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DAUGHTER OF THE MOUNTAINS

by Kacey Ezell

A princess, her noble knights, a kingdom to defend from villainy—it is the stuff of legend. But some legends play out over and over through time. One thing is certain. Whether in ancient tales or a fallen future, you don’t want to draw the wrath of a resolute princess with a dragon at her command. Especially when the dragon is made of armor that can absorb a nuclear blast and has weapons that make fire breathing seem positively quaint in comparison!

“By all the worshippers’ gods, they’re really doing it.”

The first mate of the Terran Coalition Survey Ship Kleio glanced away from the display to see his captain’s face. Sure enough, horror matching the devastation in her voice marred the captain’s strong features, and he could see the glisten of tears as they started to roll down her cheeks. The first mate swallowed hard and turned back, pushing down his own horror and grief and giving her the privacy of her emotions.

“It appears that way, ma’am,” he said, unashamed of the tremor in his own voice. “I detect six . . . no . . . seven . . . eight launches. And counting,” he added, as more telltale plumes appeared in his viewscreen, rising up from the surface of the planet Cavento.

“And here come the answers,” the captain said, and the first mate toggled his display to show the other major continent, on the other side of the beautiful, crystalline blue-and-green orb that glowed against the black of space in front of them. “There’s an ancient phrase . . . what was it? Mutual something?”

“Mutually Assured Destruction,” the first mate murmured, half to himself.

“What a tightrope,” the captain murmured.

“Yeah. My twentieth-century professor said that it was a miracle that humanity made it past that phase. Apparently they came close a few times, but never—” he broke off, staring at the viewscreen as the first fireballs started to blossom in a grotesque mockery of beauty on the surface below. “Impacts.”

“Roger. Set sensors to log each incidence, and monitor our residual radiation levels. We shouldn’t see much out this far, but . . .”

“Aye, ma’am.”

The first mate’s fingers flew over the touchscreen of his display as he executed the commands his captain had issued. He found it easier to focus on the work, rather than thinking about the massive human suffering unfolding before him.

“What kept the ancients on that tightrope, I wonder,” the captain said after a minute. Her voice had gone from tear-filled to empty, but a glance at her face showed that she was still horribly affected by what they were seeing. “Was it this Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine? And if so, why didn’t it work here?”

“You’ve hit on one of the major questions in the field of Pre-Unification History, ma’am,” the first mate said gently. “But if you want my opinion . . . I think it was God’s will and occasional intervention.”

“That’s right,” the captain said. “You’re a worshipper, aren’t you?”

“New Christian, ma’am,” he said with a nod. “We believe that exploring the stars was part of God’s plan for His children, and so He couldn’t let us destroy ourselves before we left our native soil.”

“The irony here is that the Cavento colony was established by worshippers as well. They wanted a place where they could build a pastoral paradise . . . and three generations after arrival, they cut ties with the Coalition in pursuit of that dream. And now, a mere two centuries later, here they are, destroying themselves because they’ve cut themselves off from the one entity that could save them—” her voice cracked on a sob, and the first mate looked away again as his own throat tightened in response. In front of him, the blue and green of Cavento’s surface started to darken with the tons of dust that the explosions had thrown up into the atmosphere.

“Ma’am . . . It’s all right to grieve,” he said softly.

“I know,” she replied after a moment. “But it’s not all right to give in to it. I don’t think there is anything else to see here, Lieutenant. Prepare a course for the Achula outpost. We’ll upload our reports there once we’ve collected our data. In the meantime . . . I will draft a recommendation that the interdict on Cavento be upgraded to permanent. I don’t think anyone needs to see this kind of wholesale destruction.”

Privately, the first mate wondered if he agreed. He blanked his viewscreen, shutting away the image of the churning dust clouds that now covered Cavento, and began plotting his course as ordered.


“Come on! I want to go!” Melisende stomped her foot, then immediately regretted it. She was wearing her boots, not her usual soft-soled slippers, but the plush carpet underfoot muffled the sound and denied her the satisfying, emphatic thump she sought.

“You just need your cloak, my lady,” Joalie, her maid, said. Her even voice and placid manner ignited Melisende’s impatience even further, but she’d long since learned that hurrying Joalie only made the woman move slower. So Melisende forced herself to stand still and not fidget while the maid fetched the long, woolen cloak with the fur-lined cuffs and hood that framed her face. The cloak itself would be too warm, for it was spring, and the snowmelt had started several weeks ago. But Melisende knew that she would not be allowed outside the inner bailey without it. And anyway, she liked the grown-up, mature air it gave her. She looked at least two years older than her actual thirteen.

Joalie returned and swirled the cloak around Melisende’s shoulders, then fussed with the hood and the hem in order to get it to lie just right. Melisende breathed slowly in and out through her nose, holding herself completely still until her maid finished.

Joalie stepped back with a wink and an approving nod.

“You are ready, my lady,” she said, folding her hands complacently over her apron. All of a sudden, Melisende knew with complete and utter certainty that the cloak and the fussing and the slowness had been a test to see if she could control her natural impatience. And she had passed. Despite her irritation, she let out a laugh and went up on tiptoe to kiss her maid on the cheek.

“Clever, Joalie. I will be back by the evening meal.”

“I know you will, my lady,” Joalie said with that same placid smile. “I’ve spoken with your escort.”

“Of course you have.” Melisende rolled her eyes.

“Your lord father has entrusted you to my care, my lady. I can do no less than my best, for him and for you.”

“I love you too, Joalie,” Melisende said as she reached into the cloak’s pockets for her gloves and turned for the door. Joalie opened it and then sank into a curtsey as her young mistress exited the chamber and headed down the corridor toward the bailey at the heart of Cercen Keep.

Her escort awaited her there, holding the reins of two oremes from the keep’s storied stable. Melisende felt her smile widen and she broke into a run toward the man and the animals.

“Bricio!” she called out as she skidded to a stop. “Are you assigned to me today? I’m so glad! Hello, sweetling,” she added as she reached out to stroke the velvety nose and long, silky beard of her favorite nanny oreme. The nanny, whom Melisende had named “Mist” when she first learned to ride her, butted her nose against Melisende’s shoulder and lipped at the fur of her hood. Melisende leaned back to avoid getting poked by her horns and pushed Mist’s face away with an exasperated sigh.

“I am, your ladyship,” Bricio said, bending his head and touching the leather chest strap of his quiver. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes! Finally!” Melisende said, and to prove her point, she pulled herself up onto the padded saddle on Mist’s back without any help. She did, however, wait long enough for Bricio to check that her seat was secure and that the breakaway connections in her safety straps were seated properly. Like the cloak, she knew very well that this procedure was non-negotiable if she wanted to go out exploring in the mountains today.

And oh! She did! She truly did. Now that she was a young woman, her father, the Lord of Cercen, had finally given his permission for her to leave the confines of the keep by herself, so long as she went with an escort and stayed within sight of home.

She caught Bricio stifling a grin as he got himself mounted up on his own wether. She opened her mouth to say something, but he leaned forward and his wether stepped out, leading Mist toward the great metal doors that led through the outer curtain wall.

Beyond the doors, the path led down a sharp slope into the deep vee of the pass. Melisende focused on staying relaxed and looking around while Mist picked her way down the path with surefooted ease. The sun soared high above them, shining down like a benediction on this long-awaited adventure.

