Music swelled as The Queen of the Moon Host descended the aether path. Her midnight skin sparkled with galaxies and nebulas. She wore white with silver accents: silver sandals, opaque tights, a loose tunic that bared her shoulders, belted with a necklace of silver and stars, with slashed sleeves to expose her dark star-dusted skin. Silver and diamond jewelry dripped from her long ears, capped and dangled from the points of her antlers, encircled her wrists and ankles. A long translucent white cape trailed behind her, held aloft by tiny fairy golems that moved with her. Additional will-o-wisps swirled about her, like comets trapped in her orbit.

Mirohirokon only spent a moment to take in the sight of her, then long habit from life in the Sun Etherium had him fall to one knee with head bowed. Around him, the rest of the Moon Host turned to their Queen and knelt as well. Even the chaos of Moon Etherium respected some customs.

The Queen walked among her silent, kneeling subjects until she reached Ardent. “Ardent Sojourner. Rise.”

The satyress rose to her hooves. Queen Skein of the Absolute was by no means short, but Ardent towered over her by over a foot. The satyress dipped her head as the queen gazed fondly up at her. “Your majesty.”

“Welcome back, Ardent.” The Queen clasped Ardent’s shoulders. Seamlessly, the Queen shifted her size larger as she stepped forward and embraced her returned subject on an equal footing. A surprised Ardent hugged her in return. Quietly, Skein said, “You have been missed, old friend. Come see me tomorrow.” Ardent blinked at her and nodded. Her majesty stepped back, returning to her original size. Her voice rang out: “Tonight, let the whole of Moon Host celebrate your return to us!”

That was the cue to the attendees to rise. The artists performing the music changed from the queen’s arrival theme to a lively song. Some of the guests resumed their conversations, but others took to the air, aether dancing among the streamers and currents.

The Queen continued to monopolize Ardent’s attention, asking questions about life in Try Again and how she was settling back in at the Etherium. Ardent spoke to her as easily as she had to any of her friends, with warmth and no particular deference. Whispers Rain had retreated out of sight at the change in music, perhaps to join the aether dancers. Miro remained at Ardent’s side, silent. For several minutes, the queen ignored him. Then she glanced sidelong to him. Long black fingers extended to catch the chain of his leash, perhaps a foot beneath the collar. To Ardent, she said, “I am pleased to see you are keeping your new pet in hand.”

“It’s little enough you ask of me, your majesty,” Ardent answered. It was the first time in their conversation she’d used the honorific.

Skein of the Absolute smiled. Pointed white teeth glittered. “Indeed, it is. I would not trust just anyone with a prize of such value, you know.”

“I’m honored.” Ardent crinkled her nose. “Though I’d be more honored if Fallen wasn’t the other person you trusted.”

“After fourteen years, still you have no love for her? But hers is less valuable than yours, you know.” The Queen glanced at Miro. Her round eyes were solid silver, no whites or pupils. Her fingers tightened on his chain, and pulled it down hard. He bent his head, then dropped to one knee at her feet. It was more graceful than stooping, and he could no more resist her aether-enhanced strength than he could evade her grasp. Helpless. She laughed. It was not a kind laugh. “He does that easily, doesn’t he? Do you have a lot of practice kneeling, Sun prince?”

“Yes, your majesty.” Miro focused on his breathing, on calm, on pretending that laugh didn’t rankle. Amateur. She’s an amateur.

Another giggle. “Why do you suppose that is, Ardent? Who did you practice kneeling for, Sun prince?”

“My mother the queen. Her senior husbands. The crown princess.”

“Such a dutiful child. I bet they liked having you kneel before them, little princeling.” His chain clinked between her fingers. “Do you think they knew they were training you to kneel for the Moon Etherium?”

“Your majesty.”

A little jerk of his chain; he controlled his expression, but the collar bit into his neck and his head went up reflexively. “That’s not an answer, princeling.”

Miro bowed his head again. “No, your majesty. They did not.”

“If only they’d known. Think how much better you could be in your new…position.” The Moon Queen wasn’t a monster; he could read that much in her soul. She was no beacon: like everyone’s, her soul paled in comparison with Ardent’s clear, radiant colors. Skein was venal and proud, her soul streaked by petty grudges and cruelty. But there was good in her too: magnanimity, dedication, purpose. She had nothing to compare to the rotting corruption that pervaded Fallen’s soul. Miro wondered why she was doing this to him, what she was hoping to gain from it. “But you know who to bow to now, don’t you?”    

“Your majesty. Whomever my mistress chooses, your majesty.”

The Queen smirked as she returned her attention to Ardent. “I could almost like them, when they know their place. Is something troubling you, Ardent?”

“Hmm? I’m at a party in my honor, your majesty. Whatever would be troubling me?” Ardent’s bland, neutral tone didn’t sound convincing to Miro.

The queen didn’t press it, however. She dropped Miro’s chain with a little flick of her stardusted fingers, as if releasing something distasteful. The music mutated to a new theme, dark rolling notes, and Skein of the Absolute turned to the aether fountain. “Look, Shadow of Fallen Scent has brought her new toy too.”

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Floating trays bearing hors d’oeuvres drifted amongst the fey guests. Miro sampled some of the confections as he listened to Ardent catch up with her friends. Many of those present were talking about him, but few bothered to talk to him. He’d been at plenty of gatherings in Sun Etherium where that had been the case; it had long since lost the power to wound. Especially under circumstances like these, when he’d deliberately arranged to be a subject of conversation who’d be beneath talking to. The food was exquisite, artisanal combinations of real food with aether. Someone had put a great deal of care into preparing these delicacies.

“How do you find the Moon Etherium, your highness?” a soft voice asked near him. It took a moment to realize he was being addressed. He turned to see Whispers Rain hovering not far from Ardent’s back, watching him with big golden eyes. She’d delivered the question sincerely, with no mocking stress on the honorific.

“Fascinating,” he answered. “And Mirohirokon or Miro is fine, my lady. My Sun Etherium title is rather out of place, under the circumstances.”

“As you wish, Mirohirokon. You should call me Rain; I’ve never been anyone special in the Moon Etherium.”

Miro glanced to Ardent, who was deep in conversation with Contemplation After the Storm. “I daresay there’s at least one person who’d dispute that.”

Rain followed his gaze. She smiled, cheeks dimpling, but shook her head. “Is the Moon Etherium so different from the Sun?”

“Oh yes. The Sun Etherium is very orderly, at least on the surface. All the architecture is thematically unified from the outside, a city of gold and crystal. Variance in form and lines, to a degree, but…” He gestured to the wild, chaotic city that spread below their feet. “Nothing like this, where even structures on the same block don’t match one another. And the people are the same way. Everyone in the Sun Host looks much like this.” He gestured to himself. “Not exactly the same, of course. Different heights and builds, different skin tones, different facial features, and some wear animal ears, or tails, or wings, though they’re much less popular than here. But you wouldn’t see anyone as tall as Ardent is, or as small as you are. And the two of you aren’t even extreme, for here!”

Rain giggled. “I think Ardent’s a little extreme for anywhere,” she confided, and he smiled. “It sounds so strange, to have everyone look so similar when they could look like anything. Why do you do that?”    

Miro considered that. “There’s a social pressure to conform. You need to be a little different, of course, to be interesting, to get attention. But anyone who’s too different…the crowd will turn on them. They’ll be laughed at, mocked, scorned, until they moderate their appearance and actions to fit in again.”

“Oh.” Rain’s eyes loomed even larger and rounder in her brown face. “Did you like it there?”

“No,” he answered, softly. “Sun Etherium is beautiful, in its way. There’s a wonder in that harmony, in that sense of being part of a vast unity, far grander than any individual piece. I do not say it is inherently bad.” Not all of it. “They aren’t an evil people.” Not all of them. “But no. I did not like it.”

Rain parted deep blue lips to reply, but a stir in the crowd around them caught her attention. She turned to look to the top of the aether fountain-path. Miro looked as well, and saw an antler-crowned figure attended by a half-dozen tiny golems.

The Queen had arrived.

