Chapter 10

“Where are you?”

My bruised, battered, and somewhat singed body was only part of the reason why I wanted to snap at Goat who Wrestled. My sifu was casually walking around me, smoking one of his many, many, many pipes, and he had asked me yet another question that I was almost certain was some kind of a trap or trick. I was the Unconquered. I thought that being the Unconquered, the master of the powers of the sun and the chosen hero of the age, would make learning martial arts a teeny bit easier.

But nope. The past few days had been a string of cascading, horrible failures. I had unlocked my void chakra, I had begun to see the secret arts that Goat who Wrestled tried to show me. But I hadn’t managed to actually do any of them. So, Goat had pushed the training up a new notch and now was looking at me like a praying mantis. We weren’t even in the same room as my Lunars. Yes, Ceaith might have thrown something at my head just to make me feel bad, but Xora and Chirp would have given me a thumbs up.

I frowned. “In ... a room?”

Goat sighed. “You’re in a white room of infinite, endless nothingness.”

“N-No I’m not!” I said, blinking.

“Prove it,” Goat said.

I opened my mouth – and realized that Goat was absolutely right. And yet, I knew that I was somewhere on the Starshrike as we soared away from the capitol of the Regency, shrouded by our cloud illusion and moving slowly enough that we wouldn’t draw too much attention by skudding across the sky at supersonic speeds. My brow furrowed and I cocked my head slowly. “Okay, that’s weird...” I whispered.

“You’re currently in a state of void,” Goat said, sounding halfway proud. “Your new perspective is limiting and freeing – but one cannot fight or talk or fuck in a void.” He grinned. “You can begin to move out of the infinite white room by perceiving. And that is in and of itself, an art in Vengeful Crystalline Hawk Style.” He tapped the back of my head as he walked behind me. “Begin to tell me what is in the room!”

I gulped, furrowed my brow – and started to take in the room. There was no transition from being in an infinite white space. There was simply one moment of being floating in a void, then the next, I was beginning to see and feel and hear. I heard the thrum of the Starshrike’s engines. I felt the soft red carpet under my knees. I saw the large cushy comfy bed that I made love to Chirp in a few hours ago. I could see the rustling carpets that concealed the windows. I saw the door that led into the dressing room – all done in gilt and filigree and bronze. I grinned slowly, then tired to see a naked Xora, tied up like an Unconquered Day present, with her arms behind her back and a big bow on her neck and-

Whoa.

Xora was on the bed, her muscular, striped, blue hued body trussed up with bright red ribbons. A bow gleamed on her neck, completing the tie, and her eyes widened as she looked around herself. “H-How did I get here?” She asked, while golden flames roiled along my body.

“I did it!” I said, excitedly.

Goat chuckled. “Yes. You did.” His tongue slid along his lips as his eyes caressed my wife’s body. Now, I was a mature, reasonable, and entirely generous Unconquered. If Xora wished to lay with another man, I wasn’t about to beat my chest and get in her face, or his face. However, also, fuck that. I stood up, frowning at Goat. “What?” He asked. “I’m not blind. Or dead.”

“Out! Now!” I said, pointing.

“Meditate on the void while-” Goat started, but then I propelled him out of the room with my foot. Not very hard. Just ... emphatically. Once the door hissed shut, Xora – who had been gaping at me with wide, wide eyes – stammered.

“W-W-W-What just happened?”

“I’m learning martial arts!” I said.

“Your martial arts just teleported me out of a bath and into this room?” Xora asked.

“Yup!” I said, cheerfully.

Xora blushed, hard. “A-And you summoned me?” She asked.

“Of course,” I said, walking over and sitting beside her on the bed. Now. I loved Xora, no matter how she looked. She was lovely as a dainty waif. She was lovely as a muscular amazon. But what I loved most about her was that she had this ... delightful fragility to her, one that she allowed to shine when we were away from battle and prying eyes. It was a fragility she showed because she trusted me – and that realization hit me like the warm glow of a fireplace, filling me with the same golden light as my anima. My palm started to slide along the muscular curve of her spine, admiring the way that her iron hard musculature shifted beneath her striped, blue-gray skin. My palm paused by her dorsal fin as she fidgeted ever so slightly. The ribbons strained against her strength, and I saw her tensing up, trying to keep from simply snapping the ribbons into a thousand pieces.

“Why?” Xora asked, very softly.

My brow furrowed. “What do you mean why?”

