The view from the great tower has always been splendid.

Rising high above the great city of Eyros, it overlooks the main plaza, all decorated with greenery, water fountains and trees arranged in circles connected by paths.

Beyond the plaza there stands the city’s centrepiece: A vast building, like a cone with the top tapered back and rounded out by a great metal dome. From its balconies and windows cascade green vines and flowering plants. Fresh water runs perpetually down gullies built into the outside, sparing the plants from thirst.

It is the Grand Diet of Adena, the supreme hegemon on the continent of Prille.

Senator Ro Danest looks down at the sun glittering off of shallow pools around the fountains, at young couples splashing each other, old men soaking their sore feet in the cool water, and clasps his hands behind his back. They almost look like insects from up here, he thinks.

He loves this city, and all the people in it. He loves Adena, and all the nations beyond her, who rely on her trade and military strength to keep the peace.

In a short time, he hopes, he will be elected Consul, and become Adena’s spokesperson, her guardian, her guide. He will be the final authority on all matters of state, standing above the House of Citizens, the Learned and Respected House of Philosophers, and lastly, the Senate. He will shape Adena anew.

There comes a knock at the wooden door on the other side of the room.

“Enter,” Danest replies.

Danest turns.

The door opens, and through it steps a young guardsman, clutching a spear in hand. His expression is neutral. As is customary, he rotates the spear such that its tip points at the ground, then bows his head, avoiding eye contact with Danest as a sign of respect.

“Senator Danest, my superior,” the guardsman says. “She has arrived, sir.”

“Excellent,” he says. “Send her in.”

“Senator Danest,” the guardsman says, hesitantly. “Forgive me, my superior, but are you sure this is safe? She has powers of Changing—”

“Your concern is appreciated, guardsman. But I assure you, we have spoken many times prior to this meeting, in ink and paper. All has been arranged. All will be quite safe.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Now, send her in.”

“Yes, sir, my superior, sir.”

The guardsman gives the traditional Adeni salute – the index and middle fingers on the non-dominant hand, placed against the forehead – and turns away, returning the spear to its upright position, and leaves the room. Danest stares after him.

By rights, he is one of the most influential men in all Adena. Their insistence on mollycoddling him so is a constant source of irritation.

The room at the top of the great tower of Danest’s senatorial residence contains a wooden bed with enough room for three people, a table placed off to the side of the bed with a mirror, and a set of cabinets beneath a small table at the bed’s foot.

He walks to the mirror, and ensures he is presentable for the lady.

He is tall, swarthy-skinned and slender, dressed in the smart red-and-green patterned tunic of the National faction of the Diet, with formal linen trousers and wooden-soled sandals. His long, whitish-blond hair is kept from hanging loosely about his shoulders by a set of wooden pins. His lips, on either side of the philtrum, are marked with black vertical stripes of charcoal, signifying his Senatorial prestige.

Danest concludes that his appearance meets all standards of Adeni decorum, and turns back to the window, clasping his hands behind his back. It is considered polite in Adena to meet someone for the first time with one’s back turned, with an understanding that this indicates trust and good faith.

A moment later, there comes a knock at the wooden door.

“Enter,” Danest says.

The door opens, and he hears the sound of wooden soles clapping against the stone floor, coming to rest behind him.

“Senator Danest, my superior,” says a woman’s voice. “I have arrived, sir.”

Danest turns.

She stands with her hands clasped in front of her, her gaze drawn down to the floor. Long, reddish curls fall about her shoulders, like magma from the great volcanoes of Flodico. One of her shoulders is bare, and her light copper skin is freckled like an astronomical map on her flesh.

She is dressed in a beige tunic down to her knees, with a red-gold mantle about her body – most likely the most expensive item of clothing that she owns.

“Cytalis Trelen,” Danest says, as though exhaling a fine perfume. “So kind of you to join me.” He smiles. “You may regard me.”

She looks up, her hazel eyes meeting his blue.

“Thank you, my superior,” she says.

He has corresponded her for some time, this forbidden woman. She has come here to sell him an experience like no other. He has awaited this meeting for months.

Of course, it would be politically disastrous if anyone in the Industrial or Forward factions were to learn what is happening in this moment.

In the Diet, his faction stands for tradition, for the maintenance of Adeni customs, for Adena. The National faction stands for a powerful and influential Adeni state, a strong military that will defend Adeni interests, and for the betterment and moral enrichment of the Adeni people.

Of particular importance is maintaining the traditional marriage of three – two women to one man; one child borne by each woman; then the raising of those children to be good citizens of Adena. The men are the workers and breadwinners, the women are the homemakers and child-rearers. That is Adeni culture.

In that light, what he is doing right now is anathema. It flies in the face of all his outward moral and political values.

Yet, that is precisely what makes it so exhilarating.

Danest treads over to the table at the end of the room, opening a small cabinet and retrieving a bottle, a decanter, and two decoratively-cut glasses.

“So nice to finally meet you,” Danest says. “I’m very excited.”

“It’s an honour to serve you, my superior.”

“Enough of that fuss,” Danest says. “Call me Ro. Wine?”

Cytalis swallows.

“Yes, please, my...Ro.”

Danest stifles a laugh.

“Your Ro,” he says.

“I’m sorry, my superior—!”

“No, no,” Danest says, waving his hand. “I just thought it was funny.”

He grips one of the glasses and passes it to Cytalis, who accepts it gingerly.

“A very good year,” he says, idly. “I don’t suppose you find much wine like this in the New Village.”

The New Village is a relatively recent area of the city, built to accommodate foreign labour in the factories, dockyards and other industrial areas. Cytalis is an Adeni, but he can tell from her dress that she is not a wealthy Eyrosi.

“No,” Cytalis says. “It’s mainly ales down there, and some spirits.”

“Then drink as a queen,” Danest chortles. The word is still close to a profanity, even a century after the establishment of the Republic.

Cytalis looks down at the reddish liquid in her glass, brings it to her lips and sips. Such full lips, Danest thinks.

“It’s good wine,” Cytalis says.

“As I say,” Danest replies. “A good year.”

Cytalis smiles politely.

“So, is it true?” Danest asks. “Are you gifted with the Changing?”

Cytalis’s eyes flit to the wall, then back to Danest, as she takes another long sip of the wine.

“Yes,” she replies, succinctly. “I wouldn’t lie to you about such a thing.”

“Only about one in thirty people can do it, if I recall my studies correctly.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Cytalis says. “I only know that I’ve been able to do it for many years.”

Danest chuckles lightly and tries to regard Cytalis in a way that doesn’t seem to be leering.

“But not many use your gift for the same purpose as you. You’re special.”

Meeting Danest’s gaze once more, Cytalis brings the glass away from her lips.

Turning away from him, she sets the glass down on the table at the foot of the bed. Running her fingers through her hair, she unclasps a small, unembellished, functional brooch at her right shoulder and removes the mantle, folding it neatly and laying it on the bed.

“There are some things I can and cannot do for you, Ro,” she says, firmly.

“Of course,” Danest says. “I would not ask you to go beyond your limits, Cytalis.”

“I will not make you so small that I lose track of you,” Cytalis says, removing her sandals. “I will not do anything that will cause you to die, even if you ask me for it.”

“Of course,” Danest says. “I have ambitions that go beyond this room, you know.”

“The Changing will last no longer than an hour,” Cytalis continues. “In that time, you will not address me as Cytalis, but with any name you see fit. In turn, I will do the same for you. If at any point in the next hour you need to stop, use one of the words we agreed in our correspondence, or strike my skin three times. I will stop at once. Is all that clear?”

“Yes,” Danest says, taking another sip of the wine. “I see you are quite thorough about safety.”

“The last thing I’d want to do is put you in danger, Ro. In here, you are not a Senator of the Grand Diet of Adena. You are my client, and I have a basic duty of care to my clients.”

“Much appreciated,” Danest says. “Should I undress?”

“If you like,” Cytalis says, smiling coquettishly. “Though, I can make the Changing affect you alone, and not your attire.”