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

They ported in at the top of a fountain of aether currents made quasi-solid: sparkling white, flashing, rising, and falling around them. The sensation reminded Miro of being borne up by thermals when he was shifted into an avian shape.

Except that he had neither wings nor tail with which to balance, now.

He would have lost his balance had Ardent not steadied them both with a spell. Arm in arm, they descended a path of aether, while all eyes turned to them.

Miro wore a tunic with a laced V-front and tights, under a long open jacket, almost a robe, that flowed behind him as he walked. It was patterned in gold, light blue, and white, in a way that suggested sunlight breaking through clouds. Out of several possible trim options, Katsura had chosen a ruff of frothy white lace for lapels and cuffs. He wore no jewelry other than the collar and chain.

Tall and strong beside him, Ardent was the eclipse to his sun: dressed in the colors of sunset, reds and oranges and a midnight field that sparkled with diamonds. Her shoulders and back were bare, to showcase her musculature, powerful and broad beneath deep brown skin. The sunset-reds flowed around her neck as a scarf, then plunged to frame her extremely ample cleavage, and continued down the sparkling midnight skirt to swirl about her hooves. An assortment of white gold jewelry studded with diamonds complemented her attire.    

It did not detract from her grandeur.

The party was on the translucent three-masted ship that hung unsupported a half-mile above the Moon Etherium. Streamers of aether and silk adorned its spars in lieu of sails. The aether fountain rose from the rear of the ship, its path leading to the glass deck below. A crisp, salty tang in the air added to the shipboard ambience. Starlight sculptures that were untroubled with considerations like anchor points decorated the scene. The sun was setting beyond the mountains, the sky darkening overhead. They were early, but a few dozen guests had already arrived. The other attendees had the wildly diverse selection of bodies and types that Miro had come to associate with the Moon Etherium. Even those who had human-like shapes varied in build, some impossibly slim, others rounded and pudgy, with heights ranging from the dwarfish to the giant. Many of them had obligations to Ardent, Miro noted: slim bright strings she held unconsciously upon them.

A small group of fey congregated on Ardent as she reached the base of the aether fountain. They included a tall cut-diamond neuter fey, whom Miro recognized from court. It welcomed Ardent graciously to the party, and congratulated her on her new acquisition. As Ardent blandly accepted its well-wishes and those of the others with it, a figure drifting towards them caught Miro’s eye. He turned his head to watch a slender female form approach on butterfly wings. She had deep brown skin, delicate features, and curly hair of a dark, vibrant blue. Her eyes were huge and round, with gold irises and long blue lashes. She was tiny, no more than five feet tall, with a waist so narrow Miro imagined he could encompass it with his current stylishly long-fingered hands. Her wings, patterned in translucent blues, twitched to keep her aloft and her head a bit lower than Miro’s. She wore a neck-to-ankle glittering bodysuit covered by a kind of dress made from varying shades of blue and silver ribbons.

The new fey paused a couple of yards away. Her soul was a pretty, delicate thing, like she was, but it was bowed by the weight of some terrible obligation, and marred by dark scars where she had caved to her fears. She saw him looking and lifted one dark hand in a shy wave. Miro offered a gentle smile and a little wave in answer.

Ardent glanced over his head at the motion, and went still beside him. “Well. Hello, Rain,” she said, softly.

Miro turned to the satyress. Her expression was complicated: a smile on her lips, a question in black eyes flecked with the red-gold of channeled aether, wonder and uncertainty combined.

“Hello, Ardent.” The butterfly-winged stranger gave a tentative smile in return. “It’s good to see you.”

“You came. I didn’t think you’d be here.”

Rain lifted her shoulders. “Why wouldn’t I come to welcome my old friend back?”

“I’ve been back before, and you never came then,” Ardent said, her voice soft.

A half-smile made a dimple on one side of Rain’s delicate face. “It was always too hard to say hello when I knew I’d have to say goodbye again, so soon. But you’re not leaving soon now, are you? You re-affiliated. I didn’t think you ever would.” Her large eyes turned to Miro. “And I never thought you would…like this.”

“…yeah. Excuse me,” Ardent said belatedly to the other fey with her. Ardent half-circled around Miro to stand before Rain. “Forgive my manners: Rain, this is my servant, Prince Mirohirokon of the Sun Host. Miro, this is Whispers Rain, my former wife.”

Rain offered her hand. Miro accepted it and bowed with a Sun Court flourish. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, my lady.”    

“The prince-servant. There must be a remarkable story behind that.” Rain fluttered backwards on faceted wings as she withdrew a couple of feet again. She looked at the chain linking his collar to Ardent’s wrist.

Ardent waved a hand in dismissal. “Surely it’s all over the city by now. We gave it to the Court.”

Rain’s deep blue lips twitched with a suppressed smile. “And surely there was not…time…for all the details.”

“Maybe not.” Ardent took a step closer and reached for Rain’s hands. “Let me look at you.” The smaller fey let her take them. Even hovering, Rain looked like a doll next to Ardent. Their souls leaned towards one another. They might be former wives, but each still held a string upon the other, of obligations left unsettled. On Ardent’s side, both given and received were clear; on Rain’s side, the cords twisted. Miro couldn’t fault her for that; it was still far less problematic than the knotted cords that bound him and his father together. Ardent gazed down at her former lover. “You changed your hair. And your wings.”

Rain ducked her head in a nod, and kept her chin down as she watched Ardent through her lashes. “Do you like it?”

“I love it. Love, it’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too.” Rain gave a little laugh. “It doesn’t feel real. Are you even bigger now?” She slipped her hands from Ardent’s and fluttered higher to spread them the width of the satyress’s shoulders.    

“Maybe? I didn’t reset my body when I came back. You can gain weight, living in the Broken Lands, did you know? Or lose it, if you don’t eat enough. And I do get a lot of exercise. Also, I cheated when I made this body; it’s a lot better at building muscle than my base shape is. But these—” Ardent put her hands under her breasts playfully and jiggled them. Miro found the motion hypnotic. “I am sure they got bigger, and I don’t remember doing that. Intentionally.”

Rain laughed again, and fluttered close to wrap her arms about Ardent’s neck in an embrace. The satyress closed her eyes and held her in return, one large arm wrapped about Rain’s shoulders, above the wings, and the other encompassed her hips, below them. She exhaled, her face looking more at peace than Miro had yet seen her. He simultaneously regretted the leash, that he couldn’t withdraw to give them privacy, and was grateful for it. He didn’t want to face this gathering alone. And it was nice to see Ardent so happy. “You feel real,” Rain murmured, one little hand stroking the curving braids of Ardent’s piled hair. “I wanted to ask ‘are you sure you’re not an impostor?’ but only the real Ardent would make a comment like that.”

“You should verify me,” Ardent told her, and laughed when Rain cast a spell to do so.

More of the guests had come over to say hello. They accepted with good-humored grace her and Rain’s preoccupation with one another, but eventually Ardent shifted her friend to one arm to greet the others. Ardent made a point of introducing them to Miro. For his part, he tried to keep track of a growing swarm of names. Recognizing souls gave him a distinct advantage here, because while everyone had a distinctive appearance, it was often not the same appearance as the last time he’d seen them. Play Until Collapsing Dreams was here with Contemplation After the Storm, and they still looked mostly the same: feline ears and fluffy tails, Play’s with dark points and beige skin, Storm’s golden-brown and brown-skinned. But they’d switched genders: Play was now male and Storm female. Some of the souls stood out: Grain of the Lyre, whose form was as fluid and translucent as water, had an exceptionally trustworthy soul, even moreso than Play and Storm. Wind Sought, Ardent’s friend from the Promenade, had changed from a glass man to a winged, air-swimming mermaid. Wind Sought’s soul was streaked with unreliability and caprice, but overall kind: more whimsical than cruel.

From the conversation amongst the others, Miro gathered that the party would not formally begin until the Queen’s arrival, when things would, apparently, ‘get interesting’.

He was in no great rush to find out what that meant.

