CHAPTER NINE◄CHAPTER TEN►CHAPTER ELEVEN

Yanat sat back in his chair, peering off into the polar night as he stared out the skylight of his office in the Confederate Congress. The blonde and white patched Sivathi’s eyes danced to and fro as he observed the auroras flickering in the sky above. It was here that Yanat often came to find solitude, long after the other delegates had retired for the night, so that he could have some semblance of peace to himself. Saying that he needed it now would be an understatement, considering the chaos of the offensive that had engulfed the southern pole. Yet, there was little rest for one such as him, constantly at the forefront of the conflict.

Truth be told, he had always been secretive about his past, never elaborating much on his time as an officer in the household troops of Phaziah Ishigar. He feared judgment from his peers, especially those hailing from the slave, lower, and middle classes. In a reciprocal kind of way, the classes that made up the bulk of this rebellion harbored many of their own biases in a similar way that the nobles and upper classes held their slaves and subjects in such contempt. It wasn’t uncommon for them to see those with the golden fur strictly as oppressors, and those without it of the upper classes as mere instruments of the will of the nobility. Yanat had done everything in his power to shed that label, intent on upholding the very essence of the banner of the Confederacy. He, in fact, had been part of the design committee for it.

The image of the three tones of Sivathi shades upon the emblem breaking the chains that had bound their world for eternity was what gave Yanat the inspiration to do what he did. It didn’t mean undoing the guiding leadership of the monarchy—to be sure, there had been many wise high kings and high queens of Zaket throughout the history of the Sivathi. What it did mean was redirecting the monarchy to act and uphold itself in a way that no longer profited and sustained itself off the oppression of trillions. To reign as those few wise nobles had done in the past, and the chieftains of pre-history that led their tribes with the care of a shepherd and its flock—that was what he sought; to be worthy of the power that the Zaket suns bestowed upon the crown. The true meaning of it all had been lost to Phaziah Ishigar and had to be reacquired, and doing so through this revolution was the only way to do that. In doing so, maybe a noble more sympathetic to those they ruled could ascend to power, like Zuleikha Jaasu, for example.

Or another. Yanat’s mind had always been on that. He’d done his duty to the High King when he was still loyal to him by delivering little Talitha to Zeshom Noor, per the orders given to him after he’d left Shiphra to die. Not a day went by that he didn’t think of the guilt. It had been a small token of mercy to permit the slave girl to name her child, but having been the one that denied her the privilege to raise her daughter was something that pained him greatly. And he’d done things equally evil during his time as a member of Phaziah’s lifeguards. He’d been sent to the colonies to make examples of petty uprisings that really had no need for such a show of force, in a vain attempt to demonstrate that defiance would earn the offenders the right to die beneath the boot of the Crown’s most powerful force. He’d razed entire settlements to the ground under orders of his superiors. He’d overseen the torture of dozens of souls. Yet, nothing resonated with him more heavily than killing Shiphra and delivering her daughter into slavery.

He didn’t know why that, out of all the sins he’d committed, affected him so severely. Maybe it was due to the fact that the very man he had once seen as the embodiment of justice and order had been the one to commit what was, in the eyes of society, a sin. And his idea of setting things straight was selling his own daughter into slavery. What sort of twisted justice was that? At the time, when he’d been more attuned to the traditional ways of Sivathi thinking, he could have maybe excused the fact if she was some child of full slave blood, but this was his own offspring, and the only one he’d ever had. It wasn’t a secret that with his current wife, he’d struggled to produce an heir.

Now that he’d fully detached himself from such lines of thinking, he’d seen the hypocrisy of it all. Phaziah Ishigar was a hypocrite in the truest sense of the word. He paraded around, seeing himself as the ultimate authority figure and incapable of doing any wrong, yet he’d not only violated his own ethics by procreating with Shiphra, but he’d refused to accept responsibility for his actions by dispensing his bloodthirst on the girl. And Yanat had played his part in it all.

But it was his secret to carry. He knew that for his own safety that he had to keep the story of Talitha under extreme confidentiality. Even the poles had spies, and if he were to start babbling the tale about an illegitimate slave child of Phaziah Ishigar, the story would never last long, for he might be assassinated before it gained any traction—assuming anybody took it seriously at all. Even those in the Confederacy knew how preposterous such a thing was. Unless she resurfaced some day…

“Yanat,” came the voice of Doctor Ektah Daloh, the representative of the middle classes on the congressional quadrumvirate. Yanat had practically forgotten that he’d left the sliding door to his office open, as was habit when he thought he was alone in the congress after all had gone home. “Some of has had started to wonder why you never showed up to the suppers hosted by the Confederate-aligned nobles. It’s because you’re holed up in here, isn’t it?”

