Her Royal Majesty Queen Safaa of Vaan stormed into her court in a flurry of skirts and feathers. Her regal wings were stretched out to their full breadth behind her, creating a semi halo of glowing, ethereal feathers around her unusually dark-haired head. The three little scarlet markings at the tips of her wings distinguished her as an Aeriel monarch. Her feet never quite touched the bright, misty floors of the palace, wisps of cloud floating serenely under them, as she propelled herself forward partly through flight and partly through sheer, unadulterated wrath. "Shwaan!" she bellowed, her voice reverberating throughout her irradiant domain, only to be greeted by the agitated quacking of firebirds rudely awakened from their afternoon slumber. Safaa was going to kill her brother, just as soon as she managed to find him.
"My Lady," Jaheen murmured from the ornate gateway of the entrance hall, her pale silvery form barely visible against the light flooding in through the doorway. Vaan was always bright and sunlit. Had to be, in order to sustain her particular inhabitants; but on days like these Safaa truly believed that there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. Closing her unusually dark, silver-flecked eyes, she found herself momentarily wishing for the comforting gloom of earthly nights.
"Where is my brother, Jaheen?" she asked her lifelong attendant and childhood caretaker, doing her best to make her voice sound steely and firm. "I need to speak with him."
"He's in the throne room m'lady," Jaheen answered with a slight bow of her head, wisps of silvery hair falling across her pale shoulders. "Though I think you'd find him…ah…otherwise occupied at the moment." She said it with her usual circumspection, years of dealing with Safaa's incomprehensibly human sensibilities having given her the unique gift of sensing an oncoming tantrum a mile off.
"Well, I'll find something for him to occupy himself with," Safaa snarled, stalking off in the direction of the throne room, pointedly ignoring Jaheen's knowing – if highly unbecoming – smirk.
***
Her Royal Majesty Queen Safaa found her brother, His Excellency Prince Shwaan of the Luminous Realms, standing flush against the armrest of the royal throne, one leg wrapped around the thigh of her Chief of Guard, General Shehzaa, who seemed intent on tearing off his collar with her teeth, while the Minister of Treasury and Revenue, His Lordship Qwaan, had his tongue lodged somewhere firmly down her brother's throat, one of his hands stroking Shehzaa's waist as he nipped playfully at the prince's lips. Shwaan giggled.
If Safaa had had a last straw when it came to her brother in particular and her subjects in general, the universe would have heard it snapping under the untenable strain of sheer frustration centuries ago. Aeriels could be, at once, the sweetest and the most infuriating race to rule over. And at moments like these, Safaa was reminded why she would rather take the constant threat of rebellion and decapitation with extreme prejudice faced by the erstwhile human monarchs any day, over the unique vexations of the Aeriel throne.
"Shwaan!" she thundered, striding purposefully into the dazzling heart of the Vaan Court.
Minister Qwaan, a vankrai like herself, flushed impossibly crimson and jerked back, trying to untangle himself from the compromising scene in a testament to the human blood flowing through his veins. With slightly unsteady hands, he pushed his long, dark hair, much like Safaa's own, back and out of his eyes, bowing rather meekly to the Queen. In sharp contrast, her feather-born, silver-haired brother showed no such remorse, leaning in shamelessly to kiss the equally pure-blooded and silver Shehzaa, who giggled before capturing the prince's mouth for one last, extended snog. Finally, she too managed to disentangle herself from her partner and with an impish grin, bowed to Safaa and disappeared in a flare of outstretched wings and silvery feathers. Flustered and slightly off-balance, Minister Qwaan too unfurled his wings and took flight after the Chief of Guard, leaving the siblings alone in the throne room; Shwaan looking content, if dishevelled and Safaa looking murderous.
***
"You are going to be the death of me!" Safaa declared, glaring at her little brother, who had now seated himself with his usual languid grace on her throne, his scarlet-tipped wings outstretched and resting droopily on the armrests. The two red markings on his wings distinguished them from Safaa's – who had three identical little strokes of crimson across her topmost feathers – and marked him as the queen's second-in-command.
Shwaan pouted.
"I'm an excellent brother, I'll have you know. The best that you could hope for, really, considering our ancestry. It's hardly my fault you inherited our dear Mother's grumpiness, sister mine."
Safaa snarled. "Don't you dare compare me to her!"
"Oh dear dear," murmured Shwaan, his eyes narrowing as he regarded his sister more closely from his perch on the throne, lips quirking into a mischievous smile. "What has she done now? Must've been something big, to get you this riled up."
Safaa sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. None of this is your fault." She looked sharply up at her grinning brother sprawled on the throne. "Well, apart from distracting my Chief of Guard and Revenue Minister with your ridiculous shenanigans, that is."
"Love is no shenanigan, sister dear."
Safaa snorted.
"Well, I would be much obliged if you could choose the subjects of your amorous attentions from outside my court for the moment, brother, because it looks like we need to start preparing for war. I can't afford to have my soldiers distracted by your utter lack of subtlety while we are anticipating an attack. Perhaps multiple attacks."
That got the prince's attention. "An attack?" He at his sister in disbelief. "She wouldn't dare."
"As things were, she wouldn't have," Safaa agreed, looking away from her companion and out over the sunlit horizon, her hands clasped tightly behind her as if she were physically restraining herself from lashing out at some unseen foe. Her voice was calm and carefully measured. It made Shwaan's feathers stand on end. His wings faded to thin air as he tucked them in and out of sight, hopping lightly out of the throne to stand beside his queen. "The situation has…changed."
