Serafina woke with a stretch, the morning sun kissing its way through gauzy curtains and dappling against her blue scales. Palace life was truly luscious.

She rose with a purr. Ever since becoming a royal concubine, her nights had become downright delectable. Prince Orfeo’s massive cock left her sweetly aching, and she shuddered the mornings after.

After a few languid minutes, the kobold rolled out of bed, bare except for the shining collar about her neck. It was smooth and comfortable and already felt like a part of her now. Humming to herself, she threw open the wardrobe that Orfy had sent her. Bit by bit, her chamber in the seraglio was filling up with gifts and other items.

After she threw on her favorite dress—the same thin red one she wore the first night, with matching bangles—she made for the door. As soon as it opened, her maidservant, a short and quick-minded goblin about her own age, rushed in. “Hello Bryony,” the kobold said.

“Hello, Mistress Serafina,” the goblin girl replied as she dutifully set about tidying her mistress’s chambers. Serafina smiled at that. She and Bryony had hit it off soon after her arrival, bonding over their shared experiences as lower-class girls and their similar tastes in humor and outlook. The goblin, thankfully, wasn’t one of those meek servicewomen who stammered out an excuse anytime she was expected to glance at someone ‘above her station.’ (The idea that she even had a station now was still foreign to Serafina, but being expected to help perpetuate the royal line came with some perks.) Bryony knew to be less casual around others, but when the two of them were alone, they spoke like good friends.

It’s good to have a friend here, Serafina thought as Bryony nodded and left. The goblin had far more than this one chamber to attend to. If I’m really going to try to get Orfy to supplant the king…

She swallowed. The thought of Tereus left her distinctly disquieted. He’d been true to his word and left the seraglio alone since that off-putting first encounter, but Serafina had chanced upon him in a quiet wing of the palace the other day. He’d said nothing, but his contemptuous sneer and hungry glances had spoken volumes.

Her hand touched her stomach. She wasn’t eggbound yet, but it was only a matter of time. She was here to breed, not just to please. And Tereus had promised to steal her children away. Not if I have anything to say about it, she thought with fire. She would give her children something she had lacked, a mother to look after them…

But one lowborn concubine was probably not enough to topple a king—well, topple a king and keep her head, anyway. She would rather like to stick around for Orfeo’s reign. She paced the halls of the seraglio, brow furrowed in thought. She would need allies—resources. But who to turn to? Bryony was both pleasant and insightful, but a cleaning girl made for a poor co-conspirator. She shook her head. Perhaps—

She chanced to walk past Baucis’s room and the foxfolk woman nudged her door open. “Serafina!” she said, beaming. “Come look at this!”

Serafina allowed herself to be pulled into Baucis’s chambers. As the foxfolk dazzled her with displays of small-scale fire magic, potions puffing away in vials and giving off small plumes of colored, scented smoke, Serafina considered it.

Baucis had been in the seraglio for some time now and knew both Orfeo and the palace well. She was intelligent, gregarious, and had an affinity for magic that Serafina herself entirely lacked. She would make a good ally.

And yet…

As she watched Baucis excitedly demonstrate a swirling spark of flames, muzzle split into a wide grin, Serafina reflected that Baucis had nothing to gain and everything to lose from this venture. She was secure and happy in her position, and Orfy was supplying her with everything she needed to study magic on her own. She seemed to be infertile, which meant she had no children to be stolen. And pleasant or not, she was from noble stock herself. Serafina didn’t know the exact circumstances of Baucis’s exodus from her house, but might she still hold some loyalty to the crown?

No, Baucis wasn’t a safe bet—not yet, at least.

Serafina sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought.

Baucis frowned at her. “Everything alright, Serafina?”

The kobold chided herself mentally. She would have to keep her emotions on a firmer leash than that! What invited concern from Baucis might invite suspicion, or worse, from Tereus. “Just thinking about how empty it can get in the wing sometimes,” she said. It was only a partial lie, the easiest kind to tell.

Baucis nodded. “Yeah, you’re from the city, right? I bet you miss the bustle… that life isn’t for me, but I bet Orfy would take you there if you asked him to. He goes for strolls sometimes.”

Serafina perked up. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.”

---

Orfeo visited in the early afternoon, and he and Serafina made love beneath the warm light of the window. The kobold arched her back, rising up against him, as he took her in the missionary position. They’d slept together only the previous night, and yet both of them were insatiable, the fire of youth spurring them on.

