Chapter 14

One would think that being the Unconquered, chosen of the Sun himself, and destined to shake the pillars of heaven and topple the thrones of unjust kings would mean that I wouldn’t have so much paperwork to do. But liberating three cities and a good chunk of the Burning Sea from the jade-heeled boot of the Regency had dumped a great deal of it right into my heavily bandaged, severely burned lap. The only thing that cheered me up about the paperwork was that, at the very least, it took my mind off how long I would be in bed.

“Remind me, Chirp,” I said as they sat on the side of my bed, their back leaning against one of my heavily bandaged and splinted limbs. I could just barely see my Ruby through the heavy gauze that wrapped around my eyes, and my lips ached as they formed the words. “If I ever want to critique your lunar goddess again, let me do it from underneath a lot of rocks. And metal. And ... castles.”

Chirp wilted slightly, their pointed ears drooping.

“Nah, do it on a mesa directly under her gaze again, that was fucking hilarious.”

I couldn’t see who was speaking, but I knew it was Ceaith. She must have slipped into my hospital room to lounge herself on the side of the bed. She was also using my bandages for a place to sharpen her claws, kneading me. The bandages were just thick enough that her claws didn’t touch my burned skin – but the faint tugging made me sway in my suspension.

“Stop that,” I said.

“Hmm, nah,” Ceaith said, channeling her aspect animal as she kneaded me more.

“Chirp, help,” I whispered.

“Ceaith...” Chirp said.

“Nah,” Ceaith said. “So, what’s you got there? More stupid tax rolls?”

“T-They’re not stupid!” Chirp said, their cheeks darkening. They looked down at the rolls. “The desert tribes, the Ben’Shoud, the F’Reman and the Tuathar are all sending, in total, ten thousand goats to provide supply for the cities. Tallying up the city populations, those goats will provide five tenths of the milk and meat required to keep everyone in keeping – but the Tuathar have also sent a god-goat among the herds. It’s ... bigger than a house?” They narrowed their eyes leaning in close. “That cannot be right.”

I closed my eyes, trying to keep the numbers in my head. “We have enough foods ... a-are you sure the desert tribes aren’t being taxed too hard?”

“This is the stuff they’re providing voluntarily,” Chirp said, smiling down at me. They reached up and patted my forehead. “They’re just happy to be under the Unconquered and not a usurper who has been destroying their religion for the past century.”

“Yay...” I tried to wiggle my fingers in appreciation. Ceaith kept clawing at me.

Once the tax rolls were read, we went on to the bureaucratic decisions that needed to be made. While a new Legion’s worth of infantry were being trained by Ejana and Goat – who had allowed for a pause in my training in martial arts due to me being ‘wrapped head to toe in bandages and burned nearly to the bone by the holy might of the lunar goddess Ruby’ - the cities were working to build munitions and tools for the Legion to use. While they couldn’t make vortex arrow launchers, they could fletch and forge the implosion-caps that made vortex arrows so lethal. Crossbows and spears were entirely doable. The desert tribes, too, had a long skill with raptor-riding and equestrian arts, and honing those skills with Ejana to turn them from something greater than auxiliaries – though not quite the same as the terrifyingly well trained Legionary cavalry.

But all this weapon building and ammo crafting and training had created dozens of opportunities for people to cheat, lie, steal and abuse one another. Ceaith was my spy on the ground and Chirp was my spy in the air, and between the two of them, they had found every single person who wasn’t following my order to free their slaves, everyone who treated their freed laborers as no better than slaves, and everyone who was trying to siphon funds and resources away from the public works and into their own pockets.

Once we had that information, me and my Lunars all met – with them gathered around my bed, while I listened to their ideas. Xora only suggested that I do what was right. Ceaith and Jaquline got into a hissing, snarling shouting match over whether we should co-opt the worst of the criminal rings to our own ends, transforming the criminal elements into our own spies and agents subtly. Ceaith was in favor of it. Jaquline thought it was just wasting time when we should be hanging people. Chirp, meanwhile, had stuck out their chin and put in their oar about the fact that the ending of certain religious practices by dictate hadn’t been followed – specifically the requirement of queer citizens to hide their loves and their desires from the surrounding city. In the end, the only thing that kept all three from going from an argument to a brawl was the calming presence of Tayar, who was very quiet until she didn’t need to be anymore.

Well.

