[Lauchenoiria]

Castle of Grapes, Ancestral Home of the Fleuran Royal Family
February 1934

“Welcome, ladies, to the inaugural session of the newly-formed Council of Kerlile.”

Sixteen - not ten - women sat around a large oak table. The mercenaries they’d spent the last decade paying to help retain their new country had been dismissed. The guards in the room were part of the new ranks of the Women’s Army of Kerlile, trained over the last ten years and chosen for their loyalty to the cause. The mercenaries were packing up to go home, the loot stolen from the old North Fleuran noble families weighing down their bags. The ten-year experiment had been a success.

A cheer went around the room upon Wilma Greenwood’s uttering of the welcome to their new meeting. Each of the women in the room had spent the last decade trying to shape a region of what was once North Fleura, a feudal remnant state, into Kerlile, a pioneering utopia for women and feminists worldwide. Each woman in the room had used different methods to transform the culture of her region, to change the attitudes of hundreds of people and to keep order during the most challenging transition period of the 20th century so far.

“We are gathered here today, because we have succeeded. Each of us has taken her assigned region and shaped it into somewhere women can live without the fear of the men who, up until this point, controlled the lives of women worldwide. Each of you here has accomplished a monumental task, and yet we have an even more monumental one to come. We must now unite our regions together, to create fully the new state we have dreamed of, and realise the goal of women’s equality in this small corner of the world, so that we can spread our word to our sisters far and wide, and usher in a new era where women have all the rights we have always dreamed of,” Wilma addressed the room.

Her words were followed by even more cheers. The women; the wealthiest of the regular attendees to the International Women’s Congress as of 1924, and the most willing to risk everything for a cause, had done something others could only dream of. Instead of fighting for the meagre scraps offered by men, they had seized control of their own destiny. After the death of the last in line to the North Fleuran throne, they had swooped in to the burgeoning succession crisis and turned it to their advantage, thanks to the mercenaries they’d hired and the relative weakness of the North Fleuran economy. This land had given them opportunity, and now they would bring opportunity to the women of this land.

“Our first order of business is to share what we have learned in the last decade, as to create this brave new world of ours, we must first learn the best methods of doing so. Each of you has something unique to bring to this new Council, and each of you will have different ideas of the way forward. I would invite Nancy Arnott to begin.”

*

Thus began the story of what would become the Council as we know it today. Readers will note the presence of sixteen proto-Councillors in that very first meeting, as opposed to the ten (soon to be nine after Robinson’s betrayal) we of the 21st century know. There is a tale behind this discrepancy, one my ancestors went to great lengths to bury. I write this down today, for if we should fail, the truth may fade from memory altogether, to be replaced with a convenient story, the history written by victors who won due to greed and treachery. Nobody today knows of the Six, but I shall attempt to explain what happened.

*

The inaugural meeting of the Council of Kerlile was eleven hours long, not counting the breaks taken in the middle. The meeting which began at 9 o’clock in the morning finished closer to midnight, the women participating all exhausted by the end of it. They each made their way back to the rooms set aside for them in the old castle, to rest and prepare for yet more meetings the next day - this time on how to move forward.

Yet as five of the would-be-Councillors lay down to rest, the other eleven reconvened in the darkness of the meeting chamber, lit only by candles as they sought to save their fledgling state’s small electricity supplies. They had been summoned by Edith Hart, who had been the instigator behind the entire Kerlile Project. She had raised the initial funds, convinced the others, and had tricked enough Fleuran nobles that they’d gained their foothold before anyone could fight back.

“Ladies,” Edith spoke softly in the candlelight. “We have a problem.”

“The other regions are behind,” nodded Camila Letitia Hale, her Sanctarian accent still strong despite the years away from the land of her birth. “They will need more guidance.”

“Not only that,” Edith shook her head. “Our friends who lie in their beds; they seem unwilling to do what needs to be done.”

*

As the Founders of Kerlile summarised their decades of enforced transition to their compatriots, a divide had opened in the room. Eleven of the Councillors spoke of their methods to encourage the women to speak up, and to prevent the men from regaining control. They spoke of their rewards and punishments, their strict management of the territories, and the need for a strong Council to continue to guide the fledgling state and ensure the sanctity of the women’s revolution, which had been so difficult in the first place.

The other five spoke of their encouragement of change, but they reported a continuation of instances of patriarchal attitudes and misogynistic violence. They had not been willing to punish the offenders, at least no more than the North Fleurans would punish such people beforehand. The regions of the five had been left too much alone by their guardians. And, worse still, the five believed that it was time to transition to democracy already. It had always been part of the original plan, but the Ten believed it too soon. It was necessary for their guardianship to continue, at least for the time being.

The views of the five expressed in that first Council meeting were a threat to the power and influence of the Founders as a whole. And that couldn’t be allowed to continue. So, the eleven sat up all night, plotting the deaths of their compatriots, the wiping of their names from history, and the ending of their family lines. But one of the eleven was uncomfortable with this direction. There was a difference, she thought, between executing counterrevolutionary men, and executing those who had worked towards the same goal, no matter the difference of opinion.

*

Audrey Quinn slipped out of the meeting chamber under the pretence of needing to use the bathroom. Instead, she hurried up the stairs and down the castle corridor to her family rooms, where her young daughter slept alongside her nanny. Audrey slipped into the room and shook the nanny awake.

“Joan, Joan wake up,” she whispered in the other woman’s ear. Joan’s eyes opened.

“M’lady?” Joan yawned, quickly trying to get to her feet.

“You need to dress quickly,” Audrey said quietly. “You need to take Adelaide and get as far from here as possible.”

“M’lady, is something wrong?” Joan’s eyes opened wide, alarmed.

“Not yet, but there will be. You have to get Audrey out of here in case something goes wrong. I have to speak to the others; to warn them. If I don’t return, If I don’t see you again, then you have to hide her, understand? Hide her so she is never found, and teach her of this day. Teach her to tell her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, and everyone else until the day comes when we can undo this injustice. Now, hurry!”

*

Audrey did not know that Margaret Robinson had followed her, suspecting the woman of some treachery after noticing her quiet in the plotting. Margaret slipped away while Audrey packed her daughter’s bags and informed the others of the betrayal. So the other Ten, who would become the Founders of history textbooks and the ancestors of the present Council of Kerlile, moved more quickly than they intended to.

Their new loyal servants, recruited from among those who had been the worst off before the Matriarchy, who had been rewarded most by the change of regime, crept to the rooms of the five who slept, knives in their hands. But Audrey was faster than they had anticipated, and they found her in the room of Tetli, a Founder of Xiomeran origin who, though growing up with more rights than most women in the world, saw the Kerlian project as an opportunity to bring peace and prosperity to more lands. Audrey and Tetli raised the alarm, and managed to overpower the would-be assassin.

The Castle of Grapes exploded into chaos, as fights broke out throughout the building. Joan and Adelaide, carried in a blanket by her nanny, managed to slip out and escape. They were not seen, and the family was not heard from again until 2018, with the Quinn daughter being presumed dead after what happened in the castle. The Council of modern days thought themselves safe from the skeletons in the closet. They forgot to check the ashes.

