CHAPTER TWELVE◄CHAPTER THIRTEEN►CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jophia tugged the shawl she’d been given by her gracious rescuers in the Confederate Army around her shoulders tightly as the shuttle continued on its way towards Sarat, carrying cargo of liberated slaves and the acquired hardware scavenged from the crashed troop transport. She especially basked in the comfort it brought in being so close to her neck, now devoid of the collar that had been thrust upon it for her entire life. Only a few days ago had it been removed by her liberators, and now the touch of comfort under chin, the nape of her neck, the scruffs of fur just above her shoulders—it no longer felt like cold steel. It felt like hope, and something new.

Those stories of hope were what she was hoping to relay when she made it to Sarat. Two members of the Confederate Congress were going to be there to receive them. The Confederate Army had been ferrying the liberated slaves off of Zeshom Noor’s estate in the wake of their ambush against the 100th Mechanized Regiment. They’d been quick to do their work before retreating back into the cave systems of Lathga Province, eager to get slave refugees to safety in the lull of enemy air cover as the Crown Army was retreating out of Halaj Province from their failed offensive. Now was the perfect time to do so when the Crown’s air power was at a minimal presence, and they’d be unlikely to intercept them and be shot down.

Jophia looked around at the others in the shuttle, all former captives of Zeshom Noor except for the few escorting soldiers and pilots. She’d considered herself fortunate to be here at all, for she’d been thrown in the isolation cells for her error in front of Princess Aliya and had survived the biggest impact of the crashing troop transport from her position down low in the ground. None of the occupants of Zeshom Noor’s home—including the poor house slaves—had survived, and many of the others that she’d known in the mud pits, trapped in their holding pens for the evening, had fallen victim to the crossfire or vengeful Crown Army soldiers.

She looked back out the window as she watched the desert sands slowly transform into the spotted oasis of the polar province they were being taken to. It was something that brought a tear to her eye, for it had only been something she’d heard about and never seen, having been confined to the desert backwater of Lathga Province for her entire life. If only Talitha could see it, she thought.

“Talitha…” Jophia whispered to herself clutching the shawl in one paw as if she were clasping her friend’s own. She felt indebted to the girl for sparing her from Princess Aliya’s wrath, and in a way, she even felt guilty. She could still remember how she sat in the isolation cells, trying to cover her ears to deafen the sound of Talitha’s screams as she’d been whipped and made to trudge around the millstone for countless hours. That should have been her. She should have been dead.

And she wasn’t there when the Confederate soldiers finally got around to freeing Jophia when they made their sweep of the compound. It had been the first thing she’d darted her eyes towards, and Talitha was no longer lashed to the yoke. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen at all. When the soldiers had begun to bring the freed slaves into the caverns for safekeeping until they could be ferried to Halaj Province, she’d kept her eyes open for any sign of her. When Talitha failed to turn up, she’d even gone so far as to ask the soldiers if they’d seen her. They denied ever even setting sight on a golden-furred slave, and even thought the idea to be preposterous. Even in the Confederacy, they too knew that a slave bearing the shade of noble blood was an impossibility. Besides, half of their attention was more focused on securing the cargo from the crash.

Not that it was actual noble blood that had caused her fur color. Jophia and the other slaves that had known her had all bought into the story about the radiation flare that poisoned her mother and given the girl her shortened leg, among others with deformities and illnesses that were still alive. Even so, they knew she was different. Talitha had truly acted as a benevolent noble would have on the day she saved her, doing what the High Kings and Queens, the dukes, and the duchesses had forgotten about long ago when they no longer sought to care for all Sivathi. She had acted like the rulers of the folk tales that embodied the highest virtues—virtues that were simply held up in name only by the nobles of today.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” one of the Confederate soldiers said as he walked down the aisle of the shuttle and catching sight of Jophia’s teary eyes at the sights before her. “I remember when I first saw it, too. I’d wasted away my entire life enslaved in Sutoza Province in the equatorial heat, and didn’t even know such beautiful greenery could exist.”

