(POV: Nyessa)
(Act I)
The bells of Volantis no longer rang to sell men.
They tolled for shift changes now—for masons on the river walls, for healers in the old slave barracks, for scribes bent over ledgers trying to tally a city that had suddenly decided it did not know itself anymore. The sound rolled up from the streets as a softer echo of the city's old cruelty, reshaped but not yet redeemed.
Nyessa stood at the edge of the Black Wall, fingers curled over cold stone, and watched her city breathe.
Lanterns bloomed along the canals like scattered embers. Smoke rose from forges that now armed civic guards and labor crews instead of private militias. The slave markets were shuttered; the auction blocks empty. In their place, crude tables had been erected—food rations, tools, rolls of cloth. Men and women moved around them with the wary, brittle motions of people who had spent their lives flinching from blows that no longer fell.
Days. It had only been days.
Days since Kaine's shadows swallowed conspirators in the Colosseum. Since the sky dimmed and her soul had been bound in a contract deeper than any oath she had ever spoken. Since the Crimson Reaver named her Queen of Volantis before a city on its knees… then turned his back and walked away.
He had left no garrison. No legionaries occupying the Black Walls. No visible hand clamped around the city's throat.
He had left her instead.
They prefer you, Melessa had said that morning, voice skating the line between admiration and irritation. They fear him. Given a choice between preference and fear, most people will smile at the knife that looks kinder.
Nyessa's lips curved faintly at the memory, then flattened again as she watched two dockworkers argue below. Their gestures were sharp, heated. Once, someone would have been beaten bloody for raising a hand to a citizen. Now… the argument dissolved; they went back to hauling crates. No overseer. No whip.
Progress, she supposed, always looked messier up close.
Footsteps whispered over the tiles behind her.
"You're doing the balcony thing," Melessa's voice announced. "Which means you're either about to make a decision that will change the fate of the city… or you're rehearsing a dramatic speech."
Nyessa didn't turn immediately. The wind off the Rhoyne tugged at the fine silk of her gown, cool against her calves. It was scandalously cut by the standards of the old Volantis—a waterfall of violet silk clinging to her hips, the sides left daringly open and held together by a lattice of golden chains that suggested more than they hid. Being queen, she had discovered, did not mean she had to dress like a marble statue.
It meant she could choose what people saw when they looked.
Tonight she chose to look dangerous and very, very alive.
She let the city's noise lap at her one more heartbeat, then glanced back over her shoulder.
Lady Melessa Naerys filled the doorway like it had been carved for her.
Her gown was darker than Nyessa's; a deep green that clung to her like poured ink, the neckline low enough to make old matrons mutter and young men choke on their tongues. A high slit bared the long line of her leg almost to the hip with every step, gold chains ringing her ankle and wrist. Her hair was coiled up and pinned with slender ivory needles that looked like they could double as weapons—because with Melessa, they probably could.
Nyessa knew precisely how that gown would feel under her hands.
Old habits, she reminded herself. Old nights. Old patterns. The crown on her head made some indulgences more dangerous than others.
"You sound disappointed," Nyessa said, turning back toward the railing. "Did you hope to find me practicing a speech instead?"
"I always know when you're practicing," Melessa replied, coming out onto the balcony. Bare feet, as usual in private; she hated shoes unless she was trying to impress someone. "Your hands move when you lie. Even to yourself."
Nyessa huffed. "You know, I could have made some docile fool Chancellor. Someone who bows and nods and never tells me I'm wrong."
"You did try that. Remember?" Melessa rested her elbows on the stone beside her, their sleeves brushing. "He lasted three days and nearly signed away half the harbor tariffs to a Braavosi syndicate."
"True." Nyessa let her shoulder lean lightly against Melessa's, as if by accident. "Whereas you only try to sell my sanity for free."
Melessa's mouth curved. "Your sanity is hardly my doing, my Queen."
The title held no weight on her tongue, no slavish awe. It was an acknowledgement, not a surrender.
It was why Nyessa had demanded her.
Both of them had been Elephants once—rising stars groomed by bankers and merchant princes, one the Silver Voice and the other the Velvet Knife. Nyessa with her soft persuasion, Melessa with her ruthless calculations. They had balanced each other perfectly.
Then Nyessa had torn the old bargain apart, and Melessa had stayed long enough to help her burn it.
"Reports from the freed districts?" Nyessa asked.
"Stable, for the moment." Melessa's gaze swept the city like a gaming board. "The work allotments help. People like knowing they'll eat tomorrow. The Red Temple's charity kitchens help more."
"Kinvara earns her keep," Nyessa murmured.
"She does more than that," Melessa said. "She believes. That's rarer than you might think."
"And you?" Nyessa asked. "What do you believe in these days?"
Melessa's smile turned wry. "Grain reserves. Tax flows. The thickness of our walls. In other words—things that stay solid when gods bleed and shadows eat men alive."
"Subtle as always."
"I leave subtlety for the bedchamber." Melessa's eyes gleamed sideways. "In politics, I prefer clarity."
Heat prickled Nyessa's cheeks despite herself. The gown felt suddenly too thin.
