Tales of Zoab - By Carla Bisschoff

Written By: carla bisschoff

Category: Novella

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Carla Bisschoff, writing under the name "Tales of Zoab," presents a riveting novella that captivates with its intricate world-building and suspenseful narrative. As a participant in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, Bisschoff invites readers to explore the Kingdom of Zoab, where political negotiations and ancient mysteries intertwine. This imaginative work delves into themes of diplomacy, identity, and the supernatural, set against a backdrop rich in cultural and historical depth.

About the Work

In "Tales of Zoab," Carla Bisschoff crafts a tale filled with intrigue and complex characters. The narrative unfolds through a tapestry of diplomacy and dark secrets within the Kingdom of Zoab. Bisschoff's writing style is both detailed and evocative, immersing readers in a world where the boundaries between myth and reality blur. The story weaves a compelling mystery, exploring the tensions between different clans and the haunting legacy of the Ajiba, a group believed to be long extinct.

Tales of Zoab

Original Submission by carla bisschoff

Prologue[a]

Dear Sons of Silas

As part of the diplomatic negotiations between Silas and Zoab, more specifically the Niase Clan Jiabu, my brother and I have thought it well to briefly give an overview of our structures and a more in-depth breakdown of the Niase Kingdom before our arranged meeting next summer.

The Kingdom of Zoab consists of the Capital Kourt, along with Syra, Ry and Soan, known as the cities. Here, a mixture of groups lives together and is governed by the royal forces under the traditional rulers of the area, the Liran. Then there are the Nations of the Niase, the Krem and the Micians, each with their clans, tribes and blood houses. All bound by the treaty of Zoab, formed to unite the previous kingdoms as one when the first explorers from Silas came on shore. The Regions have autonomy over themselves and their clans, but when it comes to trade with Silas and Tyrax or decisions on explorers, the council of Kourt and the elected King have the final say.

The Niase are believed to be of Fae descent, descended from the ancient Niashm, how, when and with whom they mated to create the half-people, half-Fae races of people we are unsure of.

In the present day, three clans and their houses exist in the Niase Kingdom.

Jiabu, Bija and Beju.

Trackers, Sirens and Workers in the old language.

I look forward to your replies, teaching me more about your kingdoms and nations.

Princess Nevis of Jiabu.

........

________________

Chapter 1

I look up from my desk and the letter I was writing, as a Shadow suddenly appear where the light beam from the window used to be a few seconds earlier, stealing not only light but the morning warmth as well. The shadow as suspected is accompanied by a very stressed-looking General and the giant of a man I normally partner with. General Kian shifts uneasily, clears his throat and with a deep voice says: “Nevis, you know I try where best possible not to treat you as a bloodhound; however, we have a missing person, two bodies and a whole bunch of descriptions that make zero sense and the potential of a diplomatic crisis.”

I was about to joke about the bloodhound comment when Janu’s firm shake of the head made me think twice. Usually, within these bare grey walls, he leaves me to my own lot, diplomatic immunity and all. So, his warning me not to use my normal response to Kian's bloodhound comment is quite telling of how on edge both of them are. The whole station seems to be buzzing like a swarm of uneasy bees, as opposed to the normal calm atmosphere one would expect from the kingdom’s top royal forces base. Kian’s voice pulls me back to my desk and the matter at hand.

"There was a body left in Main Street Kourt and a similar MO in the town of Syra not too long ago. Now we have a missing person who checked into a hotel here and then disappeared with no trace, other than a few personal belongings, yet nothing that can’t be found in my house, Janu’s village in Niase or the royal palace.” Well damn, if the same everyday items turn up in Janu’s village, the palace, and this stranger’s bag, then these must be the most ordinary, unremarkable things in existence, which means that this case basically has no leads. That does, however, explain why I am interrupted to be a bloodhound and the general unease on the base.

“Take Janu and Rox with you, because while you are certainly more than a bloodhound, blending in isn't exactly a Jiabu strength, and Rox knows the other two cases and scenes.” While it's mainly a comment on my tracking abilities and the Jiabu’s flaming red hair and green eyes paired with the fact that Jiabu are very thinly spread across the forces, Janu's Bija are known as sirens for a reason; they can calm anyone mentally, which is always nice to have when you have to go poke around a murder scene and the people surrounding it. And it's always good to have Rox around; she is smart and always hyper chirpy. She also seems not to be fazed by Janu’s size or our abilities.

" Like I was ever going to take anyone else, General", I say with a mischievous smile as I grab the file from his hands. For Janu’s sake, I use general; the man gets all in his feelings that I can use Kian's name and he can’t when, on a service level, we are supposed to be the same rank; let's ignore the fact that I have known Kian for years before we both entered the academy. I tap Janu’s shoulder to follow me as I walk to the cafeteria to find Rox, where she’s already waiting with three cups of Excelsa in[b] hand, with a smile almost too big for someone whose job is finding a murder suspect.

"Let's bounce," Janu says as he heads to what I presume is a pre-arranged vehicle in the bay. Once we are all in the car, Rox launches into a history lesson on the biggest serial murder cases. Zoab doesn’t have many serial-type murders, and the last big ones were all technically political assassinations about ten years back when a rough group of Krem tried to kill the current king and his immediate family. King Lucan came out unscathed; some of his cousins weren’t so fortunate though.

" Yoh, Rox! Breathe, please, before we get accused of neglecting the non-gifted.” Janu interrupts her neck-breaking pace of speaking. “Also, we have schools and LCD Screens in Niase, so instead of a lesson on what we were alive to witness, can we focus on the two bodies we know nothing about?”

" I, I.." Poor Rox, completely lost at the abrupt interruption, trying to figure out if he is just getting her on track or upset that she is rambling. The problem with three non-people all speaking a language that is not their mother tongue is that tone of voice gets mistranslated very quickly if you don’t read body language with it. I decide to step in before she has a panic attack, thinking she did something wrong. Making sure to add humour into my words, “He is teasing Rox and also scared you will pass out if you keep talking without breathing. "

Rox inhales deeply and launches right back into her rapid-fire pace.

" So, the bodies- the first one appeared in Syra last week; deep bite marks around the throat look sort of like a wild beast attack. A Mician woman, no links to other continents for either her nor her husband or any of the sketchy houses in any of the nations. She is a housewife as far as Syra royal forces can tell, no kids. Her husband was in Soan at the time; the hotel and merchant he was dealing with confirmed his whereabouts, as did a small halfway station Clerk on the road between Syra and Soan. Nothing else found. They also had a local Jiabu try and track it, but he described it as feeling like a scrubbed-clean bubble. I am trying to arrange for us to go to Syra, but the General isn't too keen on that idea." I raise my hand in a stop motion, and she takes a deep breath, catching my meaning to pause while Janu and I process this information. Never heard of a Jiabu describing anything as a clean bubble before; guess we’ll see if this scene matches it.

I drop my hand, wanting to hear about the body we are going to before we arrive at the scene which is about an other four blocks away in the heart of Kourt.

Rox continues "The second body was found near the Kourt hotel; same bite pattern. We know this because all the coroners in the force were fine combing the photos to see if they could help find a match for what could have created the marks. After all, it doesn’t match any known creature or group here in Lira. That is still a work in progress, but it did help link the bodies. Now, as for the second body, this victim is a Liran man who works in the port as a ticket salesman for the ferry. We can find no weird connections for him or his family. He was at work this morning and got killed on his front porch, where his seventeen-year-old daughter saw the assailant from her window when he came home for lunch. She described the assailant as bluish-purple-skinned on his hands, ice blue eyes and snow-white hair sticking out from his dark robes and having a mask over the rest of his face. The lighting in the alley where the door is is a bit funky, so the purple could be him being a very pale and cold Liran, but the eyes and hair aren't a feature of any group on any of the three continents, nor does any description for any group on any of the three continents pop up matching that. At least for Liran, all our groups are accounted for in the system. Bless the preservers.” Rox finally takes a breath, although short-lived, and continues, “This description also matches the missing person from the hotel, but no one with that description has been seen at the airports, harbours or the underground tunnel between Silas and us.”

Wow, Rox really tied up every loose end she could before hauling us out here. Janu shifts uneasily as we pull into the hotel lot. The crime scene is two blocks away—Rox and I will walk, while Janu handles the paperwork and the hotel staff. I’ll catch up with him in the room. The streets of Kourt are very quiet this time of day. I look at my watch; it's only eleven thirty in the morning. Most of the city's residents will be at work, but a reasonable enough time to believe a ferry worker could be home for lunch if he did the first shift of the day.

"Hey Rox, any chance you had Visor and Sketcher come talk to the girl to help with the description?" Visor and Sketcher are the nicknames for the twin Mician force members whose abilities work together. Visor can see a person's thoughts via touch once permission is granted, and Sketcher well sketches what her brother sees. The Mician are a human race, but some of their people are gifted; why or how exactly it passes down is a mystery.

"They are out on loan to Syra at the moment to see if they can get something from the dead woman's memories, but are flying back tonight, so will come see the girl tomorrow. Did you know they can get information from deaf Micians of the same clan, well, not clan, but I forget what it's called, and that lady somehow happened to be. I didn’t know that” I shake my head in a vague no to Rox's little tidbit. The Mician are very selective of what is taught about them in the rest of the nations, and the Jiabu are under strict regulations by the other Niase clans on what they are allowed to learn and perform in regard to magical abilities. Mician magic, works, and even history is strictly banned, even from the royals like me.

" The things they don't teach you in history, anyway, coven is the technical term, but clan is a good way of putting it in the more modern society." One of the officers on duty states, as we walk up to crime scene, being Mician himself we just mumble greetings, thank you and scurry off before he can tell us why it’s called a coven, with the Mician the older the tradition the worse the origin story, and they will tell it to you like it's a summer romance; meanwhile, it's nightmare fuel for most groups. Decent people, though most times.

The Jiabu from Syra wasn't wrong in his description of the scene when he said clean bubbles, whoever or whatever this was, scrubbed the area right in front of the victim's house of all threads, well almost all of them. On the edge of the bubble lies a single golden thread. I pick up the thread—deliberately left, I’m sure—and slip down the narrow cobblestone street tracking it for about a block, before I turn the corner straight into the old royal palace now the Kourt hotel. If I were to look up the street, I would be able to see the tower of the new palace where it sits on the hill: how strange that the assailant lived so close to the crime scene and in the main crime scene of the last major murders to happen in Zoab.

