Morning was old by the time I hauled myself up from the bed. The small fragment of a mirror on the wall caught my gaze. Instead of gncing away, I forced myself to look into it.

  The woman in the reflection showed no apparent weakness, even if her build tended towards lithe. Sinew crossed her frame from burly thighs up, under the pliant yer into which a man's hands could sink. Those arms weren't doughy sticks, but ample enough to carry and use weapons of war. Not without feminine soft roundness, her belly wasn't the smooth flesh of a nguishing maid. My fingers were slender and long, but formed fists, which still remembered the sword, handgun and reins. Satisfaction filled me. I was myself.

  A rge portion of my strength was gone. But in the exchange I had gained a form, in which I found myself at ease. Perhaps it was only the crity of purpose and imminence of my soul's death, which had cleared my mind.

  Behind me, Sulme rose from the bed and rubbed his eyes. He smiled at me and recoiled.

  "Oh no." The Nilkoan hurried to me.

  "What's wrong?" I started to turn around, but Sulme grabbed my shoulders.

  I repeated my question. The man remained silent. As I wiggled my back, a part of the skin was slightly stiff as if covered by a yer of scab.

  "Answer me," I growled.

  "Look." Sulme nodded at the mirror. I turned so I could see my back in the corner of the eyes. A grey band had appeared over my spine all the way up to the back of my neck.

  "What is i--" I reached to touch the centre of my back. My fingers brushed scales. I yelped.

  My breath tightened into a wheeze. I stared at my wavering hands, though their skin remained human.

  Arms wrapped around my shoulders, as Sulme hugged me from behind. I closed my eyes and drew tranquillity from the man. This wasn't a reason to lose my wits.

  "I'm sorry," Sulme whispered. "If I had--"

  "Stop." I spun around in his grasp. "There's nothing we could have done to stop this. I can only hope this does not end with me slithering on my belly." I forced a smirk. "Will you still have me then?"

  Sulme didn't answer but instead hugged me tighter. I wrapped my arms around him. Though he didn't show it, perhaps he too needed reassurance. My anxiety slipped away like the dreams of moments before. I sighed and drew back.

  "At least I know now, why my skin itches." I spun on my heels to face the mirror. "My frontside looks quite decent, especially now that you are in the picture."

  Sulme struggled to smile. He pced his hands on my shoulders. Though he was bigger than me, I was not diminished.

  "Save for that... that mark, your back has healed well," he said. "Does it still hurt?"

  "No. Thank you."

  Sulme traced the curve of my waist with his hands. The touch tingled just in the right way. He leaned over my shoulder and breathed in deep, as if savouring my scent. The unruly beard brushed my delicate skin, emphasising how I wasn't covered in squamous hide.

  The man's hands came to rest at my hips, with the thumbs supporting the small of my back. I lifted my arms to stretch my whole frame. The scales did not limit my movement, even if they still felt strange.

  "You are like a walking willow wrapped in yers of warm silk bnkets," Sulme murmured.

  I chortled. "That is certainly a way to describe me. I must return the praise. You are a tall aspen tree, suitable for a good logboat."

  "The waters we are facing might be too rough for my buoyancy." Sulme took my hand over my shoulder and kissed my neck. "I don't want to give you up now. Can't we stay here, if not forever, a few days more?"

  "No. Umu will cim my soul. Before that I have work to do."

  Sulme spun me around and pulled me against his bare frame. He lifted his chin and stared into my eyes. His breath was deep but wavery.

  His gaze --dark as the bottom of a ke, yet blue-- was ridiculously stern. My lips pursed into a smile.

  "I love you," he said. "And I will never abandon you."

  I drew my mouth into a line. "Are you sure, you want to commit to a girl, who might soon be burnt soulless or turn into a worm of the earth?"

  Sulme's expression mellowed. "You talk, as if I had a choice."

  "We always have a choice, even if we are poor at using that opportunity. It does not matter. I want you with me. Perhaps you can hold my hand, while I die."

  I stopped the man's disapproving sigh with a kiss. His hands roamed my backside, and my flesh yearned to let him do, what he wished. Yet, we couldn't linger. I pulled away from the affectionate grasp. "We need to go. But first, I will shave that beard. Prepare the knife, while I put on my undergown."

  Sulme obeyed my command and didn't resist being pushed to sit on a chair.

  "Oh, will you make me look like one of the fops at the capital?" he asked.

  "I might make you look like a prince, if I knew how. Now, stay still."

  Though the undergown left a clear view into my modest cleavage, the man kept his head admirably straight. A knife at the throat might have helped with obedience, as it often did. The process of tidying his beard did not take long. I had quite some practice on shaving, from when I had tried to figure out a style, which was comfortable. I had ended up shaving it all, which fortunately hadn't been a necessary chore for a while.