“Was there somewhere in particular you wanted to explore, my lady?” Bricio asked after a few moments. He rode ahead, as was proper, his bow at the low ready.

“The pass,” Melisende said quickly.

“This whole valley is the pass, my lady,” Bricio said, swiveling around to look back at her. “Could you be more specific?”

Melisende rolled her eyes again. “You’re being difficult,” she said. “I want to see the northern end of the pass, where the terrain narrows.”

“Ahh! You want to see the glacier!” Bricio nodded. “Good choice! It’s worth a look.”

“What’s that?”

“The glacier? You mean you don’t know about the river of ice?”

“I know what a glacier is, guardsman,” Melisende said, with all the dignity an offended thirteen-year old could muster. “But I did not know there was one in the pass.”

“My lady! It is the pass! At least part of it. You said where the terrain narrows . . . the reason it narrows there is because that is where the glacier comes to its point. It is the terminus of the wall of ice, to borrow a phrase from my old teacher.” He nodded in that direction before turning back to her. “It really is magnificent, and it’s not far at all. And we will be easily visible from the keep. An excellent choice.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” Melisende said, only just managing to keep her eyes from rolling once more. “Lead on, then, Bricio. Let us see this river of ice!”

Her annoyance rapidly diminished as their sure-footed oremes carried them farther down along the trail toward the north. The air warmed to the point where Melisende threw her hood back and reveled in the sun’s warmth on her skin and hair. Joalie would surely scold her if she caught even the least bit of a suntan on her face, but it would be worth it. Winter had been so long! And the brightness of the morning felt like a balm to her sunstarved eyes.

Eventually, the path started angling up again, and the mountains on either side began to crowd closer, looming above them until they rode entirely in shadow. Melisende shivered, but refused to replace her hood. Not just yet . . . though it was significantly chillier in the shade. Her breath puffed out before her in a cloud. The tips of her ears started to burn with cold, and so she muttered under her breath and gratefully pulled the fur hood close around her face again.

“Here we are, my lady,” Bricio said after another interval of increasing altitude and decreasing temperature. His turned his oreme’s head to the left, and the wether expertly leapt up onto the piled gravel and boulders that bordered the narrow road. “Go slowly, let Mist find her feet. This area is always unstable. Your father has to send men out every spring to clear the road of debris from rockfalls.”

Melisende nodded, and reined Mist over to follow in that direction. She felt the gravel slide under her oreme’s split hooves, but Mist knew what she was about, and she bounded her way up to the very bottom of the cliff that loomed over the road.

“Is it . . . oh, Bricio! It really is all ice!”

“Well, not all of it, just this part here,” he said, waving up at the cliff face. “See how it’s tucked in between these two ridges there and there?”

“I do see,” Melisende said, not even ashamed of the wonder in her voice. Most of the time she took great pains to sound wordly and educated . . . but this was just too impressive. Certainly her feelings of awe were nothing but the glacier’s due. “But it doesn’t look much like a river. It’s more like a mountain of ice!”

“You cannot see it from here, but the river stretches back up along the spine of the mountains,” Bricio said. “My father and brothers have hunted up in there; it extends for many leagues.” He shifted his weight and his wether responded, sidestepping beneath him and then turning and heading even farther north, up on top of one of the many piles of dark, rich dirt and debris that had collected at the foot of the glacier. “See, look down here,” he said, turning back as far as his saddle would allow, and pointing north.

Melisende clicked her tongue and Mist stepped forward, following the wether until Melisende could see what Bricio meant.

“That little stream?”

“Yes,” he said. “That stream is where the spring’s melt collects. It runs down out of these mountains and joins with several others to form a mighty river in the flatlands.”

“Can we go down to it?”

“If you like.”

Melisende urged Mist forward, down the slope of the little hill toward the thin stream of water that had collected in the lowest part of the terrain and begun to wind its way toward the main part of the pass. When they reached the edge of the water, Melisende reined Mist to a stop, and then disconnected her breakaway latches and swung herself down off of the nanny’s back.

“My lady,” Bricio said, his tone low and steady. “Please be careful, the ground may not be stable and you are not as surefooted as an oreme.”

“I just want to touch the water,” she said, holding on to Mist’s reins with one hand. She bent to touch the glassy surface and immediately pulled her hand back. It was cold! Behind her, Mist snuffled, almost as if she were laughing at her human charge’s foolishness. Then she bent and began to drink noisily, her lips flapping and splashing as she did. Melisende felt her face break into a grin and she turned to look at Bricio.

“Go ahead,” he said from atop his oreme. “It’s perfectly safe to drink.”

Melisende braced herself for the icy shock and used her hand to cup some of the water up to her mouth. It was just as sharply cold to her tongue as to her fingers, but it tasted wonderfully pure and refreshing. Better than melted snow. Better than the water from the keep’s various wells. It tasted like a winter sky, like the scent of snow on the wind.

She let out a laugh and shook her hand that had gone numb from the cold, and then bent to try and take another, deeper drink when something caught her eye. As the sun worked its way higher in the sky, it shone down into the narrow pass, and something flashed at her in the ground across the stream.

“Bricio,” she said softly, pointing. “What is that?”

“I don’t know, your ladyship,” he said, sounding just as intrigued as she felt. “A shiny rock or bit of ore perhaps? The glacier pushes all sorts of things up out of the ground here.”

“I want to go see it,” she said.

“I didn’t intend to cross the stream today, my lady,” he said, doubt creeping into his tone. Melisende frowned and spun to face him.

“The keep is there,” she said, stabbing a finger at the southern cliff, where the outline of their home stood out in stark silhouette against the brilliantly blue sky. “We will be just as visible as we are here. It is only a few more lengths.”

Bricio snorted softly. “So it is. Relax, your ladyship. No need to get combative. We can go see what it is, but we cannot stay forever, not if we are to get back in time.”

“I will leave when you say we must,” she said, holding on to her hauteur. She gave him a nod, and then pulled herself back up onto Mist’s saddle and reconnected her straps. Without waiting for him to dismount and check her handiwork, Melisende then urged Mist forward toward that mysterious glint showing through the dirt opposite.

It turned out to be something very odd. Something unlike anything she’d seen in all her thirteen years. Once she brushed the dirt aside, she found that the mystery was a flat object, black in color, with a reflective surface so smooth she could see her own dark image in it. Even stranger, it appeared to be rectangular, but the corners were as perfectly square as if a master metalsmith had formed them. It was large, easily the span of her two arms outstretched, and it appeared to be connected to something larger that lay still buried under the dirt and debris.

“We must unearth it!” she said excitedly to Bricio as she knelt next to him and scraped at the dirt with her gloved hands. “This is surely a treasure, with workmanship so fine! Who do you think buried this here?”

“I cannot say, my lady,” Bricio said, standing and stretching his back after doing the bulk of the work uncovering the panel. “But I can say this: we have lingered long enough. It is my duty to return you safely to your father.”

“And mine to report to him what we’ve found,” Melisende said, “I am his heir, after all.” She sat back on her heels before nodding and pushing herself up to her feet. Bricio held out a hand to help her, and she accepted it, then began brushing at the dirt on her cloak.