Danest grins, feeling blood rise to his cheeks.

“Then do it that way.”

“As you wish, Ro Danest.”

Her irises begin to glow faintly from behind, as if lit by candlelight.

Immediately, Danest feels something shift. A slight tingle in his feet, a restlessness in his legs and arms, a strange quivering in his chest and shoulders, an itch in his head. It is as though his body is resisting the Changing. He has been assured many times that this is perfectly natural.

He steadies himself against a bedpost, feeling his clothes loosening, and gazes at Cytalis, who has begun to undress herself, slipping her constellation-covered skin out from the off-white flaxen fabric.

Gripping her tunic in both hands, she removes it, leaving her bare skin open to the golden sunlight that pours in through the window. She places her hand on her hip and gazes back at Danest.

“The Changing has begun,” she says. “This should be fun.”

Danest is now at waist height to Cytalis, and is staring up at her, admiring her. Her bare legs are strong and well-worked, like many of the legs in the New Village, where the workers are on their feet most of the time, lifting and carrying heavy crates and operating machinery.

Her feet are veined, long-toed, unadorned. They are not like the feet of Senators’ wives, patterned with pigments, the toenails long and varnished, with rings on every other toe. Yet, Danest finds them beautiful in their simplicity. The feet of a working woman, on display for him.

Determined to drink in the sight of her, he stares up at her face, which looks back at him coyly, curiously. She walks around him just as he reaches the height of her knees, giving him a view of her buttocks, before seating herself on the bed, placing her chin in her upturned palms, allowing her breasts to hang freely over her belly.

The feeling fades, and as he extricates himself from a mass of heavy fabric that mere minutes ago clothed him, Danest finds himself merely ankle-high to a giantess.

“Well?” Cytalis says, curling her lip. “What name do you think fits me?”

He is in awe of her. He has never undergone Changing like this before, and the words cannot seem to find their way to his mouth.

The pins that held his hair in place now lie beside him, two-thirds the length of his body, and his light hair hangs down around his waist. In Adeni culture, this is a considerable transgression; it betrays a kind of slovenliness and carelessness about appearance that reads as low-class. It is, in a word, degrading.

A long, powerful leg stretches out towards him, and to his amazement, a toe about as thick as his torso prods him lightly on the belly.

“I asked you a question, little Ro. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Danest swallows.

“Goddess,” he says.

Cytalis smiles. And in that moment, he is truly staring at the visage of a goddess.

“Insect,” she responds.

Danest finds himself falling to his knees. He hadn’t quite expected the Changing to feel like this.

He, a high-ranking Senator, now an insect to a woman of the New Village, a woman who, in other circumstances, would not even be allowed to make eye contact with him, let alone refer to him in such a manner.

He likes it.

He feels his penis begin to stiffen between his legs, and almost unconsciously passes a hand in front of it, trying to hide it from the omniscient gaze of this goddess that looks down upon him. But she sees him, and her lip curls once again.

“Someone’s excited,” she says. “I can’t say I blame you. At this size, I tend to have that effect on people.”

Danest’s face is hot, so hot that he begins perspiring, beads of sweat pouring from his scalp and down his face. She is so powerful, so much greater than he, she could destroy him with a moment’s impulse. Part of him is screaming to abandon his political ambitions, accept his new place beneath her. The other is telling him that this is his penis doing the thinking for him.

In either case, his penis rises, twitching, and from it drips thick, clear pre-ejaculate, which splashes on the ground in tiny spots.

“You’re making a mess of the floor,” the goddess teases. “Well, you would be, if you were bigger.”

“Please, Goddess,” Danest says, abruptly. “I can’t stand it any more. Do what you want with me.”

She looks away a moment, as though in thought, then back at him.

“You’re going to regret saying that, insect.”

And before Danest can say another word, a hand, her hand, is reaching for him. These fingers, unbejewelled, these nails, unpolished. And as the fingers coil around his tiny, naked form, he feels her pulse in her palm. Is she as excited as he is? Her pulse would seem to betray this fact, but the deft movement of her hand, as she brings him up level with her eyes, pretends a kind of aloofness.

“You’re all so very sweet when you’re like this,” she remarks, adoringly, as though holding an infant animal.

Her thumb brushes gently along his chest and belly, stopping just short of his erect penis, which pokes out from between her middle and ring fingers like an obscenity in an otherwise chaste tableau.

She brings him close to her face, and he stares into her dilated black pupil, large enough now that he can see the individual muscle fibrils in her iris, which seem to stir as he meets her vast, almost oppressive gaze.

Her hot breath is buffeting against his flesh. It smells of wine, spice, and the other half, the world outside all these dusty corridors, discussions, division bells and committees. It smells of a life of labour, of a life lived where money is essential, not an abstract ticket to luxury, recalls her strong legs and firm buttocks. It smells of everything beyond that which he knows.

In that moment, he succumbs, fully gives in to her, allows her to possess him. He ceases to be Danest, and becomes a toy, an amusement, a thing in her hand with no independent will.

Sensing this, her lips part.

She wraps them around the tip, and involuntarily, his back arches as he tries to find purchase. Bolts explode through his nerves, earthquake shocks. He becomes himself, then not-himself, subject, then object, passive, then active. Somewhere in this oscillation is a unity that can be called Ro Danest.

Then, with a movement precise and practised, she pushes him into her, and her tongue laps softly at the underside of his shaft, coaxing more pearls on to her tongue.

Here he is, somewhere between mortal terror and overwhelming pleasure. She has made him hers, and he is aware now of where he is.

This, these lips, these teeth, this tongue, is the entrance of her. This is where she eats, this is where she breathes, this is where she speaks. If the desire took her, could she not make him hers forever, take him into her body, to nourish herself with the would-be Consul of Adena?

No, he thinks, banishing the thought. She wouldn’t do that. A goddess she may be, but only for a short time. The State is far, far greater than she, and should she give into her temptation, the supreme violence of every punitive power in Adena will be visited upon her, like a marauding spirit of vengeance.

In this moment, he belongs to her. But she cannot, will not devour him. For this is a mortal goddess, flesh and blood entire.

But what flesh and blood it is.

And her lips draw back and forth, back and forth. He moans softly, bucking against her hand, as though trying to wrest control, but she re-asserts herself, tightening her grip just slightly, sucking on him like a piece of confectionery. He tries half-heartedly to resist, to draw out this moment into an eternity, but to no avail. She has defeated him, conquered him.

At last, she obtains her prize, and with a soft moan, he orgasms, giving her all he can give, until, finally, he collapses against her thumb, exhausted.

“Oh, Goddess,” he is murmuring, so quietly he is sure she can’t hear him. “Oh, fuck...”

She brings him away from her mouth, wiping her lip, and swallows the meagre offering softly.

His skin is so sensitive that her grip around him feels like fire licking at him. She draws him to her lips once more, and plants a kiss upon his chest, then another on his back.

“That was wonderful,” she whispers, in a way that makes all the hairs on his arms and legs stand on edge. “You’re very good.”

Danest shudders in her hand, then manages to get out the word: “Gidarin.”

She sets him down on the ground, and he looks up at her, her eyes once again glowing faintly.

The tingling feeling returns, but this time, there is no resistance. It is the difference between pulling a wagon uphill and rolling it downhill. The Changing is restoring him, bringing him back home. In minutes, he is Senator Ro Danest once more.

“Are you alright?” Cytalis asks. “You used the stopping word.”

“Yes,” Danest says, a little uncertainly. “I just...wasn’t expecting it to be that intense. You were great, though.”

“First times are always difficult,” Cytalis says. “I am Cytalis once again. Do you need anything from me?”

“Was it true, what you said?” Danest asks. “Was I good?”

“Of course,” Cytalis replies. “I enjoyed myself. What about you?”

“Yes…” Danest says, trailing off. “…I am just not used to being so...vulnerable.”

Cytalis heaves herself off the bed and on to the wooden floor with Danest, placing her hands on his shoulders, pressing her thumbs into his back. Minutes ago, one of those hands held the balance of his life. Now it is pressing knots out of his muscles.