“W-Well, I mean, we all know you prefer Chirp...” She said.

My eyes widened.

“What!?” I asked, sliding off the bed, butt first. My knees hit the carpeting, so that I was eye to eye with Xora, my palms spreading on the bed. Xora was looking mortified, her face mashing up against the blanket.

“Nothing!” she said.

“No, you definitely said I prefer Chirp,” I said, shaking my head slightly. “And that’s just not true. Yes, I met Chirp first, and I know them better, but that’s not preferring anyone.” I blushed. “I ... in fact!” I said, then reached down, sliding my finger between the blanket and Xora’s chin. I lifted her head, smiling. “Today is Xora day.”

“I thought it was training day,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes darting away from mine.

“I’m the Unconquered. I’m allowed to say when things are training day and when they’re Xora days,” I said, confidently. “Goat Who Wrestles might be my sifu. But you’re my wife.”

The door started to open. “So-” Goat started.

I picked one of my sandals off the ground and chucked it at the door mechanism. It struck the gemstone that controlled whether the door opened, closed, or locked, and the gemstone turned a bright red. The door slammed shut and Goat’s muffled voice came through it. “Oh, sure, ignore your sifu-”

“Quiet!” I shouted through the door. “Xora needs my attention. Go and bother June.”

Goat’s grumbling, fortunately, started to receded down the corridor, while I reached up to undo Xora’s ties – the ribbons fluttering away from her. She blushed and rolled onto her back, her arms crossing awkwardly over her massive breasts as she looked up at the ceiling, past me. She was blushing so hard, so dark, that her cheeks were nearly black. “S-So, uh...” She tried to smile without showing her teeth. “I was just ... I was just being silly, you know?”

I scrambled up onto the bed, then drew her head onto my lap. “I dunno, it sounded pretty serious to me.” My fingers caressed through her dark blue hair, drawing out the strands. “But lets ignore everything before Xora-day’s beginning. Xora-day is about Xora.” I nodded. “What would you like, more than anything in the world?”

Xora blushed. “I-I don’t know.”

I pursed my lips. “W-Well...” I paused, feeling as if I should know what my wife wanted. But, other than knowing she liked being girly and small and cuddled and protected, I didn’t ... actually ... know much about Xora. Or Chirp. I mean, I knew that Chirp was from the Gyongnar Islands. I knew that Ceaith had a sister, the still mute and shy Thalestar, and that Ceaith was from the far south. But that was about the limit on things. I smiled. “Well, why don’t you tell me about yourself, Xora?” I asked.

“Like ... where I’m from?” she asked. “You already know-”

“I know, I know, you’re from the Great Western Ocean,” I said. “And you can tell the difference between Pure Water and just regular water.” I smiled. “But that’s, like ... who were your parents? Where did you grow up?”

Xora looked away. She shrugged her shoulder. “It’s ... it’s boring.”

My finger found the narrow point of her ear. I began to gently caress her – sliding fingertip to eartip, and a shiver went through Xora’s body. Her eyes fluttered half shut and she drew a short, eager gasp.

“Then bore me,” I murmured.

And so, Xora began to tell me a story.

“I was born in the Great Western Ocean. I wasn’t, um, a shark at the time. I was born a normal human girl. Well, I mean, some humans are shark people, but I wasn’t. Since, I hadn’t been chosen to be the Amethyst Lunar at the time.” She paused. “I-I should start over.”

I shook my head, giving her a thumbs up. Xora blushed and smiled. A slow, purple glow began to slide over her body as she closed her eyes, turning her head so that I could pet her ear. My finger slipped along her eartip, down to the base, up to the tip again. She shivered as she spoke, and as she spoke, her anima seemed to glow brighter still. Wisps of purple smoke lifted off her muscular body, forming into images – like the illusions crafted by a skilled fire spinner twisting their torch around their bodies. I saw a slender girl, sprinting along a wooden pier, her arms spread out wide.

“My younger sister, Tara, was the little one. She was also the one who got into trouble. Our island had rules about who could and who couldn’t fish. Tara was a girl and the local spirits of wind and waves were all hideous. They would steal any girl who went out on a boat and take her below the seas – and we never saw them again. But Tara loved the waves, and I loved Tara.”

