"Fenris controls Northern Mars, Titan, and Europa. The Imperium could be backing them while pretending otherwise." Shazmeen poured fresh tea. She had done it ten thousand times. The dark liquid hit the ceramic without a splash. Her voice was measured. "The Zorian Covenant bleeds troops against them without making progress. The Alliance and Directorate look the other way." She held the cup between her palms. "Tell me, sister. Which side of this war would you bet on?"

  Fuuka said nothing.

  "I don't admire Skarn or any walking tumor that serves him. But his results show. Industrial-scale Radi-Mon production. Territorial control across multiple planets. Effective command of a top-five nation in the Sol System. No other Horde has achieved what Fenris has."

  "You're suggesting we approach them?"

  "I'm suggesting we position ourselves with the winning side." Shazmeen set the tea down, untouched. "We can offer what they lack: Mirage psionic expertise, sexual cultivation knowledge, the spiritual architecture they've never bothered to build. In return, we gain influence in whatever order comes next."

  She leaned forward, and the amber light caught the green in her eyes.

  "Skarn wants a kingdom of flesh and obedience. Our great Moro seeks a kingdom of desire and fulfillment. The Fenris provide the bodies. We provide the pleasure. Between them, we build Shashvat Ananda across every world worth having. Eternal Bliss."

  The words landed beautifully. They were supposed to. Shazmeen had been shaping arguments since before Fuuka was born, and this one was polished to a mirror finish. The Rakshasa ideal: a universe where Moro's philosophy governed the soul while raw power governed the flesh. Partnership. Symbiosis. A civilization built on the convergence of conquest and desire.

  It sounded like paradise.

  It sounded like the kind of paradise where the junior partner got swallowed whole.

  Fuuka tilted her head, let a half-smile creep in. "Jabari, Marcus, Xin... all of these men are pleasant enough company, ne? I wouldn't mind them joining me in Soul Spitroast."

  Shazmeen's eyes narrowed, a flash of mock offense. "And I'd toss you into the Great Void Beyond. Let it consume you without pain, before these lesser ones can put their meat in you."

  "One already did." Fuuka's smirk widened. "He wasn't too bad, either."

  "We are not discussing your appetites." The warmth left Shazmeen's face. "We are discussing survival."

  Fuuka straightened. "Sigrun Fjeld is a princess whose blood could shift the entire Nordic civil war. Marcus Thorne is a Stalwart with remarkable genetics. That Rigger—Xin—unwittingly possesses a Jokull weapon. His Void psionic alignment, though unremarkable alone, allows his Aether to blend with others', potentially birthing new spells. Perhaps new disciplines."

  Shazmeen's eyes narrowed in amusement. "You mean to share your Aether with this Xin?"

  "If it can further his…usefulness." Fuuka smiled. "In addition, the Griot has connections across the Directorate. Approaching them as allies gives us access to all of this."

  "A collection of strays and idealists with a single damaged ship."

  "Small and desperate groups need allies more than empires do. If we approach the Associates, we shape the fight from the inside. If they win, we've installed grateful friends across multiple factions. If they lose, we've gathered intelligence at minimal cost."

  "And if they die, you've wasted years of Moro's investment on sentiment."

  "Strategy," Fuuka corrected.

  "Are you certain?" Shazmeen inhaled through her nose, slow and deep. Beneath all that human exterior, her pheromone glands had opened, tasting what Fuuka's body was saying beneath her words. Her nostrils flared once.

  "Hmm. I thought so," Shazmeen said.

  Fuuka's stomach tightened. "Thought what?"

  "Your cortisol drops when you say their names. Your oxytocin spikes when you mention Jabari, the Griot." Shazmeen's voice went clinical. "I taught you how to purge residual pair-bonding hormones within three hours of sex. You learned it in your second year. It has been weeks, Fuuka. You haven't purged."

  Fuuka opened her mouth. Closed it.

  "You fought the Stalwart at the Inn and didn't kill him. You scanned the Rigger's Diabolisk, then had your summonable minions assist him in the Red Rabbit Warrens. You could have let Batu Arnesen have Princess Sigrun, but instead she was saved from certain rescue." Shazmeen counted each point on her purple-painted nails. "I trained you to extract. What you're describing is investment. The kind that rots judgment."

  "My judgment is fine."

