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The thalamus was wrapped in the hush of deep evening. A single oil lamp burned low on the trapeza, its flame catching the edges of the petteia board where scattered terracotta pieces still lay from their earlier match.
Touka sat half-reclined on her kline, one leg drawn up beneath her. The sheer silk of her chiton slipped loosely from one shoulder just as her hair did, comfortable enough after a year of being in a formal relationship. She toyed idly with the curl at the end of one russet strand as she watched her partner. Nemu lounged opposite her on the facing kline, four arms arranged with grace—two supported her weight and the lower pair rested along Touka’s embroidered cushions. Trailing edges of her hair frayed into firmament where shadow touched them. Patient violet eyes that had become as familiar as breath rested on Touka.
They had spoken of many things tonight: grain yields in the newly integrated valleys, the latest missive from a cautious Corinthian contact, the olive harvest that promised to ease winter stores. Ordinary matters. But the conversation had drifted, as it sometimes did when the hour grew late and the wine had been watered just enough to loosen tongues without clouding minds.
Touka’s fingers stilled on the curl. “I have been thinking about… customs.”
Nemu tilted her head, and the motion sent a shimmer through the more shaded parts of her hair. “Customs,” she echoed. One upper hand gestured lazily toward the half-empty wine cup. “You rarely begin sentences that way unless the custom in question makes you uneasy.”
A small smile tugged at Touka’s mouth. She reached for her own cup, took a measured sip, and set it down again. “Among mortals—especially those who share a bed, who have chosen one another—it’s expected that one will eventually meet the other’s family. Not always with ceremony. Sometimes, particularly in cases where marriage is not involved, it just happens, a shared meal or a conversation. The acknowledgment that the person beside you carries ties that existed long before you arrived.” She paused, gaze drifting to the star charts pinned across the far wall. “I have no parents living. My uncle, aunt, and cousin left the city years before I took it—five years before the invasion, when the city first turned violent and riots had to be suppressed. Contact has been scarce since. They live somewhere across the sea, very far. I don’t even know the exact place, only that news of my visit to Delphi reached them eventually, as such things do.” She looked back at Nemu and her expression softened into something almost rueful. “And then there is you. Ancient One. First Born. The Night itself, who has watched civilizations rise and crumble like sand beneath the tide. Do you even have family in any sense that would make this custom apply?”
The silence that followed was comfortable, the kind they had learned to share without hurry. Nemu’s lower hands shifted, one settling along her own thigh while the other reached across the table. Her fingers brushed Touka’s wrist lightly in a touch that had long since ceased to feel like trespass.
“I have no blood kin. No siblings forged in the same primordial womb. The other old powers… they are more like distant echoes than family. We existed alongside one another, sometimes in alliance, often in indifference. None of them would expect—or particularly desire—an introduction in the way your uncle and aunt might.” A faint smile curved Nemu’s lips. Starlight flickered briefly through a few locks again. “Yet I do find myself curious. You speak of them rarely, but when you do, I hear old fractures in your words. I would meet them, if you wished it.”
Touka turned her hand beneath Nemu’s to lace their fingers together. The contact was warm, the faint calluses on her own palm a reminder of blades and reins and the thousand small labors of rule. She pushed the concern that threatened to surface back to whence it came.
“I never considered it before,” she admitted. “Not seriously. My life has been… public. Exposed. Bringing anyone into it carries both political and personal risk. And bringing them here would be impossible. The moment word spread that my uncle and aunt had returned to Hokuyo under my protection, every remaining oligarch faction and every ambitious neighbor would see leverage. Hostages. Opportunities. That’s if the demos don’t clamor for their heads; I could do little more than make sure all three of them are swiftly executed, it was hard enough to convince them Yuuna should live. I cannot risk that.” She exhaled slowly. “But we could go to them, in disguise. I presume you’d be able to do that. They would recognize me, I believe, but no one else need know. A single evening. Enough to let you see them, and them see you. Nothing more formal than that.”
Nemu’s thumb traced a slow circle over the back of Touka’s hand. “Then we will arrange it. I can wear a form that will not frighten them outright, though I will not hide what I am entirely.” Her gaze held something deeper than amusement. “I want to know the people who shaped you before I claimed the rest. And I suspect they will want to know the one who has stood at your shoulder since Delphi.”
Touka let out a giggle and hoped the nerves in the sound wouldn’t overtake the rest. She leaned forward across the table, close enough that their foreheads nearly touched. “My lover, then.”
Nemu’s smile grew in fondness. “Whichever form pleases you most, so long as I am permitted to hold your hand.”
The lamp flickered between them.
Mortal-born king and primordial dark had begun to fold their separate histories toward one another.
The modest vessel Nemu guided had slipped through familiar coastal currents with unnatural smoothness. They had chosen a discreet landing point along Hokuyo’s southern shores, far from the main harbors and watchful eyes. Disguises settled over them like second skins: Touka in the plain, travel-worn wool of a merchant’s daughter, her russet braids pinned simply beneath a modest veil; Nemu in simple Doric chiton and a stricter human semblance—tall, broad-shouldered, but with ordinary eyes and only two visible arms, the kind of unremarkable traveler who might accompany a woman on business.
They walked the narrow coastal path in silence as the sun moved toward early afternoon, painting the hills in light. Wild thyme crushed beneath their sandals and released its clean scent into the warming air. Touka’s steps each looked like she was thinking each footfall through, almost as if uncertain. Nemu matched her pace without comment, one hand resting lightly at the small of Touka’s back—support, not guidance.
The family tomb lay on a wooded slope a short distance inland from the cove, an old private plot maintained by discreet arrangements over the years. It was well-kept, local stone half-hidden by myrtle and young olive trees—far enough from the city proper to avoid casual notice, close enough that news of its tending never raised questions. No grand inscriptions. No offerings of gold or painted vases left by distant kin. Only the simple markers Touka’s agents had ensured remained respected: her mother’s name first, then her father’s.