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

When they visited Katsura, she had a half-dozen other customers, all likewise preparing for the same party. She ignored them all to rush over to Miro and pick his brain for the details of Sun Etherium celebratory fashions. Ardent suspected Katsura’s eagerness to assist was more out of a desire to amass clothing ideas than anything else. She was surprised by Miro’s willingness to supply the information, even knowing that the ultimate result would be used to degrade his Etherium. Then again, he doesn’t have much reason to love Sun Etherium. Maybe it’s better to feel that it’s Sun Etherium we’re insulting, and not him, personally.

Ardent did not feel much better about any of this, herself.

After Miro had been dressed to his and Katsura’s satisfaction, they had a little time left before the party. Just enough time to fret, and not enough to do anything useful. Ardent took them back to her tower rooms anyway.

She took a seat at her dining table and summoned her storage locket from the jewelry box in the bedroom. Even in the Moon Etherium, space could not be infinitely compressed or expanded. Living beings could not be compressed to less than a thirtieth of their length, give or take. Living spaces were rarely expanded by more than a factor of ten or twenty, to avoid forcing the expansion of fey shifted into smaller forms. Nonliving objects, however, could be squashed much smaller by those with the expertise for such. Ardent’s locket had been designed to take a quarter of a square inch of space and turn it into almost two square yards. When its cover was open, the locket shrank things as they approached its opening, but it still required a bit of jiggling and finesse to place oversized objects inside or fish them out of it. So she put the things she wanted to keep on her in her shoulder bag: Jinokimijin’s notebook, the Ocyale mirror, the tracer golem, the book on channeling, and messages she wanted for reference later. Then she stuffed the bag into the locket and slipped it around her neck, with a bit of glamour to make it match her party outfit.

Miro sat to one side of her and watched in silence until she finished the rearrangement. “Did you want to channel before we go? In case something comes up and you need it.”

Ardent compressed her lips. She certainly did want to, but – “I dunno, sugar.” She reached across the corner of the table to brush back a lock of his hair. It was absurdly long and white-blonde again, in aether-prescribed order, and fell back into place at once. “I don’t want to get you drunk just before you’ll need all your wits about you.”    

The Sun prince rested his cheek against her hand. “Perhaps just a little? Enough to relax?” he pleaded. His ears pinkened. “I’m afraid,” he said, softly, and closed his eyes.

She wondered what that admission cost him. Her fingers shifted lower, to feel the pulse in his throat, steady but rapid. “All right, sugar.” Ardent rose with him, then knelt before him, the long skirt of her gown bunching around her legs. She gathered him close and rested her head against his chest to listen to his heartbeat. “Fifteen heartbeats.”

“Better make it twenty.” Miro cradled her head with one arm, careful not to muss the elaborate net of braids Interlude had twisted it into. “It’s running like a rabbit’s.”

“Then slow it down,” she teased him. He took a deep breath and melted against her. To Ardent’s surprise, his pulse did slow perceptibly. “How do you do that without aether?”

“If you have to use aether to hide your weakness, you’ve already betrayed that you are weak,” Miro said, quietly.

She squeezed him a little closer, nuzzling with her cheek, and breathed open the channel. Fifteen heartbeats still came and went too quickly, but she closed the channel on the fifteenth anyway. She didn’t let him go. He didn’t try to draw away. They stayed like that for some minutes afterwards. “Thank you,” Miro said, at last.

“Heh. This ain’t a sacrifice, sugar.” Reluctantly, Ardent rose to her hooves and released him. She flicked aether over her dress reflexively to smooth it.

“Then for the rest of it.” He lifted his chin as she touched his collar, and spun a chain of white gold off of it. It linked to a bracelet about her own wrist. “For returning to Moon Etherium. For helping me and my father. For caring. Thank you.”

Ardent swallowed, and squinted at him. “You sure I didn’t take too much and get you drunk?”

He smiled, and offered his hand. “Pretty sure. Shall we?”

She took it, and they vanished.

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Before they left her suite, Ardent got a current likeness of Ocean Discourse by farspeaker, from one of her friends at court. “I’d love to trace Fallen directly, but of course she’s on the list of Play’s trace-detector customers. If she knows I’m watching her, she’ll never go anywhere interesting again. So we’ll have this thing shadow Ocean and see what turns up.”

She also interrogated Katsura in an effort to learn what was going on behind the scenes of High Court, and how much it would affect her. And Miro. Justice, I am here for just one reason: get Jinokimijin free of Fallen’s claws. I don’t want to be sucked back into High Court’s petty politics.

Too late.

Katsura’s response was petulant: “Of course I was helping you to embarrass the Sun Etherium! You were the one who told me he was your new slave.”

“Servant. I wrote ‘servant’.”

“Whatever. You made a deal with him, beat him, and dragged him back to Moon Etherium where he’s vulnerable and delicious. It’s pretty obvious who’s got all the power. Sun Etherium’s very unpopular with the High Court nowadays, so yes, humiliating them the way you were was a smart tactical move. Since you didn’t want to accent that in the usual way that Fallen was doing – another smart tactical move, one I didn’t even realize at the time – I offered an unusual one.”

Ardent fought down her aggravation and the sense that she was being used. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to this ruse. I shouldn’t be this upset about it. Miro’s not this upset about it, and he’s the one most affected. She took a few deep breaths, and sent back: “Why is the Sun Etherium suddenly unpopular?”

“Who knows? The dullest theory is that some trade agreement the Queen wanted didn’t happen. The juiciest is that Summer Assemble, the Queen’s grandson, has defected to the Sun Host. And that High Lord Light Calls to Light was his lover and thinks he was tricked or seduced into leaving.”

“This is a rumor? They don’t even know? When did Summer Assemble leave the Etherium?”

“Not sure. The High Court announced three weeks ago that he left ‘to explore the world beyond the Etherium’, but rumor is that he was gone weeks earlier. And the High Court’s been spare on details. Maybe they’re telling the truth and he’s still Moon Host, just not in the Etherium. Maybe he’s gone barbarian. Maybe he got seduced by a Sun royal. Who knows? Did your Sun prince say anything?”

Ardent glanced up from her heap of messages to look at her Sun prince. He was reading their copy of Venodeveve’s book on channeling. “Did any of your siblings seduce a Moon Host fey recently, do you know?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Most of them don’t keep me in the loop of their affairs, though. I’d only be sure that Ama and Tiqo hadn’t,” Miro said. “Why do you ask?” Ardent explained about the rumors, and he shook his head. “If he joined Sun Host any time prior to a week ago, he must have done so with extreme discretion. Even I would have heard about the defection of your Queen’s grandson. It’s the sort of triumph my mother would take great pride in announcing. Via twenty-foot letters of burning aether, for instance. There’d have to be a compelling reason for her not to do so.”

Ardent wrinkled her nose and dispatched another message to Katsura. “He says probably not. So what shenanigans should I be expecting at the party tonight?”

“Oh, the usual shenanigans.”

“Thanks, that is so reassuring. Could you be a whisker more specific?”

“Fallen loves tormenting her new toy. I think she’s been waiting all her life to have a fey that helpless at her command. It’s kind of adorable in a cruel way.”

“‘Adorable’? Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

“Maybe adorable is the wrong word. It’s entertaining. And different. It takes a lot of different to stand out in the Etherium. You know how we are.”

“I sure know why I left, in case I was in any danger of forgetting.”

“You’re the one who chose to come back. If you didn’t want to see slaves treated like slaves then why’d you take one?”

“I was drunk on power lust. Apparently even this is not enough to sober me up. Still drunk.”

“Ooooh, what’s it like?”

“Incredible. I don’t need to humiliate or torture him to channel power from him, though.”

“So you’re trying to tell me that ripping aether through his body is not torture? Because it sure looks like torture when Fallen does it.”

Then Fallen is doing it wrong, Ardent thought, but didn’t send. “Fine. I don’t have to torture him other than by channeling. And besides, I have to be careful about it. He’s High Court. I might break him. Why are we talking about this? Is Fallen going to be torturing Jinokimijin at a party purportedly held in my honor?”

“Probably. Everyone enjoys the show. Well, everyone else does, anyway. You know how it goes: ‘he’s foolish, he’s Sun Host, he deserves it’.”

Ardent looked at the heap of messages in her lap, and abruptly swept them all away in a cloud of ash and smoke. Miro looked up from his reading. “My lady?”