“Yes,” Bricio said, trying hard to stifle a smile which Melisende ignored. “There is that, as well.” He stepped back and collected the two oremes from where they’d hobbled them to graze on the tiny plants that grew up next to the glacial stream. Melisende gave up on her cloak, accepted her guardsman’s help in mounting Mist, and let him lead her home, her head whirling with curiosity and excitement.


Melisende’s father wasn’t quite as excited as she would have liked over her discovery, but he did give her leave to return in two days with a crew of men to help her unearth whatever it was she’d found. So she headed out early, and by the time the sun broke over the eastern ridge of the pass, they’d uncovered another of the large flat structures. They appeared to be fixed to a larger, vaguely oblong object. It was irregular in size and shape, but the smooth, even metalwork (save for some buckling and crimping that appeared to be damage) made it clear that this, too, was a manmade artifact.

“Perhaps it was a dwelling of some kind,” Melisende said to Bricio, tilting her head to the side as she considered the thing during the crew’s midday break for a meal. “Look, there, that perfectly square indentation could be a door . . . and it’s certainly large enough to have housed at least two people.”

“More than that,” Bricio said. “You could be right. But if that’s a door, it must only open from the inside. There’s no handle or mechanism to open it out here.”

“Maybe it got torn off whenever the dwelling was buried. An ancient avalanche, you said?”

“That’s the most likely thing I can think of,” Bricio shrugged, though the frown on his face said that he wasn’t convinced. “Especially for as big as it is. This slope of the cliff was covered by the glacier in my grandfather’s time, so whatever this is was buried long before that. But if it was an avalanche that buried it, I would have expected more structural damage, certainly to our two mystery plates.”

“I was not buried in an avalanche.”

Melisende stifled a scream, clapping both hands over her mouth, as Bricio grabbed her and thrust her behind him, drawing his sword. “Show yourself!” he shouted, looking wildly around. Behind them, Melisende could hear the work crew a little way off drawing their own weapons and starting to run to their aid.

“You can see me in front of you. As much as you have excavated so far, that is. I am still mostly pinned under the dirt. Who is in command, please?”

“I am!” Melisende called out, stepping out from behind an increasingly frantic Bricio. “I am the Lady Melisende, Heiress of Cercen.”

“My lady!” Bricio said in an urgent undertone. “What are you doing? This cannot be safe!”

“Talking,” she said to him. “And I’m every bit as safe as I was a few minutes ago.”

“Correct,” the voice said from the dirt. It had a strange, tinny quality to it. “I am in no position to be aggressive, even if that were my inclination or objective. I cannot hurt any of you as I am. I can merely talk, since you have uncovered my solar panels. Though I have had to adjust my language algorithms. Your speech has changed.”

“And just who—or what—are you?” Melisende asked, feeling a flush of pleasure at how steady and collected her voice sounded. Her mind was spinning in circles of wonder, but her voice sounded just like Joalie’s: calm and serene.

“I am the AI for Tactical Artillery Vehicle serial number 69-359.”

“I see,” Melisende said. “And what, pray, is an ‘Aay Eye’? Is that a form of military rank? I assume you’re some kind of soldier, since you mention tactics and artillery?”

“AI is the abbreviation for Artificial Intelligence. I am the autonomous control system for the Tactical Artillery Vehicle serial number 69-359.”

Melisende paused, feeling her brows wrinkle as she tried to make sense of this statement. She knew what the individual words meant, but they didn’t seem to make sense when strung together in the way that the . . . Tactical Artillery whatever . . . had ordered them.

Still, curiosity burned within her, as did a strange kind of compassion. Whatever it was, this thing could speak. It had called itself an “intelligence.” Surely it didn’t deserve to remain buried alive after . . . well . . . she didn’t know how long. That was a good question.

“We will continue to excavate you,” Melisende said, drawing her shoulders back and doing her best to speak in her most regal and commanding tone. “Whatever you are, that is the compassionate thing to do. How long have you been buried, anyway?”

“I do not know,” the thing said, and Melisende could hear an inflection of something that sounded a lot like frustration in its tone. “My last records are of the second month past perihelion, two hundred seventy-five years after independence. What is the date now?”

Melisende blinked, then glanced up at Bricio, who stood nearby, still alert for danger. He shook his head slightly, indicating that he didn’t understand that date any better than she did.

“It is seventy-two days since the Feast of Snows, and twenty until the Feast of Flowers,” she said.

The thing was silent for a long moment.

“I do not have those terms in my memory,” it eventually said. “How many years have passed since the Caventian declaration of independence from the Coalition?”

“I don’t know what ‘Caventian’ and ‘Coalition’ mean,” Melisende said, keeping her tone even. “But it is the eight hundred and fiftieth year since the Shattering.”

“What is the ‘Shattering’?”

Melisende looked up at Bricio again, then back at her work crew. To a man, they stared at her, eyes wide and unsure. She gave them a tiny smile and hoped it was reassuring, then shrugged and turned back to her strange conversation partner.

“One of our legends. In ancient times, there were two great kings, brothers who ruled all the people of the world. They both had the power to harness the sun, and that power brought great wealth and ease to the people. Until one day the two kings quarreled, and the brothers began to be angry with one another. They threatened each other with greater and greater harm, until one brother, in a fit of rage, unleashed his full power against the other. The other brother answered in kind, and they burned the world to ash with their anger. All of the people in the world perished in flames, save only for those who hid under the ground for a generation. Once they were old, their children crawled back into the light, and began to create the nations of mankind.”

“This Shattering . . . how long ago did you say it was?” the thing asked her.

“Eight and a half centuries ago.”

“That is how long it has been, then,” it said. “Or approximately that. I was a combatant in the war you described.”


Melisende of Cercen was young, but she was, in all things, her father’s daughter. Bodavin III of Cercen had taught statecraft and leadership to his only child from the very beginning: as soon as she was able to read, she read political correspondence and ancient treaties. As soon as she could sit through a four-hour meeting, she attended the gatherings of Cercen’s inner council at her father’s side. She frequently joined Bodavin in the training lists, where she watched as his men—someday to be her men—drilled each other in the arts of war.

So it was perhaps no surprise that she instantly identified this crumpled, buried piece of machinery with the tinny voice and strange words as a potential strategic advantage.

“Bricio,” she said quietly in the aftermath of the machine’s revelation. It was all but unbelievable! How could something so old have survived, even buried in the ground . . . and yet, its words did have the ring of truth.

Plus, as Melisende’s father was fond of reminding her, sometimes the truth didn’t matter nearly so much as what people believed to be the truth.

“Yes, my lady?” Bricio asked, his voice pulling her from the twisty path of her thoughts.

“Gather the crew together, please. I wish to speak with them.”

“Of course,” he said. And though she heard a question in his tone, he moved without hesitation to obey her instructions.

“Machine,” Melisende said as he walked away, “The name you gave is long and unwieldy. Do you have another name that people use to address you?”

“My designation was sometimes abbreviated as TAV 359.”

“Fine. I shall call you TAV, then, unless you object.”

“I do not. You are the commander here, you may call me what you like.”

“TAV, if what you say is true, then the leaders that you served are long dead. Am I correct in thinking that you are masterless?”

“You are correct, Lady Melisende.”

“Then, according to the law, as a masterless warrior—albeit a . . . nontraditional one—you are free to take service with whomever you choose. I extend to you an offer. You may enter my service and become one of my retainers. I am young, and only a woman, but I am the Heiress of Cercen, and the position carries some honor with it.”