"You didn't come out here just to insult my brooding, Melessa. Say what you've come to say."
"Oh, I don't know." Melessa tilted her head. "Perhaps I came to confirm the latest rumor from your scribes before it spreads far enough to cause a panic."
Nyessa's fingers tightened on the stone. "Which rumor?"
"That you intend to extend formal invitation to Valyr'Nox," Melessa said. "To Kaine."
There it was.
Nyessa exhaled slowly.
"I do."
The bells rang again, deeper now—calling the faithful to the Red Temple's evening fires.
Melessa's voice went light and dangerous. "Of course you do."
Nyessa turned to face her fully. "And what, precisely, does that tone mean?"
"It means," Melessa said, "that only you would look at a city still shaking from having its soul ripped out and think: You know what we need? A houseguest who kills empires before breakfast."
Nyessa almost smiled. Almost.
"He built one too," she said. "In two years. From ash and refugees and chaos. Valyr'Nox works. It thrives. If anyone in this world understands what we're trying to do, it's him."
"You mean what you're trying to do," Melessa corrected. "He has no interest in ruling Volantis. He gave it to you like a man shaking water from his hands."
"Exactly," Nyessa replied. "He doesn't want my throne. He wants the world rearranged."
"A comfort," Melessa said dryly. "If he decides we're arranging too slowly, he'll simply tear us down and build something more to his liking."
Nyessa stepped closer, chin lifting.
"He could have done that already," she said quietly. "He didn't. He gave me this city and walked away. That matters."
"Does it?" Melessa's eyes were very dark. "Or is it simply intoxicating to be noticed by a force like that and find yourself still standing afterward?"
Nyessa's answer stuck in her throat.
She thought of Kaine on the warship, eyes old as the first storm and oddly gentle when he told her she was not stained beyond redemption. The way his presence filled any room without effort. The quiet, terrifying certainty in his voice when he spoke of gods as though they were difficult neighbors.
She thought of the calm—the terrible, dangerous calm—that fell over her whenever he looked at her like a fixed point in a shifting world.
"Yes," she said at last. "It is intoxicating."
Melessa blinked, then laughed once, sharply. "You surprise me."
"Do I?"
"Yes. I expected at least three layers of rationalization first."
Nyessa moved to the small table by the balcony doors, picked up a decanter, and poured two cups. Candlelight painted soft gold along the line of her collarbones, the curve of her throat, the thin gold chain resting just above the hollow there. She was acutely aware of Melessa's eyes tracking every movement.
"You asked," Nyessa said, handing her a cup. "I answered."
"Half an answer," Melessa countered. "You admitted it's intoxicating. You haven't explained why."
Nyessa drank, letting the wine burn a slow line down her throat.
"What draws me to Kaine," she said carefully, "is not the slaughter. I've seen enough of that to last ten lifetimes. It's not even the power, though only a fool would pretend not to feel it when he's in the room."
"Then what?" Melessa pressed.
Nyessa's fingers tightened around her cup.
"Relief," she said finally. "He moves with the certainty I can never afford."
Melessa frowned.
"He doesn't hesitate," Nyessa went on. "He doesn't juggle factions, or wonder whether freeing a city will collapse its economy, or lie awake wondering how many will starve if she abolishes chains too quickly."
She met Melessa's gaze.
"He decides," Nyessa said. "He ends what must be ended. Brutally, yes. Horribly, sometimes. But there is a terrible mercy in that clarity."
Melessa's expression flickered—somewhere between understanding and alarm.
"You envy him," she said softly. "The freedom to be monstrous in the name of something better."
"I envy not having to doubt myself with every breath," Nyessa replied. "And I envy that the world doesn't question his right to change it."
Melessa's smile went thin. "And you wonder why I'm jealous."
Nyessa blinked. "What?"
"In the old days," Melessa said, setting her cup down, "when you wanted impossible things, you came to me. 'Melessa, how do we tear this apart without bringing the whole city down?' 'Melessa, how do we ruin this Tiger warlord without starting a civil war?'"
"There's a difference between ruining guilds and remaking the world," Nyessa said.
"I know." Melessa's eyes were hot now, anger wrapping tight around something more raw. "And ordinarily I would be very sensible about it. I would say: 'Yes, of course, I am not an immortal executioner wrapped in shadow and legend. I deal in ledgers and leverage. We are different creatures.'"
"Melessa—"
"But then," Melessa cut in, voice dropping, "I see the way your eyes change when you speak of him. And I remember that once, I was the one who got that look."
The words hung between them like a blade.
Nyessa's chest tightened. "That's not fair."
"No," Melessa agreed. "It isn't."
She stepped closer, the distance between them shrinking to the span of a breath. Candlelight caught on her lashes, on the gold at her throat, on the line of her mouth—slightly parted, slightly bitter.
"I know you're drawn to him," Melessa said. "Half the city is, and they've only seen him from a distance. He's a storm that somehow walks in human skin. We are all… pulled, in one way or another."
Her fingers twitched at her side, as though resisting the urge to reach out.