*

Audrey screamed as the masked woman plunged a knife in her shoulder. She remained conscious, shoving the woman away and pulling the knife out to yet more agony. She ran out of the room as the other woman gave chase, leaving the table she’d knocked over after the shove on the ground. Audrey, bleeding from her several wounds, was slow, and the assassin caught up with her quicker than she was prepared for. 

In another room of the castle, Tetli held a ceremonial sword wrested from a wall display in the old king’s throne room, battling against four of Wilma Greenwood’s new guards who each held daggers. There were no guns in this fight; neither side wished to waste the precious little ammunition they had gathered in case of invasion by patriarchal forces. The Founders, those who would be remembered and those who would not, were united in their commitment to the women’s revolution. It was not enough.

Tetli fell with a dagger to her back, as across the castle the Six screamed and died. In the room Audrey had run from, however, a new spark was spreading throughout the castle, undetected as the others continued to fight, the upstairs levels abandoned as the victims of the hunt tried to escape the large building. By the time anyone noticed, it was far too late to stop the fire which had spread from the candle knocked onto the rich curtains in what had been Tetli’s bedroom.

*

The history textbooks of Kerlile tell us that the Castle of Grapes was burned in a ceremony to usher out the old North Fleura and cement the new Kerlian state. The ruins, once the fire was allowed to burn out, were taken apart piece by piece, and the new Council Chambers built on the foundations of what was once the home of the Fleuran monarchs. The city of Grapevale sprung out from what was once the vineyards of the Fleuran monarchy, their greatest export once upon a time being wine.

The new capital of the Matriarchy was hailed as a wonder of Kerlian innovation, proof of the virtues of allowing women positions of power and jobs in traditionally male industries. The city sprung up in such a short period of time it was considered a miracle by Secadualist priestesses of the new Singularist sect of that declining religion. In truth, the city was built on the slave labour of those arrested for resisting the new regime. In the early days, Grapevale was the largest labour camp of all.

In the fire, the bodies of the Six, the documents with their names on them, and the true history of the foundation of the Matriarchy of Kerlile all burned. There are sixteen regions of Kerlile, and ten Councillors. Those who point out this discrepancy tend to disappear. Those who worked closely with the Six suffered accidents; their offices in their regions were robbed or burned or turned into prisons for those who spoke out. The Six were erased from life, and erased from memory. But the Councillors remembered.

It became a cautionary tale for young Daughters of the Council. A way to ensure our loyalty to the Matriarchy, by telling us that we were not too important to be killed; that our lives are protected only so long as we protect the status quo. I see it a different way. I see it as hope. There were once people who looked at the early days of Kerlile, when it was harder to prevent the slip back into patriarchy, when the world was even more hostile than today, and thought it was possible to do this fairly.

The Six believed democracy and true gender equality were compatible as far back as 1934 when men in smoky rooms laughed and bet on how quickly Kerlile would fail. So tell me, why shouldn’t we believe in it today? The time of the Council is coming to an end. Though the traditionalists try to cling to their power, it is obvious to all that a new era is beginning in Kerlile. We, as Daughters, were raised to be guardians of the revolution. Yet we have become guardians of stagnancy, of preventing progress. I will not be part of that. 

Daughters, Councillors, everyone must rise up and say “no more”. Will reform save us, or do we need another revolution? I don’t know. What I do know is that the time for remaining as we are must end now. Those of us who truly want women’s equality must rise up, whether in peace or in war, and we must unite to show the Council that we believe in Kerlile. We believe that equality, the principle on which Kerlile was founded, is possible without the need for autocratic control. They are the ones who do not believe in Kerlile. So, if they will not give us the power, we will take it.

Will you join me?

*

From A Daughter’s Manifesto by an anonymous Daughter of the Council, written in 2021 and yet to be published.

[Lauchenoiria]

Patel Household, Kerlile
January 2022

When Nirmala Patel entered the suite of rooms assigned to her sister, she found Yamunda sitting with her feet up on a couch, surrounded by empty bottles of smuggled beer from Kvask. Her sister now held a glass full of wine, probably also smuggled from Kvask, sipping it while listening to an old CD player perched on the coffee table, the CD case open next to it informing Nirmala that her sister was listening to a variety of versions of the Kerlian national anthem.

“Happy freakin’ new year,” Yamunda slurred as Nirmala entered, shoved aside a discarded silk scarf ruined by a red wine stain, and sat down.

“I realise this is a hard day for you, for both of us, but you need to snap out of this melancholy and start attending family meetings,” Nirmala told her sister, her tone clipped with annoyance.

“What does it matter? Hale’s democrats are gonna win, we’ll end up colonised by Lauchenoiria or Sanctaria or Laeral or Eiria and the two of us will be dead. None of you have done anything to stop it,” Yamunda replied, sipping her glass and moving to turn the volume up on the CD player.

Nirmala reached out to grab her sister’s arm before she could move the control. “If you had been attending meetings, you would know why that assumption of yours is false.”

“You let my daughter into those meetings,” Yamunda accused, finally sitting up properly to glare at her sister. “That little piece of traitorous excrement I am ashamed to have birthed.”

“Reena may be naive, but that is to our advantage,” Nirmala sighed, sitting up straight and looking Yamunda directly in the eye. “She is useful to us. She would not spy for the family, granted, but that assumes she knows what she’s doing. If she believes us to be open to supporting her cause, she will tell us things believing that she is attempting recruitment, while in reality she is giving us vital information.”

“Oh, and I’m expected to believe you’re not secretly supportive of her cause? I haven’t seen you vote against these big reform bills; I haven’t seen you stand up and say anything, or try to do anything, or depose that power-hungry liar Arnott from her makeshift throne!”

“Again, if you attended meetings, you would know our strategy. Reform is not about removing our power, it is about retaining it.”

“Hah!” snorted Yamunda. “Cognitive dissonance worthy of a patriarchal king.”

“You do not listen,” Nirmala said calmly. “You think I am not angry, that I do not wish to avenge our mother. I do, I assure you. But we have to be smart about this. The TRC showed where we were vulnerable; it showed us that the patriarchal democracies are indeed willing to act if they’re pushed too hard. We need to be more subtle.”

“Fine. Go on, explain your so-called strategy,” Yamunda grumbled. “I have the feeling you won’t leave me alone until you do so.”

“It’s simple: the eyes of the world are on us. Our economy is falling to pieces, we are reliant on smugglers,” she gestured at the empty beer bottles, “and our people are on the verge of rising up thanks to the food prices and rationing system. The only thing keeping us from fighting another civil war is that those agitators are placated by seeing the so-called reformists having power. Now, I don’t support their aims, but I must confess that their propaganda strategy is a beautiful piece of work.”

“If the people rise up, we should do as we have done before. Crush the misogynists, destroy the resistance mercilessly and make examples of those who would collapse what we have built,” scoffed Yamunda.

“And thus follows the invasion you are so worried about,” Nirmala remarked. “It is not a question of what, dear sister. It is a question of when. You and I both agree that the reformists cannot be allowed to retain control. Yet, I find it helpful to allow them to believe they have control for the time being. It keeps the foreigners happy, so their armies stay home. It keeps the agitators happy, and makes them feel safe enough to reveal who they are. And so we keep that information, we note their names, and when the watchful eyes turn away…”

“You’re using the reformists as a smokescreen,” Yamunda said as it dawned on her. “So that the patriarchal countries focus on somewhere else.”