“It can be a frightening and intense experience,” she says, soothingly. “Being so small, in thrall to someone else. I understand. But we’re two people once again. You, Senator Ro Danest, and I…”

“Cytalis, of the New Village,” Danest says. “Thank you, Cytalis. You were everything our correspondence promised. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“You too, Ro,” Cytalis replies.

Hastily, she adds: “My superior.”

*

The Grand Diet is visible from most parts of the New Village.

It looms, a great colossus. The New Village exists, quite literally, in its shadow, particularly during the winter months, when the Sun never gets higher than twenty degrees in the sky. The streets are always shades of brown and orange, lit by the yellow flame of gas-lamps, tingeing everything in earth-tones.

And yet, it’s home.

Cytalis finds her way back through the streets, hoping that the jingling of coins in the small leather pouch she keeps concealed in her mantle doesn’t attract undue attention. She kept her face hidden as far as Ubravit Square, the main interstice between the Old City and the New Village. Couldn’t let anyone see.

She passes boarded-up shop windows. Former boutiques, grocers and emporia, now closed down. Some still have the remnants of mannequins in their windows, hastily-painted signs that read “CLOSING DOWN SALE – EVERYTHING MUST GO”. The death rattle of commerce in dead and empty streets.

The only places where any significant patronage is to be seen are the bars and taverns, where various working men drink tankards of ale, though even that gets less and less cheap by the day.

As she passes through the main square, she sees a small crowd gathered around the district notice board, and goes to see what the hubbub is about.

“What’s going on?” she asks another woman, standing on the outer edges of the crowd.

“New rules coming in from next week,” the woman says, gravely. “Sounds like they’re going to ban unlicensed Changing within Adeni borders...”

“What?”

“Something about keeping people safe...”

It’s blatant discrimination, Cytalis thinks. But what can anyone do? The High Court is held 5-3 by the Nationals, plus they hold the Senate and the House of Philosophers. No real way of challenging it.

“Damn,” she says.

“Anyway,” the woman says, trying to sound cheerful. “Lots to do. Best be going.”

“Likewise.”

Cytalis moves along, cutting down a side-road under a brick archway, and sees a man with a brush sticking a poster to a board.

A man and two women dressed in traditional Adeni clothing, with two smiling children on either woman’s lap. Above and below, a caption in stark white lettering:

DECENCY AND DECORUM IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR NATIONAL HEALTH

OBSERVE RESPECTABLE DRESS AND PROPER SPEECH IN PUBLIC

FOR THE GOOD OF ADENA

- A MESSAGE FROM THE CULTURAL MINISTRY

She scowls, turning the corner.

She finds a man standing outside her house. His name is Teb Godost. He is her landlord.

“Teb,” she says. “I’ve got your money, so there’s no need to break the door down and take my shit.”

“Twelve frintac,” Teb says, gruffly.

“Twelve?”

“Aye, twelve. Ten backdated for last month, plus two extra.”

“Shit, Teb. I only just made twenty.”

“Then you should pay your fucking rent on time. Twelve frintac.”

Cytalis reaches into her mantle and retrieves the pouch, removing from it six golden-coloured discs, and presses them into Teb’s hand.

“Keep the change,” she says, glibly.

“I’ll need four more next week,” Teb retorts, pocketing the coins.

“What? Why?”

“Diet’s making some changes to the tax system, and I’m getting screwed. I have mortgages to pay off on places like this, y’know. So your rent’s going up.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Read your contract, sweetheart.”

Teb grins smugly and walks away.

Cytalis angrily fumbles with the key in the lock, then enters her home, a room in a very small two-storey townhouse. She climbs the stairs and, entering her bedroom, practically falls into bed, burying her face in her pillow.

Twenty frintac, twenty frintac that was going to feed her for two weeks, and now she has but eight left, four of which already belong to Teb Godost. Four frintac. How is she meant to survive on four frintac?

How is anyone in the New Village meant to survive on the shit they’re paid?

She thinks once again of Ro Danest. If anyone were to find out what happened between her and the favourite for the Consulship, she’d be pilloried for it. Nobody here likes the Nationals, but their votes don’t count for anything.

Life in the Village gets harder and harder, and the denizens of the Old City just get richer and richer.

Some goddess I am.

She rolls over, gazing out of the window at the pink evening sky. There, looming over the tops of the houses, is a tall tower, overlooking the city.

As her gaze meets that of the high window, she swears that she sees him looking down at her.

---

End of part one

Night in Eyros looks so quiet from above.

Dim, twinkling lights from windows, the wavering light of gas-lamps on quiet streets. It’s a clear night, and the moons are in crescent phase. Constellations twinkle in the firmament as if mirroring the tableau below the great tower.

Danest turns from the window and walks to the door, opening it.

In the stairwell, he hears the sound of clinking glass.

It has taken the strength of four men to heft the crate up the stairs. The tower was ostentatiously designed for a long-dead King of Adena some centuries ago, never intended to serve a practical purpose. As such, there exists no system for getting objects up the tower but sheer manpower, and the long stone stairs.

The men grunt and sweat as they reach the last few steps, all of them terrified to lose their grip. To cause such an inconvenience to such a respected Senator as Ro Danest would mean social embarrassment. Adeni workmen do not play games when it comes to their betters.

When, at last, they reach the top, they steadily march their way in through the arched stone doorway, kindly left open by their master, setting the crate down carefully with a soft thump.

“Well met, gentlemen,” Danest says, his back to his charges. “And very fine work, too.”

“Thank you, my superior, sir,” says the foreman.

Danest turns.

The foreman is a stocky man with a heavy brow and curled red hair. He is wearing a leather tunic, and there is the barest hint of a tremor as Danest gazes upon him. The senator is smaller and slighter than him, and yet, the most powerful man in this room. He almost forgets to avert his gaze, but looks away.

The men behind him avert their gazes also, and stand with their palms turned away from Danest. This is what is considered polite in Adena: for a worker to face his employer with his palms facing him, or worse, upturned, implies that the work was only undertaken with the expectation of reward.

In Adena, work is undertaken, first and foremost, for moral and spiritual fulfillment, not remuneration. Yes, there are laws setting minimum wage and maximum hours, but these are mere formalities. They do not override the careful balance of customs and etiquette that form the foundations of Adeni culture.

Danest smiles magnanimously, then ambles over to a small coffer on his dressing-table, opening it and removing several objects from it. He approaches the workers, who are only now permitted to turn up their palms.

Into each hand, he presses two coins, the obverse bearing the profile of Elb Presteyn, the first Consul of Adena, who took power after the Grand Overthrow of the Old Kingdom, two centuries prior.

“Two frintac for each of you. That’s eight frintac in total, gentlemen. Please, have an ale on me.”

“Aye, sir, my superior, sir,” the foreman says, bowing. “Thank you, my superior, sir.”

“Much obliged,” Danest replies. “Now, please, good sirs, leave me to my chambers. I must inspect the delivery in private.”

The men seem puzzled by this, but all are too terrified of Danest’s wrath to say anything, and quickly depart, back down the long stone staircase to the streets below.

Danest closes the wooden door behind them and bolts it shut, then walks over to a set of drawers, retrieving from it a tool: a large metal bar with a tapered end. He brings the tool over to the crate and wedges the tapered end into the gap between the lid and the frame, and with the weight of his body, levers it open with a loud crunch of wood and yielding nails.

Danest steps around the crate and crouches down, peering at the contents within.

Twenty bottles of Flodican wine, and a woman with reddish hair, barefoot and dressed in simple clothing.

“Well, well,” Cytalis Trelen says. “Fancy meeting you here, Senator.”

“My apologies,” Danest says, offering her a hand. “I do hope you understand – the election is not far off, now, and I simply cannot be seen doing anything that my opponents might use against me. I do appreciate your coming here, really, I do.”

“I understand,” Cytalis says, taking his hand and standing up. “You’re a politician, Ro. You have a reputation to uphold. The work we do here stays between you and me. You’ve no need to explain yourself.”