Touka stopped a respectful distance from the stones. She drew a slow breath and her veil slipped slightly as she lowered her head. For a long moment, she simply stood, hands clasped before her, the afternoon sun warm on her shoulders. She wasn’t praying, Nemu knew that much, or at least not to the gods. It may have been the closest thing Touka could offer to that. Nemu remained at her side, close enough for Touka to feel her presence but far enough to honor the space this place demanded.
“I have not come here often,” Touka said at last. “The living have claimed too much of my time. But… I wanted you to see where they rest.” She stepped forward slowly, then knelt before her father’s marker first. Her fingers brushed the weathered stone lightly, with the reverence one offered to heroes or household gods, and traced the carved name as if committing it to memory once more. “He was the last good oligarch in a rotten city. Not perfect, none of us are. But he tried to hold what remained of honor when others reached only for power. He taught me to read the stars before I could read law. To weigh a decision not by what it gave me, but by what it cost everyone else. He taught me never to let fear hold me before I fully understood a situation.”
Her voice did not break, but it softened into what Nemu recognized as solemn cadence of funerary speech, the protocol of remembrance that every Greek child learned at the graveside. Touka lingered there, head bowed, though she offered no libations—there would be no wine poured today, no barley cakes or honeyed figs left for the dead. This was not a feast for shades.
Nemu stood motionless a few paces back, hands folded before her in the manner of a respectful companion. Only someone who knew her well would notice the way the shadows at her feet seemed a fraction more attentive, as if alive. She did not reach out or speak. All she did was bear witness, as Touka had asked of her. She knew she could have reached into the realm of Hades and found the two parents, brought them up and made them lucid enough to speak to, even more if she so chose. She did none of it. Her lover had not asked her to, despite being well aware of her power.
After a time, Touka rose and moved to her mother’s stone. The marker was simpler, the name more weathered. Here her touch lingered longer, almost tender, as if smoothing an unseen blanket over a sleeping child. “She died bringing me into the world.” A long pause. “I never knew her voice. Only the stories he told—how she laughed at his grim moods, how gentle she was.” A faint smile touched her lips. “I don’t know what part of her lives in me. I’ve never been gentle.”
The breeze moved through the myrtle, carrying the distant murmur of waves against the shore. Touka remained kneeling, head bowed in the old posture of mourning—Nemu knew her partner hadn’t had the chance to do so at all before now. Still no summons. No invocation of her power to draw their shades near. Touka had made that boundary clear long before they sailed: some doors between living and dead were better left closed, even by one who could open them. The dead had earned their peace. She would not disturb it for comfort. It wasn’t a stance Nemu fully understood, a relationship to death too tied to mortality for the progenitor of it to fully see from the other’s point of view, but she would respect it as she always had.
She stepped closer only when Touka finally rose, to offer her arm. Touka took it and leaned into her. For several long minutes, they stood together before the twin markers.
“I brought you here so you could see them,” Touka said quietly. “Just… to show you where I began. Before the crown. Before you.”
Nemu’s hand covered hers where it rested on her arm. In her human guise, the touch felt ordinary—warm skin, callused fingers from imagined travels. She said nothing.
Touka lingered a while longer, breathing in the thyme and salt air, then turned away. She had said what needed saying. Nemu walked beside her, arm linked with hers.
She’d wait at least an hour before she opened the path onward.
Nemu felt the subtle shift in the air the moment their feet touched Persian ground.
They had stepped from the hidden cove into an alley on the outskirts of Susa, the great capital’s walls rising in the near distance. The transition had been smooth, wrapped in one of her usual veils of darkness, without any dramatic flare of shadow that may have startled nearby mortals. Touka’s foot touched the packed earth first. Nemu followed half a step behind to steady her when she inevitably stumbled. She supposed the shift could be a little drastic, going from wild thyme to dust and sun-baked brick. She could even smell some Persian incense somewhere—a scent Touka’s people would likely not be familiar with.
As expected, Touka stood very still for a breath. To anyone else, she would have appeared composed; back straight, shoulders level, the poise of any woman of means even on unfamiliar soil. Nemu knew her well enough to see the slight tension at the corner of her jaw, the way her fingers flexed once at her side, the near-imperceptible hitch in her breathing. Nervous. Not fear, never that. Was it the alertness of a king unarmed in a foreign land, or that of a mortal about to step into a past she had long since outgrown?
Nemu moved closer, letting their arms brush. “The visit first. Then—if you like—you may walk the city afterward. Susa has changed since last I watched it closely. There are gardens, markets, the great audience hall. Things worth seeing with your own eyes.”
Touka exhaled, a small sound only Nemu would recognize as relief. She turned her head just enough to meet Nemu’s gaze beneath her veil. “Take me to the house. I would rather not draw this out. And… I trust your guidance here more than my own memory of their ways.”
Nemu inclined her head once. Again, she offered her arm in the proper Greek manner for a male companion escorting a respectable woman, which she’d noticed Touka seemed to find some comfort in. Touka took it without hesitation, her fingers curling lightly around Nemu’s forearm.
They walked through the outer districts where the streets widened and the scent of baking bread and spiced meat drifted from courtyards. Nemu kept her pace somewhere between brisk and leisurely. Her eyes scanned the flow of people—Persians in fine robes, Medes, Greeks who had found their way here for trade or exile, the occasional Babylonian merchant. No one spared them more than a passing glance. Good, she hadn’t blundered with the disguises.
As they drew nearer to the residential quarter where Touka’s uncle had made his home, Nemu felt the tension in Touka’s arm increase by the smallest degree. She spoke again, low enough in volume for only her lover’s ears. “Remember, he knows you as his niece. I am simply your traveling companion. They need not know anything else unless you choose to tell them.”
Touka gave a small nod. “I know. It’s… strange. To stand before them after so long and offer so little.”
