It was summer, and two years prior, when a Shalasharan prince met the Empress of Vokia.

  His name was Tiger; he was the seventh heir of the Qelas royal family, the seventh son of Prime Celebrant Ralan Qelas, and a far distance indeed from ever inheriting his father's seat. Or anything of value at all, for that matter. And he was here, in Vokia, because his family had finally found a use for him.

  From Tiger's very first day at that far-off foreign palace, Empress Ibis was an enigma. And he was hardly alone in this; after all, Ibis had come from quite literally nowhere at all to declare herself Emperor Sharo Zhon's illegitimate daughter, conceived via scandalous affair with a mere common fishmonger (who was, by then, several years deceased). This audacious claim was laughed right off—until it was validated by a small army of physicians and predestitigators both, and even the Emperor himself went on to publicly acknowledged Ibis as his progeny. What followed was a total upending of the Vokian balance of power; Ibis was two years older than her half-brother Taro, the man who had been set to inherit his dying father's throne, and so when Sharo Zhon passed not three days later it was Ibis herself whom the Synod crowned Empress of the Everlasting Vokian Dominion. And thus was her half-brother relegated back to his old position as head of the shadowy Oculus division, and thus were all the meek made mighty and vice versa. It was a time of great chaos indeed.

  Quite frankly, it was also a sort of coup.

  And so Tiger, just like everyone else, was scrambling to understand this new and elusive figure that had placed herself at the center of all their affairs. She certainly didn't look much the part of an Empress. Ibis was a small, polite, proper young woman whose bone-pale skin contrasted sharply with a crown of fiery short-cropped hair. She took up very little space, and she hardly ever raised her voice, and she was never seen to smile or laugh. She spoke only in calm, even register, and always with great certainty. Really, she should have been utterly unremarkable to behold—and yet the Empress also possessed an undeniable magnetism, a strange and invisible pull to her presence that everyone felt at all times around her. Some swore that they could feel it through walls. Some were nervous to even speak her name aloud. It was as though every floor sloped down to the point between her feet, and every ceiling arched to accommodate her head. Perhaps the reason she spoke so softly was that she did not ever need to raise her voice: whenever Ibis opened her mouth, after all, everybody was already listening.

  Ibis, too, was always listening. Many of her court whispered amongst themselves of a strange shared sensation; no matter how many people were in a room with the Empress, no matter where her gaze was physically directed at the time, still would every individual present feel as though Ibis were watching them closely—them, and them alone. It was as though her attention were some vast, broad thing that she could simply partition out as she saw fit. The servants in particular feared and abhorred her, for it is the endeavor of any who serve at the cruel whims of nobility to go unseen and unnoticed. They called her Ki-Ka-Koso, an anachronistic Shalasharan phrase that translates roughly to All-Seeing Devil.

  (A brief history lesson: Ki-Ka-Koso was the moniker given retrospectively to a certain individual who crossed from the Other Side during the Yellow Equinox thirty-three hundred years prior to present day, and proceeded to slaughter two-thirds of the continent's whole population before devouring themselves in a fit of lustful and gluttonous mania. The scars of Ki-Ka-Koso's passage can still be discerned today, for the continent of Xon is marked by an unusual plethora of canyons and valleys.)

  Though one should always trust a palace servant on matters such as these, Ibis's retainers were—for once—wholly mistaken. Believe me when I tell you that Ibis was, if nothing else, tragically human.

  To Tiger she was always perfectly cordial and polite, though by no means any sort of particularly congenial host. Nevertheless, as the prince shadowed her for his first week, the prospect of actually bedding this woman grew only more strange and surreal—and intimidating—by the hour. Ibis was simply otherworldly. Ibis was larger than life. Ibis was...perfect? Or a perfect illusion, perhaps—for she was an intensely private woman, a leader who bared not even the smallest fraction of her true self to those she would command. Tiger was certain he had not yet actually even met her; in fact, he was not certain that anyone in the whole world knew Ibis at all. And so Tiger's uncertainty grew. After all, he was but a foreigner in a foreign land—the much-unloved seventh son of a family in terrible decline, born to a nation-state that his new hosts had nearly swallowed whole. And Ibis was the spider at the center of a truly enormous web, a woman who had brought her every enemy to heel and who now commanded total authority over the greatest military power on Xon. To speak of the gulf between them would inevitably result in understatement.