The machine was silent for a moment before speaking. “I cannot find anything in my programmed directives that prevent me from accepting,” it—no, she decided, not it. He—said. “And I am programmed to desire a connection with and show loyalty to a leader. You are the commander here, so you fit the definition of a leader for these purposes, despite your youth. In my time, that would have been a much larger impediment than your sex . . . though I perceive that attitudes have shifted, likely due to the pressures of re-establishing civilization after the war.”

Melisende blinked several times and looked back over her shoulder where Bricio had the work crew gathered up. He started to lead them to her, but she held up a hand and shook her head. She wanted this settled before involving them. One way or the other.

“I need a yes or no answer,” she said. “It’s the law,” she added, sounding a bit younger and more desperate than she would like.

“Yes,” TAV said. “I will enter your service, Lady Melisende.”

“I . . . if you were a man, you would kneel before me, and place my hands over your eyes.”

“I have optical sensors within my solar panels. They allow me to utilize electromagnetic energy to sense my environment similar to how you use your eyes.”

“Um . . . all right.” Melisende drew herself up to her full height and walked as regally as she knew how toward the half-uncovered machine. She reached out her hands and placed her palms flat on the wide, smooth surface of the panels they’d first uncovered. The panels were warm to the touch, almost as if he really were alive.

Well, she thought, why not? Wasn’t he?

“Tactical Artillery Vehicle Three Five Nine,” she said, pitching her voice to carry, as if they stood on the dais of her father’s cathedral, and not on a hillside next to a great wall of ice. “I, Melisende of Cercen, place my hands over your eyes and accept you into my service. From this moment forth, let your vision be single to the performance of your duty to me and to my heirs, that we may preserve our lives, our families, and our community and impose order upon the chaos. Do you take this charge of your own free will?”

“I do,” TAV said.

“And will you perform such duties as I require faithfully, to the utmost of your ability, as I perform my duties to you?”

“I will,” TAV said.

“Then I name myself your liege lady and pledge to provide for you and your family as your needs may require, so long as your loyalty remains.”

“I accept your pledge, my lady,” TAV said. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, part of the fealty oath, but Melisende nodded just the same and removed her hands from the heated surface of TAV’s panels. Then she turned and looked at Bricio and the work crew who stood watching her, many of them with wide eyes.

“Men of Cercen,” she said as she began to pick her way back up the slope to where they stood. “You all know me, you have watched me from my birth. Today, we have made a great discovery. Though we cannot yet say what this will mean for Cercen, I have no doubt that having TAV’s loyalty will be important for us all. However, as with most new discoveries, we must be discreet. It is my intention to keep the knowledge of TAV’s existence confined to this group alone. We will tell no one else, save for my father. I know that I am asking you to keep secrets from your families, friends, and loved ones. To that end, I will extend the same offer to all of you. I am proud of all of you, and would willingly welcome every one of you into my personal service, if you are willing.”

A gasp rippled through the group. Except for Bricio, these men were not warriors. They were common workmen, proud of their skills, surely, but not likely to ever be invited into the personal service of a noble. To be so invited was to gain great status, usually reserved for masters of their crafts.

“My lady,” Bricio murmured. “Are you sure?”

“I am,” she said. “I know that I have not yet begun to build my household, but I am of age to do so. I will begin here, now, with these men, if they will have me. For as I said, Bricio, this is something of great import to Cercen . . . though I don’t know exactly how, yet. But I cannot fail to act. Not now.”

Something like a smile deepened the corners of Bricio’s lips, and he gave her a nod, then slowly lowered himself to one knee, pointing his sword point down and placing both hands on the pommel.

“Then let me be the fir—no, second . . . man here to accept,” he said, looking up at her and cutting his eyes over to where TAV lay half-buried. “I would be honored to take your hands upon my eyes.”

Melisende smiled, and stepped forward to repeat the ritual with Bricio, then with the foreman of the work crew, and then one by one with every man present. By the time she finished, the sun had crossed the narrow gap of sky between the mountains and the shadows began to stretch.

“I regret that I have no insignia to offer you all,” Melisende said after she finished. “I promise you that I will remedy that with my ladies straightaway. But you are all mine, and I shall inform my father when we return to the keep tonight. In the meantime, my orders are simple. We must excavate TAV from the ground and do what we can to heal or repair him. TAV, if we pull you from the ground, can you direct your brothers here in how to bring you back to working order?”

“It is possible, my lady,” he said. “We can certainly try.”

“Begging your pardon, my lady,” Edsen, the foreman, said. He stepped forward, still looking a bit poleaxed at the sudden change in his status, but Melisende knew he was a solid man, well respected by her father and his men alike. “Some of us are quite mechanical. If it’s possible to fix our metal brother, we’ll get it done. In the meantime, may I suggest we set a watch crew? Don’t want no one stumbling out here tonight, finding things they oughtn’t see. We ain’t trained warriors like Guardsman Bricio there, but we’re able to defend ourselves and our own.” His nod toward TAV indicated that he definitely included the ancient, intelligent machine in that group—unorthodox though it may be.

“It’s a good idea,” Bricio said, nodding to Edsen in respect. “At least until we can get him out of the ground and something more permanent set up.”

“Fine,” Melisende said. “Excellent. This is exactly why I wanted you all. You know what needs to be done. Please be about doing it. And thank you.”


Melisende had feared that her father might not be pleased with her actions, but aside from a little good-natured grumbling about his daughter poaching one of his best work crews, Bodavin had nothing but praise for her decisiveness. He even helped her to come up with a cover story for why she might begin building her household with a group of common workers—she would build a lodge in the forest near the glacier, on the slopes of the pass. It would be her own private retreat, to remain hers alone, even after she married.

For that was the stark political truth she faced. As the years wound on, she continued to learn the art of ruling from her father—and eventually, from TAV as well. The machine had a prodigious and encyclopedic library of tales from the time before the Shattering. As Melisende and her household worked to follow his instructions and repair his damaged systems, he would regale them with histories of polities and wars long lost to legend. Melisende found that she looked forward to discussing and analyzing these stories, and it greatly helped to sharpen her political mind.

Still, over the years it became readily apparent that her neighbors looked upon her not as a potential ally, but as a vulnerable fruit to be plucked. She had the loyalty of her people and her father’s army, but as she grew from precocious adolescent into full womanhood, she realized that even those great advantages would not be enough. Not with all the world arrayed against her, convinced that a woman alone could never rule.

But she was the daughter of Bodavin III, and so she would rule. She learned all that she could from her father and his advisers about the world’s political situation, and she carefully considered and weighed her options. She formed the shape of a plan in her mind, but discussed it with no one, not even her father. She would have liked to do so, but as she approached the age of majority, Bodavin’s health began to take a sharp decline, and nothing the healers could do seemed to help. The future loomed clear before them: Melisende would be Lady of Cercen by her nineteenth birthing day.

So she must marry. Everyone said so, and even her plan required it, and the sooner the better. So on a blustery autumn day, Melisende steeled her nerves and informed her father of her choice.