“Thank you, Cytalis,” Danest replies, allowing himself to relax.

He grabs a bottle that was dislodged from the crate as Cytalis climbed out, grabs a corkscrew and pops the bottle open, sniffing the neck.

“Meadowflowers and olefory wood,” he remarks. “Will you take a glass?”

“If you’re offering,” Cytalis replies. “I can’t say we get much in the way of fine wine down in the New Village.”

“No, I shouldn’t imagine you do.”

Danest fetches two crystal glasses from a cabinet and pours out two glasses of rich, amber-coloured liquid, offering one to his mistress. She takes it gingerly and goes to sip it.

“Ah-ah,” Danest utters, gently admonishing her. “Don’t just gulp it down. Smell it, first.”

Cytalis looks at him, then down at the glass. She holds it to her nose and sniffs.

“Mm,” she says. “Reminds me of perfume...and the woods.”

Danest nods.

“This particular wine is matured for ten years in a barrel made of greenwood, then five in a barrel made of olefory. It imparts a robustness, a richness to the wine’s palate. Take a sip.”

Cytalis does so.

“Now, don’t swallow it,” Danest says. “Hold it on your tongue for just a moment.”

She raises an eyebrow, hollowing her cheeks to hold the wine in place.

“Okay, now you may swallow,” Danest says. “What do you think?”

She licks her lips and smacks them a couple of times.

“I think I see what you mean,” she says. “It’s definitely not like any wine I’ve ever tasted. Much more...complex? Is that the word?”

“You know your terminology,” Danest replies, smiling. “What do you think?”

“I want to say...earthy?”

“Hmm, more nutty, I’d say,” Danest says, trying not to sound like a schoolmaster chiding a student. “It starts very floral, like wild hiding-petal and field-star, then the greenwood comes in. After that, you start to taste something like dried fruit and caramel, and the finish is like roasted milknuts. That’s the olefory.”

“Well, you certainly know from wine,” Cytalis says.

Danest laughs.

“Comes with my station, I suppose. Men of wealth and status need to know such things.”

Cytalis smiles slightly. She sips the wine again.

And her eyes begin to glow.

“Are you starting already?” Danest asks.

“But of course,” Cytalis says. “What can I say? You’ve got me in the mood.”

That strange feeling is back again, like someone is stretching him inwards to his core.

“That’s not a problem, is it?” she asks.

“Well, no, but—”

“Then relax, my superior.”

In the months they’ve been seeing each other, Cytalis has stopped referring to Danest as “my superior” as a matter of custom. Were someone else to find out, it would be considered highly unorthodox at best, a serious breach of the Adeni social contract at worst. And yet, Danest trusts her with with his secret persuasions. There is a piece of him that belongs to her and nobody else.

He watches her undress herself, unveiling once again that muscled body of a working woman, the sort of body you will never see in the Old City. As he dwindles, the wooden pins fall out of his hair, clattering to the ground with soft tok-tok sounds. That sound has almost become an hypnotic cue for him, a sign that he is leaving the world of high politics, culture and cuisine, and entering a base world, a world outside society, one where he is free to be someone else – to be hers.

He has, in this time, got the knack for untangling himself from the crumpled canopy that is his political dress. In seconds, he’s sitting, small and nude, atop the debased fabrics, gazing up at her, looming before him like a great stone monolith. After a few moments, she returns his gaze, looking down at him disdainfully, haughtily, yet with some traces of affection and warmth.

In this expression, he knows that, while she may not have physically transformed, she has become someone else, assumed her role in this night-play, becoming, yes, his Goddess.

She stands resolute, holding her glass of wine by the stem, the top of her right foot against the back of her left calf, leaning against the dresser.

“Come here, insect,” she says.

She crouches down and extends the upturned palm of her left hand to him, and he, in turn, obeys without question. It feels good to obey her commands.

He scampers over and gives himself over to the warm palm of her hand, and she lifts him so effortlessly that it is dizzying.

With skilful movement, she pushes him on to his back, and then coils her fingers around him, until she has him gripped in a fist. In her other hand, she holds the stem of the wine glass delicately. The contrast is obvious.

“You know, I had a wonderful idea on the way up here,” she says, holding him up to eyes large enough that it almost seems her pupils could swallow his whole head. “But I wasn’t going to say anything unless you opened up a bottle.”

He looks back at her.

“What did you have in mind, goddess?”

With her thumb, she strokes his head, ruffling the hair that is hanging around his shoulders dishonorably.

“You’re a sweet little thing,” she says, smiling. “I don’t even have to correct you about my proper name any more.”

“I’ve...learned, goddess.”

“That you have, insect. That you have.”

Swiftly, she takes him and dangles him by the leg. She turns him and plants a soft kiss on his bare back. He shudders, feeling his penis twitch between his legs.

Then, without another word, she draws him over to the rim of the glass in her right hand, and lets go.

What must sound like a tiny plop to her sounds like the crashing of ocean waves to him.

Spluttering, he thrashes in the glass, finding that it comes about up to his nipples, but the rounded bottom keeps him from finding any footing. He realises with some terror and excitement that he’s at risk of drowning in wine.

Nevertheless, he scrambles for the lip of the glass and heaves himself up, keeping himself from slipping back beneath the surface by hooking his arms over the side.

“What a lovely garnish you make,” she says.

“Thank you, goddess,” he chokes.

She smiles coyly.

The glass begins to tip.

“Wh-what are you doing?!” he stammers, gravity seeming almost to shift as he scrambles against the glass’s edge.

Her mouth opens, and frantically, he begins to swim away from her. But swim where? The bottom of the rapidly draining glass?

The glass touches her lips, and as she sips, she sucks, and within seconds, his lower body has slipped into her mouth. Her lips close around him, and he feels the sharp edges of her teeth, like rocks in a cavern. She could bite him in half if she wanted to. Yet, she holds him here like this. It is by her grace and mercy that he, in this moment, can continue to live.

The warmth of her tongue shifts and clicks, pushing out air bubbles that pop against his skin. She is pushing his penis into his belly. Something else moves, and he hears something like a length of rope in a dockyard tightening. He realises it’s the sound of her jaw muscles working around him, her lips curling into a devious smile.

With a slight movement she sucks him completely in.

He’s inside her body, now. He is terrified. He is aroused. Something in him reverts to a prey animal. Were she to swig the wine now, move her tongue in such a way, he could slip down past her tonsils and vanish forever in her belly, left to putresce like a lump of meat.

From the aperture of her lips, he sees light shining off the top and bottom rows of front teeth, the slight protrusion and gap in her upper two incisors, an imperfect bottom incisor that has grown in at an angle. He is in a mouth. By Adena, he is in a mouth!

Wasting no time, he strikes her tongue three times, and immediately finds himself projected into a hand, dripping in wine-scented spit.

“Everything alright?” she asks, genuinely concerned. He is looking into the kindly face of Cytalis, not the cruel face of the goddess she inhabits.

“Yes,” Danest says, sitting up. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”

“Would you like to carry on?”

“Yes,” he says.

Without hesitation, the goddess sets down her glass of wine, clutching Danest tightly in her fist. She reaches down for Danest’s fine National tunic and wipes her mouth with it, but offers no such grace to him. She leaves him wet with her spit, coated in her essence.

She sits herself on the bed, and then reclines, drawing up her right leg into an arch and letting her left dangle off the edge, and holds Danest in her fist, such that he is looking down at her.

“Now, insect. I want you to tell me how I look.”

He gazes at her, at the living landscape of her body. The muscle that ripples under her freckled skin, at her pink lips, her straight nose, the slight misalignment of her front teeth, the clavicles that protrude from her upper chest just above her breasts, and her hazel eyes, which stare back at him, demanding an answer.

“You are beautiful, goddess,” he says. “Beautiful beyond comparison. I live to worship you. I live to worship your body. You possess something no other woman possesses. I don’t know if I’d be able to live without you. You are the empress of my world. I want to be yours, forever and ever.”

She smiles, bringing him up to her lips, and kisses him.

