Kyen and Lissti were surprisingly polite as they herded us each onto massage platforms and onto our stomachs. Below, warmed grooves in the stone floor seemed to guide my lower body into a comfortably loose coil. I looked forward, at the serpent heads spewing water into the main bath, and only now noticed their eyes glinted with very real emeralds.

I’m about to get a massage in the Emerald Palace of all places. Never mind the fact that I was awkwardly comfortable with the idea of being massaged. Next to me, Ssiina needed no help situating herself. Kyen’s hands glided across scales and skin alike as he caught the hem of my tunic.

“May I?” he asked.

Oh, right.

I waved his concern away. “I’ve got it.” In a smooth, practiced motion, I tossed my tunic over my head and undid the soft linen that loosely bound my chest. I expected the man to blush red, but he kept his professionalism intact and I landed back down onto the smooth stone with a huff, crushing my breasts a little harder than I intended to.

“You do not need to work yourself so, Hssen Issa.”

“Does my sire not dress herself?”

“Your sire is an exception, and even then, it was not always so.”

I flicked my tongue out irritably, and also to sneak a taste of the room's floral scent. “Then consider me an exception, too.”

“Of course.”

I blinked, and now Kyen looked confused.

“Is something the matter, Hssen Issa? My apologies if my assumption has caused offense.”

“No, you’re fine. I was just…” What had I been expecting? “Never mind. Although… was my mother the reason?” I took a guess out into the wild.

“Yes,” Kyen answered simply.

I rolled my head to one side and saw Kyrae struggling with Lissti and the stone massage table. Shaped for lamia, the elf kept slipping back on it, and her feet had nowhere to rest. Lissti, surprisingly, was apologetic, but I could tell it from the way she scrunched her brow that it bothered Kyrae a lot.

In fact… I looked around the room. Into and out of the pools were steep ramps, no doubt slick with water. Our scales would grip the stone with no problems, but Kyrae would have to either jump or slide in—or risk falling. Similarly, there was no seating. Not for anyone with legs. And while I couldn’t see into the smaller pools, I would bet a golden scale they had grooved coils rather than flat seating.

Of course the hssen don’t cater to—

Wait. We’re hssen. We can change this. Hse’aazh, I could ask the Jii’Hssen today.

Feeling a little better, I glanced at Kyen, who was preparing oils in three separate bowls, and then back at Kyrae. My sister had formed a backstop with a towel, the ends held in place by glowing magic. Lissti wore an expression I couldn’t parse, but at least Kyrae was smiling.

She glanced my way and I returned the expression. “The pools are all ramps and coiling as well. We’ll ask about it today.”

“Issa, it’s… actually, yeah. Let’s ask about it today.” Kyrae nodded, undressing herself quickly.

I glanced away and back at Ssiina who had her eyes closed, luxuriating in the heat.

She seemed to sense me looking at her and sleepily cracked one eye open. “Ask what?”

“You’ll see,” I replied cagily.

“Hmmm, don’t start with that now,” my sister complained, but she turned her head and didn’t press further.

“Are you ready?” Kyen asked, bowls apparently prepared.

Right, the massage!

“I’m very ready. And while you’re working, could you tell me who and what I need to know about the Palace? Not what my sire would tell me, but what the servants know.”

“…Of course, Hssen Issa.”

***

With only two servants and three of them—Kyrae wasn’t certain if this was done as a necessity regarding their secrets, or as a slight—Kyrae assumed she’d be taken care of after the others. That had almost been the case, until Ssiina had spoken up, claiming she wanted some time to simply “rest.”

So Lissti worked on her first instead. Unfortunately, the lania’el woman wasn’t trained to massage elves. Phaeliisthia had taught Kyrae much about the differences between elves and lamia, and how their upper bodies, while similar in appearance, were radically different internally.

As such, Kyrae constantly had to tell Lissti to lighten her touches, and the newbloom elf hated it. She hated feeling weak and fragile. Her sigils holding the towel she used to brace her feet were testament to what she’d learned, but they weren’t enough.

When she could, she listened to Kyen telling Issa all about life in the Emerald Palace as a servant. Issa pushed him, and hard, asking about who among the hssen were better or worse to serve. Unsurprisingly, Geliss and Deziiya’s branch of the family were down near the bottom, and it was Geliss toward whom the servants held the most animosity. Of the others their age, Sysiss, Nozyn, and Jiana, Sysiss was considered the worst—and not for a lack of respect. She was simply a “deviant” that made Ssiina’s antics look positively docile in comparison.

Kyrae wasn’t entirely surprised Tyaniis was somewhere in the middle. Inattentive in recent years, and often demanding, she was also known to grant more respect to her servants. And, in turn, she expected more. Kyen had been a new servant around when Issa had been kidnapped, but Lissti had been her sister’s nanny, and Kyrae suddenly felt a strong obligation to ask about Issa’s early years.