"Kinvara practically glows when his name is spoken," Melessa added with a curl of her lip. "You should hear her in council when she thinks she's being subtle. 'He is judgment. He is necessary. He is the knife in the rot.' If she ever does kneel before a living man, it will be him."
Nyessa looked away, remembering the way the Red Priestess's voice had softened in the cabin when Kaine touched the gem at her throat and freed her from its tyranny. Remembering the glimmer of something far more personal than reverence.
"We're not talking about Kinvara," Nyessa said.
"No," Melessa said. "We're talking about you. And me. And the fact that I have spent years learning every contour of your mind, and suddenly there is someone else you look at like that."
Before Nyessa could answer, a sharp triple knock sounded at the inner door.
Both women stilled.
Melessa exhaled slowly. "That will be the fire walking in on us, no doubt."
"Come," Nyessa called.
The door opened.
Kinvara stepped through with the kind of composed grace that made everyone she passed feel oddly underdressed. Her robes tonight were a deeper crimson than usual, the fabric cut narrower, the sleeves losing some of their priestly austerity. The ruby at her throat glowed faintly in the dimness, no longer needed to keep her young but worn out of habit—and symbolism.
Her gaze swept the room, taking in Nyessa's gown, Melessa's, their proximity, the untouched second cup of wine. Her mouth twitched, just once.
"Forgive the interruption," she said. "The city insisted."
Nyessa straightened slightly. "Trouble?"
"Less each day," Kinvara said, crossing to the balcony. Her robes whispered around her ankles, revealing glimpses of bare calf as she walked. "The freed have begun to trust the work ledgers. Knowing you'll be paid tomorrow for what you do today is… a novelty here."
"Novelty is one word for it," Melessa said dryly. "So is 'miracle.'"
Kinvara leaned out to look at the city, red sleeves brushing Nyessa's violet silk and Melessa's green.
"Some of the old families test your boundaries in whispers," she went on. "They talk of 'temporary measures,' of 'restoring the old order once the foreign god has left our harbor.'"
"And the Red Temple?" Nyessa asked.
"We remind them what happened to the last men who mistook Kaine for a passing storm," Kinvara said. "And we preach."
Melessa snorted. "What, that he is a saint?"
"No." Kinvara's eyes glinted. "That he is a consequence."
Nyessa relaxed a fraction. "So. The citizens are… easing?"
"Yes," Kinvara said. "They were restless at first—freedom always feels like falling to those born in chains. But they see your decrees backed by food, by work, by temple sanction." Her gaze slid to Nyessa's face, softer now. "Most of them support your claim."
"And the factions?" Melessa asked.
Kinvara's smile turned sharp. "The factions will not touch her. They know the only other option is to bring back the man they tried and failed to kill. Men who have met the Crimson Reaver do not gamble on a second meeting."
Nyessa exhaled, some knot she hadn't named unwinding beneath her ribs.
"Good," she said. "I would prefer not to test which of them is foolish enough to discover whether he leaves the city standing the second time."
"Give them time," Melessa said. "Fools are like weeds."
Kinvara finally turned from the view, studying both women in their scandalous silk.
"You choose interesting armor for the evening," she observed. "The old Elephants would choke on their own tongues."
"We buried them," Melessa said. "We can dress how we like over their graves."
Kinvara's gaze sharpened. "And is that all this is? Dressing? Or are you, perhaps, discussing more… intimate alliances?"
Nyessa narrowed her eyes. "How much did you overhear?"
"Enough to know you are debating whether to invite Kaine formally," Kinvara said. "And enough to know Melessa wants to know what makes him so… compelling that you would jeopardize Volantis to stand nearer the fire."
"Jeopardize," Melessa echoed. "She says what I mean, but with holy embroidery."
Kinvara's smile was small and unashamed.
"I have seen kings bluster and warlords preen before altars, hoping the flame will make them bigger than they are," she said. "Kaine walks into a temple as if he's checking the weather. He speaks to gods like they are colleagues. He looks at you and you feel"—her lashes lowered briefly—"as though he has already read the worst parts of you and stayed."
Nyessa's throat tightened. She knew that feeling.
Melessa folded her arms under her breasts. "So, you're attracted to his blasphemy."
"I am attracted to his honesty," Kinvara said. "The rest is… consequence."
Melessa's gaze flicked to Nyessa. "And you?"
"We covered this before you arrived," Nyessa said. "But since we're turning this into some sort of… confession circle."
She took a breath.
"He terrifies me," she said simply. "And he steadies me. Both at once."
Melessa and Kinvara both watched her, very still.
"When he is in the room," Nyessa continued, "the world feels… ordered. Not safer, not kinder. But inevitable. Like all the lies fall away and only the shape of truth remains, no matter how ugly it is."
Kinvara murmured, "Judgment."
"Yes." Nyessa swallowed. "Judgment that doesn't flinch at itself."
Melessa considered that for a moment, then clicked her tongue. "Well. That explains you two. What about the rest of us poor fools cursed with ordinary appetites?"
She set her cup down, eyes glinting.
