Note: The next two chapters are story chapters with no sex.
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Deres Valtise walked the halls of the queen's castle pondering the long, meandering, and wondrous path that brought him to this point. Beginning life as an orphan and beggar child in one of the poorest parts of the city, it seemed to him even then that his life was set. He would live hand-to-mouth through begging and petty theft until he was large enough and old enough for serious manual labor, probably in moving cargo at the docks or something else that didn't require much in the way of education that he never would have gotten a chance to have anyway. He would marry someone of much the same station, they'd have children and, if he were lucky, they'd have enough to get by and, if truly fortunate, perhaps one of his children would have the chance at something a little better.
That was one desire that all parents shared regardless of status, but, for people that lived the way his life began, it was something that they prayed to the Goddess to nightly. Even then, the gifts and fortunes of high nobility would be beyond them, unless they were comely enough to catch the eye of a noble so enamored of them that they might bring them up from that. Such a thing was rare however, with nobles generally content to keep them a secret, no matter how enamored they were, because one's social standing had to be maintained and a noble openly wedding a lesser was a mark against that social standing that could linger for a generation or two, at least.
Even as a child praying to the Goddess for better while huddled in a dark corner for the night, he never could have imagined how, if She existed at all, She favored him with a gift out of a dream. One day, he attempted and failed at an act of petty larceny against not just a woman, but a Magister of Adar, one of the greater mages from what was thought to be a mythical city where it was said some of the last practitioners of all magic could be after they fled for their lives into the wastes beyond, where people were never meant to live. With their understanding of magic, science, and how they could combine, along with the incentive that came with knowing they would have to adapt or they would die, they built a city that was a monument to that combination, capable of wonders in both fields that the rest of the world could scarcely contemplate.
Seeing in that young boy his need for a life that wasn't all but bereft of hope and, in herself, the opportunity for a life with a family that she never seemed to have time for until that moment brought its absence to the fore, she took him to that fabled city and raised him as her own.
There, he absorbed everything his mother, the others there, and the world they had built had to teach. After his formative years and then some, the call of the larger world and the home he once knew was too much to ignore, so he took his leave with a heavy heart and anticipation in equal measure and returned to Erette. Not long after having done so, however, not only did his life take an irrevocable turn, so did the lives of two others.
He saw Neral Jaye, commander of the combined forces of Erette shadowed by another wandering the upper markets with Bryana Lia as her shadow, using her own mage skills to remain unnoticed. Lia, a mage of this world, had been hired by a rival of House Jaye to use that magic to corrupt Neral into murdering her lifelong friend and queen. With the queen gone and House Jaye sullied beyond redemption for its responsibility for the act, the rival house would have vastly expanded its power and influence and may have even found a path to the throne.
Curiosity would have led him to learn more about what was going on and his sense of right and wrong would have led him to help, but, Neral took his heart at the first sight of her. He had never seen quite that combination of strength and beauty in one form before, tall and powerful, but she carried it easily and without losing a bit of femininity. Those liquid brown eyes were something he could lose himself within forever, so that was what drew him to her and offer his aid.
But, even though he was a captured soul, he saw an opportunity to secure his future. He offered his help to Neral in return for her hand in marriage. Initially aghast at the arrangement in the face of the threat to queen and kingdom, she saw the practicality of it from his perspective. She would die for her queen without a second thought, so to marry a man who was in a position to help was nothing when it came to a price to pay. And, to make that price easier to pay, she chose a spell of love that he offered.
Capturing Bryana took a feat of magic and turning her away from the plot and away from the person that she was that could embrace it took a feat of magic and science. The plot foiled, Bryana had remained, at first because the magic required her to make amends to the one she had most wronged, but later, because the lives of the three of them had entwined in adventure, life lived, and genuine love and affection. No matter who else came into their lives or how, the three remained as one. Add the bright star of his life that was young Khylen, and his life was just the right side of perfect.
Now, back to the place of his humble beginnings, he was in a place that, in its own way was just as incredible as a life in a city of myth. A boy who once tried to sleep as much as possible during particularly lean days so that he might not feel the pangs of hunger quite so much could now come and go from the royal castle and the queen's presence as he pleased, knowing he had earned her trust and affection in his own right. The boy he was would have never believed the journey and there were times, like now, that he had to take stock of it himself.
Today was a day that found him working with the military healers, mentoring where need be and sharing his knowledge of the arts, though he had to be careful to hide the full extent of his abilities even in the sanctioned healing magics, sharing only small steps along the lines that were already being studied so as not to risk exposing himself to the wider world and he didn't want to suggest avenues, even in the healing magics, that the greater world might not be ready for, and might be willing to do almost anything to possess.
Neral wanted detailed progress reports on such things with regularity because it simply wouldn't do for her not to know exactly what the troops under her command were capable of before she set them to something or something came to them. He carried with him such a report as he wound his way through the stone corridors and past the personnel who worked there with him.
Turning left into the more expansive area that was the anteroom to General Jaye's primary office to find Nelina Jaye looking through the worn pages of a book that presumably came from the stack of them on her desk. The two looked similar in that they were both slightly shorter than average and powerfully built, but there was still a young woman there. She rarely bothered with makeup while on duty and didn't indulge in it overmuch off duty, save for court ceremonies where a woman was required to "display her wiles," as many said, though Nelina's appraisal was, "look like a whore."
Occasionally, it was fun to look that way, she simply objected to the requirement.
Her fine brown hair was reasonably short, stopping just below her collar and longer bangs helped frame her face. She maintained herself in full uniform, as her day often entailed going back and forth from the castle, to the city, to the training grounds for this errand and that and her rank insignia, coupled with that of her House tended to speed things along. That and, simply, she was an officer in the military, as proud of her service as Neral was.
She glanced up at the sound of footfalls and gave him a welcoming nod. "Deres."
He smirked. "Uncle Deres."
Her green eyes betrayed nothing. "You know that familiarity is inappropriate here, yet you feel you must."
"Because I feel I must. Testing you on occasion amuses me. Is she in?"
"She is," Nelina answered. "She is awaiting your input and that of several others before a status meeting this afternoon."
He craned his neck and tilted his head to examine the spines of the ledgers that populated her desk, "Is that what you're doing now?"
"It is."
He watched her pen move across the paper furiously. "I have always admired your work ethic."
She didn't even look up, "And I yours, though it hardly surprises me. We are Jayes. There is no room for sloth in our House."
A wondrous path indeed.
It wasn't an 'Uncle Deres,' but he decided he would take it. The House Jaye was always forward thinking and, while Neral's sisters had interrogated him thoroughly when he came into their lives, he had passed, and Neral loved him, so his acceptance was swift. For their children it was swifter still as all children tended to push boundaries and create new norms. They never cared where he came from, only that he honored his family and their House.
