The maid knocked on the office's door and after Naila bid her to come in, the door opened to reveal a moving cart and a pretty woman. The maid was of Loyatan lineage with her pale skin, her golden hair, and her sky-blue eyes. She moved wordlessly through the room as she set up the many plates of pastries and multiple teapots. Wordless maybe, but her visage shouted many realities. And that blush was the most obvious of them.

  Both Aloe and Naila were clothed and not overtly blasting their beauty, but the dual sources of charm were potent enough to begin crumbling the maid's mental defenses.

  "Leave." Whether it was because she saw the suffering of the maid or because she didn't want her to hear her tale, Naila made the maid out.

  The woman looked relieved as she hastily removed herself from the room without even making a single sound.

  "Hmm~" Aloe smelled the scent coming from one of the teapots and rejoiced at the tea's aroma. "Ter'nar tea? It's been ages since I have had it."

  "So you genuinely made it?" Naila commented.

  It was a weird sight to see her drinking tea. Not only was she Naila Asina, the brutish girl for whom the idea of tea seemed too sophisticated; but she also was Naila-al-Ydaz, the 'calipha' of Ydaz, and even if Aloe couldn't see her as a ruler, it was strange seeing a ruler filling themselves their cup of tea.

  "I already told you," the druid responded as she gracefully lifted her cup. The beverage was scolding hot but considering that not even the Radiating Undergrowth could scorch her now a hot tea was no hindrance to Aloe.

  "It is a sizeable claim," the calipha refuted.

  "Perhaps, but this is a trust exercise." Aloe placed her cup on the plate. "I'm trusting your story is veracious, and you are doing the same thing with my claims. And to that I must say, you have talked about making Aya your assistant scribe, and I must ask, did you bring her to the frontlines?"

  Naila cringed, or in a way, she had the decency to cringe. Aloe doubted Rani would have ever done something like that, let alone Aaliyah.

  "I brought Aya, alongside her mother with us. But, fret not, they never left the encampment."

  "Watch out, your voice almost portrayed worry," the dark-skinned woman's lips almost tilted in a smile as she jested.

  "History evades you, Ayad," Naila answered with a smile of her own. It was a weird yet beautiful sight. The sultanzade had always been a hotheaded woman full of rage, so Aloe had never seen her smile. She should have done it more. "All in its due time, you will understand my reactions. Now, my mouth is a bit dry from talking. Will you share your secrets with me, or will you allow me to enjoy this cup of tea?" Aloe remained silent. "I thought as much."

  "I am disappointed." Those were the lone words our mother spoke as soon as she arrived at the campsite. Soldiers were still hauling carcasses and corpses away when she arrived.

  We did not care in the slightest about the approval of Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, not many of us considered her a mother, just someone who gave birth to us. But fear was another thing. Not having her approval was nothing short of a death sentence.

  "The assassins have thrown all the monsters of the Whistling Sands at us," Rani had said to justify the carnage.

  "I can see that much," the Sultanah replied with disinterest. "Yet I am unable to understand the number of losses I am seeing. This would only be possible if little to no cultivators participated in the fight." Her tone evoked fear in the hearts of the sultanzade, even those like me who had participated in the defense. "Did you consider yourselves at a higher standing than the other soldiers? Here in the field, you are at the same level. You are nothing more than manpower. Do you get that?"

  We found all nodding to her. I do not quite recall if at that point Aaliyah-al-Ydaz already knew of the betrayal of her son, but if she did, we had even more reasons to act submissive to her. Going into battle was not guaranteed death for a soldier, even less so for a sultanzade. Pain? Most likely. But not death.

  Yet the Sultanah could easily bring that.

  She had calmed down with the years, but I remember my half-siblings telling me how our mother would randomly execute servants on the spot with her own hands when I was a barely cognizant child.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "I am disappointed in you all," she spoke as if she had bothered to raise us, but of course, we did not have enough courage to speak to her face. As you may know, she just was a force of nature. "But above all else, I am disappointed in you, Rani."

  Those words were bitter, yet they sounded so great to the rest of the sultanzade. Rani was the favorite child, the Sultanah's mirror copy. Seeing Aaliyah-al-Ydaz disappointed in her was just… sublime.

  "I want you all to assist the troops like fellow soldiers at this very instant, tomorrow morning we start a counteroffensive." A fool might have mistaken the words for an order. They were a fact.

  We knew that we would not disobey them. She knew that too. And if she said there would be a counteroffensive tomorrow, there would be one. Simple as that.