Another girl stepped from the fogs, standing beside Tara. She was Xora: Tall, broad shouldered, muscular. She didn’t have the dorsal ridge I was familiar with, nor the blunt tail. Instead, her skin was a light pink and her hair was short and ... still blue. Her hand caressed her sister’s hair and she smiled down at her. A familiar, gentle smile. The smile I loved. I nodded as Xora sighed.

“So ... I ... borrowed my father’s boat,” Xora said.

“Naughty!” I grinned. “Was there a daring escape? Or a cunning plan?”

“No, uh, I actually borrowed it,” Xora said, blushing. “I just didn’t tell him I planned to take it past the lagoon, where a more gentle spirit dwelt.” She sighed, then closed her eyes once more. “And so, Tara and I set out of the lagoon and the spirits, the Maidens of the Storm, emerged. The seas began to rock and swell, but Tara knew precisely what to do. She had pestered every man, every ugly woman, every retired saris. And so, we battened down the hatches, threw the storm anchor overboard, and chanted the warding spells. The storms raged more and more – and the boat surged up and down. But the Maidens couldn’t reach us, thanks to Tara. We were elated – we had faced down the spirits and the gods themselves, but they couldn’t touch us.”

“But then...” The ghostly images above Xora shifted, showing three more boats emerging from the roiling storm. The two embracing sisters gasped as they saw them drawing close. Men were on them, holding spears and crossbows. On the prow of one of the ships was a stern faced man in mendicant robes. He pointed his finger at Xora and Tara. “But then the priests came out. The Maidens had told them that they would storm against every ship in the island, unless they were satisfied. They could have stood up against them – we had shown them how. But they were afraid. They moved through the storm with ease, and surrounded us.”

The ships surrounded the smaller boat.

“I was ready to surrender – but then a Maiden appeared...”

A spectral woman appeared next to the mendicant with a flare of light and lightning. She was stunningly beautiful – long hair that floated around her head like a bed of seaweed. Her skin was sea blue-black, shading darker and darker the further away from the edge of her body the light got, and she wasn’t dressed in anything save for mists that failed utterly to conceal her breasts. My eyes widened.

“She’s ... beautiful,” I said.

Xora grinned. “That was what shocked me as well – b-but ... I think either they don’t know it ... or they’re not looking at the same beauty we are. Maybe they see inside hearts. Maybe their hearts are shriveled up and cruel. Maybe they only let people with small hearts sailing. Maybe that was why Tara infuriated them so much?” She shrugged. “Tara threw her shoe at her.”

Tara flung her sandal in the vision – it arced through the air and landed in the water between her ship and the ship with the Maiden on it.

“W-Well, she tried.” Xora giggled. Then, her voice grew softer. “The Maiden said-”

The Maiden in the vision spoke, then, her lips moving along with the words that Xora spoke, and Xora pitched her voice high and squeaky, full of indignation and stubborn fury. “How dare you parade your insolence around! There is no Unconquered out here to protect you weak mortals. Your sun does not shine through our storms – you are at our mercy! Mendicant! Kill them and we shall not curse you for ten thousand thousand years!”

The Mendicant pointed, then. “Shoot them! We’ll starve!”

The men, cowed by his shouting, by the Maiden’s words, lifted their crossbows.

“I realized ... if I flung myself flat, I’d be safe,” Xora said. “But that was never the option, was it?”

The crossbow bolts shot through the air, straight towards Tara and Xora. And then splinters filled the air. Glinting shards of metal – shattered into pieces against the broad, muscular arms of Xora as she stood before Tara, her head lifting up. Her forehead glowed purple as a gemstone seared itself onto her as she breathed in, then out. Then she sprang through the air. She transformed with a flare of light into her immense shark form. The megalodon – which was what she and Chirp called it – was nearly the size of the larger ships, and she struck one amidship. Men went flying through the air as the ship splintered in half, crashing apart in the illusion. Men swam, desperately, away from the immense shark – but Xora wasn’t interested in them. Instead, she shot straight for the ship with the Mendicant and the Maiden upon it.

The Mendicant threw down a bone charm that shattered into a crackling field of floating motes – which Xora bashed through with ease. She simply bucked her tail once and surged onto the deck, her teeth smashing together right befor the Maiden, narrowly avoiding taking off her arm and her leg and most of her torso in that serrated, searing clench. The Maiden screamed and leaped backwards, catching herself on the railing.

“You are going to tell your sisters,” Xora growled, her voice low and crackling. “You will keep away the storms for ten thousand years, and you will guide people who fall overboard to this island for ten thousand thousand years. Or else I will swim into your palace, and I won’t miss that time.”