The house was quaint by the standards of Susa’s elite, but comfortable: whitewashed walls, a small shaded courtyard visible from the street, a wooden door reinforced with iron. The kind of home a man of former oligarchic standing might secure after years of careful self-exile. Nemu stopped a respectful distance from the threshold and glanced at Touka. When her lover gave the slightest nod, Nemu stepped forward and rapped firmly on the door.
Footsteps approached from within. The door opened to reveal a servant, an Etruscan woman not much older than Touka. Her eyes flicked over them both, then settled on Touka with dawning recognition.
“We seek Tasuke,” Nemu said in clear Greek, using the name Touka had given her. “His niece has traveled far to see him. We bring no trouble, only news from across the sea.”
The servant’s expression shifted, though difficult to read. She bowed slightly and disappeared inside. Moments later, heavier footsteps sounded.
Tasuke appeared in the doorway. Silver threaded heavily through his dark hair, lines etched deep around his eyes and mouth, but he still carried the exact same upright posture as Touka. His wife stood just behind him, watchful, and their daughter hovered in the background with some mix of curiosity and previously dormant hostility in her eyes. Tasuke’s eyes widened as they fixed on Touka. Recognition dawned all at once.
“By the gods…” he breathed, voice rough with disbelief. “Touka? The Loom Breaker herself stands at my door?”
Touka lowered her veil to reveal her face fully. Her smile was careful, the one she used when she wished to appear less than she was. “Uncle. It has been many years.”
For a heartbeat, the courtyard seemed to hold its breath. Then Tasuke stepped forward and pulled her into a brief embrace—the old custom of kin greeting kin after long absence. His wife followed, more reserved, and pressed a kiss to Touka’s cheek. The cousin hung back and stared.
Nemu stood quietly to one side, hands folded. She watched the reunion and noted the way Tasuke’s gaze flicked to her once, twice—assessing, cautious. He did not recognize her for what she was. Good, that was as it should be for now.
“We heard what the Oracle spoke at Delphi, the exact words. And what you did when the city fell into chaos. News travels, even here.” Tasuke studied her. “You came all this way. With your… companion?”
“With my companion. She has traveled with me for some time now. A trusted friend from the north.”
Tasuke’s gaze settled on Nemu more fully. He offered a polite nod, typical of a host. “Then you are both welcome beneath my roof. It is not often we receive such unexpected visitors.” His tone had the weight of Greek hospitality, even here on Persian soil: the obligation to offer shelter and food to travelers, especially family, no matter the years or distance. “Come inside. We have much to speak of. You will stay for dinner, of course.”
Touka inclined her head. “We would be honored, Uncle.”
Nemu followed them through the doorway, one step behind Touka. Inside, the house smelled of herbs and baked bread. She allowed herself the smallest inward smile as she walked beside her lover. The evening, she suspected, would be long. Touka’s cousin had yet to approach or say a word, and appeared to have fled deeper into the house at some point during the brief exchange.
Well. Hopefully, nothing too dramatic would occur before Touka’s revelation.
Nemu sat at the low table in the courtyard, early evening light filtering through the vines overhead. The meal had been laid with careful attention to customs she recognized—Persian hospitality blended with the Greek manners the household still clung to after more than a decade in exile. Flatbreads, spiced lentils, grilled fish seasoned with herbs and pomegranate, bowls of olives and fresh cheese, watered wine in plain cups. Tasuke presided at the head, his wife seated at an odd distance across from him. Nayuta sat beside her mother, shoulders tight, her gaze flicking repeatedly toward Touka with poorly concealed irritation. The servant—Rabi, Nemu had caught Nayuta calling her—moved efficiently between them to refill cups and plates.
Nemu ate sparingly, but observed everything. Polite nods when addressed. No unnecessary speech. She mirrored the small gestures of respect when Tasuke offered the first libation to the household gods, though she did not speak the words herself. The omission felt deliberate on her part; she would not pretend devotion where none existed. Both sets of deities were ones she knew of, some of whom she’d encountered before, others who had sought her out. She found those the Persians currently favored more courteous than the average Olympian.
Rabi’s eyes lingered on her once, but the woman said nothing, merely continued her duties. Perceptive, Nemu noted with slight appreciation. Etruscan women tended to be.
The conversation had begun lightly enough—news of the sea crossing, the state of trade routes, the weather in the north. But as the plates emptied and the wine cups were refilled, the questions turned, as Nemu had known they would.
Tasuke set down his cup as he continued to study his niece across the table. “We heard what happened in Hokuyo, and when you paid a visit to the Pythia. News spread like wildfire among our own here. And then the city… the old families cast down, the temples converted, the new laws. Some say you tore out the heart of piety itself and replaced it with granaries and that black-shielded army of yours.”
His wife made a distant sound, her gaze fixed on her plate. She had barely spoken to him all evening.
Nayuta leaned forward, voice edged with the irritation she no longer tried to hide. “They called you mad. The Mad King. Breaker of looms and gods alike. And now you appear at our door with a companion as if the past can just be set aside for dinner.”
Touka listened without interruption, her expression calm, the same she wore in council. She waited until the last of the fish had been cleared and Rabi had brought the final bowls of fruit—almost the end of the meal, as they had agreed—before she set her cup down.
“I did not come to defend every choice I’ve ever made,” she said evenly. “Hokuyo was rotting from within. The oligarchs bled the people dry while invoking gods who never answered. I did what was necessary to make the city stand on its own. The temples became schools and archives because the people needed knowledge more than empty stone halls. The old families fell because they chose corruption over duty. As for piety… I have never claimed to speak for the gods. I speak for the city that entrusted itself to me.”
Nayuta’s fingers tightened around her cup. “And this companion of yours? She has sat here all evening, yet she says almost nothing, offers no prayers, makes no sign of respect for the household altars. Who travels with my cousin that holds herself so apart?”
