Slowly, dreading the encounter, Mariella crossed the space that separated her from her father. General Vespasian. The Count of Sevenhills. One of the Kingdom’s most trusted military leaders. A man who could only be disappointed in her now. In everything she had done. In who she had become, who she had fallen in love with, what she wanted to do going forward…

  “Whoa, son!” her father said. “You’ll scare the fish! Watch how your sister is doing it. Barely a ripple in the water.”

  Dominic obediently looked at the young Mariella, who self-consciously moved with even more exaggerated calm and stealth so as to prove that her father was right to praise her.

  Present day Mariella looked at them, smiled, wished for the scene to continue, and knew that she couldn’t let it. She would be swept away in the memory, as Vidalia had suggested.

  “Dad!” she made herself yell.

  Her father froze for a moment, then turned to face toward the voice. His eyes landed on present Mariella, and his face jumped through several different emotions. Recognition dawned, happiness, then confusion, and anxiety. He turned back to face the children again, then back to her.

  When he faced adult Mariella again, his face suddenly had wrinkles, and his head of hair, while still full, featured the streaks of gray it had developed in the ensuing years.

  “Ella, you’re here.” The rest of his family faded in Mariella’s peripheral vision as he focused on her, the memory shifting subtly around them. “And you’re also there.” He pointed at where thirteen-year-old Mariella had been, without looking and noticing that the child was now gone. “Hm. So this place isn’t real. Right. It’s a memory. Years ago. I’m dreaming, then.”

  Mariella heard a quiet gasp from somewhere far behind her. Vidalia seemed surprised that General Vespasian had figured out he was dreaming so quickly. Mariella was not. Her father was smarter than her, and he had a strong sense of self. She would have found it strange if he had failed to recognize this was just a memory adapted into a dream. Out of character, even.

  “That’s right, dad,” she said quietly.

  “How are you here?” he asked, frowning slightly with confusion. “This is the real you?”

  “It is. I remember this day. The one you used to say was your happy place?”

  He nodded and smiled.

  “Well, I have a friend whose class lets her enter people’s dreams,” Mariella said. “And I needed to talk to you.”

  “Oh. A friend in the Army?”

  She winced. “Not quite. A friend among the beastfolk.”

  Her father looked instantly uncomfortable, then shook his head.

  “All right,” he said. He took a deep breath, then stepped out of the water, through the reeds, and onto dry land. He walked over to her until he loomed over her, as tall as Tybalt and as large as he ever was in her memories. He took her hand. “What’s troubling you, little one? I can see something is wrong. Even if you hadn’t mentioned… the beastfolk. I would still know.”

  “I did something that could cause you some trouble,” she said.

  “Are you safe?” he asked.

  “Safe enough. Safe as ever.”

  He nodded. “All right. What sort of trouble are you in? Don’t worry about me.”

  “I fell in love.”

  His lips twisted in a small, bittersweet smile. “Well, of course you did. The worst kind of trouble.”

  “He’s a rebel. He wants to fight the Kingdom.”

  “That’s… not a path that has much future in it, Ella,” her father said. “You know how hard we’ve worked to make the Kingdom stable and secure. And you know we’ve been successful. What makes your love think that he has a chance?”

  “It’s not so much whether he has a chance as that he feels—we feel we have a moral obligation to behave a certain way.”

  “Oh, from ‘he’ to ‘we,’” the General observed wryly. “Are you certain this is how you feel? I know I’m old to you, but I felt the pull of young love once. It can cloud your judgment. Are you willing to fight against everything you know? Everything you were raised to value?”

  What if you had to kill me? She imagined that might be where he was going, so she cut him off before it could happen.

  “What about the beastfolk?” Mariella countered in a low voice. “What about… what’s happening to them?”

  He looked away. He was capable of lying. She knew that. But she also knew that her father hated to lie to her. So hopefully they could have an honest conversation.

  “Did you really come here to talk about that?” he asked in a tone of despondency.

  “Sorry, but I don’t think we can avoid it, Dad. So you did know about it, then.”

  He nodded, still not making eye contact.

  “I suppose I knew this day might come, after you were assigned to the Sixth Army,” he said. “I told myself that if it happened, it happened. You would be learning more about the dirty business behind how the Kingdom runs. How could lying to your child be a good thing? And every country has some secret crimes that it performs to maintain itself. Yes, I knew about it. Everyone in High Command knows about it. Some of us are more ambivalent than others. But the Kingdom does everything that it does, at the macro level, so that all of us can survive. Policies are never adopted just for the cruelty of it.

  “Nations are formed over centuries of conflict between different groups who each want their slice of land. Their independence. Introducing a new people into an existing nation risks creating internal strife. Countries have collapsed doing such things.” He finally managed to look at her directly again. “If you consider the importance of stability, you will recognize that even if we hate what we have to do, they never gave us any choice. Not truly. They have to be removed.”

  Mariella swallowed and fought back tears. This was her worst case scenario. Her father not only knew what their government was doing, but he defended it.