“Valck of Kaperado?” Bodavin asked, his raspy voice dissolving into a cough as he tried to push himself up from his supine position in bed. “Melisende—”

“I know.” Melisende said, putting her hand on her father’s chest. It grieved her that this, alone, was enough to keep him in place. “He is volatile. But there is great potential in him. He is a capable military commander . . . and he hates his father and brother. We can have no greater ally against Kaperado’s grasping reach than one of their own who has become one of us. Plus, with a marriage alliance, they risk the censure of the world if they break it and invade. You know our spies have reported that Uto has the pass in his sights.”

“Valck will not meekly agree to be a mere consort,” Bodavin warned his daughter. “Not a man like that, who has been forced to remain in the shadow of his brother the heir.”

“I know. But consider, if he is made co-ruler, then he has even more reason to resist his family’s expansion,” she leaned forward. “And Kaperado’s army is the largest and biggest in the region. Several of their legions answer personally to Valck. If we make their allegiance a part of the marriage negotiations, we can use them as a kernel around which to quietly build our own forces, all while keeping Uto off our backs.”

Bodavin lay quietly on his pillow, his pale face sweating as he searched his daughter’s face. He lifted one wasted hand to her cheek and pushed a bit of hair back behind her ear.

“And what of you, my beautiful child?” he asked softly. “What of your heart?”

“Father,” she said with a tiny smile. “My heart is for Cercen, always.”

“I had hoped you might make an alliance with someone who might bring you a measure of happiness . . . such as I had with your mother.”

“And who is to say that Valck will not?” she asked. “It seems to me that someone who has craved love and approval from his family all his life might be quite ready to receive it from a wife, even if that wife is a political match, rather than a romantic one.”

“I hope that you are right, Melisende. I cannot fault your political acumen. On that score, Valck is an inspired choice. But I will only agree to this if you are absolutely certain that this is what you want.”

“I am, Father.”

Bodavin closed his eyes for a moment, and then nodded against his pillow. “Send in my scribes then, child. I will send the missives right away. I fear I have little time to waste.”

Her father’s words turned out to be prophetic. Five months to the day after she made her choice, Melisende stood next to Valck in her father’s cathedral and pledged herself to him as wife, partner, and co-ruler of Cercen Keep.

Another month after that, Bodavin III died, and Melisende and Valck ascended his throne together.

And so began the worst year of Melisende’s life.


Melisende really did try, but it soon became apparent that Valck was a man entirely focused on his own desires and ambitions. He had little time or interest in his young bride once the rather perfunctory business of consummating the marriage was completed. From the Feast of Flowers until the Feast of Sunlight, Melisende turned her every effort toward wooing her indifferent, dismissive husband. But all to no avail. He met her intelligence with scorn, her kindnesses with indifference, and attempts to be romantic with derision . . . and eventually worse.

Vulck’s only goal, it seemed, was to become undisputed Lord of Cercen. A fact which he made very plain even before the court mourning for Bodavin III was complete. Valck wasted no time in dismissing many of Melisende’s courtiers and appointing his own men to important posts within the administration of the keep and surrounding lands. He also undertook sweeping military reforms—many of which entailed much harsher discipline and a much greater operation tempo than what the Cercite troops were used to experiencing. Melisende saw this, and attempted to try and mitigate some of the difficulty of that transition by going out and visiting among the soldiers and archers as much as possible. It didn’t silence the grumbling as she’d hoped, but it did make her popular among the men, both new and old.

Bricio, who had risen to the rank of a lieutenant in the household guard, encouraged her to do this.

“It makes them feel heard and acknowledged,” he said.

“But I can do nothing!” she said in one of her rare moments of unguarded frustration as they walked to her personal apartments. They’d just come in from riding out to the edge of the pass and talking with the men there. “Vulck pays me no mind at all, and his commanders are all sycophants who don’t dare tell him anything but what he wants to hear—that the army is in top condition and training! They’d never let him see the cracks developing due to the strain on the men, for fear of losing their precious positions and not being able to soak up all of the financial benefits!”

“You give the men comfort, my lady,” Bricio said. “You give them something to fight for, something to protect. Or to try to protect, anyway,” he added. Melisende looked up to see him very pointedly not looking at her face, which she knew still carried the fading marks of a recent encounter with her husband. Even as good as Joalie was with makeup, it never hid everything, especially once the bruises turned purple.

“Bricio,” Melisende said in a soft, steady tone, though her insides trembled. “You must not worry about me. My husband will not dare touch me in anger again . . . not for some months at the very least. I am carrying our heir.”

“Then I offer my congratulations, my lady,” Bricio said, his voice soft and still sick sounding. “But what about once the child is born? What then?”

Melisende had been asking herself the same question. And no answer was immediately forthcoming. So, she changed the subject.

“What of our progress on the lodge?” she asked. “I have not been able to get away to go visit since my wedding, but it surely must be finished by now?”

“It is, my lady,” Bricio said. “Your crew has made all of the modifications required for all members of your household, and it stands ready for you to visit. And I think our . . . friend there misses you.”

“Excellent,” she said. “I wanted to wait until it was done to tell Valck, as a surprise. But . . .” she trailed off and looked up at her stalwart warrior.

“But, my lady?”

“But perhaps we shall wait a bit longer,” she said softly, as the seed of an idea began to take root in her mind.

“As my lady wishes . . . but I think that is wise.”

“Yes, I think so too.”


Bricio was correct. TAV had missed her.

Melisende finally managed to slip out to the lodge to inspect the finished product and see her strange friend and mentor during one of Valck’s absences. As her pregnancy progressed, the Lord of Cercen often found excuses to leave the Keep and travel with his closest group of sycophants. Melisende found herself grateful, rather than resentful. With Valck gone, she once again had something like the freedom of movement she’d enjoyed as a girl. So when he left her yet again, she had her servants saddle Mist and called to Bricio and Joalie to escort her on a ride in the pass. Valck refused to let his wife be alone with another man, even one of her own guards, so Joalie had become Melisende’s constant companion.

The three of them set out shortly after dawn pinkened the sky, and had arrived at the lodge by mid-morning. The lodge wasn’t far from the keep, but it was situated well back in the forest, hidden on three sides by folds in the slope, and built partially into the rock of the mountain itself. It was nearly impossible for Melisende to see it until they were right at the front doors.

In short, it was an ideal refuge, made all the better by the welcome she received from her household.

“My lady Melisende!” Edsen called out as she passed between the stout timber doors into the inviting warmth of the Lodge’s entrance hall. The once-foreman came toward them, hands spreading in welcome as she led Bricio and Joalie farther into the hall. He dropped to one knee before his lady, bending his neck so that she could easily brush her fingers across his hair in the ancient gesture of continued fealty offered and acknowledged. Then he stood and clasped arms with Bricio, and accepted a hug from Joalie—though Melisende noted that his cheeks flamed in a blush.

“It is good to see you, Edsen,” Melisende said, smiling gently as she rescued the man from his own disconcertedness. “I thought I would come and see what you have been up to as my steward here.”

“I am so pleased you have, my lady,” he said. “We have been hoping that you would. The hall has been finished for months.”

“I wanted to come . . .” she said, trailing off, suddenly unsure of how to express the guilt and longing that she’d felt.

“Lady Melisende has been much occupied of late,” Joalie broke in, smoothly. Melisende smiled weakly and nodded—though she did not miss the significant look that her maid gave to her steward. Nor did she miss her steward’s thin-lipped tiny nod of acknowledgment. Unless she missed her guess, Joalie had just promised Edsen that she would fill him in later.