The table fell quiet. Rabi paused in the doorway, eyes flicking once more to Nemu with the same awareness she had shown earlier, but she remained silent.
Nemu kept her expression mild, observant but not challenging. She could feel Nayuta’s frustrated anger searching for an outlet, Tasuke’s cautious scrutiny. None of them understood what she was. Not yet. But, she had a feeling they were about to. Mortals seldom reacted well to what Touka was about to say.
Touka drew a slow breath. Her hand found Nemu’s beneath the table for a grounding squeeze. When she spoke again, her voice was steady.
“She is not just a companion.” Touka met her uncle’s eyes, then Nayuta’s, then her aunt’s. “Nemu is my lover. She has been at my side for years now—through every decision, every burden. I chose to bring her here so you could see her. Primarily, I’ll admit, because she was curious about you.”
The words settled over the table like the final course of a meal no one had quite expected. Nemu remained still, watching the reactions unfold in real time—the slight widening of Tasuke’s eyes, the sharp inhale from Nayuta, the way his wife’s gaze finally sharpened with something closer to genuine surprise. The last of the figs sat untouched in their bowl, the wine forgotten in the cups.
Tasuke’s face then went carefully blank. His wife sat rigid, eyes darting between Touka and Nemu as if reassessing every gesture from the evening. Nayuta’s knuckles showed white where she gripped the edge of the table, but it didn’t seem fully out of anger. Nemu saw her glance once toward Rabi in the doorway before looking away.
“You cannot be serious,” Tasuke said at last. “A lover. Here. After everything the city has become under your hand. You pushed aside our rites, and now this—bringing… her—into our home as though it were nothing.”
His wife’s mouth tightened. “We heard the stories. The way you have remade Hokuyo into something that no longer bends the knee. And now we are to sit at table with the cause of it?”
Nayuta’s voice cut sharper, though it wavered at the edges. “You speak of choice as if the world has not already paid for yours. The rumors crossed the sea long ago—madness, impiety, a king who answers to no god. And you bring proof of it to our door.”
Touka’s shoulders remained straight; Nemu knew the calm in her expression meant she was holding irritation on a short leash. She did not raise her voice. She never needed to. “I came because she is part of my life, not to debate the past. The part I chose. The part that has stood beside me when no one else could.”
The argument continued and voices began to overlap. Tasuke pressed on duty and blood, his wife made interjections about reputation, and there were less sharp barbs from Nayuta than expected. Touka listened, jaw tight, fingers still laced with Nemu’s beneath the table. When the words grew circular, when the same accusations circled back for the third time, Touka squeezed Nemu’s hand once—hard, unconscious. Her patience had frayed.
Nemu took it as the signal it had not been meant to be.
The voices cut off mid-word. Not violently. Simply silenced, as if the air itself had been drawn gently from their throats. Tasuke’s mouth moved. No sound emerged. His wife’s eyes widened. Nayuta froze, hand half-raised. Rabi, still in the doorway, went very still, and her gaze locked on Nemu.
Nemu lifted their joined hands above the table, slow and deliberate, so every eye could see the way Touka’s fingers remained threaded with hers. She turned her head and met Touka’s gaze directly.
“Χάος δ’ ἑταίρην φιλεῖ τὴν νυκτὸς ἔκγονον,” she said, softly. The words of prophecy carried through the sudden hush like starlight on still water. “Ἄρχε, ἱστορρῆκτα.”
Spoken exactly as they had been through the Pythia’s throat years ago.
The Void offers favor to the child of the night.
Let the Loom Breaker reign.
The realization landed behind their eyes almost immediately. Tasuke’s face drained of color. His wife pressed a hand to her mouth. Nayuta recoiled so hard her chair scraped against stone, the tangled anger on her face fracturing into something closer to fear. Rabi’s expression did not change, but her hands tightened at her sides as if she had known long before the rest.
Touka’s breath hitched once, but she did not pull her hand away. She held Nemu’s gaze a heartbeat longer, then turned back to her family with the same unyielding calm she had worn the day she took the city at fifteen.
“I did not come to frighten you,” she said quietly into the silence. “Only to let you see the truth I live with. She is not a patron I honor or a tool I use. She is mine, as I am hers. That is all I came to say.”
The courtyard remained frozen. No one spoke.
Nemu rose first, drawing Touka up with her. As they turned toward the door, she let the illusion slip just enough. A single black-feathered wing unfolded from her back, dusted with her stars, and curved gently around Touka in a protective arc, like a massive mantle, then folded back into shadow as smoothly as it had appeared. The gesture was deliberate. Unmistakable. There would be no convincing themselves they had imagined the impossible.
They walked out together into the cool evening air. Behind them, the family remained seated at the table, stunned into silence. Nemu kept her arm around Touka as they moved down the street. Her partner had drawn the veil over her braids once more, and to any passerby she would have appeared perhaps a little tired from travel. Nemu’s hand begged to differ. Touka had a vice grip on her, and Nemu doubted she even realized it, or the faint shallowness beneath her breathing.
Before Nemu could speak, before she could even begin to guide them toward a corner where she might offer comfort, a figure stepped out from a narrow side street ahead of them. He appeared as a young man about Touka’s height, clean-shaven, with long, well-groomed hair bound in neat braids that drank in the last of the sunlight in their threads. His clothing was simple but fine—Persian in cut, with embroidery at the cuffs—and his friendly bearing was tempered by careful courtesy. He smiled as he approached, open and warm, but stopped a respectful distance away.
“Forgive the interruption,” he said in fluent Greek. “I saw you leaving the house and thought perhaps you might welcome a guide through the city. Susa can be overwhelming for those newly arrived. There are beautiful places here that few outsiders see.”