One advantage of being in bed all day is I had time to think – and I gave orders that seemed to feel right to me. I listened to my Lunars and I listened to the reports that I was brought. Sometimes, I sent words for mortal savants and specialists and, once, I asked to speak to the poorest man and woman in the city. Once I had heard everyone’s side of things, I decided.

The gangs of looters, I broke up – but gently. I sent in Xora, knowing that she could fight off a hundred gangsters with knives and crude martial arts, without killing a single one. Then I put Chirp on the job of drafting a way of getting the criminals back into the city without punishing them overmuch – what mattered was they stopped doing crimes, not that someone broke their thumbs or something. While Xora did that, I had Tayar and Ceaith handle the guild-masters who were doing the more overt kinds of crimes. Like, the bricklayers guild had given ‘probationary’ apprenticeships to their old slaves, the ones who had dragged clay from the pit and worked the kilns and dragged the bricks about – but they still treated them terribly and taught them nothing.

So, while Tayar spun a comforting web of diplomatic nothings, Ceaith spied, listened, interjected, and manipulated the bricklayers guild into altering their ways.

“I also dangled the fat fuck off a balcony,” Ceaith said as she stretched and then flung herself atop my belly, curling up and purring loudly. “By the ankle”

“Ceaith!” I squeaked.

“What, you’re a girl right now, this isn’t straight,” Ceaith said. Then she paused and prodded at my chest. “You are a girl right now, right?”

“That’s ... a bandage!” I hissed. “And. Also. I. Am. Covered. In. Aggravated. Damage.”

“Ew,” Ceaith slid off me – though she didn’t do it very quickly. Ceaith was more comfortable being physically intimate with me when I was a girl, it was true. But ... there was a part of her that liked touching me, no matter what pronouns I had.

That part also happened to be her most cattish part.

Once she was laying beside me, I heard the door opening. The gloriously curvaceous form of my Pearl walked through the door, her black hair glinting in the light cast off by the glow-globe set in the celing. Tayar brushed fingers that almost looked like talons through her hair, sending strands drifting on the air before settling behind her in a cascading wave of midnight beauty – and as she paused, standing beside me, I heard Ceaith hissing.

“Diiiiibs.”

“Ceaith...” I muttered.

“Ejana is currently showering in the public baths in the first level of the palace after a long frustrating day of beating the shit out of recruits,” Tayar said, her voice a warm promise, drifting into my ears like downy fuzz. The sudden absence of Ceaith by my side was announced by a tingle along my sides, a faint flare of lapis blue light, and a soft crack of displaced air. The wind blew past Tayar’s hair and made some of the feathered tufts stand out for a moment. Her smirk was playful as she walked over and sat beside me, taking my bandaged hand.

“She’s going to murder you once she finds out you tricked her,” I said, feeling the comforting pressure of her fingers against my bandaged knuckles.

“I’m sure she’ll forgive me when she discovers that it is not Ejana, but rather, Jaquline soaping up Xora while Chirp plays on her sanxian...” Tayar chuckled, softly. “Besides. She has already called a ‘dibs’ upon me. Which did seem a mite impious for our Lapis, considering how I’m your wife and not hers but... “She shrugged her shoulders, which set off the most fascinating sway to her breasts. I tried to keep my eyes locked to her face, but I was not having a very good job of it. But, in my defense ... uh...

Tayar ... warm...

And ... tiddy soft...

“W-Well, uh, none of us have dibs. I mean. Are. Dibs. No, no, have dibs was right,” I stammered, shaking my head slightly. I blushed, closed my eyes, then tried to get the words out without sounding like a dumbass. “Uh, w-while being an Unconquered and a Lunar has tied us together, t-through magic, it doesn’t ... I don’t want to take advantage of-”

Tayar put her finger on my lips. “I know, my Unconquered. I’ve observed you and I have a fairly good sense for people ... most of the time.” She sighed, softly. “I admit, I rather expected you and Ceaith to have less energy after you pleasured one another. But I suppose that underestimating the Unconquered is a cycles old tradition.” She chuckled, softly, her finger caressing my knuckles. It was a gentle touch. And ... there was something strange happening. As Tayar sat beside me, her posture shifted. She was still beautiful ... but she was accentuating different things about herself. The way light and shadow played along her body dwelled on different things, in different light. I found it increasingly difficult to think of her sexually.