“Of course,” Edsen said. “It’s only that himself has been asking for you. He talks to us, but he takes his oath to your ladyship very seriously, and he says he can’t serve you if he can’t talk to you.”

The Lodge really was a lovely place, Melisende reflected as Edsen led her and Bricio down the main corridor that led back into the hill, to TAV’s chambers. Melisende knew her men had cut the space out of the rock itself, but it was supremely comfortable. Brightly colored tapestries lined the walls and the floor consisted of wooden planks polished until they positively shone in the beautiful, steady light from the fixtures TAV had taught them how to fashion. Melisende knew the power—what TAV called electricity—came from the generator assembly, currently being run by a steam boiler deep in the bowels of the Lodge. TAV had taught the men about that too, though they’d built and adapted it with their own ingenuity.

Eventually, the hallway began to curve around to the left and they came to a steel-banded wooden door. Melisende knocked, and she heard TAV’s strange, tinny voice call out as he always did.

“Identify yourself, please.”

“It’s Melisende.”

“My lady! You are always cleared for entry!”

The door swung open, actuated by some kind of electricity-driven spring mechanism, and Melisende led Edsen and Bricio through to the wide, dark space on the other side. As they entered, lights set high in the wall all around gradually brightened, until Melisende could clearly see the room.

No wooden floors or beautiful tapestries here. TAV’s quarters were an empty room with two great double doors at the far end and enough space for the machine himself to sit dead center without touching any of the walls or the ceiling. Melisende took a moment to admire the long, sleek lines of him. She had taken her father’s most skilled metal worker into her service, and it had taken the man the better part of the past five years, but TAV seemed to finally be returned to his pre-burial condition. He was quite large, easily as large as her bedchamber at home when it came to width and length. His height, though, stretched barely above her head . . . well, unless one counted the huge steel barrel that could be elevated and lowered from the topmost part of TAV’s main body. At its highest elevation, nearly straight up, the barrel reached a good five lengths into the sky—as tall as the gate towers of Cercen Keep itself!

“My lady,” TAV said, and even though his voice still carried that foreign, tinny, metallic quality, Melisende could hear pleasure in the tone. “Will you do me the honor of mounting up?”

“I will,” Melisende said, and stepped forward as an invisible seam in TAV’s low-slung body parted and a hatch hinged upward, revealing an opening. A sense of wonder rushed through her, just as it did every time she climbed up and into the body of her sworn . . . well . . . sworn retainer, anyway. With the exception of the obvious repairs, TAV’s inner workings were ancient, and inspired reverence deep within Melisende as she settled herself in the strangely cushioned seat TAV called the “commander’s station.”

The hatch closed behind her, and TAV dialed up the interior lights until Melisende could see through the magical-seeming screens that showed the room outside, complete with Bricio standing guard.

“It has been a long time, my lady,” TAV said, his voice surrounding her from all sides.

“Too long, TAV,” Melisende sighed. “I have neglected you, and I owe you an apology.”

“I do not think so.”

“What?” she asked, smiling slightly. “Do I not owe you regular visits anymore?”

“You do, but I do not think it is your fault that you have been unable to keep them. My scans tell me that you have increased capillary blood flow to the area around your eye, and that you are currently in the very early stages of pregnancy. In my time, congratulations would have been in order. Is this still the case now?”

Melisende swallowed hard. In five years, she still hadn’t gotten used to the instantaneous way that TAV collected information. “It is,” she said weakly. “And thank you.”

“Your heart rate is accelerating.”

“I am nervous,” she admitted. “Anxious.”

“Do I cause this anxiety?”

“No, TAV. It just . . . happens these days. It’s just one of those things that has to be endured.”

“Why?” he asked. “Your physiological reactions are similar to a trauma response. Have you experienced a trauma?”

Had she? Maybe. Without warning, the memory of Valck’s heavy hand impacting her cheekbone, sending her toppling to the floor reared up within her mind, and she found herself hunching in her seat, gasping.

“My lady?” TAV said, his volume dropping. “What has happened to you?”

“I got married,” she whispered, without really meaning to do so.

“To Valck of Kaperado,” TAV supplied.

“Yes,” she said

“And he has traumatized you?” TAV’s voice was perfectly neutral. Had she not been so distracted by the roil of her own emotions, Melisende would have recognized that for the warning it was.

“He . . . yes,” she whispered, and it was almost a gasp. Words tumbled forth as her eyes filled with hot, liquid shame, and she found herself unable—or unwilling—to stop them.

“I was wrong, TAV. So wrong. I thought I could . . . I thought I could love him enough. But he is not kind, not open. He has been twisted by hatred for too long and he does not want my love. All he wants is my wealth and my power and an heir. And once this one is born, I fear . . . I fear he may kill me and take it all!” The last word ended on a sob of fear and anger. Melisende hunched, wrapping her arms around her middle to protect the precious life she carried as the pain and rage inside her finally found voice in her cries.

TAV let her emotions run their course. Melisende wept herself dry, and eventually lay curled in a ball on the seat of the commander’s station. When her sobs quieted enough for her to pull in a shaky breath, and then another, she became conscious of a low, almost subliminal rumble of sounds coming from TAV’s interior speakers.

“Are you . . . is that noise coming from you, TAV?” she asked, her voice rough.

“Yes,” he said. “It is a low rumble at 100Hertz, intended to mimic the purr of an Earth domestic cat. Though domestic cats did not survive here on Cavento, the sound of their purr was known in my time to induce a psychologically and physiologically calming effect on humans.”

“I don’t— I don’t understand that.”

“It is of no moment. The more important question is this: are you ready to consider what you will do?”

Melisende sniffed and swiped at the tear marks on her cheeks. Then she pushed herself back up into a seated position and pulled her tangled hair away from her face.

“Yes,” she said. “You are right, TAV, as always. I must make a plan. Because I meant it. I think Valck intends to kill me. He has already usurped my power at court. I must take it back. And you must help me.”

“My lady, I am yours to command.”


There wasn’t much time.

The following morning, Melisende and her household—save only a skeleton crew remaining to keep the lodge running as a fallback location—departed back into the pass, towards the storied walls of Cercen Keep. This time, TAV rolled alongside them, easily keeping pace with the sturdy oremes, his tracks smoothly covering the rocky ground with no problems. Melisende rode most of the way inside his compartment as he taught her about his capabilities, and what he could do with each piece of terrain they covered.

“The largest barrier,” he said at one point as they climbed up another small hill toward her home, “will be that of ammunition. I am well supplied with rounds for a single encounter, but with your levels of technology, I will not be able to quickly resupply them.”

“Can Edsen and his crew not figure something out? You’ve taught them how to repair you, after all.”

“Mostly repair me,” TAV corrected. “I am still not at one hundred percent of my capability, but I have calculated that it is probable that I will be able to achieve the objective you desire.”

“I just want Valck gone, and my sovereignty back . . . for now.”

“Yes. It is that ‘for now’ of which I speak.”

“Well,” Melisende waved a hand as her body swayed in response to his movement over the terrain. “That is of no consequence for the moment. Once we are secure in the keep, and Valck has been dealt with, we will consider next steps. I do not imagine his father will accept my seizing power with any kind of grace, but that is a problem for later.”

