Asazin felt fresh and warm as she strode towards her mother's final resting place. The marking-spot for her mother's grave was a stone plaque with a beautiful eagle flying above the treetops carved into the center of it. Kneeling down she carefully shifted herself into the formal prayer position and fell into a deep trance. Above her was a hanging hammock in which her mother's corpse laid. It was protected by a special spell that prevented it from rotting. They had buried her youngest brother here, he had been six.
:Mother. I need your help. My marriage with Prince Azelian cannot happen. I am with child by Lord Nolan. He is Azelian's cousin through I think they might just be brothers. I love him mother. He loves me too. But he might be dead. The peasants in Lower City raised up against their king. The Lower City burned. All the young children were sent with merchants. I do not know of what to do. Mother. I am truly sorry. So you know mother the triplets are fine. They started showing signs on their ninth birthday. I do believe that they are the ones the myths speak of. My second daughter, the last of the triplets, her older siblings show the signs mother, suffers from bad eyesight. I also fear that she may have my illness. They miss you dearly mother. They faintly remember you. Eldest brother forced me to lock her up in the Great Birch of Tears mother. He said that she looked to much like me. People would find out. Nolan's sister has a child named Vera. She is here with me, I took her so that she wouldn't be executed. Mother I fear for my child's life. I am injured and the sickness has been overwhelming me. Please help me mother!: She was so into the trance she didn't see the dark shadow watching her from below. As she left she placed an offering next to her mother's Gravestone.
She watched as the young empress left the Tenth City. Her hand brushed at the thick foliage as it blocked her vision of the blue haired girl. Turning she quickly and quietly followed. This one wouldn't escape her grasp.
Leaping over a fallen oak branch, she suddenly went off the path. A Deras Dog, a beast of such ferocity that the very Aurorians quivered and quaked in fear, had been feasting a short length away. She did not fear the black spotted dog bear, she hunted them for food. This time she hid though. The Deras Dog had pups a little ways down in the shrubs. Once she passed them they would alert their mother. She didn't kill mothers as a rule.
Taking a wide birth around the clearing in which the beast was feeding, she continued tracking the empress. She had only one chance to do this, the Twin-Bound must not come to full power, her very existence depended on them dieing.
Stopping by a stream she gazed at her reflection before drinking and washing her face. Her greenish brown hair highlighted amber eyes and high cheek bones. She was Akaian but had never known life above ground. Her mother had been trapped down on the forest floor when a Deras Dog killed her Aurorian. She had been born shortly afterwards, her mother had died when she had been no more than four. Living on her own in the forest, she had learned the tricks of survival faster than the boy child that had been born with her. He had died in the first week, he had died without a name.
"You have a mission stupid girl. Keep your head straight on. Those foolish thoughts will get you nowhere." she said to herself. She would go up on one of the lifts and beg for sanctuary in the Palace. That was a good plan.
She looked at the stream and noticed a tear, she threw a pebble and watched as the ripples destroyed the reflection. Crying took time, she did not have time.
The night past in a hurry as she made her ways through the main street of Center City. She had somehow managed to look as if she had escaped from the burning Lower City and had suffered a dagger wound to the stomach. That had been done accidentally by falling on an exposed limb. She held her hand to her stomach and shivered, it was a deep wound, she could very well bleed to death. What an unpleasant thought. She found her way around the lat vendor and gasped as she saw the Akaian royal Palace. At the very moment she reached the last step, darkness closed in.
Asazin lay calmly in her bed holding her newborn son to her. He was a beautiful child, she had named him Castias. The triplets huddled around her. No more than an hour ago the eldest two had climbed in through her second story window and had murmured soft tunes to the baby. The youngest had been taken from the Birch Tower and spelled into the supply-closet down the hall. She had whispered a truth into her younger brother's ear. She sat very close to the bed and sketched Castias's likeness into a wooden block, she was a skilled carver and had been halfway through her brothers statue before a half an hour had passed.
Vera sat in the corner, she was the same age as the triplets and had been very down when the Murasakians had left with Genni. Coral was sewing near the window. Vera's auburn hair glittered in the sun light.
It had been a month since they had arrived and still no word came from her mother or uncle. Asazin feared for them. If they didn't write in at least another month, they were dead.
"Untie Asin. I'm going to play now. I will be near the stables." Vera said as she left the om. The stables, halfway out by the Palace entrance, was a favorite hideaway for her since Genni left. A scream echoed from down the hall at about the time she would have opened the front doors.
