The last rays of a peaceful sun set over the Evestani Sultanate. When the sun next shined down, it would be stained with the blood of war.
Sule, Sultan of Evestani, sat with his legs crossed atop an oversized chair. Below him, two rows of young women leaned over shallow bowls of water placed in front of each, listening to the ripples. Every few moments, one would lean back, babble a few incoherent words, then lean back over their bowl. An interpreter, sitting in the center of the room at a circular table, would then spin in his chair until he found the book he was looking for, scan through it, and scribble down his best guess on a thick tablet.
After managing to make something coherent, the interpreter handed the tablet to Zarkov.
Sule, fingers drumming on the armrest of his chair betraying his nervousness, watched the Grand Vizier’s reactions.
The doors to the chamber slammed open, striking the wall hard enough to shake dust from the rafters. The closest row of listeners let out identical screams as the waters in their bowls rippled from the sudden shock. One fell forward, face splashing into the water. Zarkov had to maneuver around the central table to pull the listener back before she could drown in the shallow puddle.
Sule’s eyes shifted, looking to the door as his second daughter stormed inside, golden dress billowing in her wake.
“Kala tells me you sent assassins after my husband.”
“General Kala speaks too much for her own good,” Sule said. His drumming fingers stopped as he frowned at his furious daughter. “And you have no husband. You were never married. You are no longer engaged.”
Mihra’s fingers curled around the fabric of her dress, crushing it in a slowly tightening grip. “Is this because I chose it? To get away from you? Alya and I had plans, we were going—”
“This has nothing to do with you, Mihra,” Sule said, speaking in a defeated tone as he closed his eyes. “Nor that elf.”
He would like to lay all his problems at the feet of that elf but, truthfully, he couldn’t. In fact, Sule had been quite supportive of their endeavor. Anything to help keep things going as they had been.
Thirty years ago, Sultan Mehmed’s untimely death brought a messy and chaotic end to the war against the Kingdom of Chernlock. The fighting hadn’t ended, however. With no heir, Evestani fell into a civil war with the regular citizens getting caught between a trio of generals, the former vizier, and… well, Sule himself.
As a mere civil administrator, Sule had tried keeping the people he could safe. Lacking a proper military, it hadn’t been easy. They were farmers, craftsmen, and the general working peoples of Evestani. That included some old veterans, enough to form a militia of their own to protect what farmland they could. And that was the extent of their power. They had been able to do little more than protect themselves as the rest of the nation tore themselves apart.
Help came from an unexpected source. An elf, bearing gifts of supplies, food, weapons, and even people from the very nation the former sultan had tried to crush under his expansionist heel. All given freely so long as he was the one to come out of the civil war on top.
Sule had. And now he was here, betraying that gift.
Sule’s eyes drifted away from his upset daughter to the other man in the room. A man wreathed in golden light with darker skin and short, light hair. Literally light. It looked as if the man had implanted tiny amber glowstones all along his scalp. He sat in a small wooden chair, head tipped back and eyes closed as if he were asleep.
“Father—”
The golden man’s eyes slowly opened. Just a crack. Just enough to cast his cheeks in a thin sliver of white light.
“Guards!” Sule said, standing before his daughter could continue speaking. A pair of soldiers entered the room, having been posted just outside. “Escort Mihra back to her room. She is distraught.”
“Distraught? Damn right, I’m—Unhand me you—”
“Daughter. Return to your room. We will discuss this later.”
Brown eyes glared as Mihra struggled against the hands on her upper arms. Her fingers nearly tore a hole in her dress as she clenched her fists. All at once, the motion stopped and an odd calm crossed her face. “And you wonder why Razie vanished without a word. Unhand me! I can walk on my own,” she snarled as she shoved the guards aside. Her dress trailed behind her as she stormed out of the room.