Yanat didn’t remove his gaze from the shimmering lights in the sky, continuing to lean back in his chair in a sense of total relaxation that masked his inner turmoil. “There’s little need for me to be there when I work with them day in and day out here. You know I had my fill of their lot back in the days of my service to Phaziah.”

Doctor Daloh crossed her arms and leaned back against the frame of the doorway to his office, looking at him from behind as she continued observing his seemingly unconcerned state of mind. “I know we all despise the High King and the nobility that side with him, Yanat,” she said. “But we have to come to terms that the only way to win this conflict is to work paw in paw with those few nobles who are loyal to the Confederate cause. They’re few and far between, but the power they wield is immense. It would serve us all well if you graced them with your presence. I can’t say I blame you for feeling the way you do, after all the horrors you were involved in with the High King’s household troops—”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Yanat said, finally sitting upright in his seat and spinning it around to face the doctor.

“But I do, Yanat,” she answered, staying put against the door frame as she started to take on an interrogative tone of voice. “I’ve known you for a long time, yet even in all that time, you shroud yourself in mystery. We all have our own stories and pasts, and some of us are ashamed of what we partook in. I’m no exception to that, as you well know. And neither are you. Yet, you still seem to hide much. Why is that, my friend?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, knowing that the truth about Talitha was impossible to believe, even for the members of the Confederacy like her who were committed to besmirching the reputation of Phaziah Ishigar at every opportunity. “You don’t understand the risk involved for me.”

“Try me,” she said, finally pushing herself away from the door frame and heading to the chair at the opposing end of his office to take a seat. “Was it a risk to come forward with the evidence of the horrendous experiments taking place at the Crown’s universities? Of course. All my old colleagues made my life a living hell for trying to put a stop to everything I saw. All my research destroyed, defamation campaigns among all of academia to discredit what I had done up to that point, and even going so far as to send the Crown’s secret police to my doorstep to interrogate me.”

Yanat stood up from his seat as he listened to the doctor’s speech, heading to the countertop at the other end of the room where he’d prepared an herbal tea procured from Rovoth—the terrestrial moon of the Confederacy’s ally—that he’d forgotten had been ready hours ago. Made from flowering plants that were resilient on the cold fronts of the moon’s tundra, the very staunch, resolute nature of the herb itself always seemed to flow through it with every sip. It was something the smugglers that snuck through the planetary defenses of Siva always brought, and thankfully, the thermoweave alloy of the kettle kept it warm without the need for a heating pad.

He’d heard her speeches many times before, just as he had heard the stories of many delegates like himself and the few other members of the quadrumvirate that had been elected before the current panel. The genetic experimentation on the slave class, done in the name of scientific advancement, was a horror, no doubt. But what Yanat knew was something that he staked his life on if the word ever got out. He hadn’t told a soul, but perhaps doing so was going to be the only thing giving the Confederacy the means to win this conflict if they had a symbol to rally around like a slave child of the High King. Hoping to stall for some time and put off having to give her the answers she was probing for, he poured himself a cup of the herbal tea before doing so with another, turning around and offering it to Doctor Daloh, who graciously accepted.

“What if,” Yanat said, handing the cup of tea to the doctor, who graciously accepted it as he returned to his seat. “You were told to do something by your superior—an incorruptible superior, at that—that put into question that trait of virtuous trait they held? And doing otherwise would earn you a fate worse than death, even though you knew what you were doing was wrong?”

“The Sivathi bastions of knowledge were supposed to be such places of incorruptibility, Yanat,” Doctor Daloh said, sipping on her drink. “Yet, here I am. The blinders are being pulled away from our people of all the atrocities committed against commoners and slaves. The façade of divine tradition justifying it all cannot hold forever. I’ve seen the so-called ‘incorruptibility’ these divine mandates of which you speak broken into a thousand pieces. Just because the High King decrees that all are beneath him and his nobles does not give him license to treat his children in the way that he and his forefathers have done. It does not give license for the universities to take every being of a slave based on genetics, dissecting and experimenting on them alive for days on end in some vain hope that they can be made to become more servile. I’ve seen it, and you’ve seen it. Why do you still hold secrets when you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain?”

“I have my life to lose, for one. Spies of the Crown are in our midst, even in this province. You know that,” Yanat said, staring down at his reflection in the cup. “And I have a secret that I would take to the grave if I perish before this conflict finished. I’m damned if I reveal it, and damned if I don’t. I’ve been truthful in all my past transgressions but one, Doctor, and I know not what to do regarding it anymore. The truth could be a powerful weapon, but a fatal liability. Not only for me, but for the Confederacy of Liberation.”