“Yeah!” I pumped my fist.

The Maiden nodded, so hard, so fast that her hair began to ripple through the air like whips.

“Say it!” Xora snarled, her lips pressed against my thigh – her shark self in the illusion forming the words with a slight distortion of what a shark was technically capable of doing.

The Maiden – using Xora’s squeaky falsetto – stammered: “T-This I swear! Binding me and my sisters! J-J-Ju ... Just don’t eat me!” She flung up her arms – and Xora sat up, the illusion shivering away from her as she smiled at me, blushing shyly.

“That was freakin’ awesome!” I said, my eyes shining eagerly. Xora ducked her head forward, blushing harder as her hair fell forward to conceal some of her face. I leaned down, kissing her forehead, gently. Her skin felt soft and silky – as if the makeup that I had put on her had helped to smooth some of the roughness away from her. Very softly, Xora whispered one last sentence.

“T-Tara...” She paused. “Tara was terrified of me. She just kept screaming and screaming and screaming. I know, if I had just talked to her, if I had used my mana, I could have calmed her down. But instead, I shifted and I fled. I swam through the oceans so far and so fast that I wasn’t sure where I was. Then, I wandered from city to city. I worked passage on the larger boats, until I came to a river-runner that went up through the Deserts of Glass and Fire. And there, I came to Nex-Ho. And the whole time, I hated myself for running away, but if I never had, I’d have never been found by you and-”

I cupepd her cheek. “Xora. I’d have found you, if it had taken me until the ends of time.”

Xora’s breath caught and I leaned in and kissed her. Hard. My tongue slid past her open, shocked mouth, sliding along her sharp, sharp teeth. The edges of them filled me with an excited, eager sense of danger. It was like making out with a knife drawer – if the knife drawer was gentleness and strength, vitality and weakness, all wrapped into one immense, blue package. Xora pushed herself forward and I let myself lay backwards, drawing her atop me. Her arms wrapped around my back and her head tilted, while my hand caressed her dorsal ridge, teasing her slowly as her tongue plundered my mouth with a desperate, wanton eagerness.

She drew back, panting softly. “Ember...”

I smiled up at her. “Yeah, my favorite?”

“I thought-”

“Shh. It’s Xora day.” I grinned. “If there’s any day I break the rule on not having favorites, its going to be for Xora, on Xora day.”

She blushed. Hard.

I leaned forward, then kissed her lips. But this was a fleeting, transitory moment. My lips kissed from her mouth to her chin to her throat. I licked the lines of her gills, teasing them slowly with the very tip of my tongue as my hands cupped her immense breasts, squeezing them. Fondling them. Xora moaned, her eyes closing. “Ember...” She breathed. “U-Use your strength. Can you...” She shivered. “Overpower me?”

I nodded, slowly, then nipped at her neck. “Want to be the weakling?”

“Yes...” Xora husked.

“A weak little girl, with her Unconquered, holding her tight?” I asked, my other palm sliding along her back, reaching down to find and cup the roundness of her blue rump. I smacked it, gently. Xora hissed through her teeth.

“Yesss!”

I gripped her wrist. I felt the iron hard strength of her – but I was the Unconquered. The strength surging through me could shatter mountains. I let a fraction of that energy burn into my body, searing along my veins as I flipped her onto her back, the bed squeaking under the weight of her. Xora gasped, her eyes widening as I grabbed her other arm, pinning it above her head. Her muscles tensed as she tried to fight against me – an instinctive reaction – but she was no more able to budge me than a mouse would have been able to throw off a cat. Her thighs spread with a spasmodic little twitch, opening wider as she panted softly. “G-Gods that’s hot,” she whispered.

I grinned. “You’re my Amethyst. I’ll always keep you safe, Xora.” I leaned down, nuzzling and licking from her jaw to her ear. I purred there. “You can lay back and let me do everything.” I began to nibble her eartip and Xora let out a high, eager mewling sound – her back arching, pressing the flat, sleek plane of her belly against mine. I could feel her every single abdominal muscle. Her breasts pressed to my chest, her nipples hard, attentive little nubs. I’d deal with them in time. At the moment, I was catching her ear-tip between my teeth and gently tugging on it, making her gasp out in even more intense eagerness.