One of the guards looked at him, offering a small shrug. Sule barely saw it as he sank back into his chair, elbow hitting the armrest as his hand covered his eyes. Hearing his first daughter’s name in a situation like this… He would have to post other guards. Make sure no one else disappeared before he had a chance to explain things.
But first, he had a monster to please.
“Zarkov,” Sule said, voice low and firm. “Is it done?”
The Grand Vizier, looking up from a fresh sheet of interpretations, raised an arched eyebrow. He stroked his light-brown beard with two fingers. “Done? Sultan, we are only beginning.”
Sule drew in a breath, throwing his gaze up toward the ceiling for a brief moment. “Not in the mood for your theatrics, Zarkov.”
“Apologies, Sultan,” Zarkov said, sweeping an arm under his chest as he bowed. “We have successfully taken Moonshine Burg. Their storehouses are ours.”
“That was never in question,” Sule said with a glare. “What of the Duke?”
“The Duke… yet lives. Along with the elf.”
Sule’s eyes shifted to the corner of the room where the man wreathed in a golden light sat. He didn’t move a muscle at the disappointing news. His eyes were once again closed. Not allowing himself a small sigh of relief, Sule turned his attention back to Zarkov as the vizier began to speak.
“The assassins were able to take out a majority of the targets. However, it seems they were interrupted by a rather interesting individual right in the middle of the Duke’s party. A man with glowing red eyes accompanied by a monster of indescribable horror.”
The man in the corner of the room stood slowly, eyes opening fully to flood the room with a glowing golden light. Sule wilted under his gaze.
“It’s her,” he said, voice reverberating as if a dozen of him were speaking as one. “The last one has finally found a new master. The stars are shifting once again.” Stepping forward, he held out his hand toward Zarkov.
The Grand Vizier, holding only the interpreted notes, quickly handed them over before stepping back with a bowed head.
Sule wasn’t sure the man even noticed the sudden nervousness with which Zarkov moved. The man’s eyes shifted ever so subtly, casting light on the pages as he read. With teeth looking like finely cut glowstones, the man smiled.
“We will still them.”
Sule paced in front of the door to his daughter’s chambers. Though the evening had been stressful enough and he wanted nothing more than to huddle up in his room, trying to avoid thinking about anything that was going on, the upcoming week was not going to be any better. He had to get this done tonight. It had been left to fester for too long as it was.
The Palace of the Sultan wasn’t a particularly large or grandiose building. The original had been destroyed in the civil war and, when Sule came out ahead, he hadn’t wanted to rebuild it to be something overly opulent. Not at a time when the people of the country needed to focus on their rebuilding efforts. Its construction hadn’t even started until eight years ago, well after the war had ended and he had been sure that shelter and food had been fully secured for Evestani. Nonetheless, it still stood tall on its hill with a great number of rooms for family, workers, visitors, and servants.
He had hoped it would be a guiding light into how Evestani handled itself in the future. An example of balance between the ruling class and the people’s needs, a far cry from the original Mumthaz which had been built with gold and precious gemstones covering its rounded ceilings and tall spires.
Now he stood outside his daughter’s door, trying to decide how to explain that the future he had envisioned had all crumbled to dust.
“Mihra? Are you there?” he called through the door.
His daughter didn’t respond. Knowing her, he would have been surprised if she had. Especially after ordering the guards to drag her away. It had been for her safety but he well knew that was just an excuse. If anything, he was surprised that she hadn’t thrown a shoe against the door in response.
“Things have been complicated as of late,” he said in a half-sigh, leaning against the door’s frame. “The Golden Order has… Well, there’s a great evil threatening…” Sule closed his eyes, leaning his head back before deciding to focus on one particular thing she had said earlier. “Your elder sister, Razie, left because there were some things she didn’t agree with. She didn’t vanish without any words to me. Rather, it was more because of how many words she had for me that she felt she couldn’t stay any longer.