“I couldn’t even imagine what it was like, either,” she said, pressing her nose against the viewport as she tried not to let any outward worries about Talitha surface. “Some of the slaves Zeshom Noor bought from time to time that came from the north and south poles would tell stories of the oasis beauty to us in the holding pens at night. But that’s all they were. They were stories. And to know those tales are true—that something beyond the eternal oceans of sand could even be real—gives my heart a joy it has never known.”

“The bastions of the cities and provincial capitals are equally enthralling, young one,” he said, leaning over slightly to also look out the window. “Sarat is no exception, though the mud bricks that you and the others made are crushing symbols of oppression that still make up the slums. But the interiors of the cities that the Confederacy shall bar none from in our victory—they are as glorious to see as the setting Zaket suns at dusk or the majesty of Gefo upon your face at night.”

Jophia let his words hang in the air for a few moments, not breaking her gaze out to the green below as the beginnings of Sarat’s infrastructure began taking shape. Farms and fields, countryside estates and villas, the irrigation ditches that channeled the water like an intricate web—they soon gave way to the first clusters of buildings as the provincial capital proper started coming into view. It was indeed a majestic sight, as the soldier had told her. And that majesty was now hers, though she knew not of how to spend it or what to do upon obtaining it. Now that freedom was hers, what was she to do? She had no skills or trades of value to offer except hard labor and churning the mud between her paws.

“Do I deserve that? Do we deserve that?” she asked, finally looking back at the soldier.

“Of course you do, young one,” he said, patting her on the shoulder tenderly. “The Crown of Siva would have you believe that you are worthless and only existed to serve and suffer. But in Sarat—nay, all of the Confederacy—a Sivathi is free to blaze their own trail. Your worth is not determined by your caste or your fur. What you can offer to our race is not beholden to whatever master or mistress decided you could offer to them. We are one people here, not separate. That is what the Confederacy strives for.”

“Then what is there for us?” she said with a little bit of concern, reaching down to rub the aching cramp in her shorter leg. The pain never seemed to truly leave. “We aren’t soldiers, we’re not politicians, and we’re not tradesmen. What can we hope to do?”

“More than you know,” he said, crossing his arms in the dim light of the shuttle giving a reassurance to his gentle gaze that betrayed his status as a fighting soldier. “There’s work that you’ll be paid for. You can proceed towards an apprenticeship if you want to learn the ways of a trade. There are programs in the universities that have been set up to educate the freed so that no Sivathi is ever deprived of their right to knowledge. Look at me I didn’t think I would be capable of anything more than the hard labor of Sutoza Province’s work sites when I was freed. I was not a fighter. Yet here I am now, racing across the desert sands of our planet to inspire hope and change to those that have been robbed of it their whole life. That is what our movement is about, young one. We seek to erase all the barriers that have kept the flourishing of our people at bay. We strive for a world where every Sivathi can feast when there is something to eat, where all can have clothes upon their back when there is something to wear, and where all can rest in security and fairness without being crushed by poverty or enslavement. If we do that, then it makes us all sovereigns—all in the stewardsship of the Zaket suns that Phaziah Ishigar has hoarded for himself. Every man and woman a king, and no Sivathi a slave.”

His words hit her profoundly. The soldier—at least a decade her elder, maybe more—spoke from a lifetime of experience, where he’d once been in her very situation and had dwelt for many years under the freedom that seemed alien to her. How could she doubt him? This was a great gift that had been bestowed upon her and the others, and she intended not to waste it, no matter how daunting things may have seemed at present. To be sure, freedom was going to feel heavier than the chains that had bound her for many years, if only out of the unfamiliarity of it all. Even now, that’s how it felt. But it wouldn’t last. Hope would come and stay in her heart, and it would not be driven from her.

*

Yanat and Doctor Daloh stood upon one of the landing pads of Sarat’s largest transportation hub—Palak Station—a starship harbor that seldom saw the coming and going of large ships these days owing to the overwhelming strength of the Crown Navy. The gentle oasis breeze coming from far outside the city gently fluttered her tunic under the polar auroras, and the baggier fit of Yanat’s jade colored cloak and jacket danced more wildly as they both stood there like stoic admirals, ready to receive a grand fleet. But they weren’t there to receive anything massive, rather, they were there to welcome the newest arrivals to the Confederacy of Liberation that had been rescued from Zeshom Noor’s estate.

