Sara came back to reason ying face-down on the cobblestones, something pressed against her lower half. Mumbling incoherently, she lifted her head up just enough to find Evie, still undressed, arms wrapped around her waist in a contented embrace.

  Sara let her head fall back down, welcoming the sleep that took her.

  Sara woke in a mansion bed, clean and refreshed. There was still a warmth pressed against her, a softness that contoured up from her thighs, along her hips and ribs, ending in a kind nuzzle at the crook of her neck. Sara shifted under the covers, wrapping her legs around the girl with which she was intertwined while dusting fingertips across endless tracks of fine hair.

  She didn’t quite recall how she got up into the bed. Past a certain point in the night her memory blurred, a drunken pallor hiding details that were probably best left forgotten. In fact, as the aftermath of st night’s duel crystallized in her memory and her face flushed red in embarrassment, there were probably a great deal more memories that would have been best left forgotten.

  "Come now," Evie murmured into her neck, "Don't get all tense now."

  Sara let her hands wander silently until they felt the cool iron of the colr around her bed partner's neck. "That wasn't right, what I did st night," she whispered.

  "I know." Evie's eyes opened zily to meet hers. "Wasn't it amazing?"

  Sara kept stroking Evie, meandering from skin to hair to sheet and back again. She opened her mouth to argue, to say it had been immoral, wrong, but couldn't find a way to say it and mean it. So instead she hung her head, tucking her chin against the top of Evie, the flutter of cat ears tickling her chin.

  Evie rexed. "Thank you, Master."

  "I don't think you should."

  Evie snorted, a gesture normally unbecoming of the noble woman. "Master, I have never felt like I did st night. Did you know that before this morning I'd never understood addiction? I always thought the peasants hooked on powders and drink were just simple fools, too weak to give up their vices. Now I awake a hypocrite."

  "You're saying I'm an addiction?" Sara let her fingers drift closer to Evie's neck, teasing at the edge of the colr that bound another's body to her will.

  Evie shivered. "I suppose so. If addiction is defined as something one is certain that they would die without? Yes, I am."

  Sara shook her head tiredly, thoughts far too stuffed with early morning cotton to unpack that particur decration. "I'll have to make sure to keep giving your daily doses, I suppose."

  "Mm. Apply liberally to the affected body."

  Despite the way the sun was shining through the moth-eaten curtains, Sara let her eyes flutter back closed. It was a day to sleep in, she'd decided.

  -------------------------------

  She was awoken once more, this time by rustling sheets and a wincing Evie, who'd just snuck out from under the covers.

  "You're quite the light sleeper, aren't you Master?"

  "Only when my bed suddenly gets cold," Sara said pitifully, holding up her empty arms. "Why do you hate me?"

  Evie shook her head amusedly, kicking a bundle of clothing up from the floor into her hands. "It didn't take you long to grow possessive, did it?"

  "If anything..." Sara paused as she mourned such a delicious body being covered by clothes. "...I think this retionship started off possessively."

  Pulling her hair out from beneath her shirt, Evie scraped a nail against her iron colr. "That it did. Though, I suppose, from your end of things it started off much more voyeuristically."

  "I never stopped looking," Sara replied, propping her head up with an elbow to watch Evie dress.

  "Oh really? I hadn't noticed." Evie turned around to grab her pants, bending from the waist in a slow, nguid motion.

  Sara licked her lips. "Actions have consequences, I'll warn you.”

  Evie stood straight, popping her pants out and then tossing them over her shoulder as she walked out of the room, still naked from the waist down. "I'm counting on it!" She called over her shoulder.

  Sara dropped back into bed, groaning loudly into the feather mattress. She'd never had such a decidedly pleasurable problem before, and it was taking all her brainpower to decipher even the slightest portion of her situation's morality. Sure, Evie seemed wildly into her, but this was the mother of all power imbances here, wasn't it? Informed consent fell apart when you can change the other person's thoughts with a word.

  When the sun had risen too high to be seen through the window, Sara gave up. She sloughed out of bed with a prolonged sigh, resolving to circle back to the ethical problems ter. She had more pressing decisions to make, and these would require Evie's input.

  Once dressed, the smell of food led her down vishly carpeted stairs and through wallpapered hallways, eventually delivering her to a rge kitchen. There Evie was sitting at a scuffed wooden table that she'd dragged out of a corner, finished pte before her and a full one across the table.