I flash my badge at whoever is in my way as I continue to follow the thread in and through the hotel’s dimly lit hallway until I nearly crash into Janu. He takes a step back into the room to let me pass. “Welcome to our missing person’s room, princess. Found anything useful at the scene”

"Well, the assailant was definitely the tenant of this room and is somehow capable of cleaning his traces. The thread leads either from here to the scene or from the scene to here, but nothing is going in any other direction, and this room is sterile. How I don't know," I say slowly as I focus back on my surroundings to see if the thread leads anywhere further in this room or if there are any other threads left. Clean, which, given that this is a hotel room, is very weird; there should be millions of threads in al different shades and brightness depending on how old they are. The backpack, just as Kian said, held only the most generic items—so sterile, they might as well have been dunked in hospital disinfectant. The only footage of the assailant is two blurry frames, enough to confirm his eyes are ice blue. His skin appears naturally purple, though the lobby’s moody lighting could be playing tricks. Maybe Visor and Sketcher can draw out more from the girl’s memories.

Janu still looks unsettled as he drives us back. When I try to ask what’s wrong, he replies in Bija, telling me to drop it. Odd—usually we stick to the common tongue, not even Niase, much less clan dialects. I suppose the weird nature of this case could make him a bit more anxious, but this is extreme. I push it to the side as I watch the houses and later the harbour and factories go past on the way back to the base on the outskirts of the city. There are so many things that could mean something and so few things that actually do mean anything concrete at the moment. I do however, have a hunch whatever this is , will cause a stir up in the nations but don’t know why.

________________

Chapter 2

It's been two days since the body in Kourt was found, and Visor and Sketcher finally went to the girl and got the sketch done, along with a sketch of what the first victim saw.

Janu had received the sketches from Visor and has promptly been avoiding me for the last twenty minutes, looking less than pleased when I slide into the passenger seat next to him. I roll my eyes at him, huffing and puffing like a toddler being told it's time to pack up his toys.

"Janu, speak to me. Clearly something is bothering you since we got the case," I hiss at him in common Niase once I reach him. Politics in Zoab is complicated, with not only house loyalty, clan and nation coming into it, but also class and hierarchy and the only thing Janu and I share is being Naise, and even that is complicated, but we are still partners on this case. I am still the first person to go after him if he charges in places headfirst, to cover his missteps and deal with his less-than-pleasant view on my royal upbringing because, as said, it's complicated. And here he is acting like a toddler for whatever reason instead of sharing the sketch with Rox and me. I had to get Kian to call and ask where he is because without the sketches, we have nothing remotely concrete to go off on. Not to mention all the diplomatic work I have to do in between as well.

"You really haven't pieced it together, Princess. I thought you would have, Palace education and all." He says coldly and hands me the sketches. The blood in my veins boils at him, dragging my Niase status into this and letting our upbringing impact our job. At the same time, a chill runs down my spine as I look at the two sketches pulled from the women who wouldn't have even known the stories surrounding these people. The villains in Niase history are looking back at me.

"Ajiba." He whispers in a hiss. “You would have known from the no threads left. The Jiabu and Ajiba are the only ones who can do that. The purple skin, the blue eyes come now, princess, even me, and my subpar village education put it together.” One of these I am going to send him to the tower to redo all of the years just so I can stop hearing the words Royal education from his mouth. Now I am back to seething mad at him for his comments and the Bija and Beju for teaching the villages half-truths because they refuse to believe us, Jiabu.

"Why would I figure that a description that didn't bring up anything in the known world would be a clan that hasn't existed for the past hundred years? The preservers and historians have travelled all the way up the bloody Zoab mountain and recorded most remote Krem tribes, and none have been reported missing or seen a bright purple person. As for my education, yes, I was taught by the preservers, and I am privileged for that, but it's not the preservers nor my fault that the Beju filters all things gifted and that your elders unthinkingly follow what is taught in village schools, Janu. As for the Ajiba, I can't run around blaming a fairytale when there are other explanations to investigate first, like Mician magic.” My anger subsides as I focus on calming down. Knowing the history is shoddy in Niase unless you are royal like me and get trained in the preservers tower. I try to explain calmly.

" Janu, listen now very clearly to me: no Niase leaves a trace unless they want to. Think of the threads as spiritual footprints and our spirits being half fae, flying over the air, leaving prints only if they choose to land. Why do you think I had the General call you to find you and didn't just jump out like a Panther into the car? The Beju refuse to believe this because that would mean they are more fae than person, and as for you, Bija, unless you can concretely prove the Beju wrong, you follow like sheep out of fear of restrictions like ours. He gives a small smile at the thought of me behaving like the cats in our woods. I continue to explain that Jiabu, the Ajiba, are the only known people outside of our fae ancestors that can see the threads. Oh, and one random Mician house who apparently married some Fae ancestors; if they actually married Fae we don’t know, but they definitely see the thread.

" This wasn't a Naise, just simply not leaving a thread/spiritual footprint randomly and then flying away. This is for the sake of explaining; it's like having a street filled with yarn and sweeping only in front of that door, bleaching that one area, painting it and adding exactly one yarn string back over the scrubbed areas while there should be many. That is not Ajiba's or Jiabu's abilities; those are abilities that any person with access to the spiritual world can do if they are skilled enough. Which is why I was thinking we might have to ask the elders to see the spells."

"Ask the elders over a spell...is it too late to quit the force?" he mumbles. I sigh in defeat, echoing his mood on this.

"Like our pride would let us give control over to a Liran or Mician just because we don't want to start Niase war number three," I answer, less than ready for this. We both sigh in unison this time, knowing this argument is just a taste of the civil war that could erupt among the Naise if we bring this home. But how else can we get answers without the elders?

" Hey guys, could we switch to common tongue now? My Niase is a bit rusty." A chirpy Rox sings in the backseat after seemingly being there for longer than she should have been unnoticed. Janu and I both jumped from her sudden appearance behind us; due to his size, Janu hit his head on the ceiling. Unbothered by our stunned looks, Janu’s injury and the whole spat, she just heard Rox answer my mental question: "Why don't we visit the preservers tower here in Kourt to see what they know about the Ajiba and the spell? Maybe it will spare you the whole elders' ordeal?" Rox, you beautiful God-send angel, I could kiss you.

"You speak Naise?" Janu asks in disbelief, and before I can stop Rox from answering, she jets off on how she speaks all the main languages, as Liran kids must know at least three of them. And just like that, our village boy is in his feelings again because he knows Rox isn't royal, rich, or even from the cities, which means his beloved Bija and Beju people kept them uneducated on purpose, and the truth hurts like a Bitch. We pull out of the Base and drive in silence to the Preservers Tower that is just slightly outside the New Palace entrance. The Preservers, true to their name, kept with the tradition of it being a literal tower of grey stone and red tiles in trend with old Kourt and Liran building styles as opposed to the modern white sandstone the palace opted for. This tower, like the base, is head of its division for the Kingdom, and its systems are flawless, which will hopefully make finding this needle a whole lot easier in this twelve-story haystack.

Janu paces around, grumbling over the High Liran texts he can’t read, still salty over the truth he learned earlier. I feign ignorance, letting Rox seize her moment to perform a dramatic reading of the texts until the tower keeper gently points out that most texts exist in Naise, or at least in the common tongue. I wonder if he was scared Janu was going to walk a hole into the floor and fall all twelve levels down if he let him continue to pace. Having Janu back in work mode, scanning the texts the preserver had pulled for us went a lot faster; but still no needle to be seen.

"Wait, I am confused”. Rox says suddenly. “The Ajiba were labelled as bad because they only wanted Ajiba to marry Ajiba, but here it says that Jiabu can't marry Bija but can marry within the same clan." Janu, the tower keeper, and I all turn towards her, frowning, because while nothing she said is wrong per se, it is also not quite right. I giggle as she holds up an old quick guide used by the marriage officers processing the applications to register a marriage. Janu explains how the Ajiba was only a hundred houses strong at their peak and that only marrying each other would have ended the gene pool very fast. He motions for me to continue, probably scared he again only received half a history

“The Ajiba originally wanted only to marry other gifted Naise. The Ajiba thought that if we mixed the gifts, we'd get better gifts. Nature, however, determined that it was an abomination, and many women and children died in the process of testing it. Genetically speaking, we can either procreate with our own gifted people or non-gifted people, Mician being an exception to this, as they have a 50/50 chance of either being healthy kids or misshapen, so we tend not to. When it became clear that mixing the talents doesn’t work, the Ajiba decided that they would ban their clan members from marrying anyone outside the clan and definitely not non-Naise; it, however, wasn't the sole reason for them being exiled.

They were obsessed with becoming full Fae again. They did not care for the ethics of the new world, nor that we, as Fae-decent people, should take orders from, as they put it, prey animals. Jiabu and Bija can marry any other group of people on Zoab except each other and Micians, whose powers are closely related to theirs. It is classified as marriage as a whole to mitigate the risk of an accidental pregnancy."

"Oh" is all Rox gets out before scurrying off to the bathroom, flustered and slightly terrified.

"So why do you look like you just got a history lesson and saw a ghost at the same time, Bija?" I ask Janu, genuinely worried. He’s gone so pale it’s actually noticeable, which, given that on a normal day the man is the colour of milk, is a little troublesome.

" Remember the Mician girl that died in the academy our first year? We were kind of dating; they never taught us that even Mician could create problems back home, only that we can’t date Jiabu" Oh no, I do not like any of the words that just left his mouth. Bloody...I don't even know whom to blame for this, the Bija or the Beju, but it's not the first time a village child didn't know the fundamentals of our genetics. I can’t help but wonder how many fresh out of the village school kids in the cities end up in less-than-ideal situations. I place my hand on his back, not knowing what to say. Rox comes back, less rattled, and dives back into her search. We find nothing about scrubbing the spiritual world; I need a word with Kia[c]n once we are back on base.

Flash Back

The final three years of all Royal education for the nation's royals happen in the Preservers Tower in Kourt, the Capital of Zoab. The native residents of Kourt, the Liran’s children, also attend their schooling here, Kian standing in the hallway as the year grade below him enters the room next door, sees the beautiful Red haired Jiabu Princess with her ebony skin for the first time and immediately went to ask if she'd like join him for lunch as the final year's often do with the visiting kids from the nations, although there is generally protocols to be followed rather than just walking up and asking. The lack of protocol set the Naise Preservers and attendants accompanying her off in a fit towards the Liran royals at the dishonour of a commoner believing he has the right to dine with a Princess.