In that purpose, the two members of the quadrumvirate had a different motive, as well. They were also there to inquire about Talitha, now that Yanat had come forward with the truth about her existence to Doctor Daloh. So far, the only information he’d shared about her was to her and General Zekiah Othor, and to him, he hadn’t spun the full truth to him yet; only if any of his troops that had been involved in Lathga Province had come across a golden furred Sivathi. As they had not, the only way her existence could now be confirmed was through questioning the liberated slaves. If they could vouch for Talitha’s existence, then the two of them had decided to proceed with telling the rest of the quadrumvirate about her before revealing her identity to the whole Confederate Congress, and beyond that, to the whole Confederacy itself.

“There’s a bit of cargo on this shuttle from the salvaged troop ship,” Yanat said, trying to break the ice and beat around the bush for the reason why they were here. “A lot of weapons and ammunition that can be used to bolster our upcoming attack.”

His friend completely ignored the direction he was trying to take the initiated conversation. “What do we do if none of the slaves knew about her?” Doctor Daloh murmured to Yanat quietly as she picked out the ever growing speck of the shuttle’s landing lights coming in closer. “There’s surely a few more of the liberated we can question on subsequent transports, but after that…”

“If that happens, then we still take the story of Talitha to Ghamir, Sanak Teos, and Duchess Zuleikha. Granted, it’ll be harder to convince them, especially when our upcoming attack on Yerusa Province is going to be at the forefront of their minds—the plan I myself suggested,” Yanat answered, grinding his teeth in frustration at the prospect of having to come forth to them without any substantial evidence other than his own word. They needed the stories of others—better yet, the actual Talitha—for them to believe any of it. Doctor Daloh only believed him out of the fact that he knew that he would not lie about a secret he’d pent up for so long. “They’ll want to know why I’d put forth such a risky proposition for an offensive and then counteract its importance with such a farfetched story as a girl born of mixed slave and noble blood.”

“With luck, it will not come to that, and we get our answer here and now,” the doctor said. “And if we get that answer, we take the witnesses along with us to vouch for the story they tell, in the hopes we can find that girl. If we do that, then they may be more enthusiastic in their efforts for the attack against Yerusa Province if they have a symbol to rally around. Better yet, maybe our colonial brethren would flock to our aid with their navy at knowing that the stakes have been raised with somebody to challenge the High King’s bloodline.”

“Don’t you remember what I said about using her like that?” Yanat grumbled, crossing his arms and kicking his footpaw against the platform somewhat irritably. “It’s not fair to her to thrust that mantle of responsibility on her shoulders. Not now.”

“Then why come forward with this secret at all, Yanat?” Doctor Daloh said, cocking her head to the side as she glanced at him. Meanwhile, the platform workers began directing in the shuttle with their marshalling wands. “Just to clear your conscience?”

“No…” Yanat muttered, sighing to himself. “I know the importance of what she means to us and to the Confederacy. I just don’t want to have her used in that way after she’s been used her entire life.”

“It won’t be the same, Yanat,” she answered. “Not when what we plan for her gives her liberty to pursue something above and beyond what she’s known as a slave. Her own liberty. You know it, and I know it. If she’s alive, then we’ll give her the dignity of making her choice. We prepare a place for her to stand from, not a pedestal to trap her on. And she’ll know what course to take. Why do the liberated rally around our cause so vehemently, my friend? Do they not do so out of knowing what better world awaits them in the advent of our victory and the toppling of this ancient system that has oppressed our race for so long? She’ll make that decision on her own accord, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope you’re right about that, Doctor,” he said as the shuttle began hovering over the landing pad, preparing to come in for its landing. “Because if she doesn’t want the path of being the focal point of our movement, then I refuse to force her into what you or the others demand of her. If she walks with us, then it will be on her own volition, and not because we demand it.”