"In what way?" he asked, peering closely at his sister, his expression an odd mix of curiosity and concern. Proximity made their differences stand out even more than before, Safaa's dark hair and eyes stark against her brother's sterling locks and silver irises. "You know something you're not telling me."
"Wakeen's returned from earth. And he has news." Safaa's voice was grim.
"Not good news, I'm guessing."
Safaa laughed; a dry, mirthless thing. "Not good news, no. Disastrous news, to be more accurate. The humans have developed a new formula."
"What's so bad about that?" Genuine surprise coloured Shwaan's voice. "They're always developing new formulas. It's all they ever do!" he said, in the tone of an indulgent parent humouring a rather witless child.
"A formula," continued Safaa grimly, ignoring her brother. "For what they're apparently calling 'reinforced sifblades'. An enhanced version of the goddamned things, if reports are to be believed. Compared to these, regular sifblades would look like a child's toys. Wakeen says they might be capable of killing five or six Aeriels at once, once they've been perfected."
The thought of sif in any form sent an instinctive shudder down Shwaan's spine, and he lifted himself into the air to conceal his reaction. His sister's sharp gaze told him he hadn't gotten away with it completely.
"I'm still not seeing the problem here," he said finally, looking down at his sister. His silver wings were barely visible against the radiance of the Vaan sun, shining down dazzlingly over the roofless court. "Humans can develop whatever bauble catches their fancy. What does it matter to us? They're on earth. We're in Vaan. It's not like they can reach us against our will. Unless you're worried for Mother, that is," he added slyly.
Safaa laughed bitterly. "More because of her than for her, but I suppose you could say that. I have it on good authority that Mother is planning to steal the formula for these enhanced sifblades, for her own purposes."
"Steal sif?" Shwaan snorted. "And do what with it? Kill herself in the most uncomfortable way imaginable? What could she possibly hope to do with her prize?"
"Nothing by herself, certainly. But quite a lot with…human assistance. Humans cannot enter Vaan without Aeriel help. But what if they had Aeriel help? Her help. Their help. Reivaa, Saekaa, Swaheer, Kafeen – the whole lot of them. What if Mother were to attack Vaan…with a human army? A human army wielding these enhanced sifblades."
"And what human," began Shwaan, a twinge of exasperation in his voice. "Pray tell, would agree to help her in this outrageous scheme, even if she were planning something so audacious? They hate her, remember? Hate all of us, because of her. That's the entire reason we're here now, and she's not. Why in the name of Zeifaa would they willingly aid her?"
"Because they're humans Shwaan," Safaa said. A tinge of exhausted desperation coloured her tone. "And because she's her. It's been six centuries since we left. Generations have passed on earth since humans last saw an Aeriel that wasn't some murderous, blood-thirsty fiend, like Reivaa and her ilk," she spat. "Who knows what mortals think now and why they think it? Who knows what Mother can make them think, if she puts her mind to it. Rationality was never their strong suit to begin with. And manipulation was never her weak point. She had humans spying for her during the Rebellion, betraying and murdering their own kind to dance to her merry tunes. Do you doubt she can ensnare a few now, when the war is nothing more than a distant memory to them?"
"A few don't make an army, though," Shwaan pointed out, landing gracefully and flicking long, silvery locks out of his eyes.
"Humans are clannish creatures," Safaa sighed. "You were too young to understand these things when we left earth. But she wouldn't need to convince all of them, or even most of them. She would just need a few, the power-players so to speak, the leaders and the opinion-makers. The rest would fall in line, if they decided to follow her."
Shwaan looked up, gazing directly at the blazing sun overhead, soaking in the rays, his eyes unblinking. "So you're saying she's planning to attack us. Attack Vaan. Using these enhanced sifblades. With an army of humans."
"I'm saying it is a possibility. One that is becoming more likely by the day. And I'm saying we can't afford to sit around, waiting for Mother to make her next move, whatever that might be."
"What do you need me to do then?"
***
Circling like a rather lethargic bird of prey over the dilapidated mansion under the starry Zainian sky, Shwaan cursed himself for agreeing to his sister's ludicrous scheme. The darkness of the earthly night made him twitchy and uncomfortable. He knew that it was psychological, at least to an extent. Aeriels were perfectly capable of surviving – hell, thriving – on earth. He himself had lived there for a substantial chunk of his childhood before the Rebellion, had in fact never laid eyes on Vaan for the first two centuries of his life. He could still remember a time when the perpetual sunshine of the Luminous Realms had seemed strange and alien to him. But that theoretical knowledge of his body's resilience didn't stop him from feeling the off-kilter jitteriness that the now unfamiliar darkness brought with it.
It was more than just the instinctive aversion to darkness natural to his kind, though. For Shwaan, the gloom brought back memories. Memories of earth, memories of the Rebellion. Of his home burning as hundreds of screaming, bellowing attackers set the trees and the gardens on fire, hacked at the walls with swords and spears, axes and sifblades. Of the walls crumbling against the onslaught and the barricades on the doorways giving way. Of his mother, fierce and snarling, glowing silver with unadulterated fury even as the last of her strongholds collapsed around her, sending blinding white flashes of pure energy flying in all directions, killing humans and Aeriels indiscriminately; her dark eyes – so much like Safaa's – alight with a mad frenzy. And of Maya, holding him, cradling him in her arms, whispering comforting nonsense in his ear with tears in her eyes even as she locked him in the little dark cellar before running up to the upper levels to join her husband – one of the attacking soldiers – in the fray. He had never seen her again after that night.