  "Your judgment told you to fuck the Griot and then kill him. When that failed, you allied with him. Instead of extracting and studying his seeds, you keep them in your womb, and now want to follow him to Venus." Shazmeen's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "It's all in how your body smells."

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  Fuuka's jaw tightened. "Lecturing, Elder?"

  "I'm a hundred and eight. You'd be wise to listen." Shazmeen rose and moved to the alcove where the basin waited, her back to Fuuka. "There was another girl on Devithar, Proxima's first planet, tidally locked. Forty years ago. Worm Witch, like you. She was supposed to infiltrate an Alliance mining colony. She married a miner instead. Started steering our operations away from his sector. Took me six months to notice."

  Fuuka could feel her own pheromones betraying her. "What happened to her?"

  "Our great Moro severed the Soul Bridge. Took back the gifts. The woman aged thirty years in a single night." Shazmeen turned. "Her husband woke up beside a stranger."

  The fungi pulsed. The wet walls glistened.

  "I am telling you this," Shazmeen said, "as the woman who watched Amir carry you out of Devithar half-burned." She closed the distance between them. She was taller than Fuuka by eight centimeters, and she used every one of them. "I taught you to walk in this body. I sat with you through the First Molt, when you screamed for seven hours and begged me to let you die."

  Fuuka flinched. She couldn't help it.

  "I did not do those things so you could follow some handsome man's scent to Venus and call it strategy."

  For a moment, Fuuka wasn't sure how to respond. Was Shazmeen right?

  She exhaled.

  "You're right that I care about them." No lilt. No smile. "I won't insult you by pretending otherwise."

  Shazmeen blinked. The brief spike of surprise in her scent, gone almost instantly.

  "But you taught me to read people, Elder. You taught me that real loyalty can't be manufactured with pheromones and smiles." Fuuka stood. "These Sol people have been used by every faction that's touched them. If I walk in with nothing but strategy, they'll smell it. The Griot studies people for a living. The Stalwart fought me to a draw and walked away clearheaded. If I approach them with something real, the loyalty I earn is real. Real loyalty survives the truth."

  Shazmeen watched her. The look of a teacher. "Is there more?"

  "And Moro's directive from our last communion," Fuuka pressed. "She seeks to have Sigrun brought to our side.' The Associates are the fastest path to Sigrun."

  "There are many ways to serve a main course."

  "And my way keeps us close to the plate."

  The argument didn't resolve. Fuuka hadn't expected it to. A long moment of silence stretched between them.

  "Then watch them." Shazmeen's voice was final without being harsh. "Learn what Venus reveals about them. If joining them serves our interests, I will allow it. But if Fenris offers a better path—"

  "Then I'll walk it." Fuuka bowed her head. "I am Rakshasa first, Elder. Always."

  Shazmeen studied her.

  "I know," Shazmeen collected the tea set and carried it to the alcove, now speaking softly. "That's why I worry."

  She rinsed the cups with her back to Fuuka, her long hair swaying against the aubergine dress.

  "If you do approach them, and if Venus goes badly...remember that Moro has always been willing to spend resources on investments she believes in." She set a cup upside down to dry. "The Tether Arch beneath Xing Hong isn't the only door in the Sol System. If these Associates are as clever as you see them, it won't be long before they find the ones on Venus."

  Fuuka simply nodded. "Thank you, Elder."

  Shazmeen turned, and her expression softened into something rarer: genuine warmth. She crossed to Fuuka, took her chin between two fingers, and kissed her on the forehead. Her lips were warm. "Be careful on Venus, sister. Clean things get dirty there."

  Fuuka smiled. "I've never been particularly clean."

  "No. But you've always known where the filth was useful and where it was just filth. Don't lose that."

  Room 81, Poison Dragon Flute Motel, Lane 69, Dragon District, Xing Hong

  The Valva Falam pushed her back through in reverse. The compression, the warmth, the tingling enzymes cleaning her skin, and then the room's cool air hit her face and she was standing barefoot on the blanketed floor.

  The succulent had already closed. It sat in its planter, purple veins fading to the dull tones of ordinary leaves.

  Outside, the hawker was still selling pork buns. The autocab had stopped honking. Life at ground level, grinding forward the way it always did.

  Fuuka sat on the edge of her bed. The dark purple kimono was spotless, the pocket dimension's humidity cleaned away by the Valva Falam's transit. She folded her hands in her lap, Shazmeen's arguments still in her head.