Nemu recognized him at once. The radiance beneath mortal skin was difficult to ignore for one such as her. She had met him before, across long centuries, and knew his nature well enough—truthful, bound by oaths, genuinely warm toward those who honored their word. His intentions here carried no threat. She inclined her head slightly, a small acknowledgment that eased the tension in Touka’s arm by a fraction.
Touka studied him for a long moment, recognition flickering across her face—not his name, but the aura of divinity she’d learned to recognize. She glanced once at Nemu, read the lack of alarm there, and some of the stiffness left her shoulders.
“We would be grateful,” Touka said. “If it is no trouble.”
Mithra’s smile brightened. “No trouble at all. Come, there is a garden nearby with a fountain older than most of the palaces. And the view from the lower terraces at this hour is particularly fine.”
He led them with easy grace, pointing out details as they walked—the clever engineering of an aqueduct, the way certain streets aligned with certain stars, a small shrine where locals left offerings for safe journeys. His manner was, as Nemu had expected, courteous without deference, friendly without presumption. He asked no probing questions about their visit to the house and offered no judgment. Instead he spoke of the city itself, of the flow of trade and the strength of honest oaths between peoples, and Touka—slowly, visibly—eased. Her grip on Nemu’s arm loosened. Her steps grew lighter. By the time they had circled through a shaded colonnade and paused at an overlook where the city lights began to flicker on below, the tension had bled away almost entirely. She even laughed softly at one of his observations about the stubbornness of merchants.
Nemu walked beside them, content to let the exchange unfold. She had always appreciated Mithra’s particular gift: the way he could make space feel safe for those who valued his domains. He had done exactly that here, without once overstepping. She caught herself thinking that the Olympians could never and nearly snorted at the thought.
When the tour had wound sufficiently, Mithra led them down a narrower path lined with cypress and flowering shrubs. The sounds of the city faded behind them. He stopped at a secluded clearing where the trees opened to a private view of the darkening plain.
“No one comes down this path at this hour,” he said, still smiling. “It is quite safe. I must be leaving now, but I hope the evening finds you both well.” He offered a courteous bow to them—deeper to Nemu—then turned and walked back the way they had come.
The moment he was gone, the air around them returned to its normal breeze, without the solar buzz Mithra always brought with him.
Touka turned to Nemu, and Nemu watched the last of the day’s strain melt from her face like wax under flame. She stepped closer, pressed her forehead against Nemu’s shoulder, and her hands slid around her waist with a vulnerability she rarely showed even in the thalamus. No words, but contact sought. Her body leaned in as if asking to be held. Nemu wrapped her arms around her—now four to draw her closer—and guided them a few steps off the path into deeper shadow beneath the cypress. Touka followed without hesitation, more docile than usual, more open.
She was not picky about their location.
Nemu kept her hands gentle but sure as they found skin beneath wool and veil, mouth seeking mouth in the quiet dark. The night folded around them.
Touka’s sounds of need were the only music Nemu required.
Touka fastened the last pin in her chiton and smoothed the deep red fabric over her hips, ready for the day ahead. Early morning light slanted through the windows of the thalamus, catching on the gold girdle and the silver stars at her neck. She felt rested, clear-headed, fully prepared for the council meetings and the endless ledgers that waited beyond these walls.
Then she frowned.
The room was too quiet.
No footsteps in the outer corridor. No murmur of aides waiting for her to emerge. No distant rustle of leaves from the courtyard gardens, no birdsong. Nothing. It was like her ears were blocked with thick wool.
She turned toward the bed.
Nemu still lounged there, propped against the pillows in effortless disarray. The Night’s violet eyes were half-lidded, her small smile distinctly smug, the kind that usually meant she had already won whatever game they were playing before Touka had even realized the board had been moved.
Touka narrowed her eyes. “Nemu.”
Her lover’s smile deepened, pleased. “You noticed.”
Touka crossed to the balcony with bare feet. She stepped outside and looked down.
The city had stopped.
No movement in the streets below or carts creaking toward the markets. No guards changing shift at the gates. The leaves on the olive trees hung motionless. Even the distant waves against the harbor seemed frozen mid-crest. Time itself had been… gently set aside, it seemed.
She exhaled through her nose and stepped back inside, already reaching for the pins at her shoulders. “If you wanted me back in bed, you could’ve just asked instead of stopping the entire world to make room for it.”
Nemu sat up with fluid grace and waved one lower hand. The pins slid back into place before Touka could loosen them. “That is not it this time. Unless, of course, you have not had enough yet.” Her eyes glittered with stars in a way that made Touka’s breath catch. “I am always happy to oblige.”
Touka felt heat rise sharply in her cheeks. She huffed and folded her arms across her chest in a futile attempt to hide. “Insufferable. You know perfectly well I-” She caught herself, shook her head, and moved on. “What is this for, then? My schedule—”
“—did not have an opening,” Nemu finished gently. She rose from the bed. “So I created one.” She crossed the space between them and took Touka’s hands, thumbs brushing over her knuckles. “You said you wanted to meet my kin. I have figured out how to… introduce you. To my parent. Chaos.”
Touka’s eyes widened. For a long moment she simply stared at her lover.
Chaos. The primordial origin itself. All of existence had sprung from that formless beginning—and from their only child, the one standing before her now.
This was different from meeting a god in disguise. Different from Zeus’s maneuvering or Mithra’s warm courtesy the other day. There were so few writings she had ever been able to find—fragments, mostly, vague and contradictory. The only thing that remained clear across every source was that everything had come from that single primordial force.
She took a deep breath, then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Nemu, pressing her face into the curve of her neck. Nemu made a soft, inquisitive hum against her hair.
“Just… let me do this for a little bit,” Touka murmured, though muffled against skin.
When she finally pulled back, she felt steadier. She looked up into those violet eyes—ancient, patient, and hers—and slipped her hand into Nemu’s.
“I’m ready.”
The transition was seamless and absolute.