"He is not pretty in the conventional sense. There are men in this city with softer faces and kinder eyes."
"Pretty men bend," Kinvara said. "He does not."
"That's not an answer," Melessa said. "If I am to advise my queen on whether to invite a world-killer to dinner, I would like to know whether I'm competing with philosophy or with hips."
Nyessa choked on a laugh.
"You are impossible," she managed.
"You are avoiding," Melessa shot back. "Does he live up to the stories? That's all I want to know."
Kinvara's lips curled. "You are asking if the storm feels like a storm up close."
"Yes," Melessa said. "And whether one remembers how to breathe when he looks at you."
Nyessa remembered his hand closing around hers when she chose the contract. The way every other road in her future burned away in that moment. The way she was still here, still breathing, only because he had decided she should.
"It feels," she said slowly, "like standing on the edge of a cliff you have already jumped from. Knowing the ground is somewhere below, but not yet feeling the impact."
Melessa stared at her.
Kinvara let out a soft breath. "Well," she said. "That was unnecessarily poetic."
"Yes," Melessa muttered. "And annoyingly helpful."
Nyessa smiled, small and strained. "You asked."
Melessa's gaze slid between the two of them, taking in the flush on Nyessa's cheeks, the faint glow in Kinvara's eyes when Kaine's name hovered in the air.
"You're both doomed," she said. "You know that, don't you?"
"Probably," Kinvara said.
"Almost certainly," Nyessa agreed.
Silence held for a moment, then Melessa sighed.
"Fine. Invite him," she said. "At least then I will know exactly what I am competing with."
Nyessa arched a brow. "Competing?"
Melessa's smile turned wicked and wounded all at once. "If the queen is going to spend her nights dreaming of impossibly calm murderers and their cities of ash and silver," she said, "I would at least like the chance to… collect data."
Kinvara snorted softly. "You plan to study him? With what method? Repeated trials?"
Melessa's eyes gleamed. "If I must share Nyessa's attention with a legend, I would prefer to know first-hand whether the man lives up to the legend."
Jealousy leapt hot and irrational in Nyessa's gut.
"You are not using Kaine as an experiment," she snapped.
Kinvara's brows rose. "Oh," she murmured. "That sounded very much like jealousy."
Melessa turned to her, triumphant. "Told you," she said. "Some things did not change with the crown."
Nyessa ignored them both for a moment, looking back over her city.
Lanterns. Smoke. The faint singing from a tavern two streets down. The House of Silver Veils, she knew, would already be thrumming with people chasing comfort or information—sometimes both.
The world had shuddered. Then gone on.
"I will invite him," she said quietly. "Not because I am intoxicated. Not because I want to see if I forget how to breathe when he looks at me. I will invite him because Valyr'Nox exists, and it works, and we need to understand how. Because alliance with a city that has already done what we are trying to do may save thousands of lives."
"Or end them faster," Melessa said.
"Yes," Nyessa said. "Or that."
Kinvara nodded once, solemn. "Then we stand with you in this."
"We?" Melessa asked.
"Yes," Kinvara replied. "The temple will support an invitation framed as alliance, not supplication. And I will be there." Her smile sharpened. "Someone must make sure no one mistakes him for a god and forgets the fire."
Melessa's eyes slid sideways. "And I'll be there to count who starts staring first. Him at you, or you at him."
Nyessa let out a tired laugh.
"Both of you," she said, "are insufferable."
"Correct," Melessa said.
"Unavoidable," Kinvara added.
Nyessa let herself lean between them for a moment—one shoulder against Melessa's solid, dangerous warmth, the other brushing Kinvara's steady, burning calm.
Elephant and ember.
Her and them.
"Well then," she murmured. "If we are going to invite a storm to dinner, we had better set the table correctly."
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(Act II)
The council chamber still smelled faintly of old incense and older arrogance.
They had left the murals of Valyria on the walls—the dragons and towers and burning maps—but stripped down the gilded seats, taken away most of the heavy brocade and ridiculous ceremonial spears. Nyessa had insisted on smaller tables, movable benches, a map of Volantis carved into the central inlaid stone instead of some long-dead conqueror's family tree.
"No point in pretending we are them," she'd told the artisans. "We are not. We either learn from their ruin—or join it."
Now she sat at the head of that map, one elbow on the arm of her chair, watching the men and women gathered around it argue.
"…the freed gangs in the river district are already forming crews," said a former Tiger officer—Kassyr, now wearing the plain grey of the civic guard. "Some have taken over old overseer halls. They are running protection in everything but name, my queen."
Nyessa traced one finger along the etched river line. "Are they violent?"
"Not yet," he admitted. "But they hold the docks by presence alone. They frighten the merchants. They move like men who expect no one to tell them no."
"Then someone must," Melessa said crisply from Nyessa's right. She wore midnight-blue today, hair bound tight, every line of her posture screaming discipline. "If we let new chains grow where we've just broken old ones—"
"They are not chains yet," Kinvara said from Nyessa's left. Her ruby gleamed faintly. "They are men who have not learned any way of being free except being feared."