Her arm tensed and I pushed it back over her head, using both of my hands to pin both of her arms up. Xora panted, her eyes half closed. “Ember...” She slid her tongue along her lips. I leaned down and captured her mouth in mine – kissing her with every bit of dominance I could. I didn’t give her time to open her mouth, or to meet my tongue with hers. Instead, I took her mouth with a possessive little growl, and Xora surrendered to my kiss with a slow relaxation of her body, sagging back against the bed. I broke the kiss, leaving her gasping and panting.

“You’re mine,” I whispered.

“Mmhmm!” She arched her spine, her tail twitching between her legs as she tried to make her breasts more prominent. And, to be fair, if anything was calling out for my attention, it was the deliciousness of Xora’s chest. I had to arch my own back, stretching out my arms to keep her arms pinned above her head while also bringing my mouth down to fasten around one of her nipples. I sucked on her, then drew my mouth back, keeping my lips tight against her. Her breast rose with my head and I released the hold on her, marveling at the natural jiggle as her breast fell back to her chest. Xora actually squirted at the feeling, her thighs spreading, her pussy twitching as a thin jet of her girlcum splashed onto the silks.

“You’re making a mess, Xora,” I crooned. “A messy little shark – I bet you like fucking in the ocean so no one can see what a messy girl you are, huh?”

“Y-Yes...” She nodded, her eyes closed. “I’ve never ... but I want to ... I want you to fuck me in the depths of the sea, Ember.”

I grinned. “Consider that on the list...” I sucked her other breast, my hands tightening around her wrists. I used my teeth against her, gently at first, then with more insistence, listening to her moans ratching up louder and louder. Her anima flared, bringing her the resistance to a mortal’s bite while keeping the pleasure of it – riding a line between pain and delight. I released her breast and her wrists in the same moment. But before Xora had time to realize that I wasn’t overpowering her, I had grabbed onto her knee, lifting her leg up, crooking it over my shoulder, pinning her down by putting my weight against her. I grinned as my other hand slid along her thigh.

“An eager little shark pussy, desperate for her Unconquered’s cock,” I crooned. “Say it.”

“I ... I want your dick...” Xora bit her lower lip, her voice so soft that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was attuned to every noise, every quiver, and every twitch that came from her body, I might not have heard it over the distant whirr of the Starshrike’s engine. My other hand reached down to tug my loincloth back and away – freeing the immense red length of my cock. I let it slap down against her sex – teasing her as I grinned down at her.

“Sorry, didn’t quite hear that over the sound of your cunny dripping,” I said, licking my lips. “Or your tail thrashing.”

Xora turned her head to the side, almost mashing herself against her pillow. Her hands, no longer trapped above her head, stretched outwards just enough to hook her blunt claws on the headboard. Metal scraped and screeched and she gasped out: “Fuck me!”

I snorted, lifting my cock with one hand, then smacking the very tip of it against the eager blue bead that was her clit. Xora’s eyes widened and her back arched, hard. Her thighs twitched and her toes curled near my head as her other leg kicked into the wall hard enough to make a clunk I was sure that anyone one room over could hear. “What was that?” I asked.

“Fuck me! Fuck your little Amythest slut!” She moaned. “Fill my shark womb with your hot, hot cum!” She nodded. “Gods, breed me!”

I grinned and felt a pulse of purest lust throb through my dick, starting right around my balls and sweeping upwards. “How could I say no to that?” I purred, reaching down to hold my cock by the base. I rocked my hips backwards, slipping and sliding the tip of my cock against her pussy. She was so slick, so wet, so damned eager that my dick felt as if it was gliding along a friction-less surface. But before I could slide into her, Xora’s instincts completely took over. The leg that she hadn’t crooked over my shoulder wrapped around my back, using the strength of her thighs, her calves, to draw me into her with a harsh slurp. My balls rebounded off her ass and I could see the whites of her eyes as Xora’s teeth clenched, her back arched, her whole body quivering as she took me.

“F ... Fuck!” I hissed.

“How can you still feel so fucking huge?” She whispered, looking up into my eyes once she had recovered somewhat. Her hands released the headboard, wrapping around my neck, drawing me in – and I didn’t need the encouragement. I began to slam into her, my hips driving against her with enough force that the bed creaked and groaned, like a ship under a storm. My balls rebounded off her ass with a wet smack smack smack noise, while Xora’s fingers crooked and her claws dug into my red skin, drawing furrows that seared with pain – which only ratcheted my own pleasure higher. Xora moaned, wantonly, wordlessly. There was no way she could express what she was feeling – save for the raw, animal music of her lust.