“Good boy,” she purrs.

She drops him on to her chest. Beneath him, he can hear the working of her heart, loud as machinery. His penis is hard, tumescent. It prods his belly as he lies, looking up at the ceiling beams from the crevice between her breasts. They appear out of focus. He is so small that the mere rafters in the ceiling are as distant as celestial spheres.

He sits up, and watches as a hand heavier than a ship soars past at seemingly impossible speed, and comes to rest between her legs. The movement of muscle in her shoulders makes a sound like thunder rolling over distant hills.

He turns, and meets her eyes, and her face, flushed red with arousal, beads of sweat appearing on her forehead.

“Worship me,” she whispers.

Before he even knows himself, he finds that he is planting his lips on her skin. How soft and yielding, and yet how powerful. He crawls the meadow of her stomach, the muscle of her abdomen tensing under his feet. He kneels, kisses there, too.

He wants her. Wants all of her. Wishes to possess her, tame her.

Make her his concubine, like the kings of old; his worship and her divine revelation, reserved for each other, for ever. All this flesh, this perfect, living flesh.

Let it be his. He would give up everything, if it could only be his.

He comes to rest just before the small mound at the base of her trunk, between her legs, where curled red hairs sprout from her skin like a small garden. Her vast hand is moving rhythmically.

She is masturbating. Just at the minuscule weight of him, making tiny depressions in her flesh. At the knowledge that he is adoring her body, at the fact that he sees her as the goddess she truly is. In this moment, she is his, as much as he is hers.

He drops to his knees and masturbates with her, keeping time with all the care of a musician. He yields to her movements, syncopates. The gyrations of her own body move his hand back and forth along his shaft. His hands are sticky-sweet with wine and her saliva, and he doesn’t care.

Right now, he is not Senator Ro Danest, favourite to be Consul of Adena.

He is merely a nameless insect. A squirming thing, that exists for the amusement of immortal Woman.

Forgive me, Adena, he thinks. If this moment could last forever, he would betray this nation a thousand times over.

Yes, yes, yes—!

Hot semen runs between his fingers, and above him, he hears the goddess exhale a soft moan. Before him, the enormous hand ascends like a sunrise.

Its fingers are sparkling with thick, whitish strands.

An earthquake of warm flesh shivers beneath him, and he collapses on to his back, glowing, warm.

Then only silence.

It seems like hours pass, but it is probably only minutes, before she peels him from her skin.

“Well, insect,” she says, breathing heavily. “I’d like to think you enjoyed that.”

And without either of them uttering a word, she cleans him with her tongue. When he is sufficiently soaked, she gently places him between her breasts once more, placing a hand on top of him, and running a thumb along his back.

Surrounded by her heartbeat, her flesh, her touch, her embrace, he feels a peace that he has never before felt. Within minutes, he finds himself drifting off to sleep. In the morning, he will awake, and he will have to be Ro Danest once again.

But not right now.

Right now, he is her adoring little insect, and she is his world.

And that is all that matters.

*

The splinter in her thumb took two weeks to heal.

It was tricky, getting out of there without being noticed. Cytalis had to clean and dress herself, then climb back into the crate. Danest had arranged it with a different courier, claimed it was an important item that had to be down in the dockyard by midday the next day.

The men came, nailed the crate shut, and carried her out, and she arrived in the dockyard a little before noon. A trusted handler opened the crate, letting her out. She never said a word to him. She went home, having slept hardly a wink.

Eyros was built on the meander in a river. From its founding, the city has been a major shipping port and naval garrison. Indeed, there still exists a system of complicated canals and locks, built in the time of the Old Kingdom, forming a level harbour lined with lifting machines and warehouses.

For her day-job, Cytalis, as many who live in the New Village, works on the docks. She hauls crates and barrels off of barges, emptying them and inventorying their contents.

It doesn’t pay well. Much of what they bring in goes to the Old City: Wooden furniture with carven patterns and designs; the most beautiful gas-lamps, made from fine coloured glass and shiny metal; perfumes from distant Adeni possessions. All things she will never be able to afford. She resents that, resents that so much of this world remains inaccessible to her.

It’s a market day. She has one day off per week, in accordance with Adeni labour law, and she is spending that day shopping for necessities, so that she will be able to eat during the working week.

The marketplace is located in Terlos Square. It’s wide, canopied in translucent cloths of different colours, casting coloured lights on the hawkers and patrons below.

Cytalis casts her eye over a table arrayed with vegetables of every colour and type: roots, stalks, leaves, shoots. A small selection of these, boiled in water with a broth made from leftover bones, will provide her with hearty evening meals for the next week. She cannot afford variety, only energy density.

She asks the vendor for a selection of each. She pays, and he hands her a paper bag filled with vegetables, which she lays at the bottom of a wicker basket hanging from her arm. Her biceps ache, and she can feel every bruise in the soles of her feet as her sandals press into the cobbled ground.

Next is the baker’s stall. On one end is a selection of cakes and pastries. She considers getting one, but she doesn’t have much money left.

She instead examines the breads, and picks out her usual wholegrass loaf. It has a dark brown crust and greenish crumb, made from whole kernels of graingrass. That’s breakfast and lunch for a week or so. Possibly suppers, too, if she can make it stretch that far. The trick is to slice it thin.

“One terac,” the vendor says.

“A terac?” Cytalis replies. “Wasn’t it a couple of droac last week?”

“Sorry, love. Bit of a flour shortage at the mo’. Got to keep the bakery open somehow.”

Begrudgingly, she reaches into her coin purse and retrieves a terac, which she hands to the man. He inspects the coin for a few seconds – a flat, yellow disc – and, satisfied, nods.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he says.

She leaves Terlos Square shortly afterwards. She plans to fill up the pantry, then spend the remainder of the day in bed, trying to rest her tired bones until she goes back to the docks tomorrow morning.

To get back home, she has to walk down Presteyn Street, the main thoroughfare. It was once used for driving livestock up to Terlos Square from the harbour, where they would be sold to abattoirs. It’s now the New Village’s busiest street, often crowded with people and carriages.

Drunkards and tramps mill about around the disreputable watering holes and beer halls. Further along, the pick-pockets and swindlers do their trade, stealing from those who already have nothing.

Today, there is noise on Presteyn. A crowd has formed outside the Guildhall of Stevedores, Longshoremen and Dockworkers. The Industrial faction have a presence at the Guildhall, being the preferred faction of many manual labourers.

There are people holding placards and chanting slogans. Like her, their skins are swarthy and tanned from working out of doors all day, and their muscles bulge through their tunics.

“Brothers! Sisters!” shouts a bearded syndic. He is wearing a brown tunic, clearly resewn and patched up many times. “The dock bosses are refusing to increase wages, even with prices going up! Is our work worth less?”

“NO!” roars the crowd.

“Will we work longer hours for less pay?”

“NO!”

“Will we stand for this?”

“NO!”

Cytalis finds herself joining in with the shout. This makes her feel guilty. She is only tangentially associated with the Guildhall; you have to be member of the Guild to work on most of the docks.

“Don’t let their threats and promises break your principles!” the syndic shouts. “The Nationals are set to win the Diet. Senator Ro Danest is pegged for the consulship! Do we think wages will improve under his leadership?”

“NO!”

“The time has now come for us to prepare, O my brothers and sisters!” the syndic bellows. “Join the Guildhall now! Vote Industrial! Close the port!”

“CLOSE THE PORT!”

A sound blares from behind them. Cytalis turns.

Men in the blue-and-white tunics of the Eyrosi constabulary are walking towards the crowd, wearing the traditional black leather coif with a feather protruding from the top. Among them is a man carrying a curved horn, made from polished bone.

“Right, then, right, then!” one of them shouts, the epaulettes on his tunic signifying his seniority. “This unauthorised assembly is ordered to disperse!”

“By what law?” someone shouts.

“Hear me!” the senior constable shouts. “Political subversion in the lead-up to an election is to be considered an attempt to unduly influence voters. All Guilds were warned! You are once again ordered to disperse!”