Melessa rolled her eyes. "How poetic," she said. "Will you recite them a sermon until they behave?"
"If necessary," Kinvara replied. "Better that than unleashing the guard on them like a new Tiger cohort."
Nyessa lifted a hand. The argument stopped.
"Both of you are not wrong," she said. "Which is irritating."
A few of the lesser nobles around the table twitched smiles they tried to hide.
"We will not allow gangs to carve the city into new fiefdoms," Nyessa continued. "But we will not turn yesterday's slaves into today's enemies just because they don't know what to do with air in their lungs."
She nodded to Kassyr. "Set up a dock watch made of mixed crews. Half civic guard, half freed volunteers. They patrol together. They answer to the city, not to one another. Any man who wants to protect his street can do it—under our banner. If the gangs refuse to join, then we isolate their leaders."
"Quietly," Melessa added. "No public spectacles unless they leave us no choice."
Kassyr bowed stiffly. "As you command."
He stepped back. A scribe scratched notes on clay.
Nyessa exhaled. Next problem.
"A report from the harbor," a sallow-faced clerk prompted. "About… the House of Silver Veils."
Of course.
Nyessa pinched the bridge of her nose. "What about the House of Silver Veils?"
"The establishment by the east quay," he said. "It has become… a location of particular interest since the battle."
Melessa's mouth quirked. "The one that cannot decide whether it wants to be an inn, a brothel, a salon, or a shrine?"
Kinvara hid a smile behind her hand.
Nyessa sighed. "Explain."
The clerk cleared his throat. "After the battle, some of the legionaries were seen there. Drinking. Quietly. And… someone started a rumor that it is where 'the Reaver prefers to stay when he walks among mortals.'"
Nyessa stared at him.
Melessa laughed, unable to hold it in this time. "Of course they did."
"It is… embellished," the clerk added quickly. "He stayed there before, when he first came to Volantis, but during the recent conflict—"
"I know where he stayed," Nyessa said. "I arranged the rooms the first time."
The clerk blanched. "Yes, my queen. Of course, my queen. I only meant—"
"You meant that the city has decided to assign him a house," Melessa cut in. "Like a household god."
Kinvara's eyes glinted. "Humans have always enjoyed attaching myths to doors. They like the idea that if they drink or lie in the right bed, some of the power will rub off on them."
Nyessa resisted the urge to rub her temples.
"And why is this a council matter?" she asked.
"Because the House of Silver Veils is now host to sailors, freedmen, minor nobles, foreign spies, and at least three Red Priestesses on any given night," the clerk said miserably. "If it is where a messenger might go to find his people—"
"Or where spies think they can pretend to be his people," Melessa said.
Nyessa's mind made a neat, unpleasant calculation.
Valyr'Nox might not be physically present in Volantis right now. But its shadows were already sitting at its tables, listening, measuring, asking quiet questions with foreign accents.
"If I send an invitation to him," she murmured, "it will pass through there eventually. Even if it doesn't start there. The House of Silver Veils will be the first place half the city watches."
Melessa drummed her fingers against the table. "Which could be useful," she said. "If you want everyone to know you are inviting him. Make it theater. 'Look, citizens, your queen is not afraid to treat with the storm.' It would cow the factions."
"And panic the ones who fear any hint of his return," Kinvara said. "We will have supplicants flocking to the temple begging us to make you reconsider."
Nyessa inhaled slowly.
"This city already knows I owe him my crown," she said. "Pretending otherwise is insult and foolishness. If I invite him, we do it honestly. But we will not turn it into spectacle. Not yet."
She looked to the clerk.
"You will find me the most discreet, reliable runner we have," she said. "Someone who knows how to walk into a crowded house and leave no footprints behind. He will carry a message to the House of Silver Veils. From there—"
She let the implication hang.
Melessa nodded. "From there, word will reach whoever it must."
Kinvara's gaze was steady on Nyessa's face.
"You are decided then," the priestess said.
Nyessa met her eyes. "I am," she said. "We cannot reshape Volantis alone. We can barely keep it from tearing itself apart. Valyr'Nox is proof that this kind of change is possible. I need to know how."
"And if he says no?" Melessa asked.
"Then we continue alone," Nyessa said. "At least I will know I tried."
"And if he says yes?"
Nyessa thought of Kaine sitting in this very chamber. The weight of his presence pressed against the walls. Her people looking at him and remembering what he had done in the Colosseum.
"Then," she said quietly, "we make sure Volantis remembers why he came the first time—and why he left it standing."
Kinvara smiled, small and fierce. "The fire will stand ready."
"And I," Melessa said, "will make sure no one sells the city out from under us while everyone is busy staring at him."
Nyessa's chest eased a little. The map on the table no longer felt like a noose.
"Then we proceed," she said.
The meeting ground on—talk of grain, of old Tiger barracks converted into housing, of arguments over which families were truly complicit in the conspiracies and which had merely smiled in the wrong direction at the wrong time. Nyessa asked questions, listened, ruled.
But through all of it, beneath the numbers and petitions and tempers, one thought moved like a quiet current:
We are about to invite a storm.
