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To the Court of Love (Fallowtide Sequence 8)

To the Court of Love (Fallowtide Sequence 8)

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IT'S TIME FOR A PARTY

Sediryl Galare's first official function as the formally invested heir to the Eldritch Empire is to open the summer court, on Escutcheon and on the world of Chalice. But behind every big event are a myriad of stories---some smaller in scope, and some enormous in implication. Join the Eldritch and their allies in this Fallowtide collection for a glimpse into those everyday stories. Who are the musicians of Ontine? What happened to the nobles of Asaniefa who didn't care to fight the Empress? Will Jeasa and Haladir ever come to an accommodation? And how are the social changes sweeping the world affecting those who wish they hadn't?

This reader-commissioned collection includes stories written by the author at reader request. Come home to the Alliance with seven tales of hope, renewal, romance, and change.

Genre (setting): space opera (Pelted)
Tags: romance, drama, heart-warming, redemption, social changes, second chances
Rating: PG for references to war, violence, and adult situations

Excerpt from To the Court of Love

The Empress was seen riding today on a perlino mare, a vassal gift from Laisrathera. Never has such a breed been seen on these shores, sleek nigh unto caricature, but gleaming like silk: blue-eyed and blond-maned. This is not the first such vassal gift the Empress has been seen riding, but it is one of the most striking.

She was accompanied by the White Swords, and her two white wolves: a constitutional, rather than a court function.

Not a day passed wherein Giliriel Dova Ulurith, head of House Ulurith, did not regret her rejection of the gift offered her by Liolesa Galare’s heir at her investiture last year. It had seemed safe to turn away the mortal technology—who among them had ever needed such a device when the broadsheet had been sufficient to the task of disseminating news of import to women of her status? But now that the tenants were communicating amongst themselves, no noble could afford to be ignorant of what they were saying. Giliriel had resorted to having that news excerpted and brought to her on paper, and the contrast between it and the broadsheet—also waiting for her at each morning’s breakfast table—was instructive. What did it matter what new animal the Empress added to her menagerie when the tenantry of the entire world was frothing with activity? New buildings, new marriages, new babies—Goddess and Lord!—new gardens….

Giliriel sat to her tea and scones and the daily news, and wished it all to perdition—Surela Silin Asaniefa most of all, for having accelerated the changes in their society. Had the woman been content to foster the seeds of unrest, they might have succeeded in driving the aliens out of Eldritch minds… not in the next century, but in the ones after. And it would have been a lasting change, having come gradually and after much compromise.

Perhaps only a breeder of roses could appreciate the patience their situation had called for. Certainly, the Asaniefa head hadn’t; her arrogance had ruined everything, Goddess curse it all. And Giliriel, as one of the heads of the two surviving isolationist houses, had the unenviable task of shepherding their people through the wreckage left by the One Week Usurper before the Empress dashed off a cliff and took all of them along.

Giliriel had not read one paragraph into the broadsheet’s latest entries in the society column when her eldest manservant tapped diffidently at the doorframe. Raising her head, she evaluated his expression and misliked it. “What has gone wrong now, Malhad?”

“I’m afraid there’s a woman here to see you, my lady, and it is urgent.” A pause. “She is one of the townhouse’s hires.”

Which meant she was about to have report of her heir, Goddess help her. Giliriel set her knife down. “Send her in.”

The townhouse’s servants had been selected for their poise, competence, and loyalty; since their behavior reflected on Ulurith, and they were in the capital where all could evaluate them, the process had been rigorous. Giliriel knew each of them by name… but she nearly didn’t recognize the shaken, hollow-eyed creature who appeared on the other side of her table.

“Nalora? What is it?”

“Oh, my lady… my lady, the former heir to the kingdom died in our townhouse, beneath the very eyes of Lady Iralin!”

Giliriel said, “You had better sit down.”

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