The Liran King and Prince managed to smooth it over and said it was a miscommunication, and the poor boy was just captured by her beauty, as he had never seen a Jiabu before and kept with the tradition. The prince made sure however Kian knew that he had almost started a war with his carelessness and that even if it’s stupid as fuck, royals can’t be friends with commoners because there's always someone looking to stick someone’s head on a pike ..and had he not been the highest scorer on forces grading test for his group, the Niase attendants would have had his for thinking he had a chance with not only a gifted member of their nation but a royal nonetheless. As the good soldier he was already aiming to be, Kian said he understood, requested that the prince please provide the princess with the same explanation, so he doesn't offend her by ignoring her and promptly proceeded to continue on his day, albeit with the look of a kicked puppy on his face.

Nevis however, upon hearing of the complaints, had her father demote the attendants and replace them as they had not even asked her opinion on the matter, and the preservers; well, they weren't allowed to visit the tower of Kourt , given that it’s the head base of their division its basically like being demoted, her brother crown prince of Jiabu and friends of the Liran prince, said it made Naise look insensitive to Liran traditions and education protocols, backed obviously by his Liran royal friend on the matter. Her brother gave her the same speech about why it couldn’t work. However, the year went by with small notes passed in the hallways, gifts appearing in their lockers and the princes arranging a spend-a-day with a royal auction every semester so they could talk because she is, after all, her brother's little princess. He will give her what she desires as long as it does not involve a possible civil war in the kingdom. The more they got to know Kian, the more the boys liked him, and they became as close to friends as what two princes and a commoner can be, and that did not stop them from re- issuing the same warning again to both Nevis and Kian when Nevis got assigned to Kian's base.

……

" Hey," I say as I close the door behind me to Kian's office behind me. We decided a long time ago that we'd drop the titles, as it's a political nightmare within the ranks and nation; at least that is the official reason. He looks up from the paperwork in front of him; the light from the window next to him dances in his dark brown hair, making it look more golden in some places. He smiles when he sees it's me.” Hey, Nev anything new on the case?” I can’t help but smile at the nickname; my brother would throw a fit if he knew Kian used it on base.

“Nothing you don’t already know.” Rox had already briefed him on the sketches and the lore of the Ajiba via a call at the tower as we kind of just left base. “But there is a favour I need." He raises an eyebrow, but he won't deny it unless it breaks his oaths. Despite my hatred of playing these cards, I am using them now to help that hopefully fewer Niase kids learn the truth the way Janu just did. Is it justified? I don’t know, but it’s the only way I can think of helping my people, and they come first; at least that is what I have been raised to believe.

" It has become glaringly obvious that the other clans are failing to teach villages the proper history and biology of our people, leading them to have partners in the cities that could potentially cause issues down the line?" I basically throw the words at him, scared he might read my thoughts if I wait any longer. He nods, makes a note on a piece of paper that really should have seen its last word five words ago and finally says something.

" I will send a motion to have the preservers conduct lessons on their trips with an overview of why our rules are the rules to the King." I nod and smile an appreciative smile at Kian, trying to figure out what to say next when his face changed to something between confused and upset. Oh no, this can’t be good. “You know you two confuse the living daylight out of me. He spent twenty minutes ignoring you today, constantly hissing at you. Rox while not saying what the spat was over even though I know she understood said you guys nearly killed each other in the car and then turned all comfortable in the tower. We'd be here for another seven years if I listed everything you two have done that makes the force think you hate each other. Yet here you are asking favours for him, no doubt related to that tower moment. You two pick each other as partners every time, and I fear the day either one of you gets kidnapped because you would find a way to set fire to the Straxs if it meant saving the other. Did I miss a relationship update from you two somewhere along the line? Does he need to be reassigned?” His dark eyes somehow became darker. He isn’t speaking as the General of this base, just Kian the man. Had I thought about it for more than a second, I would have realized why is upset, but alas, I opened my mouth way too fast.

“Firstly, a relationship between Janu and me? Kian, please reread the history of the Ajiba and the laws of the treaty before you ever suggest that about two gifted clan members in front of the wrong Royals. Secondly, try to move him away and see the diplomatic paperwork I will bury you under. Had he been noble-born or me common, we'd have been friends, siblings by choice within these walls, maybe even back home. Yet, I can't let him be my friend no matter how deeply I care for him because one wrong move and it's his head on a pike, stuck on there by his own clan men.” Kian is getting whiter by the second, regretting his own outburst, realising he not only misread the situation he also completely forgot Janu and I legally couldn’t be together a faux pax for a general who is friends with the High King and his advisor. And while I can see the regret, I can’t stop the river of words that flows out from the flood gate he opened. I don’t know if I am defending Janu or upset that he thought I loved someone else.

“He hisses at me because he was told I got everything on a silver platter and I am a royal. He has no idea when I will turn on him to cover myself. He has no expectations that I will save him at my own cost, for he is not of my clan. From his perspective, my oaths lie with the Jiabu and the Force to keep ties between the nations solid, not to protect one singular individual. But his oath lies with the whole Naise nation, its Royals, and all its women. He is a soldier of this Force sworn to protect its Diplomats and his troop members, and I am each of those things. From what he was told, I have a claim on his life and his, yet he has none for mine. He has half a picture of our history. It’s easier to blame me than face the truth that the people who meant to set him up for success are the reason he is failing, that they lied to him his whole life. When he can’t hide from facts because the rest of the known world shares them too, he only has me to scream at because if he screams at elders, they will not have his head but his whole house. I ask favours because I have no say in Bija, so I can only seek answers and request kingdom reforms And yes, Kian, I would set the Straxs on fire before I let him die because my whole family trusts that man with my life more than we trust my brother with our kingdom. I am a Niase royal. Kian, we don't have friends… subjects, allies and in this twisted kingdom, rulers, but friends- that's a treat my silver platter doesn't offer.

You should know that better than anyone.”

Those last words physically hurt to say because I knew it was the arm’s length I have to keep him at that caused this whole spat of ours. I close the door before he can say anything, not to punish him but to stop myself from crossing a line I can’t ever cross for his safety. From the window, I see him drop his head in his hands like he is in prayer. I am assuming that is what he is doing because that man is definitely not crying on base where his officers can see it. Being me feels a lot more like a curse than a gift at this moment in time.

The next morning, there's a file on my desk. Kian's way of saying I fucked up, please forgive me. In it, an edict that all citizens of the kingdom are to attend sessions in their respective preservers' towers or village halls on the Rules and their reasons. Lessons are to be conducted by members of outside nations in the ones you reside in to ensure unbiased education. I stifled a giggle at the wording on this. No doubt, Nexian and the High King made sure that the Beju can’t just shuffle the elders around to teach the same half history they have been teaching and call it done. Kian has a please forgive me look in his eyes when I look up at him as he stands in front of my desk. Most generals wouldn't be caught dead with it, but it's just us this early in the morning. In his general tone, in case someone walks in, he explains.

“You work fast, Kian. Thank you. I know you don't owe me any favours.” I say, hoping my eyes show how much this means to me. Kian smiles back and turns on his heel, heading back to his office, not knowing how to reply. Rox's voice pops up next to me seemingly out of nowhere, making me nearly jump out of my skin. With a knowing smile and little sister attitude, she chirps, “You know the guide says that both Bija and Jiabu can marry Liran’s.”

“Bloody Hell, Rox, are you sure you aren't Jiabu because you sneak up on people better than I do?” I try my best to avoid the topic. As I said, Royals can't have friends; she would have been a great one, though. Nexian will have a fit if he knows Rox had picked up on the vibes, not only is not so keen on his friend being sweet on his sister after seven years but as the royal advisor for the kingdom and king of Jiabu he really wants avoid the political war it will start if the wrong royal members discovers this.

“Don't change the subject, even as a request from a princess that was insane, results for this specific general to get. He is not known for paperwork.” Rox says while twirling her hair, looking over at Janu, who still looks haunted by the information he got yesterday.

“Maybe he saw Janu looking paler than the paint yesterday and decided to step in. Also, you are very brave telling a princess not to change the subject”, I say the last part while winking at her, picking up the file and the envelope Kian left for Janu. Rox stays perched on my desk, wisely keeping quiet for now. “Haunted by Mician or Beju? Maybe your grandmother is on the elders' chair?” Janu smiles a sad smile at the Niase saying. He replies true to Niase customs.

“Grandma is too young for the elders' chair, Princess, but yes, I was haunted not only by the fact that I could have killed someone without even knowing it by loving them, but also by the reason I didn't know, which was my own people.” I smile a sad smile and tell him of what Kian said. “Thank you Princess.” He whispers as Rox comes to join us, reading the edict over his shoulder.

.

.

Chapter 3

Another body matching the same MO was found in Ry, seemingly just as random as the first two; this time a Krem woman, which almost caused an incident as the Krem rarely venture from their homeland and are only still part of the treaty because they are small. While the other continents haven’t invaded to date, the fear is still at large.

Luckily, it's the Lirans in control at the moment, and they are very apt at sweet-talking. Since they are not a people known for supernatural abilities similar to the Krem, it went over better than if a Mician or a Niasian had tried. In general, the Krem tribes distrust all things supernatural.

Janu and I are off to Ry, as there's no Jiabu in their Royal Forces and where I go in the flied Janu goes per my brothers very reluctant order. Ry is a day trip by road compared to the two-hour flight to Syra, so Kian allowed us to go after he could really provide a reason to keep the best tracker in Kourt on base when the cases are seemingly related. Rox is staying behind to see if she can find the bubble spell, as we call it, possible weapons to match the marks in the victims' necks and anything else we might need the tower for while in Ry. The lush green scenery looks like something that belongs in an oil painting. Halfway through the drive my thoughts get interrupted.

“Nevis, may I ask you something?” Janu must be serious if he is using my name instead of calling me princess. I raise an eyebrow and reluctantly answer that he can proceed. “How did you get the edict submitted so fast from General Kian?” I smile, shaking my head, knowing Rox had probably told him what she observed this morning when Kian was at my desk.

“Oh, my little chirpy Liran, we are going to have to teach you when not to tweet before you start a war” I look at him and, with a soft tone, and continue “If your Mician girl was alive, and she asked you a favour, wouldn't you do it? Especially if she never asks anything and it's not for herself but her people.” He nods and glances at me with a sad, knowing smile.

“Jiabu can marry Liran, but I suppose royals can't marry for love unless that love is royal or comes with a national advantage.”