  Hence Tiger's extreme apprehension as he stood now in the door to her bedchamber, having been fetched by that stern-faced and silent bodyguard with the imprint of a noose on her neck. The resulting trek had proved tremendously awkward, for the bodyguard did not speak and was content to merely glare straight ahead, with one gloved hand resting just a mite to comfortably upon the hilt of her sword all the while. Tiger's few attempts at making conversation had been very much akin to pissing in the wind. Now, the bodyguard's bootsteps were fading away as great gilded double-doors swung ponderously shut behind her, and then—well, there they were. The prince and the Empress, the latter clad in strangely unimpressive tunic and trousers. Ibis looked even less the part of an Empress than usual. But still her presence was undeniably felt; still did Tiger feel her eyes dissecting him layer by layer as she paced, scrutinizing him with a direct curiosity that she had never displayed before. Not to him, at any rate.

  And now she was eyeing him like an experiment. Or perhaps an opportunity.

  "Good evening," said Ibis, eventually.

  "Good evening," Tiger returned, because that one was free. But now he needed to actually think of something to say; now he decided to dial up the energy and simply bulldoze right on through the discomfort. Thus: "Isn't it a bit late for this?"

  "For what?" She cocked her head very much like the bird for which I have named her. "Conversation?"

  "Is that why we're here? To converse?"

  "You sound skeptical."

  "With respect, Empress, I know why I'm here."

  "In my bedchamber?"

  "In this foreign nation, Empress. Ten thousand leagues from my own."

  "Homesick, are we?" Ibis cocked her head in the opposite direction. "That doesn't sound much like the man I presume you to be."

  "I didn't say that."

  "I believe I detect a note of hostility, there."

  "Apologies, Empress."

  "It was not a rebuke."

  "Frustration, Empress."

  "Pardon?"

  "Not hostility. Frustration," Tiger admitted—even as the little voice of common sense in his head was screaming at him to stop, to shut up, to close his mouth right now and display proper respect before the woman who held the whole of his life in her palm. "Though you've already discerned the obvious—that I abhor my home, and the family that discarded me like offal—I'd like to reiterate that I am still very far from said home. I am a stranger here and it has been quite a strange week, Empress. A strange week capped off by an out-of-nowhere midnight summons, a summons carried out by a woman who was glaring as though she wanted to stick a knife in my neck. And now you're here, being...I don't know, coy, and lofty, and peculiar, and surely we're just here to fuck, no? We're just here to do our jobs and get this over with? So yes, Empress, with all that in mind I must admit that I am..." And abruptly the words came skidding to a halt, and his confidence ran dry, and suddenly Tiger was left holding the proverbial bag in front of the Empress of Vokia herself. And so he was forced to finish that thought, quite sheepishly, "...somewhat, uh, worn-out. Empress." And then he went very silent and very still, and waited for the apocalyptic judgement to follow.

  Ibis had stopped pacing.

  Her expression was blank and unchanging; her gaze utterly flat.

  Something flashed, momentarily, behind her eyes. A muscle twitched.

  And then Ibis keeled over and burst out laughing, arms folded over her stomach, and it was really no laugh but a guffaw, a guffaw that transformed now to almost a cackle as she laughed and laughed and laughed. She laughed as though that whole week of solemn stone-seriousness had been naught but preamble before this one, riotous, breathless burst of mirth.

  Tiger's eyes were wide as saucers. He was looking at a total stranger.

  "Stars above," Ibis chuckled merrily, rising back to her full height and wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "Oh, Panther. Did she really glare at you the whole time?"