As his massive cock thundered into her and she squealed, Serafina locked eyes with him, her breaths shallow and panting. No… no, it was more than just their youthful libidos. She and Orfeo, they had something. He cared about her, and she found herself caring about him too. He was so kind and earnest, despite his father’s best attempts to beat him down…

It wasn’t just for her, or for her offspring. It was for him too.

In the afterglow, as they cuddled together, his seed warm inside of her, Serafina stroked the fur on his bare chest, the tawny growth playing about her scales. “Orfy?” she said.

“Hmmm?”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had anyone care about me like you do.”

The tanuki blushed. “Aw, gee… well, that’s super nice, but I’m sure that you had someone!”

Ah, how beautifully naïve he could be. He could never imagine the sort of life she had lived, growing up on the streets, the daughter of a dead whore, scrapping for every copper. Oh, he probably knew on the academic level that such things happened, but what could the kind, smiling prince in his life of plenty truly understand? She didn’t hold it against him. If he was more cunning, perhaps he would have turned out like his father—and that would have been terrible indeed.

Instead of correcting him, Serafina just dipped in for a kiss. After she broke it, she said: “Well, what about your someones?”

He laughed, and his eyes grew distant. “Ah, well, that would be my family, of course! My mom, she passed when I was a little over a decade old… a bad fever.”

Serafina remembered that. It had swept the capital, claiming heaps of lives. The greatest calamity in a generation.

“She always seemed a bit… sad, I guess,” he said, a touch of melancholy creeping into his voice. “I was never sure why. Alcyone and me, we tried cheering her up, and she was always happy to see us, but she always just went right back to being sad when we left. My sister told me that our mother reminded her of a caged bird.”

Serafina was quiet. She’d heard rumors of this from Bryony and the other servants. The late queen had been in an arranged marriage with Tereus, and the union had been decidedly unhappy. She could imagine feeling caged, wed to such a man as that.

“But that’s in the past!” Orfeo said. He rolled over onto his back, eschewing a pillow in favor of resting his head on his arms. “She showed me so, so much, and I try to live like she would’ve wanted me to live. I… try.” His voice got a breath quieter on try—as if emphasizing the difference between it and succeed. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it, probably didn’t realize what he internalized, but Serafina’s tail twitched angrily, tangling itself in her satin sheets. The king had much to answer for.

But Orfeo didn’t notice. “But Alcyone… she was like our mom, personality-wise, but as sunny as a sunflower!” He looked pleased with himself at the comparison. “Always eager to learn and speak up. And when mom passed, she took me under her wing. She got dad’s brains and mom’s heart. She would have made a great queen… she’s older than me, she really should have been the heir. The rule that women can’t take the throne is stupid,” he said with fire. “One time, a little before she got married, I told dad that. He…”

Orfeo’s hand twitched towards his cheek, an act of milliseconds. He stopped himself, but Serafina’s eyes caught it anyways. “He was angry,” he said quietly. “Anyway, she got married off to one of dad’s biggest supporters—Lord Umber. He has a bunch of holdings on the frontier.”

Serafina had heard of Umber. He was said to be the most influential noble in the realm who was not of royal blood, and a very close friend to the king. It was also said that life as a peasant in his lands was decidedly disagreeable.

“She still hasn’t had any kids, but they’re all hoping,” Orfeo said. “I… haven’t seen her since the wedding. Umber himself comes a few times a year, but Alcyone always gets left behind. I guess someone has to manage the estate. And whenever I ask to visit, Dad chides me about shirking my responsibilities in the capital…”

He trailed off, unhappy.

Serafina looked at him with sympathy. Dredging up poor memories hadn’t been her intention… yet perhaps he hadn’t had as golden a life as she’d imagined. She reached out to his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “They sound like wonderful people.”

“They were—are.” Then he glanced her way, and his eyes filled with fervent warm. “They would have really liked you. Alcyone used to tease me when we were teens about me getting a harem. She said that any woman who knew what she was doing might as well collar me by the time she was done.” He grinned, reached out, and stroked her collar. A pleasured hiss rumbled in Serafina’s throat. “And mom… sometimes she would take us walking in the gardens. Not the palace ones, but the ones in town. She said they were more… ah, what was it?” His brow knotted momentarily. “Authentic. That was it. She loved plants… she could make the saddest, driest little seed blossom into something incredible. I remember watching and learning her gardening secrets. Sometimes, when I was sick, she told me to grow strong because I was her little sapling…”

Serafina could imagine it—the older tanuki, paws over her son’s, guiding his touch down to the rich, loamy earth, a tiny sprig of green poking out. Both of their muzzles broke into smiles…

“Are those gardens still there?” she asked.