When at last the chamber emptied, she remained seated, studying the map.
Melessa lingered. Kinvara did too.
"You'll have to put it in writing," Melessa said at last. "You can't simply send a man to say, 'My queen would like you to stop by.'"
Nyessa snorted. "I know how invitations work."
"Do you?" Melessa countered. "Have you ever written one to a man who once turned your harbor into a graveyard?"
Nyessa opened her mouth, closed it, then laughed despite herself.
"No," she admitted. "That is new."
Kinvara's voice softened.
"Words matter with him," she said. "Do not write like a supplicant, or like a Triarch with delusions of equality. Write like what you are now."
"And what is that?" Nyessa asked.
Kinvara inclined her head.
"A queen who owes him her soul," she said. "And chooses to use it anyway."
Melessa rolled her eyes. "You two and your dramatic metaphors," she muttered. "Come, then. Let's help her find words that say all that without sounding like a lovesick ballad or a declaration of war."
Nyessa rose, feeling suddenly, absurdly grateful for both of them.
"Fine," she said. "But if we are doing this, I'm changing first."
Melessa's eyes swept her gown. "What's wrong with that?"
Nyessa raised a brow. "Nothing. Which is exactly the problem. If I write to him like this, the letter will smell like perfume and bad decisions."
Kinvara coughed delicately, clearly hiding a laugh.
"Then we shall reconvene in your chambers," she said. "When you are dressed for diplomacy rather than distraction."
Melessa's gaze lingered on Nyessa's bare side where the chains held silk together.
"Speak for yourself," she murmured.
Nyessa pretended not to hear.
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(Act III)
Her private rooms had once belonged to a Triarch's favorite mistress.
The thought amused Nyessa every time she remembered it. The man had spent a decade sneaking away from council to tumble a woman behind these doors; now his city's queen used it as the place where she made decisions that would decide whether Volantis survived the century.
The rooms still bore traces of their past—a too-large bed, a sunken lounging couch by the window, an excess of mirrors. Nyessa had changed what she could afford to: added a desk, maps, shelves of ledgers and letters. The rest she co-opted.
It was, she decided, very Volantene to do a revolution in a courtesan's bedroom.
She had changed the moment she returned: into another gown no less scandalous, though in a different way. This one was black, almost sheer in certain lights, with a plunging back and a front held together by a single braided cord laced from breastbone to navel. It was ridiculous for official business.
It was perfect for reminding herself she was still alive.
Melessa lounged on the couch like a jungle cat, one leg draped over the arm, nursing wine. She had shed the rigid council gown for something softer—a slip of pale silk that hugged her curves and left her shoulders bare. The candlelight limned the line of her throat, the dip of her collarbones.
Kinvara occupied the chair near the desk, looking entirely too composed in her crimson robes. Somehow, despite being the most formally dressed of the three, she managed to radiate the same sensual ease, as if the fire itself was always comfortable in its own skin.
"You're both ridiculous," Nyessa said, dropping into the chair behind the desk.
"You invited us," Melessa said. "If you didn't want the room to look like a very complicated sin, you shouldn't have asked both of us to be here at once."
"I am here to work," Kinvara said primly. Then her lips curved. "Mostly."
Nyessa pulled a sheet of good parchment toward her, dipped the quill, and stared at the blank space.
"Start," Melessa said. "Before you overthink it so much the ink dries."
"Address?" Nyessa asked.
"'To Kaine, Lord of Valyr'Nox,'" Kinvara suggested. "Or whatever title his people use."
"Do they use one?" Nyessa murmured.
Melessa snorted. "Probably not. 'Kaine' seems to be plenty sufficient wherever he goes."
Nyessa wrote:
To Kaine, Lord of Valyr'Nox…
Her hand hesitated.
"What now?" Melessa asked.
"If I write 'my gratitude' in the first line, he'll throw it in the river," Nyessa said. "If I write nothing of what he did, I'll sound ungrateful or foolish."
"Thank him," Kinvara said. "But not as a supplicant. As one force acknowledging another."
Nyessa took a breath and wrote, speaking aloud as she did.
You left Volantis standing when you had every right to let it fall. You named me its queen when you could have claimed it yourself. I will not pretend I do not know the weight of what you chose.
She paused.
"That sounds like a confession," Melessa said. "Or an opening to a prayer."
Nyessa shrugged. "It's also true."
She continued:
In the days since, I have learned what it means to feel a city move beneath one's feet. I have seen men, newly freed, struggle not to build new chains from old habits. I have seen the fear you left in their bones turn slowly into something that might become respect—if I do not fail them first.
Ink scratched softly.
I have also heard, from those who have walked your streets, that Valyr'Nox has already done what Volantis is only beginning to attempt: build a city not founded on chains.
She looked up.
"Too much?" she asked.
"It's a little humble," Melessa said. "But that might not be a bad thing with him. And you slide in respect without grovelling. I approve, reluctantly."
Kinvara nodded. "You mention his city in the same breath as your own. That balances the power."
Nyessa's pulse was steady now, the act of writing grounding her.