  “Why are you saying ‘removed’?” she asked after a moment, grasping at a sliver of hope. “Removing… is what I thought we were doing. But that’s not what I saw.”

  “We can’t afford to let the details rule our thoughts,” he said. “Look at the big picture.”

  She could see he didn’t fully believe it.

  “You know what you’re saying is wrong,” she said. “You wouldn’t use the euphemism ‘removed’ otherwise. Extermination, mass murder, rape of women and children, those are the details you don’t want us to focus too much on. Wiping out a people.”

  “The idea that our scholars have is that it’s them or us,” he said in a pleading tone. “The study of history reveals many such situations. It ends in one people or the other being extinguished or subjugated or forced to flee. I will not say that none of what I hear disquiets me. I have not been directly involved, but… Ella, you’re focusing in the wrong place. There is a great deal of good that can be done by working within the system. For our own people. And for our family. Think of that. Not these foreigners. In one generation, I moved from peasantry to high nobility. Think about the lives that you and your brothers and sisters and all of your children could lead, if you work within the reality we have instead of pining after one that does not exist.”

  She sighed. “Dad…”

  “I know you made friends with a beastfolk, but think of them as any foreign adversary. Yes, I could make friends with a Walian, but that wouldn’t change the fact that the Walian people have been our enemies for centuries. And you spoke of wiping out a people, but even if all the beastfolk in Niet were to vanish—”

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  “Were to be killed.”

  “—were to be killed overnight, there would still be more of them in other lands. Other countries have chased them out too, when they could, but they persist. Some hundreds of people are a small consideration next to—”

  “Thousands.”

  His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, words not coming to his lips. He looked genuinely surprised.

  “All right, thousands,” he said, setting his jaw. “That does increase the magnitude of the tragedy. I don’t deny it.”

  “I can’t believe you accepted this,” she said. “And you even let me join the Army, too.”

  He deflated. “Well, I’m sorry. I know you had a better image of me in your mind. I’ve always tried to do the best I can for our family and the country. I couldn’t afford to worry too much about other people, especially not people we were at odds with.”

  “Why do we need to be at odds with them?” Mariella asked, her voice turning almost shrill with frustration. “Why? They don’t hate us.”

  “Two distinct groups that look different, have different cultures, worship different gods, competing for the same resources, the same land?” her father asked. “Ella, please. Don’t be naive. They don’t hate us now, apparently, from the side they’ve shown you. And most humans in the Kingdom don’t know the beastfolk are even here, because of how isolated they are. Don’t get confused about the situation, though. The first bad harvest, and people are blaming others for what’s happening to them. Even though it’s just nature being fickle. When there are obvious fault lines between groups, when people look different and pray to different gods, the likelihood of conflict is almost inevitable. If you disagree with what our country is doing, I respect you for having your convictions. But don’t pretend there aren’t obvious reasons for why we would do this. It really is about our country surviving.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said. She felt angry at herself even as she conceded that she could sort of understand his point. She was being swept away by her father’s stronger will and argumentation. Even if she would never agree with him, she felt disgusted that she was starting to see his side of things.

  “So, you came to see me to say that you’re going to devote your life to fighting us, then?” he asked, wearing a sad expression.

  “Actually—”

  “Actually, she wanted to introduce us,” said Tybalt’s voice from just behind her.

  Mariella felt a strange combination of emotions at hearing his voice. On the one hand, he was interrupting. Her impulsive feeling was that she wanted to argue with her father until he surrendered.

  But on the other hand, the conversation was depressing. She was losing hope of changing the General’s mind. Tybalt was more persuasive than her anyway.

  “Dad, this is the man I love,” Mariella said. “His name is Tybalt.”

  She turned back to look at him, caught the flicker of surprise on the necromancer’s face, and had to restrain a look of satisfaction from spreading across her own.

  I can still surprise him, at least a little bit, she thought. She had never told him that she loved him in waking life.

  “So you’re the rebel,” her father said. She turned back to look at him. He had made his face a blank slate.

  “That’s an accurate description,” Tybalt said. “My name is Tybalt.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” the General said sarcastically. “Such pleasant circumstances. I’m Count Vespasian Sevenhills, General of the Third Army. Are you also the one who’s filled her head with certain new ideas?”

  “I think your daughter has her own eyes and ears,” the necromancer replied. “She can come up with her own ideas. She learned her sense of right and wrong at home, as I understand. Even if you disagree with her about it now. Maybe that’s because you’re making exceptions to your own moral code.”

  “These matters should be discussed within the family. Not flung in my face by a stranger who should be desperately trying to win my approval.”

  Mariella looked back and forth between her father and her lover, watching as they verbally sparred, unsure about how to feel. If she was reading his mood correctly, her father seemed to be somehow less displeased now that he was speaking with Tybalt. Perhaps arguing with someone he loved was more unpleasant than arguing with a stranger.

  “I want to marry her,” Tybalt said. “If you let her follow her heart, you and I will be family soon enough, General.” His voice softened. “For what it’s worth, I have always respected what I’ve heard about you.”