She sighed. “It’s…” not all right. “Moon Etherium.” She wrote back to Katsura, “Thanks for the warning, sugar. And for the offer of clothes. We’ll be by shortly to pick it up, if now’s good.” She rose from the couch and offered Miro her hand. “I hate to say it, but I think you were right about that leash, sugar. It’s gonna be bad.”

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

They lingered for a few extra minutes in the castle, taking in Storm’s astonishing sculpture again. Eventually, Ardent recollected herself and they left.

Once outside, Ardent ported them to the Promenade, one of Moon Etherium’s few streets that actually saw some use. Not because fey needed it for travel, but because it was a beautiful place, an arching crystal bridge between two towers. It had shop entrances to either side for its full length, and artists competed to install new works in its display areas. It served as a destination in its own right, a place to see and be seen. Today was no exception: scores of fey were walking, flying, sitting, and hovering in the vicinity of the elegant bridge and its shops. A quartet of aether musicians distorted the sound waves to transform a hundred different conversations into anonymized music, rising and falling with the rhythm of the crowd. Food smells from small cafes permeated the air: almonds roasting in cinnamon sugar, fresh baked bread, caramelized onions, curries, and spices.

Ardent traced the runes for “reveal” and “spell” in the aether before her, and infused her casting with some of the sun aether she still had leftover from last night’s channeling.

“Is anyone watching us? Or, er, tracing us?” Miro asked.

Ardent turned a circle, studying the shapes and patterns revealed to her sight by the spell. “Nope.” She offered him her arm. “Let’s go for a stroll and see if anyone does.”

“Shouldn’t you be leading me by the leash?” Miro asked, accepting her arm.

“Fuck the leash with a rusty fork,” Ardent said, with uncharacteristic vehemence. “There’s only so much depersonalization I can credibly pull off, anyway. Half my random messages are from friends who can’t believe I’d take a servant, even a Sun host one. Some of my acquaintances think Fallen and I must be plotting something. Together.”

Miro chuckled, then paused, an alarmed look creeping over his features.

His expression made her giggle. “Ah, is the reality finally dawning on you, pet?” She patted his arm fondly.

“…I have made a terrible mistake.” He tugged at the collar about his neck, as if his bare fingers might loosen metal.

“I could’ve told you that two days ago. Didn’t I tell you that two days ago?”

“You did. If I survive this, remind me to listen to your warnings next time.”

“Listen to my warnings next time.” Ardent glanced around them. Her enspelled sight still revealed no watchers, either aetheric or golem. Of course, the fey around them were watching – that was half the point of the Promenade. ‘Oversized satyress’ was no oddity in the Moon Etherium, but Ardent’s reputation and her status as a returned barbarian meant they were attracting more than their share of attention. Higher up on the crystal arch, a fey male formed of ruby glass gave a shriek and pelted towards her.

“Ardent Sojourner! It is you! And you do have a Sun Host slave! And here I was just telling All Kind Trails that it must be an imposter. But that trueshift’s too hard to forge, my dear, how have you been? It’s me, Wind Sought.”

Ardent verified his identity; Wind Sought rarely kept the same appearance for a week straight and pranksters often impersonated them. Wind Sought did little to discourage that, as they rather enjoyed playing tricks on people themselves. Other fey drew closer to exchange greetings and gawp at Miro. Ardent kept her hand over Miro’s throughout, afraid he’d be all too easy to misplace in the throng. After an hour of idle conversation with one old acquaintance after another, Ardent attempted to extricate herself to get lunch. This effort was thwarted by mass insistence that she and Miro should dine with them.

Two hours and one delicious meal after that, Ardent escaped with her Sun prince on the pretext of getting ready for the night’s party. She ported back to her apartment with Miro.

“My lady, might I persuade you to rethink the value of a leash?” Miro flopped into the pillow nest. “At this point, I think I would feel better knowing I was firmly under your control at tonight’s gathering.”    

“Um.” Ardent sank down next to him. “You serious about that, sugar?”

The fey prince rested a hand against his white gold collar. “…yes. At the least, I seriously do not wish to be involuntarily separated from you. I am open to other alternatives.”

“I’ll think about it.” Ardent opened her bag to look through the messages she’d shunted into it while she was with the group. “Oh Persistence. Katsura sent me the design she wants me to wear at the party. I’m scared to open it. Hold me.”

She’d spoken in jest, and was surprised when Miro rolled onto his side and held out his arms in invitation. Well, why not? She snuggled into him, resting her head against his chest while he circled his arms about her shoulders. “If it shows you with furless legs or in pants, you have my permission to incinerate it,” Miro said, solemnly.

“Thanks, sugar.” She unrolled the second sheet that had come with the messenger bird. “Oh, that’s not bad. What do you think?”

“It will not interfere with your radiance,” he replied, making her smile.

“It beats looking through a whole catalog again, anyway. She thinks you should wear whatever it is that Sun Etherium’s court wears at parties and Justice this is going to be another thing where they try to humiliate you isn’t it.” Ardent fisted her hand around the message sheets.

He raised a hand to stroke her fluffy hair. “It’s fine, Ardent.”

“It is not fine. What is wrong with this Etherium? What happened to Skein, that she thinks this kind of soul-shredding pettiness should be encouraged? I had no idea it’d gotten so bad.”

Miro rested his cheek against her hair. “Don’t be too hard on them,” he said, softly. “It’s still better here than Sun Etherium.”

She twisted in his arms, propping up on one hand to stare at his face in disbelief. “What did they do to you there?”

A flicker of a smile, dry, bitter, and he glanced away. “How often do fey die in the Moon Etherium?”

Ardent kept staring. “What do you mean? Fey don’t die. We’ve been unaging for over two centuries, and invulnerable since before I was born.”

“Not quite invulnerable.” The smile was back, strange, melancholy.    

“All right, yes, you could be hurt, while you’re in the wrong Etherium. Your dad too. But it’s been almost a century since the last time, before now, that a fey was in the wrong Etherium and didn’t change affiliation. Hasn’t it?” The hair at the nape of her neck prickled.

“I wasn’t thinking of being hurt by someone else. We can still hurt ourselves.”

“Suicide. You’re talking about suicide.”

“Twenty-three fey have died in the last twelve months, in the Sun Etherium.”

Ardent covered her mouth with one hand. “What – why—”

“In one year, Ardent. Twenty-three. It’s been a bad year. But we’ve had a lot of bad years, in the last few decades.”

She didn’t even know where to start, what question to ask. “But it’s an Etherium. They could have anything they wanted with a handwave. Justice, they could have left. Why stay and die?”

“Because if you’re in a place where you can have ‘whatever you want’ with a handwave, why would you think it’d be better if you left?” He cupped her cheek with one pale hand. “Ardent, you need not fear for my pride. I have been mocked and humiliated by experts. Trust me, Moon Etherium’s amateurs are no threat at all.”

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Play Until Collapsing Dreams had an enchanter’s workroom, stocked with arcane picks and awls for carving artifacts to store aether, crystal pods full of filtered aether in different colors and varieties, vises and grips, and an assortment of enchanted tools whose main purpose was to manufacture more enchantments. She also had an impressive collection of small golems, scrying mirrors, and basins, though surprisingly, no crystal balls. Cushions hung suspended in the air, more or less at random, between the tables and shelves of the chamber.    

Play grabbed a couple of the cushions and spun them through the air to her guests, then hoisted herself atop a third and sat cross-legged. “Now, Ardent. What crazy stupid stunt do you want me to help you with?”

“All I sent in my message yesterday was ‘I’m looking for some information’! How do you know it’s crazy or stupid?” Ardent took a seat on the floating cushion, and tugged it until it was high enough that her legs dangled off the edge. She braced her hands against the cushion edge, between her knees, and leaned forward. Miro adjusted his to torso height and leaned against it instead of sitting, listening to the other two.

“Because it’s you. And you’re not Justiciar any more. So what snooping do you want done?”

Ardent rubbed her chin. “Are you – or anyone – still working on the Eternal View project?”

“You’re asking about that? Now? You hated that idea.”