Doctor Daloh set her cup down on the side of Yanat’s desk after she’d taken another sip of the stuff, the herbal steams of the fluid wafting upwards to the skylight to join the aurora in the night. “If you carry a secret that is so powerful, then I think you owe it to us all to be truthful, Yanat,” she said, locking her fingers together as she adopted a stern look about her, staring him down. She’d seen enough in these several years of war to jump at the opportunity of any weapons or advantages presented to the Confederacy, if it only meant bringing about victory sooner; and even she was considered one of the more moderate of the quadrumvirate. “Billions of Sivathi who have only dreamt of the promises we fight for may depend on what you have to say. Perhaps it’s no longer just your secret.”

“You think I don’t stay up at nights wondering whether or not to discuss this at all?” Yanat said, his grip tightening on the cup as he became somewhat defensive. “Why do you think I’m up here contemplating in the first place?”

Sensing the rise in temper, Doctor Daloh attempted to steer the conversation back on the course of the question Yanat had asked moments ago. “There’s no need to get heated,” she said, still maintaining her firm composure nonetheless. “My apologies if I presumed that this does not weigh heavily upon you. As for what you asked, about doing something immoral by the direction of an incorruptible superior? You rebel. You know deep down what is right and wrong, even if it costs you everything. So many have done that for our cause thus far, and we must ensure that their sacrifices are not forgotten to the march of time.”

Yanat closed his eyes, reflecting on what she had just said in response to his question. It had hit him like a bombshell. Over twenty years had gone by since he’d delivered Shiphra to her doom and sent Talitha into slavery. That very march of time of which Doctor Daloh spoke had only stoked the fires of guilt in him the more he engaged in inaction. Abandoning the lifeguards of the High King and joining the Confederacy of Liberation? He’d thought it would be enough to ease his pain. But it wasn’t. Not when he still hadn’t revealed the truth to the cause he had thrown his lot in with.

“Have I not done so by pledging my allegiance to the Confederacy of Liberation?” Yanat said, still beating around the bush and refusing to come clean. “By fighting every day in the Confederate Congress for those we set free from the chains of bondage?”

Doctor Daloh still wasn’t buying everything he was telling him, now certain that he was hiding something. “Why do you really come up here to be in sheer solitude in your office, Yanat?” she asked him. “Even if part of it is to be rid of the noble’s presence, I think there’s something more that you aren’t telling me.” She paused, leaning forward in her seat a bit to show her sincerity, despite the fact that her colleague couldn’t see her as he remained with his eyes closed. “I want you to know that in spite of the dangers we all face by even participating in this rebellion, your secrets are safe with me. Nothing you tell me in confidence will ever go beyond the doors of this office.”

Yanat finally opened his eyes, turning his head to the still open sliding doors of his chambers. Taking another swig of his drink—emptying the cup in the process—he stepped up and took several paces over to the entryway, clicking the touch screen to lock the doors. With a quick hiss they slid shut and locked themselves, and as he still kept his finger on the screen, he looked down at the floor, contemplating the immensity of going any further with what he might reveal next. Only the faint hum of the climate regulators retrofitted into the ancient architecture of the structure were audible as Doctor Daloh waited for his response.

“Promise me,” he said, his voice low. “Promise me that it stays between us; it may be revealed to more when the time is right.”

“I swear on my oath of office in the quadrumvirate, Yanat,” Doctor Daloh said, placing the palm of her handpaw over her heart. “No word will pass from my lips until you deem it time.”

Yanat clasped his handpaws behind his back and kept his gaze down on the floor, walking away from the now locked doorway and treading towards to glass curtain wall at the far end of his office. Looking out of it, his attention was now no longer captivated by the lightshow in the sky, but on the ancient city of Sarat itself. Its brutalist, ancient sandstone and alabaster construction—with the mud-bricked buildings of the more impoverished—stretched out all across the oasis, its thousands of years of history hearkening back to a past that should have been forgotten with the advent of spaceflight. In spite of it all, the Sivathi culture had stayed true to itself all this time, for better or for worse. Even this sprawling city paled in contrast to the technological wonder that was Shaleth, where the High Kings and Queens of Siva had poured in all their efforts to making it the pinnacle form of Sivathi mastery over all. It was like Shaleth, but on steroids of light and debauchery. Sarat had that as well, to be sure, as did most cities of the Sivathi, but nothing on the scale of the Crown’s capital city.

Phaziah Ishigar, in all his elegance and bravado, surely ruled as if his eternal reach across the stars was the highest point in the history of his race, but what the Confederacy fought for? It was a more humble form of Sivathi being, where masters no longer ruled their subjects or owned others of their brethren like chattel. Not sailing into the stars and flaunting oppression masked as sacred tradition. Why had they occupied Sarat at all as the capital of the Confederacy? It was a statement that the movement could still take pride in the ancient ways of Siva while building something new.

