For two days, Mia and Ny'all moved like fleeing insects through the emerald-green slopes, stripped of the unfeeling Stillness that made such hiking effortless. They evaded several Anai patrols, relying on Mia's tracking skills honed from her time in the Red Dunes. Every snapped twig sounded like a cracking whip, and every rustle of the wind felt like a drawn bowstring.
They found a moment of respite near the edge of a settlement built directly at the foot of a cliff, bordering a freshwater stream fed by a waterfall. Mia leaned against the trunk of a massive tree, trying to catch her breath while Ny'all scouted the perimeter of the small clearing from the advanced position of the tree's branches.
Mia's hand shot to her dagger as the rustling of a nearby fern parted, revealing a figure.
It was a boy. He couldn't have been more than seven years old, wearing a simple tunic woven from the pale pink flowers of the valley. He froze, his wide, dark eyes locking onto Mia.
A maternal ache seized in her chest, amplified by the life growing in her own womb. Her grip on the dagger loosened. She lowered her hand, offering the boy a gentle smile, raising her empty palms to show she meant no harm.
He didn't smile back. He simply turned his head and let out a sharp, high-pitched whistle that mimicked a mountain hawk.
The valley erupted.
Ny'all dropped from the branches above, landing gracefully beside Mia, her blades already singing from their sheaths. Mia's maternal hesitation had just cost them their lives.
"Get up, we have to move!" Ny'all barked.
Mia scrambled backward as the Anai emerged from the brush beyond the clearing. The sight sent a shock of terror through her veins. The farmers, the men, the women, and even many of the youths seemed to descend on the Sister-Wives. The peaceful settlement they had observed from the tree line transformed instantly into a militarized camp.
Every single Anai in the settlement reached up and pulled a cloth veil over their faces.
The joyous noise of the village died. The vow of silence—taken by the Anai only when preparing to take life—fell over the valley like a heavy blanket. There were no civilians here. The entire society was a weapon, and Mia and Ny'all were surrounded by hundreds of them.
The Anai advanced, their weapons drawn, moving with the same fluid grace that had nearly broken Mia in the Kal-Kal'nor.
Ny'all's mind frantically searched for an escape. The tactical reality was impossible. Two mortal women against a village of warriors.
Instinct, honed by a lifetime of war, took over. Ny'all shifted her stance, her eyes fluttering closed for a fraction of a second as her mind reached for the Stillness.
The temperature in the clearing plummeted.
The natural, crisp chill of the early winter air was obliterated by an unnatural vacuum of cold. Frost violently bloomed across the pale pink flowers at Ny'all's feet. The heavy, pressurized quiet of the Void began to vibrate in the air.
"Ny'all, no!" Mia shouted, grabbing her Sister-Wife's shoulder and spinning her around.
Ny'all's eyes snapped open. The edges of her irises were already beginning to bleed with oily black ink.
Mia gave her a look of absolute pleading. The unspoken vow they had made—to use the dark only when every mortal option was exhausted, screamed in her eyes.
Ny'all choked on her frustration. Her hands trembled violently as she severed the connection, slamming the door on the dark. The frost stopped spreading. The black ink receded from her eyes, leaving her entirely mortal and at the mercy of the approaching Anai blades.
The veiled Anai, sensing the sudden spike of cold, tightened their circle. Their blades raised, ready to cut down the interlopers.
Mia stepped in front of Ny'all, putting her own unarmored body between her sister and the advancing army. Her blade remained sheathed, her hands raised. She only had her mind, and the ancient texts she had memorized.
"We do not come for blood!" Mia screamed, her voice echoing off the cliffs. She kept her hands high. "We come looking for the truth of the Tan-AH-ee!"
The effect was instantaneous.
The advancing Anai froze. The lethal discipline of the veiled warriors cracked into visible confusion. Warriors exchanged rapid, uncertain glances, their tachi blades wavering.
Mia's mind raced. Did the name lose meaning over time? Was it not the name given to the First Dragon by the Anai themselves?
The dense wall of veiled warriors slowly parted.
From the back ranks of the village, three figures emerged. All women. At the center, leading the other two, was a frail elder leaning heavily on a carved wooden walking stick. She wore no armor, and her face was unveiled. She had to be nearly a hundred years old, her skin mapped with deep wrinkles and the history of the valley.
The other two women stood to each side of her like stone, faces veiled and hands resting lightly on the hilts of their sheathed blades.
The old woman's eyes were a piercing, crystalline blue. All three shared that signature color, but it was the familiarity of the outlined ember-gold surrounding those pupils.
