Author’s Note: In the first version of the negotiations, things were settled all too quickly. I had to go back and change that so that they were more realistic. That allowed Zaze to make an appearance, since I wanted to show just how different Jis was from the sister she was forced to imitate.

“I have already told you the terms are unacceptable.”

She stilled. She knew that voice. Was she dreaming? She’d thought Agache had died because of Malzhi’s attack, she knew he’d not been moving the last time she saw him, but now she had to wonder how much she could trust her memory. She had hoped that her memory was wrong, but now she had proof that it was—he was here; he was alive—and she could not be happier. She should have known it would be him. He had survived, and that meant that he would be a part of restoring his land to peace, always mindful of the needs of his people. He was a trusted minister before his death, and now he would be again.

Still, a bit of wonder crept into her voice as she drew closer, wanting to be sure that she was seeing—and hearing—the right man. “Agache?”

He rose from the table, smiling at her as he left the others. “At last. Someone I trust enough to negotiate with.”

She laughed, though a part of her was not as amused as she had pretended. “Is that all I am?”

“Oh, no, of course not, but I have to admit that I do not think highly of those who would send you to marry our king,” he said, giving her father a dark look. She thought he felt about the same about the other man as she did. “Especially since they intended to have you kill him.”

She nodded. “That would make negotiating difficult. Perhaps we can make a more equitable arrangement possible.”

“I do hope so, but I think my demands are too much to expect.”

She had not think that Agache should be at all hard to negotiate with, nor did she believe that he would be overly demanding, despite his words. He was a reasonable man, and he always put the needs of his people first. “Oh?”

“We would like to purchase or trade for some of your land. The forest near the border is unoccupied, and it seems to have little value to your people. If that is true, then my people—that is the Nebkasha—would like to live where there is darkness. In fact, we must live where there is darkness. We no longer have a land of our own, so we must find one or buy one.”

“I think that is very understandable,” she said. She took a breath and looked at her father. He shook his head, but she smiled. “I do believe we will be willing to sell you some of that land you’re interested in, as long as we can agree on a price.”

“We should be able to do so. One thing that all parties in the land agree upon is that the Nebkasha should have a place of their own. We want darkness. They would exile us into the north and the twin suns. We will not allow that to happen. Even if we are limited in our first few years in the new land, if we lack money for trades, we will be grateful for what we have in the darkness we have missed for so long.”

“Then we should have no trouble negotiating.”

Agache shook his head. “Well, there are other clauses, including one major one that some may object to.”

“Is there?” She could not see why he would think it would be so difficult, even if her father was fuming in silence after her agreement to what Agache was asking. She would not deny the Nebkasha their land. Her father would be made to see why they had to give them it as well. The Nebkasha had freed them from the threat of the king everyone had feared. “Why is it objectionable?”

“Don’t be absurd, Jis. You can’t go giving him everything he asks for. That land is not yours to pledge, nor can I see why you would want to…” Zaze gave Agache a look. Jis frowned, and her half-sister moved over to her side. She took Jis’ arm, pulling her away from Agache. “Honestly, I do not know how you can stand to look upon him. Them. They are so pale, so colorless and ugly, as though they are little better than corpses that can walk.”

“Why are you even here, Zaze?”

“I am the princess. You are the one that does not belong.”

Agache turned away, walking toward the back of the room. “I can see these negotiations will prove useless. I do not care for your tactics, dangling Jis out as bait to make me think that you would honor any of your promises. We are done here. I cannot promise that the Biskane will not choose to invade you when the unrest settles. The king may be dead, but that does not mean the hatred has died with him. The others are still his people.”

Jis looked to her father. “Do I have the ability to negotiate or not? We owe the Nebkasha. They were the ones to prevent the war. If not for Agache and his cousins, the king would have killed me and slaughtered all of you.”

“And again you discount everything that you did. I do not believe my efforts so important. I did little. You took all the risks.”

“She’s esibani. What do you think she’s supposed to do?”

“Zaze. Enough,” the king said, coming over to Jis. He put his hands on her shoulders. “You have a true air of command to you, and you have changed so much since you left us. You are complete in ways no training could have managed.”

She sighed. “I do not want you to turn me into your negotiator now.”

“You are far more than that,” Agache said. He let out a breath. “I fear we must conclude the negotiations for today. I… I cannot continue at present.”

“Are you still hurting?” She asked, leaving her father and rushing toward him. “Malzhi was determined to kill you, so was the king, and I did nothing—”

“I would hardly call your actions nothing, and I think it is more the travel that is the problem. It was not so terrible after we had passed from the double suns, but I assure you, that is never easy for one of us. It was less so for me since I have some lingering ailments.”