  "There you are, Master. I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to wake you before the day's end."

  Sara slid into the chair across from Evie with a sigh, picking at the food with a silver fork. "Did you make this?" She asked, eyeing the herb-spiced spread of eggs, steak, and steamed vegetables.

  "I did not. The tavern owner from st night knocked on the door to offer her services for breakfast. Quite pleasant, really. I'd missed having servants on the road. Though she did seem quite surprised when she saw my colr."

  Sara looked up from her food sharply. Evie was wearing a set of her expensive-but-practical traveling clothes, specifically the shirt that Sara had picked because its neck ruffles had concealed her colr. That had apparently been done away with; Sara could see the jagged lines where Evie had cut the ruffle away to expose her bare neck. Her sve colr, thick iron covered in arcane symbols, was unmistakable.

  "Why'd you do that?" Sara asked, endeavoring to keep her tone conversational. It was Evie's decision to make.

  The catgirl hummed noncommittally, but the agitation of her tail belied her anxiety. "Last night in the vilge, and in the others before, people kept looking to me to make decisions. Whether they were asking about myself or about us, they were constantly under the mistaken impression that I had a choice in matters."

  "Evie, you do," Sara tried to argue.

  The catgirl shook her head pointedly. "No, I don't, and I'd rather keep it that way. I spent most of my life traveling between a home I despised and social functions that bored me, Master. I thought the freedom to determine my own path would be joyous, perhaps even a relief, considering the poor choices made for me by my mother, but in practice I've found it nothing more than stressful."

  Evie sipped from her mug, tipping it back just enough that Sara caught a glimpse of ruby wine pouring down her throat. "I thoroughly enjoyed myself st night, Master, that I can assure you, and because I have grown adept at sensing your desires, I know you did, too. But that same affinity for understanding what you want has led me to believe that you wish for me to continue being a woman of the world, with all the self-determination that entails."

  Evie locked eyes with Sara, who could see for the first time a deep-set anxiety creeping through her noble facade. "I do not want that. I do not wish to stand beside a god-touched woman as an equal, shoulder to shoulder with someone fated to mold nations like potter's cy. And because I also know that you wish for me to follow my own ambitions, I have told you this outright."

  "Evie, I-"

  A single finger raised. "What I want, Master, is simple. I want to be with you. I want to be for you. I know you hoped for me to be a companion, but your clear preference for honesty means I won't lie. So I will ask you this: if you cannot have an ally, will you accept a shadow?"

  Sara took a deep breath, massaging her forehead. She should have stayed in bed. "A shadow?" She asked, seeking crification.

  "Your shadow. Always there, always watching, but never beyond your reach. The one who does not act on their own, but follows your every motion with fwless acrity. I will strike your foes, wrap your wounds, share your bed, and do anything else required of me, but never make decisions. Mine was a sheltered, sinful life, Master. I wish to find absolution in your footsteps."

  Sara's food y forgotten as she listened to Evie. It was, without a doubt, the strangest worldview that Sara had ever encountered. Spoken from the lips of nobility, words lilted by an accent straight out of Arthurian legend, it was a decration of supplicant intent so alien to the world Sara knew that she could barely comprehend it. The idea of voluntarily subjugating every part of yourself was ludicrous, offensive by nature, and yet...

  This wasn't her world. Knights swore fealty to their lieges here in much the same fashion as Evie wished to now, and even Lords bound themselves to their Kings. Evie had spoken with careful, measured words, clearly ones that had been chosen and rehearsed ahead of time. Sara could order the girl to tell her the truth, but it was redundant; she knew Evie wasn't lying about her desires. She could tell that much by the way Evie's tail had begun to thrash so hard it had escaped her chair, thumping noisily against the wall.

  "Okay," Sara said. She said it with no small reluctance, but she said it. "With one condition."

  Evie's ears quivered nervously and her tail thrashed even harder, while her facial expression changed only by a single raised eyebrow. "Oh?"

  "It's not permanent, and you won't think of it as permanent. Should you ever fundamentally disagree with one of my decisions, at any point in the future, I want you to let me know. I didn't want you to be my sve a week or a month ago, and I still don't want it now. I can agree to treating you as one, because it's what you want, but actually stripping you of free will is abhorrent."