“Bingo, especially not across nations; his asking me for lunch at seventeen almost sent the attendants and Naise preservers into a tizzy. The Liran prince, now high king, and my brother had to sweet-talk for days on both ends to keep Kian's head on his body.” Janu starts laughing uncontrollably, and I look at him in mock disapproval

“I am sorry, it's sad, I know, but is that why got banned from Kourt tower?” He said between laughs

“Well, they wanted to flog him at minimum, and I thought it was a bit cruel,” I said, laughing now too.

“For being a stupid ass teen who saw a gorgeous girl and wanted a date, definitely. Oops, probably shouldn’t say that in front of the General; shudder to think where he would send me.” Fuck he heard that. Luckily for me, we pulled up at the crime scene in Ry. “Saved by the bell, princess, for now.” He says with a wink.

Once again, the scene is a spotless bubble—A parking lot next to an old, abandoned building in Ry’s historic district. Three very different areas, targets and nothing that links them in the slightest: no physical evidence, no supernatural evidence. And on top of all that, our prime suspect is either cosplaying a missing folktale creature from Niase's past at best or rose up from extinction, and I don’t know what I am hoping for as the outcome.

One bright ray of hope is that this time, we get to examine the body in the morgue. I nearly jump for joy when I see that the bite wounds hold faint threads pressed into the grooves made around the edges. These threads might lead back to the crime scene, or maybe somewhere else beyond the bubble. I leave Janu to gather other findings and hear the full while I carefully track the threads. From the morgue there was no thread to the crime scene but at the scene after circling the area like a panther on the prowl I pick up it up as it goes down in the streets of Ry. I don my full royal force uniform and pretend I’m just asking about beast sightings—torture for my hyper focused senses as the streets are bustling with people each with their own smell mixed in with ocean and food drifting on the wind, but it's necessary in a town without Jiabu. If I look too focused, the assailant might realise I’ve found a thread he didn’t mean to leave.

I come to a halt at an inn on the far end of the street again, not as far away from the scene as one would expect but further than it was in Kourt. Perfect, we need accommodation anyway, as the day has turned out to be more time-consuming than we thought. Kian greenlit us staying to see how far I can track this lead. Being able to stay here gives me the perfect opportunity to enter the inn without it screaming that I am tracking.

I text Janu, who had, in the meantime, been helping keep the cover by also asking about beasts or unusual sightings after leaving the examiner to compile the official report. As I was waiting for him to come around I look down the street , to where you can see the ocean at the end somewhere children are laughing and the buildings on this street all need a new coat of paint but nothing really shouts that is where a cold-blooded killer will come to hide, probably why they choose it .

As we check in, I vaguely follow the thread with my eyes. Janu uses his “siren” speak to convince the lady to give us a tour so we can see where in the inn we can sleep. You know, safety protocols and all, we leave all the very obvious pieces of clothing that shout royal forces on duty in the van, to make it more believable that we are simply looking for last-minute accommodation. The inn has a very rural feel to it for it being smack in the middle of a small city, two wings each with its own long hallway and small corridors haphazardly branching off, them we casually stroll through as Janu directs her based on where I see the thread weave through the building and so we get her to open up the room at very far end of the one wing where the thread enters without her even checking if it's occupied first. I make sure the receptionist stays a bit back so she doesn’t leave a thread inside the room just in case this is somehow a Ajiba or a member of that Mician house will notice a new bright thread, Janu takes some secret pictures and send them to the royal forces here in Ry so we have proof of what we saw: a backpack matching the one in Kourt, which is laid on the bed, cups, clothing, and most importantly, two fang-looking objects covered in blood and the thread. Weird objects don’t leave threads unless they once had spirits, so those fans must either be from an animal or be infused with blood, but this also gives me something to help Rox with finding the spell. We close the door and have the receptionist verify that the room still shows occupied; we decide we will see if they return tonight, and if not, we’ll investigate the room thoroughly tomorrow.

Janu and I get a room on the other side of the building in case the assailant sees us walking around the inn; it won’t spook them. Meanwhile, four undercover force members occupy two rooms in that hallway, and there are two in the room above with listening equipment. Effectively, Janu and I am off duty and only to join if needed. The van that had been parked on the street outside has also been moved to the base here to help further sell it, that we are not on the clock anymore and just resting. Now to brief the base in Kourt.

“Hey, Rox and uhm Kian”, I certainly did not expect to have Kian on this call. Although I probably should have. We weren’t able to talk about everything said last night yet, but at this point it probably won’t help anyway. Janu, who had sat down next to me on the bed, gently nudges me to signal it is now time to talk. “I think I have something to help narrow down that search with the spell. The fangs were wrapped in the threads; it wasn’t from the victim's blood. I am thinking that the spell works by scrubbing whatever the assailant tells it to scrub, but I don’t think they can see the threads themselves, so not Ajiba but maybe distantly related to the hair and eyes; the purple skin could be a side effect of the spell.” Nothing is definite, but why would you leave the weapon behind if you can see the threads, knowing a Jiabu is working these cases?

Seeing three very confused faces, I elaborate. “This is purely speculation, but I think this is why the thread stayed in Kourt, and everything was cleaned in Syra. Syra had a Jiabu that is known for helping the forces track at scenes. He is also far more advanced in his tracking abilities, as he has been doing this for years, meaning if he says it's clean, it is definitely clean. There are a couple of Jiabu in Kourt royal forces, so I don’t think they expected to have the princess arrive, but leaving the one thread was him branching out. At neither of these scenes did we the Jiabu look at the bodies we had no reason to believe there would threads left, and I found the threads in the wounds of the victim but only those threads; however, they were very faint the further from the fangs and body they were until think pulling cheese away from pizza, we were the moved the body far enough that thread snapped and one end pulled back to morgue and other to the scene but the area between morgue and the scene had no thread. Also, when I got to the scene where the fangs would have left the thread themselves, it was still scrubbed from the scene. I had to look further out to trace it from the outer edge of the bubble. This leads me to believe that the assailant couldn’t see the threads on the fangs and is likely not aware that even dead objects can leave threads if they were once alive or if they are infused with blood, which a spell like this will likely need.”

Kian is on his phone texting at an alarming rate, Rox is jotting down points as fast as she speaks, and Janu has his hands in his head as he opens his mouth. “A Blood spell that can clean threads at will sounds like a spell that will only be invented when you can see what you clean and need to see only one thread and not a whole street full when tracking, or to make yourself disappear from the trackers if you leave threads wherever you go. I am going to bet some money that that spell is either in the Banned Niashm texts, Ajiba’s book of the hunt or your list of restricted spells that need high royal approval to even look at. My question is, where does one even find them”

“The royal libraries in Naise, Kourt and the library of the Mician coven Li-ala.” Rox, Kian and I all answer as one. “Before you go all silent on us, Kian and I only know this because we have been in the Royal Court library and the books are on display there. How do you know, Rox?”

Now this a lie we definitely learned about these books in school, and so did Rox but for the sake of skipping another twenty minutes of hide-and-seek with a giant I can’t track I am hoping Rox plays along with my game and she doesn’t disappoint in her answer that also happens to be more truthful than mine. “Just because the Naise treat everything like a bloody secret doesn’t mean the Liran’s do, and I grew up in a town basically on the eastern border of Naise, right in the pillage zone of Ajiba, and their magic- the Ajiba was our horror story main characters,” Rox answers.

“Also, wherever the Ajiba left them, they had them memorised. They were exiled, not executed.”Kian replies after putting his phone down, “ I had the Jiabu in Syra go look at the body and send one of the other Jiabu officers here to see if there are threads on this body. Got to go.” He salutes us for some reason and then leaves to go do whatever has him doing a slow jog in the background of our call.

“I will ask Nexian if you can get access to the spell books to see if there is anything related, Rox,” I say, and we hang up the call, order dinner, and get settled. Janu looks at me with a smirk. I groan. He is not going to let what he heard yesterday go, is he? I shoot him a look that says You are going to regret this but he rolls his eyes at me before he asks, “So how does the general feel about us sharing a room? Can I request the Mount Zoab base, or is him choosing part of the punishment?”

Ughh, I already have a brother that is on case about this; why do I need another bigger one? I sigh, annoyed “If you heard the whole speech yesterday, why are you harping on about this? If he were really upset about you, he wouldn’t have gotten that answer for you. He cares for you too, not just me.” He smiles softly, noting my efforts to get him to drop it, but he is clearly not going to. In a genuine tone of care, he continues.

“ I don’t like how he spoke to you, how he keeps you close when he knows it only makes it a million times harder and if our relationship sets him off when I am of even lower standing and Bija so we can’t even marry what is he going to do when you get a prince …which by the way where are you getting one of those the whole reason Nexian is even in the high court is because there is no Beju Royals in our generation, the Liran and Krem royals that would be age appropriate for you to marry is already married to each other’s siblings and well we established that Bija and Mician isn’t an option for you. And what is he going to do, spend his whole life waiting?” I can’t help but giggle at the million side quests his mind made while thinking about this conundrum; it's quite impressive, though.

“Your brain scares me, because why did you just have that in there so readily available?” I say with a smile and realise I am going to have to explain to this village boy of mine that he is, according to kingdom politics, a better match than his general. “Janu, you are allowed to be much closer to me than he has ever been, simply because you are Niase. Very few non-Niase think about how we can’t marry because of our gifts on an everyday basis; hell, we don’t even do that. If I marry a Niase warrior from a different clan, it's assumed it's what is best for mine, and that is my main duty. Kingdom peace is Nexian's duty and that of the other clan leaders. If I am seen to be close to a General of Liran origin and no General of other Nations, it's seen as Niase forming better alliances with Liran and a breach of the treaty by Krem and Mician. Even the Beju and your Bija will see it as a potential move to get Jiabu out of the cages they keep us in. We can explain it's in a personal capacity, but it will still insult all the other more royal blood-lined and higher-ranking families. I can take you to the ball, kiss you on the lips, and as long as we don’t get married or make a baby, the chances of a civil war starting are very unlikely. That is never happening, by the way, but still.” Janu takes a minute to process the words I just said. Feigning a hurt look, clearly trying to lighten the mood. Because, hell, what does one say otherwise to what he just heard? He replies jokingly, “So, what I am hearing is, you are not taking me to the royal ball? Now, that is just mean. How else is a village boy meant to go? Also, don’t skip the question of where we are finding a prince?”

“If you behave, I will take you and convince Kian to take Rox.” I say winking at him “ Silas has a bunch of Royals that need spouses and we need actual peace treaties with them, the problem is as mentioned that Nexian and I are the only royals available for marriage and we can’t exactly just marry anyone, so Nexian and the high king is having me write letters of overview, while they write legal proposals and back up offers seeing if the healers can figure out by using test tubes why our DNA only works with certain groups and if there is any common markers then maybe we can narrow down the lists.”