“Then we will let you rest until nightfall when you can renew your strength. Come.”

Author’s Note: I find the Jis’ interaction with her father fascinating. Not sure why. I just do.

“You are more regal than your mother.”

Jis did not turn to look behind her. She did not need to, nor did she think she should. “You are not amusing. My mother was never the queen, and if you dare say she was when she shared your bed, I think you shall experience my training first hand.”

The king sighed. “Why must you be so difficult, Jis? Cannot a father express his pride in all his daughter has achieved?”

She snorted. “Did you even know it was me when you spoke? Supposedly no one can tell the difference between me and Zaze, but you… You never have, have you?”

He shook his head, putting a hand on her arm. “I have. I do. Anyone should be able to if they try. You carry yourself ready for an attack whereas she walks with pride. You have grace and fluidity in every motion. She has to watch so that she does not trip over her own skirt.”

Jis nodded, not as flattered as he no doubt expected her to be. “I am what you had them make me.”

His gaze softened, and she thought there was pity or perhaps concern in it, though she did not esteem her father as she had once done. He was not the man she’d thought he was, and he should never have sent her to another land. Her mind had been opened to all his faults, starting with his decision to send her there to kill, and she had gone back over all her memories, finding more and more reasons to dislike him.

“You suffered, then, in the other land? You have refused to speak to anyone of your time there, so we did not know what had occurred.”

She stared at him, unable to believe what she heard. “You had me wed to a monster, and now ask if I suffered? Are you truly so ignorant of what you sent me into? How could you be when you made me go in her place and expected me to kill him?”

The king did not flinch. “You did not kill him immediately, so why would we think that you were in so dire of a position? You gave us no word of any threat, nor did you do as you were instructed. What were we supposed to think? You seemed to have accepted your new life without any need to contact us. We could only speculate on how you fared, and you seemed to have been fine, since otherwise you would have told us. You were trained for that.”

She almost hit him. “You idiot. I was trapped in the castle with hundreds of guards loyal to their king. He was a man who ruled by fear, killing off even his own troops if it pleased him. No one was safe from his anger or his violence, and he wanted me dead from the moment that treaty was signed. He was not ready for war with us, that was the only reason I lived—and you know how it was when he turned on me. You saw what happened. How dare you say I was under no threat? How dare you say that it was my fault for failing to give word to you? How could I? Was not the return of the servants you sent with me an indication of my circumstances? You ignored that warning sign. You ignored everything.”

“Jis—”

“Leave me alone. I have no desire to speak to you again.”

“I know that you do not—”

“I said leave me.”

His grip tightened on her arm. She saw the esibani that protected him moving closer. They would attack her if she made one move against him. Their loyalty belonged to their king, not to their comrades.

“You cannot order the king about. I will demand your presence at the negotiations if I must.”

She would just as soon be imprisoned over helping her father again, but she had heard nothing of what transpired outside of her chamber, and she had not known that there was anyone here. “Negotiations? With whom?”

“Now that the revolt is over, they have come seeking a new treaty between our lands. I want your opinion on their sincerity.”

She would have refused to go if she was not curious about how the land had fared since Gekin dropped her across the border. Instead, she nodded. She would get her information from whoever had come, and she would at last have answers as to the fates of those she cared about. That was worth helping her father. She needed to know about Anokii, about Gekin, about Agache…

She forced the thoughts from her head and said nothing as she walked with her father toward the doors, entering the great hall.

Author’s Note: Strange to wake up at home… and then discover it’s not home after all.

“Jis.”

She opened her eyes in her own bedchamber, frowning. Had she dreamed herself into being a queen? Had she fooled herself so much? Were the negotiations still taking place and she was dreaming of taking her half-sister’s place? Or was she insane? Why was she home? How could she be here? She was not… dead, was she?

“Father?”

“You are back with us. We had thought we had lost you,” he said, reaching up to touch her cheek. “You have been insensible for several days, and while you were, you called out, but we could not reach you no matter what we did.”

“I don’t… What happened?”

“The man who gave you back to us was not all that specific. He said you had been injured and that an infection had set in on you. They had started to treat you, but they feared for your safety so they gave you back to us while the unrest was settled.”

“Unrest? The king is dead, isn’t he? And Malzhi?”

“Both of them, I believe, though I cannot be certain of the second one. At one point, you did say you would kill him, and that would be proof enough for me.”