  It took Tiger a moment to find his voice. "Uh—I may have misread—"

  "Like she wanted to stick a knife in my neck," Ibis snickered. "Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. I am so very glad that you will not be boring. Candor comes in terribly short supply once people start sticking the word Empress in front of your name. On that note—if you ever call me Empress in private again, I'll have you buried alive. Or flayed, or burned, or something equally creative. Maybe I'll just let Panther decide. Now, come—" she took one, two, three steps back, and sat down upon the edge of her bed, "—and we shall converse."

  This had all been very much equivalent to shock and awe tactics; Tiger, appropriately shocked and awed, was by this point particularly receptive to instructions. And so he did as he was told. He stopped before her and she gestured with one finger and so he knelt, thoroughly confused and trying very hard to reconcile the dual Ibises in his head—at which point she took his chin in her hand, and guided his eyes to hers with ice-cold fingertips, and all thought was promptly obliterated beneath the weight of that pale-eyed stare.

  "Tiger," she asked, "why are you here?"

  This answer, at least, came automatically. "To bear a child and stop a war," he replied at once. He had heard that phrase repeated more times than his own name.

  "No," said Ibis.

  "No?"

  "No," Ibis repeated—with a slow, smug little smile creeping up at one corner of her mouth. "But that's okay—I love telling people the answers to questions they thought they already knew. You, my friend, are here because Vokia and Shalashar are in deadlock."

  Tiger blinked, caught off-guard for the dozenth time tonight—and then came a sudden flash of fierce indignation, and he scoffed back without thinking: "What deadlock? Your people were slaughtering mine! Shalashar was nearly annexed!"

  "Not so nearly," Ibis corrected primly, reaching up with her other hand and gently tapping one nail against the side of his skull. "Can you keep a secret, Tiger?"

  "What?" He was already so sick of asking questions—which was a big problem, because Ibis seemed to delight in his confusion.

  "A secret," Ibis repeated, suddenly leaning in very close. Time froze; her breath was utterly devoid of scent or smell and those twin liquid-mercury pools were, for a moment, the whole of Tiger's world. "I love my secrets, Tiger. I keep them so very closely. To give away a secret is to give away a portion of one's own strength. And my strength wanes by the day. So understand, then, that this is an olive branch extended—and then answer me honestly. Can you keep a secret?"

  A moment passed. "Yes," Tiger answered, honestly.

  "Good," replied Ibis, who pulled back but did not relinquish his chin. And then: "Vokia was nowhere near winning the war."

  "Wha—that's ridiculous. Vokia's been winning that war for seven years straight."

  "Who wins a war for seven years straight?" Ibis scoffed, the nails of her free hand now walking one-by-one up the side of his face. "That's not victory. That's just a slow death, the sort of death that whispers good tidings and fair fortunes and sweet nothings into your ear all the while. We're almost there. Any day now. You get the idea. Sharo Zhon—" Tiger noticed she did not say my father, nor the former Emperor, nor even just Sharo, "—was all-too-willing to indulge in such seductive fantasies. I challenge myself to be more discerning. I look at the facts as plainly presented. And the facts are thus: Shalashar was a meal much too big for Vokia's stomach. We've spent seven pointless years stretching ourselves thin, bending the whole of the nation to this one loathsome task. All our industry, all our finest young men and women. Our whole future sacrificed upon a particularly stupid altar. Do you understand, Tiger? The commoners languish. Resentment swells in low places that others do not care to see. What I had inherited was a deeply unpopular war—and an unwinnable one at that. The whole of Vokia was caught like an insect in amber, frozen forever in an impotent state of almost-there. Until..."

  "Until you came in."

  "Until I came in. Until I brought Ralan Qelas—" Tiger winced, involuntarily, "—and all the other Primarchs to the table. And there we agreed in the name of mutual interest to finally end this moronic slaughter. You, Tiger, are line three of ninety-seven in the soon-to-be-unveiled Zhon-Qelas pact. You, Tiger, are one of several displays of fealty to be made by your people—as will be our child—so that I can sell this thing to my own people, and so that your people can finally live in peace. And that, Tiger, is the real reason you are here: because I am far weaker than I appear."