“That is something I am choosing to ignore, actually, because, well, an existential crisis over my DNA is not on today's to-do list, so what about Kian?” Janu looks like he needs a drink, but I continue, a little relieved to have someone who listens without reading my rule duties as a deterrent to my feelings.

“We have seen other people before mostly him since my pool is very shallow, when he was at the force academy up until we got stationed here with him; he was single for a couple of months before that, though, which is why it was surprising that Nexian allowed me to come here, I did find out he was very against the idea but it’s the diplomatic base and he couldn’t protest without potentially getting Kian moved. Which, given that Kourt base is the highest place to be general at, would be a demotion. It hurts, but at least when he finds someone, he has an actual interest in them.” Janu reaches across the space between our beds and squeezes my hand, clearly wanting to comfort me but having no actual idea of what to say. There is a comfortable silence, and I wonder if this is what friendship feels like.

“I agree with Nexian thinking it’s a bad idea.” He says a few minutes later, after clearly choosing words carefully “You were raised to be detached from people, and that isn’t healthy either, but it makes it easy for you to follow logic and not feelings. You were raised to think of the whole kingdom first and yourself and your family last. Commoners are taught the opposite, and Liran’s don’t have clans; they have houses and families and those very different things. He can’t leave Kourt without demotion; you, however, can work from any base or even the palace.” I smile at the way his words showed care not only for my feelings and well-being but Kians as well; for a man that keeps saying he is uneducated, he has far more emotional intelligence than most royal educated aristocrats I have ever met.

________________

Chapter 4

As the Jiabu isn’t allowed to be near the books due to the Beju’s concern about them going down the same path as the Ajiba, Nexian can’t escort Rox or help her until we actually find something, so here I am with her sorting through thousand-year spells looking for something out of a horror film. And since it's in High Niase and we are both Liran, it is taking ages.

Rox very hesitantly asks, “General, could I ask you something personal?”

I sigh, knowing where this is going. She is very tentative and always sees and hears things you’d rather have her not, which makes her an excellent officer but nosy. She is working with Nevis, and it would be unfair not to explain to her what I am sure Nevis has already

explained to Janu. “Sure, officer, go ahead.”

“Do you think Nevis and Janu have an interest in each other?” Okay, not entirely where I was thinking this was going, but then again maybe she heard my tirade the other day. While in my mind we both kept our voices level, it is not outside the realm of possibility that we had a scream-off. Before I can answer, a chuckle from behind makes me jump. Nexian will really be the reason my heart stops working one day, I swear; damn Jiabu and their supernatural stealth.

“I can see why Nevis is fond of you. The answer is no, my dear. Our clans can’t be together, remember. Unlike the political reasons that keep the General and my sister apart, the biological ones tend to be a pretty natural deterrent to all romantic feelings.” Nexian answers her on my behalf while looking at me with a look I can’t place before continuing, “The High King said that he has seen my spell grades in high school and is very confident I am not memorising three spell books in one go, nor can we photograph it without it being on camera. I am therefore allowed to help because watching you two struggle to read high Niase is painful.” Translation: The High King thinks half the restrictions on Jiabu are unnecessary, and he is merely trying to keep the peace but doesn’t really care that much.

“You know Nexian, I recall something about not letting others know for Nev's safety, and yet here you are telling the fresh-out-of-the-academy recruit you spoke to maybe twice. “I say, faintly annoyed by not only him telling Rox about something she might not be aware of but also by the look he had been shooting my way this whole time. Rox still recovering from the royal advisor just calling her my dear also slightly embarrassed; she forgot that Bija and Jiabu can’t marry, nearly had a heart attack because I called the second-highest person in the kingdom by his name.

“Well, careful now, Kian, not everyone knows the back story. Your officer here looks like she is about to stop breathing because you used my name. Breathe, dear, the general and I go way back, and despite his protest, he is happy I acknowledged it to you.” Nexian says, still as cool as ever, but with a big brotherly feel to his next words, down the part where apparently, he knows how I really feel and therefore gets to make decisions on Nevis and I behalf. Bloody kings and their entitlements. Nexian ignores my death stares and rambles on “In summary, because Nev told me how you and Janu heard and maybe saw them the other day, Royals can’t have friends is what we were taught, so Nev will keep you at a distance and support you in silence. Janu gets closer because a Niase warrior and a Naise princess getting along is less likely to cause a wide upset, but Kian here has to stay far away. Even our relationship with each other is dictated by politics and duty, please don’t ever give up on her my dear she needs people who see her as friends, even if she is not allowed call them that out loud.” He wraps up this conversation and points to the books “lets figure this out before an Beju elder walk in and think I am about to commit war crimes.” Won’t lie, even with me being very annoyed with Nexian right now, I am very happy he was the one that answered; there is no way I could have summarised the whole thing into three short sentences. Poor Rox is getting dragged into this Royal mess. I didn’t miss the veiled warning, though Nexian isn’t happy that we were heard or seen by officers on base; I am just completely buying that Nevis told him. Our Bija warrior, though maybe not in malice, I am sure, but Nation ties are much stronger in a village man than kingdom ties will ever be.

Rox looks puzzled but, being the smart girl, she is, decides not to say anything other than “I have her back, Your …” She pauses, not sure which title you are meant to use for the advisor who is also a king in his own right. Nexian smiles reassuringly, having sympathy after many years of etiquette classes drilling the very complicated royal structure of our kingdom into his head and him still needing to double-check the chart before each royal ball. “Grace, but don’t stress about the titles, dear; let's just get this done.”

After what feels like hours but in reality, is only about thirty minutes, Rox exclaims, very frustrated and half confused, “I know my High Niase is rusty, but I'm pretty sure half the things in the Jiabu book are just stew recipes. There is no way one uses onion in so many different spells, citin bark sure.”

Nexian chuckles and makes his way over to Rox to double-check the piece “The Jiabu aren’t Mician; we don’t often do what we classify as modern spells, but we are trackers, so endurance-enhancing elixirs are very common, especially back then, when this was written. We used to track prey animals and later criminals for very long periods, so endurance was key. The Jebu, however, didn’t bother to actually filter through the books, so yes, a lot of that is probably stew recipes with a bit added endurance abilities. Let me see.” Rox hands the book to him. “Yup, this looks like the new year stew, just with fewer ingredients since we now have more spices than they did, thanks to the treaty and Silas's trade.” I was listening to Nexian's explanation when I suddenly stopped on a page in the book I was holding; the sketch caught my eye. Fang-looking objects similar to the photo Janu sent on the chat. “Think I found something based on the sketch next to this thing, but this is not Niase nor Mician language; actually, I haven’t seen it before.”

“It is Niashm, basically ancient Niase compared to high Niase. I can read enough to say we definitely have the right thing based on keywords, but I don’t understand enough to tell exactly what is happening. Luckily for us, Nevis does.” Nexian states, after examining the page in detail, looking like a kid in a candy store, I wanted to tease him over it when I remembered that he is legally not allowed to touch this book and this major for them.

“Hold up, Nev can read Niashm but not high Mician? Somehow, that feels like a diplomatic failure,” Rox says, surprised, before clamping her mouth. Horrified of daring to accuse Nevis of being a failure in front of not only her brother but her king and the person whom is techinally employed by as an diplomat. The joys of working with the royals and blurring the lines you never know when you are about to accidentally cross a line and start a diplomatic war. Learned that lesson early on. Nexian, however, just smiles and calmly explains the situation because yes, knowing a dead ancient language over a very living one is quite bizarre in a normal working kingdom, I suppose for a diplomat, But Zoab is four kingdoms in a suit of armour held to together by Prayer and the world's most complex treaty.

“Our earliest history is written in Niashm, Rox. Part of Nev's duties as princess is to help teach it to the wider communities. The Common tongue is only forty years old; High Niase is about a hundred years old, and the modern clan dialects are between two hundred and two hundred and fifty years old. But the Niase clans are over nine hundred years old, as we think of them today. Still, I understand the confusion, since Niashm tends to be used only for the Fae ancestors and not for the whole ancient culture. The treaty also forbids the Jiabu and Bija from learning high Mician even if they are royals because that would give them access to the spells the Mician uses, and they could adapt them into some very nice beef stew and turn out like the Abija.” The last part he says half-jokingly, half very annoyed. I think the worst part of these rules against the Jiabu is that it's their own Niase elders spearheading them to this day, the ones who should know the Jiabu never agreed with the Ajiba and have no goals of becoming more Fae. At least if it was the Mician, Krem or us Liran’s, there is historic tales of their more ancient relatives hunting us, but the Beju had never had that from the Jiabu or Bija.

“There is really beef stew in this book?” high king Lucan voice suddenly appeared behind them. “I think we might need the new generation of royals to come and practise their Niase and Mician by reviewing these books. I am starting to think that old King, who was in charge during the exile, got so tired of the Jebu and their pleas that he just said yes. Then Dad didn’t have time to review the internal things because Tyrax came into the seas, and we needed alliances with Silas before they secured them. Kian, take a photo of this and send it to Nevis. If anyone asks, it’s a loose paper found in an ancient Niase history book gifted to me by a trader, and I wanted to know what it was. Now, unfortunately, unless you want the Niase elders to find out we are poking in their banned books, you need to put it back and go. We have a meeting here in ten.” Rox and Nexian scurry to put the books back, and Nexian, always thinking ahead, grabs a book titled the Liran view on the treaty of Zoab and hands it to Rox, a cover in case we run past the elders and other council members on the way out. Just in time, too.

“Yes, Your Highness. Thank you for letting us look and for your hospitality” Lucan looks puzzled at my use of the title until Nexian speaks, “Welcome, Father, and other elders of the Niase.”

“Welcome, elders. General, you and the officer are dismissed,” he says as we are shown out by the attendant who showed the elders in.

Rox and I scurry out of the palace, leaving the book in the Queen’s hands with a whisper to keep it hidden from the council. She laughs and shakes her head. “Kian, did the three of you ever actually stop being those schoolboys?”

“Now, my Queen, why would we do that? That would be so boring.” She shakes her head and shoos me out. Rox looks like she is about to have a heart attack. Mind you, she does all these things with Nevis too.