Her back arched and she came yet again. Her girlcum slipped along the base of my dick, dripped from my balls, and soaked through the sheets. The bed made a low whining noise as I slammed into her faster and faster, the smacking noise of our bodies impacting one another blurring into a single, constant, rhythmic pulse-beat. Xora’s breath caught with every impaling thrust, her eyes going more and more out of focus. But she had found a word, a word that expressed what she was feeling.

“Ember, Ember, Ember! Yes! Ember!”

She shuddered.

Her legs drew taut.

And the pleasure that had been boiling in my balls reached its own peak. Cum shot into her and my eyes closed tight as I threw my head back. My teeth ground against one another and my gums ached as I felt as if every muscle in my body had been jammed with electrical current. My balls clenched up against my thighs, pulsing in time with the hammering of our hearts – I could feel the feathery twitch, twitch, twitch of Xora’s cunt against the base of my dick, the little clench clench of her own aftershocks. Our hearts were one. Our bodies were one. Our souls were one.

My cum frothed around my shaft, seeping past and around the blue-gray cunny that gripped me, joining her clear juices as they dripped from my balls. Xora gasped, softly, her eyes half lidded, her entire body laying slack beneath me.

“Did ... did you just...” She panted. “Knock me up?”

Her soulgem glowed and then projected the word for ‘no.’

“Oh...” Xora blinked, her eyes going almost crossed as she tried to read the floating image.

“You know what that means?” I asked, grinning shakily, my body gleaming with sweat.

“No,” Xora whispered.

“It means that ... we’ll have to try again,” I said. Then, hurriedly, I whispered. “A-And by that I mean, uh ... Xora, is it okay if we ... don’t have kids yet? I’m, like, nineteen years old and have to battle the entire Regency and establish a kingdom of justice and light. I wanna have kids after that.”

Xora blushed. Hard. She nodded hurriedly. “W-When you put it like that-”

I laughed. She laughed.

And once more, we kissed.

June was lounging in the briefing room, reading one of her many books, when I came in after my shower. I was dressed in my shorts and nothing else, my hands slipping through my hair to make sure that the slick strands laid flat. “June!” I said, cheerfully.

“Please tell me you don’t need a morning after potion for Xora,” June said, not looking up from her book.

“Morning af- oh, no! No her, soulgem said she wasn’t knocked up,” I said, nodding and giving her a quick thumbs up. “And we’ve agreed, we’ll-”

‘I don’t need to know how you’re going to avoid impregnating ... anyone,” June said, closing the book with her pointer fingers, letting the spine of it rest against her knees. She looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “Ever.”

“Right!” I said, giving her a thumbs up.

“Also, aren’t you supposed to be trained raw by Goat?” June asked. “Not fucking your Amethyst?”

“It was Xora day!” I said.

“What on-”

“A day for focusing on Xora!” I said, nodding. “I declared it. I can do that. I’m the Unconquered.”

June groaned, her tail twitching behind her. She laid her head back, so that it dangled almost completely over the edge of the back of her chair.

“Well, Xora’s sleeping now,” I said. “So Xora day is on hold – and I realized, I need a plan.”

“Oh gods, you just realized that now?” June asked, her head snapping up.

“Of course not!” I said, grinning as I swung my leg over the back of a chair before plopping down in the seat. I clasped my hands before me on the table. “I need to know a bit more before I make any plans. So, I came to the smartest girl on the ship who isn’t currently fucking my Saris!”

June smirked. “Ceaith having fun, huh?” She sighed. “All right. What do you need to know about, sunboy?”

“The Regency,” I said, nodding. “What is it? How did it happen, exactly? How does it work? How many soldiers does it have? Why is the Regent such an asshole?”

June sucked on her lower lip. “All right ... well.” She drew herself upright and swung herself around, so that she was facing me directly. “The story begins one Cycle ago, during the time of the Tenth Unconquered, the Good King Bahul.” As she spoke, the projection table shimmered to life and projected the figure of the Good King Bahul. He was as I had heard in all the stories: Tall, broad shouldered, olive brown in coloration, with midnight black hair and a really fine mustache. He was clad in a steel chest-plate that was scultped to show off his muscles, and he held a spear in one hand, a sword in the other. His grin was almost infectious.