“Yanat?” Doctor Daloh said, breaking his contemplation as the delegate stared out the window absentmindedly. He couldn't hide things any longer.

“About twenty years ago, I was still in the service of Phaziah Ishigar’s household troops,” he finally began. “I’d achieved the rank of captain by that time and had several security duties around the palace of the High King. Granted, I’d done many things I’m not now proud of to achieve that rank and earn a cushy spot among his lifeguards in the palace itself instead of on the battlefield, but being stationed in Shaleth itself and often being in the palace consequently had me cross paths with all sorts of palace lives. From the lowest slaves to the most esteemed nobles, from the most trusted of Phaziah’s military officers to court entertainers, I met many. But there was one interaction with a particular occupant of the palace that I have not dared speak of for all this time.”

Doctor Daloh swiveled her chair around to face Yanat, looking at him from behind as she grabbed her cup of herbal tea. Perking her ears up and listening intently, she could barely begin to understand how impactful the words she was going to hear would actually be, not now, nor later in time. Yanat’s worst nightmare that he had cooped up for so long, that only he could understand, was now being laid out before her.

“There was a slave in Phaziah’s possession—one of many that he personally owned in the palace—named Shiphra. I was in charge of going through all the data in the slave registries for the palace as a matter of security, and remember seeing in her files where she came from. I remember that she hailed from Shiya’s ocean moon of Tirag, sold into slavery by commoner parents as repayment for a debt they could never hope to settle. She was just a child—eight I think—when her parents sold her to some wealthy upper-class colonist who owned one of the dozens of salt mines on the moon’s tidal plains on the archipelagos.”

“I saw their plight on the few visits I made to Tirag for some scientific conferences,” Daloh said with a sense of sorrow in her voice. “The poor creatures are left to languish on those salt flats, scraping off whatever they can from the reefs and outcrops when the tides are low. The disregard for their lives by their masters disgusted me to no end. Those tidal forces of Shiya are strong and act fast, and I heard many a story about them swallowing up those unfortunate enough to not return to high ground in a timely manner. I was even told that some of the mine owners intentionally threw those who’d outlived their usefulness into crevices or ravines to be swallowed up by the sea.”

“I think the expected lifespan of a slave arriving in the salt mines was something like two or three years, on average,” Yanat said. “But Shiphra lasted eleven. Which surprised me that somebody with her gentle composure, delicate frame, and beauty had withstood all that and for so long. Somehow, her master saw a chance at making a quick fistful of talir by selling her to a slave ship that was departing for Siva, and the clerks on that vessel thought her good looks that had lasted in spite of hardships of life on Tirag’s salt mines would catch the eye of some noble on the homeworld to have her serve as a house slave. Just as they’d hoped, that’s exactly what they got. The High King’s acquisitions office procured her not long after she arrived and they brought her to the palace.”

Yanat paused, undoing his handpaws from behind his back and placing them on the glass of the window, leaning forward as he looked back down, as if the internal guilt was threatening to crush him. To be sure, he wasn’t the only one with such a story to tell, but his may have been the most monumental. “I still remember when they first brought her in there,” he said. “Naked and afraid, her collar tarnished from the corrosion of Tirag’s salt, yet her body still exuded an aura of beauty that couldn’t be beaten down in spite of the scars and lash marks. The other palace slaves who were there to bring her on board to Phaziah’s service did their best to try and put her at ease as they cleaned her up in preparation for her new life there, but I won’t ever forget the look in her eyes. She kept looking to me as I watched her and the others file in, as if I was going to be the only one who could help her. Even then, I didn’t feel any sympathy for her. At least, not yet.

“It took me some months to finally warm up to her and start seeing her as something more than just a slave,” he continued. “And I think that was my first change of heart to where my sympathies with the Confederacy’s cause began to take root, even if then the Confederacy wasn’t even an idea then. I was so used to seeing slaves and commoners as downtrodden, helpless, defenseless weaklings or being completely subservient and pacified like the house slaves of the palace, that to see one who came from the lowest of the low and brought into the luxury of palace life—relatively speaking, for a slave—just went to show me how much fight she had in her. And I think Phaziah Ishigar saw that too, along with her beauty. He was practically mesmerized by the resilience she’d shown in retaining her resolute nature in the face of her oppression.