It was easy for Doctor Daloh to say all these things that she expected of Talitha, should she be alive. It would be the same for almost everybody else, too. Yanat was the only one living with the guilt of what he’d done to the girl. All others would know the significance of her identity and the threat that her blood posed to the purity of the High King, for it represented the amalgamation of two castes that were never intended to be made into one. But in that, despite Yanat’s hope that she wouldn’t be used simply as a symbol and could blaze her own trail, maybe he owed it to Shiphra in fulfilling her dying wish, and more, that her daughter be permitted to take up the life she’d been robbed of. All the miseries of Shiphra’s life—of all the slaves and commoners—had reached a climax with Talitha’s birth. She was their light in the darkness, kept in the shadow by Phaziah Ishigar’s decree. Maybe it was Yanat’s duty to fuel that light ever further, just like Doctor Daloh wanted him to. For Talitha’s own wellbeing, for Shiphra’s legacy, and for the Confederacy of Liberation, all in one. Whether or not he could push himself to do it, though, was another matter, especially if and when he had to face her for the first time since she was an infant.

Though, he could do none of those things if her fate wasn’t ascertained or if she was found out to be dead. After defecting to the Confederacy soon after what had happened with Shiphra, he didn’t dare set foot back in Lathga Province to try figure out Talitha’s whereabouts for himself. He had been forced to keep quiet about it and not act on any wish to come to her rescue, no matter how much he’d wished to do so. It would spell suicide for him if he had tried. Only now in coming out to his confidant had it been a step in the right direction, and this new set of freed slaves from Zeshom Noor would be the next line of inquiry, where General Othor and his commanders in the region had failed to turn up any leads.

The saucer shaped pads of the shuttle’s landing legs extended downward, hissing gently as the hydraulic pressure took on the weight of the craft as it came in to a stationary spot upon the platform. The whining engines, their cowls still glowing red hot from the afterburner use in flying over the retreating Crown Army, began to tilt upward to their idle position before powering down. Only a few moments later did the boarding ramp fold out from the side of the shuttle, it’s built in stairs providing a path for the occupants to walk down and onto the platform, the first of which was a pair of Confederate soldiers who descended to stand at the base of the steps.

Yanat and Doctor Daloh kept their eyes pinned on the opening in the shuttle to see what manner of the liberated had been brought before them. They’d both seen plenty of freed slaves coming into the Confederacy in their years of service, but very few from Lathga Province, and none from Zeshom Noor’s clutches. Knowing that he was one of the largest manufacturers of mud bricks on Siva, and knowing the pain and misery that went into such methods of production, they could only surmise that what they were about to see might shake them to their very core. Nonetheless, the stakes were too high to not question them about their knowledge of Talitha.

The nearest Confederate soldier—a corporal—motioned for the first exiting occupant at the head of the line to step forward and come down. “Welcome to Sarat, friends,” he said, holding his handpaw outward to the sprawling urban landscape that sat beyond Palak Station. “I know it’s been a hectic few days in being caught in the firefight outside the estate, sorted out in the caves, and flown here over an entire Crown Army front, but rest assured your reprieve is in sight. Delegate Yanat Atagar and Doctor Ekta Daloh of the Confederate Congress are here to receive you, instruct you in your options from here on out, direct you to the main temple where our shelter has been set up for the recently freed, and to ask you a few questions. Come on, don’t be shy.”

Yanat and Doctor Daloh caught sight of the first of them coming out. It was a black furred Sivathi—the faintest tinge of white upon her neck and two stripes of gray over her green eyes. A a severe limp was evident, owing to a shorter leg than her other, and she was clothed with her shawl and a simple smock that had graciously been donated to her by the troops in place of her old slave rags. She had to gingerly grasp onto the built in railing of the ramp stairs, but she nonetheless powered through. Doctor Daloh put on a warm smile to her, waving cordially as the Confederate soldier took out his data pad, making sure everybody was accounted for that would be coming off the shuttle before they’d be formally processed into Confederate citizenship later on.

Once he’d finished up, he motioned for the next of the freed slaves to come down, a line forming on the stairs of the ramp and feeding back into the shuttle. The first Sivathi out, however, wasted no time in coming over towards the direction of Yanat and Doctor Daloh, taking her time owing to her limp.

