reting to the Tíreile.

  She pulled off the jacket she was wearing to get another look at the tattoo. Even in the evening, a warm breeze blew through the gardens, and she was not cold in the thin linen shirt she had picked for the portrait. Rolling up the sleeve on her right arm revealed the text that now snaked around her arm just above the wrist. The process had not been as painful as she had been led to believe, either that or there was something special about the needle the Pact Keeper had used as they inscribed the pact onto her skin. It had been, in many ways, much like they had simply been writing on her arm, though much more slowly as they pressed the needle again and again into her skin, but the motions still held the nguid fluidity with which they seemed to write everything.

  Bòichidh mi m' thross’d am gacheidh taibh, a chluinne aon ioneach mradhich air an Tíreile. Ma irt bidh e comidhomh cruthadh gnìomhar stàil dalechte am làemh gus an cearuir as. That was what the text said, though she only knew as much because she had memorized it at Aed’s recommendation. The Tíreili script was as inscrutable to her as it had ever been. The part she needed was just the end portion though, and she silently recited it to herself a few times. Though she wasn’t actually performing the incantation, the ink in the tattoo reacted, faint shimmers of blue dancing across the portions of the script she had said in time with her words. With a nod of confidence, she extended her hand outwards, and spoke, the words rushing out of her as if on their own once she started.

  “Cruthadh gnìomhar stàil dalechte!”

  For a long, aching moment her lungs felt empty, and nothing happened. Then, all

  at once, a rush of light down the skin of her arm, and in a flourish of azure light, in her hand appeared a curving sword. A talwar, the hilt enclosed by a swooping hand guard, a type of weapon with which she was most familiar. While the other elite members of the Thandaran military, besides, perhaps, Badr or Amir, had begun to prefer powder weapons, she still preferred something a bit more old fashioned. The powder was loud, for one thing, which made sense for a miniature cannon. The problem was, one had to stuff their ears with cotton or wax before they could use it or risk losing their hearing, and to make matters worse, loading the powder and projectile took time. Add that together with the general unwieldiness of the things—even the ones made to handle with one hand were heavier than they had any right to be, in her estimation—and she would take a sword in a fight any day. If she had to engage a foe who had the advantage of distance on her, she could close it while her armor deflected whatever projectiles they shot at her. It had done as much in the past: her combat pte was covered in dents here and there, each a marker of what might’ve been a killing blow had the bcksmith who created it not been a master of their craft. The parade armor was a different situation, but hopefully no one would be firing arrows or balls of lead at her any time soon.

  The bde shimmered slightly, almost like a heat mirage, the sort of thing that looked off somehow if you looked at it a bit too closely. It felt tangible in her hands, and it had weight to it, though perfectly banced. All the same, as Aed had put it, it was a manifestation of drathesìthe, and would entirely leave existence the moment she wished for it too. She couldn’t just summon a handful of them either, the terms of the contract only allowed her the one. If she tried to summon another—and she had tried, when she had first tested this—the original would vanish in a simir fsh of light. She dropped her concentration, and just as quickly as it appeared, the talwar vanished. With luck, she’d never be without a bde again should she need one. That was one of her problems solved.

  A sharp inhale of breath signaled another of her problems had appeared. That was uncharitable, of course. Rani Bansal was a handsome woman, an incredible warrior, and adept with her hands—a fact Samira had herself confirmed—but she was currently a dilemma that Samira could not figure out how to solve. This doubly so as Samira wheeled around to find the Saamet staring agape at the space where the sword had been.

  “Sam, what-?” Rani stuttered, taking a step back as Samira shot up from her chair.

  Samira scrambled for the right words to say. “Rani, hang on. This is charainn dhamh brudhinn-” The words twisted in her mouth, leaving a taste of ashe as her throat closed. She let out a strangled exhale. “No, that wasn’t… charainn dhamh-” This time the still visible text on her arm fred with light, and her speech was cut off by a dry, unpleasant cough.

  This didn’t put Rani any more at ease, it would seem. She stumbled another step back, eyes wide and filled with a mixture of fear and shock. “Sam what the fuck was that? Your arm is glowing. And that sword just… disintegrated? Vanished?” Rani said, eyes darting around looking for someone else to confirm what she had seen.

  “I literally cannot tell you. I cannot expin why I can’t tell you. I just can’t.” Samira said, moving slowly towards the shorter woman. “You need to trust me that this isn’t charainn- Shit!” She spat. “Listen, Rani just sit, please, don’t go running off.” Samira pleaded. “I’ll expin when I can, I promise.”

  Rani regarded her suspiciously for a long, heavy moment. “Samira,” She began, pacing carefully to the seat across from the one that Samira had been sitting in, “Your promises aren’t worth very much to me of te.” Rani sunk into the chair, posture rexed, though her hands gripped the armrests with such ferocity that Samira feared the upholstery may not survive the evening. “If you cannot expin then allow me to see you do whatever that was again. Perhaps I can infer.”

  “Char-” Samira tried.

