The governing hall of Raja was not a grand building by the standards of so nations, but it had the particular dignity of a place that had earned its authority rather than inherited it. The table at its center was long and worn smooth from years of use, the chairs around it mismatched.
Queen Towa sat at the head of it, her hands folded, her athyst eyes moving between the faces around her with quiet attentiveness.
To her left sat her pri minister Mobuji, who had arranged his considerable collection of docunts into neat stacks. Beside him sat two of Raja’s senior administrators, both of whom had been watching Kaede after they had learned, over the past year, that Lady Kaede’s visits tended to produce outcos that required a great deal of subsequent paperwork.
On the other side of the table sat Kaede, with Kirara to her right. Azeeza occupied the next seat with her arms folded and her red hair tied back. Tingle sat on the table itself, having rejected the chair on the grounds that it was too big, her small legs dangling over the edge, her wings folded neatly against her back in what was clearly a deliberate effort to appear professional.
She was mostly succeeding.
Glenda sat at the end, a small notebook open in front of her, pen in hand, which would have looked entirely appropriate if she had not also smuggled in a paper bag of sothing from the market that she was working through with great discretion and only moderate success.
Kaede looked at her.
Glenda looked back, then slowly moved the bag below the table.
Kaede returned her attention to the room.
"So," Towa said, her eyes moving to Kirara with genuine curiosity. "The Spirit Riders."
"Yes." Kirara straightened slightly. "Lady Kaede leads Maple Tree’s standing military, but a nation that size can’t have its full force in one place at any given ti. The Spirit Riders exist to cover the gaps. We’re small, mobile, and fast enough to reach any of the vassal states before a situation has ti to beco a crisis." She paused. "Think of us less as an army and more as a guarantee."
Mobuji looked up from his docunts. "A guarantee of what, exactly?"
"That if sothing goes wrong here," Kirara said simply, "soone capable is already on the way."
The room sat with that for a mont.
One of the senior administrators leaned forward slightly. "And the... sprite." His eyes moved carefully to Tingle. "She is also a Spirit Rider?"
Tingle puffed up imdiately. "I’m not just a Spirit Rider," she announced, adorably might I add. "I am Tingle of the Forest Sprites, bonded to the Automara Pip, and I have personally..."
"She’s one of our best," Azeeza said, cutting across her. She didn’t look at Tingle as she said it. "Don’t let the size fool you."
Tingle turned to look at Azeeza with an expression that was trying to decide between indignation and gratitude and hadn’t finished deciding yet.
Towa’s lips curved faintly. Her eyes moved to Kaede. "You trust them."
It wasn’t quite a question.
"I do," Kaede said.
Towa nodded. "Then Raja trusts them." She looked around the table. "What do you need from us to make this arrangent work?"
Kaede leaned forward slightly. "Access. If the Riders are going to respond quickly they need to know the layout of each state, the local command structures, who to report to when they arrive and who has authority to brief them on the ground." She paused. "They’re not here to replace Raja’s own forces. They’re here so that Raja’s forces are never fighting alone."
Mobuji made a note. Then another. Then looked up. "There will need to be protocols. Clear lines of communication. Established channels so that..."
"Mobuji." Towa’s voice was gentle but final.
He stopped.
"We can discuss the protocols at length," she said, "after our guests have had a chance to see the city." Her eyes moved briefly to Glenda, who had gone very still at the ntion of seeing the city, the paper bag frozen halfway back to the table. "All of our guests."
Kaede glanced sideways at Kirara.
Kirara was already looking at her, close enough that it was almost sothing else.
Kaede looked back at Towa.
"We’ll keep it brief," she said.
"You always say that," Towa replied pleasantly.
From the end of the table, Glenda’s pen scratched sothing in her notebook.
Kaede didn’t look. "What are you writing."
"Notes," Glenda said.
"About what."
A pause.
"The protocols," Glenda said, with trendous dignity.
Tingle leaned over and looked at the notebook. Then looked at Glenda. Then very carefully said nothing, which for Tingle represented a significant exercise of restraint.
Kaede decided, as she had decided several tis already today, that so things were better left alone.
She pushed back her chair and stood.
"Right," she said. "Let’s get started."
---
"Kaede?"
Kirara’s voice was calm. Very calm. So might even say too calm.
"Yes, Kirara."
Kaede’s eyes were fixed straight ahead. She had not moved. Neither had Kirara. They stood side by side on the avenue like two people who had walked into sothing unexpected.
"I thought you said you didn’t have a cult."
"I don’t have a cult." Kaede’s voice dropped, just slightly.
"Then what," Kirara said, with careful enunciation, "am I looking at right now."
What she was looking at was a temple.
It rose at the end of the avenue in black marble that caught the afternoon light and gave it back darker, nearly a hundred ters tall, its spires climbing against the pale sky with the quiet authority of architecture that had been built to last.
The glass along its face was worked into a web of fine cracks, each one outlined in gold and red, the whole surface glittering faintly like sothing broken and made beautiful because of it. At the crown of the tallest spire, a rose had been emblazoned in deep red with gold at its edges, large enough to be seen from the harbor.
It was, by any asure, an extraordinary building.
That was not what Kirara was looking at.
What Kirara was looking at was the Kaede statue.