“In those few months they started her out with the most laborious chores, and I think the slaves of higher status than her in the palace only gave her such orders because they were jealous of the preferential looks of affection she got from Phaziah,” he explained, continuing to lean forward into the glass with the palms of his paws. “Scrubbing floors, doing the laundry of the palace, cooking and cleaning in the kitchens, that sort of thing. But those preferential looks he gave her soon grew into giving her the more cushy jobs in the palace, away from the backbreaking and menial work.”

“The High King gave her preferential treatment solely based on her looks? What, you don’t mean he lusted after her, do you? I know we all despise the High King, Yanat, but not even he would stoop so low in the royal traditions as to fall prey to the charms of a slave girl,” Doctor Daloh said. “It’s impossible.”

“I’m not finished, don’t dismiss what I say as impossible!” he said angrily, his claws digging into the glass hard as he dragged them down in frustration, making the scratching of the window screech quietly. “I don’t know what it was that compelled him to give her preferential treatment to begin with, Doctor Daloh. I think she’d grown so used to the subjugation and just surviving that she simply did everything she was told in the palace, thinking that was going to keep her out of trouble. And it did, for the most part. Like I said, her resilience was what caught Phaziah’s eye, in addition to her beauty. She wasn’t born and raised as a house slave like the overwhelming majority of those in the palace. No, she came from some far off place and had been beaten down to the lowest place a Sivathi can go, and still come out intact. He adored that about her and thought he could use it as a justification to seduce her. Because even behind all that resilience, her heart still ached.”

“Did it, now?” Daloh asked, knowing that for a slave in Shiphra’s position, she knew exactly what Yanat was implying. But she still sought to probe further for information, acting inquisitive all the while.

“I remember one night when I was returning to the barracks for the lifeguards that I crossed paths with her, and it was one of the few times I saw her steadfast demeanor falter; when I saw the heartache behind the façade she held,” he explained, his eyes darting to a black and white spot furred Sivathi who had stepped out atop the rooftop of her mud brick hovel to observe the aurora high above, just as he had done. “She was perched atop the base of one of the massive alabaster statues of the Gallery of Zaket Scions; the long avenue leading up to the main entrance of the palace that lines the road with titanic monuments of rulers past. It was dark by that time and she thought nobody would see her, but I did. That, and she was crying. I could hear it all.

“I asked her what was wrong, and how she could possibly be crying in a place as grand as the Gallery, where all the spirits of the High Kings and Queens before Phaziah protected her under their gaze,” he continued. “And she simply told me that she felt unloved. Mind you, she was telling me all this in the days before the High King had thrown his good graces upon her; at this point in time he still saw her as just another one of his possessions.”

Doctor Daloh had heard many a tale from liberated slaves that described experiences similar to the one of Shiphra’s, recounted in her stead by Yanat. Children torn away from their parents, or the common folk—legally free from slave status—having to sell their children or themselves into slavery to pay off debts. This was nothing new to her, and it was one reason why she was here at all for the Confederacy. But this instance in particular, she felt, was of unsurpassed importance to the former captain of Phaziah’s lifeguards.

“I joined her up there, actually feeling my heartstrings pulled at in sympathy for a slave, because she’d endured above all else, unlike so many others,” he said. “And I listened, and not just out of curiosity; out of actual care. For the first time in my life, I was caring about somebody of the slave class. She told me how her parents explained to her how the whole arrangement of her sale was just a temporary thing to get the family by and appease those they owed their debts to. And she clung on to their words for years before finally realizing that it wasn’t a temporary arrangement. But who was she, at eight when sold, to have doubted those who had raised her? The love of her father and mother was soon forgotten and ground away like that pounding waves and tides that eroded the salty deposits of the mine that served as her new home. All that time later, she truly felt unloved. In that, Phaziah saw her weakness.”

He finally turned away from the glass, his back now facing the city of Sarat behind him, illuminating his outline like some divine messenger. Was he, in delivering this truth he’d held back for so long? He stared deeply at the doctor as he continued recounting the tale. “It was like I was saying, Phaziah started out by giving her more privileges that weren’t afforded to the other slaves in his palace. No more demeaning work, but ushering away the slaves who were entrusted with such duties to take over her position so that she could step in and have some modicum of an easier life. She started attending to his personal chambers, serving him his meals, preparing the steeds of him and his hunting parties whenever he’d go out on excursions into the desert to track and trap. And in each of those services, he maneuvered closer and closer to her, showing his appreciation verbally and complimenting her on her beauty and loyalty.”

Doctor Daloh continued watching as he stepped over to the controller of the climate regulators for his own office, turning it down several degrees. The poor man felt like he was going to break out in a sweat from the tension being released at coming forth with this tale, to the point where he felt he was burning alive. She stood for a moment to refill her cup of tea, doing so for Yanat’s cup as well in the hopes that it would calm his nerves some and make the story easier to tell.