  She released his chin, then. Braced both her hands upon the bed and leant back, and let out a heavy sigh—and then she leaned forward once more, and regarded Tiger with her chin propped up on one slender fist. She seemed, in that moment, almost human. And then she told him: "I am an unpopular Empress. A stranger. An interloper. I look almost to be a foreigner, don't I? This damned hair—" she reached up, ran her hand through that fiery mess atop her skull, "—might very well be the death of me. And yet, in just three weeks I have ended a seven-year war. In just three weeks I have earned the adoration of the commoners, of the true majority, and in doing this I have built for myself a solid foundation of power. In doing this—" her smirk widened, briefly, into a genuine smile, "—I have become implacable. Now, stand up and take off your shirt."

  So sudden was the transition that for a moment Tiger just knelt there, blinking uncomprehension—but then his brain caught up to his body and he did stand up, and the shirt did indeed come off, and for a moment the cloth obscured his vision and when he could see again he found that once more the Empress had transformed. Once more there was an expression totally alien upon her face. Tiger was baffled in that moment to see that Ibis seemed almost...

  Embarrassed?

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "Before we begin—" she was standing upright now, and no longer meeting his eyes, "—there is, ah one other factor." Pensive, hands clutched behind her back. "I'm afraid you've been somewhat misled. Or—rather, there is a significant complication of which only one other person in the world is aware. Well. Two, technically."

  "Okay...?" Tiger trailed off, a little warily—and a tad bit impatient as well. Through no fault of his own there was now an ancient biological imperative working diligently to cloud his thoughts. "I suppose this is another one of your secrets, then?"

  "Chief among them," Ibis agreed. "Or—well, certainly not the most dire, but—I mean, the most important one to me, at any rate, because of course I am biased when it comes to matters of—"

  "Ibis," Tiger interrupted.

  The Empress blinked.

  "Spit it out, please."

  A pause.

  Another flash behind those dull silver eyes.

  And then, again, Ibis burst out laughing. "Sorry, sorry," she chuckled, waving him off. "I'm babbling like an idiot. Look, Tiger, I'll just say it outright: I have absolutely zero interest in men."

  Another pause.

  "Oh," said Tiger.

  "Or, rather, my body has no interest." Ibis frowned; glanced down briefly at her own self, then back up. "In fact, I would catalogue it as aggressive disinterest in men. Borderline repulsion."

  "Oh," said Tiger, again. And then, as the full implication dawned: "Oh shit."

  To that, Ibis could muster only a strained grimace. "Indeed."

  "But—but—why?!" Tiger blurted out, throwing up his hands. "Why in the living fuck would you promise to bear a child if you knew that you were...?" He gesticulates wildly, so as to convey the unspoken final article. "You wrote that damned pact, no? You literally had all of the leverage!"

  "Your father insisted," the Empress replied dryly, folding her arms. "And I was in no position to refuse; I certainly don't intend to broadcast my condition—"

  "You're a lesbian, for fuck's sake, just say it out loud—"

  "—to the whole world. If anything this child should accomplish quite the opposite, no? Two crows with one stone and all that."

  "Yes very wise, my Empress, very smart, very calculating," Tiger nodded with vigorous sarcasm. "Just one problem with this genius plan you've devised—you can't have sex!"

  "I never said that," Ibis objected, with a hint of irritation. "And I have, in fact, already devised a solution." And with that she raised one hand, and snapped her fingers, and called, "Come."

  The doors creaked open. Tiger's head snapped around. The doors creaked shut and there she was, that damned blank-faced murderous bodyguard—at which point Tiger came to realize exactly why he had been the subject of such silent resentment before, just as Ibis spoke the words aloud: "Tiger. This is my lover, Panther. I believe you've already met."

  "Your—" he blurted—just as Panther began quite mechanically to disrobe, with exactly zero fanfare, for in those halcyon days she was eminently comfortable in her own skin. "Woah, woah! Hang on a second—"

  "For quite some time now," Ibis added, stepping over and kissing that nude, sullen statue of a woman on the cheek. Said statue immediately flushed and glanced away. "Oh, don't be intimidated—she's not so bad when you get to know her, I promise."