“Welcome, young one,” Yanat said as he extended his handpaw to her. “We are overjoyed to have you here in our midst to celebrate in the new path our people are forging for all Sivathi. My name is Yanat, a delegate for the middle classes in the Confederate Congress. This is Doctor Ekta Daloh, the quadrumvirate representative for the same sect.”

“How do you do?” the doctor said, bowing respectfully to Jophia—a notion that she was taken aback at receiving. She’d never been given such a gesture, and had only given it out to her master and her other superiors. She didn’t quite know how to react, shrinking into herself a little. It meant something more to the doctor, though. As the Confederacy sought to erase all the barriers that had been erected to keep those like Jophia down, it was the least she could do by giving her a sense of honor that she’d never known; a dignity that every Sivathi deserved under the Confederate banner.

“I-I’m very happy to be here,” Jophia stammered a bit, her eyes darting this way and that at the overwhelming sights of the urban buildup of Sarat around her. It was a completely new world; as if she were on another planet entirely after having known nothing but Zeshom Noor’s mud pits. “My name is Jophia.”

“Jophia. A beautiful name,” the doctor said with a light smile, doing her best to shower the girl with praises that she had no doubt never received in her life. “A name befitting of a new citizen of Sarat, and of the Confederacy of Liberation. We are honored to have you here.”

“Though I… don’t know where to begin in it all,” Jophia said with some reservation, feeling swallowed up by the massiveness of the city. She clenched her fists, trying to remain resolute in that she’d promised herself that she would not take the gift of freedom for granted, nor would she let it intimidate her.

It was a something that both Yanat and Doctor Daloh weren’t unfamiliar with hearing when facing the recently liberated. Yanat had practically rehearsed his response at that point, though he still meant it with every fiber of his being, similarly echoing the words that had been spoken by the soldier who’d consoled her on the shuttle. “Wonders await you, Jophia,” he said, throwing his handpaw to the entirety of Sarat behind him, as if offering it to the girl. “Absolute wonders that are yours to share in with all other Sivathi. Under the guidance of the Confederate Congress, no master or mistress can ever harm you again. The blessings of the Zaket suns and all the life and joy they bring are not held solely by one, but by us all. The immensity of it all must come as a shock to you, I’m sure. I have seen Lathga Province with my own eyes before and know of its desolate nature, where little hope and happiness dwells. None of that is here, young one. None of it.”

To reiterate the point that she’d be taken care of, Doctor Daloh gently took her by the shoulder and walked over to the edge of the platform, taking her time so as to let Jophia limp along, as Yanat followed behind. She pointed down to the pyramid shaped structure, built of smooth alabaster stone and sleek titanium, that housed the Sarat main temple, which had been courteously repurposed by the priests and priestesses within to help feed and house the liberated slaves that continued to pour in to the city. “That will be your first stop, Jophia,” the doctor said, motioning to the building. “Warm meals, kind hearts, and even a job corps put together by the Confederate Congress to help you and many others find work. And you’re welcome to stay there as long as you like.”

Jophia looked at the long line of browns, blacks, grays, and ochres that snaked around the perimeter of the pyramid, some portions weaving in and out of the colonnade perimeter that lined the outside of the temple. She vainly hoped that she’d spot one golden pelt among them and that it would signal Talitha had beat her to Sarat, but alas, she was not to be seen. Though looking akin to the labor lines that she’d often seen around the mud pits and heard about at larger job sites in cities, she knew that this held no such meaning here. A whole field kitchen had been set up at the head of the line where those who had come were eagerly awaiting their meal, graciously put on by the members of the temple and some other volunteers. The mere sight of it practically made Jophia’s belly growl at the thought of something else besides the stale bread and flour she’d been fed forever and ever.

“That’s all… for us?” Jophia said, almost as if she couldn’t believe it.