“Razie is a headstrong girl who never felt right smiling and accepting the people’s adoration. Skilled and talented, she always felt people only saw her because she was the princess and not because of her personal feats and accomplishments. In contrast to you, she never took well to being called a princess and when the prospect of political marriages came up, we had extensive arguments…”
Sule paused, waiting to see if his second daughter would say anything. He wasn’t even sure if she was still awake. Meetings and plans, organizations and generals, and the Golden Order had consumed the majority of the night. There was so much to do and so much he couldn’t delegate to others.
“Though her absence pains me, she didn’t up and vanish as you might suspect. It was the prospect of being married to a count in the Tetrarchy that truly infuriated her. When the prospect of marriage to Duke Woldair first came up with regards to you, I had expected the same, honestly. Marrying off any of my daughters to a pig like the Duke made me ill at ease. I had hoped you would object as well.”
“But you didn’t. Then the Golden Order came to me and I tried to make you see reason, to see the Duke for what he was and that elf for the puppeteer she is…” Sule opened his eyes, looking around the hall. There were certain things that he shouldn’t say. Especially not out in the open like this. It had been made readily apparent that, despite his station as Sultan, he was not a necessary component of this country.
His eventual replacement should he leave the throne vacant, a figurehead though they might be, was an unknown. Would they try to shield the people as much as they could from the consequences of the Golden Order’s actions? Or would they revel in the chaos as the warlords of old Evestani had? He couldn’t let someone else take the power. Not if Evestani wanted to continue.
“Mihra, might I come in?” Sule asked after another long stretch of silence. He tapped his knuckles against the wood of the door. When the silence continued, a small pit of worry fell into the back of his stomach. “Mihra?” he called, knocking harder. “I’m coming in, Mihra.”
Grasping the door’s handle, he shoved into the door. It opened a handspan before getting caught on something. He shoved his shoulder into it again and again, pushing it open a little more each time until whatever was on the other side gave way. A chair clattered to the ground as the door swung open.
“Mihra?” Sule called, stepping into the dark room. The glowstones in the lamps were missing. Taken. He charged past the books and shelves, into the bedroom proper, only to freeze.
The bed was empty, with thin sheets lying atop a flat mattress. The window, open to the night, clattered against the wall in a heavy gust of wind. Sule rushed over, peering out into the night. “Mihra!” he called. The bushes down below looked like something might have landed in them. A foolish daughter, perhaps. That daughter was nowhere to be seen.
“Guards!” Sule called, turning. “Guard—”
He froze as a younger man entered his daughter’s quarters, eyes glowing a brilliant gold.
“Y… Your Holiness…”
The man’s eyes shined their light around the room as he took it in, though his face betrayed an utter absence of emotion. “Sultan,” he said eventually, even offering a respectful bow. Sule didn’t believe in its genuineness for a moment. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s… my daughter. She has fled the palace.”
“Is that a problem?” the man asked, head tilting to one side as if he couldn’t understand the reason Sule was even making noise with his mouth.
“Problem? Of course, it’s—”
“Will it affect our operations?”
“I—” Sule’s jaw clamped shut as the man’s golden eyes turned to face him fully. He suppressed a shudder but couldn’t help the step back, bumping into the ledge of the window. Swallowing, he tried to smile. “No. No, it won’t.”
“Good. Then in light of the information we have received this evening, I think it would be prudent to accelerate our advance into the Duchy.”
“Advance? We’re already marching into winter. How much…” Sule trailed off, realizing just how little the man cared for anything he was saying. “Sorry, Your Holiness. I… What kind of advancement were you thinking?”
“I am glad you asked. Come along,” he said, turning back to the door.
Now that the golden light had turned away from Sule, he drew in a shuddering breath. He glanced back over his shoulder and made a decision.
He would not look for his daughter. Either of them. Though it pained him, getting away from the palace was perhaps the safest thing they could have done, even if they didn’t know it. He could only hope that Mihra would find her elder sister out there somewhere and they could support each other.
“Sultan?”
Sule jolted and hurried along, leaving the vacant bedroom behind.