Shaking his head to clear it of his wandering thoughts, Shwaan adjusted his wings slightly, folding them closer to his body as he dove down towards the mansion. He had cased the place to the best of his ability, given the darkness of the surroundings, and near as he could tell the building was empty. He swooped in through an open window on one of the upper floors, left discreetly unlatched by one of the servants when the place had been locked up a few weeks ago at Safaa's request. The request was delivered through Wakeen along with a substantial amount of gold and three sterling, full Aeriel feathers, priceless in their radiant beauty, undiminished by the damage usually inflicted during Hunts. His Lordship Ashwin Kwan, 27th in the line of succession to the Zainian throne, was going to be a very rich man once all of this was over, as were some members of his household staff. Shwaan landed smoothly in what appeared to be the master bedroom.
He took a moment to regain his bearings. He was standing near a humongous old mahogany bed covered in velvet and silk sheets that had seen better days. The walls that surrounded him were covered in bright yellow wallpaper that looked like it could do with a change and the soft-wool carpet under his feet was frayed, yet by no means unpleasant. Slowly, he walked to the front of the massive chamber and stood before the full length mirror attached to the oversized dressing table, gazing at the incongruous sight of silver hair and pearly eyes that stared back at him through the glass. With one quick flap he made his wings disappear; they looked oddly jarring within the restrictive confines of an earthly dwelling.
With a final sigh of resignation, Shwaan reached into the inner pocket of his loose feather-cloak. If he was going to do this, he figured he might as well do it right. Safaa might be paranoid but she was a capable strategist. And if she was so convinced that Vaan faced an imminent threat, well, it couldn't hurt to check it out. Besides, Shwaan hadn't been to earth in over six hundred years, and if he was being completely honest with himself, the thought of exploring this new version of his old home was profoundly exciting to him, vexing as it was to have to do it in this ridiculous disguise.
He withdrew the glossy bit of paper Safaa had handed him as she all but threw him out of Vaan and towards earth, squinting at it curiously. It appeared to be a portrait – extraordinarily lifelike – of a young man with long, jet black hair and onyx eyes, his locks braided to one side with a long purple ribbon running through the intricate weaves. His pale skin was flushed with what Shwaan presumed was recent exertion, even as he smiled widely at someone not in the frame of the portrait. The picture was nothing like the ones he'd seen on earth as a child. Humans had always had a fascination for having their likenesses preserved on paper – or on any available surface, really. But this particular portrait looked considerably clearer and more realistic than anything he remembered seeing in his time on the Mortal Realms. He supposed it was another one of the humans' many formulas, vaguely impressed despite himself. Their psychotic bloodlust aside, mortals could be rather cute when you least expected it.
Putting the picture down on the dressing table, Shwaan took a seat on the plush – if slightly frayed, like everything else in this house – cushioned chair in front of the mirror. It was time to become the man whose identity his sister had paid handsomely to borrow. Opening one of the two drawers in the dressing table, he could see that his absent hosts had kept their end of the bargain and made all the necessary arrangements for his arrival. Flipping the picture over, he scrutinised the instructions – written in a clear, flowing script – on the rough, plain side of the glossy paper. It took a moment for him to get used to the unfamiliar mortal script – humans had so many of them, like they invented them for the kicks. As if calling the same thing by a million different names brought them some kind of inexplicable joy. Once his brain had adjusted to the intricacies of this particular language – Zainian, his sister had said – he began preparations for his transformation in earnest.
He withdrew a little black bottle from the assortment of what looked like make-up items in one of the drawers. Following the instructions on the paper carefully, he uncapped the bottle and poured some of its contents onto the palm of his hand, sniffing delicately at the faint scent of lavender the pitch black stuff emitted. Slowly, with not a little trepidation, he rubbed the dark liquid into his hair, applying it in long, light strokes as the instructions on the picture mandated. To his astonishment, after just a few seconds of running his stained fingers through his formerly silver locks, his hair had turned pitch black, nearly indistinguishable from the natural colouring of the Honourable Ashwin Kwan. Humans never ceased to amaze. Shwaan chuckled as he wiped his fingers on a towel hanging from a hook near the dressing table.
Flipping his newly darkened locks back over his shoulder, he hunched down over the drawer to look for the next item on the painstakingly detailed list. He found the little blue box with the two tiny red circles on it in one corner of the overstuffed drawer. Flipping the cover open, he found inside it two identical dark ovals of what appeared to be really fragile glass. Reading over the instructions once again, Shwaan shrugged. Carefully, he raised one of the tiny dark lenses to his eye, placing it as delicately as possible over his own iris. He repeated the process with the other lens, more confident with every step he completed, then blinked owlishly at the reflection in the mirror. He laughed. He was not even halfway done and he barely recognised his own image.
***
Finally leaving his seat, Shwaan stood in front of the mirror, scrutinising his own image for any imperfections. His long hair, now black as the night, was braided to one side in an intricate array of weaves and twists (each apparently signifying some variety of rank or lineage). A single broad purple ribbon – one of the many accessories he had found within the treasure trove of the drawers – was woven through its length, distinguishing him as a member of the Zainian aristocracy (a custom he still remembered from some of his grandmother's dinner parties during the days of his early childhood, long before the Rebellion). His skin was still pale, as befitting a northerner, though slightly more tanned than his original complexion. Aeriels did not tan naturally, but a little lotion went a long way in creating a believable illusion. Wide dark eyes, framed by long, inky lashes stared back at him through the glass.