  “Charin dumb whatever, yes, I heard you before.” Rani snapped. “So you can tell me nothing. You cannot even repeat the actions I just saw you perform.” She reached out quickly toward Samira—still standing—and snatched the arm that was now ringed with tattoos. “These are new. I can’t talk you into a tattoo for months, and then we’ve been here a few days and these show up.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked up at Samira. “And they glow. That’s also not regarding the disappearing talwar.”

  Samira chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Rani…”

  “Shut up. What did they do to you?” Rani demanded. Samira attempted to pull her arm away but her second’s grip only tightened. “I knew none of this made sense. Sudden engagement. Punishment for a ‘crime’ that isn’t yours. Everything here is so gods’ damned strange, and now this?” Rani’s fingers dug in a bit to the still tender skin of Samira’s forearm. “Tell me.”

  “Rani, I swear it’s just charainn dhamh brudhinn! It’s… fuck. Let me think for a moment.” Samira slumped into the seat across from Rani, who loosened her grip, sliding her hand down to take Samira’s hand in her own.

  “Sam, did they hurt you? Are we in danger here?” Rani’s steely expression softened, if only somewhat.

  Samira thought carefully about how best to answer that question. Even vague answers would trigger her pact, it seemed, if they in any way alluded to the Tíreile or their magic. “The royal family,” She began, testing the edges of what she could and could not say, “Has not hurt me in any substantial way.” Samira gestured at her arm—the tattoo had hurt, after all, though the pain was manageable. “I cannot answer the second question in a way that reassures you.”

  “You can’t…?” Rani scoffed incredulously. “It’s a yes or no question, Sam. If you can’t answer in a way that reassures me then we are in danger.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. I ch- Damn! I can’t tell you more.” Samira scowled. “Listen Rani. Come with me tomorrow, I’ll show you, and then I’ll be able to expin.”

  Rani released Samira’s hand, and leaned back in her chair. “Complicated means danger, Daamaret. Any situation in which we aren’t safe is a dangerous one. You know that as well as I do. Complicated.” She barked a cold ugh, one that Samira had not often heard. Rani had always been so warm, in words and heart. The suspicion had returned to her face, eyes filled with questions that Samira knew she could not answer. “I come with you tomorrow and whatever this is,” She gestured at the text of Samira’s pact, which shimmered slightly beneath the skin as though in acknowledgement, “They do it to me too, don’t they?”

  Samira tried to voice a confirmation but the words once again caught in her throat, so she just nodded. “Just trust me, Rani. Please.”

  Rani stood up, and eyed the Daamaret warily. Then, she sighed and turned away, looking up at Drachlás’ boughs, the windows shining faintly in the darkening night. As the branches swayed in the breeze, each spot of light danced overhead like a swarm of fireflies far above. Samira was reminded of how the stars looked the night after Badr had died. She had drunk so much that they shifted and twirled, choreographing a ballet of her misery. Rani had been there then, too.

  “I do trust you, Sam. As much as I can, at least.” Rani did not move her eyes from Drachlás. “I don’t trust them. I don’t trust what they’ve done to you. I don’t even know who they is! How can I-” She cut herself off, and let out a long, shaking breath. “You can’t speak of this. Fine. I will investigate myself, if not for your sake than for the sake of the rest of the Dastena.”

  “If you just come with me Rani, I swear to you it’ll make sense.” Samira pleaded.

  Rani looked down. “Sam, I won’t do that if I don’t know what I’m getting into. Does Isa know?”Samira nodded, stepping up beside her second. “He was with me when… when we were informed of the situation.”

  “Does he have one of those tattoos? Did they mess with his head like they did yours?” Rani said coldly.

  Sam nodded again, though quickly she added, “He has one. Got one before I got mine. It’s not… they didn’t mess with our heads, they just-”

  “Enough! Enough. I’ve heard enough about that. Actually, here, I’ll be generous. Finish that sentence.” Rani snapped, eyes bzing with frustration as they locked onto Samira’s.

  “Charainn dhamh-... I can’t, I suppose. Too close to telling you too much. Fuck.” Samira exhaled.

  Rani stepped in front of Samira, looking at her searchingly. The Saamet’s eyes were beautiful, they always had been. The sort of hazel that reminds one of life, of growing, of the smell after a rain storm. In the twinkling evening light of the garden, Samira found herself captivated once more.

  “Sam,” Rani started, “What can you tell me then? Make me trust you. Please.”

  Samira bnked. There were so many things she wanted to tell Rani, of course, and so many things she could if the woman would stop being so hard headed and accompany her to the meeting of the Court the following day. She didn’t even have to make a pact for Samira to tell her, she just had to know. About the Tíreile, yes, but also that Samira would never willingly hide anything from her. That her will was her own. Was it? The thought came unprompted. She understood none of the text that now adorned her arm, after all, and it clearly held otherworldly power. Who’s to say the Pact Keeper, or Oriole, or Aoife hadn’t simply… decided to add more? The thought was concerning, but as soon as it had come to mind, she dismissed it. She was as responsible for her actions now as she had ever been, she had to be. Who else could carry the guilt she shouldered, after all?