“Yeah, I hated it. The High Court didn’t, though.”

“What was the Eternal View?” Miro asked.

“An enchantment that would record the whereabouts of every fey in the Moon Etherium on a minute-by-minute basis for retroactive analysis,” Ardent said. “Plus every instance of teleporting.”

Miro stared. “You can do that? Why would you want to do that? Let me rephrase that: why would anyone want that done to them?”    

Ardent gestured. “See, he understood right away why this was a terrible idea.”

“Yes yes yes, I’m a horrible monster for even having thought about it.” Play waved one slender dark hand in dismissal. “I might note that I was doing it specifically to make your job easier, you know. Do we have to keep talking about it? Anyway, I abandoned the Eternal View after your last lecture on the subject. Fourteen years ago! Shadow of Fallen Scent made some effort to revive it – after she’d made High Court, of course, and naturally it wouldn’t be tracking High Court. But I’d already destroyed all my notes. And it was a huge project. You’d need a lot of fey all working in concert to execute it. None of the information mages are willing to touch it now. It can’t even get started.”

Ardent nodded. “That’s good to know. So, let’s say that – hypothetically – I want to find out where a particular fey has been for the last several days. There’s no spell or enchantment that will do that for me, correct?”

“Correct.”

“What about those, whatchamacallits, enchanted golems that were going to track a single fey remotely, even if they weren’t carrying a tracker? Did you finish those?”

“Tracers. Yes, those I made. They’ll only tell you where the fey has been since you began tracing them. And if the Queen or the Justiciar – which you aren’t any more, in case you forgot – wants to authorize you to use one, I’ll be happy to provide it.”

“Mmm.” Ardent kicked her legs in the air. “So. How would you feel about providing it if the Queen or the Justiciar didn’t authorize it?”

“Really crappy. Which is why you’re not going to ask me for one just for old time’s sake.” Play scowled, flattening her feline ears back.    

“What if I only wanted one that’d tell me where the target went when they were in public? That’s not an invasion of privacy. Lots of places have golems that I can farspeak to find out who’s there, as it is.”    

Play made a face. She had thin white whiskers standing out from her cheeks, and they crinkled as she thought. “I guess I could do that. Sure. Why not.”

Ardent grinned. “Fantastic. So. Countermeasures. If someone is using a tracer on me, how could I tell?”

“You, personally, could probably use Sun-prince there to overcharge the cast of a standard reveal-spellwork, and that’d show it. The tracer spellwork’s stealthy, though; it won’t show on an ordinary detection pass. I did get some requests for trace-revealer enchantments, so the fey who have those would be able to tell. An information mage with the right sort of scryers would be able to work it out. Free advice: don’t go spying on an information mage. It’s not worth it.”

“Mm-hmm. Would you be willing to tell me who purchased the trace-revealers?”

“Tell you?” Play flattened her whiskers. “No. Absolutely not. My customer ledger is aether-indexed, and kept in the locked top drawer of that cabinet over there. Which is keyed to this charm.” She pulled a chain out of her tunic, with a gold kitten charm hanging from it, and then pulled it off over her head and tapped it. “Which I’m almost always wearing.” She set the chain and charm on the cushion next to her. To Miro’s soulsight, it had a string attached to it, beckoning in invitation to Ardent. “There were two different kinds I sold, one just to detect traces on the user, and one that also detected scrying spells in the vicinity of the user. Anything else you wanted to ask me about, Ardent?”

“No – wait, yes. Do you still make those little snoop golems?”

“I do. They’re much easier to spot than the tracer spells, though. Even a mortal might see them, and they’re magical enough to register to glamour-sight, so a fey could spot them just by looking around. And anyone casting a basic reveal-spellwork would see them.”

“No improvements in the design since I left, then?”

“Eh. They’re smaller and cuter now? That’s about it.”

“What about your scryers? You didn’t start making anything that can scry people in private, right?”

“No, scrying in private’s too hard for an enchantment. The protections of privacy are much stronger against scrying than against simple location, because there’s several different ways aether can discern location, and only two ways to scry. Getting past privacy protections is another thing you could probably bull your way through with prince-boy and an ordinary farsight spell or scrying mirror. It’d still be easy to detect if the target was looking for it. If you were sloppy, it might be obvious even if the target wasn’t looking for it.”

“Good to know. So what’s your stealthiest scrying device, and can I borrow it?”

“It’s my Ocyale mirror, and can you give me a single legitimate use you’d have for it?”

“I want to keep an eye on my new pet, for whenever he wanders off on his own.” Ardent waved a hand in Miro’s general direction.

“He’s Sun Host. He’s doing well if he can spot a glamour in Moon Etherium. You don’t need stealthy to keep watch on him. Also you just told him you’ll be watching.”

“I don’t care about hiding it from him. I want to know how fey treat him when they don’t think I’m watching.”

“Mph.” Play rubbed one feline ear, crumpling it with her fingers. She glanced at Miro. “And how do you feel about being watched, Sun prince?”

Miro concealed his surprise at being consulted. “Grateful that my mistress is taking such interest in my welfare.”

Play narrowed almondine eyes at his answer, but the essence of his words was true; there was no lie to see through. “Fine. You can borrow it,” she told Ardent. “If I need it back, I expect you to return it promptly. In minutes. Not days.”

“Of course. Thanks, Play.” Ardent chewed her lower lip, thinking. “So, let’s say someone good, someone like you, who knew how to breach privacy wards, was using a farsight spell on me. Would I be able to tell that, or would that be sneakier?”

“You could tell. Usual caveats apply – if they’re watching from a distance you’ll be less likely to notice, or if they’re watching a spot in your area and can see you but don’t have the focus on you. You get the idea.”

“Right. Any new ways to block someone’s scrying or tracing that I don’t know about?”

“The tracers are unblockable. Not the one I’m loaning you, of course: it’ll be blocked by any privacy ward. But if you’re worried about being traced by someone, the regular ones can breach any ward I know of. Maybe you and Sun-prince could whip something up, but I doubt it. Scryers…eh. Some of the older variants of privacy wards are easier to breach than the latest and greatest ones, like the kind the Underground uses. Scrying spells and devices still can’t follow you automatically through a teleport. Teleports leave traces of where the subject went, but you pretty much have to be on-site at the time to follow those. So you can always try porting away from the scrying spell. Or getting inside a better privacy ward. But there’s no counterspell you can use to squash a specific scrying spell that you’ve noticed. Or against a tracer.”

Ardent nodded. “Pity. Are you losing the arms race against trespassers, too?”

“Nope, we’re winning that one. Haven’t found a vulnerability in a modern ward in three years.” Play cocked her head. “Are you still using an older ward?”

“Not that old. I was here for a couple of weeks in the winter of 1251, and you made me learn the newest one then. Under the threat that you’d break mine and rob me yourself if I didn’t.”

“Hah, right. I remember. You’re good, then. I don’t think even sun aether would get you physically past a properly-made ward. Mine are overkill, to be honest. Ooh, though if you get a chance and want to try Sun-breaking them, I’d love to see them tested.”

Ardent glanced at Miro. “I’ll keep it in mind, sugar, but I don’t wanna break my sun prince, and I’ve got other plans that come first.”    

The catgirl bobbed her head. “Aren’t there always? So, is that everything?” At Ardent’s nod, Play hopped down from her cushion, leaving her necklace behind. “Wait here, I’ll go find that tracer for you. Be back in five minutes.” She strolled from the room.

Ardent waited a moment, then slid off her floating cushion and walked to Play’s vacated one. She flicked one hand, and a clockface formed of glamour out of the aether. “Keep an eye on the time for me, sugar? Let me know when four minutes are up.” She scooped up the necklace, walked to the cabinet beside the outside wall, and pulled out a ledger book. With Ardent’s acceptance of the offer the kitten charm represented, the soulstring attached to it wove into the existing obligation Ardent had to Play, thickening it. She set the ledger on a clear section of a worktable and pressed the charm against a recess in the cover, then opened it. Aether stirred as she activated its index. It turned a single page. Ardent frowned at the page and pulled a sheet from the aether. She pressed it briefly against the book, and grumbled as it flashed and dissolved in a puff of smoke. “Of course. Paranoid kitty.” Ardent summoned another sheet and a pen, and copied down names. She checked the index again, found a new page, and continued copying.