I am not arrogant enough to believe I can remake Volantis alone. Nor foolish enough to ignore the one man I know who has built a city from ash in less time than it took the old Triarchs to choose new drapery.
She smirked as she wrote that line.
Melessa laughed. "Leave that," she said. "Let him remember how ridiculous this city was before he broke it."
I ask this, then: that you come to Volantis not as conqueror or judge, but as guest. Dine with me, with my advisors, and speak of cities, of chains, and of what comes after both. If alliance between Valyr'Nox and Volantis is possible, I would rather we shape it by choice now than by necessity later.
She stopped, tapping the quill.
Kinvara's gaze was intent. "That is good," she said quietly. "You do not beg. You invite. You acknowledge debt and yet claim your place."
"Closing?" Melessa asked. "'With trembling heart and adoring soul'?"
Nyessa threw a blotting cloth at her. "I will have you thrown in the river."
Melessa caught it, amused.
Nyessa considered for a moment, then wrote:
Whatever your answer, know this: Volantis remembers the hand that spared it, not only the sword that broke it. You will not be unwelcome here, so long as I sit the throne you gave me to hold.
She signed:
Nyessa of VolantisQueen by your judgment, ruler by my choosing.
She set the quill down.
Silence hovered as the ink dried.
Then Melessa let out a slow breath. "Well," she said. "If he doesn't come for curiosity alone after reading that, he's colder than I thought."
Kinvara's mouth curved faintly. "He will come," she said. "He is too interested in the way things break and mend to ignore an invitation like this."
Nyessa folded the letter, poured wax, pressed the seal.
Her hands were steady.
"Now," she said, "I just have to find someone I trust to walk into a very crowded house and pretend he's delivering an ordinary letter."
"I can think of one or two," Melessa said. "But if you send Kassyr, he'll start a fight by accident."
"Then I won't send Kassyr," Nyessa said.
She rose, feeling the weight of the sealed parchment in her hand.
The decision had been made hours ago on the balcony. Writing it down had simply made it visible. Real.
"What?" Melessa asked, watching her face.
"I was just thinking," Nyessa said slowly, "that I would like to feel in my own skin the way he does in his. Certain. Unapologetic."
Melessa stood, crossing the room toward her. The pale silk of her gown brushed Nyessa's black.
"You're doing well for someone who threw her city into the fire and decided to see what came out the other side," she said. "Better than most."
Nyessa huffed a laugh. "High praise."
"You'll get used to it." Melessa's fingers brushed her wrist, light as testing the edge of a blade. "From me, at least. The rest of the city will take longer."
"And from him?" Nyessa asked before she could stop herself.
Melessa's eyes darkened. "We'll see."
Kinvara rose too, adjusting her sleeves.
"I will go to the temple," she said. "There are… ripples when he moves. Best to watch the flame when we toss this stone into the water."
"And I," Melessa said, "will summon one of my old runners. The kind who used to carry letters no one wanted found. You'll have your messenger by moonrise."
Nyessa nodded, throat tight.
"Thank you," she said. "Both of you."
Kinvara gave a little bow. "For the fire," she said.
Melessa's bow was shallower, more mocking, more fond. "For Volantis. And for you."
They left.
The room felt larger without them. And quieter. And somehow more dangerous.
Nyessa set the letter down on the edge of the desk and walked back to the balcony doors.
Volantis sprawled beneath the night—lamplight, voices, the distant clatter of carts. Somewhere beyond the harbor lay a warship. Somewhere further still, a city of ash and silver and impossible designs.
Somewhere between them, soon, would move a single letter.
Her letter.
She closed her eyes and let the wind off the Rhoyne cool the heat in her skin.
Behind her, soft footsteps approached.
She didn't have to turn to know who it was.
"I thought you went to find a runner," she said.
"I sent a servant to fetch him," Melessa answered. "You and I had… unfinished business."
Nyessa opened her eyes and looked back.
Melessa stood a few paces away, half-lit by candlelight, half by moon. The casual gown, the loose hair, the bare feet—it all made her look younger, sharper, more dangerous than any court finery ever had.
"What business?" Nyessa asked, though she already knew.
Melessa's gaze dropped to the sealed letter, then rose again.
"You are about to invite a man into this city who could undo you," she said. "Not just as queen, but as… you. As the woman I used to drag into bed when she was furious with the council."
Nyessa's heart skipped.
"I remember those nights," she said quietly.
"So do I." Melessa's voice roughened. "I remember being the one you came to when the world was unfair and you wanted to be reckless with something that wouldn't break."
She stepped closer, each movement unhurried, inevitable.
"And now," she went on, "I am trying very hard to be sensible about the fact that there is someone else in the world who might understand you in ways I never will. Someone you envy. Someone you look at like he is both solution and problem."
Jealousy. Hurt. Humor. All wrapped tightly around words she almost never said aloud.
Nyessa swallowed.
"Melessa—"
"No." Melessa shook her head. "Let me say this while I still can."
Another step. They were almost chest to chest now.