“Yes,” Yanat said, kneeling down as he too took in the sight of the stone and metal temple shimmering in color changes beneath the polar aurora. “That is what you’ve been denied, Jophia. And you shall be denied no longer. This is what the Confederacy of Liberation stands for; a world where the blessings, life, and happiness of the Zaket suns is not wielded by those in power or for their own benefit. It is to be shared with all. The High Kings and Queens lost sight of the glories that should have come with thrusting ourselves into the cosmos, but alas, even they took their hubris into space as well. That very pride now festers on the planet that spawned our people, and Siva—the root of all the Crown’s evil—must be the first to be liberated in full, and soon after the other colonies in the Zaket system and beyond.”

Yanat placed his arms on his knees and leaned forward a bit before turning his head up to meet the gaze of both the doctor and Jophia. That was the moment he decided to begin bringing up the topic of Talitha, though he had to force himself to thrust her into the spotlight of symbolism so soon in his statement. “Maybe it will be more feasible now than ever before, considering that a lost sign of brotherhood between all Sivathi has resurfaced.”

Doctor Daloh darted her eyes to Jophia to gauge her reaction, not having half expected Yanat to come off so strong after all his professing that he didn’t wish to use Talitha in such a symbolic way just yet. For the freed slave, however, she knew not of what Yanat spoke. “What do you mean, sir?” she said, instinctively calling him a superior title, not quite having shaken the habit of referring to all those above her as her superiors.

“You needn’t call me that,” he replied, doing his best to stamp out that habit quickly. “Just Yanat.”

“Yanat,” Jophia started over, coming up a few steps closer to the platform edge, placing her handpaws on the railing and leaning over slightly and taking in the sighs. “What sign are you speaking of?”

“There was a slave in possession of Zeshom Noor that we’re trying to ascertain her whereabouts. A very distinctive one. We thought you could be of some help in helping us confirm her identity, because our forces weren’t able to find anybody matching her description in the wake of the crashed troop transport. But we weren’t even sure she existed at all, and have just been going on rumor, more than anything else,” Doctor Daloh said, glancing back at the shuttle and observing the line of the freed continuing to spill forth from the door. She was very careful to word it as just ‘rumor’ and not that she’d obtained her information from Yanat himself, doing her best to protect his involvement in any of this until they could be absolutely sure that Talitha existed.

“A golden furred slave girl, probably a little older than you, Jophia, but not by much,” Yanat said, narrowing his eyes as he finally began to come forward about Talitha to somebody other than Doctor Daloh. “She would have been called Talitha.”

“Talitha!” Jophia exclaimed, feeling as if a bolt of lightning had hit her body from the sheer excitement that somebody else had acknowledged her friend’s existence. “You know about Talitha? Is she here? She has to be here if you know about her!”

“Alas, no,” Yanat said with regret, knowing that he’d played his part in helping get Talitha stuck in the backwater of Lathga Province. “But she’s of some considerable interest to us. There’s a reason for that golden fur that Zeshom Noor never likely told you about.”

“Your leg, Jophia,” Doctor Daloh said, pointing to the shorter limb. “I presume you know how that happened?”

“Zeshom Noor had purchased a whole lot of slaves that had been aboard a shipment bound for Siva from one of the other colonies,” Jophia said, reiterating what she’d been told about her own history, that of her parents, and that of Talitha. “But there was an x-ray flare from Zaket B that damaged so many of those aboard. My father and mother were no exception to that and died when I was very young, and some of the damages continued after.

“I was born like… this…” she said, looking down shamefully at her shorter leg, practically cursing the thing. She hated how it made every step give her an awkward gait, how it had made her the target of the abuse of the overseers on many an occasion, and especially how it had given out in front of Princess Aliya. “And it was all because of that flare that ruined my parents. I wasn’t the only one. Other children and their parents suffered similarly. Talitha’s fur color was golden because of the flare, too. Her mother had only just conceived her just before the flare hit the ship and then died shortly after she gave birth to her.”

“It’s not true,” Yanat said, getting of his knee and standing back up, turning to face Jophia. “At least, the part where it involved Talitha’s mother isn’t true.”

“I...” Jophia said softly, her voice fading for the briefest of moments before she recollected herself. “I don’t understand.”

“The x-ray flare was indeed a real event that cursed many aboard that ship,” Yanat said. “But Talitha’s mother was not aboard that vessel. No, she was dwelling in the royal palace of Phaziah Ishigar when that event occurred, bearing a child with the High King himself, and she herself would need to be dealt with for daring to carry the mixture of slave and noble blood. Her child had to be dealt with also. I know, because I was there for all of that, Jophia.”