  Nurture – the vital arts as a whole – has progressed significantly over the centuries, but Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was at a level beyond everybody else. She seemed eternal, and in a way, she was. When the most powerful soldiers in the encampment were her children, she had literally been there for their whole life. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Aaliyha-al-Ydaz was never present, nor did she give attention to her children.

  Do not act that high and mighty, Ayad. You were not her first nor last victim. Not even the worst. We also were.

  But yes, what followed was cleaning duty. A gruesome and bloody one was carrying carcasses, but it beat shoveling waste from latrines. I nearly collapsed from exhaustion when I reached my tent. There Micah and Aya waited for me. Even though the housewife knew how to write and read, she acted more like a servant and a cook. She had quite the amusing gaze, she did. Looking over my shoulders when I was a princess and she was a commoner. That seething hate. It was loveable. Exciting even.

  I already told you; I did not lay my hands on her. I had no chance.

  What? She was the adult there. Also, not using that body of hers was a sin, though it was not like I was a religious person. Having a body like hers blessed for child-making and only having one child was also a sin. Widow at that.

  …

  Yes, I was well aware that women could not reproduce with each other.

  Haha. No, I am not jesting but let us leave that for later.

  Where was I? Ah yes, my tent. If Mirah was the cook, Aya was the scribe. But as young as she was, being a scribe was not enough for the girl. She was even running the logistics of the army, or rather, part of them. That is not a one-woman effort. Unlike you, Ayad, Aya took pleasure in working.

  Hmm… referring to you by your surname is rather odd, now that I think about it as Aya boasted the surname too now. For the sake of the narrative, I will call you by your name. Unless that is an issue for you?

  No? Perfect.

  I was never a superstitious woman, or maybe a girl we could say, but when I went to sleep that day I felt a dread so insurmountable that my sleep suffered. I felt like something was about to happen, something bad. Those were not just gut feelings as the assassins had played us for fools twice already. They had conquered all the eastern forts, and they had retained us for nearly a week accounting for the travel time of the scouts. Maybe I was no longer the commander, but my mind was strategizing, and the numbers told me that all the eastern side of Ydaz had been lost.

  A fool would despair at such a hasty defeat, but battles are not the war, and actions have causes and effects. They had depleted all the monsters in the region, there would not be another attack of this magnitude. Or rather, of this type. They had used up too much steam, any sound strategist would have not wasted all their initial momentum in a single push, so that meant they had yet another card under their sleeve.

  An ominous feeling in a war filled already with many unknowns.

  I woke up that day before the sun had even come out, my mother was probably awake already, she did not need much sleep and I knew it, but if she had not yet summoned us, that meant I still had time to myself.

  No, I did not use that time for pleasure.

  But it would not be a lie to say I used it for comfort.

  I trained.

  Simple as that.

  My body and mind were jittery with all the what-ifs, and there was no greater meditation for my young self than the repetitive katas. We could argue that I also trained because I was disappointed with myself. I felt I could be even faster – more powerful – if I trained more. Stances are multipliers, after all. Increasing the base value only increases the product.

  Do you know that the speed stance has diminishing returns?

  No, I do not mean it like the rest of the stances. The diminishing returns I am referring to are the air. The faster you move, the more the air resists your movement. Even with a single Haya, you can reach that point with weapons. Whenever you hear a blade singing that is because you are literally cutting the wind from the solid it becomes at such speeds.

  You know, it is almost an equalizing factor. By then I had more than six Haya, and though I cannot recall the exact amount, I still had not reached the first diminishing returns of vitality backlogging. That meant that whilst I was still fast, most sultanzade were faster than me. And yet… none as graceful.

  It did not even take a sultanzade three years to reach the ten Haya milestone, so they could not grow used to the speed stance in such a small span if they diluted their efforts. But I did not. I breathed speed, I did not wield the speed stance, it was my default self. So my moments were fluid with calculated momentum and sharp turns.

  Did you know that people can fall unconscious if they turn too fast when they are wielding the speed stance? No? Well, now you know. We call them g-forces, or rather, people fall unconscious from experiencing too many of them. Of course, that term did not exist back then, but I was probably the sultanzade that could withstand the greatest amount of them.

  Going back to the tale at hand, I drove myself to exhaustion before Aaliyah-al-Ydaz summoned the sultanzade for her counteroffensive. But that was fine, I told myself. At least I had removed the impatience and the jitters from my body.

  How young and foolish I was.

  What followed was the most gruesome battle in the history of Khaffat.