“I request that the elders conduct this meeting in Nietian, so the heroine of the hour, Lady Mariella, can understand and participate as needed—and ultimately convey the events of the session to her lover, Lord Necromancer,” said Vidalia with a completely straight face.

  You’re just amusing yourself saying that, aren’t you, Vidalia? Mariella thought. The foxgirl never missed an opportunity to mention that Mariella and Tybalt were together to the other beastfolk. Their surprised expressions consistently amused Vidalia. She seemed to enjoy trying to scandalize them. It was impossible to be very irritated with her, though. She’s lucky she’s cute.

  The last few days of sleeping in the same tiny room, Tybalt’s body sandwiched between them, the fire mage had grown fond of the dream seer. They seemed to be well suited for shared marriage to the defiant necromancer. Even their body temperatures were a complement to his.

  While Tybalt ran a bit cold if left to himself, both Mariella and Vidalia were hot at night, the fire mage because of her powers and Vidalia because fennec fox beastfolk had naturally higher body temperatures than humans. Together, they could keep both his back and front warm, assuming Vidalia actually managed to make her way to bed with the other two.

  Thus far, she had successfully snuck into the room Tybalt and Mariella slept in each night, waiting until her uncle fell asleep—despite the fact that Uncle Edmund had been extremely on-guard ever since he realized that “Lord Necromancer” was the Tybalt whose coming Vidalia had dreamt about for years.

  “I don’t want to be apart from him unless I have to, now that he’s here,” she had explained to Mariella once. “I can always pretend that I just came in here to help him sleep, which is not exactly untrue.”

  The fire mage had understood the sentiment without further elaboration.

  “If my uncle finds out I spent the whole night, he’ll be scandalized and maybe give me a whipping,” Vidalia had added, smiling weakly. “But I’ve had whippings before.”

  “Why do that?” Mariella had asked. “If he thinks you’re engaged in sexually immoral behavior, is the right response truly a beating?”

  “It’s not that violent, Mariella,” the foxgirl had said in a reassuring tone. “A light spanking is just a typical punishment for any transgression in our household. He used to do the same to his wife, I think.”

  The fire mage had semi-voluntarily pictured Tybalt doing the same to her and reddened at the thought.

  “Right, not so bad,” she had said quietly, to the foxgirl’s small, knowing smirk.

  In the present, Mariella sat up just a little straighter. The eyes of several elders fell on her as Vidalia mentioned that she was the necromancer’s lover. Most of the beastfolk weren’t actually too scandalized by it, as they already thought women from the Kingdom were basically whores relative to beastfolk maidens. And they didn’t seem to be judging “Lord Necromancer” over it at all…

  The oldest-looking foxman in the circle said something in beasttongue, a language that mixed human-sounding syllables with animalistic yips and growls, among other sounds. Mariella had heard this tongue could actually be used to communicate with animals as well as humanoids, but she hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to ask if it was true. It was a question she recognized might be deeply offensive.

  She already felt strange about living among these people when she had been complicit in so many innocent beastfolk deaths in the past.

  “Elder Vladmir says that we should not cater to the younger generations, let alone a—forgive him, he’s an old fool—‘little hussy’ like you.” Victoria had been translating the beasttongue remarks for Mariella so far, speaking in a very low voice so as not to disrupt the meeting. Since they had essentially just started, it had been mostly pleasantries up to that point.

  “Oh, no offense taken,” Mariella whispered sarcastically.

  The two women shared a look of mutual annoyance. Mariella didn’t think she truly knew either sister yet, but these little moments—where the fire mage and Victoria were both annoyed at the same thing—were the closest she had come to understanding Vidalia’s twin.

  They’re so different…

  “Now now, Vladmir, this young lady saved the village,” said Chief Mihalic mildly in Nietian. “We should absolutely hold the meeting in her tongue. It also makes it much easier for the young ones to understand. At some point, we have to adapt to the times.”

  These meetings were held outside, so around half of the villagers had gathered to watch, mainly the older folks but also some people Mariella’s age.

