Leroh nodded, or thought he did. He was not sure if he reacted at all to the news.

  “Your family? The other lads? Anyone,” said a voice that sounded like his own.

  “No. They went together, most of them. I was separated; they put me on a boat. I think they were brought in later. But I hadn’t seen them, when it was my turn…I didn’t think I’d be the only one left. I thought they’d take their turns after me, that at least some would choose…” Tem brought a hand to his brow and covered his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “I wish I’d gone with them. No one I knew stayed. I’m—I should have gone. I was just…I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to…”

  “Brother, I stayed. I’m here. We are going to help you. Mantis, Mantis will help you. That’s why we came.”

  “What is even going on, Leroh?” Tem lowered his hand to give him an angry look of confusion Leroh had never seen on his usually friendly face.

  “We, Teela and I, have been with her. She’s alright. I promise. We’re rescuing you.”

  “I don’t understand anything. You both left with the—with, with her,” Tem threw a surreptitious glance at Mantis but she did not return the look and only continued to pretend that she could not hear their conversation. “Where did you go? Your ma was… We were worried. And confused. Where have you been?”

  But that was it. That casual mention of his mother was what popped Leroh’s bubble of composure and released the reaction he'd somehow been holding at bay for the last few moments. He fell utterly silent, his face arranging itself into slack emptiness and his shoulders curling inward, like a string-puppet suddenly released.

  He’d known. Now he knew that he’d known. But the sorrow came regardless with the certainty.

  His friend’s attempts to further communicate went unheeded from then on, and Leroh only sat there and felt.

  Oh, how tired he was of feeling.

  For an awkward while Mantis made them travel through the streets of the Sun capital’s grandest district. They did so mainly in silence and, only when it became apparent they were coming closer to the castle gates, Leroh finally decided to compose himself and voice a question for Tem’s sake.

  “Will we…request an audience with the Sun now? As it was with the Sea?”

  “What?” Tem interjected, his unfamiliar eyes wide with both fear and incredulity.

  “Yes, but I must do something else first.”

  Tem goggled at Mantis, then muttered under his breath, “An audience with the Sun?”

  “To make a bargain for you,” she told him, and Leroh cursed her inwardly for the hostile gleam in her eyes. His friend did not deserve that look.

  “What?” was all he could say once again.

  “She will offer him another soul in exchange for yours. A…a worse, a bad…soul.”

  “Hah!” Mantis threw Leroh a sardonic look he’d never been on the receiving end of, and it made him feel filthy. “We’ll see. Stay here; I’ll be back shortly.”

  And despite Leroh’s rushed questioning on where she was going or what she’d meant, Mantis only opened the door to the coach and jumped out, falling quickly into her disturbing charade of appearing as nothing more than a common bed-worker and walking away toward the mountain-sized castle and temple taking up a majority of Leroh’s field of vision.

  Mantis glimpsed a couple of well-dressed whores walking alongside her and felt a most welcome pinch of relief drop into the sour concoction of her current emotions. At least there were prostitutes everywhere. That was excellent news.

  She’d known the trade was well exploited in the Sun capital, but she’d gambled with the likeliness that even the pompous and powerful would find such flagrant debauchery acceptable in their midst. She’d not been as certain as she would have liked that her disguise could withstand casual scrutiny near the home of His Glowing Majesty himself. But it turned out yes, indeed it could. Yilenn’s dress was, if anything, a little plain in the presence of the other women walking around the area who, although painted significantly less violently than Mantis, were roving the parameter with sharp, greedy eyes for a juicy client to procure. They were like birds of prey, Mantis thought, and almost felt like smiling.

  But then she recalled her current goal and her inner walls vibrated with a strike of horrible doubt and knowledge that wiped all traces of amusement from her mind.

  She had to just do it. Now.

  The service entrances to the Sun castle were more like a district of the city in themselves for their sheer size. Servants doing work from polishing armplate to cutting bread were visible from where Mantis now stood looking in at the melee of lives toiling to serve and provide for the very few who lived in the highest towers up above.

  Men took breaks from their duties to hail the whores, and some of the seductresses accepted what they were offered, but most seemed to be waiting for larger fish to swim by. Members of the clergy or minor nobles might appear looking for a quick drink of pleasure, Mantis understood. The ladies were hunting for catches of better quality.

  But that wasn’t what Mantis was here to observe. She ignored the calls and groping fingers as she sauntered through the masses to reach a group of women she’d spotted embroidering yellow doublets with the Sun’s insignia of a circle in a halo of shooting rays. They didn’t lift their eyes to Mantis until she was almost on top of them.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Ey, watch where you’re going,” one woman warned her, but Mantis only smiled her politest smile and tilted her head at them in a gesture of greeting.

  “Good day, ladies. Excuse my forwardness, but could I count on your discretion were I to make a—frankly rather indiscreet—inquiry to you at this moment?”

  There were three of them. They looked at each other then and held in smiles. One, the oldest, the one who’d warned her to be careful before, said, “What’s the inquiry?”

  “Would you happen to know of anyone with access to the prince’s chambers? A serving girl or slave, perhaps? I was hoping to…get a chance to meet him.”

  All humor fell from their faces then as the women glanced at each other, then at her, more bitterly than before. “Which prince?”