“Three minutes,” Miro said, splitting his attention between the door and the clock.

“Great, almost done.” Ardent copied two more names and shut the ledger. She returned it to the cabinet, put the necklace back on Play’s vacated cushion, and dismissed the clock. She ambled to Miro’s side. “So. ‘Grateful I’m taking an interest’, huh?”

He smiled, touching the collar around his neck. “Where would I be without you?”

“Safe and sound in Sun Etherium?” she offered.

“Perhaps. For a value of ‘safe and sound’ that involves some safety and very little soundness.”

Ardent raised her eyebrows at that, but Play returned before she could reply. Their host walked over to one of her shelves and took down a small, unanimated golem in the shape of a clay man with the head of a grumpy bloodhound. She fussed with it for a moment, then handed it to Ardent. “This is the tracer. Works just like a regular tracker, except you have to identify your target for it. It needs either name and current appearance, or aether signature. If you use name and current appearance, then once you’ve begun the trace, it’ll continue even if they shift, glamour or trueshift. It’s a lot harder to shake than a golem or a scrying spell.” She selected one of the mirrors from her collection, a round platter, and wrapped it in batting drawn from the aether before giving that to Ardent, too. “And this is the Ocyale mirror. Don’t break it.”

“I’ll take good care of both,” Ardent promised. She slid them into her shoulder bag, which was smaller than either but accommodated both easily. A messenger bird chirped and tried to hop out. Ardent patted it back down and closed the bag. “Thanks again, Play. I’m in your debt.” Miro watched the soulstring from Play’s hand to Ardent’s nape thicken again. The obligation remained untainted.

“You sure are.” Play led them from the workroom. “Have fun. I’ll see you at the party tonight.”

Ardent grimaced. “Ugh. I’d almost forgotten the party.” She sighed. “See you there.”

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

They appeared on a rolling green hilltop outside of a fairy-tale castle, complete with its own moat and a drawbridge. Spatial distortion enchantments had given a tiny plot the space for a mansion, complete with grounds. It was a round ivory structure with decorative crenellations of coral, and towers topped by pointed roofs at each compass point. A fantasy garden with a maze of thick brambles as its perimeter surrounded the moat. A glamour haze distorted the air; not all of the surrounding land was real, insofar as ‘real’ had any meaning in an Etherium. The appearance of the hilltop and the impression of empty land save for the occasional small castles in the far distance were all illusory.

Ardent strode up to the bramble maze entrance and poked her head inside. After a moment, Ardent drew back, rolled her eyes, and then summoned and dispatched a farspeaker messenger.

“Why did we port to the outside?” Miro asked, looking about curiously.

“Because Play is a paranoid titmouse.” The brambles before them drew apart to reveal a straight, grassy path to the drawbridge, which clanked as it lowered.

“Paranoid? Surely this doesn’t serve a purpose beyond show.”

Ardent took Miro’s hand and strode down the path. “The appearance is mainly for show, but there’re a bunch of enchantments underlying it that are functional. Including a port block. With no exceptions made even by Play’s permission. No way in or out except physically.”

“What is your friend worried about?”

“Everything.”

The golden portcullis cranked up as they crossed the drawbridge. A realistic sea serpent golem leaped from the moat and arched over the drawbridge as they crossed. Miro stopped to watch the creature, struck because she had a soul, just as Sessile did. Ardent paused too as he hung back, rather than dragging him forward by the hand. “Something wrong?”

The sea serpent pivoted around in her moat and rose to return Miro’s regard with bright, intelligent eyes. Her soul was simple, and aether reacted to her as a golem, not a fey: she wasn’t the latter in disguise. “No…no, nothing,” he answered Ardent, and followed her inside.

The courtyard held a garden of bright, improbable flowers, shaped like animals, or tools, or faceted gemstones. Some of the animal-flowers moved under their own power, leashed by their stems to their plots. The plants that had flowers like gardening implements turned this way and that to tend one another. The various scents mingled into a complex musk, sweet and tangy.

A slightly-built fey woman awaited them on a bench in the garden. She had a long feline tail and pointed cat ears, her skin a golden tan that darkened to brown points over her hands and the center of her face. Short dark hair framed her round, open face. She had a pleasant soul of uniform colors, tainted by a few streaks of amorality and indifference, but generally sound. When her guests entered, she bounced to her feet. “There you are!” A gesture, and the portcullis dropped behind them, the drawbridge winching itself up. “And this must be the infamous Sun prince! You finally found someone as careless and reckless as you are, Ardent. Amazing! I’m so sorry,” she added to Miro. “I’m Play Until Collapsing Dreams. Let’s not talk here. You can come up to my workroom. Well, you’ll want to see The Marvel first, but after that.” She crossed the courtyard, her long tail beckoning to them.

Miro blinked after her, and glanced to Ardent. The tall satyress gave a helpless shrug and followed Play, so Miro did the same. Ardent and the catgirl shared the obligations of long friendship between them.

The double doors from the courtyard into the castle swung open silently at Play’s approach. She shouted, “Hey, Storm, guess who it is? Ardent Sojourner! She’s got a friend or a slave or something with her, we have to talk shop, but they need to see The Marvel first.”

“Play, sugar, we don’t…need…” Ardent followed their host inside, and trailed off, staring to the left. Miro glanced in that direction as he entered, about to ask what was the matter. The words died on his lips.    

In a hall almost as large as the Palace of the Moon’s, an intricate sculpture of aether and life rose. It was, at first glance, two fey figures, some forty feet high, dancing. The female fey had a heavy, curvaceous build, and was clad in the world, green forests and golden deserts and blue seas and snow-capped mountains. The male wore robes of the sky: drifting clouds, setting sun, red and purple at the horizon and midnight blue at zenith, dusted by a flock of birds at the hem. They moved with an animated, synchronous grace at odds with their great stature.

But the sculpture was more than that: the sun in the sky finished setting and stars came out on the male’s robe. The world the female wore lived and breathed, seasons changing as they danced. Tiny animals frolicked in its fields. Tsunamis rose and subsided in the folds where ocean met land. Volcanic eruptions spread soot into the man’s sky; rain fell from the sky and brought life to the woman’s deserts. And still they danced on.

The detail in it was astonishing, mesmerizing. Miro drew closer without conscious intent, Ardent at his side. He knelt at the sculpture’s feet, and watched a herd of miniscule horses running from a descending dust storm. The creation did not exactly have a soul, but it had an aura, a spiritual resonance of love, beauty, awe.

“Wow,” Ardent breathed out.

“Tell Storm it’s marvelous.” Play had sat down on the lowest step of the hall’s grand staircase, to admire it with them.

“It’s marvelous,” Miro repeated obediently, and then added, “‘Marvelous’ doesn’t do it justice.”

“It really doesn’t. How long have you been working on this, Storm?” Ardent asked.

Miro managed to tear his eyes away long enough to search the room for the other fey, and found him hovering by the hair of the female figure. The hair was made of ocean waves, curls crested in breaking foam. The fey sculptor was male, with a long-limbed human body, long curly black hair, a thick tail, and tufted feline ears. At Ardent’s question, he drifted down on a current of aether. “What counts as ‘working’?” he asked in return. “I have had them in the planning stages for thirty-five years. But I did not start sculpting them at full size until nine years ago. Since then, they have been my main project.” He looked up at the pair, the expression on his dark brown face wistful. “They are growing closer to completion. Some day.”

Play said, “He thinks they’re not done yet.”

Storm curled back his lip as he landed next to the visitors. “They are not done yet. The timing issue remains unresolved.”

“Timing issue?” Miro asked.

“Yes. The Earth shows events on multiple scales: seasonal, cataclysmic, and glacial. The Sky reflects daily events, and the turning of the stars through the years, although that’s subtle. But the different scales don’t mesh well, and I have not yet found a graceful way to handle the conflict.”

“They look pretty graceful to me, sugar.” Ardent stepped back to gaze up at them.

“That’s what I keep telling him!” Play crowed.