“That’s no law I’ve ever heard of!” the syndic shouts.

“That’s no concern of mine, sir!”

“Fuck off!” someone else shouts. The crowd begins to jeer. The anger is now palpable.

“This is your final warning!” the senior constable barks. “If you will not disperse, we shall use force!”

A glass bottle sails through the air and strikes one of the constables on the head. He goes down with a cry of pain, and before Cytalis knows what’s happening, there is a torrent of violence flying around her. It’s not long before the constables have grasped their wooden batons, and every few seconds, it seems, there’s the soft thunk of wood hitting bone and muscle.

She grasps her basket tight to her, tries to weave her way out of the tumult, but only finds herself blocked in. A constable walks towards her, grinning. She tries to tell him that she’s leaving, she needs to get home, but in seconds, he’s swinging the baton at her.

He’s enjoying this.

His baton comes down on her basket, knocking it from her hands, scattering its contents on the pavement. As she instinctively goes to save what she can, the constable raises his baton again.

“Get away from her, blackguard!”

She looks up. The bearded syndic is holding a plank of wood. He swings it at the constable, and it cracks into the man’s jaw, knocking him to the ground.

Cytalis frantically grabs her items and tries to find her way out of the melee, but she’s stopped by a shout. She turns. The syndic is shouting for help. Where did all these constables come from? He’s holding the plank aloft, swinging it wildly, but the constables are bearing down on him.

The wood falls from his hands, and the constables go to work on him in a dreadful pell-mell. Five at first, then ten, then fifteen of them, all bringing their batons down on his body. His wide chest takes more blows than any man can bear. She cannot help but stand by helplessly as the thuds come and come, and his cries get quieter and quieter.

It seems that hours pass, and when they finish with him, the constables step back, laughing and jeering, to survey their work.

Cytalis gasps and covers her mouth.

The syndic is left almost unrecognisable. His face is disfigured, black and blue, and one of his eyes, swollen shut, weeps blood. Two constables hook their arms under his, lifting him.

As they do, he purses his lips and spits blood on the ground. In the blood, Cytalis sees white fragments, and knows at once that they have smashed his teeth.

The man groans softly. His tunic is torn and tattered. His muscles, broad and well-kept, now seem almost wasted. His broad back, a back that could carry the whole world, seems crumpled, concaved. He cannot walk. They drag him away.

Cytalis doesn’t quite know how she makes it home. Her feet carry her away from there faster than she can dither.

She comes to as she enters, locking the door behind her.

The constabulary has never been so emboldened.

She has seen the future, and it is Ro Danest.

---

End of part two

Months pass. The seasons march on.

They hold the elections in early summer, and by midsummer, the Diet has declared the new Consul. By mid-autumn, with the trees shedding their leaves, Adena has changed. Walls are adorned with murals and slogans.

There is a heavy constabulary presence throughout the New Village. Someone beats a man to death in broad daylight for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. Bystanders and lawmen alike do nothing.

And as wages stagnate, crime rises.

News comes of a young woman, stabbed in the neck for a pocketful of frintac. Not even enough to pay for a week’s eating. They wash the blood from the cobblestones and bury her, and it’s as though she never existed.

The Old City views those who live in the New Village as an abstraction, not people who have hopes. To the wealthy, they are but pairs of hands, ill-mannered people who wouldn’t know what to do with wealth even if they had it.

In this way, they can tell themselves that they are justified in their perpetuation of this system.

And now it is winter.

Cytalis Trelen can see her breath on the frigid air, wrapped as best she can in a cheap coat of coarse hair. But the cold finds places to reach in with its thin, bony fingers, and with every gust of wind she feels another pang as her skin braces against the cold. She has struggled to afford firewood, let alone gas. Thus, she lives her life cocooned.

The twin crescent moons hang together in the sky like two eyes closed in silent mourning.

She passes through Ubravit Square. It consists of a cobbled area, surrounded on all sides by high brick buildings, roughly four stories each. In the centre is a small fountain with a statue of Fel Grevast, the sixth Consul of Adena. Beside him, on lower plinths, there stand Belrenna and Sedolis, his wives, forever averting their gazes.

Looking to the north end of the square, there is a mural painted on the bricks. It’s very striking, with the dominant colours being vibrant reds and greens.

In the foreground, agricultural workers pick graingrass barefoot in the paddies. They smile as they kneel, slicing the stems with sickles, then thresh the stalks for the grains contained within.

Standing above them is a tall, thin man, blond-haired and blue-eyed, dressed in a red-and-green tunic. His arm extends in a gesture of good will, the palm facing down, the fingers extended. The Sun halos his head, and he smiles imperiously, surveying the land.

Block letters at the bottom identify him:

RO DANEST
CONSUL OF ADENA

In her hand, she clutches a letter. It came to her, unmarked, so much so that upon receiving it she thought it must be an eviction notice. But it isn’t.

It’s a very short letter.

Please come to the tower.

One week to the day.

Come after dark.

Knock three times.

She knows, of course, that Ro Danest has taken up a new residence in recent months – an annex affixed to the Diet – but Consuls are by no means required to surrender their other properties when elected.

This is, she presumes, why he has called her to the tower, that tower where they first met, almost a year ago. Much less opportunity for scandal. Word travels fast in the Republic.

After months of no communication, she had assumed he had simply forgotten about her.

She felt stupid, laying awake in bed at night, trying to ignore the sounds of breaking glass and shouting in the street. (She rarely felt safe going out when it was dark now, which was most of the time in winter.)

How does she feel about him? Really? She has tossed it around in her mind for months. On the surface, yes, she hates him. She hates everything he stands for. Tradition often depends on deprivation. The tide of history is dammed by the corpses of the impoverished, and what you have left is a reservoir of blood.

But still, she has known him on such an intimate level – far more intimately than most women he has ever met. He has made her come several times, and every time she has enjoyed it. She has enjoyed playing Goddess for him, holding him in her hand. It makes her feel so powerful, so beautiful, so...so in control.

Yet, as she watches life in the New Village get worse and worse, she feels that it is herself that is being toyed with. That she is in his hand. She wonders, what must it be like to gaze up at me, to feel so small and powerless?

The thing is, she couldn’t know. The entire experience is fundamentally different. For Ro Danest, to be Changed is to be removed for a short time from a position of power. For Cytalis Trelen, this is her reality. For her to be small, to gaze up at the vastness of him, would feel no different than it feels to gaze up at the Grand Diet from the dark and cluttered streets of home.

Even at his smallest, he is enormous. He casts shade over every aspect of her life. And she hates him for it.

She sees the tower come into view as she turns the corner. It is at the end of a long boulevard of little houses, their fronts all decorated with polished stones from the river. The river, she notes, that the people of the Old City never deign to visit.

All around her, she sees wealth – gas lights on full blast, statues of polished stone on balconies whose railings are of wrought metal in ornate patterns. These people do not know what it is to go without. She turns her gaze to the ground, as if she is trying to avoid making eye contact with her social betters. She draws the hood of her coat up over her head, and follows the road up the rest of the way.

It’s a steep incline, but one she is used to. She reaches the large metal gate that encloses the tower’s courtyard. She pushes on it, and it does not move.

For a moment, she thinks he must have changed his mind, and she will have to make the long, embarrassed journey home. But then she sees the bolt, and remembers that last time, there was a guard here to open the gate for her. The courtyard is empty but for moonlight. A wind blows, rustling the leaves of a decorative tree.

Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she unbolts the gate and opens it with a slight kreeeek. She passes through it, closing it behind her, and steps across the gravel of river stones broken up by well-manicured flowerbeds and shrubbery.

She stops for a moment to look up at the tower. It’s so tall. She has to bend her back to even see the underside of the conical roof.

Is that what that’s like?

She approaches the wooden door, which has a large metal knocker with the face of an ogre holding a ring between its teeth. At one time, people thought that such knockers could off evil spirits who might try to invite themselves into the home. These days, they only indicate that the owner can afford decorative metal ornaments.

She knocks three times, and waits.