  "We have no scissors, so I am not sure, what to do with this," I said, as I combed his hair. Up close, the pale yellow colour had the tiniest hint of green.

  In the end, I combed his hair in a boyish style, which fit his kind eyes well, and emphasised how sharp his jaw was.

  I showed the man the mirror. "How do you like it?"

  Sulme turned his head to examine his trim beard. "I can't say. If it looks good to you, then it is so."

  I pouted and mounted his p. The warmth of his skin made me shudder. I hugged his neck and pressed forward, until only my hem and his trousers were between my crotch and his hardening rod. His chest was two huge sbs of muscle. The man wrapped his thick arms around me.

  "You madden my blood, even with an untidy beard." I pressed my cheek on his shoulder. "Give me another compliment."

  "Well, you are skille--"

  "Stop. I know, what I am good at. Instead of stating the obvious, vish my physique with wordly admiration."

  "Women seldom take lightly judgements on their appearance."

  "I promise not to get angry."

  "Alright. I'll hold you to that." Sulme remained silent for a long while, which I didn't mind, as I could listen to the deep breath reverberating through his torso.

  Sulme's hand moved between us and to below my breast. "Your bosom is shapely."

  "That does not say much." I drew back. "Would you prefer them to be bigger or smaller?"

  The Nilkoan twisted his face. "Do I have to answer?"

  "You do."

  "Alright. Perhaps a bit rger, but not too much to lose their perkiness. Pointy like that, they are kind of... heroic. Very proud, like you."

  I guffawed. "That one was great. Continue."

  Sulme smiled in relief and grabbed my upper arm. I became uncomfortably aware, how feeble I was, even though the limb was much too muscur for a female courtier.

  "You have brawn, yet it's distributed elegantly. The excess shards have been chiselled off the unfinished idol."

  "Oh." My smile returned, even if I was hard-pressed to comprehend his simile.

  "Now, don't ugh, but those distinct thews stir a simir craving in me as a good piece of roast."

  "So you want to eat me?"

  "Not exactly." He moved his arms behind me and grabbed my butt. "Speaking of good piece of meat, your rear is a big one."

  My spine stiffened. "How is that supposed to be a compliment?"

  Sulme made an awkward smile. "Well, it looks great, by how round and firm it is. Especially on an otherwise slim girl like yourself."

  The man's fingers reached between the buttocks. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my heart. If I wanted it desperately enough, I would have been able to experience having a man inside me. And desire it I did, at the risk of discomfort or even pain, especially if Sulme might enjoy me.

  I bit my lip. "Would you--"

  A horn blew outside. I snapped out of my deranged lust and cmbered up. "Hurry up and get dressed."

  In the harbour marketpce, a crowd had formed around a raised ptform.

  "Oh, must be a public chastisement," I said to Sulme. "I wonder, what sort of criminals they have around here."

  "Maybe we should stay away."

  "Perhaps," I said. "You go buy the viands, while I take a look."

  On the ptform stood two soldiers wearing rge white-green livery badges of the freelord. They tied to a post man in peasant garb, while a nervous scribe-official looked on.

  "Why is he punished?" I asked a woman next to me.

  "The fool went and spoke to the freelord's wife with less than a whiff of a permission. As he couldn't pay his fine, the dy showed mercy and has him whipped."

  "That is preposterous!" I was familiar with ws of immediacy, but they were for court protocol, not to satisfy some rustic noblewoman's conceit.

  "If you say so, miss. I wouldn't know. The Vonirs say that after the revolt, we subjects should be made learn our pces."

  The crowd was stunningly silent, even though the soldiers barked Vonish to the hapless husbandman. The wife of the local lord was nowhere to be seen, despite the sentence coming from her. She would have a man whipped without caring about the offence enough to watch the proceedings.

  My body trembled with the need to act. I pushed through the crowd. A soldier with only a pot helmet, padded coat and a halberd stood at the stairs.

  "Are you Ekran?" I asked.

  The soldier gave a bored and confused look. He began to answer in Vonish, but noticed my hand moving to Kkki's hilt.

  He was too slow to react, before the pommel of my sword stuck him square in his face. I pushed past the soldier, pulled my sword fully out of its sheath and climbed the stairs.

  The crowd bellowed a confused din, as I strode to the ptform.

  "Stop this travesty!" I yelled. My voice might have been womanly, but it did not fail. "No free man deserves the bite of the sh for a word."

  One of the soldiers walked towards me and said to me in Vonish: "Drop the iron poker, wench, and I'll sp some sense into you."

  Someone ughed in the crowd. To them I was only a madwoman in hysterics or a buffoon making an unannounced performance.

  "Stay back!" I took a firmer sword stance. "The men I have killed were all fit to war, unlike the plump knave in front of me."