Storm patted the satyress’s arm. “And this is what makes you a great Justiciar and barbarian, Ardent Sojourner. So who is this friend-or-something of yours?”

“Oh, this is Mirohirokon of Sun Host. Miro, the master artist here is Contemplation After the Storm.”

“I am honored to make your acquaintance.” Miro rose to shake the artist’s offered hand, and then asked, unable to resist, “Did you make Sessile?”

“I did,” Storm answered. “Ardent told you?”

“Nope. You’ve got a good eye, spotting that without aether,” Ardent said.

“Your work is amazing,” Miro told the artist. “The life and love you put into them shows. Like that water serpent outside. Extraordinary. Superlatives fail me.”

Storm smiled, self-conscious but pleased. “Thank you. I’m glad you like them.”

“Told you.” Play folded her dark arms together. “He won’t make golems any more, can you believe it?”

“If you want one, Play, I’ll make it. I just don’t want to trade them any more, after what happened with Jewel. How’s Sessile doing?”

“Happy, bubbly, and enthusiastic about her work. Charming,” Miro said, and Storm smiled again.

“You got Jewel back and she’s fine now,” Play said, with the air of a long-rehashed argument. “I think you’re being a little oversensitive about one incident. But fine, keep working on The Marvel, don’t let me stop you. C’mon, Ardent, let’s get out of his hair.”

Miro went with them, walking sideways so he could still watch the aether sculpture in its intertwining, ever-changing dance.

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

The next morning, Ardent gave Miro the farspeaker, in the form of a white gold ring. It created a surface at either two gestures, or if he said “farspeak” three times. Mercifully, she didn’t mention his mind-numbingly foolish behavior from the night before. She did insist on verifying that the channeling-caused fever had dissipated (it had).    

After breakfast, they headed for the last cacao orchard. “I should probably get more new outfits for the party,” Ardent grumbled during the hike. “I suppose Court fashion won’t be the same as celebration fashion. Duty, but I wouldn’t put it past them to have made specialized attire depending on the kind of party.”

“That’s the case in Sun Etherium,” Miro allowed. “I admit, for all your friend’s certainty about Moon Court trends, I could not pick out a pattern when we were in the court. Everyone in Moon Etherium looks so wildly different, and to my outsider’s eye, the clothing is no more uniform than your shapes.”

“I know, right? I have never been able to figure out how anyone knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole cartload of purported trends was nothing but one long-running prank. All the fashion-conscious folks just keep one another in on the loop to back the others up when they invent some absurd assertion about the current style.”

“How would that be different from how it works when it’s not a prank?” Miro asked.

“…point.”

At the farmhouse, the orchard-keeper was out, but his husband was happy to chat. During the ensuing conversation, their line of inquiry finally bore fruit: he mentioned the orchard had had the first new direct-sale customer in years. “Mostly we sell to the same chocolate-makers year after year, with the occasional cook thrown into the mix. But here recently – five-six days ago, actually – saw a new face. Sea Converses? No, that’s not it.”

“Ocean Discourse?” Ardent offered.

“Yes! That’s her. She a friend of yours?”

“Oh sugar, I’ve been gone so long I don’t know who my friends are any more.” Ardent laughed. “But names don’t change, and I lived here for two centuries. Pretty sure I’ve heard of everybody over the age of thirty. So she’s your new chocolate-maker?”

“You know, I’m not sure? She didn’t buy much, but funny thing was, she wanted whole pods. The cocoa’s in the seeds, you know, and we dry and bag those for all our customers. But Ocean Discourse insisted on fruit straight from the tree, not even opened. I offered to sell her the pulp along with bagged seeds, but no deal. Strange thing, but I don’t mind. Less work for us if she wants to separate and dry the seeds herself, right?”

Ardent agreed, and then let the conversation meander over other topics. Miro itched with impatience to find out more about this Ocean Discourse, but didn’t do anything to distract her.

When they finally took their leave and headed back to the city proper, Miro asked Ardent, “What do you know about Ocean Discourse, then?”

“Mmm. Not much. Usual shape’s human-like and female, with some random flourishes – animal ears, tail, scales, typical sort of thing. When I was here, she was a minor courtier – not High Court, no position, just one of the hangers-on. Wanted to be a big influential artist or something, I think. Not sure what she’s been up to since.” Ardent grinned mischievously. “Think I’ll ask her.”

“You’re not just going to farspeak her and ask what she wanted aethcacao fruit for, are you?”

“Maybe a whisker less direct. I’ll send out a general inquiry to a bunch of the cocoa-seed buyers, on the pretext that I’m thinking of establishing a new orchard and want to know what demand is like. We’ll see what she says.” When they reached the edge of the orchard, Ardent ported them back to her home and composed her messages.    

While Ardent did that, and batted some replies back to her friends, Miro leafed through the copied book by Venodeveve to look for more tidbits on channeling. He rather wished he could farspeak to the Sun Etherium. It would be nice to see a familiar face. But the messages of farspeakers could not travel the scores of aether-empty miles between the Etheriums. I could send a message to my father, though. Not that he could reply. And anything I said to him, he’d have to share with Fallen if she asked. Hmm. Is there any disinformation I’d want him to relay? Before he’d decided on anything, a snort from Ardent at the other end of the table caught his attention. “Anything interesting?”

“Heard back from Ocean. Look at this.” She tossed a yellow messenger bird to him. The conjuration unrolled its message for him: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been to the cacao orchards, or bought any cacao pods. Who told you I had? What would I do with cacao pods? I’m sure I don’t know. Please let me know who’s spreading this bizarre rumor.”

Miro eyed it. “You did prompt the husband with the name. I suppose it’s possible we’ve the wrong subject.”

“True. She’s awfully defensive about where she hasn’t been, though. Let’s see, how can we get Fallen into this conversation? Gazing Into Music used to be one of her confederates. I suppose he probably still is, although it’s been a dozen years since I was current on court politics…”    

Miro cast his mind back to the high court, and the web of strings Fallen had held. In his mind’s eye, he followed the thickest strings, looked for the fey to whom they were connected. “Do you remember that mirrored fey at court? The one with faceted silver skin and wings of disconnected shards of glass?”

“Mmm? Yeah, that’s Memory of Nightfall. Why do you ask?”

“I think they’re connected. Something about the way he and Fallen stood in relation to each other. I’d bet he’s an ally, if not a minion.”    

“Huh. You think so? Well, let’s take a stab in the dark and see if anything bleeds.” She composed a message on the farspeaker, and read it aloud to him before sending. “How’s this? ‘My new pet overheard it from Memory of Nightfall, but you know Sun Host: they’re terrible with proper names. Don’t suppose you know someone else with a name like yours, that it might’ve been?’”

Miro smiled. “By all means, my lady, fault me.”

Ardent dispatched the messenger, and returned to one of her other conversations. Whoever sent will-o-wisps must’ve been a good friend: she got a lot of messages that way.

A minute later, another yellow bird flew down the stairwell. Ardent laughed as she reviewed it, and read aloud, “‘I’m sure I don’t know who you are talking about. Why would Memory of Nightfall be talking about me? Why is your servant spying on us? You should rein him in.’ And she’s got a little glamour of me choking you with the leash. How cute. ‘Before someone else does’.” Ardent scowled. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Ocean.” She crinkled her nose and sent a reply. Which hung in the air instead of leaving. “And Ocean’s rejecting messages from me now. Well, clearly we’ve got a live one here. Let’s see what else we can dig up on her.” She sent another few messages. A few moments later, a new message came. It unfolded before her eyes as a tapestry, then unraveled into threads that dissolved before they touched the ground. Ardent stood. “Hah! Been waiting since yesterday for Play to have some free time. C’mere, sugar. Looks like we’re gonna visit an old friend.”

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Ardent asked one of the winged lemurs to make a copy of Venodeveve’s work and have it delivered for later reference, then returned Miro and herself to her living room. She set him down beside the pillow nest. “You all right with trying this tonight, sugar, or do you want to wait ’til morning?” She was already nervous, not sure if she was more afraid that he’d want to wait or that he wouldn’t.