She groaned, closing her eyes. Her father did not know her at all, but then who was a king to know his children? He did not know the ones he claimed, so why would he know the ones he kept hidden? He wouldn’t.

“Just rest. The important thing now is that you recover. Your duty is over, and you are a widow, it would seem. You are going to need time to heal and even grieve for what you have lost.”

She almost said there was nothing to grieve, since she had not loved her husband and was not sorry that he was gone, but she had lost more than she cared to think about. She no longer had her friends, if she could call Anokii and Gekin that, and then there was Agache. Had Malzhi killed him? She doubted her father knew, and she did not know that she wanted to ask him anyway.

“Did the man who brought me back have a name? Was it Gekin?”

“I hope you were not foolish enough to fall in love with someone while you were there.”

“Gekin is married. He and his wife Anokii were… allies of mine.”

“I see.”

“You don’t. Leave me alone,” she said, turning over so that she would not have to face him. Her side hurt, and she didn’t feel like talking. She did not know if Agache was dead or not, but she had been more than fool enough to feel something for him, even if that was not love, and he was lost to her now. She had not been free to have him, but now she would not even see him.

She felt the tears on her cheek, and she closed her eyes, hoping to stop the rest of them. She did not want to give in to them. If she was strong, she could resist them, resist all of it. She needed to resist it.

The tears continued to come. She was not strong enough to keep them back.

Author’s Note: Agache finally gets to do what he wanted to do for so long. Of course, that also means doing something he does not want to do, but he will do what’s best for the people.

“How is it out there? Is it still chaos?”

Gekin nodded, sitting down. He shook his head. “I had never thought—it is worse than we believed it would be. I do not think there is any sort of organization to the fighting. No one knows who they want to support. Though at least most of the resistance has been smart enough not to fight at all, some of the Nebkasha have been hurt as well, just for being what they are. We need… order. I do not know how we will get it, but we will tear ourselves apart soon.”

Anokii glanced toward her cousin. He would not like what she would say, would not want to leave the queen’s side. “Agache, it is time to—”

“Why won’t she wake?” Agache asked, his hand moving toward the queen and then pulling back. “If she was awake—”

“She has a fever. The wound became infected. I am sorry, cousin. The catacombs are not ideal for treating the sick, and I fear this place was not fit for her to recovery. Not at all.”

Agache looked down, letting out a breath. His arm still pained him, but Anokii knew he did not care about that right now. She did not think anything mattered to him except the woman he could not have. “Gekin, how long does it take to get to the border?”

“I have made it in two days before, but you are in no condition to do that, and neither is she. There is too much unrest and you are both injured. Did you not hear what I said about what it is like out there? We would not make it close to the border.”

“Yes, you could,” Agache said. “You could if there were a reprieve, if the fighting were to lessen, if someone stepped forward as a clear leader…”

“You know what you must do, cousin,” Anokii said, touching his good arm. She knew how much he would hate this, but what else could they do? Hiding would not save anyone. “You are the heir. You have no choice. You must reveal yourself and take the throne that belongs to you.”

He winced, but then he nodded, his posture stiffening. “I will do what must be done. I need you to take her across the border.”

“Agache—”

“It will not be easy to wrest power from those now vying for it, even if Malzhi is dead. There will be plenty that wish her dead, not just for her role in what we have done but also for what she is—a possible heir or a way for their country to seize power if they realize we are in the middle of a revolt. There are plenty here who would want her dead. Her people may want to use her as well. She is better off on their side of the border. Take her, now, or I will say nothing to anyone of my survival.”

Gekin started to object again, but Anokii shook her head. “Agache is right. She is not safe here. She should be returned to her people.”

“I will take her, then.” Gekin sighed. “Be careful, both of you. I know it is his birthright, but it will not be easy to overcome the prejudice of many.”

Agache knelt next to the bed, brushing back some of the queen’s curls. “I shall miss you, my esibani. I almost wish you would wake and make another of your threats. Strange to think I welcome you saying you would stab me, but I already miss your voice. You are too quiet, and silence has never suited you.”

Gekin turned to Anokii, placing his hands on her face before pressing his lips to hers. She could sense his desperation, and she echoed it. She did not want to let him go any more than he wanted to go, but they had little choice.

“We are at the end, my niniamant,” she whispered. “Soon it will all be finished. We will have a true and just leader—or we will leave to settle in other lands—and we will be free at last. We must be strong only a little bit longer.”

“I know, but this is the part that is the most dangerous, when it is almost done,” Gekin said, frowning with worry. He gave her another desperate kiss. “Zigaime.”

Anokii knew he would return for her. She believed that. “Always.”