  "The more you get to know her, the less you'll like," Panther deadpanned back, to which Ibis did something between a chuckle and a giggle.

  Tiger, by this point, was utterly lost at sea.

  "So," Ibis said, then, stepping forward and extending a hand. And there it was again—that flash of uncertainty, that anxiety writ oh-so-briefly across her face. It was such a bewildering effect; in an instant all that invisible and unspoken larger-than-life authority was stripped away, and suddenly Ibis was just...Ibis. A small, frail, nervous-looking young woman. And no sooner had that vulnerability shown itself then Panther had moved, crossing in three long strides and hovering like a shadow at her Empress's side, thinking on pure instinct to protect. She saw it just as clearly as he did.

  If there was one thing Tiger was certain of, in that moment, it was that he did not understand Ibis at all.

  "How about it?" asked Ibis, then, with a forced half-smile. "Would you be open to...outside assistance?"

  And now, for the first time, the onus had shifted. The roles were reversed. Ibis had placed herself at his mercy; she had exposed herself, had indeed given away a secret and eaten away at the edifice of her own strength. Ibis was taking a risk. And Tiger thought to himself: I could refuse. I could storm out and tell everyone what just happened, and demand to be returned home. Or I could play along, then whisper those same words back into my father's ear, and just like that I would earn my proper place in the family. Or, stars, why even bother going back to wretched Shalashar? I could just tell Taro Zhon. I could tell any common servant or guard and the whole palace would know come morning. They'd eat her alive. This haughty, arrogant, otherworldly little woman—I could destroy her, if I wanted.

  But.

  He didn't.

  And he couldn't exactly tell you why.

  Perhaps it was as banal as the prospect of sex with two women at once. Perhaps it was that sudden vulnerability Ibis had displayed—to which perhaps he was intrigued, and wanted to understand, or perhaps like Panther he felt some instinctual urge to protect. Or perhaps he simply despised his father, and his family, and the home that had so callously discarded him. Perhaps it was mere spite that drove his decision?

  I could tell you. I will not. Ibis loved her secrets and so we shall let Tiger keep his.

  Know this, though—that was the moment in which all their fates were sealed.

  "Y'know something?" Tiger mused, after a few fraught seconds, with the whole arc of history hinging upon him, and with both women quite literally hanging onto his every word. "Honestly, I shouldn't even be surprised. You two would make for a perfect couple, wouldn't you? She's always practically glued to your side, and you're both just such..."

  Panther arched an eyebrow, in unspoken threat.

  "...serious people," finished Tiger.

  And then he could not help but snicker, and then to his surprise it was Panther who joined him, and then finally Ibis too broke into a shaky, relieved little laugh. "Oh, stars above," Ibis protested, running pale hands through her hair. "Am I really that bad?"

  "Yes, you are," answered Panther at once.

  "I mean, it's her job to act like she can't take a joke," Ibis insisted to Tiger, jabbing a thumb at her bodyguard. "But me—am I truly so humorless?"

  "Have you ever looked in a mirror?" Panther deadpanned back, giving her Empress a sidelong glance. "Any shred of self-awareness in that pretty head of yours, like, at all?"

  "It's just how my face looks!" Ibis protested, waving a hand in front of said face. "I frown! I have a serious face! That's not my fault! I—Tiger!" she whirled, in desperate search of a potential ally. "Would you characterize me as rude? Cold? Distant?"

  Over her shoulder, Tiger caught Panther's eye. The bodyguard, unsmiling, slowly shook her head. "I would describe you, my Empress, as..." he trailed off, pretending to search for the right word, "...commanding." At which point he and Panther both broke into rather childish laughter and Ibis quite pointedly rolled her eyes.