  "Oh, you acid-mouthed slut." The soldier grinned and took a step into the range of Kkki.

  I lunged to prick the man's arrogant cheek. My leg caught in my gown, and I stumbled, forcing my thrust aside.

  The soldier stepped forward, before I could move Kkki back between us. Instead of tackling me to ground, he grabbed my hair --as if I wasn't a real threat-- and reached for my sword-hand.

  I twisted myself free, letting the man rip my hair. There wasn't enough room for a proper thrust. I grabbed Kkki's bde with my off-hand and stabbed.

  The tip of my sword slipped between armour into the man's throat. With a croak, the soldier let go off me. I smashed my sword into his neck and let him slump to the ground.

  The other soldier stared at me for an heart beat, before reaching for his sword.

  I pulled out my witchlock pistol and aimed. The spirit inside sensed my fury, before I could even call on it. The serpentine powder roared as loud as a cannon, and the pistol kicked into my hand like one.

  A half of the man's head spread into crimson spray. I nearly dropped both of my weapons from the pain in my wrist.

  Shivering, I walked to the scribe-official. "Are you Ekran?"

  "Y-yes," he stammered and shielded his eyes. "My dy, have mercy."

  I spped him. "Now run, before I consider you unsuitable to aid your fellow man."

  Breathing deep in order not to ignite myself with the fiery energies I had summoned in my heedless rage, I turned to look into the crowd. Two men had died, and the townsfolk did nothing but stare.

  "Cowards!" I screamed. "Is that what you are, leaving a man of your faith, of your own people, to cruel tyranny?"

  None dared to answer me. I cut the bindings of the prisoner. He tried to leave, but I pulled him with me to the front of the crowd.

  "The Tamsi consider us conquered!" The words poured from my mouth, as if fed by a force outside my soul. "Apparently rightly so. We let them whip us for speaking straight to them. Soon enough they shall whip us for standing straight."

  The man beside me gave me a strange look, but corrected his posture. He might have been a mere peasant, but he had the sturdy build suitable for soldiering. The crowd shifted and murmured with hesitation and a barely contained desire to shout.

  I lifted my hand in a gesture of piety. "First they demanded that our fathers worship in a tongue, which our ancestors do not understand. Why?"

  Before anyone could figure that theology was a nuanced issue without simple answers, I continued: "So our forefathers and sacred mothers cannot answer our pleas for help. We must rely on their snivelling priests to intercede with the gods! Oh, do they not grow fat in the service?"

  Man shouted about ck of fish in the ke, another how frozen ground had postponed the ploughing. The yelled grievances turned into a choir.

  "Exactly!" I answered them all. "The rites of our nd suit it best!"

  Sulme appeared on the ptform, with his long knife in hand. Though he nodded, his expression doubted me.

  "The Tamsi do not content themselves with merely letting us starve." I pointed with my sword towards the far-away capital. "Pns are already in motion. All common nd is to be the lord's to set a price on. The Tamsi nobles will divide all cottages and their peasants as war spoils and tax them into serfdom. Your children will be turned into thralls. They will seize the cloth your wives spin to dress up their own women, while they cim your threadbare daughters for their entertainment. At least until the girl bloats with a Tamsi bastard and the next one's turn comes."

  Wrath subdued the st shreds of confusion on the faces in the simmering crowd. Their anger fed mine, and mine theirs.

  "That talk about cowards... I know it to be false. I was at Surtalm! I saw that my folk can march into lead, steel and fire with their heads held high."

  An old man let out the dour warcry used by Ekran regiments. Others joined to what quickly turned into rhythmic hollering. I waited the shouts to die down, so I wouldn't have to scream from the top of my lungs.

  "Yes, the Vonir knights ride huge beasts and wrap themselves in strong iron." I moved Kkki, so the blood on the bde would visibly droop. "But underneath, the flesh of a Tamsi is just as soft as any man's. A dozen brave men --of which I see an abundance before me-- with pikes stop even the most arrogant charge!"

  I lifted my sword high. "We must show that we will never be sves!"

  The roaring cheers made my heart gallop and filled my veins with fme.

  "Men of Isso!" I shouted over the din. "Arm yourselves the best you can, and we will make the freedy regret her brazen injustice."

  While good part of my audience hurried away, I shivered and gasped, as if from physical fatigue.

  Sulme walked to me and sent the prisoner going with a sharp look.

  "What are you doing?" Sulme whispered.

  "Rousing the rabble, it seems."

  "Yes, I noticed. That's the opposite of ying low."

  "The time of hiding has come to pass. I found my leverage"

  The Nilkoan pressed closer. "Evidently. That's not what worries me. During your speech, your nature fred like a bonfire. Anyone paying attention to deeper mirage will know you are... a far-gone serpentist."