Orfeo shot up, smiling. “Yeah! I haven’t been in a while, but I’ve meant to go back.”

The concubine’s mind turned. If she was to gather resources and allies, she would need to enter the capital proper, and there was no way of doing that without the prince. And revisiting such a place would make him happy.

Two birds, one stone, right?

“Why not take me there?” she said to his excitement. “Make a proper date of it. We can visit the markets and a few other places a noble might take his girl, and you can show me all the best spots in the garden.”

“I… you’d like that?” he asked, as if barely daring to believe the answer would be yes.

Serafina laughed and swept him into an embrace. The two of them fell onto the bed, holding each other, nuzzling. She coiled her tail around his leg, appreciating the plushness of his thigh, the way his bulge rested against her. They spent some minutes like that.

In the afterglow, Orfeo started, making her side-eye him. “Oh, I almost forgot!” he said.

“Forgot… what?”

“People who care about me. I almost forgot to mention my dad. Him too, of course.”

Serafina tightened her claws, untightened them, tightened them again.

“Of course,” she repeated.

---

The garden was magnificent—but not for the reasons others might have suspected. True, the flowers were exquisite, a veritable riot of color that raced throughout the greenhouse. The heady, floral aroma was more intoxicating than the sweetest wine. The sound of hummingbirds flitting overhead was unexpected in the city, yet so very welcome.

But for Serafina, the best part of the gardens was what they brought out in the prince.

“And over there!” he said, pointing. “It’s an archaefructus! Did you know the folk at the universities say that it’s the oldest type of flowering plant? Before it came along, there were just trees, bushes, and ferns!”

Serafina peered at it. It didn’t look like much; a scraggy, hardy thing, all told. But then, this unassuming thing had set the stage for all its others.

“And there,” he said, pulling her along. “Orchids—very hard to grow. Too much direct sunlight kills them, and the water schedule is very finicky. Even a slight imbalance could kill them. But look how big they got these ones!”

The orchid plant was indeed massive, boasting piles and piles of folding, pale pink blossoms. Serafina had to admire it. It could have been beaten so easily, and yet it had endured—and thrived.

“And look—look!” said the prince, eagerly directing her to a plant like a long jug.

Serafina’s eyebrows climbed. “What is this?”

“A pitcher plant! They’re from a far continent. They’re carnivorous—they trap bugs who can’t climb up the slick sides, and then digest them.”

Squatting, Serafina gazed at innocuous-looking growth intently. “The plant eats things? But it looks…”

“Silly?” Orfeo supplied. “Harmless?” He puffed out his chest proudly. He was dressed as he had been for the audition, a tunic of fine green make inlaid with elaborate giltwork and matching trousers. Riding boots completed the ensemble. For her part, Serafina was wearing a dress not unlike the one she normally wore in the seraglio, just a touch more opaque and not quite as daring. “Underestimate it at your peril!”

Smiling, Serafina took stock of the plants her love had shown to her. The hardy thing that had changed the world. The fragile thing that had survived against all odds. The seemingly harmless thing that could hide a quiet danger. Yes… she enjoyed this trip to the gardens very much.

As they made their way out, nobles and merchants and other well-to-do folk trying and failing to hide their trailing glances and gossipy whispers, Serafina kept up her queries. “Where did you learn all this, Orfeo?”

A slight blush colored his cheekfur. “My mom. Like I said, she loved plants and gardening. Sometimes I’d watch her for whole hours… she’d tell me so much.” He smiled bashfully. “I’m really nothing compared to what she knew.”

Serafina shook her head. Had he failed to catch the impressed looks of surprise the garden tenders had given him? Ah, this lad…

They were in the part of Braston commonly called the Ruby District. This was where only the wealthiest or the most titled could go without harassment. Serafina had never once set foot there; she never would have dared. The difference in upkeep between here and the streets she’d called home was incredible. She’d grown up in the Pumice District, which some called Clawfoot Lane due to its high prevalence of kobolds. She wondered if Orfeo had ever been there—or if he’d even really left the Ruby District.

Though even here, they were shadowed rather unartfully by a trio of palace guardsman keeping about seventy paces back. Anyone who looked like they might try to intercept the prince and his concubine immediately had second thoughts upon catching sight of the men in armor.