Now that Jophia had indeed confirmed that she knew about Talitha to some degree, Yanat was willing to be a bit more forthcoming with her besides just to Doctor Daloh. “I brought Talitha’s mother to the site of her execution and granted her the wish to name her child before she died. A privilege no slave would ever be permitted under normal terms, but I saw to it that the brokers awaiting the sale at Zeshom Noor’s estate entered it as I demanded. And it seems that they kept good on their promise, for it is under that name that you seem to remember her.”

“Talitha? A child of Phaziah Ishigar?” Jophia said in disbelief. “But Zeshom Noor always told us that the flare had done its damage to her in Shiphra’s womb—that she had gotten off luckier than the rest of us by some twist of fate.”

“Zeshom Noor had only then made the purchase of many of the parents aboard that ship just as I’d turned Talitha over to the slave brokers at his estate,” Yanat said in shame. “He told me to my face that it would make a convenient excuse that simple slaves in a backwater province wouldn’t doubt. Nor would anybody take me seriously if I came forward with the story of what really happened in the palace between Shiphra and Phaziah Ishigar. I still curse myself for leaving that child in his clutches, in the barrenness of such a harsh province and under such a cruel master as he.”

“It was such a hellish place, and Talitha was one of my only friends there,” Jophia said sadly, longing for the companionship of the one who had saved her from Princess Aliya’s wrath. “When there was some degree of friendship permitted, she was there with me through thick and thin, even though everybody treated her like some cursed freak of nature. It wasn’t just the overseers and Zeshom Noor who teased her about her fur color. The other slaves—especially ones who were children of those aboard the ship and hadn’t known Talitha’s mother—constantly saw her like some curse that worked alongside them and brought bad luck and beatings. But I never saw her that way. She stood in for me just before the troop transport crash, taking the punishment on the millstone that had been planned for me for getting in the way of Princess Aliya. That was…”

She started to go on as if she was going to conclude her short recollection of her comradeship with Talitha, but her voice trailed off, as if scared to finish the story. Doctor Daloh, as gently as possible, stepped in to probe for more information. “That was what, young one?” she asked her.

Jophia gulped a little in anxiety, not knowing what fate had befallen her friend. “That was the last time I saw her,” she said, sniffling a little bit as her eyes started to gloss over in the beginnings of tears. “Zeshom Noor had her lashed to the millstone, and I saw Kabir beginning to whip her as she started turning the thing round and round in place of the Zuthari just as I was thrown in the isolation pit. Her cries kept going all day and all night and they were finally drowned out when the battle started. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”

“But you vouch for her existence, yes?” Yanat said. “Talitha was there, still recently in Zeshom Noor’s possession?”

“Yes, she was there with me for all those years, sir,” Jophia said with a nod of her head, falling back into the habit of addressing Yanat as her superior before catching herself in reprimand. “From the moment I first saw her in the nursing ward when we were all too young to work, to when we were finally collared and shoved out into the mud pits and the work lines, to only the other day when I saw her save my life—Talitha was there.”

“You’re willing to swear that before other members of the Confederate quadrumvirate and before the Congress itself, if given the chance?” Doctor Daloh said, tenderly placing a handpaw on the girl’s shoulder. “There can be no shred of doubt about what you’re telling us, Jophia.”

“I promise that I speak the truth,” she said in affirmation. “And the others coming in would vouch for her existence too. Although I doubt many of them would speak of her in such a positive way as I have. She was my friend—one of the few lights in a world of shadow that was all I knew. Maybe that was destiny for her to rise above her station like she did in the last moments I saw her, defending me in where I could not defend myself, just like the High King and Queens of the fables. For if she truly is a daughter of royalty…”

Doctor Daloh and Yanat looked at each other as Jophia became lost in her thought. With Jophia’s testimony, and surely those of others to follow, the identity of Phaziah Ishigar’s long lost daughter was now something that could no longer be speculated about. It was close to becoming an undeniable fact. Whether or not Yanat could push himself to have her be somebody of equivalence to her father was the real question.