“In answer to your earlier question,” he went on, “I have begun training Edsen and his crew, but there is much science they have yet to learn before they can reliably create high explosive, thermal, EMP, or nuclear rounds for my weapons suite. However, simple canister rounds are much easier to fabricate, and your crew should be able to manufacture those within a few days as soon as we have materials.”

“Good. We shall have them, when we take the keep.”

They timed their journey to arrive at the keep’s gate an hour after sunset, but just before the moon rose. Melisende mounted Mist once more and rode ahead to issue orders that the gates be opened for her household.

“And I beg of you,” she added, throwing her hood back and looking up at the face of the guardsmen standing watch above the gate. “Say nothing and do not fear what I bring inside. I give you my word of honor that all I do is in the service of Cercen and her people.”

“We know, my lady,” one of the men said, touching two fingers between his eyes, and then lowering his hand out away from his face. It was a gesture of respect and fealty, and Melisende felt her throat tighten as she bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“Thank you,” she called out, not even ashamed of the emotion that crackled through her voice as the gates opened and she led TAV and her people inside.

Melisende got a few hours of sleep, mostly because Joalie insisted, but then she spent most of the night penning missives to the nobles that had faithfully served her father for so many years. Most of them had been dismissed from their roles in the government of Cercen’s lands and had returned to their own estates in the mountains. She reached out to ask them to come, to support her as they had supported her father, and to help her to oust the enemy that she had married and could not turn. She sent these messengers riding out after dark on the best oremes and hoped against all hope that her nobles would respond.

Then she turned her mind to the keep’s defenses.

Cercen keep had never fallen, but their situation was incredibly precarious. And Valck had a lot of men. Melisende ordered supplies laid in for a siege, knowing that she risked tipping her hand as she did so.

But something unexpected happened in the frantic, dreamlike days that followed. Despite the lack of sleep and manic preparations, Melisende found herself having individual, private conversations with her people almost constantly. Every minute, it seemed someone new was seeking her out to whisper their support for her cause, and to pledge their loyalty to her personally. She felt perpetually on the edge of tears from overwhelming gratitude and the looming fear that she was about to get all of these loyal, good people killed.

“And you may,” TAV said when she unburdened herself to him during one of the times she climbed into his cab for a respite. “They may, in fact, die because of your actions. That is the burden of leadership. But remember this, they chose to pledge to you, each of them of their own free will. That is significant.”

“It is,” Melisende said, straightening her shoulders and letting out a breath. “But I’d just as soon keep them all alive if I can. Is this a good vantage point for you?”

They had decided to put TAV on one of the lower stone ramparts that ran along the outer curtain wall of the keep. It had been quite a trick of engineering to rig a ramp strong enough for him to ascend to the hastily widened platform, but Edsen and his men had managed it in a day.

“It will suffice,” TAV said. “If I still had my complement of drones, I could use them for additional reconnaissance, but they are long gone. My optical sensors will have to do, and as they can see the southern neck of the valley from which Valck and his army will approach, I have determined that I am, barely, within striking range.”

“What is a ‘drone’?” Melisende asked, diverted. Then she shook her head. “Nevermind. You can tell me later. Perhaps Edsen can make you some of those as well . . . after he figures out the high explosive rounds, of course. And the nuclear ones. Those sounded most interesting.”

“Hmm. Yes,” TAV replied. He did not elaborate, though. Melisende had noticed that he tended to be reticent when the topic of nuclear rounds came up. But that, too, was a problem for later.

Now, the problem was her husband.

“Word from the scouts is that Valck is encamped no more than a half-day’s march from here,” she said. “It’s probably too much to hope that he’s completely ignorant of our presence and actions. I trust most of my nobility, but I would be foolish to think that someone hadn’t sent a message or let something slip. So we can expect that he’s coming prepared for battle.”

“The odds of him being prepared for what I can do are infinitesimal,” TAV said. Had he been human, Melisende would have accused him of bragging. But this was just a statement of fact.

“That is what I am counting on. But I can’t reveal your presence too soon. That would be showing our hand. We must stick to the plan. Nobles have begun responding. Very few of them are sending men, but most of them are pledging support and supplies, which are almost as crucial. And critically, several of the most powerful have come here themselves. They did not appreciate the way Valck stripped them of their authority in government. They have named me sole Lady of Cercen, so we have another claim to legitimacy through their actions.”

“History would indicate that is a good thing.”

“It is, TAV. It is a very good thing. So . . . that is it, I guess. Tomorrow we will see how this goes. I am confident in our victory, but . . . should anything happen, know that it has been my great honor to be your commander and lady.”

“The honor has been mine, my lady.”


By midafternoon the following day, Melisende’s scouts had sighted Valck’s vanguard entering the pass. TAV saw them too, and reported that he had run trajectory calculations on the narrow valley neck as required. Melisende took this to mean that he would be able to do what was needful and left it at that. Sometimes, it was still so hard to understand the things that TAV said, even though they spoke the same language.

When night fell, Valck’s entire army had arrived. Melisende could see them with her naked eyes, their fires winking into existence one by one as the daylight faded. They had stopped to make camp rather than continue onward. That could mean only one thing: Valck knew what she had done. Morning would likely bring an attack, followed by a lengthy siege.

At least, that was what she figured Valck expected. But he didn’t know Melisende, and he didn’t know TAV.

An hour or so after sunset, a messenger approached the gate, carrying a white ribbon attached to his oreme’s saddle. Melisende ordered that he be admitted, and that food and drink be prepared for him while she read the message he carried from her husband:


“My lady wife,

Rumors have reached my ears that you have been very foolish in my absence. Some say you intend to keep me out of my own home. I know this cannot be the truth, because even if you had the courage to try and seize power, you know all too well what I would do to you once my army inevitably crushes your tiny resistance. You have until dawn to ride out and publicly surrender yourself to me. If you do not, know that my punishment for you will be worse than anything you have yet experienced or can imagine.

Your lord and husband,

Valck of Cercen”


Fear shivered though her as she read the words. She could almost hear his voice speaking them softly into her ear. For just a moment, her spirit quailed, and she looked up with wide, terrified eyes.

Only to see Bricio, and Joalie, and Edsen, and Heyorg the blacksmith, and Pura the bakerwoman, and Lady Tilara, her Exchequer, and the ranks of her guardsmen, her soldiers who had come at her call . . . and TAV, his sleek lines hulking in the darkness above where she stood in the outer bailey. These people—her people—depended on her. She could not fail them now.

Melisende of Cercen folded the note and tucked it away in her sleeve. Then she smiled at the messenger and invited him to take food and wine before returning to her husband. She would have no answering message at this time.

Then she turned and lifted her chin as she walked up the ramp to TAV’s position. She did not mount up and into the cab, though she dearly wanted the safety of his hardened armor around her. But for this, she had to be visible. She did, however, take the antique headpiece that TAV had told her was reserved for his commander, and place it over her head like a helmet.

The time had come.

With the headpiece on, Melisende could see the valley lit up as if it were daytime, albeit a colorless one. The scene existed entirely in black, white, and grey, as if all the color had been leached out of the world. Red numbers glowed along the edges of her vision, giving her distance and angle measurements.

“This is what you see,” Melisende said softly. “This is how you experience the world.”