“And so that our enemies reveal themselves. If we had cracked down on the Reform Party the week they revealed themselves, we would know only those most fervent supporters. But it has been the better part of two years now; those cautious folk are finally beginning to open up. So now we know not only those imminent threats, but the ones brewing under the surface. And while the traitors reveal themselves, those loyal to the Matriarchy have become more staunch in their support, more willing to act to protect what they love.”

“So you anticipate another civil war?” asked Yamunda.

“It has been brewing for some time, according to my intelligence. The matter of Carmen Robinson and her triple-agent Auroras only confirms it. Allowing the reformists to obtain power at this time serves a threefold purpose: delay the war, identify the key players on both sides in advance, and keep the patriarchy off our backs. We need time and information if we want to ensure that the conflict is short. And it must be short.”

“The under-population problem?”

“That, and the eyes of the patriarchy. Civil conflict invites opportunists. Just look at both Lauchenoiria and Xiomera, at the Aurian blockade, at every recent example. We do not want a war; we want to be able to round up and detain those who would stand against us in the very first days so we can call it a terrorist incident and move on. We want to show those on the fence that the power rests with us and that the democrats are fools with no strategy and no ability to protect those who side with them. And when we’ve stamped out all those holding these beliefs, then and only then will the women’s revolution be safe.”

“But how do you intend to get power back from the reformists once they’ve outlived their welcome? I understand your plan now, but they’ve been consolidating power since 2019 and it won’t be so easy.”

“Have they?” Nirmala’s eyes sparkled. “Or have we only made it look like that? I think you’ll find there are far fewer reformists on the Council than it looks. My colleagues will quickly jump the fence to save their own skins. Arnott and Georgiou will return to us; Pierre will drop this absurd trauma response to her daughter’s kidnapping; and we will hang Hale’s body from the Grapevale Clocktower as a warning to all those who would oppose us.”

“You assume everything will go smoothly; this plan of yours seems to have way too many things that can go wrong.”

“And that is why we have backup plans.”

“What are those?”

“Come to the family meetings, and you’ll find out,” winked Nirmala, pouring herself some of her sister’s wine after eventually finding the bottle underneath a discarded 2021 calendar.

“You’re insufferable,” Yamunda rolled her eyes and shook her head, but then looked up with a slight smile. “Fine, I’ll come to your boring meetings. But this better end up with a Patel President at the end of it, and I want a meeting with Hale while she’s still alive. Alone, in my former office in the Restricted Region.”

“That can be arranged,” Nirmala smiled evilly. “Cheers,” she said, tapping her glass to her sister’s, and they both sipped, daydreaming about the day when the Matriarchy of Kerlile would once again be strong.

[Lauchenoiria]

Construction Site, Grapevale
March 1934

The foundations of what was to become the Chamber of the Council of Kerlile were only just beginning to poke out from the ground where the Castle of Grapes once stood. A mixed-gender group of construction workers were milling around the site, though the groups of women and men would eye each other suspiciously when they passed each other. The gender roles of Kerlile were still being formed, and nobody was yet quite sure how to react, or what was safe to say in a state which had become rather totalitarian overnight.

“The Council has requested that we destroy any remains of statues found in the wreckage of the castle,” an out-of-breath teenage girl informed the woman in charge of overseeing the construction, halting the horse she’d been riding up the winding road from the temporary HQ of the newly-formed Council.

“Duly noted,” the woman nodded to the girl, then turned back to gazing across the site. The girl did not move to guide her horse away, instead hovering beside the woman, looking over the site herself from her vantage point.

“This feels wrong,” she offered after several minutes of staring.

“Don’t,” the woman warned softly.

“But-”

“Letitia. The time for that kind of thinking has long since passed,” the woman turned towards the girl, folding her arms. “It will be as it is meant to be.”

“Will it? When it was Hart, I could understand, but not this. Come on, cousin, call it what it is. This Council of theirs didn’t come to liberate us, they came to invade us.”

“Quiet!” the woman snapped, louder than she intended, then looked around to see if she had attracted attention. “Get off that damn horse and we’ll go talk somewhere less open.”

Letitia dismounted, tying the reins to a nearby fence and followed her cousin to the corner of a ruined room, a small fire burning next to a table set up by the remaining brick corner. Her cousin took a flask, pouring two cups of tea into the metal containers sitting on the rickety table. She handed one to Letitia and motioned for her to sit on the low ruined wall. They were far away from any of the workers.

“Letitia, you cannot say things like that any more. Do you know what is happening down in the village?”

“Of course I know Harriet! Do you think my fears are that I will be unable to marry, bear children and live as a servant to my husband? The Council are right that women need to have their own power, they are right that men will never give us it. But what gives them the right to come to Fleura, hang our own people on the branches of the trees and replace them with these masked mercenaries from gods-know-where?”

Harriet groaned, putting down her tea and instead pulling a hip flask from inside her jacket, unscrewing the top and taking a long swig of whatever was inside. “Letitia, I agree with you but you can’t just say it! If we were going to do something, it would have been ten years ago. They surround us, their people outnumber ours, and most of those who could have challenged them are currently rotting in the woods after their executions.”

“Ten years ago I was a small child,” Letitia pointed out. “And besides, you have as good a claim to the throne of Fleura as Hart does.”

Harriet jumped up, grabbing her cousin so quickly that Letitia let out a yelp of surprise, and pressed her face up against her cousin’s. “Never speak who we are aloud again. Our only chance of survival is if they do not know our name. The others are all gone, and unless we want to join them we have to leave that behind. Besides, I’d be a terrible queen.”

“If Hart had taken the throne for herself I wouldn’t mind but she is handing over our land to these foreigners, and we do not know their intentions! What if this is a plot by the South?” Letitia pulled away from her cousin, but lowered her voice nonetheless.

“South Fleura doesn’t exist any more; it’s part of Lauchenoiria now.”

“‘Lauchenoiria’ is just a new name for what we all know is the truth. South Fleura has created its own empire by conquering its own southern neighbours and pretending they joined them voluntarily. You know well that they want the north too.”

“These are wars fought and lost decades ago,” Harriet waved her hands to dismiss her cousin’s assertions. “The world to come will not be as the world once was. There is no purpose in going over the conflicts of states that no longer exist. The South is part of Lauchenoiria, and we in the North are now Kerlile.”

“And you’re just going to let it happen.”

“I’m going to survive, cousin. And if you want to survive also, you will leave the past where it belongs. Now, go back to the village. I have work to do here, and you have messages to carry. I will not hear any more talk of the Fleuran Wars, understand? What was, has ended. What will be, is beginning. Adapt or die, cousin.”

With that, Harriet turned her back on Letitia and began walking towards the main foundations of the new building, shouting at one of the groups of men to be careful with something they were carrying. Letitia scowled at her cousin’s back and collected her horse, mounting and turning to leave, her eyes narrowing in determination as she looked towards the forest.