“Do they have to follow us so closely?” Serafina complained. It would be very hard to recruit conspirators being shadowed like this. “It’s the Ruby District. Any footpad brave enough to come here would get annihilated the moment his boots touched the cobbles.”

“Just be glad it’s only normal ones,” Orfeo said with a resigned air. “Sometimes it’s those new guards—the, uh, scary ones.”

Serafina shuddered, fear rippling down her scales. “You mean the monsters?” Virtually nobody in the palace was fond of them—Tereus’s stoic, stalwart sentinels.

“Aww, c’mon, that’s not nice. Whoever they are, I bet they’re just happy to serve the realm. B’sides, sometimes I get the feeling like I get them, y’know?”

“I really don’t,” Serafina said flatly.

Their next destination was the Emporium. There were a few markets throughout Braston, but this was the one set right outside the palace. Here was where nobles browsed for perfumed carpets from across the sea, traded in trinkets worth more than some households made in years. There were vials of spices, jeweled scepters, magic potions, astrolabes. It was a wonderland like Serafina had never dreamed of.

While the crowd mostly parted around them, a few enterprising merchants hawked their wares for the prince himself, avarice gleaming in their eyes. Orfeo turned them down easily, and Serafina was on the lookout for someone or something that she could employ in her crusade against the king.

And speaking of the devil…

As Orfeo finally caved and bought a tightly-wound scroll for Baucis, counting out silver crowns like they were pocket change, a murmur rippled in the crowd and Serafina turned. There, the crowd retreating from him like the tide, was Tereus, flanked by two palace guards. Another, one of the new, monstrous kind, trailed him at some distance. Of course, it was well-known in Braston that he visited the Emporium from time to time; to have him even consider a merchant’s wares was a sign of great favor. Still, as she saw the older tanuki pass, the fur on his hands oily and stained, Serafina wanted to crawl into a hole. She found herself praying that Orfeo would finish his business soon, and then they could go and she could resume her search for conspirators well away from him.

She needn’t have cast her net so far.

As Tereus trailed imperiously through the crowd, his flinty eyes seeming to command everyone he passed into obedience, something happened.

One of the nobles hailed the king. Serafina knew him by reputation; Lord Vestyn, a wolfkin who kept a keep in the city and had an unsavory reputation. He was flanked by two quiet, demure women in pristine white gowns, one an orc and the other a halfling, both downcast. Tereus nodded at him and moved on.

And the orc made her move.

From within her perfect dress she somehow pulled a long kitchen knife and lunged at the king with a high, screaming snarl. One of the guards tackled her out of the way, her knife missing the king by inches; the other pushed the royal behind him with a shout. The market-goers screamed and broke into a panic. Vestyn, looking panicked, shouted inarticulately and tugged on something that glimmered in the sun; Serafina realized that it was a fine silver cord, so thin as to almost be invisible, that looped around the orc’s neck and attached to his belt. The wide-eyed halfling girl, who was cringing with her head ducked, wore something similar.

The assailant was undeterred. With one fluid motion, the sort that came from years of combat experience, the orc maneuvered around the guard who had tackled her and slammed her weight on the back of his knee. It popped with a sickening crunch and the man crumpled.

The crowd screamed; Orfeo tensed up next to her. Yet Serafina could only watch, transfixed.

Vestyn tugged the silver cord again and the orc woman snarled. She coiled the cord about her wrist and yanked it so hard it snapped; Vestyn fell back with a cry, fur bristling with fear and panic.

The orc shot Vestyn a look full of more hatred than Serafina thought possible, but then she turned her gaze to Tereus. She leveled the knife at him. “Slaver!” she bellowed. “Tyrant!”

The guard protecting the king had readied a crossbow. Dropping to one knee, he shot a bolt her way. The orc took an expert tumble, even more impressive for how flawless she pulled it off in a gown, and threw the knife at Tereus as she came up. The blade whistled through the air with pinpoint accuracy and the guard intercepted it, grunting as it lodged in his forearm. The orc bolted forward, wrestled the crossbow from the wounded guard, and leveled it with Tereus. The crowd screamed and everyone went as far as they could from the king, who stood gazing contemptuously at his would-be assassin.

“For the caravan,” she snarled, snapping the bolt into place with a clack. “And the caves. And the market. And everything after.”

“Father!” Orfeo said, moving to intercede. Serafina caught him on his paw.

“You’re unarmed, you’ll die!” she protested.

He looked at her and then at the scene unfolding, his eyes wild and frightened.

