The sky above Roxy shimmered in soft purple and gold, a synthetic dusk cast across the lush gardens of the Moonridge Estate as the aftermath of a burst of blue faded to the background of the sky.
Mira looked as the lemon trees lined the marble balcony, swaying gently in the programmed breeze as she and her young friends laughed over silver plates of lemon cake and half-finished goblets of white wine.
"I swear, Mira," said Lysa, her voice breathy from wine and gossip, "they said miners started disappearing weeks ago. Entire shifts just… gone. Like ghosts pulled them through the stone."
Mira dabbed a crumb from the corner of her lips with delicate fingers. "Or maybe it's the gas again. You know how unstable that crust is—MelasOon has always been a cursed place."
"Cursed?" Vey gasped, eyes wide and theatrical. "No, no, I heard it was something else. One of the maids told me a story—soldiers seeing shadows move, eyes in the dark, things with claws. Werewolves, maybe."
Mara smirked as she heard her hypothesis of the current events.
"Oh please," Mira laughed, lifting her goblet for another sip. "If anything lives in that soot-covered rock, it's not wolves or ghosts—it's men. Mad ones."
Mira said as exchanging a blink with Mara.
Lysa leaned forward, lowering her voice to a dramatic whisper. "But did your father—he left so suddenly right after the feast and to Astian of all places."
That caught Mira's attention, if only for a flicker.
"What's on Astian?" Vey asked while all three girls looked at her with wide open eyes.
"What's on Astian?" Lysa repeated with a quizzical look.
"The Wolven Guard, … Herclion's pups," Mara said while holding back a laugh beneath her smile.
"Herclion. That Herclion—the one…." Vey said. Mira could feel a chill run down Vey's spine from her open face. Mira too felt the same chill in her own spine; she had read too many books on Herclion. Only a dead man wouldn't shiver at the name of Herclion, she thought.
"Yes, that Herclion. Imagine—you win every battle you fight, you oust a galactic empire, and you do that outnumbered a hundred to one, and then you get yourself a planet for your great deeds named after your surname, and some girl at the edge of the world doesn't remember who you might be," Lysa said, making the girls share an uncertain laugh.
"Maybe the Wolven Guard can clean up the sooty mines," Lysa added as she swayed on her dazed legs and staggered her way to a new, untapped bottle of wine from the rack.
"What are the Wolven Guard?"
Vey asked, as if the name Herclion hadn't been enough to explain.
"Only the strongest soldiers in the whole sector," Mara smirked as she partook of a piece of lemon cake with a gold-tinted silver fork, "each one standing three men tall."
"And half a man wide — oh, all that muscle, all that will — oh, I want a wolf for myself, girls. I want to make him howl,"
Lysa added, the bottle slipping in and out of the grip of her palm.
"If they are three men tall and two men wide, you are the one who is going to howl,"
Vey said as she smirked.
"Even better! Aooooo, aooooo!"
Lysa howled, and all the girls burst into uproarious laughter, so loud that Vey almost choked on a piece of cake while Lysa wailed and tumbled drunkenly onto a cushion beside the chimney wall.
"Careful now. You don't want these men near you at all,"
Mara said firmly as she sipped her wine.
"Why?"
Mira asked, perplexed, leaning closer, her brow furrowed.
"A Wolven Guard… to become a Wolven Guard… well… they must kill the woman they love,"
Mara answered with a shaken voice, struggling for words — words that didn't seem to want to come out right.
"Bo-ho! Such a stupid romantic! What I want from them isn't love!"
Lysa yelled from afar, her fingertips slipping as she tried to uncork the bottle of wine.
Mira ate a piece of lemon cake while she contemplated what Mara had just said.
The cake tasted new to her — or perhaps it was the wine — but for a moment, a sunny burst of citrus made her mouth pucker before sweetness rushed in.
The cake was rich and buttery, with a dense, velvety crumb that melted under her tongue.
The sharp lemon flavor cut through the sweetness, leaving a bright, lingering tang that made her reach for another bite.
Why would they kill the woman they love?
Mira wanted to ask aloud, but she swallowed her words before they could reach her throat.
The answer to that question—knowing it—troubled her more than the question itself.
Her father had once told her that if a question harms you less than its resolution, it is better left to wander unanswered.
"Such a shame," Lysa said with a sigh, "I've heard they have the greenest eyes of all."
"I've heard they once killed everyone who had different eyes,"
Mara replied, her tone edging toward disgust.
"Maybe they loved them,"
Lysa said as she finally popped the cork off the bottle of red wine.
The splash stained her red dress as she fell back to her side.
Mira couldn't tell why they might have killed those who had different eyes.