“Why is it that the king and the advisor can have friends as royals, but Nevis can’t?” Rox mumbles as we get into the car. I sigh. I know she understood what Nexian said, but I suppose hearing it in a room where a General just called the second-highest-ranking man by his name, and him explain some personal details, makes it seem a bit unfair to the girl who had been patiently waiting for an invite to a girls' night with the Jiabu princess to get those exact details from her. I feel tad bit guilty on that front I know half the reason Nevis keeps the world out is because I keep on tirades like I did the other night when other people get be closer to her than I do and they are not royal.

“Nevis can have friends; no one is legally stopping her. That rule applies only to romance, which is why Nexian said to stick around. Janu got the same speech at the academy, but being friends with a royal who has responsibilities to whole clans and nations is difficult. The more you are attached, the harder it is to choose your duties over that person. You got to see behind the closed doors, but outside those library walls you won’t catch us acting the way we did. Nevis and I talk the way we do at base because our titles and ranks cancel each other out. I am her general, which makes me her boss, but she is a princess and council diplomat, so technically she is my boss as well.” I refuse to admit to one of my officers that my jealousy is also to blame .

Rox looks at me through squinted eyes like she is trying to read the words I didn’t say and then shakes her head mumbles something about stubborn men before she goes back to what nevis her default chirpy mode exclaiming “Well, General, all of this is hurting my head, and I am starving, so how about stopping at my grandmother's house on the way back and picking up the stew she made from the recipe in the book with some creative liberties, of course; that recipe was pretty bland. She just texted It's ready.”

“You had your grandmother make Niase stew? Why, when and how?” Won’t lie, I am impressed and will never turn down free home-cooked food. Especially with the mood I am in. I hate that Nevis is in Ry with Janu, as stupid as it is, and to have one of your best friends remind you that he really doesn’t want you close to his sister for some bullshit political reason. Well, it stings a bit when he is one of the highest-ranking people in the kingdom.

“She has been bugging me all week to let her cook for me. I saw how the time was flying, and all the talk about stew made me hungry for it, so that’s the why and the when. For how, I am assuming you saw the game meat in the recipe. Well, my uncle hunts, so we all have game in our fridge at all times.” Okay then. Rox looked like she was about to say something when her phone buzzed.

“Message from Janu: The Royal forces caught the occupant of the room, but she doesn’t fit the description, and her thread is a different colour to the one on the fangs. However, she is the person who checked into the room. Nev did manage to track a thread to the harbour and can see it hover over the ocean, but it’s snapped by now. It is, however, in the direction of the Strax. There is a boat seen leaving on camera that was never accounted for in the register. Also, the assailant never entered the inn or came close to the edge of the room, which is why Nev didn’t see the thread when they just scanned the room. We are thinking the assailant left yesterday before they even found the inn, since the thread wasn’t scrubbed.”

The Jiabu in Syra confirmed that there were threads on the body, and he traced them out of the town and into an empty landing strip where they ended. Since this was the thread on the fangs, it didn’t go quite as far, and it was basically in a clean, scrubbed bubble from the hotel room he found until he reached the landing strip. The Jiabu officers also didn’t find too many useful leads when they tracked the threads back from this body. The woman arrested in Ry had a warrant out for her arrest for theft, so she was detained. She claims she never saw the person who hired her; she just booked the room and appeared to come and go after a missing person report was filed in court. She also bought food and some supplies, but all of that was in the room. He was supposed to have left that afternoon before she came back. According to her, he should have been in the room when Nevis and Janu checked. I suppose he could have heard them at the door and hidden somewhere; they didn’t search the room to avoid suspicion while waiting for the Ry forces, but they took maybe ten minutes to arrive.

________________

Chapter 5

Knowing the colour of the assailant's thread now, I can focus on just finding it among the rest. I follow a fainter line that leads back out of the room through the window, this time in plain clothes and wearing glasses that slightly dull the colour of my eyes and a head covering matching a current fashion trend in the area. Now, I am still identifiable as Niase, but I can pass as Beju or Bija rather than it screaming Jiabu. Why do we have tracking abilities and the world's worst camouflage? Who knows, at least I am not purple. Casually strolling down the street pretending to look at the shop windows, past the store to make sure the thread actually goes in and to see what I am walking into- ah, a butcher. Well, that is easy enough to handle. The thread stopped at the counter and looped back out, so after buying some Game meat sticks, I exited the shop and followed the thread as it make its way back up the street, into a Breakfast house, the bakery and the pharmacy, all places where the thread didn’t go anywhere a normal person wouldn’t go but then I see a fainter line breaking away underneath the one I was tracking down an alleyway. I follow it down a bit and then turn around to check as I walk back what happens to it, the faint thread meshes perfectly with the first one I tracked, they must have realized I found something to track and came to try and cover their tracks but since they are working blind, they have no idea that we can see even the fainter ones. Since I know they are offshore, I am not going to track the brightest one if a smaller faint line is going down some dodgy alley now, am I? I send Janu a message to say he must move closer with the team in case I need help before I go back down the alley, pretending to be lost, trying to figure out the map set to a location in the next alley over, while keeping my eyes on the thread, which is much easier when looking down.

I pass by a very open door, and as long as I don’t look up, I should be fine. Of course, in this process, I walk headfirst into a man. Luckily, my disguise holds, because as I look up, I am faced with not one, but three faces framed by bright white hair, ice-blue eyes and light, purple-toned skin. Ajiba! I mumble an excuse in Niase, motioning to the map. genuinely flustered. “Sorry, I was not looking where I was going. This stupid map took me to the wrong place, and I was trying to work out where I was,”

They all huff out loud but part slightly so I can pass. The older of the three speaks as I walk past them in almost a sinister manner and a very creepy smile “It's two more doors down; then you will reach the street. Hurry along before you meet less nice people down here, young lady.”

I nod a thank you and scurry down the street. Still very shaken by coming face to face with the creatures from our folklore,it hit me what Kian said last night: they were exiled, not extinct. Now, logically, I knew that, but we haven’t seen them in over a hundred years. These thoughts plague me as I continue to follow the faint thread I began with, but also keeping an eye on the new bright blue thread that came from the Ajiba, which is weird because, like me, they are supposed not to leave threads unless they actively think about it, yet the alleyway was thick with these threads. The threads split up about two blocks down, the faint one heading towards the inn and the blue one heading down to the harbour's side. I decide to go to the inn as there is really no reason for a lady to be walking around the harbour, and I don’t have my uniform with me. I need to brief them on the supposed Ajiba. And I might also need another Jiabu to take over just to be safe.

Back at the inn, I had the pleasure of informing Janu that our childhood nightmare creatures are back out of extension: “The Ajiba are not supposed to leave threads. Out of all the clans, they are still the closest relatives of the Niashm, which is why they had the whole villain arc, if we want to call it that. Even if they started marrying non-gifted communities out of necessity for survival, they still wouldn't have lost that ability already, and continuously thinking about leaving a thread is draining. He also wouldn’t have then left the threads on the body or missed the line going down the alley; more importantly, the ones in the alley would have seen I don’t have a thread.”

“Unless the Niashm book has a spell that can make your threads visible, it's possible since there is a spell that makes it disappear, which reminds me of Nevis. I sent you a photo. Nexian’s Niashm isn’t good enough to read it properly, but this seems to be our spell. “Kian replies

“But why would they want their threads visible if they are scrubbing the crime scenes?” Rox asks, which is a very good question. We know too little about their abilities in general.

“The spell does both actually, I think. I will need to see the page before this one to make sure. Still, I think if I am connecting the dots to this right, the Fae abilities work on a scale where everything has to balance out; I can track like the Fae, so to make it equal for the prey the Fae would normally hunt, you guys, we can’t blend into the populace; Janu can make people forget he was there with his speech. Hence, the Bija is big in stature, and the Ajiba, having the most Fae abilities, would have the most warning signs; hence the ice blue eyes, snow white hair and purple skin. Now for the spell, however, whatever it takes away, it has to balance out. Hence, it, as a side effect, makes the user's thread visible; it's still removed from the bubble, but instead of thinking about leaving a thread behind, the user has to think about not leaving it, and that would take so much energy, nature's built-in security lock to prevent overuse.” I say scanning the spell, “the fangs need to be four canines, it needs to be from a live beast that is freshly killed and then boiled in a potion formed from herbs found in a normal kitchen mixed with blood from the Niashm, the Niase are included in that. A whole litre. It seems the canines can be worn like jewellery or mounted on a mouthpiece and used as a hunting tool, but with only one page of the chapter, it's hard to say”.

“Okay, but why can’t they see the threads then?” Janu asks

“I think they can actually; after reading this, they just can’t do anything about it. This is pure Ancient Fae spells, but Ajiba isn’t pure Fae even if they are most closely related. Those spells were war spells against whom we don’t know. It wasn’t designed to hide; it was designed to ambush. It is also possible that they know we don’t get taught these things anymore but didn’t count on how much knowledge we have that was passed down orally in terms of our own gifts. Especially if they spent most of their time in Syra and Ry, where there is little Gifted Niase and even less that actively train their abilities. He left the fangs behind in the hopes that it would make the thread disappear immediately so we wouldn’t track him to the docks and keep searching the city.”

“I think we must have you and Janu make a visible exit out of Ry and send in a different undercover officer so we can look closer at the Ajiba in the alleyway. We’ll need to convince the council to allow us to send a Navy ship to the Strax to see how we missed a possible Ajiba settlement there over the last hundred years, since they definitely didn’t live here; the historians and preservers would have seen them and reported it. I will get permission from the High King to let you read the whole chapter because we now know half of the who and the how; we still don’t know the why, and I want to get one of Ajiba in that alley before they all disappear.” Kian replies while already texting

“Are you two eating New Year stew? Where did you get it? It is not New Year,” Janu asks, slightly pouting because New Year stew is his favourite, but getting game meat in Kourt City is a mission. Rox smiles, winks and hang up without answering his question or waiting for Kian to dismiss us. I figured that was all since no one called back. Janu is next to me sulking.

“Come on, I will stick you for Mician Fried cakes from that farm stall just before we leave the city. I agree with Kian; we must leave. The Jiabu officer who comes in my place will be able to find the threads in the alleyway.” I won’t lie I really want to see those books, and Nexian is getting angsty with me being in the field away from Kourt so long. Every nerdy bone in my body is a teeny tiny bit thankful that the Ajiba used that spell otherwise I’d never get to see the book, the princess in me though is very angry that it cost the lives of at least three people We wrap up, hand over to the Ry forces, check out of the inn and head out. As promised,

I stopped at the farm stall to grab fried cakes for Janu and for him to use their restroom because he never learns to go before we leave, sometimes I feel like a mother with a stubborn toddler dealing with him. A very big toddler but still. The parking lot is unusually empty for this time of year, its normally bustling with traffic from the transport workers moving things in land from the harbour. I look out to city that we left behind taking in the difference of Zoab’s many people. A massive force makes impact with my head sending me to the ground in a second. Big shadows cover the light or maybe its me losing consciousness but the world is getting very dark.