Several moments later, she hears mechanical clicking behind the door, and it opens.

There, dressed in the plainest civil garb she has ever seen him wear, stands the Honourable Ro Danest, Consul of Adena.

Yet, he does not gaze at her with any condescension to speak of. He only inhales sharply, as if trying to stifle a sigh.

“Cytalis Trelen,” he says, with a soft smile. “Please, do come in.”

No guards flank him. He is alone. He steps into the darkness.

She watches him for a moment, then, looking over her shoulder, she crosses the threshold, and enters the tower.

She recalls the first time she came here, that smell she couldn’t place. She realises now that she wasn’t smelling anything at all, but the absence of it.

The stink of damp, the acrid stench of smoke, the sickly-sweet smell of spilled ale; not only will you not find it here, it has never been present here. The drainage has good upkeep, people do not burn their rubbish to keep warm here, and the only liquors to imbibe are fine wines. This is a place that has never known squalor.

It is a beautiful smell, and she hates it, because it reminds her of where she has come from, and where she is going, and what she can never have.

She removes her coat and hangs it from a hook by the fireplace, which is aglow with yellow flames. She’s wearing her best clothes, the ones she wore when she first met him – the mantle and the fine tunic.

Danest pours two glasses of wine, and offers it to her.

“Please,” he says. “Drink.”

Something in his voice. He’s hiding something.

She takes the glass, examines it, holds it under her nose. Nothing out of the ordinary. It just smells of wine. Nevertheless, she places her lips to the rim of the glass and lets the liquid touch only her lip. She does not drink.

Danest clasps his hands. He sits on a long chair beside the crackling fire. There is no sound but for the popping of burning wood.

“How is it?” he says, staring into the fire, not at her. That he averts his gaze seems almost perverse. He is the ruler of Adena. Yet, he does not look at her. As if she were his superior.

“It’s good,” she replies. The first words she has spoken all night.

“Good. That’s good. I’m glad.”

There is a long, quiet interval. Without thinking, Danest rubs his temples with the fingers and thumb of his left hand. She wants to ask him what’s the matter, but something holds her back from saying something.

It almost comes as a relief when he says: “So, this is it, I suppose.”

It takes her a few moments to understand.

Still, she says: “What?”

“It’s over.”

He sighs. Tears shimmer orange on the edges of his eyelids.

“I apologise,” he says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I...tried so very hard. I wanted to keep seeing you, I did, but…”

She only stares at him, bewildered. Just like that?

“Look at me,” he says, his voice a whisper. “The Consul of Adena, crying like a child. What must you think of me?”

And she sits there in the flickering light of the fire, and she does not know how to react.

He’s crying because he thinks he loves me, and he thinks I love him. He expects me to mourn. He either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care about my livelihood. He is breaking this off because it is politically expedient for him to do so. I should hate him. I do hate him.

A moment later, she breathes in, then places a hand on his shoulder.

“I want to make this special,” she says. “If it’s our last night together.”

Ro Danest wipes his eyes.

“I’d like that,” he says.

He stands, and she takes him by the hand.

Cytalis has walked the steep steps up to the top of the great tower many times. It is only now, as the reality of the situation dawns on her, that she realises how long it is, how exhausting it is. This monument to excess, serving no function but ornamentation.

In a sense, this tower represents everything wrong with Adena. Think of the labour, the hours, the resources, the materials and tools that went into crafting this tower. How perfectly hewn is every step. What care and effort went into this.

And yet, it exists for no reason. It leads nowhere but a dead end, to a modest bedroom. It exists for its own sake. It exists for no other reason than to be one of the tallest and most recognisable buildings in the city. It is a monument to ego.

And on the streets, people starve, people murder each other, and people drink themselves to death. That this tower exists is symbolic of the injustice at the heart of the Adeni way of life.

The Adeni armies fight the long wars and kill men in their thousands while annexing their lands. In return, men with soft hands commission towers such as this, while the poor languish in abject misery, doomed from birth.

Ro Danest could end it all in a heartbeat if he chose, but he does not. It isn’t only that he is opposed to the idea on a purely abstract level. It is that the nature of his ideals means that he sees such an act as impossible.

In some way, he thinks that Cytalis, and people like her, deserve to live the way they do: Uncomfortable, fidgeting, always struggling, never relaxing, most of their thoughts occupied by nothing but money.

Danest is at the wooden door at the top of the tower. He pushes it open, and holding the door, he gestures for her to go inside.

She smiles, entering the room. The familiar smell of perfumed bedsheets here, of old wood and cut stone.

Danest closes the door behind her, and bolts the door shut.

He stands for a moment at the door, as if in thought, then turns to face her.

Saying nothing, he walks up to her and places a kiss on her lips. It is a kiss she did not ask for and does not warmly receive. She tries to pull away, but now his arms are around her, and she feels trapped.

She finds him disgusting. So why is she reluctant to leave?

He lets go, at last.

“It’s so wonderful to see you again,” he whispers.

She feels something within her take hold.

“I want you on your knees,” she commands.

He pauses for a moment, stunned by her bluntness. Then, as though weighted down, he sinks to his knees, to the cold, hard, stone floor.

She slips her feet from her sandals and pads over to him, drawing his head to her lower stomach. Shaking her head, she runs her fingers through her long, wavy hair, pursing her lips.

Danest whimpers.

She grips the hem of her skirt in both hands and lifts it, revealing her vulva to him.

“I want you to eat me out,” she says. “I want my taste to never leave your tongue.”

Ro Danest goes red in the face.

“Really?” he says.

“Yes,” Cytalis replies. “I want you to make me come before I give you what you want.”

His lips tremble. He smiles as if drunk. And his head dips between her legs.

He kisses her labia. Her breathing quickens. She moans.

“Yes...ah...yes...”

She looks down at him, his hair still done up in pins.

She feels the warmth of his tongue now, licking, tasting inside her.

She sighs affirmations, guiding his head with her hands.

She feels as though she is on fire.

He licks the length of her, followed by smaller licks along each side. His tongue enters her. She gasps. She feels her hair stand on end.

Exaltations spill from her mouth. Things fall away from her for a moment. That hot bubble swallows up all her concerns, all her misgivings about Ro Danest, rising up through her entire body.

She comes with enough force that it almost knocks her flat on her back. She has to pull away from him, falling back on the bed with a moan, then a sigh. She places a hand to her chest and feels her heart hammering, the sweat pooling at her brow.

She looks to Ro Danest. He smiles a small smile, one that is happy, but concealing an infinite sadness. His eyes give it away. He is pleased to have pleased her, but he knows this will be one of the last times he ever sees her this pleased.

She sits up, still breathing heavily.

“Come here,” she says.

He comes to her, kneeling in front of her.

She bends down and kisses his forehead.

She slips her shoulders from her tunic, exposing her breasts.

Saying nothing, she draws his head to them. He asks no questions, he only takes what he wants. He kisses, running his tongue between them, under them. She, in turn, peppers his head with light kisses.

With deft finger, she pulls out the hair pins, one by one. His long yellow hair flows down his back and around his shoulders.

She lets the pins fall to the ground: Tok-tok-tok.

She watches as something stirs between his legs.

She smiles, kissing his cheeks and his neck. Don’t be embarrassed, darling.

“Please,” Ro says, in a quiet whisper. “I need you to…”

He pauses, shuddering. Poor thing, so horny he can’t even speak.

“Say it,” Cytalis says.

“Let me worship you. At your proper size. Goddess.”

She laughs, touching his forehead with a finger.

He sighs with gratitude, and she watches him start to dwindle at her feet.

She places her head in her hands, studying the way his clothes loosen as the limbs that bear them become thinner and weaker.

Almost unconsciously, her hand passes between her legs.

A few moments pass.

There before her lays a pile of fabric.

The fabric stirs, and she watches the miniature figure of a man pull himself out of it, his penis erect, his slim limbs betraying a life lived without even a moment of manual labour.

There is Ro Danest, the insect, gazing up at her in awe.