[Slokais]

May 29th 1935
Robert Livingstone felt relaxed, he had just left a meeting with his cabinet, he stopped by the telegraph room. Nothing for him, just standard things for his secretary to handle. He sat down at his desk, which had a view of the new Capitol building being built. He grabbed a pack of 99s golds his favorite cigarette, he has bought a good amount at his last meeting with their executives, they wanted government support for opening up a new factory, they had issues with organized labor in Victoria Province, and in exchange for 100,000 in campaign money, Livingstone would give them the contact. It was a day in late May when New Liverpool was its most beautiful, the roses outside his office gave off the most beautiful smell, those who have a more humorous side would often say it smelled of the red-light district after a parliament debate. He read a report from Kerille, a new state was being formed led by the government made up of women. To Livingstone this idea was a little bit humorous, the country would surely collapse in time. A few years before he had given women over the age of 21 the right to vote, he had seen a lot of pushing from radicals who wanted more from him. “What did they want now, men to cook and clean,” Livingstone thought to himself. He was interrupted by a knock on the door
“Come in,” he said
In came to his Vice-President, William Mendoza
“Sir, anything important you wanted me to handle while you are away”
“No, though make sure to keep updated with the strikers and radicals in Victoria Province”
“I understand, however, I was wondering if you have any other pressing matters of state”
“No, I would not be taking this trip, If there was truly pressing matters”
“Be wary, of the farmers, they don't understand your vision for progress for this great nation”
“Dont, lecture me Medoza,” Livingstone said as he exited through the doorway.

As he exited onto the road he passed some MPs
“Good day to you Mr. President”
“You too Mr. Representative”
A member of the press approached him for a question
“Mr. President what's your opinion on the issues in Victoria Province”
“I think, my friends down there can handle these rioters, I also implore all loyal patriots to join me in condemnation of this violence, is unacceptable and it will destroy our economic future that we have worked for”
The President then ducked into the backseat of his car, awaiting him was his wife
“Hello dear,” he said
“Hello, Robert” she passed him a copy of the newspaper
“No thank you, Mary, I have already heard the news of the day”
“You sure?”
“No, I am confident”

February 9th, 2022
In the present day, Joseph Chavez walked briskly towards a cabinet meeting, in his hands his paper and pen as well as his secure phone connected to the government network. Up ahead of him his staff snapped to attention when he entered the room
“Sit everyone,” he said taking his seat
“I guess this meeting is in order,” said his chief of staff
“Good news, we have just had another successful translation on power in Eiria,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs
“Well, that's good to hear, I hope they send her my congratulations and hopefully engage in a future meeting”
“We also have some new findings from New Liverpool University on the assignation of Robert Livingstone, we may have found his killers,” said the Minister of Education
“Very, interesting send someone from your department and take an expert with you”
“Yes, Mr. President”

The rest of the meeting was simple, they were in the process of creating new farmers and agriculture subsidies for the coming year, it was somewhat dull but Chavez did not mind. After some time the meeting ended, next would be a meeting with the leader of the Women's Party, Lily Greenwood. Greenwood was moderate compared to some of the other gyrachists but was still very demanding on the issues of government equity and education. Greenwood was an MP from the New Liverpool 12th, the only WP candidate to win a district seat. As he was pondering this he almost ran into Greenwood in the hallway
“Excuse me,” he said
“Why hello, Mr. President you are in quite a rush”
“Indeed, I am”
“All I really came to question you on is the issue of the next government”
“Excuse me?”
“Your party looks to win more seats, I assume we will no longer be needed?”
“Well let's not get ahead of ourselves, here..”
“Cut the crap, Joseph, we both know that you can not stand me or my party, because you are afraid of us”
“Excuse me?”
“You know in a matriarchy, you would lose your public office, your privilege”
“You can't really want a state like Kerille, right?
“Maybe, I do it because it's what's best?”
“Kerille is a mess right now, people continue to have changed, but it is slow and people still have to live under the dictatorial state of a power-hungry government”
“A mess, yes, an issue no,” she said walking away

[Lauchenoiria]

Pierre Apartment, Council Chambers, Grapevale
April 2022

“It’s been almost a goddessdamned year, Pauline!” yelled Nirmala Patel, slamming her hands on the coffee table in front of her. “It’s like you’re deliberately stalling! But given that you were the one who reported her in the first place, why? There’s no love lost between the Pierre’s and the Robinson’s, there’s no way you want to keep her alive, so why? What reason could you possibly have for continuing to vote against expulsion?”

Pauline Pierre did not react to the other Councillor’s shouts; instead calmly lifting her tea to her mouth and taking a slow sip. She leaned back on the sofa in her Council Chambers apartment, where Nirmala had barged in earlier without asking permission. She remained silent, allowing Nirmala to finish her rant, which had begun much earlier, on the subject of Carmen Robinson’s treason and the Council’s votes on her expulsion from that same body.

“I do not want to see Carmen dead,” Pauline replied finally, once it was clear that Nirmala was done for the time being. “That would only continue indefinitely, something best left in the past. The feud of our grandmothers has been allowed to dictate the course of our nation’s politics for far too long. It is time for change.”

“Change? I swear to the Goddess that if it was up to me I’d have you declared unfit and locked away until you begin to see sense again. Since when did you, of all people, want change? Is this about the Haven Accords again?”

Pauline sighed and stood, walking over to where the servants had left the teapot and pouring herself another cup. “The Haven Accords are a symptom, not a cause. That is what we failed to understand in the aftermath of the war: the Accords did not destroy us; we were destroying ourselves and they only brought that into light.”

“Perhaps the Reformists have discovered a form of mind control,” mused Nirmala as she stared at her fellow Councillor in shock and outrage. “What are you even talking about?”

“I speak of the tyranny we keep our people under. The tyranny we tried to spread when we went to war in Lauchenoiria. Your mother and I, we worked together to bring about something that could only end in disaster. Lauchenoiria would never have joined us willingly; we would not have spread the revolution, only harmed it. We would have gained territory, perhaps, but we would not have spread gynarchy. Now, your mother is dead and I am smart enough to recognise that if I do not change, I will soon follow. But this is not just about me; it is about the cause of women’s rights. Or have you forgotten that our mission is not to stay in power, but to promote women’s liberation?”

“That is exactly why we have to stay in power; to ensure…”

“No, you don’t really believe that. That was a lie the Founders told themselves to justify their actions on the Night of the Six.”

“We do not speak of that,” Nirmala said sharply, glancing around in case someone somehow overheard.

“Perhaps it’s time we did. We won’t get away with it a second time; that’s why you need my vote, not out of some desire to follow the rule of law. If you want to remove someone from the Council now - especially after we made such a big deal of Hale’s return - it will need to be done openly, and thus legally. Technology means that history can’t be edited so easily.”

“Robinson faked an entire massacre that became notorious, which never even happened, and saved the supposed victims. Her own actions disprove your point. History is malleable, as long as you control the witnesses.”

“Do they? There are far more witnesses to the actions of the Council in 2022 than there were to mass executions in 2003. And if history was so malleable; if the truth was so changeable; then we would not know the truth now.”

“We only know because she confessed.”