  “Siebos.”

  “Tah!” the older woman spat. “Talk to little Fala there. Knows his chambers. And get away.”

  Mantis chose to ignore everything else she’d just witnessed except for the straightforward answer she’d needed. An old seamstress can hardly know what even I don’t know. Doesn’t mean anything. She walked away.

  Fala was a young woman with brightly yellow hair, like strands of gold. Her eyes were expressive where her face was not, and conveyed that she was having a bad day or perhaps a bad life. Her thin lips were pressed into a tight line as she bent to collect a pile of fresh linens from a low table near the hanging lines to Mantis’s right.

  “Good day. Are you Fala?”

  The girl turned to her with worry in her expression and immediate apprehension. “Yes. Who are you?”

  Mantis drew a blank.

  That was odd. She didn’t know what to say to this person, how to begin this talk that she didn’t want to have.

  “I’m—Mantis. Have you heard of me?”

  “No. Please leave me alone. I have work to do.” Fala made to walk away but Mantis stepped in front of her and sighed.

  “There isn’t a good way to go about this so I suppose I’ll just have to be honest. I need your insight regarding the rumors that Prince Siebos is sexually perverted. You work his chambers, I understand. Is there truth to what they say? Have you witnessed anything of the sort first-hand?”

  Fala’s mouth twisted into a knot with her disgust, and she spat on the ground before looking at Mantis from top to bottom disapprovingly. “What’s it to you?”

  “I can’t explain everything to you right now. Can you confirm that the rumors are false?”

  “False?” the girl exclaimed with an awful cackle that sounded nothing like laughter. “What is it to you, I asked.”

  Mantis grabbed her by the hand and pulled lightly to get her to look her in the eyes. She hoped her gaze could communicate much more than her words would as she whispered in the lowest of breaths, “If it’s false he lives; if true I kill him, so tell me right now which it’s going to be.”

  Fala, oddly enough, did not pull her hand away. She stood motionless for a handful of breaths, judging the truth in her face. “You’re not a whore.”

  “No.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the Mantis.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s true then, Fala. He’s as they say?” Mantis’s heart started racing and her back began to tingle with a sense of terrible foreboding. “Tell me. Does he kidnap, rape, kill? Is his preference children? Is he the monster he’s believed?”

  The girl's eyes went to the ground for a moment, then she lifted her steadfast gaze and spoke like it was nothing to her—smalltalk, chatter. “Prince Arcos gave me to him when I was little. He bought me for Prince Siebos specifically, so I can easily confirm his preference for children. The kidnapping, yes. Rape too, of course. Killing’s a more recent one, though; he used to let us serve beyond his uses for us, but now he’s taken to the habit when he’s particularly moody, depending on the day. Found a body just the other day myself. So yes on all accounts, ma’am.”

  Mantis dropped her hand and took a step back, frowned, then turned around to leave.

  Lying? No. Could be.

  NO.

  Maybe he wasn’t in range of her senses. Could have left the city. Yes. Yes.

  Mantis found herself walking away and shook her head. She turned, saw Fala headed toward the maids’ entry to the castle and ran conspicuously to seize her hand again.

  Her yellow eyes grumpily asked what more she could want after making her speak the words she’d spoken and rudely walking away without a word. Mantis replied to the unvoiced question, “Come with me. Let me buy you your soul back—for your cooperation.”

  Leroh didn’t want to cry, but he wasn’t sure what to do instead. Mother was dead, and he couldn’t tell himself otherwise anymore. Kird was gone, and so was everyone else in his life except for Tem. And Teela.

  He was feeling surprisingly fine in a dark way that caused him great shame.

  “We’ll get you out of here,” he said to his friend with his eyes on the clean flooring of the carriage in an attempt to kill the sad silence they’d fallen into.

  “Leroh, can you just tell me where you’ve been? And why is the Mantis with you? Have you gone mad? Or is she holding you against your will—’

  “No, nothing like that. It’s—it was Teela.”

  “Oh,” Tem drew in a long breath and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yes. Alright, we did assume as much. She always was like that…getting involved in that sort of thing. Just like her to befriend a servant, eh? Or, I suppose, maybe she did you a favor in the end? Taking you away from Pirn and all.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Leroh didn’t like that way of seeing it, but it was the truth.

  “But what’s the rest of the tale? Curse my soul, are you even aware that you’ve been walking around with the rutting Mantis on your arm? I thought I’d lost my mind when I first saw you, man. Has she been with you this whole time?”

  “Yes, she has. And, Tem…I think she’s not…I don’t know. She rescued me from the Sea, made a deal to save my life. And now you. She’s going to do the same for you, and it’s all as a favor to me. I don’t understand it.”

  Tem furrowed his brow at Leroh and tutted. “Sounds like she wants something from you. Be careful.”

  “Yes, be careful, little boy,” Mantis opened the coach’s door with a sudden pull that startled Tem and Leroh into upright positions with their eyes blown wide. “And it’s your sister I’ve been trying to help, not you.”

  Behind her was a blond woman, a Sun servant. She was peering into the carriage warily and chewing on her lower lip. Mantis jumped in and settled her skirts under her with a hand as she ordered the stranger, “Don’t mind them. Just get in.”