  Evie sagged in her chair, ears popping back forward and tail finally drooping as she sighed in relief. "I can agree with that, Master. Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  They sat across from one another for quite a while, Evie resting her head on the back of her chair while Sara worked her way through her food. In her mind, she was already running through the logistics of how she could navigate this retionship ethically. It was essentially a 24/7 BDSM gig, where one person lived every hour in submission to another, but somehow taken to even more of an extreme. Sara had always considered herself pretty well-versed in the world of kink, but something like what Evie wanted was well beyond anything she'd tried before.

  And, though Evie wouldn't admit it, she was clearly processing a certain level of severe trauma through this arrangement. Sara wouldn't force her to confront it, but she didn't intend to act like it didn't exist, either. This was going to be a very, very difficult line to walk, but frankly, Sara was already falling for Evie. Even when she asked for it, Evie didn't actually deserve to be stripped of her free will. Somewhere out there was a middle ground, one in which Sara could py into those desires, yet maybe, hopefully, create something genuine from it. She refused to try anything less.

  Also, st night had been hot as fuck. So it wasn't like she didn't want to.

  Once Sara was done eating and there was nothing else to do, she stood.

  "Okay, then," Sara said, scooting her chair around the tiny table until she was next to Evie. Sitting back down, she wrapped an arm around Evie’s waist and pulled her close. "There was also something I wanted to talk to you about. A lot less dramatic, but still pretty important in the short term."

  Sara felt Evie shiver delightedly at her casual embrace. "And that is, Master?"

  "What we're doing next. I wanted you to..." Sara hesitated, realizing that she was about to have Evie tell her where the best pce to travel would be. But asking something like that was exactly the sort of thing Evie had been wanting to avoid, so she betedly changed tack. "I wanted you to tell me a few things about the area. I'm getting awfully sick of this country, with how they treat the peasants and, y'know, the literal svery. Where I'm from, keeping sves is seen as pretty close to the worst atrocity a person can commit, and they're disgustingly casual about it here. So I wanted to know about the other kingdoms nearby, to see if any of them are less... awful."

  Evie mulled it over for a second, then slipped a small letter opener from a pouch on her waist. Carving a simple map into the dusty table before them, she haltingly began recalling her childhood lessons. "Sporatos, the kingdom and the King it is named for, are both of truly prodigious size." Sara chuckled, remembering her meeting with the moribund ruler, while Evie drew a jagged oval shape on the edge of the table. "To the north is the shattered Northern Kingdom, or Northern Empire, depending on who you ask. They are a nd of massive forests and little wealth. If svery is what you wish to flee, Master, you'll find some minor improvements among the coalitions of petty kings there. Only criminals are forced to bor without pay, but peasantry remain bound to their Lord's nds and ck the right to travel or own property."

  "That's still basically svery in my eyes," Sara said.

  "Then you'll think much the same of most of Sporatos's neighbors. Universal right to travel is a rare thing here, and there are no republics that rule by elected council in a thousand miles. The nearest is a colony of the Carrion Navy, and my tutors cim the poor there live worse than any serf."

  Sara snorted derisively. "I'd bet they say that. Sounds like propaganda to me, to keep the people from knowing things can be better. Let me guess, the Carrions are a wealthy coastal people dependent on lucrative trade deals earned and protected by a powerful navy?"

  Evie blinked, looking up from her scrawling. "I thought you hadn't found time for education since your arrival here, Master."

  "I haven't. I'm just genre savvy. And it helps that the only medieval republic I can think of back on Earth was basically the same." She traced a line across Evie's half-finished map, using what she knew of Sporatos's dimensions to stop at a point a thousand miles away. "But it's too far, annoyingly, and I doubt I'd be able to convince them to do much. My religious street cred may help here, but pces like that worship money. Is there anywhere that borders Sporatos that isn't a total shithole?"

  Evie finished roughly sketching out the borders of the immediate polities, tapping them thoughtfully. "From what I've gathered of your homend, I assume you are looking for somewhere where the peasantry possesses universal right to travel and the right to trial, ideally with some aspect of collective rule?"

  "There's a lot more to it than that, but those are the barest requirements, yes."