Yanat leaned back against the wall as he gratefully accepted the now refilled cup before his colleague returned to her chair. “She fell for those charms hard, doctor,” he said with regret. “Phaziah knew she would. He saw her vulnerability, in how she yearned for somebody to care about her for once in her life after it had been ripped away from her when she finally lost hope in her parents coming back for her. I think she felt betrayed, in a sense, despite still holding some longing for her father and mother. Phaziah wished to fill that void, and who was going to stop him?”

“The traditions of the High Kings and Queens weren’t enough to make him think twice?” Doctor Daloh asked. “We all know the sacrilege of a monarch of Siva—or any noble aligned with the Crown, for that matter—in lusting after somebody of the slave class. Though we’d surely abolish such things here in the Confederacy, nobody in the thousands of years of royal rule has that line been crossed.”

“He crossed it. I know,” Yanat said, sipping his drink. “Those chores that he began assigning her became more and more frequent, and soon enough they both started disappearing together in the middle of the night, his chamber doors locked tight.”

“But you didn’t actually see anything, Yanat,” the doctor said, still of the mindset that the moral imperatives of the twin pronged crown and all it represented could not be physically breached. “It’s impossible for anything to have happened. You know it, and I know it.”

“That’s where you are wrong,” he said, suddenly downing his tea in one swift gulp and slamming the cup down on the table angrily as the tale began to reach its crescendo. “Soon enough we all saw her belly starting to swell. Rumors started circulating around the palace as Phaziah shut himself away as the child in her womb grew and grew. We all knew what had happened, but no word of it ever left the palace grounds under penalty of death. But that was all a pointless delaying action, because we knew sooner or later that child would be born. Some of us were practically hoping that she’d been impregnated by one of the other slaves in the palace and that the child would be born of pure slave blood, in the vain expectation that the High King’s honor wasn’t going to be tarnished. But we were wrong. We were all so very wrong.”

Doctor Daloh’s eyes widened as she continued listening, knowing Yanat to always be one of truth and honor. She would never doubt his words, not in a million years, so the fact that he was saying all this and that she was taking it at face value came as a serious culture shock to her, for the entirety of the Sivathi race knew that the High Kings and Queens would never stoop so low as to procreate with a slave.

“She gave birth to a baby girl, looking so much like her mother and her tan fur as her undercoat, yet atop it all the shimmering glaze of golden fur that only Phaziah could have caused,” he said, stepping forward several paces before collapsing in his chair, looking totally exhausted as the first waves of guilt began to wash over him. “And when that finally happened, Phaziah stopped being reclusive and vowed to erase the mistake he had made, yet still show that he was owning up by dispensing some shred of mercy.”

“Mercy?” the doctor asked, confusion evident in her tone.

“He gathered all the dukes and duchesses to the palace—those loyal to him, anyway; he didn’t dare let the secret slip into the minds of those who might stab him in the back,” he said, pinching the bridge of his muzzle in frustration. “Myself and dozens of other lifeguards were all present at the little show trial he put on for her on the floor of the palace’s great hall. He made her beg, Doctor Daloh. And how she begged pathetically, feeling betrayed once again by somebody she thought had loved her in the absence of her familial love. She had the baby girl on the floor before Phaziah and the other nobles, pleading with him to let her keep it, saying how she didn’t have to ever leave the grounds of the palace and that the secret could still be maintained, and nobody would ever have to know. The High King wasn’t having any of it, and accused her of tarnishing his honor by seducing him—even though I knew it was the complete other way around—and sleeping with him. The mere existence of a Sivathi of royal and slave blood was an affront to everything we’d ever known. But I stood back there, feeling her heartache the whole time and practically wanting to step in as if to whisk her and the child away to safety. But I couldn’t.

“He decreed that Shiphra was to be executed at the Pillars of Purification, on the outskirts of Shaleth in the harshness of the desert,” he said, closing his eyes. “And that the child was to be spared, the allowance of letting her live showing that he was indeed a merciful king. But he still couldn’t have the secret getting out, so just as her mother before her, the child was to be sold into slavery; and so too as was done to her mother, sold by her own flesh and blood.”

Doctor Daloh lifted her handpaw to her mouth in shock as the climax of the story washed over her like the waves of Tirag had washed over so many slaves. “He ordered me to take them both to the site of her execution. And as a lifeguard of the High King, I did as I was commanded. We stripped her naked and marched her through Shaleth, hiding the child in cloth wrappings until we’d left the city proper and then into the desert, towards Pillars of Purification. As if the indignity of being dragged through the streets of Siva’s capital hadn’t been enough, we chained her to the pillars amongst the corpses and bones of the great battle that had taken place there many years before, the men in my unit all thinking that she was just going to be another addition to the graveyard. But the love she’d sought for so long finally came out in herself, Doctor Daloh, even at the very end.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, tilting her head.

