Contents
86 East
Overview
Nikeya reaches Dumai’s forest camp gravely worn, delivers plans to rebuild the Lacustrine crossbow, and reveals the regent engineered the palace attack. She discloses her clan’s ancient charge to balance the Noziken and her resistance to the red sickness. In a secluded spring, Nikeya proposes becoming Dumai’s consort and using Suzumai as heir. Dumai accepts the partnership, binding love to strategy as Seiiki’s succession and defense realign.
Summary
Nikeya, exhausted and burned, sleeps in Dumai’s tent after Unora tends her. Lady Mithara arrives, urging Dumai to claim credit for the recovered crossbow and warning that Nikeya may be the regent’s spy. When Nikeya wakes, she recounts her perilous journey and confirms the regent ordered the palace attack, while assuring the Grand Empress is protected by Tukupa the Silver.
Nikeya admits years of being used by her father but brings stolen plans for the Lacustrine crossbow, offering them to aid Seiiki’s defense and to prove her loyalty. She asks to join Dumai’s camp under an alias. Dumai, torn but hopeful, accepts her help while noting the clans’ distrust.
Seeking privacy, Dumai leads Nikeya to a remote hot spring. There, Nikeya reveals a secret Mithara legend: their line once carried fire from the Mulberry Queen to balance the Noziken’s star-born power. Though the fire has faded, a residue remains; Nikeya believes this lineage explains her resistance to the red sickness and her father’s long quest for control.
Nikeya confesses her divided loyalties gave way to genuine love for Dumai, and she proposes a political and personal union—becoming Dumai’s consort, countering the regent’s influence from within, and making Suzumai the heir to avoid forcing Dumai into childbearing. Dumai recognizes the plan’s wisdom and promises to consider it after the comet.
Trust affirmed, the two consummate their bond at the spring, transforming a fraught history of intrigue into a partnership. Their union cements a new path for Seiiki’s leadership: rebuild the crossbows, expose the regent, and unite clans behind Dumai with Nikeya at her side.
Who Appears
- DumaiQueen-in-exile; shelters in a forest camp, tends Nikeya, weighs crossbow strategy, hears the regent’s treachery, and accepts Nikeya as consort.
- NikeyaArrives injured; brings crossbow plans, reveals the regent’s plot, recounts her clan’s fire-legacy, resists red sickness, and proposes consortship.
- Lady MitharaClan leader ally; cautions about Nikeya, advances crossbow assembly, and urges Dumai toward formal enthronement.
- RituykaCamp member whose fear of the haunted forest underscores the setting around Dumai’s secret meeting with Nikeya.