It stood at seventy ters, carved from the sa black marble as the temple itself, rendered with a detail that suggested whoever had commissioned it had access to very good reference material and had used all of it. The figure was unmistakable. The posture was unmistakable. Even the expression, that particular quality of calm that Kaede carried without seeming to try, had been captured with an accuracy that was frankly unsettling.
Along the walls flanking the entrance, large paintings had been mounted in ornate fras, each one depicting the sa subject in various settings. Several stalls lined the approach, their displays arranged with the cheerful comrce of people who had identified a market and committed to it fully. Small figures. Painted portraits. Items that were, without question, rchandise.
Kaede rchandise.
"In my defense," Kaede said, her voice now noticeably quieter than it had been a mont ago, "this was not here the last ti I ca." She turned. "Towa."
"Yes, my Lady." Towa’s smile looked like she had known this mont was coming and had been looking forward to it.
"What is this."
"The cathedral," Towa said warmly, "of the Faith of Maple."
The silence that followed was brief and very full.
Kaede went still. "Where," she said carefully, "did you hear that na."
Towa’s expression shifted into sothing softer, almost reverent. "The Voice of the World spoke to ." She leaned in, her athyst eyes wide and intent. "Is it true? Is that truly your real na?"
Kaede opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I an... it’s... yes? Technically, yes, but..."
"Maple be praised." Towa straightened with quiet radiance. "To think that I was the first to learn of this."
"Uwaaah." The sound ca out of Kaede involuntarily as the red climbed steadily up her neck and settled across her face with no apparent intention of leaving. She took a small step back, then another, her hands coming up in a gesture that was trying to be reassuring and mostly just looked panicked.
’She’s worshipping ,’ Kaede thought. ’They think my ga na is my actual na. They built a cathedral. There’s a statue. There is a seventy ter statue. Uwaaah.’
Kirara looked at the statue. Then at the rchandise stalls. Then at Towa, who was still glowing with the quiet joy of confird faith. Then at Kaede, who had turned a color that matched the rose on the spire almost exactly.
"Definitely not a cult," Kirara said.
Her voice was very flat.
"It’s not a cult," Kaede said weakly.
Kirara looked at the statue again.
She said nothing further, which was sohow worse.
Glenda appeared at Kirara’s shoulder.
She looked up at the statue. Then at the stalls. Then at the paintings along the wall, each one frad with the elaborate care usually reserved for religious iconography. Then back at the stalls.
She produced her notebook.
"I’m going to need," she said, mostly to herself, "at least one of those plates."
"Don’t," Kaede said.
Glenda was already walking toward the stall with focused purpose.
"Glenda."
"I’m supporting the local economy, Boss."
"That is my face on those plates."
"I know." She said it warmly, as though that were the point. "That’s why I want one."
Tingle had drifted ahead of the group entirely, her wings carrying her at eye level with the rchandise displays, her expression moving through several distinct phases of delight as she inventoried each stall. She picked up one of the small figurines, turned it over in her tiny hands, and held it up toward the actual Kaede standing twenty feet away with the critical eye of soone checking for accuracy.
She nodded slowly. "They got the hair right."
"Please put that down," Kaede said.
"The expression is a little serious though." Tingle tilted her head. "You smile more than this."
"Tingle."
"I’m just saying."
Azeeza had stopped a short distance behind the group, her arms still folded, her eyes moving between the statue and Kaede. After a mont she said, without particular inflection, "How long do you think it took to build."
"I don’t want to think about that," Kaede said.
"The marble work alone..."
"Azeeza."
"...suggests at least six months of dedicated..."
"Azeeza."
She stopped. Looked at Kaede. "Sorry."
Towa had remained at Kaede’s side through all of this, composed and unhurried. When Kaede turned to her with an expression that was equal parts overwheld and accusatory, Towa received it without flinching.
"You could have warned ," Kaede said.
Kirara made a sound beside Kaede. It started as sothing restrained and quickly beca sothing that was not restrained at all, a laugh that she made no real effort to muffle, one hand coming up to cover her mouth more as a formality than anything else.
Kaede turned to look at her.
Kirara t her eyes, still laughing, and the sight of it did sothing to Kaede’s expression that the seventy ter statue, the rchandise stalls, and the cathedral had entirely failed to do. The red that had been climbing steadily up her face shifted register entirely, less mortification and more sothing warr that she had even less idea what to do with.
She looked away.
"This is a disaster," she said, to no one in particular.
"It really isn’t," Kirara said, recovering. She wiped her eye. "It’s kind of wonderful actually."
"There are commorative plates."
"I know." Kirara was still smiling. "I want one too."
"Et tu?"
"Boss." Glenda reappeared at her elbow, a small paper bag in one hand and her notebook in the other, the pen already moving. "For the record, the figurines are extrely well made and the craftsman at the third stall says they take commissions." She looked up. "I told him I might have so requests."
Kaede covered her face with both hands.
From sowhere near the entrance to the cathedral, Tingle’s voice carried back to them, bright and carrying. "There’s a whole room in here. With candles. And everything."
"Of course there is," Kaede said, from behind her hands.
Towa placed a gentle hand on Kaede’s arm. "Would you like to go inside?"
"Absolutely not," Kaede said.
A short pause.
"...Is it nice inside?"
Towa’s smile widened. "Very."
She exhaled.
"Fine," she said. "Briefly."
Glenda pumped her fist.
"Don’t," Kaede said.
"Sorry, Boss."
She didn’t sound sorry.
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