I hit 300 followers on Bluesky, so good to my word, here’s chapter 3!

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3 – Roderika

“Wait, they want you to go?” 

After what seemed like an eternity of dickering over increasingly minute details, Roderika emerged from the meeting hall and had immediately run into her two best friends, Tala and Arlo. 

Tala was her Handmaiden, a title only she seemed to take seriously, and the daughter of one of his father’s Wyldkin advisors. They were the same age and had grown up together  from their first memories of childhood. She was shorter than Roderika despite the best effort of the cat’s ears poking up from the top of her head, bursts of white fluff contrasting the midnight black of the rest of her hair. Her twitching tail, its long and silky black fur slightly puffed in surprise, and her gold vertically slitted eyes were the only other signs she was anything but human. Her refined features were twisted in concern and indignation.

Roderika covered her own unease by freeing herself from the white headdress, keeping the circuit on and looping the cloth over her shoulders. ”I don’t think Melic himself could have changed their minds. Who knows, maybe it will be fun?” She tried to sound more confident than she felt. 

“I doubt it.” Tala shot back. “Besides you missing the Festival, the Faithful are,” her mouth twisted in disgust “the Faithful. You’re certain there’s no getting out of this?” 

She sighed. Just telling Tala she was going was not even going to be the hard part of this conversation. “Yeah.”

“Reka,” Tala said, resorting to Roderika’s childhood nickname her friends still called her by and stepping in front of her to stop her marching forward, “You don’t even seem like you want to go. Arlo, back me up here!” She called out over Roderika’s shoulder. 

Arlo had been hobbling himself to stay behind them, just quietly listening. He was the better part of a foot taller than Roderika and had legs to match, so outpacing her and Tala would have been trivial. He was a year younger than them both, having met them when Roderika began training under her swordmaster. 

Like the men the Bishop had brought Arlo was a man built for combat. His height and broad shoulders supported ropes of corded muscle, every part of him honed to either hold a weapon or be one. But his demeanor was the exact opposite. Arlo moved with a careful deliberation that gave him an air of refined gentleness. His dark ochre skin, ready smile, and booming laugh were hallmarks of his warmth. “Tala, it’s Reka’s business. She knows what she’s doing I’m sure.” His voice was low, warm, and soothing.

Before Tala could interject again, Roderika spoke up. “Not just my business, yours too.” She turned to him. “You’re coming with me.”

Arlo rocked back on his heels, his calm shaken and voice now uncertain. “I am?” 

“You are.” She confirmed. “Father Jonah and Bishop Dominic insisted I be accompanied and guarded, and the longer they went on about it the more father agreed. Congratulations, you’re the new Captain of the Princess’s Honor Guard.”

“What from Stave’s bench is a Princess..?” Arlo asked the air in front of him, staring down the hallway with a distant expression. 

Tala huffed in exasperation, but then sighed. “Fine. I guess I’ll be packing for three then. Four if Henet insists on accompanying this madness, which I’m sure they will.”

She’d hoped to be in private by the time they’d gotten to this part. Her home in the rear gardens wasn’t that much further. She turned back and met Tala’s burnished eyes with her own. “Actually Tala,” the words burned on their way past her lips, “you won’t be coming with us.” 

Silence. 

She didn’t have to look to know Arlo’s eyes would have gone wide enough to rest a teacup on. She could only hold her eyes to Tala’s, watching confusion wash through them to be replaced by hurt. Her own eyes misted over with tears but refused to blink or look away. 

“I uh… I think I’ll go.” Arlo was backing away from the sound of his voice. “Probably have dad shortlist that guard of yours. Yeah.” his footsteps retreated faster and he was gone. 

Silence ruled the hall again. She swore she could hear the muscles twitching Tala’s right ear. She slowly reached down for Tala’s hand and laced their fingers together. She started walking again, dragging Tala with her. Down a few more corridors, out into the rear gardens where the house she shared with her father stood. 

Normally they would have stopped to admire the manicured beds, or the white bark and silver flowers of the tree centered in the courtyard in front of the house, but today they streaked past them. Through the door and past the living area where they spent their afternoons drinking tea alone or with their other friends or her father. Up the stairs and to the right to her room. 

She closed the door behind them, pressed her forehead against it for a second before she turned back to look at Tala. Her ears were pinned back, her tail curled around her legs. She wouldn’t meet Roderika’s eyes. 

“So, I’m not going?” Tala’s face was a neutral mask. “Who decided that?”

She took a deep breath to steel herself. “The priests.” She let some heat creep past the exasperation in her tone. “They’re adamant the faithful aren’t ready to see other Alliance members in their city. There are people there who’ve only ever heard of Wyldkin or Elves or Dwarves, and not in a positive way. They use them as stories to scare their children into behaving. It’s stupid and wrong but it’s what they do.”