  “The Chief’s saying that because his own son prefers the meetings to be in Nietian,” Victoria quietly explained. “Some of the old timers still try to keep the old language alive, but those of us who understand that we live in Niet have been trying to learn the King’s tongue. While there are those who hate humans for the things they’ve done to our people since we came to your country… Some of us hope to one day be accepted by the Kingdom.” The foxgirl looked Mariella in the eyes, a silent question in Victoria’s hopeful gaze. The fire mage felt a fresh pang of sadness at the beastfolk’s situation.

  I don’t know if you’d ever be accepted, Mariella answered silently in her mind. I never knew the Kingdom had an extermination policy until Tybalt and Vidalia told me. That sort of thing can’t happen by accident, and I’m guessing there’s a reason for it that has proven durable over time.

  The last few days had convinced her that even if the reason had lasted, that couldn’t make the policy justifiable. She had already believed slaughtering the beastfolk was wrong, but staying with a beastfolk family was something different. They had been nothing but kind to her, and the grateful villagers had repeatedly dropped by over the three days she had been there, allowing Mariella to get to know a few of them, try their food, and hear their stories. She had even picked up quite a bit about the beastfolk religion, mainly from visits by the shaman Zorin, who had come by several times over the last few days, intent on trying to convert her to the worship of Lord Mudo.

  Their faith had proven less distinct from that of Vika and Astara than she had been expecting, albeit certainly broader in its approach. The difference was, fundamentally, the beastfolk emphasis on accepting death and the cycle of rebirth, a very significant deviation from the conception of the afterlife that Mariella had been taught—but also with fewer logical contradictions than the religion she had grown up with. There were also more gods than just Lord Mudo, Lord Vika, and Lady Astara, though the beastfolk primarily gave their reverence to the Death God.

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  In the process of learning about the beastfolk, Mariella had begun to grow disillusioned with her homeland.

  “Let’s hold a quick vote, then, on whether to hold the meeting in Nietian or beasttongue,” said an old woman.

  “That’s Sybil the alchemist,” Victoria said. “The only person in our tribe with a class besides Vidalia.”

  Mariella had learned that this village and the scattered households located on this mountain were almost entirely populated by fox beastfolk, with several other beastfolk villages spread thinly across the mountain range. If a fox married outside the fox tribe, they might bring their spouse to live with them or go to live with their spouse on one of the other mountains, but other than that, there was not usually much mixing on a daily basis.

  “Agreed,” said an older gentleman.

  “He’s called Cyril. His son was the one who made us dinner the other night.”

  The fire mage nodded enthusiastically. She remembered the ‘kebabs,’ as they were called, fondly. Beastfolk food was unlike the Kingdom’s fare in key ways. They had less diverse ingredients to work with, generally, so the seasonings carried the day in terms of differentiating one meal from another. And the kebabs had been seasoned masterfully.

  The fox beastfolk Council of Elders held a very quick vote, and they decided five to three that they would hold the meeting in Nietian. Chief Mihalic, Mariella noticed, abstained.

  “The seer may continue speaking,” said the old foxman who held the central seat. Victoria had already named him as Isak and stated that he held the title of Eldest—not necessarily reflective of one’s actual age, but to do with how much the others respected him. “You have the floor.”

  “Thank you, honored elder,” Vidalia replied in a formal tone. “I requested this meeting, because we have a challenge and an opportunity before us. By the grace of Lord Mudo, our people have successfully fended off the advance of one of the Kingdom’s death squads.”

  A little whoop went up from scattered individuals among the gathered beastfolk.

  Vidalia turned her head back to give the small crowd a withering glare, and one of the elders decided that gave him the right to speak.

  “You spoke out against that defensive effort, if I recall, dream seer,” mused a man with a slimy-sounding voice that made Mariella wrinkle her nose.

  “His name is Michael,” Victoria said quietly.

  “That is correct, distinguished elder,” Vidalia replied, smiling.

  “A bit of egg on your face, is that not?” he asked.

  Mariella saw the slight strain as the foxgirl forced herself to continue smiling while she responded.

