Like any decently educated citizen of Huanzu, I know that unnatural colors are a sign of devilment. Unlike the average citizen though, my family had been high enough in the Emperor’s favor that an entire choir of Mages chanted their protections over me, and I know that those remain even in my banishment.
The child’s devilry will not affect me, and I wonder perhaps if she has been cursed to remain as an infant the way my second cousin had been when he’d offended a Mage. Or perhaps she has simply been born the child of a cursed creature, too close still for the generation-thick taint of disgrace to fade from her skin. I had not changed shade upon entering this place, and the relief of that remains a comfort even as the pale child begins to chatter.
I catch the first part of her greeting, but the rest is harder. Her words are tilted somehow, garbled in an accent that I have never heard before. The tall dappled stallion that arrives soon after has the same strangeness to his words, though the rumbling tones of it are more pleasant than those of the young child. Or perhaps I am already distrusting of this place she is from, this Tephra where sacrifices are thrown into a volcano.
That certainly sounds like a place of devilry. So perhaps this Kukka is quite powerful after all, for surely the sacrifices give that land great power. I take a steadying breath, but not a touch of it shows on my chestnut brown face.
“I am Xii.” The introduction is short, embarrassingly so. Stripped of our names and lands and titles, sent to the far ends of the earth for an offense that will mark our family for centuries. Taking the tall but unfortunately small-eared stallion at his word is only polite, but she is eager to learn if she has truly made it to the place she is searching for, or has simply landed in a land of devils.
“Is this place Beqanna?”
The child’s devilry will not affect me, and I wonder perhaps if she has been cursed to remain as an infant the way my second cousin had been when he’d offended a Mage. Or perhaps she has simply been born the child of a cursed creature, too close still for the generation-thick taint of disgrace to fade from her skin. I had not changed shade upon entering this place, and the relief of that remains a comfort even as the pale child begins to chatter.
I catch the first part of her greeting, but the rest is harder. Her words are tilted somehow, garbled in an accent that I have never heard before. The tall dappled stallion that arrives soon after has the same strangeness to his words, though the rumbling tones of it are more pleasant than those of the young child. Or perhaps I am already distrusting of this place she is from, this Tephra where sacrifices are thrown into a volcano.
That certainly sounds like a place of devilry. So perhaps this Kukka is quite powerful after all, for surely the sacrifices give that land great power. I take a steadying breath, but not a touch of it shows on my chestnut brown face.
“I am Xii.” The introduction is short, embarrassingly so. Stripped of our names and lands and titles, sent to the far ends of the earth for an offense that will mark our family for centuries. Taking the tall but unfortunately small-eared stallion at his word is only polite, but she is eager to learn if she has truly made it to the place she is searching for, or has simply landed in a land of devils.
“Is this place Beqanna?”