Tala looked at the ceiling. “I suppose I should have known that.” She said, voice hollow and defeated. 

Roderika wasn’t sure how to tell her the next part. When they’d been fifteen, Roderika and Tala had realized that they had feelings for each other. They’d grown up together, spent more time with each other than anyone else, and somewhere along the line, fallen in love. Everyone had seen it long before they had. Arlo had laughed in wonder at it taking them so long. Since, they’d cooked up Tala’s Handmaiden position as half joke and half excuse for them to be each other’s constant company.  “And, they wouldn’t even be letting me go if they knew about us.”

That got a jump out of Tala, her gaze snapping back to Roderika. Her ears flared out to the sides and her tail tripled in size. “About us? What does it matter about us, other than that they think I’m some kind of monster from a nursery tale?”

“Well that’s part of it,” she moved past Tala, pulling her to sit on the bed. “Obviously the Faith doesn’t let them see people who aren’t human. But apparently they also don’t let women see anyone but men. Or men be with anyone but women for that matter.” 

Tala shot back up and all of the bristle went out of her tail as her face paled. “That’s barbaric! Bad enough they control where their people go, they control who they’re with?”

“Apparently. Father isn’t sure if it’s just priests and officials who aren’t or if it’s everyone in their faith, but it’s enough of a tripwire that it could blow up everything he’s worked at.”

Tala scoffed. “All the more reason for you not to go. You said he had a list, send someone from that.” 

She shook her head and fell backwards onto the bed. Normally Tala would be chiding her for outside clothes on the inside linens, and that argument was far more preferable to this one. “Dominic wouldn’t even look at it. He insisted I was the perfect person to send. I’m pretty sure he’d call off everything if I don’t go.” 

Tala sat for a second and then eased back next to her, looking up at the ceiling. Roderika waited through the long silence, tracing her finger over one of Tala’s hands. 

Eventually her partner kicked her feet and let out an exasperated sigh. “I suppose there isn’t much we can do, is there?”

“Not really, no.” The longer she thought about it, the more she wondered what she was getting herself into. 

Tala turned over, propping her head up with her chin in her hand. “Maybe I’ll get lucky. You could bring home some bright eyed country girl to show the wonders of the City.” She could hear the defeat behind Tala’s wistful tone. 

She was sure her laugh was just as convincing. She turned onto her side, her own head nestled in the crook of her arm. “Maybe. Or maybe I still like the idea of keeping you to myself.” She took up a lock of Tala’s hair in her other hand and curled it around one of her fingers. 

Tala’s smile was wide enough to show pointed canines. “Nadia at the Flower Garden would beg to differ.”

She descended into more genuine giggles. “She’ll never need to beg with what we pay her.”

Tala held out a hand and began to count off her fingers. “Dena from the Velvet Rose, Anet from Ines’s Glory, Nina…” 

She sat up just enough to lean over Tala and get her hands around her middle, tickling just beneath her ribs. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point!”

They both began grabbing at the other, filling her room with laughter. When neither of them could breathe without gasping and the blankets had all been pushed off the bed, they fell back down side by side and facing one another. 

Tala huffed out a breath, looking her in the eyes, serious again. “For the record, I still don’t think you should go. I know it’s important for your dad, and probably the whole Alliance, but I didn’t like the Faithful before today and I like them even less now. I don’t like how you got dragged into this.”

Roderika heaved a sigh of her own.  “I know. And trust me I’m not looking forward to spending weeks on the road with Jonah of all people.” She paused, searching for the right words to say. “But my dad has been working at this since before I was born. If playing diplomat helps him, then I have to go.”

Tala closed her eyes. “You and your sense of responsibility. It always shows up at the worst times. I love you, but in this case, damn you for it.”

Not knowing what else to say, she kissed Tala. Gentle and slow, making sure they both felt it in a way they could remember for a long time. When they stopped, she reached into the front of her dress and drew up a fine silver chain. On the end was a crystal pendant, silver smoke swirling inside it. “Maybe you can’t go with me, but if anything happens to me you’ll know. When you do, I know you’ll follow as fast as you can.”

Tala reached down the front of her blouse and drew out an identical pendant. They both held them forward and when they touched a soft white glow emanated from where they met. “Of course I will Reka. I’d like to see the Nine together try to stop me.”

She touched her forehead to Tala’s for a moment before attempting to get up. As soon as she tried, Tala seized a fistful of her dress and hauled her back down. “I didn’t say you should stop.” Tala purred, her cheeks red and her eyes averted. 

Well, Roderika had wanted out of the dress anyway.