If they had ever tried, they had failed to do so—she herself had black eyes, as black as the soot she despised.
So did all her friends, except for Mara.
And nearly all the servants and guards had brown, gray, or black eyes as well.
But she could recall her father telling her that black eyes were only common here, on MelasOon—
that out there, in the wider worlds, most people had eyes as green as pigment could come.
"Are you drinking wine or are you suckling it to the floor?" Vey said.
Mira tilted her head to see Lysa having a swig from the bottle of red wine—most of it missing her mouth and dripping off her jaw to her cheek, following her thin jawline to her ear in a steady stream before it cascaded down to the wooden floor.
"Stop acting like a pig," Mira said in anguish and disgust.
"Can't help myself. Oink oink,"
Lysa replied,
before taking another sip—before she passed out.
"Last shot!" Mara shouted.
"Last shot," Mira repeated, as she, Vey, and Mara raised their glasses.
Lysa too raised her head, but it fell back quicker than it had risen to the wine–infested floor.
The girls all sipped from the wine—all but Lysa, who had already sipped the best she could from the bottle.
---
"Have you ever seen these Wolven Guards, Mara? Are they really like what people say they are?"
Mira asked in a wavering tone.
Unlike Mira—who had never left this planet—Mara traveled often to the greater world with her father.
Iliam traveled out of necessity—he was a merchant.
But Mara traveled with him out of game, out of curiosity and joy, because she wanted to see the world beyond.
"I saw them only once at Giliad when me and Papa were there. They were escorting some Karezon officials. They looked to be as formidable as their tales—if I recall right."
Mara answered as she lazily slumped back onto the cushion, closing her eyes.
"Escorting?"
Mira asked.
Mara yawned as she adjusted the cushion under her head and hugged it as she lay stretched on the bench.
"Escorting?" Mira asked again, louder.
"They are condottieri. Mercenaries—but not like regular sellswords. A professional army for sale,"
Mara answered with disinterest as she yawned again.
"But if they are sellswords, how come we have none?"
Vey asked, confused.
"Because they are expensive—very expensive. But given current conditions, maybe Lord Kenta would hire a battalion or two to get the mines running again."
Mara replied with another tired exhale.
Mira looked at the chimney where Lysa lay flat in her pool of wine.
"Do you want me to get the servants?" Vey asked gently.
"No. I'll get them myself."
Mira answered, as she stumbled up and staggered out of the hall.
Mira staggered her way through the hallways one after another. The Moonridge Estate was too big to tremble under her small, dazed steps. The walk to the kitchen was too long. The Estate was too big—bigger than what she liked it to be. And despite its large size, it was never too cold in the long nights. Chilly at times, yes—but cold was foreign to Mira. Never had she known anything beyond the fabricated early spring of Roxy's everlasting season.
She had heard people die from too much cold or too much warmth. She had heard of skin turning red, then blue. She had held ice in her hand, glazed it with fire too. She had tried to replicate the feelings she read or heard from her friends. Ice had turned her skin red, and fire she couldn't endure long—it had left a faint white blister behind. But never the persistent sensation that would come with a true cold winter or a blistering summer heat.
She wanted to feel such things—warmth on her skin in a desert, a warmth that didn't come from flame or artificial light. She wanted to see a real raining sky—a heavy downpour spattering against her skin as she walked among its pitter-patter, droplets poking at her face, trickling down as she inhaled the wet soil's pungent scent. She wanted to swing her sleek hair and feel the water fall from it as she looked up to clouds.
But above all, she wished she could see MelasOon—the planet so close, yet always so far. Her father kept her away from going there. There was something there she needed to find. Her mother. What was left of her was there. Mira had never known her—she had died on the Black Planet when Mira was a child.
She could hear the servants from the kitchen. They claimed it was a hard job to pull out the feathers, cook the bird's head, and then push the feathers back in. "How would they tell it is royal grith if they cannot see the feathers?" the chef said.
"Oh, Lysa has poured a bottle of wine in the guest hall chimney… near the guest hall chimney… send someone to clean it up,"
Mira ordered, still drunk.
You never know how drunk you are until you try to walk—Mira thought.
"Yes, my lady," the servant girl replied, and she and her companion hurried past Mira in a flicker, disappearing at the end of the hall.
"Do you want any more lemon cake, my lady?"
The man standing at the kitchen doorway asked nervously.
Mira closed the door behind her, not caring to answer. She staggered toward the closest balcony. The balcony on the hallway. She opened the glass gate and stepped outside.
Mira watched the horizon, where Roxy's false sun dipped behind violet mountains—where, high above, a black planet danced in the sky.