Moving towards the closet near the back of the room, Shwaan shed his white feather-cloak, tossing the garment to the bed to be dealt with later. From the closet he withdrew a simple, loose white tunic and black trousers. The more elaborate Zainian costumes would not mix well with the warmer – and more humid – climes of his ultimate destination. Finally he threw on a light, grey frock-coat with dark velvet cuffs, buttoning it a few inches below his throat. It would probably make him stand out somewhat in the middle of the monsoon in Vandram, but then, that was rather his intention – to be foreign enough to be remarkable, yet familiar enough to be utterly non-threatening.
Finally, in a flash of silver, he plucked a single feather out of his wing and lighted it with a small, golden cigarette-lighter he had plucked out of the drawer along with the other knick-knacks. He then tossed it at the cloak lying on the bed. The latter ignited in a shower of technicolour sparks that would have temporarily blinded any man who looked at it directly. As it was, the prismatic fireworks flared, and then died slowly, releasing irregular bursts of colour and light, without attracting any undue mortal attention. Quietly, Shwaan unfurled his wings and swooped out of the mansion through the same window he had entered, gaining momentum and altitude until he was little more than a tiny speck in Zaini's starry firmament.
***
There was nothing particularly remarkable about Himli. It was a tiny, dusty old town in northern Vandram, adjacent to the Zainian border. The buildings on either side of the main road showed their age in peeling paint and crumbling facades and the shops lining the streets were warded by superstitious sigils and symbols borrowed from both Vandran and Zainian lore, presumably guarding the businesses against the djinns and demons of both the lands. Being so close to both, Shwaan supposed one couldn't take a chance.
He walked at a leisurely pace through the dusty lanes of the border town, drawing curious glances and excited murmurs from the locals wherever he went. It wasn't so much that Zainians were a rarity in this town. Quite the opposite, in fact. Shwaan could have sworn that at least half the citizenry had some Zainian blood in their veins, and he wasn't even counting the hordes of Zainian merchants and travellers that thronged the streets and the market. Huge, decorated trucks painted with the colourful coats of arms of the different noble houses of Zaini were parked at every street-corner, laden with imported cargo. Their drivers crowded the various pubs near the border to take a break before continuing on their journey to Ragah or one of the other major cities of Vandram.
No, it wasn't so much his assumed nationality as his (apparent) rank that drew the attention of the townsfolk. For all the Zainians it hosted, Shwaan was pretty sure it wasn't often that the dilapidated little town received a member of Zaini's storied aristocracy. The purple ribbon in his hair might as well have been a flashing beacon, turning heads and inspiring enthusiastic speculation wherever he went. Traders and merchants muttered about secret trade pacts between Vandram and Zaini while the labourers and urchins thought up more exciting possibilities, churning out stories ranging from political unrest in Zaini to clandestine love affairs between the rich and the powerful of the two nations. Had he wished to avoid making such a spectacle of himself, Shwaan could just have taken off the ribbon and allowed his hair to rest in a simple braid on his back. But for this particular part of the plan to work, he needed to be remarkable, to stand out and cause a stir. On earth, he had discovered, a little remarkability went a long way in getting people to give you what you wanted, without having to actually ask for it.
In the two weeks he had been on earth, Shwaan had travelled the length and breadth of Vandram, had been many different people in many different places, chasing trails – both Aeriel and mortal – to the elusive formula that had brought him to earth in the first place. He still wasn't quite sure what it was he was looking for. Any information about the formula itself was buried under piles of secrecy, rumours and speculation, and Shwaan doubted he would be able to get the complete truth unless he walked into the SifCo facility and spoke to the Head Researcher in charge of the project personally. This he would have to do eventually, though how he would do it he couldn't begin to imagine.
For now, however, Shwaan had more pressing problems to deal with. Aeriel activity had been noticed near the SifCo premises recently. Nothing so conspicuous as a real Aeriel in full public view, but errant Aeriel feathers found around the premises and intermittent reports of minor break-ins and the theft of documents from some of the smaller labs and offices near SifCo.
The few Aeriels that had remained back on earth after the Rebellion – by choice or necessity – rarely appeared in their true forms, unless for an all-out attack on humanity. For all other occasions, they preferred some form of human disguise; as efficient a method as any to avoid a Hunter on your back and a sifblade through your throat when you weren't in the mood for a fight. From what Shwaan could tell though, his earth-bound brethren weren't planning to attack SifCo. At least not yet. Instead, they seemed to be casing the place. Which meant that there might be some truth to Safaa's apprehensions after all, far-fetched as the whole thing was. All Aeriels on earth were controlled by their mother, and if Aeriels had their eye on the formula, Shwaan was sure it was with Tauheen's knowledge, if not by her orders.
What was more worrying, however, was the fact that, as far as he could see, the humans seemed to be doing nothing about it. Shwaan found it hard to believe that the Vandran authorities and their much-famed Hunter Corps knew nothing about the Aeriels' activities, when he had learned so much just by talking to the facility's cleaning staff and the traders and shopkeepers operating around the area. The situation would have been impossible to ignore, unless someone was trying deliberately to cover it up. Someone with the clout to interfere with a project of this magnitude.
Despite Safaa's claims, Shwaan still found it hard to believe that a human would deliberately conspire with Aeriels to undermine their own people. Humans were nothing if not bigoted and insular. In the past weeks, he had seen first-hand the prejudice and oftentimes, sheer hatred with which humans regarded Aeriels. He supposed it was natural. After generations of being saddled with nothing but his mother and her coterie, he was quite sure he would have hated Aeriels too – and he was one. But that still didn't explain how Tauheen and her pack had managed to avoid detection for so long. What could she possibly have had to offer, to make someone powerful enough to influence such an important project, turn on their own?