“You’ll find her, won’t you?” Jophia said, looking up to the two of them in their unspoken glance to the other.

“Pardon?” Doctor Daloh said, half lost in thought.

“You’ll find Talitha?” she said, not quite understanding the implications for what it meant for the future of the civil war between the Crown and the Confederacy in that a daughter of slave and noble blood was finally freed from the chains that had bound her for so long.

“We’ll do more than that,” Yanat said, swallowing his morals for the moment and telling himself that he had to push the girl to be what her father could not be if she’d ever get the chance—to be a benevolent ruler, the first in history that did not oppress or mistreat to maintain their power. “Rest assured, Jophia, we’ll find Talitha, if it’s the last thing we do.”

Jophia donned a smile—one of the first she’d had in ages. With all the comforting words that had been spoken and the promises of no more cruelty, she trusted her two new acquaintances to do everything in their power to find her friend and bring her to safety. Gratefully, she bowed before Doctor Daloh and Yanat. “Zaket suns bless you both,” she said.

“And may they bless you, young one,” Doctor Daloh said, gingerly motioning Jophia along and pointing to the farther end of the platform where a gang of workers were prepared to take names and process their entry into Sarat before leading them to the temple for shelter and further instructions. “We’ll be in touch with you as we find out more. Your words and testimony to us today mean more than you know.”

Jophia bowed once again before hobbling past them towards where the other workers stood. Yanat and the doctor looked at each other once more, their expressionless gazes communicating the immensity of everything they’d been told. Talitha was real. The sanctified masquerade that enabled the Crown’s dictatorial grip on all Sivathi was on the cusp of being shattered if she was truly free!

But would she want the responsibility of that task for herself? Could she do it alone?

That question would have to be pondered later, for no sooner had Yanat and Doctor Daloh stepped over to receive the next of the liberated in line for questioning, the duo received a beeping, urgent transmission from the comm system in the doctor’s pocket. She fumbled for the thing clumsily at first, still taken aback with the weight of the information she’d just received, before finally grasping the disk shaped object in her handpaw, clicking the button to receive the holo-projection within.

“Doctor Daloh speaking,” she said, looking down at the greenish, holographic figure that was materializing of Duchess Zuleikha Jaasu.

“Doctor Daloh,” the Duchess said with a sense of urgency in her voice. “I know that you’re preoccupied with receiving the latest of the liberated from Zeshom Noor’s estate, and I wouldn’t bother you were this not important. Forgive me for intruding, but once you’ve finished, you and Yanat have been instructed to return to the Confederate Congress immediately for an emergency session.”

“Emergency session?” Yanat replied, leaning in at the projection in the doctor’s paw. “Has the motion to attack Yerusa Province begun to develop more urgently than we thought?”

“Nothing pertinent to that—though that may change with what has just transpired,” she said, her image looking over her shoulder this way and that as if she was worried of being spied upon. “The Congress is meeting to decide the next steps in the wake of what’s taken place in Shaleth, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now. The news is making its way across the planet like wildfire.”

“In Shaleth?” Doctor Daloh said, unaware of any developments coming from the royal capital itself. “You’ll have to forgive me for not knowing. We’ve been so preoccupied here with receiving these refugees.”

What she said next made Doctor Daloh drop the projector to the ground in shock and gasp aloud. “We have confirmed reports of an assassination attempt having been made against Phaziah Ishigar at the Arena of Idoqa. We aren’t sure as to the extent of what happened, but an action was carried out.”

As if the profoundness of the revelation on Talitha had not been enough, the invincible, divine image of the High King himself had now been brought down to the level of his own plain subjects, wounded or killed like those he’d oppressed for so long.

Whether or not he lived was another matter that Yanat and Doctor Daloh could only speculate on as they gathered their thoughts to quickly finish questioning and process the remaining refugees, signing off on the comm device and assuring the Duchess that they would be in attendance. For if the High King still lived, his vengeance would be truly terrifying to behold, for none dared scar a son or daughter of the Zaket suns and expect to go unpunished!