Cytalis stretches a leg towards him, pointing her toes at him. He looks down at them a moment, then back up at her.

“Worship me, insect,” she says, fingering herself. “Show your Goddess what she means to you.”

She raises her toes, then the sole of her foot.

The enormity of her foot compared to him seems to dawn on him. He is so reluctant to indulge, sometimes. She finds it rather endearing.

“Go on,” Cytalis urges, sternly. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Now Danest obeys. He kneels, placing his tiny hands on her heel, and kisses.

“Good boy,” she says. “This is what you really want, isn’t it?”

But he does not hear her, lost in worship.

“Where you belong,” she says.

She is vast. So much vaster than him. His view of her right now is a wall of flesh. She pleasures herself, imagining how she must see him, how much more powerful she must seem…

Must seem? She is more powerful than him. It is only by the violence of the state, and her own conscience, that she does not exercise that power. She has the most powerful politician on the planet under the sole of her foot. This is not an aberration. This is the world, just for a short time, balanced as it should be.

She gives a small smile, and a swift and gentle motion of the ball of her foot, knocks Danest on to his back.

She stands. Her shadow alone seems to have weight. He lays there stunned, gazing up at her, at the great monolith of her body, at the two vast trunks that are her legs.

He does not move.

He is so small she can scarcely see the expression on his face. But she does.

It’s terror. Pure, delicious terror.

She raises her foot, and he does not run, nor attempt an escape. He only cries out in shock as she lowers it inexorably upon him, at speeds that must seem so impossible for a being of her size.

Her sole engulfs him, eclipses him. He is beneath her. Right where he belongs. This is his true state of being. Insects belong at her feet. Not lording it over her with fine wine and obscene wealth.

Hate? Love? She doesn’t know any more. She wants to make him understand. Understand what it is like to not know what is going to happen next, to feel like it could all be gone at any moment. If she leaves him with one parting message, let it be this. She has to make him understand.

She shifts her weight on to the ball of her foot. He writhes beneath her, frantic with terror, but she does not care.

He screams once, and she feels something

snap

A wave of nausea rises in her stomach. She retches, stumbling backwards.

In the dim light, she can see him – his broken body, lying in a crumpled heap on the ground.

Like an insect.

To her surprise, he is still moving. He writhes in pain. Cytalis crouches to look at him. The weight of her has twisted his arm and his leg. He moans quietly, flinching almost from her gaze.

Part of her feels guilty, of course, as any person would, but another part of her seems only to examine him with curiosity.

I did that?

With nothing but a simple step?

But still that nausea bubbles in her stomach. She realises at once that it is guilt. She anticipates retribution.

Danest gazes up at her in disbelief.

“Why?” he says. His voice is almost inaudible for the weight of his despair.

She shakes her head.

“You’ll never understand,” she says.

“I thought…” he croaks, stifling a sob. “I thought you loved me…”

“I did, too,” Cytalis says, bitter as coal. “But then you showed me just what I meant to you.”

Now Danest’s misery turns into hatred and rage.

“You vicious whore,” he says, venomously. “I’ll see you hang for this. This is treason.”

Cytalis rises, standing to her full height.

“Is that all I’ve ever meant to you?” she says. “Another inferior? An underling? Just a second ago you were carrying on like you loved me. Now you want to hang me.”

And Danest seems to retreat from her gaze, with sudden awareness of the danger he is still in. For she has not restored him to his full size.

“Do you know what it’s like down there?” she asks. “Down in the New Village? With all the dirt and rubbish, as the price of bread climbs higher and higher? While you live up here, looking down on us as you sip wine and eat the finest meats.”

She bends, gently picking him up. He cries out.

“If you knew what a day in my life was like,” Cytalis says, “would you even care? Or would you just make excuses for it? Can you even conceive of a world in which I am anything more than a toy for you?”

As she holds him with coiled fingers about his waist, the irony of that statement is not lost on her. But she must not be complacent. This is still a very powerful and very dangerous man. But part of her still holds out hope, somehow.

She walks to the bed and, still keeping him held tight in her grip, seats herself, maintaining eye contact the whole way.

“This will be the last you see of me,” Cytalis says. “But by the time you are back at your normal size, I shall be long gone from here. And you will not find me.”

Danest sobs in pain, then snarls.

“You tried to assassinate the Consul of Adena,” he hisses through his teeth. “My men will find you. They will kill you.”

“Will they? Are you sure? Do you want to go screaming to all Adena that you’ve been fucking a – what was it you said, a moment ago? A vicious whore?”

Danest, wracked with pain and rage, seems lost for words.

“You duplicitous bitch,” Danest growls. “So, is that it? You’ve only ever been after my money?”

Cytalis raises her eyebrows.

“You really are a dumbshit, Ro.”

“Don’t you dare call me Ro,” Danest spits. “I am your superior—”

Cytalis squeezes him about the waist with the smallest movement, silencing him instantly.

“Not at the moment, you’re not,” Cytalis says. “Insect.”

Danest looks up at her, his mouth agape.

“All I’ve ever been to you is a trinket,” she says. “A toy to forget in the bottom of the chest. You only call me back here when you want a fuck. And you mistake that for love. And maybe I was stupid enough to mistake it for love, too. But I’m done now. You watch people suffer and die every day, and you think it’s your right to let it go on happening, because the alternative is unthinkable. You coward.”

She holds him right before her eyes, gazing at him so hard she wonders if he might burst into flames.

“You are not my superior, Ro Danest. You never were. I am more powerful than you will ever hope to be. I can do things you will never be able to do, experience things you will never be able to experience. You’re barely even worthy of worshipping my feet.”

Danest keeps his mouth closed, now. He only glares at her.

“You’ll return to your normal size within the hour,” she says. “Tell your men what really happened, if you must. But I’ll be long gone by then.”

“Gone?” Danest says. “And where, exactly, are you going to go?”

Cytalis Trelen wears a small smile on her lips.

For on top of Danest’s dresser is a coffer.

Despite the pain of his broken body, Ro Danest summons enough energy to make his eyes eyes bulge almost out of their sockets.

The coffer begins to shrink.

*

Beyond the river basin of the meander on which the antecedents built the great city of Eyros, there are a set of high hills. It is the main way out of Eyros, which, lacking defensive walls, relies on the hills. The hills are steep, rocky, and often cold.

And yet, to Cytalis Trelen, they mean freedom.

She does not know how much she took from Ro Danest. Definitely not enough to render him pauper, but enough for her to live on, for a little while. Yes, the journey ahead of her is dangerous. She does not know if Ro Danest will heed her words. Maybe he will stake his reputation on having her killed. Maybe he will succeed. Maybe he won’t. She cannot afford to live her life on maybes.

She comes to a rest at the top of a large hill, perching herself on a large rocky protrusion. She has with her a drinking flask, which she filled from a stream along the way. You can see all of Eyros from up here.

Below, people go about their daily routines. They work, eat, and sleep. And all around them are the wonders that labour made. Those ancient ones who once sheltered around embers in caves now live in warm brick houses. And the serf, who once had to spend all their time scraping together some meagre means of survival; fetching firewood or hunting game, now has time for reading.

Yes, what was once unimaginable is now normal. And she can only imagine that, even if they find her, even if they kill her, that someday, the world will belong to people like her. For in their hands is power greater than all the armies of Adena. Greater, even, than the Changing.

She is a Changer, that power is innate to her. But all the starving and dispossessed have a power, too; a power that takes the most miserable existence and from it creates wonders.

Ro Danest will rule, but she knows that she has taught him a lesson that he will not forget in a hurry.

Beggars exist not beneath the wealthy, but alongside them. That the ruling class are allowed to continue to live as they do is testament to the transcendental good will of the impoverished. But they can push even that to its breaking point. And when they do…

Her eyes scan the skyline, and she spots it.

A tower, poking out from the cityscape, that but a day ago she stared up at in awe.

How tiny it looks from up here, she thinks.

Then, saying nothing, the woman known as Cytalis Trelen slips away.

And even her footprints will be washed away by the rain.

End.