“Now is good.” Miro unfastened his jacket with Sun Host comportment and draped it over a chair. He opened his shirt part way, exposing his throat beneath the metal collar, and an inviting V of warm beige skin.

She took the white gold collar off and set it on the table, then stopped as her eyes met his. They weren’t touching, but she could almost feel the beat of his heart anyway. She yearned to touch him, to feel him under her skin.

“Did you wish to try clothed or nude?”

Her libido roared in answer: Nude! Oh Love, yes, please, let’s snuggle the cute sun lord naked. Yes. This is the best idea. There is no possible flaw in this plan. “Book said light clothing’s not much of a difference,” Ardent managed to say instead. She cupped her hand around the side of his throat, and he tilted up his chin to accommodate her. His pulse under her palm was strong and fast. She wanted to sweep him up with her other arm, crush him to her chest, open that well inside him and feel all the power of the Sun rush into her body. Oh this is such a mistake. I’m not even going to remember how I’m supposed to do this. Maybe if I trueshifted him into something repugnant first I could concentrate. “Right. We should sit down.”

“As you say.” He waited on her, as if this were all ordinary and natural.

Ardent stepped down into the pillow nest, a kind of round sunken couch stuffed with extra pillows. She reclined into it, her goat’s legs out straight on the cushions and her back against the backrest, then held out her arms in invitation.

Miro followed, put a knee down on the cushion beside her, and for the first time looked hesitant. “How do you want me?”

Desperately. “I don’t know. Let’s just try cuddling.” She put an arm around him and pulled him gently to her, mindful not to trap his hair, until he was snuggled against her side with his head pillowed against her bosom.

He shifted. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be forward—” He tried in vain to find a position that was less intimate but still in contact.

“Sugar, it’s fine. I don’t think this is gonna work without a little forwardness. A lot of forwardness. Sorry. Don’t worry about it. You comfy?” She cradled his throat in her hand, and he sighed.

“Very,” Miro murmured, sinking down again to rest his cheek against her breast, one arm over her abdomen, one leg curled over hers.

Ardent snuggled him a little closer with her arm at his back, then closed her eyes. With aether-enhanced senses, she focused her awareness upon him. The sound of his heartbeat; the rise and fall of his chest; the air that filled his chest, laced with aether that would not unite with his body; the warmth of him, more intense where their bodies touched, cooler along his upper side. The tension of his muscles, a war between apprehension and the impulse to relax. Beneath his skin, she could feel the empty aetheric channels, the connecting well that sang to her: open open open.

It was all of a piece, every part interacting with every other part, Venodeveve had written. When the channel opens, if one doesn’t lose oneself in the rush of power, one may see how the victim is affected. The extent of the damage done will become plain by the level of physical alteration. Positive or neutral signs: modest slowing of breath, heartbeat, increased relaxation. Negative signs: change in body temperature, whether hotter or cooler. Sweating. Increased heartbeat or breathing, or dramatic decrease. Ardent wished Venodeveve hadn’t used the word ‘victim’ for the person serving as channel. “Ready, sugar?” Ardent whispered.

He gave a little nod, drew in a deep breath, and relaxed against her. Venodeveve had written that it was best to be relaxed when channeling, and Miro’d read it too.

“I’m gonna stop in…ten heartbeats. If I don’t, tell me to stop. Got it?”

Another nod.

Ardent did not even nudge the well open. She sent the lightest whisper of moon aether across its cover. Sun aether poured through in answer: not a torrent, but a strong, steady current. She could sense the power filtering through the channels of Miro’s body, heard him gasp, and then it flowed into her. The current still felt delightful, and she still craved more, but it was less overwhelming. She retained her hyperawareness of Miro throughout. He relaxed further as his breathing slowed, while his pulse remained steady. He really is very good at this, she marveled. As she counted the ninth heartbeat, she eased the channel closed again without physically releasing him. Softly, she asked, “All good?”

Miro nodded and burrowed closer to her. “More please?”

“All right.” Another whisker-touch of power to call the current again, and it flowed into her, warm, generous, open, malleable. She counted heartbeats, aching to lose herself in the current, to let the pleasure of it sweep her away. Fifteen, sixteen – surely this is too gradual to do any harm. He’ll warn me if there’s a problem – twenty-five, twenty-six – Love but he feels good – thirty-one, thirty two – Ardent pressed her lips against the top of his head, her thumb tracing over his mouth, other hand stroking his back, barely aware of her own actions. Suddenly she realized he was growing warmer, and she’d totally lost count, and also she was an idiot. She shut off the channel. “Miro?”

He made a tiny whimper that tore at her heart, shivered, and pulled himself tighter into her.

“Miro, sugar, talk to me. Mirohirokon.” Ardent struggled to sit upright and tilted his face to hers.

He exhaled, brown eyes half-opened to watch her indolently. “Mmm?” His hand drifted down her side, fingers stroking over the fur of her thigh after he reached the end of her chiton.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, urgently. Venodeveve had some fairly radical treatment ideas for overchanneling issues, none of which had inspired great confidence in her. Miro could still move, though. He almost certainly wasn’t dying.

“Drunk,” he said, and kissed her.

The kiss was so brief she barely had time to be more than surprised by it. Her senses were still attuned to his body: she felt the surge of desire in him, followed by a sudden spike of adrenaline.

Miro jerked backwards and scrambled away until he knelt on the cushion next to her, not touching. “My lady! I apologize – I did not intend – I don’t know why I did that – Ardent – I beg your forgiveness.” He bowed his head, long ears bright red.

His distress was almost comical. Oh, c’mon, sugar, I can’t be that bad a kisser. Gimme another chance! But his chagrin was so sincere she didn’t dare risk teasing him over it. “Sweetie, it’s fine. And would you please stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?”

“That certainly wasn’t anyone else’s doing,” he muttered.

Ardent was less sure of that. Miro was so obviously appalled at the idea of intimacy with her that it seemed more likely he’d somehow been infected with her lust than that the surge had sprung from his own hormones. “I’m serious here, Miro. I feel like I’m force-feeding you drugs and then making you feel guilty for not being sober. I am not gonna get mad at you for being less than perfectly in control of yourself. Honest. Justice, I don’t expect sober folk who aren’t under ridiculous external pressures to be perfectly in control. This is one of those weird Sun Host expectations, isn’t it?”

“…perhaps.” Miro didn’t lift his head

“Well, you’re in Moon Etherium now. Act a little improper, you’ll fit in better.” In fact, I molested you at least as much, just before I broke the channel. I ought to apologize for that. She didn’t say anything. It’d make an awkward situation even more awkward, and if he hadn’t noticed, she didn’t want to bring his attention to her growing attraction to him. Partly out of embarrassment, but also because she was afraid he’d feel pressured to reciprocate her interest.

“Hah.” But the corners of his mouth did turn up.

Ardent risked patting his hand. “There now, sugar. No harm done.” She climbed out of the sunken couch and offered her hand. “I’ve got plenty of excess aether now to make a farspeaker. Why don’t you go on to bed and get some rest?”

Miro took her hand and rose, swaying on his feet. He bowed over her fingers. “My lady is very kind,” he murmured. “Thank you for your forbearance.”

She snorted. “You all right to put yourself to bed, or do I need to carry you again?”

He colored again, and she regretted teasing him. Poor man. “I believe I can manage. If I realize I’m mistaken, you’ll know by the sound of me falling down the stairs.” He flashed her a smile. Ardent watched as he moved with deliberate dignity to the spiral staircase, and gripped the rail firmly as he made the descent. She had to admire the way he could make jokes at his own expense while at the same time maintaining his Sun Court comportment. There was nothing of a cat’s offended arrogance in him, as if his manners were not a salve for his pride but a kindness to those around him. She’d known too many fey who used formality as a weapon to embarrass those with less polished ways. But Miro made all those courtesies seem actually, well, courteous. He used them to show respect, not to self-aggrandize. She liked that about him.

Face it, you like a lot of things about him, satyr-girl. Too many. Stop obsessing over the guy you’re supposed to be here to help, and get back to helping him. With that admonishment in mind, she set to work on a farspeaker enchantment.

---

Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.