Descendants of the First Dragon, Mia realized, a shock running through her. But they are Anai?
The ancient woman did not speak immediately. Her gaze drifted to Ny'all's hand gripping her Dragon-Etched sword's hilt, then down at the subtle swell of Mia's stomach. A knowing smile spread across her weathered face.
"It has been a very long time," the elder rasped, her voice like dry leaves scraping across stone, "since the usurpers sent their daughters to ask for our champions. Welcome to Ne-HE-miah , children of the mountain."
Mah-ah-seh Emet
The elder's home was woven directly into the living roots of the cliffside, a masterpiece of carved stone and wood. Inside, a central hearth cast a warm glow that felt alien compared to the halls of Beh-REET.
Mia and Ny'all sat on woven mats across from the ancient woman. Behind the elder, the two veiled bodyguards stood like statues.
"The mountain has always been arrogant," the elder said, her voice a dry rasp that commanded the room. She poured a steaming cup of pale tea, her age-spotted hands remained remarkably steady. "Your kings and your generals sit on their thrones, sipping from the puddles of power that seeped into the world, believing themselves gods. But you do not know the depth of the well you drink from."
"We are learning," Mia said softly, leaning forward. "The Void is no longer compliant. Something—or someone—is reaching back from within the darkness."
Ny'all tightened her jaw, rubbing her temples as if she could still feel the phantom pressure. "When we draw on the Stillness now, it isn't empty. There is a presence, and a voice that commands us to relent."
The elder's blue eyes darkened, the ember-gold rings around her pupils seeming to flare in the light. She set her teacup down very slowly.
"Then the stories of our ancestors were true," the elder whispered, a profound sorrow settling into her wrinkles. "The Savior... the one you call the First Dragon, was named O'nor. He gave his life to forge the seal. If the shadows are speaking to you... if they are commanding you... then the seal is broken."
"It isn't broken!" Ny'all snapped, her posture going rigid. "We must only remove... him." The final word caught in her throat, heavy and reluctant.
Mia raised a hand, resting it gently over Ny'all's wrist to ground her, though her eyes never left the elder's weathered face.
"If the seal is damaged," Mia said softly, carefully threading the needle between the elder's verdict and Ny'all's pride. "Can it be repaired?"
The elder shook her head slowly. "O'nor sealed the dark with the help of his brother and our people in the ancient days because he saw what the Void truly was. He saw his own Dragon-Oath consumed by the darkness in your, Void. They turned into creatures of the shadows that could puppeteering corpses. It was said they fought exactly like the people they inhabited, but were controlled entirely by the Void."
Ny'all shuddered, the tactical horror of fighting an enemy that could weaponize your own dead washing over her.
"O'nor trapped that horror, though the means are beyond my knowledge," the elder admitted. "Only the greedy of the mountain still play with the power that once nearly consumed the world. And now, your greed has invited it back in."
"It is not greed," Ny'all snapped, her pride breaking through her silence. "And it will not just be our problem if the seal breaks. We came to invoke the Autonomy Clause. We came to forge an alliance—"
"An alliance requires equals," a sharp voice cut through the room.
The two Anai stepped forward in perfect unison. With one fluid motion, they reached up and pulled the veils from their faces.
Ny'all instinctively shifted her weight, her hand hovering over her sword.
The two women were identical twins, perhaps a few years younger than Ny'all, but their faces were hardened by a lifetime of discipline. They shared the elder's striking blue eyes and golden-ringed pupils, but where the elder looked upon the future queens of the Line with guarded reservation, the twins looked at them with open contempt.
"Grandmother speaks with the wisdom of the past," the twin on the left said, her hand resting on a blade whose hilt had pale pink petals woven into its leather mesh.
"But the choice of Ne-HE-miah 's future falls to us," the twin on the right finished seamlessly, her voice a perfect echo of her sister's.
"We are the Tan-AH-ee," they said together. "The Paired Champions of the Valley."
"And we see no worth in allying with the Mountain," the left twin continued, stepping closer, her gaze fixed entirely on Ny'all. "You failed to control the Stillness. Your ancestors broke the world, and now, you and those like you have fractured it again. That is your problem."
"We are whole without the dark," the right twin added, a mocking smirk touching her lips. "Why should the warriors of the Anai bleed to clean up the mess of Beh-REET?"
"Peace, my daughters," the elder warned, raising a frail hand. "The blood of the Savior runs in their Prince, just as it runs through your veins. We must not be hasty—"
"We are not hasty, Grandmother. We are..." The left twin paused, searching for the proper word in the common tongue before reverting to the old language of the Anai. "Mah-ah-seh Emet."