So, when Lissti reached her legs and paused, either unsure or analyzing how to give Kyrae more bruises, the young elf spoke up.

“Lissti, do you have any embarrassing stories from Issa’s early years? I’ll share some of mine from when she was a little older if you spill.”

Lissti hissed softly, and Kyrae glanced with her at Issa and Ssiina. The latter was very clearly asleep, and the former was engaged in a fierce debate about the necessity of non-meats in hssen diets.

“I have a few,” Lissti said softly. “And I am only telling you them because I know what you are to my Sset-Issa.”

Kyrae smiled, even as anger still smoldered within her at just how little consideration was paid here toward elves. Soon, she thought, I’ll be able to change that.

***

Lissti finished Kyrae’s massage first, then gently shook Ssiina into a state of partial wakefulness and started on her, at the shoulders. I kept on with Kyen, getting a feeling for the Palace that I’d not be able to receive from my sire or aunt.

And he painted a fine enough view. Aside from the predictably-awful Geliss and Deziiya, the only surprise was Sysiss. I wanted to meet her! And I would “soon” anyway. According to Kyen, Sire had plans in place to jump Ssiina’s coming of age up if need be. I assumed this would mean a week. It actually meant a month.

How was it that people with power end up moving so slowly? Did Ssiina really need some sort of big party, and did Sire have to introduce me and Kyrae there. Ussen from all over the empire would attend and then know me, but did I even want that?

Wouldn’t it become more of an issue at the Spring of All Life than if my and Kyrae’s status was kept hidden? Either way, it was out of my hands now, and I let my worries slip just a little, just in time for Kyen to finish with my tail.

And I was just getting used to this! I sighed and uncoiled with a stretch, slithering automatically toward the large bath. Kyen gestured me toward a smaller, nearer pool first.

“Rinse, and then enter,” he said.

Instinctively, I recoiled at being told what to do, but… I was covered in oil and he had a point. A quick, surprisingly frigid dip later, and I was finally ready to slide into the immense bath. Kyrae was already in the water, the elf swimming laps around the edge.

I readied for her to splash me when she drew close, but she instead beckoned for me to join her. “I’m already two laps ahead, Issa!”

Hey! Smiling, I coiled up against the end of the ramp and launched myself after my sister. Years of practice in river passages and around Phaeliishia’s estate moved my muscles for me, and I glided through the water.

Kyrae swam differently than a lamia, kicking her legs lithely and turning her head as she alternated arms forward. Rather than all that upper body motion, I tucked my arms against my sides and let my tail do the work, pushing me through the water like an immense version of a tiny river snake.

Despite Kyrae’s best efforts, I passed her quickly. In response, my sister slowed, forming sigils with quick, practiced motions. Moments later, a glowing Kyrae started to catch up, and I had to really push myself, taking in a deep breath and moving under the water, eyes tingling from the heat.

***

“Forgive me for any impropriety, Hssen Ssiina, but you seem… mellower than when I last saw you. And you’ve grown into a fine young woman besides.”

Ssiina cracked one golden eye open to look up at Lissti, pointedly ignoring the splashing coming from the grand bath. Her former nanny’s green-blue eyes were warm—like she hadn’t seen in years—and Ssiina closed her eye again, lest her tears mix with the oil on her face. “I’ve found peace, you could say. You could also say that my sisters have worn me out.”

“And yet you’re smiling.”

“I never said I regretted a second of it.” Ssiina sighed happily. “A little lower.” She shivered down the length of her lower body to her tail tip. “Sister Issa and Sister Kyrae have shown me so much these past years. I am forever grateful to them, even when they make a playground out of this sacred chamber. Besides, is this place’s purpose not to enjoy bathing?”

“It is, but I worry for their discretion and composure in the near future.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry.”

“They are trained well then?”

Ssiina giggled. “Perhaps. But what I meant is that I would not worry for the consequences of their arrival. I would anticipate them, and be ready to revel in their chaos.”

“Hssen Ssiina—”

“I will be joining them, after all. Just because I am the eldest sister does not preclude me from a part in their dalliances.”

“Are you going to race around the baths as well?”

“No.”

“Oh, thank Jaezotl.”

“I must concede that I have already lost.”

Lissti laughed nervously. Ssiina didn’t elaborate, she simply laid on the massage bench wearing a wide lamian smile.

***

When Ssiina joined, she swam a lap with us before coiling into a corner and practicing her sigils. As good sisters, we only splashed her a little every lap. And as a good sister, she finished her spell and inundated us in a wave of water that crashed against a sigil array before falling back inside the bath, not a droplet having escaped. With Kyen’s spell still active, the sound was muffled, and the three of us fell together into a fit of laughter as the two servants looked on, Lissti with concern on her face and Kyen fighting apoplexy with the Empire’s most strained smile.