Tereus didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. And as the orcish assassin pulled the trigger, Serafina learned why. The bolt knifed through the air and then suddenly stopped, dead in its tracks, a foot and a half away from the king’s trachea. For a moment the air seemed to darken, as if a knot of cloud had suddenly been blown in front of the sun; the darkness seemed to hold the king as its nexus. Tereus’s clothes rippled, though there were no wind. And Serafina’s heart nearly stopped; was it a trick of the light, or were the oily dark patterns on his fur dancing?

The moment and the darkness passed in less than a second, so quick it was like a dream, and then the bolt dropped straight down like an apple from a tree. The orc stood stunned for a moment and then readied another one—

And then the beastly guard slammed her into the cobbles facedown, a massive paw on the back of her head.

The attack was over.

More guards milled into the Emporium and took the orcish woman into custody; she was thrashing and spitting vitriol at Tereus. Others helped their wounded fellows to their feet.

Silence held in the Emporium like a heart attack and then Tereus’s voice boomed with natural statesmanship: “Well! After a show like that, who needs the theater?”

Tension snapped like a violin string and the nobles and merchants erupted into laughter, uneasy at first; yet as Tereus spread his arms wide, showing how at ease he was, their voices grew more and more rambunctious.

“You’ll have to excuse the woman for her predilection for violence—she’s orcish,” Tereus said with a knowing wink. The contrast between the bombastic man performing to the crowd and the snide, cruel bastard who had spat venom at Serafina in the palace was striking. The crowd’s laughter continued. “Though that can be put to good use,” he said with a nod at the guard who had taken the knife in the arm—himself an orc. “See that fellow gets a commission, won’t you?”

One of the other guards snapped a salute as the nobles applauded.

“To the dungeon with her,” Tereus said with a lazy wave, and the orc was dragged kicking and screaming to one of the palace’s many side entrances. “And as for Lord Vestyn…”

The crowd parted and the wolfkin was shoved forward by two angry-looking guardsmen. The halfling was nowhere to be seen.

“Please, Your Majesty, you must understand I had no idea—I, I have always been l-loyal—” stammered out Vestyn.

“I believe you,” said Tereus, and the wolfkin sagged with relief.

That proved to be premature.

“However,” Tereus added after a moment, “to let a woman clearly trained in combat, and with a vendetta against me, conceal a knife in your presence and come within striking distance of the king… that shows remarkable incompetence, does it not?”

The crowd tittered and murmured and Vestyn looked ready to faint. “I b-beg mercy, my king…”

“Incompetence is an imperfection unbefitting of the nobility,” Tereus said. “Luckily, I excel at scrubbing out imperfections.” Silence held like a hoisted ax, and then the king’s smile grew thin and hungry. “The dungeons for him as well, gentlemen.”

Vestyn began sobbing, his grey-brown tail thrashing with distress. “My Lord! My Lord, please!” The guardsmen were dragging him away, his peers following with their eyes, unable to look away. “I didn’t know—you mustn’t—Your Majesty, I beg you!”

And then the orc and the lord were both gone, vanished into the dungeons.

Tereus whipped his cloak about himself and stalked back to the palace, the monstrous guard on his heels. The people of the Emporium whispered and muttered and even as activity resumed, a whipcord tension ran through it.

Orfeo’s grip was tight in Serafina’s. “Fina,” he said after a moment, “I… I’m sorry, but I think I’m ready to go back to the castle.”

Serafina couldn’t banish the image of the orcish woman, standing tall, standing fierce, knife gleaming in the sun. “That’s alright,” she said. “I think I found what I came for.”

---

“And is the prince okay?”

“He’s fine,” Serafina assuaged, and Bryony looked visibly relaxed

“Thank the stars…”

Indeed. Serafina sympathized with the orc woman, but if anything had happened to her prince… “Hey,” she said, “you have your ear to the ground, right? Do you know what’s going to happen to that orc?”

Bryony looked down. “His Majesty the king is not known for his mercy.”

That was the understatement of the century. Serafina breathed in and out again. “So she’ll be executed, then.”

The goblin’s hands tightened. “After a fashion.”

Serafina raised a brow. “What? What do you mean?”

The goblin servant sat down, still not meeting Serafina’s eyes. “His Majesty has decreed that she is to be chained to a wall and given no food or water. She will remain in that state all throughout the night and into the morning. And at sundown tomorrow, she will be taken down… and given to the garrison until her body gives out. And then she will be chucked in a grave.”