It was ... curious. But it wasn’t bad. I mean, Tayar was still beautiful. And I liked being with her. And I definitely liked the gentle touch of her thumb – soft and warm and ever present – rolling along my knuckles, ruffling the bandages a bit. “I came to see how your healing was going – and to ask you some questions.” She smiled. “We are newly weds, after all. And while I could spy upon you, or interrogate Chirp or Xora for the juicy details, I would rather skip that and go straight to hearing your tearful confessions and braggardly boasts.” Her eyes sparkled.

I grinned at her. “It’s mostly the latter. I’ve been lucky. Not many tears in my life.”

Tayar chuckled. “A philosopher once said tears are the salt and spice of life – they give it the flavor, the meaning, and the direction. Agony and pain are the sinews, and struggle, the muscle and bone. Joy, he declared, was likened to fat.”

I made a face, feeling faint twinges along my healing burn scars. “Sounds charming.”

“He was very fun at parties,” Tayar said. “Enjoyed wearing paincloth and drinking unfiltered poison.”

I snorted. “So. Ask away.”

“How were you Chosen?” she asked. “I know the Unconquered are chosen by facing three trials – they are given the easy, but cowardly and unjust, route three times, each one more dangerous and dire. At the final, they are Chosen and given the powers of the Sun himself. I’m curious what the fates arranged for you.”

I nodded. “All right...” I said – then told her of how June had absconded with the golden blade of the most valuable spear in Rataka Village. I told her of how I had first stood up for June, then traveled into the Wildfree Woods to rescue her, then stepped between June and the Infused Knight Jerin Kah and, at that moment, been Chosen. Once I was done, I smiled at her. “And you?”

“Oh, my story is rather dull,” Tayar said.

“How?” I asked, my voice shocked.

Tayar chuckled. “I mean, there was a burning nunnery and half a dozen orphans in peril, but-”

Before she could continue, the door to the room banged open. One of our Legionaries – one who was clearly on guard duty (which always struck me as a bit silly, considering how any assassin that might threaten me in my weakened state would easily be able to kill the guard without blinking) – stuck his head into the room.

“Sir,” he said. “There’s an urgent report here.”

The guard actually sounded a bit disappointing. His eyes were looking at Tayar. She grinned and leaned down to whisper to me, sotto vocce: “He was expecting we would be making love.”

“Uh, send the report in!” I said, blushing furiously behind my bandages. At least. I thought I might be blushing. I hadn’t actually seen what my skin looked like underneath. The guard nodded – but before he turned back, Tayar reached up, casually hooked her fingers on the front of her kimono and tugged it open, letting it slip open. Her back was to me, so all I saw was the shadow of the small of her back and her elegant shoulders, half concealed by her own waterfall of hair. The guard gaped at her, standing half in and out of the door – his eyes actually unfocusing slightly. Tayar tugged her kimono back closed and the guard shook himself from head to toe, like a wet dog, then hurried out.

“The poor virgin needed at least a little treat,” Tayar murmured. “I should set him up with that redheaded boy from the artillery division...”

“Hey, why does he get to see your boobs?” I asked.

“Well, you didn’t ask, my Unconquered,” Tayar said, her voice playful. “You said you didn’t want to presume.”

“W-Well, I...” I spluttered. The door opened again and I closed my mouth as the messenger stepped in. She was clad in the lighter armor of one of the raptor riders and had an almost raptorish look to herself, with her bright green hair done up in frills that thrust out behind her head. She bowed to me.

“Ia, Unconquered,” she said. “I come bearing news from our scouts by Harpy Ridge. They say that they’ve spotted a cloud.”

“ ... a...” I blinked. “A very fast cloud?”

“A very fast solitary cloud,” the scout said, grinning at me.

“I’m sorry, I am completely lost,” Tayar whispered.

“It’s the Starshrike!” I said, excitement bubbling in me. I nodded. “Tell the patrolling skyships to send them a signal that they can land without being troubled.” The messenger bowed and hurried off. As she did so, Tayar looked down at me.

“The Starshrike?” she asked.

“It’s my skyship,” I said, smiling. “It was built by the Unconquered, the Third Unconquered, before she...” I paused. “How did the Third Unconquered die. Do ... do you remember?” I asked. Tayar bit her lower lip, thinking as she did so. Her finger continued to caress my knuckle as she thought. “I have read of it. I believe that she was killed during an experiment with one of her devices – it was something that was very secret. A great many of the Unconquered slay themselves using their own greatest talent. So, don’t you go trying to do something beyond even your prodigious might.”