All too soon, our time came to an end—and we were dried and dressed. Rather than the admittedly-fine clothing we came in with, we wore royal colors of emerald green and the blues and browns of the Greatriver and the Hssyri. The silk that touched my skin tingled with magic, and we were given incredible jewelry: heavy golden necklaces studded with emeralds, simple golden bangles of tail-eating serpents, and fang earrings of white ivory inset each with a single large emerald.

Powders were applied to faces, eyes were highlighted in dark colors, and the three of us were paraded out of the baths via a side exit. A secret side exit that only opened when Kyen completed a hidden sigil nestled amongst the tiles that wrapped the room in a band of color.

Inside, a plain stone hallway lit with magic stretched out to a corner, and Kyen led us forward, Lissti taking up the rear.

“You okay?” Kyrae whispered.

“Yeah.” I whispered back—not that I wouldn’t be heard, but to preserve the heavy silence of the passage. “My face itches, though.”

“Don’t you dare smear it,” Ssiina warned. “You look gorgeous, Sister, and I rarely get to see you so proper.”

“Oh, so you’re not warning me for Aunt Ssyii’s sake?”

“You shouldn’t speak of the Jii’Hssen so informally.”

I bit back a retort. “I’ll… get permission first. That’s what I’ll do!”

Ssiina rolled her eyes.

Next to me, Kyrae squeezed my hand, the gesture warm and familiar. “Thanks, you two. It makes all this a little less terrifying.”

“I’m not scared!” I insisted.

Ssiina hissed. “Issa…”

“What?”

“Think.”

I glanced down at Kyrae, she was small, especially after the last couple of years. And she was an elf among lamia, in a place elves traditionally did not go. She might be the first elf ever to travel this passage.

“Sorry, Kyrae,” was all I could think to say.

“It’s not your fault. Earlier, you were even thinking about it. So… just keep doing that okay—keep thinking about it.”

I nodded solemnly. “I will, Sister.”

Our voices faded and silence reigned for the rest of our short trip, finishing with back-to-back ramps up., and emptying out of a wall into a coiling room. Not just any coiling room, either, but an immense space..

A soft breeze wound its way between the columns that held up the vaulted roof. Domes of green glass and jade rose above, casting purposeful patterns of green light across the white marble floor that shined like polished metal.

Gold filigree wrapped the columns, peeking out from under flowering, fruiting vines that led back into wide, shallow beds of flowers. These beds extended to the edges of the rooms, where taller plants bloomed, vibrant colors bursting against the view beyond. For there were no walls, save for behind us.

Kyrae gripped my hand tighter, and I gripped it right back. This time, Ssiina had my sister’s other hand.

Down below was the confluence of rivers, a clear line of blue into brown visible in the distance, while thin clouds rolled by overhead. Between here and there, a well-manicured garden drew the eyes forward—too orderly to be natural. I could see boats on the river, and I wondered what magic was hiding us from view, for I knew this place could not be seen from either river.

As the others led me into the room, my eyes followed the lines of the garden back up to the plants, over a burbling fountain, and over to a balcony that jutted out and up beyond the room’s edge, cast in green light and covered by a trellis bursting with gold and white blooms.

Under it, coiling for four, lined with soft-looking silk, had been set out around a marble table. To one side, dressed in a soft white robe and adorned with only a simple necklace bearing the symbol of Jaezotl, coiled the Jii’Hssen herself.

Jii’Hssen Ssyii Ssyri’jiilits was a little smaller than I remembered, without the help of her throne. But she was still massive, and she looked almost out of place with her regality shed. She held a tome open with two hands, head bent slightly as she read, flipping a page with a third hand. Her fourth held a goblet, and I watched one of the serpents that made up her hair slither idly toward it, tongue flicking out toward whatever liquid was within. The Jii’Hssen sighed, murmuring something I couldn’t hear, before she used her page-turning hand to flick the errant serpent away.

Unable to help it, I giggled before I could stifle myself. Lissti shot me a look and Kyen paled, having just drawn in breath to announce our presence.

The Jii’Hssen jolted, head snapping our direction, her golden eyes landing directly on mine. The surprise and anxiety I saw in them was swiftly replaced by a practiced cold, which soon melted. “It appears I was a little too engrossed in my reading, and I am sure all of you fared similarly in the baths. Please, join me. And servants? You may bring us the food I requested when it is ready.”

She beckoned us forward, wearing a genuine smile, and my anxiety melted away as I shared relieved glances with both my sisters. I have so much I want to ask.