  Mariella’s heart jumped at the first part of what Tybalt said. Then it jumped again as she heard her father’s response.

  “If she loves you, then she should marry you with or without my consent,” her father replied flatly. “From what she said, you already persuaded her to fight against her own country. It seems as if you already…” He let his voice trail off, took a deep breath, and shook his head. “No, I’m not saying what I want to say.” He turned to Mariella again. “Ella, if you love him, be with him. Get married. Fine. I hate to say it, but that’s frankly the least consequential thing you’ve brought up in this conversation. You two are in the Salt Waste now, right?” He looked down at his feet for a long moment, a calculating expression on his face. “If you stay there, I’ll at least make sure I’m never the one sent out to… deal with you.”

  Mariella wanted to jump for joy. Her father had given his blessing… after a fashion. That was more than she had thought she could expect from this conversation once it took its turn for the worse.

  “We won’t stay there,” Tybalt said. “If the Army keeps sending soldiers, we’ll eventually strike back.”

  Tybalt! Let the conversation move in a happier direction…

  “Fine,” her father spat. “I can’t say we will simply let you roll over the capital city with your… thousand or so men? You could barely handle the police force with those sort of numbers. Let alone the First Army. If you’re that impractical, you’ll just die.” He gave Mariella a judgmental look, as if to say, This is who you chose?

  “Who says that’s all I have?” Tybalt replied. “There’s something else your daughter didn’t mention about me. I have a… rare class. A significant force multiplier. I won’t give details about it, but I can say it will make me a nightmare for the Army. I don’t need overwhelming numbers. If I have anything close to parity when the fighting starts, the other side is doomed.”

  “Forgive me if I doubt you,” the General replied, rolling his eyes. “History is littered with dark mages of one kind or another who had rare variant classes and thought they were invincible. Half the time, as soon as they threw themselves against a real trained army, they smashed like eggshells against the ground. That’s what you sound like. Personal power can only take you so far against an organized state and veteran soldiers. Thousands of people with classes in the nobility want things to stay the way they are.”

  “Then I will be the rare one who succeeds. Someone like that founded the Kingdom, didn’t they? The first King of Niet. He brought the nobility to heel and created unity. It was a long time ago, but sometimes variant classes change the world.”

  The General turned to Mariella.

  “Are you reading between the lines of what your beloved is saying, Ella? Have the two of you discussed how many thousands or millions of humans, how many of your own kind, he will have to kill in the unlikely event that he succeeds? How much larger your body count will be than what you imagine we intend? This man who thinks he’s so much better than those who currently lead.”

  “Some people need killing,” Tybalt replied. “But I will keep it to the minimum level required. I’m willing to use whatever tactics are required to end the fighting efficiently. And I can at least promise I don’t have an extermination plan for the human race.”

  Mariella’s eyes widened as her father quietly hissed. It was the way Tybalt was talking.

  Tybalt’s not just trying to convince him, she realized. He’s drawing a contrast between himself and the Kingdom… because he’s worried that I’ll want to jump to my Dad’s side? She didn’t know how to feel about that. It reminded her of when Tybalt had been lying to her. No, it’s different. He’s not hiding anything significant from me now. He even told me about his second class when he didn’t need to. I can’t imagine anything he could be hiding that I would care about at this point. Persuasion isn’t manipulation. And he’s not unreasonable to wonder if I would flip to join Dad.

  “I can’t pretend that I have great empathy for people outside my own family,” the General said. “No one has ever been especially kind to me or mine without good reason. The Grand Duke ensured I received my current status because I could be of use to him. So I won’t bemoan all your future victims,” He looked Tybalt hard in the eyes. “I don’t know if you actually have a chance against the Kingdom. It’s impossible for me to know, considering that you insist on keeping your power a secret. Will you at least promise me you will do everything you can to keep my daughter away from your fight?”

  “I—”

  “That’s not up to him!” Mariella exclaimed hotly. Both men turned to look at her, a little surprised at the interruption. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, dad! I don’t need that protection. I’m not a little girl.”

  “You’re still my little girl,” her father replied, scowling and beginning to raise his voice. “Not married to him yet. I think you’ve walked into something you don’t understand. You—”

  The ground started to shake underneath them.

  “The dream is becoming unstable.” Vidalia’s voice rang through the air.

  The sky tumbled around her, and the pond overflowed and turned into an ocean that would have drowned them if this were not a dreamscape.

  “We should talk again,” the General said, his eyes reflecting nervousness for the first time since they started talking. “When you can, Ella. Visit me again!”

  Then Mariella found herself alone, drifting through darkness.

  “Sorry about that.” It was Vidalia again. “I think he woke up. He became emotionally agitated.”

  “Not your fault,” Mariella said. She didn’t know quite how to feel. There was a pit in her stomach. But her father hadn’t disowned her. He wanted to talk again. He even seemed to have some modicum of respect for Tybalt. There was room for progress. “Good night.”