“Out of her own free will? Are you so naive to believe that? Auroras. It was Auroras, Nirmala, just like the war, and the Accords, and the Hunt, and the endless sanctions that nobody will lift regardless of what reforms we make. They were the witnesses, and they could not be controlled. Auroras were my family’s pride and joy, but they will also be the Matriarchy’s destruction if we don’t move forward.”

“You and your Auroras,” Nirmala rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed!”

“Auroras coerced Robinson into confessing. Because they knew; at least some of them. Those who are now sitting alongside Carmen in prison; who know our secrets and our shames and our lies. I was a fool in believing it was safe to give those things to anyone. The only way to stay safe is to trust nobody; the moment there is a single witness to the truth it will persevere. But what is done is done, and now all we can do is move forward.”

“By expelling Robinson, executing her, and getting rid of these traitors who would destroy everything we’ve worked for,” nodded Nirmala. “That will show those who would contradict us and disobey us.”

“That won’t work. It’s over, Nirmala. We can choose between the Council or the Matriarchy. What we’ve done cannot be undone and the truth will spread; we cannot keep it to ourselves. They will destroy us unless we choose to end it ourselves.”

“I should have you arrested for treason too.”

“Go ahead and try. But what I do is for the Matriarchy. For the cause. Something we’ve been forgetting for the last eight decades. The truth of the Night of the Six will be revealed, because no secret can be kept as long as it is known by more than one person. It will destroy the Council, that cannot be prevented. It is our duty, as the protectors of the women’s revolution, to ensure that it does not bring down the Matriarchy at the same time.”

“You’ve lost your mind.”

“Have I?” Pauline Pierre raised an eyebrow. “Or am I finally seeing through the lies our mothers’ told us? Told themselves? Kerlile is stagnant because our fear of losing power has made it stagnant. We don’t allow progress, despite our claims that it is our goal. This will not last. So no, Nirmala, I won’t vote to expel Carmen because I won’t continue a petty family feud that started because my grandmother’s skin was so thin she couldn’t allow anyone who came close to criticising her to live.”

“Those who allow traitors to live become traitors themselves,” Nirmala hissed, standing up to glare at the other Councillor. She walked over to the door, turning back before she left. “Are we to continue this stalemate until Robinson dies of old age? No, I won’t allow that to happen. Watch yourself, traitor.”

With that, Nirmala Patel left, slamming the door behind her as hard as she could. Pauline sat back down, glancing at a tablet she’d left under the coffee table, that the other Councillor hadn’t noticed in all her fury.

“No,” Pauline said to herself, “the stalemate will end tomorrow. Just not the way you want, Nirmala.”

[Lauchenoiria]

(Officially Former) Restricted Region
23rd May 2022

Councillor Pauline Pierre of Kerlile was led through the nameless prison which wasn’t marked on any maps. The air seemed stale and suffocating, and every so often she could hear sobs or wails. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have cared. Now, it was a harsh reminder of the kind of thing she’d spent her life supporting, and the kind of person that made her. When they reached the cell she was looking for, then gestured for the guards to unlock it and leave her.

One of them, before departing, put the chair she was carrying down for Pauline to sit on while she had her conversation. Before she could sit, however, she was hit with the stench of an unwashed human, and it took everything in her not to actually throw up. She nervously glanced towards the prisoner, who was already looking at her with a mix of weariness and despair in her eyes.

"Have you come to gloat?" Carmen Robinson croaked from the corner where she lay chained.

"No," Pauline said softly, sighing and sitting down on the chair. "I came because… Auroras are my family's pride and joy. We cared for them deeply… your family disagreed. Your grandmother, the real reason behind what happened in 1983 was her opposition to the Programme. She was killed for it."

Pauline swallowed. "But she was right. Auroras are my pride, but they're also wrong. It shouldn't have existed, we shouldn't have let that happen. Your family have suffered for that. I don't want my children's children to uphold some kind of blood feud against your family until the end of time. I want to end it."

"You'll be stripped of your title," she continued, "and your position on the Council. But I've asked for leniency. The punishment for treason is torture and death but I don't want you dead. I want this to end. You saved them, you sacrificed your own life to save them. And now I'll save you. I'll help you, you can go and be with your daughters in Zongongia. I'm sorry, Carmen. I've been wrong for so long."

The silence lasted an eternity until Carmen spoke. “Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re just going to let me go?”

“I know it seems unlikely, but you were there when I told the Council my epiphany once Olivia was returned! I’m trying to change, I’m trying to… fix things.”

“This is some kind of cruel trick,” snorted Carmen.

“It’s not, I promise you,” Pierre said desperately. She needed the other (now former) Councillor to believe her. She needed to do something good for a change, to begin trying to fix all the things she’d spent her life doing wrong. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I…”

“You’re right, I don’t,” pointed out Carmen.

“Just wait…” Pauline said, fumbling in her pocket until she pulled out a key and tossed it towards Robinson. “Here, for those,” she gestured at the chains.

Carmen took the key suspiciously, eyeing it as if it might bite her. Nevertheless, she slotted it into the locks and the chains fell off. She rubbed her wrists and curled up in a more comfortable position, looking up at Pauline, still wary.

“Look, I don’t know what to say, Carmen,” Pierre looked down. “I’ve spent the last year trying to force them to stop… this. We keep saying we want to leave the past in the past, and then not doing so. All of us are hypocrites, but especially me. I’m just trying to do better.”

The two women sat there, and Carmen inched closer to Pauline along the floor, gauging her reaction. No guards leapt out to restrain her. She looked up at the Councillor, head tilted to the side. “You genuinely mean this, don’t you?”

“I can’t live with who I was if I don’t try to fix it,” Pauline said helplessly.

“I believe you,” Carmen said softly. And it was true. She’d never seen Pierre like this before, and she just knew deep down inside that for once, she wasn’t lying. "Pauline… thank you. Thank you so much."

The two women stared at each other for a while, then Pauline took Carmen's hand and squeezed. They sat there, tears pricking both their eyes as they, finally, came to an understanding. It would end today, their feud would end today and things could finally get better. It was a promise.

[Lauchenoiria]

April 1934

In Grapevale, a messenger delivered a telegram to the construction site that used to be the Castle of Grapes. A woman wearing a hard hat took the paper and read it, her frown deepening with every word. Upon getting to the end, she stormed off towards a row of motorcars parked at the edge of the site, near the Old South Road.

*

On the Old South Road, a horse reared up as a motorcar turned the corner unexpectedly. “Whoa, boy!” Letitia called out, quickly nudging her horse off the road as more and more motorcars zoomed past along the road in a hurry. She watched on as the cars, marked with the new Kerlian flag, disappeared over the horizon. “Wonder what that is about,” she mused to her horse, guiding him back onto the road and onwards as the cars zoomed towards Lauchenoiria.

*

In Buttercity, Lauchenoiria, President Oliver Arkwright signed an executive order, authorising a covert operation that would hopefully correct an injustice dating back to the 1840s. Or, depending on one’s point of view, create a new injustice instead. A messenger thus set out on the steam train south, towards Costeno, to begin the operation.

*

In Costeno, a prisoner sat cross-legged on the floor, her back straight as she meditated, as she had done daily for the last long twelve years. She did not yet know what was happening, supposedly in her name. By the time she found out, it may well be too late.