Shwaan sighed. Well, if he couldn't have all the answers now, there was only one thing for it: to delay the inevitable until he could understand enough of the situation to turn it in his favour. He came to a stop near the latest street-corner he had strolled into and looked up at the large, garish signboard across the street.
The Red Poppy was one of the better pubs in the locality, frequented more by merchants and travelling businessmen than truckers. He pushed through the heavy glass doors of the establishment and walked hesitantly up to the bar. Eyes wide and hair tousled in the early monsoon winds, Shwaan looked the picture of innocent apprehension as he sat awkwardly down at the bar and waited. If his plan had worked, his quarry should be here any moment.
***
As the rickshaw bumped along the narrow, uneven lanes of Himli, Casia Washi looked down at her phone and smirked. One of the interns had just sent along a relatively clear – if slightly grainy – picture of the elusive Ashwin Kwan, some distant relation to the king of Zaini and presently, her single greatest lead in the SifCo business. Heads turned in her direction as her rickshaw skidded along the ill-maintained streets of the border town, and she suppressed a groan with some effort. One of the downsides of being on TV every day was that one couldn't go out chasing a lead like one used to – not without running the risk of becoming the news rather than finding it.
Oh well, at least this Lord Kwan could be trusted not to be too bedazzled by her prime time reputation. While her show was popular, she was quite sure it had a long way to go yet before it could claim any kind of international recognition. And from what she had learned of this Kwan so far from her sources, he certainly didn't sound like the type to watch foreign news programmes for fun.
Saving the photo to her gallery, Casia grinned. The familiar anticipation of finally getting closer to a good story buzzed under her skin, making her heart beat a little faster. She was profoundly grateful for all that she had been given, by fate and her own dogged refusal to let go when she should. And she would not have traded her prime time slot for the world. Yet, Casia did sometimes heartily miss her days as an anonymous young reporter. You got a lot more actual reporting done when people weren't gawking at you as you passed by.
She supposed it was her own fault for insisting on doing this personally anyway. She could easily have sent one of the junior reporters along for the first contact and allowed them to lure Kwan to Ragah, where their meeting could have been a lot less conspicuous. But if this lead panned out the way she expected it to, this could turn out to be their biggest story in, well, months. Ever since the Parliament attacks, certainly. And an exclusive too!
Besides, if Casia was absolutely honest with herself, she would have to admit that to an extent, she felt rather territorial about this particular story. She had been chasing clues and rumours about Aeriel activity at the SifCo facility for months now, but none of it ever seemed to lead to anything. Every lead she tried to follow turned out to be a dead end, and if she could get a penny for every time Jiniya had told her to drop the chase and concentrate on something else, something that yielded more tangible results, she could retire comfortably to Ibanborah tomorrow. But something in her gut had told her this was important, that this was the real deal and that the isolated incidents and rumours floating around SifCo added up to something more, and Casia had learned early on in her career to trust her instincts when it came to things like these.
So when rumours of a Zainian noble in Vandram with insider knowledge of the SifCo issue surfaced all over the place and all her sources in the northern parts of the country came alive with whispers and speculations about Aeriel plots and Zainian conspiracies, Casia could not help but feel a certain amount of possessiveness about the story she had spent months trying – albeit without much success – to put together despite all odds.
As the rickshaw came to a lurching halt in front of the garishly decorated façade of the Red Poppy, Casia hopped lightly off the vehicle and handed the driver a hundred dinka note, waving a hand to indicate that he should keep the change. Smiling, he paddled off in the opposite direction, back towards the railway station where he had picked her up.
Casia drew a deep breath and turned to stare intently at the ornate glass doors of the pub. From all the reports she had received so far, she had gathered that her quarry frequented this particular establishment. For all the pictures she had seen of Kwan, in her time researching him for this meeting, she still had no idea what kind of man she was going to face inside the pub, if she managed to find him there at all. There appeared to be surprisingly little about the guy on the internet, and he seemed to disdain social media with an almost missionary zeal, if the lack of even a rudimentary Facebook or Twitter account was anything to go by. It was not so much that she had expected to be inundated with information – Kwan was obviously not high enough on the complicated Zainian hierarchy for that. But she had expected something more than the few grainy photos and the generic three-line bio on the official site of the Zainian establishment that she had actually managed to uncover.
Well, she had never been one to scorn surprises.
For all the uncertainty surrounding the situation she currently found herself in, Casia did know one thing for sure. If anyone was going to break this story, whatever it turned out to be, it would be her. And really, that was all that mattered as she pushed the doors open and strode briskly into the appropriately crimson-lit bowels of the Red Poppy.
***
Shwaan heard her enter the pub before he saw her. He couldn't turn around, of course. That would give the whole game away. Her arrival was supposed to be a surprise to Ashwin Kwan. But Shwaan had spent days watching her on TV, listening to her voice and memorising her posture and style from TV sets in various motel rooms and shop-fronts across the country before flying to Ragah to actually see her in real life. He had tailed her for almost a whole day – her and many others – to determine who would be the best suited to his purpose. He had dug up everything he could find on her and then some; he needed to be able to anticipate her actions if she was going to be any use to him in the long run. By now, Shwaan was pretty sure he could predict the exact moment of Casia Washi's next sneeze, if he wanted to.
So of course he recognised her footsteps when she strolled casually into the pub as if she owned the place, as was her wont with almost any place she graced with her presence. It was a quality he rather admired.