  The logic of Fenris was clean. Join the strong, share in their victory, build from a position of power. Shazmeen had lived a hundred and eight years by following clean logic.

  She opened her Nucleus Watch. The violet hologram threw light across her knees. She pulled up the ISV Polaris's last known trajectory: a limping line from Mars toward Venus, engines damaged, hull patched. Two more weeks until arrival at current speed.

  She thought about the people aboard.

  Marcus, who'd fought her to a draw in the Slumbering Mantis and smelled like cedar. The kind of man who planted his feet and stayed planted, which was either very brave or very stupid, and Fuuka had lived long enough to know those two things were often the same.

  Jabari, who'd been inside her and hadn't judged her when she'd tried to kill him afterward. The taste of his skin was a sense memory she hadn't bothered to file away.

  Xin, skinny and nervous, who carried a Jokull Radi-Mon in his arms and called it his son. Who'd looked at Sigrun Fjeld the way starving men look at bread, with a hunger so pure it was almost painful to watch.

  Sigrun, who'd sold her body for a decade but somehow never sold her soul. Who now carried a Jokull elite's Psytum Sword, plus a living goddess's blessing—and didn't seem to understand the weight of either.

  Fuuka closed the Watch.

  She thought about Moro's words from the Soul Bridge, in that cellar. That deep voice, resonating through, speaking to her and Shazmeen: We do not destroy potential. We seduce it, make it ours. The Rakshasa way.

  Shazmeen's way was to join the winner. Moro's way was to make winners out of whoever you chose. The distinction mattered more than Shazmeen might admit.

  "I haven't purged. I'm carrying it. What's the harm?" Fuuka's hand went to her belly. Worm Witch like her could never get pregnant from conventional sex with Sol men. But inside her womb, their seeds were preserved and could be useful in other ways.

  She reached into her travel bag and found the wrapped package she kept at the bottom, beneath her spare clothes and the collapsed Spirit Lantern's charging coil. Tuna belly. Raw, cold, wrapped in wax paper. The closest thing to human flesh she allowed herself in civilized company. She peeled back the wrapper and ate it slowly, savoring the iron tang on her tongue, the fish dissolving against her teeth.

  While she chewed, she opened the Nucleus Watch's messaging interface and began composing a note to Jabari. Something light. Something that would make him smile. She considered and discarded three openings before settling on one that was playful enough to invite a response and vague enough to mean nothing to anyone who intercepted it.

  She'd find them on Venus. One way or another.

  Before long, Fuuka finished her tuna, licked the iron from her lips, and pressed send.

  MEDICINE & POISON

  An Epic Fantasy

  The gods did not create the world.

  They re-moulded it in their own image.

  But as the newly arrived deities empowered Kings and Prophets,

  the shadows of human nature affected heaven, too.

  That's how the wars began.

  ?? Volume I — Complete

  Oli is always getting lost in the forest. He's the only Sevener who can't see the paths, no matter how hard his parents try to teach him. But this time it's serious. He goes missing on the brink of a war between the devout Western Kingdom and the anti-theist Republic, with his homeland – Saltleaf Forest – caught in the middle.

  As he travels with an unexpected companion – a medicine man gifted with magic inseparable from his madness – he unearths the hidden histories of his tribe, his family and the life-cycle of a forgotten god. When he learns about his own place in it, he realises he must find the courage to enter a terrifying new world or face losing everyone he loves.

  ?? Volume II — Rain on the Godsroof

  Prince Tancred has been cast aside as heir to the Western throne in favour of his adopted brother. Still smarting from the injury, he nevertheless champions the cause of the Sevener refugees flooding the capital. But their charismatic leader, Adalina, is viewed with suspicion by many of his peers – and helping her could cost him what status he has left.

  Meanwhile, Advocate Demetos licks his wounds following a shocking defeat at the forest border. Armed with his fearsome new weapon – the firearm – he's on the verge of an alliance that will secure him a place of glory in Republican history, and infamy in the rest of the world.

  ??

  Gods & Monsters

  Divine politics meets ancient horror

  ??

  Rich Worldbuilding

  Kingdoms, republics & tribal nations

  ??

  Faith vs. Science

  Firearms challenge the divine order

  Gods, science and ancient monsters clash in a struggle that could earn its victors eternal glory – or tip the world into chaos and ruin.

  Free on Royal Road ? Two Volumes Available

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