"I am not angry that you are drawn to him," Melessa said. "I'd question your mind if you weren't. I am angry that you pretend it doesn't change anything between us."
Nyessa's fingers curled into her own skirt.
"Everything changes when crowns appear," she said. "You knew that when you shoved this one onto my head."
Melessa's lips quirked. "I didn't realize I was also pushing you toward the only creature in the world arrogant enough to share the weight with you."
Her hand lifted, hovered near Nyessa's jaw, then curled back into a fist.
"Tell me the truth," she whispered. "If he walked through that door right now—if he stood where I'm standing—would you look at him the way you're looking at me?"
Nyessa's breath stuttered.
"Yes," she said. Then, before Melessa could flinch, she added, "But not only him."
Melessa's jaw clenched. "Convincing," she said. "But excuse me if I am not thrilled at sharing your attention with a walking catastrophe."
Nyessa's temper sparked.
"You are not a ledger to be balanced against him," she snapped. "You are… you."
"Very eloquent," Melessa said. "For someone supposedly better with words than I am."
Nyessa grabbed her wrist before she could turn away.
"Look at me," she said.
Melessa did. Always, in the end, she did.
"I will not pretend I feel nothing when I think of him," Nyessa said. "He frightens me. He fascinates me. He steadies something in me I don't know how to bear alone."
Melessa's lashes lowered a fraction. "And me?"
"You," Nyessa breathed, "are not steadiness. You are heat and teeth and every unwise decision I ever made that somehow still saved me."
The words landed between them like sparks in dry straw.
Melessa's breathing went uneven.
"Flattery," she managed.
"Truth," Nyessa countered.
The city hummed outside. The letter lay waiting. The future tilted.
Melessa's hand slid to Nyessa's hip, fingers curling in the black silk.
"Then ruin me," she whispered. "Before he does."
Nyessa didn't remember moving.
One heartbeat they were staring at each other; the next, her mouth was on Melessa's, hard and fierce and aching. Melessa kissed back with the same ferocity—years of swallowed arguments and want pouring out in heat and pressure.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful. It was familiar and dangerous and exactly what it had always been between them: an argument they used their mouths to lose.
Nyessa's fingers tangled in Melessa's hair. Melessa made a low sound, half laugh, half gasp, and pressed closer until there was no space left between them.
For a suspended moment, there was nothing else.
No bells. No freedmen. No looming storm on the horizon.
Just this.
Nyessa broke away first, breathing hard.
"Careful," Melessa said, voice rough. "You keep going like that and I'll forget which of us is supposed to be advising restraint."
"Restraint," Nyessa said, forehead resting against hers, "is tomorrow's problem."
A knock sounded, faint, at the outer door.
They both froze.
"Later," Nyessa called, without looking away. "Whatever it is, it can wait."
There was a startled pause, then hurried retreating footsteps.
Melessa smiled, wicked and fond.
"Drunk on power already, Your Grace?" she murmured.
"Drunk on you," Nyessa said, surprising herself with the honesty.
Melessa's expression softened in a way she rarely allowed.
"Then," she said, fingers lacing with Nyessa's, "for tonight, at least, let the Reaper have the city."
She tugged her gently toward the bedchamber.
"You can have me."
Nyessa laughed, shaky.
"I think he'd approve," she said.
"Oh, I'm sure he would," Melessa replied. "But he doesn't get a say in this."
The candles flickered as they crossed the threshold, shadows bending. The door swung shut behind them with a solid thud.
Outside, Volantis turned under new stars and old fears, under whispered prayers to gods old and new, under the distant knowledge that somewhere out there, a man who was more than a man might already be on his way.
Inside, Nyessa allowed herself—for one night—to forget the exact shape of his shadow.
There were only Melessa's hands, Melessa's mouth, Melessa's laughter catching and breaking as years of tension finally snapped and reshaped into something new.
What came after—the dinner, the negotiations, the meeting of storm and flame—would belong to another day.
Tonight belonged to them.
────────── ❖ ──────────
Later, when the candles had burned low and the bedclothes were a tangled testament to poor decisions that somehow felt like salvation, Nyessa slipped free of Melessa's sleeping weight and padded barefoot back to the desk.
The letter waited where she had left it.
She picked it up, pressed her seal once more just to feel the shape of it, and went to the door.
The corridor beyond was quiet. A single guard straightened at her appearance.
"Fetch Ral," Nyessa said. "The runner from the old Elephant networks. Tell him his queen has a message that must reach the House of Silver Veils—and then go further, where it is meant to go."
The guard bowed and hurried off.
Nyessa leaned her head briefly against the cool stone of the doorframe.
"When you read this," she murmured to the unseen future, to the man somewhere beyond the harbor, "try not to break anything on your way here."
She smiled, small and fierce.
"Volantis is mine now," she said. "I'm only borrowing you for dinner."
Then she straightened, squared her shoulders, and went back inside.
Tomorrow, the storm would be invited.
Tonight, the queen of Elephants and embers slept in a courtesan's bed with ink on her fingers and a city in her chest.
And far out beyond the Black Wall, under strange stars, somewhere a letter's path had already begun.