One moment Touka’s fingers were laced with Nemu’s in the safety of the thalamus. The next, the world fell away, like a veil drawn back by an unseen hand. There was no sensation of movement, no rush of wind or pressure against her skin. Only the certainty that they had stepped beyond every boundary she had ever known.
She stood at the very edge of existence.
The universe stretched behind her as the familiar tapestry she’d come to know so intimately—stars wheeling in their slow dance, galaxies turning, the faint silver ribbon of the specific one she had navigated by since girlhood. But ahead of her… ahead there was nothing.
Not darkness. Not emptiness in the way mortals understood it. A formless void, boundless and without horizon, where even the concept of ‘ahead’ lost meaning. It was not cold. It was not hostile. It simply was—the primordial source from which everything had sprung, and she thought she was used to ancient patience, the type Nemu always bore, but this made eternity feel like a single held breath.
Touka’s heart hammered against her ribs with a primal terror she had never felt before. It was not fear of harm. Not the tactical dread of battle or the calculated anxiety of court. She could handle all of those, had handled all of those. This was deeper, older, something woven into the marrow of mortal existence itself. Her body knew, on some instinctive level, that it stood before the origin of all things, and that knowledge pressed against the edges of her mind like an ocean against a single grain of sand.
She could not grasp it. She could hardly even comprehend the sheer scale of it.
Nemu’s hand tightened gently around hers. Her lover stood beside her still, and the sight of her anchored Touka more firmly than any words could have.
“I have brought her,” Nemu said to the void. Her voice carried without effort. “The one I chose. My beloved Touka.”
There was no voice or sound in reply. Not in any way Touka could hear. Yet she felt the shift—an immense attention turning toward them. Warm. Approving. It washed over her, gentle and vast, carrying only recognition. Chaos did not speak, but somehow knew.
Nemu continued, her tone open and unguarded in a way Touka rarely heard even in the privacy of their bed. “She has given me more than I ever thought to ask for. A love that chose me as I am, not as some faraway power to be feared or bargained with. She wrote me into who I am, gave me a reason to engage, to become someone, to be more than I was. I am hers, as she is mine.”
The attention deepened. Touka felt it brush against her thoughts, though not intrusive, and squeezed Nemu’s hand harder.
Then something small and shining drifted forward from the void. A single, delicate fragment—no larger than a coin—hovered before Touka. It was not gold, not silver, not any metal she recognized. It shimmered with iridescent light of distant nebulae, threaded through with tiny living constellations that moved in perfect orbits. When she reached out, hesitant, it settled into her palm like it had been waiting for her.
Nemu’s voice softened further. “A piece of the first weaving. Not taken, but given. It will cloak you from the gaze of the godlings and primordial forces alike. Their authority shall never touch you again. That is all it will ever do, and only if you choose to carry it; you are known well enough for how you treasure your freedom. Use it as you wish.”
Touka stared at the gift, awed. It was impossibly beautiful, even practical, the kind of tool a ruler who had spent her life untangling the loom of statecraft would treasure. She could already feel it humming against her skin.
She swallowed, throat tight, and offered a small, respectful bow—the same one she might have given to a revered teacher, adapted here to something far older. “Thank you,” she said, with a tremor beneath it. “For this. And for… allowing me to stand here. I will honor it.”
The vast attention lingered a moment longer, then eased back into the formless expanse. The primal terror in Touka’s chest did not vanish entirely, but it rounded into something else. The void no longer felt cold or unknowable. Not comfortable—nothing could ever feel as safe as Nemu’s arms—but familiar now, the way an ancient sea might feel familiar to one who had learned to sail it.
Nemu’s hand remained in hers. Touka leaned into her side. She understood now what Nemu had meant when she’d spoken of her parent. Chaos may have never been a parent in the mortal sense, with warm hands, bedtime stories, or scoldings over scraped knees. But they had never left their child unattended. Never made her feel alone in the long dark before light existed. That presence had simply been there, from the very beginning.
After a little longer, Nemu winced—barely noticeable, but Touka caught it. Her lover’s fingers tightened once around hers.
“It is time to go, my love.”
Touka nodded.
The return was as gentle as the arrival. The void folded away, and the walls of the thalamus reappeared around them. The city outside remained suspended in stillness.
Touka exhaled shakily and did not let go of Nemu’s hand. “Don’t resume time yet. I need… a moment. To sit with it.”
Nemu guided her back to the bed without question. They settled together against the pillows, and immediately Touka curled into her lover’s chest as four arms wrapped around her in the cocoon she had come to crave. The room grew darker, shadows deeper now. Nemu’s pure darkness folded gently around them both. Touka found it soothing rather than frightening—the perfect dark for thinking, for letting the enormity of what she had just witnessed settle into her bones without rushing it. It should have been terrifying how not a single sliver of morning light cut through that dark. There was something different about it on this morning, more absolute, which she attributed to their visit.
She pressed her face into the curve of Nemu’s neck and breathed. The terror had faded entirely. In its place remained… gratitude, she thought. One hand still held the gift that had been entrusted to her. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.
Touka had no sense of how long she had been curled against Nemu. Time had loosened its hold on her the way it had on the world outside their walls. She simply existed in the cradle of four arms, face tucked in. Her mind wound down thread by thread, turned over the meeting with Chaos like a stone in a river until the sharp edges had smoothed into something she could carry.
Enough awareness returned that she noticed the only light in the room came from her own hand.
The gift from Chaos still glowed in her palm. It cast a gentle radiance across Nemu’s collarbones and the slope of her shoulder, the only illumination left in the thalamus. Everything else had sunk into pure darkness. Touka stretched lazily and set the gift on the small table beside the bed. The moment her fingers left it, the light winked out.
The atmosphere changed at once.
A low rumble rolled through the room—like the groan of stone deep in Tartarus. The air pressed against her skin with a weight that was not quite oppressive. Touka froze when she registered that Nemu’s chest rose and fell in uneven rhythm. Her breathing had grown ragged, almost strained.