“If she was never to be loved, then the very least she could do was dispense love unto the only thing that she had been permitted to truly care about. And that was her daughter. I can still hear her parched, dying voice begging me to bring the child up to her face as she lay there, lashed helplessly to the stone, begging me to ensure that even though I was the one who would be carrying the girl into slavery that I would still honor her dying wish in naming her. It was the only act of love that she could show.

“Talitha,” he echoed her name, finally feeling like a dagger had been plunged straight through his heart. “That was what she named her. And as I walked away and left her to die, heading to the dropship that would take us to Zeshom Noor’s where she was to be sold, I kept telling myself that I would do whatever it took to make sure that bastard of a Sivathi businessman knew that was what she was called. I don’t care what the rest of the lifeguards thought.

“We took her to Lathga Province, where the sale had already been finalized to Zeshom Noor. He was there waiting for us all, and he greedily snatched her out of my paws with his underlings only a few minutes after we’d touched down at his residence. Phaziah had made sure Talitha was going to be granted the gift of life, but not a good life, I’m afraid. You know where all those mud bricks come from that build the slums of slaves and much of the common folk. They come from there, molded by the footpaws of Zeshom Noor’s slaves under the blazing Zaket suns. The High King granted him a massive tax break in exchange for harboring her as one of his slaves, coming up with a convenient excuse of her mother suffering a radiation induced incident aboard a slave ship as the reason for her golden fur. He practically looked at me as if I were stupid in asking him to follow through on naming her what her mother had wished, and I had to shell out a hefty bribe to convince him.

“I resigned my officer’s commission only a year later, quietly trying to get by in not speaking of what had happened in the meantime until I could abandon it all once I was no longer under obligated service. I’d served my time in the lifeguards, and I wanted out of it all, fleeing from Shaleth to Sarat with that terrible secret in my heart. Ever since then, I’ve been here, and when the Confederacy first formed, I was one of the first to join, as you know. And in doing so I thought I would be honoring the memory of slaves like Shiphra. And I have, to be sure. But the offense of delivering her child—a successor to Phaziah Ishigar—into slavery is something I can never fully atone for, no matter how hard I try.”

As the tale finally reached its end, a long, drawn out silence followed that seemed to last for several minutes. Yanat himself clasped his handpaws together as he rested his elbows on his knees, leaning his chin into his fists as if deep in thought. Doctor Daloh could do little more than lean back, staring up at the aurora beyond the skylight as she tried to process everything that had just been thrust upon her. Though it had been traumatic for Yanat to even recount all the details, she was equally impacted, though not for a similar reason. Knowing that what the former captain of the lifeguards said was true, there could be little doubt what kind of symbol a long lost daughter of Phaziah Ishigar—one of slave and noble blood, the first Sivathi of such a mixture—could mean for the Confederacy of Liberation.

Still leaning back in her chair, as if she’d been thrown into it, Doctor Daloh simply lowered her head back down to face the delegate. “I’ve never doubted you for a second, Yanat,” she said, trying to show him that she believed him with all her heart, even if the news seemed to completely take her aback. “You’ve always been a man of truth, and even now as you’ve told me this, I believe every word. Moreover, I think I understand now why you’ve held such reservations in revealing a secret of this magnitude. Your life, and even the life of the Confederacy, could be jeopardized if you came forward with that kind of information. But you must also realize that it could be our ultimate weapon against Phaziah Ishigar and his lackeys.”

“Don’t ask me to do what I think you’re getting ready to imply,” he said, still in a posture of deep thought, not daring to open his eyes. “Suns know what kind of hell I put that girl through in condemning her to labor in Zeshom Noor’s mud pits in the heart of Lathga Province. Wanting her to be a symbol or a leader for the Confederacy isn’t fair to her, Doctor Daloh. That mantle of responsibility, thrust upon somebody so young and of such innocence, is cruel in and of itself.”

Finally leaning forward in her seat and coming closer to Yanat, Doctor Daloh pointed a thumb out the window and into the world outside. “And what’s crueler is the place beyond this office, my friend,” she said. “The Confederacy seeks to dismantle it all and start anew. Millions like her suffer in the shadows every day, and of them, so many flock to our ranks to bring about change. Why wouldn’t she? Do you think if given the choice, she’d prefer to stay in Zeshom Noor’s possession instead, unaware of what she is? The cover story of her fur being the shade it is over some radiation induced accident while in Shiphra’s womb may be enough to fool the poor souls around her in Lathga Province, but out in the rest of Siva, all would know what really caused it. If she exists, then she is a symbol for everything we believe in, and proof that the Crown of Siva cannot control what it has spawned nor tries to hide. She is the result of slavery and royalty coming together for the first time in history; exactly what Phaziah Ishigar does not wish to see come to fruition. You must come forward with this, Yanat. If not for the Confederacy, then for her; a lost Princess robbed of her heritage.”