Chapter 6

“What do you mean she is gone, Janu!” I roar down the phone, not entirely sure whether I am talking as a general scared of the fallout of a princess being kidnapped, or as a... what the hell am I even? Friend isn’t enough, but lover isn’t allowed, and she has been very good at sticking to the made-up rules. Well, my title in her life is probably not very important right now. focus Kian focus because Nexian will kill you if you don’t start thinking like a general here. Jan’s voice drags me back into the present away from the spiralling thoughts I can’t shake. “I went to the bathroom. She waited for the fried cakes. I came out to find the fried cakes lying on the ground by the car, her ring under the car, and blood on the gravel.”

Before I could shout at him again, he cuts in for the first time ever using my name instead general , his voice carrying authority I have never heard in it before “Respectfully, Kian, stop shouting at me.and do your job as General. Call Nexian and get him out here to see if she left an anchor point. Do I know how that will help? No, but I know it's something they do in emergencies, and at this point, anyone could have kidnapped her. Still, we do have an exiled group of people killing people using a spell that requires Fae blood, which ours is. And while you're at it, get the High King to ask their dad to read that bloody book and get us the full story; there is no way of keeping this away from the elders now. When we get back her back save you can shout all you want.”

“Thank you, Janu. We will be there as soon as possible.” Was all I said in response. Rox, who was for some reason in my office now, had apparently already dialled Nexian for me from the landline and filled him in. She did, however, leave out the part about please get the elders involved, stating that she is not paid enough for that. Fair enough. She also: sent an alert to Ry's royal forces, had a car brought around for us- well, for me, as she will be going to the Palace to help fill in the old Jiabu king on everything so far. I am told I will be dropping her off and picking Nexian up. Oh, have mercy, this is going to be a fun road trip. Nexian didn’t want her to go in the first place. And I am struggling to keep my feelings locked in the safe they are banished too by royal decree.

“ This is why she shouldn’t be in the field, Kian.” Nexian is busy chewing my ear off, ranting about the diplomatic issues this could create and the Silas princes she has meetings with. While I understand most of this is out of worry for his sister, his mentioning the princes felt like a subtle reminder that she will never be on the same level as me. I should have been over her many years ago. Like I haven’t fucking tried. So, I snap back, because other than jumping down each other throats playing the blame what else can we do while driving hopefully if we scream it out now, we can focus once we stop in Ry. Also its easier to fight each other than it is to run through all horrible things she might be going through. “What about her life, how she is doing or what she wants, or is all that you care about, your royal duties?”

He freezes as if realising only now the tirade he has gone off on but also not backing down due to his own emotions but as he continues, he does moderately calm down towards the end .“Don’t you fucking dare, Kian, but I can’t help with finding my sister if I have to keep the nations from burning the kingdom down or Silas from invading because they think we are open for the taking. Also, if we find her and the kingdom goes to hell, she will kill us both” He softly adds at the end “I didn’t mention the princes to hurt you, Kian.”

“No, you just never mentioned them until the point where she is gone, and I am worried to death. It feels a lot like you trying to tell me I must remember that even when we find her, I am just some commoner.” I spat back with still too many emotions and nowhere for them to go but at him. There are thirty minutes left of this ride left. Lets pray we don’t kill each other before arrive there. There is a lot more I wanted to say but Nexian cuts me off in a tone that is clearly meant to remind he is still in control here.

“Kian, Lucan and I have tried, searched every avenue to see how we can move you to a position that can make you a candidate for her, there is none; and when Silas came with the request of marriage between them and Zoab we were out of excuses, it not just Nevis that can’t marry who she want I can’t either, neither could the king he just got lucky that his love and duty aligned, there are very little royals that were available for us to marry. You think I want to marry my sister off to some random prince that is going to have her move away from me instead of one of my best friends.” Nexian shoots back frustration very clearly lining his word as he says the same speech for the millionth time just in a different way. I slam my hands on the steering wheel because I know he is right; Lucan has shown me all the charts Nexian but the chess board always in checkmate for me and Nevis. I was warned many times about this. I huff in defeat, not understanding or acceptance but utter defeat feeling like one man against the whole kingdom and its made-up shitty rules. I do have a small amount of sympathy for Nexian though because even if he doesn’t believe I am worthy of Nevis, ultimately, he is hurting her too and I know that kills him.

“If we have to have this fight again, I am moving you to a different base for your and her best interests, Kian. I hate to see you both hurt and clearly having you on the same base is bringing back all the feelings. Go on dates with other people, get a girl and move on for the love of Mount Zoab. Now let's go get her back.” He says as we are pulling into the parking lot. Janu and some of Ry's forces are fine combing the parking lot. Nexian is out of the car before I even had it parked properly, already scoping the area like a panther on the hunt. I am pretending to text someone in a very poor attempt to calm anger in me. Anger at everyone and everything. And the creator forbid anything happens to her.

“Care to explain what an anchor is and how it helps if Jiabu don’t leave the thread?” Janu asks, frustrated. Perhaps guilt is eating at him, a warrior failing to protect his princess. The dishonour it would bring to his house from the elders. Or Kian, perhaps he is just a concerned colleague and friend terrified of what a bunch of unknown assailants could do to a gifted Niase. Stop being an asshole and get your back on your shoulders. You are not the only person in the world that loves her. I zone back in just in to hear add “Your highness” in very quickly, remembering he is talking to Nexian and not Nevis.

Nexian chuckles slightly but explains, unfazed by the lack of titles and etiquette from Janu, but visibly tense by the scene as he walks around the car like a panther on the prowl, tracking its kill. “Anchors bind our thread with the thread we are tracking or closest in contact with; that way, if we know the thread we are looking for, we can find it and then track the thread meshed with it. It is how Nev would have identified the threads for the Jiabu who took over from her as well. And yes, Nev would have to think about it to do it, which is probably why it's right by the car and not further out.”

“So, Your Highness, pardon my directness, but it has always been something I wondered,” a random officer asks on the back of Nexian's explanation, very cautious given Nexian's current mood and expression “Do you just see the world through a ball of yarn?” The best part of that question was how dead serious he said ball of yarn.

Honestly, if you haven’t spent the last seven years around Jiabu, then it’s a very valid question. Nexian explains, “You are all good, officer. No, we don’t just see threads casually on a Sunday stroll. We know they are there, but unless our instincts highlight a specific thread or we are specifically focusing on tracking, we really don’t see them. It's kind of like walking past the same painting every day; it's there, but unless there is suddenly a neon paint splash on it or you are intentionally looking at it for details, it blends in.” and then suddenly jets off in the direction of Ry at full sprint.

“Cool, uhm, is he running the whole way? We have cars?” The officer is a bit lost at the sudden change and maybe startled at exactly how Predator-like Nexian looks while tracking, and the sheer speed that man has when running.

I sigh and nod, heading to the car “They can’t track in cars. The restrictions of the Jebu mean that they haven’t found a way to keep their line of sight while they are in a vehicle. It does work the opposite way, though. Come Janu! Before we have two kidnapped royals. Luckily, he isn’t faster than the car yet. Officer, keep doing what you're doing and let me know what you find.” I pause; it's not my jurisdiction. I've got to play nice.” After you have told your General.”

“Poor man, I grew up with Jiabu running around the villages at any given moment and I found that startling,” Janu says as we get in the car. “If Nexian had waited a second, I could have told him the camera footage from the corner camera shows two Ajiba grabbing her. Ry forces have been sent to the alley to raid all the buildings.”

“Tell them to wait in the alley until Nexian comes. He will be able to see the thread. I don’t think the other Jiabu officer has arrived yet.” I shoot off instructions

“Actually, she did about forty-five minutes before I called you. She wasn’t on any active cases, so she came as soon as she got the command. She is with them.” Oh, okay then

“Well, in that case, tell them to go get our girl.” Janu shakes his head.

“Don’t you start; I am still your general.” I scoff.

“I did not say anything, General, but who am I to disagree with a Niase King?” As much as I want to hit him in the face for those words, I realise I would be wrong to do so, even if I weren’t his general. I am angry at the world, the stupid treaty laws, and the societal hierarchy, not at this man, who has been affected by them in worse ways than I ever have. It sucks to be self-aware sometimes , hopefully I get punch an Ajiba at least no one will fault me for that.

________________

Chapter 7

I wake with a sharp ache at the back of my head in a very dimly lit room. Where am I? Where is Janu? My eyes struggle to focus on the room around me; reality and threads blur together. I can’t remember anything other than the skyline of Ry, then darkness. From the strong smell of the sea, I assume I am back in Ry. I close my eyes, hoping to refocus them as I calm my mind. One, two, three. I use my other senses, ignoring the stabbing pain in my head. I feel the chains around my wrists and ankles. They don’t feel tight, but not loose enough to wiggle out of. The cold, hard warehouse floor beneath me

Opening them again, the world is in focus, and the room is filled with Bright blue threads crisscrossing the room like the yarn on our murder boards at base. The Ajiba. Two purple faces, sharp canines and pointed ears enter my frame of view, their ice blue eyes gleaming like those of Panthers in the light. They truly look like creatures of the night, yet somehow enchantingly beautiful at the same time. “She is waking up, Father.”

It's Niase, but it sounds vaguely off, like an earlier form. The older of the two speaks this time, “My son had to leave his talisman behind. It's very hard to come by. If he keeps giving a litre of his blood to make them, he will not have any left in his veins. And since it's tightly locked up in the Royal Forces' vaults now, we thought it was only fair to use your blood to make the new one. It is the other Niase fault that has put us in this position to start with.”

Plus, who is going to miss one little Jiabu in time? Couldn’t believe our luck that you were at the stall. It made it so much easier than trying to sneak off with a child from one of the “villages” again. Not to mention killing means we get a beast, the fae blood and a couple of meals all in one slaughter” He smirks; how cruel. But okay, they don’t know I am the Jiabu princess, or part of the royal forces, if they think no one will notice in time. How, when I was standing next to the van, I really don’t know.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” I ask, playing dumb to buy time. I’m hoping, given how unscathed these two look, that they didn’t see Janu at the farmstall. He would have been a lot harder to overtake, given his size. These two are bigger than me and even Kian, but Janu would still be a bit bigger than them, and it seems like a crime of opportunity rather than a planned kidnapping. Either way, we were meant to arrive back in Kourt at a certain time, and knowing Kian, if we’re more than thirty minutes late, he will send a Ray team to check at the stall; he knows we stopped there before heading back. Not sure why I want them to find me; Nexian is going to kill me himself anyway for being kidnapped.