He smiled into his citrus-flavoured cocktail with the little umbrella on top and remained seated, waiting for her to make the first move. Casia had dutifully followed the careful trail of rumours and speculation he had left for her in his wake, tracking him to Himli just as he had expected her to. He could admit to himself that he was impressed. While he had wanted her to find him, he could not afford to have made it too easy, lest it raise suspicions. But she had not disappointed him so far, and he trusted her not to do so now. He took a long sip of the orange beverage in his hand, savouring the various layers of tangy flavours that suffused his tongue and warmed his throat, and waited.
***
The long, jet-black hair tied into an intricate braid, with a broad purple ribbon woven into it, stood out amidst the multiracial sea of faces crowding the little pub like a rose in a forest of bedstraw. Casia wondered why Kwan chose to wear it in a place like this. It was bound to attract unnecessary attention – some benevolent, some not so much. She shook her head. Well, Zainian aristocrats certainly weren't known for their practicality, or subtlety for that matter. And it was not as if she had anything to complain about. She would probably not have heard of him quite as quickly as she had, had he chosen to be less ostentatious about his background and status.
From what little she could see of him in the dim crimson light of the pub, the unusual hairstyle appeared to be the most striking thing about him. He had his back to her, so she couldn't see his face, but he seemed to have the pale complexion of most of his countrymen and was slightly built, no more than five-six, if that. He wore a rather ordinary grey frock-coat – out of fashion in Zaini for a few years at least, but not enough to be vintage – and loose black slacks that were folded at the hems and appeared to be a little too big for him. Apparently, his Lordship had made some concessions for the climate of his host country, and forgone the more conventional and elaborate outfits favoured by his compatriots.
Coming to a decision, Casia steadied herself with a deep breath and walked straight up to the object of her observations.
"Hello, my Lord. May I buy you a drink?" she asked with a winning smile, placing a friendly hand on Kwan's shoulder and trying to make her voice as congenial and unthreatening as possible.
***
She ended up buying Ashwin multiple drinks – all of them some eye-watering shade of neon – and snacks, and even a collection of candy-sized chocolate bunnies which for some reason the man seemed singularly taken with. It never hurt to ply a potential source with alcohol while interviewing them, in her experience.
Casia was unconcerned, though. She was billing it all to Jiniya as work-related expense, which it was, because she had spent the last two hours sitting at the bar with her new Zainian friend and listening to the most amazing tales of forthcoming revolutions in arms technology and secret Aeriel conspiracies. These were some of the most extraordinary stories that she had ever heard in her life – and for someone who appeared daily on prime time television, that's saying something.
If half of what he was saying were true, thought Casia, she had over a month's worth of top-of-the-chart programming, sitting on a bar stool right in front of her, looking at her through wide, guileless eyes with a bright green cocktail dangling forgotten between his long fingers.
"And so they told me that I had to get the news to the authorities in Vandram as soon as possible, before the Aeriels could actually carry out the theft," Ashwin was saying, eyes wide and voice hushed with urgency. "But I honestly didn't know who to go to first because you never know who you can trust with things like these, you know?" he confided conspiratorially.
Casia wondered idly what brain-dead idiot had entrusted this boy with state secrets. Even for Zainians, this was a new low. Not that she was complaining, of course.
"Do you have any proof of your claims?" she asked finally, taking an absent-minded sip of her own beer.
Ashwin nodded vigorously. "Oh yes. It's all there in my hotel room. All the paperwork, I mean. I don't really understand most of it," he smiled self-deprecatingly, taking a careful sip of the bright green concoction in his glass, the latest of his experiments with neon. "But then, I am just a messenger."
Casia returned his smile with a rather indulgent one of her own. "And a very important role that is, my Lord–"
"Call me Ashwin, please," the young man pleaded, for perhaps the fourth time that evening. Casia decided to take pity on him. He was clearly in over his head, but it wasn't really his fault, she supposed. Besides, it could very possibly turn out to be a blessing in disguise, so far as she was concerned.
"Well Ashwin, I'll tell you what. I can help you get your message across to the most important people in all of Vandram, those whom you can be sure you can trust, for they want only the best for both our countries." She paused a moment for effect, watching her companion's lips part in surprise, limpid eyes widening with awe. "The citizens. The common people. There is no one on earth that deserves to know about the perils facing this nation more than the common people living in it!"
"I-I suppose you're right," agreed Ashwin haltingly, looking a little overwhelmed. "What do I have to do, Miss Casia?"
"Oh, don't you worry about that, my friend," said Casia sweetly, taking the almost-empty cocktail glass off the boy's hands and throwing some money on the counter to cover their bill. "You just have to come with me to the studio."
***
The offices of World News Now, located on the twenty-third floor of a seventy-storey skyscraper in Film City, were, in a nutshell, the definition of chaos. Phones rang and monitors beeped as people shouted over each other and over the constant buzz of a hundred TV screens tuned in to a hundred different programmes. They lined the walls of the gigantic gallery which served as the primary workspace for the organisation.
The sea of humanity standing in small clusters around television or computer screens, arguing about 'sots' and 'bites' and 'tictacs', parted almost unconsciously as Casia strode through the hallway with Shwaan in tow. She nodded intermittently at some of the people working around the room but said little else. Finally, they reached a set of tall glass doors at one end of the main gallery with the words 'Casia Washi' printed across one of the panels in big black letters. Casia pushed it open and walked inside, holding the door open for a moment longer to allow Shwaan to pass through.