  “I think not, sir. Against my express and strongly worded advice, the wise and honorable members of the Council authorized our brave war chief, Andric, to wage war against the Nietian Royal Army. With that decision made, he did the best that he could, and I did my utmost as well to provide support to Andric’s defense force. With the courage of the gathered beastfolk volunteers from three of the four tribes, plus some intervention from Lord Necromancer and his lovely lady, what would have been a catastrophic defeat was instead transmuted into a clear, albeit small-scale, victory. A bit of alchemy, one might say.”

  This earned a little snort of amusement from Elder Sybil.

  “It was a successful defensive operation, you agree, seer?” said Eldest Isak, speaking just as Michael had opened his mouth to say something else.

  “The most successful in a century!” Elder Michael exclaimed. “The enemy are destroyed. Routed. Only half of them even survive, and those who lived were mainly miners.”

  “You know very well they were only a drop in the bucket for the Kingdom, while we lost half of the young men who fought with Andric,” observed a woman Victoria had previously identified as Elder Milena. “Our losses are not easily replaced, unlike theirs.”

  Sorry about that, Mariella thought. She and Tybalt had caused around half of those deaths by themselves when the beastfolk tried to attack the two of them, before it was obvious they were friendly.

  “Could we really call ourselves descendants of the first tribe if we simply allowed ourselves to be stepped on, though?” asked Elder Vladmir in an accent that Mariella could not quite place. She recognized, as soon as she heard the thick intonation, that a few of the other elders had the same vocal quality, but milder. “Hide? Like rats? Many of us felt… I think many of us still feel that to live on our knees lacks honor. To die might perhaps be better.”

  “Easy for you to say, Elder,” Victoria muttered under her breath. “A man with no surviving sons to risk and no adult grandsons. Fighting now must feel very safe and rational for him.” Her face twitched with emotion, her eyes downcast. She looked almost as if she was fighting tears.

  “Are you all right?” Mariella whispered.

  “I just worry, if all this fighting continues, what will happen to Hayden in a year or three,” Victoria replied. “Vidalia tells me things aren’t over, but I have to hope. My little cousin is almost old enough to fight with them, you know? Especially if they begin to run out of grown men. This is how the beastfolk ended up with polygamy, Mariella. We’re not like the Nietian nobility who simply choose to do it. It was a necessity for us, because our young men kept dying off earlier than the young women could bear children.” She wrung her hands in agitation.

  Mariella grabbed one of the foxgirl’s palms and squeezed it as the dialogue continued.

  It will be all right, she wanted to say. The trouble was, Mariella didn’t know if that was actually true.

  “I wasn’t saying we should live on our knees,” said Elder Milena carefully. “Far be it from me to question the famous honor of our brave menfolk. I would never say that we must hide, that we must avoid fighting at all costs. There are some fights you cannot back down from. I accept that. Further, every generation of young men in our tribe, and in our race, has to make their own choices. We took account of what the young men wanted when we made our decision before, to give this counter offensive our blessing. You will recall that I voted for it. Otherwise, I reasoned, the young men, spurred on by the outrages committed by the Army, would only gather and fight against our wishes.”

  “Then what are you saying, dear sister-in-law?” asked Elder Vladmir. “I’m afraid your point is escaping me entirely.”

  “That now might be the time to avoid further conflict,” Elder Milena said simply. “Our side’s bloodlust has been sated. Revenge has been taken. Further violence has been prevented. It was a glorious victory. Now we bury our dead, and the Kingdom thinks again. But if they will send more men, which I assume they will… Well, the dream seer had a proposal before we approved of Andric’s counter offensive. She had a plan to hide our people from the Army. I assume she called this meeting because she has further proposals along that line that must be acted upon immediately if they are to be effective. Perhaps extended concealment in a place that will require us to gather supplies as best we can over the coming weeks. I think it would be most wise if we hear her out and explore her ideas further.”

  There was some light jeering from the gathered young foxmen until the Eldest clapped his hands loudly and glared at them. That silenced the disruptors.

  “Not quite,” Vidalia said, finally taking an opportunity to resume her explanation. “Although I agree with dear Elder Milena that hiding could have been a good approach, I am no longer proposing that. In fact, I called this meeting because after the disaster of allowing ourselves to be drawn into open combat with the Kingdom, hiding is no longer an option. We are forced to choose between either fleeing the Salt Waste… or preparing for war.”