[Lauchenoiria]

April, 1934

On the Fleuran border - no, it was the Lauchenoiria-Kerlile border now - rows of soldiers stood staring at each other warily. To the south, the gathered men were clearly freaked out by the sight that awaited them. To the north, the gathered women stared at their would-be opponents with determination. In the middle, on the actual border, a man and a woman sat on horseback, conversing. No roads crossed the old Fleuran border; before the advent of Kerlile, the two Fleuras had consistently been at war. It was terrain still more suited to horseback.

“If your men cross our border,” the woman was saying, “we will defend ourselves. If you believe we have spent the last ten years sitting on our hands, you are mistaken. Our women are just as trained as your men. You may not believe me, but you ought to consider the evidence of your eyes.”

The man glanced at the line of Kerlian soldiers. Certainly, they appeared to have a well-trained, fully functional army consisting solely of women. His eyes told him such. Yet he found it rather difficult to believe. Sure, he had fought the Aelurians twelve years earlier, and they’d had women on the battlefield, but only their ruler, and she held back, shouting orders. At least, until they’d shot her dead. Then her little daughter freaked out and surrendered. These Kerlians, as they called themselves, did not look like they’d do the same.

“We do not wish to hurt you ladies-” he began, only for the woman to immediately hold up a hand to halt him.

“Do not insult us, Colonel,” she said sharply. “I will remind you that we have more claim to the land you stand upon than you have on ours; yet we choose not to initiate hostilities. We are content for this border to remain as it is. Contact Buttercity and withdraw your troops. You have fourteen days.”

She turned and spurred her horse on, riding back to the Kerlian lines. As she departed, he smirked at how familiar she looked. How convenient that she, of all people, had come. He turned, trudging back to his own lines. “Is the General in the village?” he asked one of his subordinates who answered in the affirmative. He rode on, ignoring the line of cars where the road abruptly ended, riding down it to the nearest village where the soldiers had set up an encampment.

“Where’s General Ibanez?” he asked some of the gathered soldiers, who pointed him towards the village hall where he spotted the General arguing with a group of men from the telecoms company.

“... this line working by now! We must establish real-time communication with Buttercity as soon as possible! I don’t trust these so-called Kerlians as… ah, colonel, how’s the border?” the General spotted him and left the relieved telecoms workers to sneak inside.

“You’ll never guess who they sent to negotiate.”

*

Martina Viallamando rode away from the Lauchenoirian border cursing the fools who thought invasion was the answer to every problem. This had not been her first experience with Lauchenoirian men who believed they had the right to impose their will on their neighbours. She had, after all, been born on Aeluria. She’d recognised the man who stood before her, though she hadn’t let on. He was one of the butchers who’d murdered Leimomi and betrayed Iekika.

He would not, however, be allowed another victory. Lauchenoirians could not be trusted; Kerlile would not cede one inch of territory. Kerlile would not negotiate with people who had proven themselves to be liars. If the Lauchenoirians wished to fight a war, they would get one; and they would lose.

“Ma’am, a letter for you,” one of the women back at their camp said as she rode up. The Kerlian roads ended much farther from the border than the Lauchenoirian ones. One day in the future, the father of the woman who would become Charissa Clarke would be shot dead around the same location Martina now stood, but that would be beyond Martina’s own lifetime. For now, she took the envelope, and retired into her tent to read.

The letter was in Aenian, the native language of Aelurians. A translator who was unfamiliar with the secret nuances of the language, would believe the letter was a discussion of religious worship. Not so; the letter was a call for help. Martina rubbed her temples. She wanted nothing more than to help the writer of the letter, but she could not. Kerlile had enough strength now to hold their own border; they did not have enough to launch their own invasion. Reading the letter, though, Martina hoped the Lauchenoirians would attack. She dearly wished for an excuse to shoot the man she’d spoken to earlier that day.

*

Iekika Anand paced back and forth in her cell. A mouse ran across the ground; but she did not care about the mice. They were far better company than the humans. She reached down, picking up the mouse, and saying a quick prayer for the wellbeing of nature to it, before placing it back down to continue on its way. The Lauchenoirians thought she was insane for speaking to the mice. She did not wish to explain her religion to the people trying to destroy it.

“Oi! Rat-girl! Food,” one of the guards sneered, dumping a tray of some kind of gruel into her cell. She ignored him. It had been twelve years of this; sometimes she barely remembered life before they had murdered her mother, betrayed her trust, and begun oppressing her people. She had been a fool to trust them. She would not make the same mistake twice.

“Hey, rat-girl, the Kerlians should have your letter by now!” the guard laughed.

Letter[i/]? Iekika thought. [i]Also, they're mice, not rats, idiot. She hadn’t sent any letter, certainly not to North Fleura, or whatever they called themselves these days. What was the guard talking about?

“Still ignoring me, rat-girl? You know, it was one of your own people who gave us the idea. Someone sick of rotting in here and smart enough to recognise an opportunity. But you probably like it here, huh, rat-girl? Anyway your little Kerlian friend should fall right into our trap soon enough, then you can have a little reunion!”

“What are you prattling on about?” she snapped eventually, turning to glare at her captor.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you don’t get much news here. Well, one of your late mother’s old pals, Martina Viawhatso, is now a problem to the north. Their little womens’ paradise is a threat to our security. But we can’t just invade them without cause, y’know? So, we’re gonna make a cause…” he trailed off, sneering.

“Viallamando,” she corrected. “You intend to invade North Fleura?”

“Once your friend attacks us to come rescue you, we’ll have our chance. And she thinks you’re in Melissa Province, so even if things go wrong she won’t find you, rat-girl. Once we have control of the so-called Kerlile, we’ll convince Zongongia to join us too, and our project will be complete.”

Iekika turned away again, to hide her face before her frustration showed on her face. Occasionally, they gave her newspapers, when the headlines benefitted them. The world believed the (relatively) new Lauchenoirian state was some beacon of democracy. This was the dark side they hid from the world. Voluntary union? Hardly.

They had promised mercy to the Aelurians and instead she and her fellow defenders of the island had rotted here for twelve long years. She didn’t blame whoever had turned on her; hope had long since faded. Her defiance was now motivated purely by spite. And an uncontrollable desire to stop Lauchenoirian expansion, for good. She didn’t know how, but she would find some way to stop this plan of theirs. Somehow.[/i]

[Lauchenoiria]

Patel Mansion, Primrose Region, Kerlile
PRESENT DAY

Reena Patel was curled up in a ball, sobbing. The 22-year-old Reformist granddaughter of Anita Patel hardly mourned her grandmother’s death. Reena was no fan of war crimes. No, Reena mourned for her own freedom. Her mother, Yamunda, was worse than her grandmother had been. Yamunda Patel, sister of Councillor Nirmala, worked in the Restricted Region in the same job Mariya once held. And her mother had now locked her up in the basement of the Patel family mansion with Nirmala’s approval.

Her mother and aunt accused her of conspiring against their family with the Reform Party. According to them, Reena surely knew who had murdered her grandmother, given that she was so close to all the treacherous reformists. Reena hadn’t a clue. But her mother never believed her. And nobody would look for her here: they could tell the world she was dead and they’d be believed. Reena had no hope of escape, and worse still she would probably be tortured by her own mother.