As the door slid shut behind him, it was as if the rest of the world had fallen away, and they were enveloped in a silence that seemed almost eerie after the noise and clamour of the hallway outside. On the bright side, Shwaan did not need to feign astonishment inside these offices. The place was proving to be genuinely overwhelming.
He turned towards what he assumed was Casia's desk, and was greeted by a plump, middle aged woman with olive skin and thinning, dark brown curls falling to her shoulders. She sat primly on one of the chairs and stared at him with curiosity in her striking sea-green eyes – a rarity in Vandram. Kanbarian ancestry then; though one wouldn't have known it from her rather rounded Vandran features. Shwaan looked up at Casia inquisitively, unsure about what he was expected to do next. The latter was leaning against one of the large wooden cabinets that lined the walls, and eyeing the older woman with a triumphant smirk on her lips.
"Hello Jiniya. Let me introduce you to our new friend, Lord Ashwin Kwan from Zaini. Ashwin," she said, gaze flicking momentarily over to Shwaan. "Meet Jiniya. Our news director and my dearest boss."
***
Had he been human, Shwaan thought idly as another blazing studio light flashed directly into his eyes, he would almost certainly have been blinded at some point during the two hours he had been sitting opposite Casia, in what he was excitedly told by one of the interns was the company's largest studio – the one where Casia hosted most of her shows. As it was, the sheer brightness of the place made him feel rather refreshed. It wasn't sunlight, of course; far from the real thing. But it was still better than the constantly overcast skies of Ragah in July. It made him feel oddly at home.
They were taking a break from the filming, and one of office boys rushed in to thoughtfully hand him a bottle of chilled water. Although it wasn't technically possible for him to feel thirsty, Shwaan could almost feel his voice cracking from the strain of talking nonstop for over two hours. By contrast, his companion's voice remained just as fresh and chirpy as when they had first started filming, and much more so than it was when she was off the camera. He drank slowly, listening with half an ear as Casia finished her phone call – telling whoever was on the other end that she would see them at dinner. He then set the bottle down on the edge of the table and tried to compose himself for the next round.
He had been on earth for almost a month now and he was still regularly surprised by all the new things he saw every day. It was disorienting. It all felt strangely familiar, yet oddly foreign, like a forgotten dream from a different age.
"You understand we're only taping this because this is your first time in front of a camera. And we didn't want to put too much pressure on you right away," Casia said, firmly but not unkindly, as she switched off her phone and settled back into her own chair. "The next time we do this, you're gonna be on live TV. No more cuts and retakes then."
"I-I'll try to do my best, Miss Casia." Shwaan tried to make his voice as agreeable as possible without sounding too confident. It was a delicate thing.
"That's good then," Casia smiled, flicking two fingers at the crew to indicate that they were ready to begin shooting again. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, she turned to the camera, her expression a mask of earnest neutrality, and began: "Welcome back to The Hour of Truth. I'm Casia Washi and we have with us today…"
***
"He's gold," Jiniya said, delicately sipping her tea as she stood on the terrace. She gazed out over the twinkling vista of the capital city, stretching out in all directions below them; the horizon dotted with the silhouettes of faraway architecture. It was a clear night – a rare occurrence at this time of the year – and the stars shone down upon them rather pleasingly, like the lights of the city reflected in the sky. "Young, guileless, earnest and perfectly ready to talk. Not to mention, rather cute." She spared a quick glance at her companion, smirking. "The viewers will eat him up."
"Almost too good to be true," murmured Casia, leaning into the parapet, her arms crossed over the flat top of the wall as she too gazed out over the panorama below.
"He might be yet," agreed Jiniya. She set her cup down carefully on the concrete fencing, taking care to keep it far away from Casia's jutting elbow. "At least his paperwork checks out. So far as we can determine without letting it get to the IAW, anyway. Still, it all seems a little…"
"Easy?" suggested Casia. "I've been chasing this thing for months, Jiniya. Nothing, in all that time. It was almost as if someone was consciously blocking me, moving things around whenever I got too close. And now this. Honestly, I don't know whether to be grateful or suspicious."
"He's giving us good material," Jiniya shrugged, not taking her eyes off the dusky city beneath them. Shifting a little, she turned to face Casia. "Listen to me. If it's true, if it all checks out, the courts will get involved. The IAW will not be happy, nor the Hunter Corps. If half of what that boy's saying is true, it ought to have come out sooner. Somebody should've been working on it. Hell, the army should've been deployed to SifCo. Under any other circumstances, it would've been, what with Aeriels casing the place; even without this mysterious formula they're supposedly housing.
"Somebody up high has to be covering this up. Maybe even a group of somebodies, if something this big got pushed under the rug for so long. And when we try to pry open that can of worms, well… We'll be at the centre of a mighty fucking shitstorm, Casia, and you'll be the face of it. So think carefully how you want to play this." She flicked her wrist to hush the oncoming slew of protests from Casia. "Don't get me wrong, my dear. Our ratings will be through the roof, and I'm all for anything that makes that happen. But there might be…more to this than either of us can see right now. Whatever that is, you should make sure you're ready for it before we move forward with this story."
"It's not just about us anymore," said Casia, looking suddenly drained and leaning more heavily into the parapet. "They'll have to do something, once all this gets out. They'll have to take action, protect SifCo, if only to save face. The Prime Minister can't just let this hang over his head until something like the Parliament attack happens again. Not so soon after the last one. We might just end up…helping." She said it like she could barely believe her own words, then buried her face in her hands. "Obviously I'm way too tired to be allowed to talk. 'M going home, Jiniya. See you tomorrow."