The wince from earlier flashed through Touka’s mind.
She pushed up onto one elbow, reaching to cup Nemu’s face so she could look into her eyes. “Nemu-”
Her hand was gently but firmly caught. Nemu turned her face away, burying it against Touka’s shoulder instead. The motion was deliberate, almost shy. It made Touka’s heart clench.
“It is not safe,” Nemu murmured against her skin. Her voice was more than one octave lower than usual, rougher at the edges, as if it took effort to shape the words.
“What do you mean?”
Nemu remained very still, face hidden. “I had not realized how strong the effect still is. I have not gone so close to the edge of existence—close to my parent—very often since I began to be… more of a person.” A pause, breath warm against Touka’s collarbone. “Being in their presence causes what I am to become more prominent. To balance out.”
Touka’s fingers tightened where they rested on Nemu’s back. “Balance how?”
Nemu’s arms around her shifted, one lower hand sliding slowly down her spine as if seeking anchor. “I am made of many concepts. Many aspects. You can think of them as parts. Since gaining true consciousness, I have leaned more into Night. Into Creation. Into the gentler, more developed pieces.” Her voice dropped further. “But Darkness is what created Tartarus. It is one of the rawest parts of me. Practically instinct without cognition, because it was such an early creation. Most similar to Chaos in nature.”
She did not need to say the rest. Touka understood. Nemu could not guarantee she would not accidentally harm her in this state.
For a long moment Touka held her and let her own mind run. Then her gaze fell on where the small gift would surely still rest on the table. She reached for it again and closed her fingers around it. It flared to life on contact.
“I have an idea.” She pressed the gift into Nemu’s hand, then leaned in until her lips brushed the shell of her lover’s ear. “Put it inside me.”
Nemu’s ear went very red. Touka could feel the sudden heat of it against her cheek. She’d done that on purpose and was pleased to see it have the intended effect, but held back a giggle in favor of continuing her explanation. She ignored the flush in her cheeks.
“The same way you transferred a few drops of your essence when you bit me. I’m sure you can weave this into something you can place under my skin.”
Nemu made a choked sound—half laugh, half the type of short exhale Touka loved to draw out of her. “You-”
Touka allowed the giggle this time. “I meant it the same way as the bite. Not…” She waved a vague hand, cheeks hotter now. “Though I’m not opposed to that either, later.”
Nemu nuzzled into her neck with another rumble. Whatever it was, it made Touka’s bones vibrate. She realized with a start that her chiton and strophion were already gone, all her jewelry set aside somewhere—she assumed on the table or the chest; Nemu did this sometimes when impatience won out. And given that Nemu was now on top of her, the primordial force was most definitely impatient.
Pointed teeth grazed the sensitive skin just below her jaw. Touka tilted her head without thinking, to offer better access. But instead of the expected bite, she felt several sudden lines of searing heat on her chest where Nemu’s larger hand pressed down. She looked down and saw the hand ended in claws now, over the lines where red liquid welled beneath the glow of the only light source they had.
The pain flared hot and bright, straight into her core. She almost moaned as her hips bucked without permission. Nemu’s knee was already between her thighs; the motion ground her against her lover’s leg and pulled an undignified squeal from her throat.
When Nemu finally lifted her head, her eyes were fully black—no reflection of light, no violet at all. The humanoid container she usually wore seemed stretched thin. Touka grabbed her by the face with both hands and kissed her deeply, hungrily. Claws pricked her hips.
Only the faint glow from where the gift now rested beneath Touka’s skin remained—warm, protective, alive against her heartbeat. She hadn’t even noticed it move. Nemu’s hands didn’t let her linger on that thought.
The darkness folded around them completely.
Touka stood near the bed some indeterminate time later, fingers fumbling with the pins of her chiton as she tried, once again, to dress herself for a day that had not yet been allowed to begin. Her hands were not quite steady. Every time the fabric brushed across a fresh bite mark on her shoulder or the long, stinging trail of a claw down her ribs, a full-body shudder rolled through her—embarrassingly pleasurable. She paused, breathed through it, then tried again.
The new mark on her chest caught her eye when she glanced down.
Thin silver lines arced upward from the center of her sternum, delicate and perfectly geometric, like the links of an exquisite necklace that had been grown rather than forged. There was a residual glow still emanating from beneath her skin where Nemu had placed her parent’s gift. Touka traced one line with a fingertip. It was pretty. Beautiful, even. She felt a thrill at the thought that it was hers now, and more specifically, that Nemu had made it hers, permanent, woven into her body.
The shadows in the room had grown extremely thick. They wrapped around her legs and waist and shoulders in possessive coils. It was not a form Nemu took often, but Touka had seen it before—pure darkness given shape and intent, star-flecked and entirely hers. One tendril curled lazily around her ankle, another brushed the underside of her breast with deliberate care. She patted it gently, almost absentminded.
“Cute.”
From the bed came Nemu’s voice, deeply satisfied as it vibrated through the darkness itself. “You’re the one who asked for it inside you.”
Touka huffed a laugh and turned toward the bed. Nemu had reassumed her preferred humanoid form, lounging against the pillows with four arms arranged in perfect indolence, violet eyes half-lidded and an unfair degree of smug.
Since she had met Nemu’s parent—or, more specifically, in the short bursts of lucid cognition she’d had since then—Touka’s mind had been poking at questions she had never quite dared ask before. She fastened the last pin, smoothed her chiton, and climbed back onto the bed, settling herself against her lover’s side.
“Nemu… Do you have offspring? Or—creations, I suppose. Since there was no one but yourself back then.”
Nemu’s hand came up to card slowly through Touka’s hair, the motion soothing. She was quiet for a moment, as if choosing how best to shape an answer for mortal understanding.