  "You snide little shits," she lamented, "why did I ever introduce you two? And—hey! I told you not to call me Empress! I will literally order Panther to rip off your fingernails and she will literally do it, so—"

  And so the three of them went on to perform their task—which proved difficult, though not impossible, and moreso awkward than anything else—and then, after, the three of them lay sprawled together there in that oversized bed and they talked, through all the strange delirium of twilight, for hours and hours on end. They talked until the sun arose to pluck out the stars and peel away the ink, and to boil the sky to the loudest and most violent of blues. And it was only then that they departed, each donning their masks once more as they passed through those double-doors to the world waiting outside.

  For nearly a year, then, they convened at the third day of each week—always after midnight—to perform their task. Unsuccessfully, all the while, which should have been a source of great fear and frustration indeed. But by then the child was the least of anyone's concerns, for week by week these three outsiders were growing to something closer than friends and stranger than lovers. The sex itself was fun, at best, and impersonal at most, though it was also very easy to tell who was actually in love with whom. That is to say that Panther and Ibis were in love with one another, and Tiger was trying very hard not to be in love with Ibis.

  For it was only then, in those twilight hours after the task was done, that one could almost glimpse the real Ibis. Never much, mind you, never more than a peek and never anything truly resembling the full picture. But there were pieces. Shards. Little cracks in the armor that one could peer through, if they wanted. And both Tiger and Panther wanted that very badly. It was intoxicating, you see, to look behind Ibis's veil. There was no other word to describe it. And there came, with that shared intoxication, almost a certain solidarity—and soon Tiger and Panther, opposites in so many ways, were all but the most inseparable of friends. They were bound together, to her, and they were so very happy to be bound together. And Ibis loved them both so very dearly in return.

  It was one auspicious third day of the week, then, that the three of them were lounging in the wake of their task—sweat-drenched, delirious, half-asleep. More than a little drunk. "We should study together," Ibis had muttered, apropos of nothing, absentmindedly stroking at Panther's hair. "Sorcery, I mean. You Shalasharans grasp the Logic so easily. Pisses me off."

  "What are you talking about?" Tiger chuckled, propping himself up on both elbows. "No offense, Ibis, but there's no way you have an open Conduit. You've got, like, the dullest dull-eyes I've ever seen."

  She loved so very much when people were wrong about her. "Do I?" Ibis smirked—and then she reached up and tapped her fingernail once, twice against the surface of her right eye. "Contact lenses. Pretty convincing, no? I have a friend who makes them for—"

  "A friend," Panther snorted, with her eyes closed and her head in the Empress's lap. "You're even gonna lie about where you got your contact lenses...?"

  "Lying is fun," Ibis smirked back. "What, Panther, going to beat my secrets out of me?"

  "Nah," replied the bodyguard, voice muffled and distant. "Too much work." She yawned, then, and attempted to rise, and slurred out: "Speakin' of which. Gotta get back on guard." And though Panther slapped her palms quite violently against her cheeks in a valiant attempt to rouse herself, her eyes remained half-lidded, and now she was fumbling unsuccessfully for her dagger on Ibis's nightstand.

  "Oh shut up," Ibis chided, wrapping her arms around the larger woman and dragging her back down with relative ease. "Just go to sleep already, you idiot."

  "Can't," Panther grunted, struggling to free herself from the ninety-pound-woman's grasp. "Tried to kill you...just last week. Can't trust guards outside. Has...to be me..."

  "I could stand guard," Tiger offered—to which Panther, even half-asleep, still managed to offer a derisive snort. "Fuck you, Panther. I'm a pretty damn good Sorcerer, you know that? Any suspicious characters come around, I'll just—" he snapped his fingers, "bam. Set them on fire, or something. I don't know. I could also just curl up in a ball to protect my vital organs, and scream very loudly until help arrives." And then he leaned in close, sneering, and added in singsong voice: "Don't worry, Panther, I'll protect you."

  "Mreh," groaned the barely-conscious bodyguard, and Tiger dodged a clumsy swipe no doubt intended to snap his neck.

  "Guess it's decided," he said—to which Panther merely began to snore, and Ibis beckoned him come closer. The Shalasharan prince leaned over, then, and the Empress of Vokia leaned in to kiss his forehead.