Asazin made her way out of bed and down the hall. Laying on the top step of the Palace was a bloodied woman. She seemed to have suffered a dagger wound to the side. Her breathing was shallow and her face and hair was covered in a mixture of ash and blood. Asazin passed Castias to his nursemaid and wrapped her fingers around the woman's wrist.
"She still has a pulse. Coral, help me get her to the medical wing please." Asazin said. Coral helped her lift the woman with a spell and maintained much of the magic as they floated her towards the medical wing. Asazin knew that something was amiss with this woman, she was about her age. The grime in her hair did not allow Asazin to see its color. She had very high cheekbones. She was dressed in a Lower Aoian dress of deep gray. The tattered remains of a crimson bonnet hung from her neck. Toph and Soph, the elder two triplets, had walked out with her and were already at the medical room, clearing things up so that they could begin to heal the woman.
The medical room consisted of four undecorated pale gray walls which enclosed a single bed, chair, and table. The door was a curtain of string which had red beads on it. Asazin's grandmother sat in the chair, which was pulled up by the bed, watching the latest patient. They had fully cleaned, dressed and healed the woman, who was two months into an unexpected pregnancy, they could tell from the thoughts that they allowed in that she had not known she was pregnant. Asazin walked through the curtain and moved in a chair. The woman had not woken from unconsciousness the entire week she had been here. The old woman broke the silence that had been interrupted only by the clicking of her knitting needles.
"She reminds me of her mother, bless her soul, that girl you took in love. She must be nearly a year younger than you now. Why, I remember the very day her mother was born, scrawny little child she was. Her mother had such beautiful eyes, true blue everyone would call them, but they were as green as her soul. Now why did you come to visit your old Gran Muma? Hmm?" The woman was hardly more than a sack with bones these days. All writhed and dry bones to be sure, with a husk of tough, wrinkled deer hide for the sack. Her hair, colored gray with age, hung down her back in lanky curls. The dress she wore could have been as old as her.
"You know her?" Asazin replied. Her Gran Muma was all she had left of her father. She had been young when he had died.
"Know her? Why she is a faint cousin of yours! She's the child of my brother's sister-in-law's uncle-in-law's fifth son's youngest. Her father was just a fledgling when I introduced him to her mother. They were such a nice couple." Gran Muma said. The old folks liked to talk about people as if they were birds. It never ceased to agitate her.
"And?" Asazin asked. This girl was her cousin, it was important she knew more about her.
"I thought she was dead. In fact her father thought they were dead."
"Why?"
"Before they were born, she and her twin brother, their mother's Aurorian was killed by a Deras Dog. Four years later she showed up almost dead on my threshold, saying that I was the only one she could trust. She talked about two children. We never found them. The last thing she said before she died in my arms was that if they survived they would be dangerous, she told me their names. Mag-bell and Cold-coal, Cold-coal is the girl. This one here is that same girl. But not to worry, love her as if she is a sister and all danger will pass."
"What danger old woman, stop speaking in riddles."
"The danger to your children. It is pro-destined that unless the girl born with Mag-bell knows the love of a sister she will destroy the Soul Bound Twins and end the life of the Great Kingdoms Nine. She shall then be left to wonder dead worlds, left alone against her fears. But the clause, the sister must find the girl her true love, a woman. Unless the girl knows of love of both types, all shall be tried as said." the woman spoke with the sound of trance in her voice. She was granted the best seat on Council because of her gift of Trance Sight.
"For how long have you known this?"
"I have known this from when I was called April-dust. That is the reason The girl's mother and her Aurorian sacrificed themselves. That is why the child has no Aurorian, why her brother Mag-bell was taken from the forest floor by his mother and given to me for safekeeping. He has been asleep for many years. You shall be the one to wake him, after all you do hold the key. He should be the age of dear Thanat. He was spelled to age only when your triplets turned four."
"You speak nonsense old woman. I must go."
"You will not listen Child, the matter will stay the same if you do or not. I ask you, love the girl as a sister. If not, kill her. She will doom herself." the old woman shook her wrinkled head and went back to knitting. Asazin walked out of room and went to the archery limb.
The archery limb was basically a section of Center City that was just one branch of a very old tree. On the side wall was ten bows. She took the only Maple Longbow and several arrows. Picking the farthest target she steadily unleashed a full quiver.
