Exalts of Creation

Dauntless Aelia also called herself Audacity because she didn’t fear the impossible. She’d worn that name even before the Unconquered Sun chose her, but now she laughed in the face of demon-kings and smiled as she cut down legions of the dead. 

Right now, though, Dauntless Aelia felt her audacity dampened. Her daiklave was sheathed on her back, her armor stowed at the campsite, and a dozen tigers prowled around her, licking their chops. She understood what was required of her, though. She was Dauntless, not thoughtless, and so she fixed her gaze on the creature in front of her, straightened her posture, and made her face an emotionless mask. At her side, the Sidereal known as Elyntine Kesh did the same, offering a courtesy with a flourish of her saffron silks. 

The creature was a Wyld thing, equal parts cat and serpent — and the size of a whale, to boot. Its smile was full of sword-sized teeth. Worst of all, though, was the man who sat just atop its head. The beast’s master buffed his talons on his velvet robes as he regarded Aelia and Kesh with disinterest. 

“You can’t have the village,” he said. “I took it fair and square, and it’s not proper that you should begrudge me what I have so fully and dutifully taken.”

“Like the other three villages?” Aelia asked, and Kesh elbowed the Dawn Caste gently as a warning. No emotion, she’d told Aelia. Both of these monsters fed on it. Aelia remembered the other villages, though, and the blank-eyed survivors. This creature had cracked their souls open like oysters and gorged himself on what he’d found inside. 

“Yes, precisely,” he said. “Or better, even. These villagers invited me, if you can believe it. You don’t even have to believe it. Just watch.” 

The man flourished  like a puppeteer, and one of the villagers was dragged out in front of Aelia and Kesh. He was eighteen, with what might have been his first patchy beard. A nerve pulsed on his forehead as he tried to regain control over his body, and his lip trembled with fear. When he looked into their eyes, he was pleading — but his mouth opened, and it spoke in a voice of false cheer:

“We love the Husk Prince. Truly, we do! Our village was so boring and hungry before he came, and we pleaded with him: please come, and bring your tigers!” 

The Husk Prince shrugged and gestured again, shuffling the boy off to the side. “You see?”

 “You hate boredom more than anything else, don’t you?” Kesh asked, in her infuriating not-actually-a-question singsong voice. 

“Oh,” the Husk Prince said, “I hate it like you people hate being burned or frozen or being covered in thousands of teeny tiny ants that someone’s given teeny tiny little swords. I hate it so much, and I think these people are going to be very good entertainment.” 

“What if we were even more entertaining than they could ever be?” Kesh asked, and broke her own rule by smiling — just a fraction. It was subtle as silk and placid as an untroubled pond, somehow provoking and reassuring. The creature took the bait.

“I know better than that,” the Husk Prince said, and folded his arms like a child. “You wouldn’t really entertain me. You just want me to go away and die.” 

“You could have so much fun with us, though! Just imagine if one of us died instead. That would be worth a few big laughs, wouldn’t it?” Kesh asked. 

“Go on,” the Prince said, “I want to hear more about the part where you die.” 

“It’s simple, really. You’ve got such a magnificent monster here, and it’s obviously absolutely lethal,” Kesh said, standing on her tip toes to pat the behemoth’s cheek. “So I’d like to make a bet! I’ll wager that it can’t kill me, even if I walked right into its mouth. It’ll have a free shot, yes? It could chew me up and spit out my bones.”

“Yes, yes,” the Prince said, nodding vigorously. “I like this plan. Do it.” 

“But!” Kesh said, clapping her hands, “if it can’t kill me, then you promise my friend here can fight you and only you, no outside interference allowed — and that means no hiding behind the villagers.” 

The Prince thought about it, stroking his elaborate black mustache. Aelia tried to scream at Kesh with just a raised eyebrow, but the Sidereal just raised a finger to her lips. 

When the Husk Prince finally agreed, the behemoth opened its wide jaws to let Kesh step inside. Its mouth closed around her, and the beast made an exaggerated, wet sound as it tried to chew and crunch and crush. It stopped, though, and tilted its head, and opened its mouth to reveal… nothing more than a single strip of yellow cloth. 

In the distance, Aelia could see a flash of saffron stardust as Elyntine Kesh reappeared, balanced on the top of one of the nearby huts. The Prince hemmed and panicked and even begged, but Aelia just unsheathed her daiklave and let a thin, scouring ray of sunlight gather on its blade. 

“It’s not fair!” the Prince howled, leaping back as Aelia prodded his defenses with a few quick cuts that left him stumbling backwards. Oh, he was fast! Quick as a cat, and when he turned a blow aside with his sharp talons, she could feel the strength behind his arms. He was strong enough to put his fist through an old oak. Even without the villagers or tigers to worry about, he was a deadly foe. 

But she was a Dawn Caste, and battle was her vocation. His would-be lethal blows met empty air or easy deflection. Her orichlacum blade cut strips into his false flesh, Wyld blood spilling like a pool of silver fire. Strike by strike, Aelia earned her name anew. Kesh deserved a deed-name for her courage, but Audacity was already taken.