“Technically, yes, though a large amount of them are incorporeal. Since my role model for what a parent should be was Chaos—and parents did not exist back then for me to have any other model—I was never as hands-on with them as a mortal parent would normally be expected to. But I have always been present for them in the same way Chaos was for me. Attentive when needed. Never absent.” She hummed, thoughtful, and listed them as if speaking of old friends rather than distant creations. “I am the one who created the Fates. Who brought forth the light and day that humans thrive in. Death. Sleep. The very concept of dreams. Doom. Satire and mockery. I created pain, deceit, strife and discord, madness, wisdom… even Tartarus itself.” A small, rueful smile. “This is not an exhaustive list.”
Touka listened. She had always known Nemu was ancient beyond comprehension. Hearing it laid out like this—casual, almost fond—made something warm bloom in her chest.
“It was less like having children, however,” Nemu continued, “and more like whittling off fragments of my infinite self to enforce some semblance of order. Some creations came at the request of others. Most out of some kind of instinct—think of an animal with dry skin that scratches itself to relieve an itch.”
Her fingers paused in Touka’s hair. The smile softened further.
“But there is one. The youngest. A dryad I created as the only one of her kind. Different from all the dryads that had come before in that I granted her the ability—and the duty—to wander. It was the first time I was curious to watch the world, and I wanted to do it through the eyes of a daughter that knew nothing of it.”
Touka lifted her head. “Does she yet live?”
Nemu’s smile brightened. “She does. She periodically returns to her tree from her travels. An eternal tree I have hidden far from where any would find it—mortal or immortal.” She shifted slightly, tilting Touka’s chin up with one hand. “If you have not changed your mind, and you are ready to meet this daughter of mine… I can take us there now.”
Touka felt a flutter of nerves, but beneath it lay curiosity. She leaned in and kissed Nemu on the mouth, slow and lingering. When she pulled back, she was smiling too, though quick to put her hands on Nemu’s forearms that had been so eager to reach for her again.
“Let me get dressed first.” She patted Nemu’s chest playfully. “Then yes. I would like that very much.”
Nemu’s chuckle always made Touka feel warm. She helped Touka with the last fastenings, hands lingering perhaps longer than strictly necessary. Once they were both ready, Nemu took her hand again.
The world spliced and came back together around them.
When her eyes opened again, Touka stood in a beautiful meadow. Soft grass cushioned her feet, and the air carried a sweet scent of blossoms she had no name for. At the top of a hill rose a tree that felt strangely familiar even though she had never seen its like before—dark wood supporting clouds of bright pink blossoms in full bloom. No fruit. Only abundant flowers, with petals drifting lazily on a breeze that felt eternal and intentional.
A young woman sat on one of the large lower branches, dressed in a simple white and pink dress. Her white hair carried tones of pink and blue at the tips where it reached her waist, and her eyes—when she turned her head—were a warm pink. She was rather beautiful, with a grace that reminded Touka of certain wild things that belonged entirely to themselves. That had to be the nymph.
To Touka’s surprise, the dryad hopped from the branch and crossed the grass to them. She hugged Nemu without hesitation. Nemu, still taller even though the dryad was by no means short—roughly Touka’s own height, and Touka was already tall for a woman—wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her for several long breaths. When they separated, Nemu left one upper hand on the dryad’s shoulder as she turned toward Touka.
“My most adored Touka.” She lifted Touka’s hand, kissed her knuckles, and pressed their foreheads together for a brief moment, then turned back to the dryad. “This is Sakurako, my youngest daughter.”
Sakurako’s eyes sparkled with curiosity as she looked at Touka. “It’s good to meet you. Mother has spoken of you often. Every time we have met, in fact, constantly for the duration of our meeting.”
Touka felt an instant warmth toward her. There was something inquisitive in the dryad’s manner that reminded her of her younger self—before the crown, before the weight of rule had tempered curiosity with caution. “And it’s good to meet you,” she replied, smiling. “Your mother has told me very little, which means I have many questions.”
They fell into conversation almost immediately; conversations between curious minds always flowed like this. Touka found herself slipping naturally into a mentor-like role she recognized, similar to the one her father had played in her own life as Sakurako asked about the world of mortals, about cities and laws and the way humans chose to live. Nemu watched them both with amusement, one hand still resting on her daughter’s shoulder and the other laced with Touka’s.
At some point, Nemu drew them both closer. The sky above the meadow darkened, and then—without any conscious command Touka could sense—a gorgeous shower of lights began. Streaks of silver and gold and faint violet arced across the heavens. It was not planned, Touka realized. It felt more like a reaction from the universe itself to Nemu’s joy, instinctive, generous. Her mind inevitably thought back to several other moments in the past year where something similar had occurred above them.
Nemu held them close. “You have both taught me what it is to find someone precious. To choose, and keep choosing. Thank you.”
Sakurako smiled and leaned into her mother’s side. “It has always been my purpose to bring you new perspectives, Mother.”
Touka had never been particularly good with words when emotions ran this deep. So, she rose onto her toes and kissed Nemu, pouring everything she could not say into the brief press of lips. When they parted, Sakurako looked slightly taken aback.
Nemu chuckled. “Touka prefers to communicate with actions more often than words.”
“I see…” Sakurako gestured toward her tree, where a simple picnic seemed to have appeared on a cloth spread beneath the blossoms—fresh fruits, small cakes, a jug of something sweet-smelling. “Would you like to join me? I’ve brought food from my travels. I would like to hear about yours as well.”
Touka’s interest sparked. “I would like that.”
They moved toward the tree together, the meadow bathed in meteor light. Touka walked between the other two, hand still clasped in Nemu’s, heart full in a way she had not expected when the day—such as it was—had begun.
Conversation flowed easily as they settled on the cloth that had appeared from nowhere, questions and stories passing back and forth beneath the eternal tree.
For the first time in a long while, Touka felt no weight of crown or city pressing on her shoulders.