“You know my specialty?” I asked.

“It’s hard to miss hearing the stories of you and the golden statue – the word spread here almost before you arrived,” Tayar said, reaching down to caress my head. “Now, lets see about getting you ready for meeting your Starshrike.”

“T-Tayar,” I said, biting my lip. “I...” I gulped. “I noticed how, when you sat beside me, you tried to present yourself as less...” I shrugged. “Sexual?”

Tayar chuckled. She looked down at her hands. “Ceaith has her obvious spikey trouble. Xora has hers. Ceaith has theirs. The only one of us who is entirely at ease with her relationship with you is Jaquline – but I don’t think Jaquline could be ill at ease with any kind of sex, even if she was about to be mounted by the Shadow Dragon of the Devil Court and his three mile long barbed dick.” She shook her head.

“I excuse me, his what?” I spluttered.

“But no,” Tayar said, letting me splutter and stammer and squirm. “It’s not quite a problem for me. I will gladly ride your cock to the best of my ability. Which, I hasten to add, is quite spectacular. I did work my way from standing on a corner to owning my own brothel full of summoned demons, after all.” Her grin flashed in the shadows of the room. “But I won’t derive anything from it, other than the happiness I know that I gave you. It ... it’ll honestly be a little boring...” She looked a bit nervous at that, biting her lower lip. “Sorry.”

I blinked at her. “Is ... is something wrong with-”

She laughed, softly. “No, you silly boy. No more than there’s anything wrong with Ceaith for straddling and rejecting the binary of their homeland, nor with you for thinking mostly with your dick.” Her voice was playful, even as she cupped the bulge of my groin through the bandages. “Gods above, you’ve been struck by the furious ire of one of the lunar goddesses, with an energy that melted a half mile deep hole into the Black Mesa Flats, and you can still get a hardon! As one professional to another, I am impressed!”

I gulped. It took a bit for me to play through all that Tayar had dropped onto my lap. I mean ... I ... I didn’t want to bore my wife. It made me feel a bit like an uncouth, jerkish lout to go ‘perform for me, fucktoy’ and snap my fingers imperiously. But gods, she was beautiful. And I had that damned inherent, semi-magical compulsion, forcing me to want to be with her, to caress her, to listen to her, to hold her close and never let her go. I wasn’t sure exactly where the compulsion ended and the natural attraction between a boy nearly on the cusp of his twentieth year and gloriously curvaceous girl with an hourglass figure dressed in an insufficiently concealing kimono began. But probing that boundary area had driven Ceaith to utter distraction – I wasn’t about to let it do the same to me.

“I mean, I don’t want to bore you,” I said.

“Bore might be the wrong word,” she said. “There’s a lot of focus. And a lot of prana bindu muscle meditations.” She took my hand in hers, gently placing my bandaged fingers at the space just below her belly button. I felt very tiny twitches and quivers and she made quiet grunting noises as I saw minute movements of her body – her thighs, her back, her ... uh...

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Well worth the trip to the Arena of Love and Despair for that trick, huh?” she asked.

“How long have you been a Pearl?” I asked.

“I was Chosen ten years ago,” she said, casually.

“Ten years?” My eyes bugged. “B-but ... I thought...”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know why either – the ways of being Chosen are mysterious, despite all that has been written about it. But I have kept myself quiet – remaining out of observation. It did not take a genius to realize that the Regency would have sent legions after me. And as a Pearl and a streetwalker, I did not exactly have the martial art to stand up to an Infused Knight.” She grinned. “Though, I’m not completely useless in battle.”

I nodded, slowly.

“So, yes, you will not bore me,” she said. “And I will be happy to see you happy, my Unconquered.”

I blushed. “S-So...”

“Yes, I will do any kind of roleplay you want,” Tayar said, her voice still playful. “Would you prefer a bit of forbidden trysts? I have a shrine maiden outfit somewhere in my brothel. Or, maybe, I could call you-” She leaned close and breathed hot, forbidden temptation in my ear. Before that temptation could become a word, I squirmed, wriggled, and tried to say ‘no, no, that’s fine!’ no matter what my cock tried to say.