The old man launches into a villain story arc that belongs in a legend told by the Krem storytellers. The first part is what I already know about the Ajiba exile: how they, and some bullshit about it being unfair to be punished for wanting to achieve the original Fae form. That the non-Fae people of this continent were there for us to eat and manage. Brother, I want whatever you are smoking because what the hell. The second part explains how they were forced to live on the Strax, the barren ice banks, where there is little food, and how, with time, the clan got smaller due to a lack of people to pair with; that there are currently only two houses left, and how they decided to start the journey to go to Silas and find wives there for the boys.

They have been sneaking back on land throughout the years to get food. The way he said food paired with the village kid comment from earlier makes me think they aren’t talking antelope and panthers but Liran and Krem, maybe even Niase and Mician these days. But I suppose with the exile they probably have a fuck you all attitude towards Zoab.

“Why the murders, though? It led us straight to you,” I ask. If the main plan is to end up in Silas, why leave very clear traces behind? Why kill at midday in the biggest city? The younger is seemingly getting annoyed by the older one just blubbering out the whole story but is clearly not in a position to interrupt him. Ah, the good old elder’s system sometimes has its benefits. It still seems like they haven’t quite clocked that I am wearing a Royal Forces uniform or that I just outed myself as one by accident, using the word us instead of them,

“Well, it was the perfect way to test if the spell works the way it should, plus hunting the cities is a lot harder than in the villages, so we had to keep the royal forces focused on the dead bodies and not the missing ones.” The young man looks like he is about to explode and injects about how they should get a move on with prepping me for the ritual, as someone will be here soon. Not that he knows why they need the fancy tool if it makes them easier to see for the people they are trying to avoid. I assume it’s the brother that went offshore a few days ago. The old man is definitely not happy about being interrupted and goes on about how it's needed in order to show the others where to go once they get to Silas but still starts to sharpen the knives while the young one is clearing a table. Oh no, better get them distracted before I end up in a new year stew on the Strax. Guess it is time to make them realise I am royal forces and hope it makes them fight again. I have no idea how much time passed, and if I made an anchor point or if Janu is alive. They could have killed him and put him in a freezer.

“Where is my partner who was with me at the road stall?” I ask, trying to sound panicked to disguise the fact that I am just buying myself time. They look at me puzzled; the old man looks at the younger one with a very angry look. “What partner is she talking about?” The young one looks at him with a lost look on their face. Now I am very relieved that this gives me and my search party a hand up, but I can’t help but be slightly annoyed that these Ajiba, the so-called killers from the villains of my childhood stories, are seemingly the most unplanned group of idiots. How did they miss my uniform, the very clearly labelled van they grabbed me from? I am guessing the brother on the boat was the brains of this operation, and this wasn’t in his plans. Turning to me, he asks again, “What partner. Jiabu?”

“My investigating partner, you know, Royal forces work in pairs, right? I mean, I am in uniform right now; you took me right next to a very clearly marked van, or did you only notice my red hair?” Okay, maybe I should not use so much sarcasm when talking to the people threatening to bleed me dry, but honestly, after all the restrictions placed on my people due to Ajiba’s antics, it is really annoying that they are this dumb. The old man’s face turns pale, and the young one, by instinct, retreats a few paces just in time to dodge the old man’s fist. This only angers the old man, but instead of hitting his son again, he turns to me. A sharp pain radiates through my body as his fist makes contact with my face.

Nexian picks me up and storms out to where medics are waiting to check up on me.

Once it was clear I wasn’t harmed other than the bump to my head, I got the lecture of my life from my brother, surely to be followed by one from my father once we reached the palace. I am supposed to be a diplomat, not a field tracker, and all the usual things that happen whenever something goes wrong on a case. Although this time I am less annoyed because this could have really been bad if Nexian had been a minute later.

“Well, I didn’t know our crazy long-lost cousins would rise from the dead, Nex, when I started this,” I say, giving him my best innocent baby-sister look. Behind him, Janu and Kian are bouncing in agitation because they haven’t been allowed to talk to me yet. “May I please get a hug from my big brother and then see my partner and general before they build up so much momentum bouncing in place that they launch to the moon?” Nex’s face softens, and as he holds me, he looks back at the other two and starts laughing with me as he sees them bouncing with the most stressed looks, whispering,

“Wouldn’t it be fun to see them launch to the moon, though?” I playfully slap him on the chest and motion for the other two to join. Since half a military base is moving around, Kian stays in General mode. I tell them what the father told me and how I think the son who escaped might have set them up. Why I think so, I am not sure. A Ry officer went off to file a search for a list of missing people across the villages that would be easy to reach from The Strax.

Poor Janu looks at me with so much guilt. I motion for him to sit next to me, and the other two take the cue to leave.

“I failed you, Princess. I am sorry.” I suppress the urge to hit him over the head and let him continue. “I left you alone, and that could have ended in a very bad situation.”

“You went to the bathroom; these idiots didn’t even know I was Royal forces, let alone Royal. If not me, it would have been the next Jiabu or Bija they came across and possibly have gotten away with it again as they have for years now”

I wonder how we never linked it before, but my head hurts, and Nexian is adamant about taking me home. On the way back, he tells me about the spat between him and Kian, and I tell him about ours. He doesn’t say anything about it, but I can read it in his eyes. He has already decided we can’t be on base together anymore. I am not sure if he is scared that Kian is going to turn to treason, that I will run away or that we will eventually cross a line we somehow haven’t crossed yet- not even a kiss- but knowing my brother, he won’t wait to find out.

As predicted, Dad was just as upset, and I was pulled for diplomatic duties in the royal palace, where Nexian can keep an eye on me while my wound heals. The spell worked as I understood it, and in the room where the Ajiba kept me, evidence of the spell and their plans was found, along with a freezer full of meat, a mix of humans, animals of all sorts, and even fish.

“The navy ship went to the Strax and found the settlement and the remaining members of the clan. It’s hard to tell if we have all of them, though, since none of them is talking about the members of the clan. Technically, the ones on the island didn’t do anything that can be proven, and existing isn’t illegal. They have been banned from Zoab, with the agreement that the navy will take better food once a month, human flesh excluded from that while we figure out the ethics of what to do with a cannibalistic group of people who don’t believe they are wrong, only because they have been taught that since birth.”

“How come we only noticed the three bodies left for us and the others?”

“Well, while the three that had you are absolute idiots, some of the others aren’t; they never hit the same village twice in a year, took people who wouldn’t be missed for long periods of time and made sure to, in some places, stage an animal attack. If there are that are not in captivity, unfortunately for us, it’s the smart ones.”

Then he looks at me with a sad look. “You can come in, Kian.”

I smile. With everything else happening, we still haven’t been able to talk properly. Truth be told, I have been avoiding it for as long as I can. Janu’s words and Nexian’s sermons had me thinking about how it would be best if we just parted ways rather than staying in this limbo.

“Hey,” I say

“One of the younger children spoke about how their older brothers left before we came and went to Soan to set up there. I am going there to find him with the Jiabu from Syra. That base has also been receiving a lot of worrisome reports about their General and senior officers, so I will be taking over to get it back to standard.”

“That is a wise career move; they might find a way to make an adjunct captain below Nexian.” I smiled. Nexian had told me about the fight in the car and how there really is no way to make it work. I want to say I regret all the plans I had them make for me to see him at school, but to be honest, those were some of my best days. Every other “relationship” had been political—something I had to do until the other side saw it wasn’t worth it. Back then, Silas having princes to marry wasn’t a thought. We all assumed that his friend the king would find a way to curb the law, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards. At least this way, he is not being demoted in the process. “See you sometime when I do the diplomatic rounds, hey.”

He smiles a sad smile, knowing I won’t say what he wants to hear:

“Don’t keep them all away; the rules are only there for romance with commoners”. He leaves, saluting the King and Nexian, no doubt feeling betrayed by us all choosing duty over friendship.

We all watched him leave the palace. Rox put her arm around me as I broke from all the things I never said.

A week later, everything settled back into a new normal. I was back at the base, stuck on calls with Healers and Princes to figure out who I could marry without sending nature's scales of balance into a tizzy, because apparently the Fae had a lot more lovers on Silas than on Zoab. I was handling diplomatic issues for Niase, and I could even keep being sassy to the man in charge because it's now Nexian until it's determined whether or not Kian is coming back to base soon. Rox and Janu keep trying to convince Nexian they need me in the field, but unfortunately for them, nothing needed a Jiabu Princess. The royal forces near the villages and the nation's own security found more of the Ajiba’s victims that didn’t make it to their freezers. The missing Ajiba son was caught, but we are still not sure if we have all of them.

Nexian comes out of the General's office, tears running down his face. “Officer, hang the flag at half-mast. General Kian and the Jiabu from Syra have been killed in the line of duty.” I try to stand, but I am frozen. I need to get to my brother, who seems just as unable to move as I am. Janu guides him to the chair in front of my desk before he sinks against the wall, while Rox has her arms around me. The whole base feels as if it has been set to slow motion. We don’t even notice the royal convoy enter; no one bows or curtsies, still processing the loss of their beloved General.

The High King, as shell-shocked as we are, places a note in front of us.

“You will never catch us all, Your Highness. P.S. Apologies for the general and the Tracker, but they were rather annoying being so constantly in our business. Sincerely, The Ajiba”

[a]Feedback Metta: Change the introduction not diplomatic. Find Fantasy words for some everyday worldly terms. Sentences are too long; too much backstory. Murder mystery falls flat

[b]Metta feedback - coffee changed to Excelsa

[c]Removed pregancy thing

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, hosted by Hashtag Kalakar, is a prestigious platform that celebrates literary talent from around the world. This competition invites writers to showcase their creativity and storytelling prowess across various genres. Participants engage audiences with their unique voices, contributing to a vibrant tapestry of global literature. The competition highlights the power of words to connect, inspire, and provoke thought.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to Carla Bisschoff for her captivating contribution, "Tales of Zoab," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her work exemplifies the creativity and depth that this competition seeks to celebrate. We look forward to witnessing more of her imaginative storytelling in the future.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.