“Only at night,” TAV said. “And only with the near-IR spectrum enabled. Would you like to see thermal instead?”

“No,” she said. “No time for that now. We must begin with our plan. Make them hear me, if you please, TAV.”

“Engaging loudspeaker. The acoustics of this valley should do the rest. If you speak, all will hear your voice, my lady.”

She nodded, then drew in a breath and turned to face the dark mass of men. TAV helpfully increased the magnification until she became able to pick out individual bodies, though not faces.

“Men of Cercen,” she said, and listened as her own amplified voice rolled though the pass, bouncing off the stone cliffs and echoing down into the valley. “I am Melisende of Cercen, your rightful Lady. A miracle of past technology has allowed me to speak to you, and I am grateful.

“I am grateful for all of you true men, who take your oaths seriously and seek only to do what is right and what honor demands.

“I am grateful for all of you true men, who earn what you have, and disdain to steal what is not truly yours.

“I am grateful for all of you true men, who shelter those in need of protection, and who would never raise a hand to harm those weaker than yourselves.

“I am grateful to call you Men of Cercen, and I invite you to leave the camp of the usurper, the abuser that you serve, and come home to the keep that will welcome you with open arms. Know that all men who wish to swear loyalty to me as their sole, sovereign Lady will be welcomed, but that any who act with ill intent will be punished. As a token of my promise to you, I give you light, to guide your way home.”

“Illumination flare, firing,” TAV said in her ear piece, and Melisende heard and felt a deep crash shiver through her body. A moment later, her black-and-white view of the world blinked and reformed, and Melisende heard the gasps of her people as a light brighter than the moon rose up into the sky over them.

“Come home, Men of Cercen,” Melisende said. “For our keep is warm and our fires are bright, and only those within the keep shall be saved from the wrath of the mountains. For I am a daughter of the pass and the cliff. I am a daughter of the river of ice. I am a daughter of these mountains, and they are displeased with he who has acted to harm their child.”

This, too, was a prearranged signal. For once again, TAV spoke in her ear and once again, she felt the sound of his great gun firing echo through her chest. On her display, she could see a streak of light arc across her field of view and impact the cliff opposite them down at the narrowest part of the valley. She imagined she could hear Valck’s laughter at the thought that she had missed his host.

But she hadn’t missed.

A few moments later, she watched in an awe that bordered on horror as the snowy side of the far cliff collapsed and slid down into the pass. The snow had a kind of grace to it as it flowed into the narrow neck of the valley and completely blocked Valck’s only escape route.

“Come home, Men of Cercen,” Melisende called a third time, “Swear to me and to no other, and live yet in these mountains who will defend their own!”

She fell silent and waited, watching.

Slowly, a small bit of the dark mass detached itself and began moving at speed toward the gates of the keep. Others moved to stop them, but Melisende’s archers were ready, and provided covering fire from the walls of the keep itself. TAV sent up another illumination flare as the first one fizzled into nothingness, and slowly but surely, more and more of the massed army surrounding Valck turned and fought their way free, then rode hell-for-leather to the keep.

As soon as the men arrived, Joalie and Bricio took their oaths in her stead and the men were given arms and a place on the walls. In this way, Melisende’s new men provided more and more arrows to see their fellows to safety.

When the stream of riders had slowed to a trickle, Melisende had TAV send up another flare.

“Men of Valck,” she called out this time. “Your time has expired. The mountains have found you wanting. You must be washed clean by the ice and the snow. If we find you alive, you will be forgiven. Fire.”

TAV let out another deep crack, and another projectile arced overhead. But this time, Melisende had ordered him to fire one of the precious High Explosive rounds, and had used her headpiece display to aim it right at Valck’s command tent. The resulting explosion reverberated through the valley, sending yet more of the hillside sliding down in that graceful roll to bury the bodies of those who would steal the birthright of the Daughter of the Mountains.


It only took ten days to dig out enough to open the pass once more. The Men of Cercen (as the army was now calling itself) threw themselves at the task with a vengeance, and the supplies that Melisende had laid in were more than enough to see them through. They also found survivors from Valck’s camp—or as some wit named it, Valck’s Folly. A pair of men, father and son, had been partially sheltered by one of Valck’s half-constructed siege engines. They also found a young messenger huddled next to the body of his oreme under the snow. All three of the men enthusiastically swore to be Melisende’s loyal men and she, true to her word, forgave them for not coming home sooner.

Melisende reformed her government, mostly reinstating her own nobility, but keeping one or two of Valck’s most talented and least corrupt men. She worked with TAV and Bricio to reorganize the army under the most competent commanders and to prepare them for the inevitable backlash that would result.

Edsen and his men continued their quest to learn enough to resupply TAV with ammunition.

Two seasons after Melisende’s coup, she bore a child, a daughter that she named Morafia. To Melisende’s delight, the people began to refer to both her and her infant as “Daughters of the Mountains”.

A season after that, a messenger arrived wearing Uto of Kaperado’s colors. He carried a missive from Melisende’s erstwhile father-in-law:


“Lady Melisende,

I take great joy in the news of the birth of my grandchild, and sorrow only to know that she is not a boy who might inherit the throne of my late son. However, I feel confident that between us, we can make a suitable match for her and secure her a husband who will be a strong, strategic-minded leader for Cercen and a valued partner for Kaperado. I want you both to come and visit me here this autumn. The cold harshness of the mountains is no place for a child. And worry not for your keep, I have several very talented men who would do an admirable job administering in your child’s name. You need not trouble yourself about such things, my dear. After all, you are my daughter-in-law and I intend to look after you appropriately.

Uto, King of Kaperado”


“A king, is he?” Bricio asked when Melisende showed him the letter. “That’s new.”

Melisende shrugged and rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what he calls himself,” she said. “Edsen’s progress is encouraging, and TAV thinks that we can have the . . . what does he call them? Oh yes, ‘dumb tanks’ ready to go by next spring. I need only stall Uto until then, and that will not be hard with Morafia so young. He does not have the ability to attack during the winter, and we shall see the Feast of Flowers from the inside of his palace.”

“You are so confident, my lady?”

“I am, Bricio. No one else has the technology that we have. And so we must use it quickly, while our advantage stands. If I have learned anything from TAV’s stories, it is that no technological edge lasts forever. When the iron is hot, we must strike. And so we will. In the spring. In the meantime, I must return my dear father-in-law’s missive.”

“Yes, my lady. Do not let the poison from your pen burn the paper,” Bricio said with a gentle, joking smile. Melisende waved him away and turned back to the parchment stretched out on the desk in her father’s—now her own—study.


“My dear father-in-law,

I am so pleased to hear of your joy in my dear daughter’s birth. I feel confident that she will grow to be exactly the woman and Lady that Cercen needs. I thank you for your kind invitation, but I am afraid that it is impossible to travel with her so young yet. Perhaps next spring. As you say, the mountains can be treacherous and harsh, and so we are safest here at home whilst she is in swaddling clothes. Thank you as well for your kind offer of talented administrators. One can never have too many of those, I have learned. Fortunately, my father and your son agreed, and we are quite well equipped here in Cercen for the time being. Perhaps once Morafia and I are able to travel, we will take you up on your offer, if it still stands?

May this autumn and the coming year bring you many more joys,

Melisende, Lady of Cercen

Daughter of the Mountains”


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