Tayar laughed. “For the Chosen and solar anointed god-emperor of all creation, you are remarkably bashful. I think that is why I love you already.” Her eyes sparkled and she stood, casually. She turned her back to me, then cast her kimono off with a casual flick of her arms. It puddled around her ankles and her long, long hair actually shrank into her head with a pale white glow. Soon, she had short cropped, hair that was mostly bristling feathers, giving her a wild, feral look, and allowing her entire beautiful backside to be exposed to the warm orange glow of the glowglobes. She stretched her arms, rolling her shoulders as she casually walked to the door – flicking the lock shut.

“Uh...” I whispered.

Tayar grinned, turning to face me. Her breasts had just enough sag to accentuate their size, and her nipples were puffy and hard. Her sex began to gleam as she walked forward and I saw slowly sliding droplets of fluid dripping along her thighs. She prowled forward, her voice soft. “Do I not look as if I yern for you, my Unconquered?” She crawled up onto the bed, making he sway in my restraints. “Do I not look as if my cunt is soaked with need?”

“Uh...” I whispered again.

My cock was straining against my bandages, creating an alarming bulge – and an even more alarming creak noise. Tayar leaned close, her voice soft. “I can do anything for you with a joy in my hear, Unconquered. Unburden yourself to me.”

“I want you,” I whispered, my voice a husky croak.

“Mm, flattering, but unspecific.” Her finger teased along my cock, sliding up and down the bulge. My cock throbbed with even that fleeting, twice removed contact. My tongue darted along my lips as I looked into her warm, golden eyes. Her pearl soulgem seemed to glow all the brighter in the shadows of her face.

“Uh...” My brain whirled. “Uh, evil assassin come to kill me by suffocating me with your pussy?”

Tayar laughed. “Delightful. But a bit selfish on my case.” She grinned. “But don’t worry. I have a slight alteration to your idea.” Her finger suddenly whipped up, pressing to my throat. “Oh, blasphemer, I have you at my mercy...” Her voice was cold and deadly and her face had a wicked, sensual sneer – she looked pure evil and gods above, it was setting my head spinning. She swung her thigh wide as she straddled me, her sex dripping upon my bandages. Her breasts grazed against my bandaged chest as she leaned forward, her cold voice growing hot against my ear. “Have you ever heard of Fanecunt toxin?”

“N-No...” I whispered.

“You apply it to the insides of your sex. It’s entirely harmless – until it is touched by the cum of beeyour target, which awakens the toxin. It rushes up your cock, into your heart, and kills you. I am told the final orgasm is quite something. Shame no one has ever come back to tell it since the last Necromancer was killed.” Her teeth flashed. “And you’re all alone here, blasphemer. And once I have slain you, I shall be paid fifty times my weight in solid jade.”

She reached down and tugged my bandages aside. My cock swung free and smacked against her bare rump with a meaty thump. There was no clear scar tissue or burns on my bright red dick – but there was a definite, throbbing need for Tayar, visible in every straining vein on my cock. Tayar grinned down at me, grinding against me slowly. “Poor men. They cannot ever help themselves around me. I’ve killed at least a dozen this way. Though, sometimes, I do just enjoy strangling them as they fuck me.” She purred. “That won’t work on the Unconquered, though.”

As she spoke, she rolled her hips up and down, up and down. Each motion glided her pussy lips against my cock, slipping me up with her juices. She panted, softly. “Mm, mmm, I’m already on a hair trigger. Ah. Ah!” She shuddered and I felt a frothing squirt of her girljuces, splashing against the tip of my cock, sliding down to drip along my balls. I gaped at her – and my eyes actually flared with gold as I fed mana into my senses, trying to see if she was...

Had she just cum?

And I saw that I couldn’t actually tell. Her acting was so good – or she had actually just climaxed from teasing me. Either way, the truth remained murky. Seeing my flare and my gape, she smirked. “The bindu muscles can simulate an orgasm. And squirting. I can seem to cum on cue – it’s actually quite useful,” she said, dropping her assassin character with such fluidity that it nearly gave me whiplash. However, as she spoke, she kept grinding against me. Teasing me. Driving me to utter fucking distraction. “You will not believe how often I’ve been hired by some wealthy noble because their sons or daughters are virgins into their twenties or their thirties.” She shook her head.

“You fake it for them?” I whispered.

“Oh, no, it’s for after,” she said, grinning wickedly. “Usually, the parent comes in to see if I’ve successfully kindled their child’s heterosexuality – by and large, that tended to be the problem.” She licked her lips. “So, I would lay in bed, moaning in pure bliss, and they would caress me and I’d trigger fake orgasms and quadruple by pay.”