"Blade of truth, is a rough translation," the elder clarified softly. The left twin bowed her head slightly in respect to her grandmother before continuing.
"If they cannot even control the Void they rely on, they are liabilities. We will close the valley. Let the mountain choke on its own shadows."
Ny'all stood up.
"I am tired of this," Ny'all whispered, her voice dangerously low as she stared down the Paired Champions. "I have spilled more blood in the sands than you two have seen in a lifetime of hiding in these flowers. Much of it, Anai blood."
Mia watched the exchange, her heart hammering. The desert wolf in her knew that citing laws or ancient bloodlines was useless here. The Anai were a society that valued peace, but believed in the power required to protect it. There was only one currency these two Tan-AH-ee would respect.
"Ny'all," Mia said quietly, standing up beside her Sister-Wife. She looked at the twins, her chin raised with the authority of a Queen. "Prince Darius, your kin of the Dragon Line, spoke of a trial of worth if our terms were contested. We contest your judgment."
The twins looked at Mia, deeply amused. "You demand a trial of Mah-ah-seh? Against the Tan-AH-ee?"
"We do," Mia declared, squaring her shoulders. "My sister and I will face you both. If we fall, we leave the valley and the Dragon Line stands alone. But if we break your champions, Ne-HE-miah honors the ancient blood. You march with us."
The elder's eyes widened, the deep wrinkles around her mouth shifting into a look of respect.
"You finally show that fire from the Kal-Kal'nor again." Ny'all snickered.
The twins laughed—a short, synchronized sound of genuine anticipation.
" A pregnant woman demands to duel the Paired Champions," the right twin mused, her hand sliding down to fully grip the hilt of her blade.
"We accept," the left twin smiled, her blue eyes flashing with lethal intent.
The cold aura that had defined Ny'all before her union with Darius seemed to radiate from her once more. For the first time since she had been stripped of the Void, she truly looked like an Oath Blade again. The warrior in her blood sang.
"Let's go outside," Ny'all said, her hands dropping to the hilt of her obsidian steel.
The thick air of Ne-HE-miah hit them the moment they stepped out of the elder's home. The Anai twins followed them into the center of the village, their footsteps silent against the mossy earth.
The ancient elder emerged last, leaning heavily on her walking stick.
"In our culture," her raspy voice carried across the sudden quiet of the gathered village, "we speak our true names before duels that are not meant to end in death. It binds the soul to restraint."
Mia stepped forward into the clearing. She did not have the physical bulk or armor of a soldier, but when she spoke, her voice rang out with a proud, carrying authority that demanded absolute respect.
"I am Mia Twilight, Hunter of the Red Dunes, Sister-Wife to Ny'all, and Mother to the heir of the Dragon Line."
Ny'all stepped up beside her, rolling her shoulders. Her voice boomed through the valley with a fierce pride. "I am Ny'all, Daughter of Kael, Oath Blade of the Line, and Sister-Wife to Mia Twilight."
Mia slipped an approving glance toward Ny'all as she drew her Red Dunes dagger from its sheath.
Ny'all finally understood the truth of her father's exile. Claiming his name now was an act of forgiveness. It made Mia's chest swell with pride.
Mia let her gaze linger on the warrior beside her for a fraction of a second longer. Their bond was an impossible thing. To look back at the blood-soaked sands of their past—the deaths at Ny'all's hands, the bitter rivalry, and the deeply complicated reality of sharing a husband—it should have been a recipe for ruin.
But standing here, shoulder-to-shoulder against the veiled champions of the Anai, the past fell away entirely. It just felt... right.
The left twin stepped forward, drawing her tachi blade. When she spoke, her tone was low, soft, and terrifyingly calm.
"I am Yaffa'nor, descendant of the Tan-AH-ee, of the rank Chesed-El."
The right twin drew her matching blade, her movements mirroring her sister's stance with impossible symmetry. She spoke in the exact same low, chilling cadence.
"I am Zalla'nor, descendant of the Tan-AH-ee, of the rank Chesed-El."
Mia's grip tightened on her dagger. Yaffa'nor. Zalla'nor. They still bear his name?
Mia and Ny'all narrowed their eyes, their focus zeroing in on the twins' movements. In perfect, unison, Yaffa'nor and Zalla'nor reached up and pulled their cloth veils over the lower halves of their faces.
The vow of silence fell over the combatants.
The elder tapped her wooden stick once against the stone earth.
"Hat-cha-la," the elder whispered, the ancient Anai word carrying perfectly through the tense, breathless air. "Begin."