  Evie moved her knife from region to region, sshing each out in turn as she listed their horrifying viotions of human rights. Eventually there was only one pce left, a space of unmarred table to the south of Sporatos that her carving hadn't given defined borders. She id her letter opener down, speaking.

  "Then I think your only option will be the southern coasts. There's no significant government there left to speak of, just individual vilges in various states of disarray. The nobility has long since fled, and the citizenry that remain have only recently begun to band together and curb rampant banditry."

  "So it's the only pce without an awful government because it's the only pce without a government at all?"

  "More or less. I think it unlikely they have sves, as the magically ensved would have left with the nobility, and I have to imagine that very few would take the risk of ensving someone who retains the wherewithal to slit their throats as they sleep."

  Sara pursed her lips. "You'd be surprised. What ruined so many cities?"

  "If you listen to the church, it was the gods, who saw fit to smite a nd of heretics and jungle savages that were stepping beyond their rightful bounds. In more worldly terms, it was several years of devastating storm seasons, typhoons that fttened fields and repeatedly flooded a country whose popution lived on the coast. The st powerful typhoon to strike the coast was a decade ago, but few with appropriate means see such a pce as worth investing in again. And so the nds lie half-vacant, a nation of rotting timbers and crumbling stone."

  Sara stared intensely at the faux map, as if the wooden grain would spring to life and show her a picture of the dead nation from above. Then she turned to Evie, curious. "That's an awfully poetic way to phrase it, Evie. Are you pnning to be a historian or something?"

  "I'm pnning to be yours," she casually said, lips curling. "But in all seriousness, no. My economics tutor was a refugee from the nation, a Count without a castle, so I became well acquainted with our southern neighbor's unfortunate circumstances. I still remember the sight of him when he'd first arrived. A man with the darkest skin I'd ever seen at the time, hidden beneath yers of exotic cloth and jewelry. My mother accepted the st of his trade goods in exchange for granting him refuge, and her appointing of him as my tutor in mathematics and trade was one of the few decisions of hers that I respect to this day. He was a shrewd man, and he expined the philosophy of mercantile exchanges as much as he did numbers and ledgers. I'm far from an expert merchant today, but it's a testament to his skill in teaching that I even remember the names of the continent's currencies."

  "High praise, coming from you."

  "More than you know. I hope whoever won the inheritance battle for mother's estate hasn't thrown him out."

  "Here's hoping."

  Sara scooted her chair to the side so she could lean on the shorter girl's shoulder, staring sightlessly. The southern border of Sporatos was hundreds of miles away, a distance that she'd once thought little of traveling in a single day. On foot, though, it would probably take weeks of travel, and that's assuming the roads to and from could be navigated in a mostly straight line. All the same, she didn't see much choice.

  "Alright, then. We're going there."

  Evie nodded idly, taking the idea of leaving her homend without comment. "I'm gd my advice was useful to you, Master."

  "So am I. Can you think of anything we'll need for the road before we go?"

  Evie tapped her cheek, humming. "We have more than enough supplies to reach the next vilge, so nothing we need, no. Am I to be your guard in the future?"

  Sara waffled on her answer. "I guess? Kind of. Just fight with me if we get attacked, or let me know if you think we're about to get jumped or something. I don't want you taking any bullets for me when I'm the one with a god's blessings. I haven't taken too many hits yet, but I'm willing to bet I'm a lot harder to kill than you."

  "Noted. But if you expect to fight, I'd like you to find a bcksmith as we travel. Your sword and my rapier are adequate pieces, but speaking as someone with experience handling the work of master craftsmen, quality matters."

  "Alright. Any idea if there are some big cities along the way?"

  "No. In fact, I have no idea what our route will be at all. I'm quite familiar with political boundaries across the continent, but until recently, knowledge of specific roads was fairly useless to me. We'll have to ask for directions."

  "Damn. Wonder if Lord whatever-the-fuck kept a map in this mansion."

  "Would you like me to search for one, Master?"

  "Sure. I'll go upstairs to pack."

  They disentangled with some reluctance, splitting to take to their tasks. Sara walked back up the ornate staircase, eyeing the paintings and gold trim with distaste. It was hard to appreciate their admittedly masterful handiwork when she could see through the front window rows of wooden homes and thatch roofs.

  She was finishing up slipping on the pinest set of traveling clothes she had when she heard Evie call out, mild concern in her voice echoing up from below.