  "You two," Ibis whispered, with Panther cradled in her lap, "are far better than anything I deserve."

  "Hey, that's my line," Tiger winked, stepping back. A few moments later he was dressed and halfway to the door—at which point he halted, and turned on his heel, and prompted, "Are you any good, by the way?"

  "At?"

  "Sorcery. How long have you even been practicing? You definitely don't have any hidden tattoos or anything. I mean, I would've seen them by now."

  "Smartass," Ibis chuckled. "I'm just a novice, Tiger. Barely even scratching the surface. I'm sure you're leagues ahead of me."

  "Well, you're also a genius, and there's literally nothing you do that you aren't the absolute best at. So I'm sure you'll lap me in no time, and I'll be adding another tally to my long list of humiliations."

  "Are you actually keeping a tally? Stars, what a dismal practice."

  "You gonna go to bed, or just lay awake quipping all night?"

  "I suppose I'd rather go to bed. Goodnight, Tiger."

  "Goodnight, Ibis."

  And then the doors shut, and Tiger was gone. And Panther was snoring. And Ibis was alone.

  And all was peaceful and still.

  And then Ibis turned to look right at me. And she said very quietly, so that Panther would not awaken: "Hello, Truth-teller."

  Hello, Ibis.

  I'm impressed. Even in this learned country there are few who would recognize my face.

  Ibis smiled thinly. It was nothing like the playful grin she had given Tiger. "I was taught from a young age to recognize the signs."

  Oh? And who taught you that? Perhaps we've already met.

  Ibis chuckled. "I think not," she said, relishing her secrets as she always did. "I must say, Truth-teller, I'm surprised you don't already know the answer. I thought you knew everything."

  I was not watching you, then.

  "And now you are," Ibis concluded. The smile vanished entirely from her face. "I knew it. I'm the subject of your latest story." To this, I said nothing. "That means some sort of disaster is coming, doesn't it? Your presence is an ill omen." I did not reply. "You didn't come here to watch a beloved, long-tenured Empress guide her country to peace and prosperity." No response. "No, no. That's not how you like your stories. You want blood, and chaos, and death. You want a spectacle."

  I want a good story.

  "And a good story would require me to fail," Ibis shot back, with no small bitterness. "I've put my enemies in check. I have everything aligned just as I want it. There is no conflict, no tension. My coronation was no climax. That means we're still building to the climax, doesn't it? That means everything is about to go terribly wrong."

  Who can say?

  "You can. You write the damn stories."

  Mine is merely to watch, and to remember.

  "Liar. You're biased. You've always picked favorites."

  Do you feel disfavored, Ibis?

  "I feel doomed," she sighed, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Over the course of the next few minutes she came to several realizations and acceptances, and for her the whole paradigm of the world was now shifted. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking out at said world from a whole other angle entirely. "Truth-teller..." she began, after a moment, sounding desperate and almost sincere, "what will happen to Tiger and Panther?"

  You love them.

  "What?"

  I love them, too.

  Understanding dawned. She was always so very, very quick. "Oh," she realized aloud. "I'm not the main character, am I? They are. Stars—I'm going to die for their story, aren't I?"

  Who can say?

  A moment's pause—and then, despite it all, Ibis broke into a self-satisfied little smirk. "I knew you were biased," she gloated. "You had no good reason to tell me that." And then she promptly rolled over onto her side and snuggled in deep against Panther's chest, and pulled the blanket tight over them both, and closed her eyes. And in her head there sprawled ten thousand different plots and schemes; within her skull, she worked the problem from ten thousand different angles. She felt she had won one over me, you see. She felt as though she knew something she should not have known and thus she still had a chance. And so I watched, in real time, as Ibis asked herself just how far she was willing to go to win. And then I watched her answer.

  After thirty-three minutes, she spoke to me once more:

  "You really think that I love them, Truth-teller?"

  Yes.

  "Maybe I do," Ibis admitted, after a moment. "But I won't let that stop me."

  I know.

  End Credits Theme