She paused, leaning forward more and placing a handpaw on his lap in a motion to comfort him, as the delegate still resigned himself to deep thoughts. “I know it is easier said than done. And you wouldn’t be alone in coming forward with this. I would carry this burden alongside you, and so would the Confederacy. You know it, and I know it. It’s something so profound that not even the spies of the Crown of Siva could bring our ruination from the inside. The symbolism itself is more powerful than that.”

“Even if I could, where would I begin?” he said, slowly opening his eyes and looking at the doctor in dead seriousness. “Zeshom Noor and Lathga Province, though they share a border with us in the vastness of our province, is still far away and staunchly loyal to the High King. We can’t just waltz in seeking answers about her. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. Slaves there are treated as the lowest of the low on Siva, and often expire sooner rather than later in their lives.”

“But we do have a presence there in the underground, as you know,” the doctor said with reassurance. “The news hadn’t been broken to the Congress yet, but now that you’ve brought this information to my attention, it’s best that you know. That very contingent in the caverns of Lathga Province assaulted Zeshom Noor’s compound when a Crown troop transport crash landed right on top of his home only days ago, emerging in total victory. They set free droves of his slaves in the aftermath and salvaged a good amount of hardware from the wreckage. If she was still there, then there’s a chance she may have been set free by our forces, Yanat. And if that’s the case, then she may already be within our reach. Moreover, there are many set to come here by shuttle in the coming days, and perhaps we can ask the liberated being brought to Sarat if they knew of her.”

“And if she was slain in the crash?” he asked, cringing a bit internally at the thought of Shiphra’s daughter having faced such an ignominious end after already enduring the hardships of life under Zeshom Noor. “Surely many on the ground were injured or killed.”

“I can reach out to General Othor in the morning to get me all the information he can from the commanders of the regiments that were there,” she said. “Maybe their scouts or picket lines saw something in the aftermath, or maybe she was already picked up by the Confederate troops and sent on her way to one of the settlements for the liberated in our friendly territories. Many things could have happened, Yanat, but this will be a good starting point for us. If we get a lead, then we take it, but we shouldn’t reveal it to the Confederate Congress just yet, either. Not until we have a concrete truth that can’t be refuted, or we have physically come into contact with her. Only then will we decide on what is to be done with her image.”

“I don’t know,” Yanat said, still staring at Doctor Daloh with deep reservations engrained in his face. “I want her to gain the life she always deserved, free of that accursed Zeshom Noor and the tyranny that has ensnared so many others like her. But in doing so, I will have to face her again. If I recount all these things to her, as I’ve done with you, how could she not hate me for putting her in the heart of Lathga Province? For not saving her mother? How can I possibly face that challenge that I dread above all other things?”

Doctor Daloh sighed, knowing the personal struggles of many slaves and commoners that had come to join the cause of the Confederacy during her years of service. All of them had their own demons to grapple with, and perhaps Yanat would be Talitha’s. Looking out the window to Sarat, just as her colleague had done before, she began taking in the sights of the ancient city as she answered him. “Maybe she will hate you, Yanat,” she said with regret. “I pray to the suns that she does not, but she may. Your paws were the ones that whisked her away into slavery and from her mother, serving as the ultimate finality that doomed her with the High King’s decree to languish in Zeshom Noor’s ownership. But you told me earlier how you sought to atone for everything, and no matter what you did so far, it never seemed to be enough. Perhaps facing this will be the way in which you truly atone for your sin.

“And maybe, just maybe,” she began to finish, turning her gaze back to Yanat with a light smile on her face. “If her heart is as pure as that of her mother that you’ve described to me, yearning for the love that she was robbed of, then she will know to forgive you, my friend. The dual stars of Zaket shall guide her in that, just as they’ve guided this Confederacy.”

Yanat felt glued to his chair as he saw Doctor Daloh stand up from her seat, making her way towards the sliding doors to exit his office. “One thing is for certain, Yanat,” she said, stopping under the arch of the doorway and looking back over her shoulder before leaving. “For better or for worse, the news you’ve told me will change the fate of the Confederacy of Liberation—no, the fate of all Sivathi—forever.”

As the sliding doors hissed shut behind the doctor, leaving Yanat alone in his office once again, Yanat knew that his fate and Talitha’s were going to be the first two of all to be impacted like no other Sivathi in history.