  "Master? It seems the legal debate has been settled."

  Sara frowned in confusion and began to pack faster, shoving the st of their clothes into her bag without folding them. She belted on her sword's scabbard and drew Evie's rapier from its pce in the magical pouch, padding out into the hallway with an eye turned to the front window.

  A column of people were marching down the vilge's central street, a noble in fine fur robes at their head.

  Ah, she thought, that legal debate. It seemed the new master of the home had arrived.

  She made her way down the stairs leisurely, handing Evie her rapier and its leather scabbard when they met at the bottom.

  "You'll probably want to keep that close," she warned the catgirl, who made a sound of agreement.

  "You assume we'll be taken for intruders and have to defend ourselves?"

  "Intruders? No, I bet that tavern dy's already told them. She's way too dedicated for her own good. But fighting? Yeah, that's likely."

  Without further comment, Evie tightened her belt and double-checked the fit of her scabbard, then began tying her long hair up into a much more practical bun.

  Sara waited until the noble and the guards fnking him were almost at the mansion's gate before stepping forward, throwing the doors open and striding out into the te morning sun. Evie followed just behind and to the right of her, matching the beat of her steps just within her shadow.

  "Ho there!" Called the noble man with a bright smile, raising a hand. "I hear I've had the misfortune of being te to my own home to receive a distinguished guest!"

  "Not too te, thankfully," Sara called back, meeting the man halfway in the middle of the stone walkway.

  "Just so," the man said agreeably, sweeping his fur coat to the side to offer a slight bow. "Lord Andisan, once of Verstan, now of this humble abode. I apologize for the state of the gardens, Holy One. I would have sent my men ahead to tame them had I known you were coming."

  "We were only staying for the night," Sara assured him politely, eyeing the flow of stiff-backed servants that were now filtering around them to bring a mountain of furniture into the already furnished mansion. "And in fact we were just leaving, as well."

  "Then I thank fine Amarat for such a timely coincidence," he said, smoothly transitioning to agree with Sara while also name-dropping the goddess of whom she was the champion of. This man was, if nothing else, a professional noble. "Is your task one of haste, or have you time for a meal and discussion? The wines I brought with me have been unfortunately warmed by the journey, but I trust my te uncle's celr has a number of worthy examples avaible."

  Having seen that their charge was now chatting with fellow nobility, most of his guards left him to go about securing the mansion perimeter. Sara watched the guards go with a keen eye, then refocused on the man.

  "I'm sorry to say we've waited too long already, my Lord." Sara tripped over her words slightly, having immediately forgotten the man's name, but forged on. "We meant to leave at sunrise. But may I bother you for a brief bit of advice before I go? There's many things about my sudden elevation in stature that I still struggle with."

  Well hidden, but still visible to Sara's cynicism, the lord's eyes sparkled with delight. Sara could surmise his thought process: if moving to a rural vilge's mansion had been an upgrade for the man, becoming an advisor of the kingdom's 'Holy One' was an undeniable opportunity.

  "Of course, of course! While others may not take the time to help one such as yourself, I am a pious enough gentleman to know better."

  Sara hooked a thumb over her shoulder at Evie, rolling her eyes as if the catgirl's presence bothered her. "I seem to have found myself stuck with a sve I didn't want. Do you have any yourself?"

  "A number, in fact, such as-"

  The lord's words slurred into panicked gurgling as Sara's sword swept across his neck from the lower left to upper right, machete tip scraping against vertebrae in his neck. Before the flying blood even had time to crest in its arc Evie's rapier nced out, spearing through the colrbone of the only guard that had been at his side.

  "Fucking disgusting," Sara spat. She tucked the ft of her sword against her chest so she didn't impale any of the servants that she began barreling through, running for the manor's gates.

  Shrill cries of panic spread through the crowd of servants, those in her path shoving the others in a frantic bid to get out of her way. Beneath the screams Sara heard the cnk of armored footsteps colpsing on her, orders barked back and forth and calls for a healer being passed around.

  "Assassins!" Evie suddenly shouted beside her, pointing to the dead guard. "Assassins sent for the Holy One among Lord Andasin's guards!"

  Sara cackled madly, sheathing her sword.

  "God, I fucking love you, Evie."

  Evie, running beside her, only smiled back.