  "But I am still perfectly in control of myself." I paused. "Am I not?"

  Sulme's face twisted with worry. "Are you?"

  "Go put on your armour. I must meditate." Without listening to any counter-arguments, I sat on the ptform with Kkki on my p.

  A few deep breaths, and I sunk into the deeper mirage. Umu was around me, one of Her bzing eyes open.

  "Expin yourself," I demanded. "What do you want from me?"

  If a single eye could smile, Umu's did. "I desire to help you."

  "You acted during that speech, influence me. I bthered on, yet the crowd was enkindled."

  "They were dry tinder, receptive from prolonged persecution to your spark. But yes, I helped them find their courage. It was a touch only. A woman fighting off three soldiers chastens any man into action."

  "It was nothing." In fact it was embarrassing. I only survived because the men hadn't considered me dangerous. "Why are you doing this?"

  "We share an enemy. Those, who you name 'the Tamsi' and their cursed Prince. I am a spirit of this nd. The foreign practices are... counter-intuitive to my essence. I will help you drive them off."

  I hesitated. No tale spoke of pleasant endings to those who consorted with chthonic entities.

  The coils of Umu slithered around me. "Was it not exhirating, their souls drinking you fire? Yet this was but a small mob. You will lead bands of warriors, armies of soldiers. They will kneel before you and crown you their sovereign."

  "These are as btant as temptations go, you foul spirit."

  "'Foul'. That is Tamsi talk, is it not? They shun, what their kindly gods proscribe. They fear the might hidden in the hearts of common men and in the serpentine powder. But all that is irrelevant. What matters is you. If we work together, you will have, what you desire."

  I should have pushed myself out of the deeper mirage and hurried to commit a rite of purification, to deny this unclean phantom a tool to work on the physical world.

  "And what is that?" I asked. "What is my desire?"

  "You need strength to break your shackles. You can be, a what you are, without accepting weakness. You will make the inhuman Prince pay. Once you sit on your throne, you will need a consort. And it will be that tall half-breed, will it not? Together, you can forge a dynasty."

  "A dynasty? But I am--"

  "Do not doubt my ability of creation. It will take tiniest bit of effort, but should you wish it, you will be the mother of your people."

  My mental image of myself shivered. Surely, I couldn't be as feeble-minded to believe the promises of a parasitic spirit.

  Umu pushed her eye up to my face. "Or I could always take your body by force."

  "That would only create a mindless beast of fire and my charred flesh."

  "Yes. It would be fun, for a while."

  I wouldn't be yoked to someone else's will. But it didn't matter, if Umu's promises were hollow. Her bidding was to fight the Tamsi, which I would do regardless.

  "First, tell me, what you are. With no lies."

  Umu rumbled a ugh. "I assume you will not believe me to be a mere worm of the ke bottom. I am a scioness of Numma by your Master the Servant Fme."

  "How can a spawn of the world serpent be so weak as to possess a human?"

  The coils shuddered. "Now listen my words with care, mortal girl. I am not weak. I am merely inconvenienced. You should be grateful that it was I, who twined myself around your spirit. A gossamer soul like yours had plenty of less considerate takers."

  "Alright! I will accept your help. But if you try to take over, know that I can resist you long enough for Sulme to kill my body."

  Without waiting for an answer, I forced myself back to mundane senses.

  Sulme stood next to me, already wearing his stained green warcoat, which gave him an appealingly tight waistline. On his head was his visored helmet that had been painted like an adorable dark green frog.

  I stood, Kkki still in my hand, and reached to hug the Nilkoan, before I noticed the people around us. Among the small crowd was a man holding the reins of two small shaggy horses.

  "What is this?" I took a rag and cleaned my sword.

  The man with the horses bowed. "Folk say you are a corporeal spirit, who has come to tell us to correct our rites, before divine judgement befalls us."

  I frowned, even though the cim might soon enough be close to truth. "Folk should act, instead of exercising their loose tongues."

  "Just so." The man nodded deep. "They are gathering outside the old gate, waiting for you. That is why I thought to lend you and your companion steeds. In the case you care not to walk, that is."

  "Thank you, goodman." I looked into the crowd in front of me. If they had been wise, they would have run away from the corrupted serpentist, who could at any moment burst into fellfire. Yet there they remained. Some even appeared to praying to who knew what.

  I stood stunned wondering how to proceed. The town around me was quiet without sign of riots or looting. That was good. Too hot of an anger burned itself before making a difference.

  Most of the freelord's men were with him in the capital. The town of Attisa was almost completely Ekran, but there was no knowing, which side the guilds and ranking families would take.

  I cursed under my breath. I should have sampled the local stew before stirring the pot.

  There was no going back. I took a deep breath and said: "Let us go to the fine people of this town."