The Patel family mansion had been constructed to be as intimidating as possible. The Patel founder, Sunita, had believed that fear was the key to holding power. And as successive generations of Patels continued to enjoy the fine arts of torture and the imprisonment of their enemies, the basement levels had grown into what was basically a dungeon. Reena was not the only person down here. She had no idea who the others were: probably random dissidents Yamunda had stolen from the actual prisons. Yes, that was a thing Kerlian Councillors were known to do.

What had doomed Reena to suffer the ire of her own family were the video calls with Natasha Robinson in Zongongia. Neither her aunt, her mother, or her cousin the heir believed her when she said they were just chatting between friends, not political plotting. Even though it was the truth. But no, the rest of her family believed she’d been plotting with the Robinsons, the prime suspects in the crime given their double-agent Auroras. Now she was classed as an enemy by her own family.

A gust of cold air wafted into the cell Reena had been thrown into. She stiffened, knowing this probably meant somebody was coming. There were no footsteps, however. Then one of the other prisoners let out a scream. Reena pulled her legs closer to her body and glanced around, wide-eyed. Nothing happened. Perhaps this was just some kind of intimidation tactic? Her mother loved theatrics. Oh Goddess save me, Reena thought, as tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

*

In a Zongongian post office, members of the Zongongian Intelligence Agency wearing hazmat suits were scouring every inch of the place. Earlier the same day, a postal worker had suddenly dropped dead while spot-checking packages from abroad. It had transpired that the package checked was addressed to one Carmen Robinson, c/o King Osvald, Palace; and it had been sent from Kerlile.

The package, it would later be revealed, was sent by the Patel family. Inside was a note reading “for Anita”. Clearly, the Patels had decided who was guilty of the murder of their war-criminal mother. Whatever strong poison had been in the package killed, in the end, three postal workers and caused permanent damage to seven more. The Zongongian government announced sanctions against Kerlile in response.

Robinson, for her part, was horrified to hear of the incident. After all, she was not the person responsible for Anita Patel’s death. She hadn’t a clue who it was, but she knew it wasn’t her or her family (given that it was only her and her two daughters left). No, the real culprit was still unknown. And unsuspected.

[Lauchenoiria]

Hale Estate, Virtus Region, Kerlile
April 27, 2023

“How old are you, hm? Are you going to tell the camera how old you are today?” came a voice from behind the smartphone that was recording the scene unfolding in the Hale Family estate.

“FOUR!” yelled Amelia Hale, sticking four fingers out too close to the camera. Then she went back to running around the room, throwing wrapping paper in the air as she circled around all the gifts she’d unwrapped earlier. The adults chuckled, and Jennifer stopped recording as Amelia ran out into the garden after a gaggle of similarly-aged Chiu cousins.

“I remember it like yesterday when we had to force you to agree to even produce an heir,” chuckled President Rebecca Arnott.

“I wanted a child; I did not want that child to become a tool of totalitarian gynarchy,” Jennifer snapped back. “As I told you and the late Anita Patel at the time.”

“Uh, Kerlians force people to have kids? Kerlians?” came a voice from a laptop which was displaying a video link. Josephine Alvarez had agreed to attend Amelia’s birthday party virtually; the best she could do under the circumstances.

“It’s a long story,” Jennifer groaned. “And no, Rebecca, you are not about to tell it.”

Given that the story was they forced her to agree to IVF in exchange for refraining from executing Josephine while she was in their custody; that was for the best. Some cans of worms were best left closed, especially when there were probably at least ten Lauchenoirian spies eavesdropping on the call. Regardless, Jennifer was glad she’d agreed – and her only regret was not doing so uncoerced.

“Mum! Cheung bit me!” Jia Chiu ran up to her mother Xia, who was pregnant once again. Her two-year-old brother was in the garden chasing the girls around flashing his teeth. He was the only boy in the group.

“Shh, not in front of the Councillors,” Xia whispered to her daughter, quickly leading her out of the room where the rest of the conversation wouldn’t be overheard. Reform was such a difficult process; best not to allow the policymakers of the Matriarchy to see a male partaking in such misogynistic behaviour as biting his sister – even if he was literally a toddler. That had never stopped the Council in the past.

The party continued, the children playing and the adults sipping drinks. Josephine stayed for a mere fifteen minutes; she had a country to run (so did half the other adults, but one should never let reality get in the way of a good time). Once some time had passed, and the sky began to turn red as the sunset approached, Rebecca Arnott took Jennifer Hale’s arm and led her into a side room.

“I expect you will leave in July,” Arnott said. Hale remained silent. She did not intend to let Kerlile know of her plans in advance, even if they suspected. “You don’t need to answer,” Arnott shook her head.

“Listen, EUDCA is still in place, even amended. What are you going to do about Amelia’s schooling?”

“In ten years, if the Council of Kerlile still exists, I will have failed,” Jennifer replied.

“Jennifer could you please go one day without threatening to commit treason?” the President of Kerlile said, exasperated.

“Once upon a time, you sat next to me by a river and talked treason yourself,” Jennifer pointed out. “And you told me that you would support reform – out of self-interest. You offered me terms to support your campaign for the presidency. Well, you won. You have not yet met my terms. So, don’t tell me that things will be different if I stay; I am well aware that progress no longer suits your self-interest.”

Councillor Hale pushed past the President, back to the party. Rebecca Arnott looked after her, sighed, and shook her head, and then followed – only to burst into hysterical laughter at the scene in front of her.

Amelia Hale, age four and with all the confidence that comes with that, had the Xiomeran Ambassador Imaxochitl by the hand, and was dragging her into a playhouse on a patio by the garden, much to the Ambassador’s horror. As the ambassador tried to pull away, Amelia giggled and pushed her through the door into the playhouse, which was barely larger than the ambassador herself.

The Huenyan ambassador, Tiacuichpana, who’d been suspiciously eyeing her Xiomeran counterpart since the beginning of the party, couldn’t help but start chuckling to herself at the sight of it, turning away to hide the smile on her face. Suddenly, she felt something slam into her back and she jumped around, alert. Amelia was grabbing her leg and trying to climb up her body.

“Earring!” Amelia shrieked, revealing her reason to climb an ambassador like a tree. Her mother quickly appeared, picking Amelia off the ambassador and, while mouthing sorry, returned Amelia to the garden, past where a very red-faced Imaxochitl was untangling herself from the playhouse.

[Lauchenoiria]

The Duty of Daughters - Part 1

Fortunately for Reena Patel, a precedent had been set three years ago when Xia Chiu was imprisoned by her grandmother. In her panic, she had forgotten her own part in the plot to rescue Xia. Her imprisonment was legal under the Council Family Private Property Act. On the private property of a Council Family, the head of that family's word was law. So because her aunt Nirmala had permitted it, Reena was at her mercy, as Xia had once been.

Xia, Olivia Pierre, Rosemary Arnott and Natasha Robinson (from exile) did not, however, intend to allow Reena to suffer the wrath of her family. After Xia's imprisonment, and the later incident with the pro-Fleming Lauchenoirians, and Emperor Xochiuhue of wannabe nuclear fame, Olivia Pierre had implemented certain policies to track the members of their little Conspiracy of Daughters. When Reena was out of contact for a mere day, they figured it out.