Turning to go back to the palace, she found that Thanat had been watching her.
"Mother, something has been bothering you. Talk to me." Thanat slowly made her way to Asazin's side. Her thick silver hair hung below her kneecaps. She was the only one of the triplets that looked like her mother. Her high cheekbones and soft blue eyes were replicates of her mother's. Her nose was also like her mother's. Only her large cranberry lips showed that her father had even existed. Her eyes were coated with a worry that expressed itself in every movement of her face and body.
"It is nothing for you to worry about dear one. Come now we must get you back to Lady Birch." Thanat was the favorite child. She was the only one that knew that Lady Birch was actually, in fact, a Birch Tree. It was really a special compartment the size of a Royal Kitchen in the Royal Birch in the middle of the Palace throne room.
"Of-course Muma." Thanat said as she followed Asazin away. She hated the room she had lived in all her life. It was dark and spacious with no windows. It had a large empty bed and a small kitchen.
There was a fire place and several soft comfortable chairs. She had a single maid to cook and clean for her, the maid was her youngest Aunt, illegitimate Sable. She lived in a small room above her in the birch and had been there for three years since Thanat's fifth birthday, given as a birthday present.
Toph slowly turned over in the bed. Sitting he looked over at the still form of his Soul Sister. Soph's bright brown hair flowed over her soft body. His brown hair curled at the shoulders, enveloping him in a glowing mane. Soph opened her eyes and a smile formed on her cranberry lips. Her black eyes held feelings of love.
They were twins. What they were doing was wrong. They were not meant to love each other in this way. But they were, weren't they? Everything about them was the same. Their hair color, eye color and skin tone. Their feelings for each other. They were made to love each other. But it was wrong.
"What are you thinking about Toph?" Soph said as she collected the blankets around her. She moved into the bathing area and sat in the bath water servants had drawn for her.
"I... nothing my dearest. Just random thoughts is all. Muma should be waiting. Let's go to her after you are ready. Our brother is several weeks old now correct?" he responded. The pain inside his chest intensified before draining away.
"I am ready. Let's go." Soph had her hair pinned up in a simple bun. Her clothes were befitting of the Empress's eldest niece and Heir. A simple yellow dress ribboned around the waist in red. Toph wore much the same outfit, though as trousers and a tunic.
Just last week their fourteenth birthday had passed by. Their younger sister had joined them for a brief hour before their mother had had her sent back to Lady Birch, her unknown caretaker. They had known Thanat was ill, but the state she was in terrified them.
Thanat's usually free hair had been pinned up, showcasing her high cheekbones and emphasizing the weight lost and shadows under her eyes. She had worn a simple handmade dress the color of coal, and a ribbon of freshly made purple silk. The dress had no longer hugged her tightly as it had just a week before. It had hung off her as if she was just a sack of sticks stuck together to make a person like figure.
As they made their way to the throne room, multiple servants bowed or curtsied as they passed in the hall. They all knew that they were the Heirs until Castias reached maturity.
The hall they took was the shortest way to the throne room and also the least traveled. They had slept in a bit and so made up time by taking this route. Though they would have preferred to stop and take their time meandering in the dusty corners, they were already late.
The back door opened up behind the throne. They got into place quickly and sat next to Thanat, she had a veil on so that no one would see how much she looked like the Empress and figure out that they were her children. Asazin gave them a stern look before motioning to Castias's nursemaid to bring him to her.
She nestled the child between her arms and stood before the gathered crowd. Toph watched Thanat carefully, she was obliviously in deep pain and was trying hard to keep from allowing an outburst of coughing to spoil the most important day for the Empire. He was most worried about their Muma, she had been coughing more often than not since Castias had been born.
The High Priestess entered and laid the first leaf of the Great Birch of Tears over Castias's head. She raised a simple flute to her lips and paused. The entire Empire was required to sing this song with her so she allowed for the moments necessary for the Aurorians to tell their partners when to sing. For the precious moments, millions of voices rose in hope and joy, they could be heard in Murasaki and Ao, the joy was contagious.
*Princeling Baby,
Trees bless you.
Live long for all have sung
to you this day of Pride...
sweet melodies of Love and happiness.
Joy to those who sing and hear,
the new Prince is here.
Child imagine
in your sweet childlike dreams
holy possessions
amplified by three.
Your people will love you,
your lovers will care.
For You little Castias,
the to be Emperor
of Tree Lands.*