  Samira searched for something, anything to say, and spoke before she processed. “The Princess has a lover!” She blurted, and Rani stared, eyes wide. The silence stretched on uncomfortably, so Samira continued. “From before the engagement, I mean. They… made it clear they had no intentions of breaking off the retionship.”

  Rani, still staring, just nodded.

  “They’re close, the two of them. They’ve known each other for quite a long time.” Samira rambled awkwardly. “Quite a bit like you and I, if you think about it. In that, you know, we’ve been, or, that is, we were together, for a while.”

  “We were.” Rani responded ftly.

  Samira felt her cheeks warming, a blush which blessedly would be difficult to see with her skin tone. “So, I suppose I had been thinking, or rather, I know that I have a responsibility to-.”

  “Stop.” Rani said, quietly, but with a sternness. “The thing you’ve chosen to tell me, in a bid to earn my trust, is that your Fiancée has a secret, or evidently not particurly secret, paramour?”

  Samira nodded dumbly, unsure of how to respond.

  “And the manner you’ve chosen to inform me is… what, in the form of a proposition? Shall we just resume our own retionship as though nothing happened? Shall we just forget that you discarded me in the name of your crusade to make yourself as miserable as possible over something that wasn’t your fault?” Rani’s words began cold and controlled, but her volume and the audible anger in her voice continued to grow. “Your great moral stance, not to ‘dishonor’ your bride to be, discarded on the grounds that she’s already doing what I had asked, begged, for you to do?” She fumed.

  Samira sputtered, “Rani, I only meant that-”

  Rani had spped her, when they first met. It had literally been the first sight Samira had seen of the stout woman, mid recoil from the impact. It hadn’t hurt particurly much, but that hadn’t been the point. Samira had been in battle before that day, but only at a distance. While the members of the noble houses of Thandar were required to perform military service—a long standing tradition intended to show the common folk that their leaders were just as invested in the protection of their home as they were—it was generally expected that they do so from a safe distance. Not everyone did so, of course, and Samira had grown up hearing stories about this uncle or that cousin, and ter her own elder brother, valiantly leading a charge and routing an enemy. So it was that, after her first few bouts of combat, she had decided that it was time to lead from the front, to inspire her Dastena the way those stories had inspired her.

  It was not as glorious as she had anticipated. Real combat, at the frontline, was bloody and reactive and chaotic in a way that her training had never been. Barking orders from a few hundred yards back still held some of the heat of battle; if their front ranks broke, or an archer or cannoneer was particurly lucky, there was a chance of injury or death. Crashing into the enemy line, Dastena on either side of her, had been thrilling, for a few moments, until the woman to her left got hit in the neck with a spear, just in the gap between her helmet and her gorget. Samira had frozen. The bodies were usually so far away, or already dead when she saw them. This was immediate. A companion, a soldier to whom, among countless others, she had given a rousing speech the previous evening. In one moment alive, the next, a gout of her blood had spshed through the visor of Samira’s helmet and painted her vision on that side a sickly crimson.

  She had frozen. It was the first, and as of yet only, time it had ever happened, but there she was at the front, soldiers both Thandaran and Shivan crushing in around her, cries of rage and pain a maddening cacophony, and there stood Daamaret Samira Char, ripe for the picking. She was lucky she had only caught an arrow in the shoulder, all things considered. Even after it had impacted she had only sluggishly pivoted toward the one who had fired it, and likely wouldn’t have raised her shield in time. If it had not been for a hand roughly grabbing her colr and yanking her back, the next arrow would’ve found a more lethal opening in her armor.

  Samira had found herself stumbling backward, attempting to round on whoever had pulled her, sword gging behind as her injured shoulder tried and failed to bring it to bear. It had been a Thandaran, a Saamet that had been assigned to her when she took this position, but not one that she had had seen up close or spoken to. Seeing that it wasn’t a threat, the part of her mind that had still been at least somewhat coherent at the time remembered the battle, and she attempted to pull away, back towards the chaos and the fighting.

  That was when Rani had spped her. The Saamet had shouted something about her injury, something about the Dastena needing her alive. It hadn’t really been clear in the din around them, and the rush from the arrow embedded in her shoulder was fogging her head a bit. As Samira’s helmet tumbled to the ground from the impact, Rani had taken a firm grip on her good arm, and began dragging her back to where their medics had set up tents. Samira wasn’t sure if she believed in love at first sight, and perhaps it was the blood loss, or the shock, but looking at Saamet Rani Bansal while soldiers fought and died, she felt something blossom in her chest.

  The crack of Rani’s hand across Samira’s cheek echoed across the gardens as Samira found herself alone once more, opening and closing her mouth like a beached fish. She only found the presence of mind to colpse into her chair when she heard the sm of the door to the Wymguard’s Barracks echoing over the evening blooms.