"Goodnight my dear," said Jiniya, gazing after her star employee as she walked slowly out of the terrace and down the stairs to the elevator. A faint thunderclap sounded in the distance as the sky clouded over above her, obscuring the stars.
***
Excited murmurs filled the warm, humid, mid-monsoon air as Casia Washi strode into the elaborately decorated grounds of the IAW headquarters, on the auspicious occasion of Emancipation Day. Lord Ashwin Kwan of Zaini walked rather timidly behind her, taking in the sights and sounds of the celebratory premises with wide eyes and parted lips, as if he had never seen anything like it before. But then, Casia had come to realise in the few weeks she had known him that that was pretty much his reaction to life in general.
Ashwin's appearance seemed to add fuel to the gossipy fire and the muted chattering took on a life of its own. Heads turned as they passed, and a few of the dignitaries even held hand-fans or napkins in front of their faces in a futile attempt at discretion. Casia rolled her eyes even as her hand reached back to grab Ashwin by the arm, dragging the surprised young man off to a shady alcove created by a large Gulmohar tree growing next to the boundary wall. Her head throbbed from a combination of excessive exposure to stupidity and a slight lack of restraint in matters alcoholic during the office party last night.
There was a reason Casia did not like these sorts of gatherings. She fumed internally, looking around rather menacingly at the politicos and dignitaries milling about the premises, whispering behind their silly fans. And to think people accused the media of rumour mongering.
Speaking of which, Casia thought she spied a small group of her fellow reporters approaching them from the other side of the looming IAW building. She recognised a few of the better known faces – Viman Rai from CXN News and Rajesh Sur from Life'n'Style – while the others were mostly strangers. Only the press cards dangling from their necks identified them as members of the media.
She smirked. She knew what they wanted of course, and thought she was going to enjoy dangling it in front of them as they all scrambled for a piece. Her gaze flicked over to her companion, who turned out to be too busy ogling the palatial main building to pay much attention to what was going on around him.
And to think she hadn't even done anything that spectacular yet. Casia bit her lip to keep herself from grinning like an idiot. She couldn't help feeling a little smug about it all. The news of her interview series with Ashwin – aired twice every week during her 'Hour of Truth' segments – about what had quickly come to be known as the 'SifCo Conspiracy', had spread like wildfire throughout the capital.
As Jiniya had predicted, their ratings had skyrocketed overnight, not that they were anything to scoff at before. Jiniya had decided to tease the audience with little titbits of information during the first few segments, whetting their appetites. This was meant to work up to the big reveal, in a much hyped two-hour long 'grand finale' on the night of Emancipation Day; which of course happened to be today. Who said hard news couldn't be entertaining?
As it was, the little they had revealed had already caused quite a stir in the establishment, by the looks of it. The day after their third segment was aired, the Supreme Court formally directed the IAW to launch an investigation into the reports of Aeriel activity near SifCo, taking suo motu cognizance of the case. Rumour had it that the Prime Minister himself had called up the Senior Secretary of Defence to enquire about the reasons behind the delay. They hadn't even mentioned anything about the supposedly game-changing new sifblade formula yet, and the entire city seemed to be in a flux. She couldn't wait to see what would happen when they finally flung that particular piece of information out into the open tonight.
The message was significant in itself, and it didn't hurt that the viewers seemed to love the exotic, doe-eyed messenger. Ashwin had been a hit since day one, also just as Jiniya had predicted. The audiences seemed willing to eat up anything that came out of his innocently boyish – if slightly stuttering – mouth.
***
They were surrounded by reporters. Shwaan sighed internally. The profession had its uses, as he had come to know rather intimately in the past few weeks. He had known that attracting the media's attention to the happenings at SifCo would be a good way of stalling the plans for the theft, at least temporarily; but even he hadn't expected it to work quite as quickly, and spectacularly as it had. Nevertheless, Shwaan felt that there should be a legally imposed limit on the number of reporters one was made to deal with during any given period of time. They were exhausting creatures.
"But that is so not fair Cas!" whined the one named Rajesh, whom Casia had introduced as the editor of something called the Life'n'Style, though what that was supposed to be, Shwaan had little clue. The man was eyeing him rather like a cat noticing a bowl of fresh milk just slightly out of its reach.
"Back off Raj. He's mine!" Casia growled, with a little more vehemence than Shwaan considered strictly necessary. Not that he was complaining. Her random bouts of territorial aggression came in rather handy at times like these.
He looked around, scanning the grounds for an escape route. Six hundred years ago, he could have pointed out half a dozen underground tunnels opening around the palace premises with a blindfold over his eyes. But things had changed – more than he had imagined possible, really – since the time he had called this compound home. He was suddenly overcome by a strange sense of loss, for a home he had never particularly liked in the first place.
"Come, let me show you around the grounds some more," said one of the younger members of the group surrounding them, smiling brightly at Shwaan, pulling him out of his reverie. "It really is quite an amazing place; the pride of our city!"
"Oh yes, it is a fantastic place," agreed Shwaan with genuine fondness, his gaze still scanning his childhood playground for some vestiges of the past, something that hadn't been swept away by time and humanity.
Suddenly, his gaze alighted on a patch of grassless land, the earth broken by cracked pieces of marble half buried in the dirt. He smiled. "There used to be a statue there," he said unprompted. Images of Maya yelling at him to 'get down from there' – even as his little feet dangled between Zeifaa's humongous shoulder blades – flashed before his eyes. "I used to climb onto it whenever I was bored. Really had the most marvellous view!"
Wary brown eyes watched him curiously from the spot where the statue had once stood.
***