“Wow.” I blinked. “S-So, uh ... Fanecunt toxin isn’t real, is it?”

She laughed. “Of course it is, you silly Unconquered.”

And with that, she was back into her assassin persona. Her hands went to my throat and she growled. “Ready to die, blasphemer?”

“My Lunars will-” I started, trying to get into character as well.

“I’ve already dealt with your Lunars. I dosed Ceaith with a toxin that sent her into a cat’s heat.” She purred. “She’s being nailed to the wall by half the male guards in the castle. They’re just fucking her lesbian pussy for all that it’s worth, dumping their cum into her cunny. Chirp and Xora, they were easy. I just hit them with sleeping darts and then chained them up in the kennel.” She grinned. “The raptor kennel. Those poor stallion-raptors do need their balls drain. Jaquline, I bribed.” She sat back down – her cunt enveloping my achingly cock. My cheeks burned with a mixture of shame, arousal, and shock as I threw my head back, groaning.

“F-Fuck, why is that hot?” I gasped.

“Oh, you’re an easy man to read,” she purred, then leaned forward and began to fuck me. Her hips slapped against my bandaged hips and her whole body jiggled with the movements as those muscle movements that she had learned were unleashed upon my cock. She clenched, then slurped up and down my body, her sex feeling almost like a second mouth rather than a pussy. She was able to fondle my cock with minute movements of her sex, and she put pressure I hadn’t thought possible against the glans of my cock with every slamming movement. She gasped out – and I felt my own orgasm rushing towards me so fast that I almost felt mortal.

I clenched my teeth – and fed mana into my stamina. I clenched my hands and curled my toes and tried to fuck her back. My body began to glow with a golden light as she laughed. “Trying to resist me, blasphemer?” She flung herself back, so that she was resting on her haunches, her thighs spread wide, the slight tuft of her black feathers which served as her pubic hair was visible, so that my cock being buried in her sex was shown to me. It was so lewd. So proud. My cheeks burned as she reached down to rub her clit, with a single dainty finger. Her grin was so wicked. “No man has ever resisted cumming inside of me ... and you won’t be the first. So go ahead. Burn your anima. See if I care.”

She grinned at me – and I clenched my hands – and didn’t just begin to trickle mana through me. I burned it. I blazed it with a wild abandon, like a man casting books into a coke furnace. My hips strained against the hanging restraints and my bandages began to unfurl as gold fire crackled along my body. My wrists strained – and then the leather straps holding me into place exploded. I sat upwards, my bandages cascading off my body. I expected scars. I expected burned tissue. I expected still healing wounds. Instead, my whole body was wreathed in flames and my skin looked as fresh as if it had never been injured. My hands gripped my shocked Pearl by the shoulders and I kicked off the bed. The two of us backflipped into the air – my hips driving against hers, my cock pushing even deeper.

She landed on her back under me on the bed, her legs locking around her as I gripped the headboard – and I began to fuck into her with a snarl. “Oh Tayar!” I roared, throwing my head back. Her sex clenched around my cock and hot juices spurted against my balls as she threw out her back, her mouth opening in shock, her eyes wide. Her spine arched and she shuddered, her own arms wrapping around my back. “Ahhh! Ah! Ah! Ember! Ah! Gods!”

The legs of the bed snapped.

The bed collapsed. The adjoining medical instruments cascaded to the floor – glass components shattering and victuals that had been fed to me bubbling along the floor. The glow globe sparked and went out as my animal exploded through the room and I came.

Hard.

My balls clenched and I felt my seed gushing into into her and her fingers dug into my back.

The two of us remained frozen like that – our bodies tight, tense. Our muscles straining. Then, slowly, we sagged down. It was like all the energy had been bled from our bodies, and I laid atop Tayar, my cheek pressed to her breast, nuzzling her gently. “How...” I whispered. “Was that?”

“I just came...” Tayar whispered.

I grinned, slightly. “It’s okay, Tayar, you-”

“No, I mean ... I actually just came,” she said, blinking slowly, her mouth opening, then closing in shock. “I ... I suppose ... it does make sense. The Unconquered is all about doing the impossible...” Her voice was coming more clearly than I’d have expected – but once she was done speaking, she began to breath in deep, gasping gulps. Only after she had finished doing that did she finish. “Like, wow.”