If the members of the Conspiracy were to attack the Patel Estate - or even set foot on it - they could legally be shot, tortured, or any number of horrible fates. Except Rosemary, as a Councillor in her own right. And so, as the only member of the group who could safely set foot in the Patel mansion, she was assigned the necessary but often loathed role of "distraction".

Since Natasha Robinson could not set foot on the territory of Kerlile, she would have to provide remote support. None of the group were expert hackers, but fortunately for them they had certain contacts south of the border. Jessica Cassidy, the Lauchenoirian hacker who was poisoned in 2019, was still alive - if bedridden. And she'd been recruited into their reformist conspiracy years ago. If Jessica could get into the cameras, Natasha could watch them.

Xia, who was pregnant again, had to be careful. That didn't mean she couldn't drive the getaway vehicle. Her children would have been an issue, but she trusted eight-year-old Jia enough to recruit her into a ruse. She was to convince Councillor Hale that she and her brother really, really wanted to stay and play with Amelia. If they were on the Hale Estate, the same private property law would protect them if anything went wrong.

Which left Olivia with the dangerous job. She would have to sneak into the basement-dungeon to free Reena. This would not be easy. In another time, they'd have recruited an Aurora or three. But, well, that would be pouring fuel on the fire at this point. So Olivia would have to hope her obsessive attendance at self-defence classes could translate to offence.

They would implement their plan the evening after Amelia Hale's party. Given the known habits of both Nirmala and Yamunda, hopefully both would be too drunk to see anything amiss. Hopefully. Because if this failed, each and every one of them might end up right there beside Reena, at the mercy of Nirmala Patel and her torture-obsessed sister.

---

The Duty of Daughters - Part 2

Patel Estate, Primrose Region, Kerlile

“Councillor Arnott, what a pleasant surprise,” lied Nirmala Patel as she opened the door to see her young Arnott counterpart standing outside. “What brings you here at this hour?” she asked, given it was 11pm.

“Councillor Patel, I have just received the most disturbing news about Lauchenoiria!” Rosemary said, faking distress. “I must inform you of it at once!”

“Lauchenoiria?” Nirmala asked, now curious. That certainly wasn’t what she was expecting. She invited the young daughter of the President inside, and ordered some servants to bring them a selection of biscuits and drinks. The drinks, Rosemary noted, were alcoholic. She thanked Nirmala for the hospitality and avoided drinking anything. One does not drink alcohol when one is in the middle of a dangerous plot.

“What could the Lauchenoirians possibly do at this hour that would bring you here, but not lead to a Full Council?” Nirmala asked, once they were settled.

“It’s about your sister Yamunda,” Rosemary began. “You see, I happened to hear a rumour that the Lauchenoirians want to try her for crimes against humanity!”

“The Lauchenoirians want to try us all for crimes against humanity,” shrugged Nirmala. “That’s hardly news.”

“Yes, but I heard they have a plan to lure her to the border and kidnap her!”

“What could they possibly do that would encourage Yamunda to go near the border of that patriarchal basketcase?”

“I don’t know, but you ought to check she’s okay!”

Nirmala rolled her eyes, but summoned a servant to fetch Yamunda. When Yamunda appeared, she had clearly been in bed. Rosemary relaxed a little; this hadn’t been necessary, neither of them was downstairs with Reena. Rosemary poured a glass of the strongest wine in the selection and handed it to Yamunda, who immediately accepted. Rosemary started again with her false concern, asking Yamunda about any emails from suspicious Lauchenoirians.

*

At the same time, Natasha Robinson watched a live feed from a drone they had flying just outside the Patel property line. Jessica had proven unavailable, so the drone would have to do. She had control over it now, passed to her remotely from Xia who’d gotten it close. She was to watch for anyone going in the outside entrance to the basement, and if so then distract them by flying the drone nearer and around in circles to cause a commotion. Fortunately, the grounds of the Patel Estate remained empty.

*

Xia Chiu sat in the driver’s seat of a car registered to the Arnott Family, and assigned for Rosemary’s use. She was dressed as an Arnott chauffeur, and was parked at the bottom of the Patel driveway. If questioned, she could quite honestly point out that Councillor Rosemary Arnott was visiting the Patels. All she could do now was wait.

[Lauchenoiria]

The Duty of Daughters - Part 3

Olivia Pierre had perfect aim. She could shoot an apple off the head of a rather agitated monkey who’d just spent a little too much time with Mariya Adema. She was also proficient in three separate martial arts, and not too shabby with a literal sword. Still, she was extremely nervous as she crept onto the Patel grounds. She knew from her childhood games with Patel cousins how to avoid the motion sensors and other traps. That was fortunate. It was also dark out, and late, and the Patel household staff’s shift change was coming up.

She steadied her breathing, checked her three guns and two knives were exactly where they were when she checked five minutes ago, and proceeded to the back entrance to the basement, giving the signal in the direction of Natasha’s drone. She took out her lock-picks (unfortunately, she’d only started learning how to use these recently) and started work on the door. It took longer than she would have liked, but nobody shouted out, so she assumed she hadn’t been seen.

Olivia slipped inside, bracing for what was sure to be melodramatic decor. She knew the Patel family enjoyed their drama. Nirmala did, after all, bring swords to Council gunfights. She was, however, surprised to find that instead of the mediaeval dungeon theme, she was standing in a perfectly normal modern staircase leading downwards.

She pulled out one of her guns and began to creep forward, allowing the emergency lights to guide her as she headed further down. Apparently, the Patel Mansion had two levels of basements, for she reached an unlocked door, and the stairs still wound further down. She tried the door; behind it was what was clearly a storeroom of sorts. It contained fancy furniture stacked in the back, with crates of wine nearer the door, marked with Kvaskm words. She continued down the stairs.

The lower basement was much more intimidating than the storeroom; and was indeed decorated to resemble a mediaeval dungeon. It contained a narrow corridor with cells on either side, and smelled of unwashed humans. There were the noises of more than one person, and Olivia once more suppressed a groan. Either she’d have to let them all out and somehow sneak them past all the guards, or there would be witnesses. Neither option was good. Still, no turning back now.

Olivia made her way down the corridor, peering in each cell. The first one contained a man who didn’t even seem to understand she was there. Her stomach lurched. Next was an elderly woman singing a mournful tune to herself in Spanish. And on it went, deeper and deeper, until Olivia realised that this stretched beyond the ground underneath the mansion. This was a man-made cave of sorts that must go under the whole Patel grounds. If not further.

This was not good. The corridor was narrow, it would be easy to get trapped here. And if it was taking her this long to find Reena, it would take her just as long to get out. She’d be lucky if she wasn’t discovered by someone just doing the rounds. At least - if it could ever be called that - most of the Patel family’s personal prisoners were too far gone to recognise her, or even acknowledge her presence.

Finally, she reached the end of the corridor. Unfortunately, there was no secondary entrance. One way in, one way out. If a fire started down here, nobody would survive. Olivia doubted the Patels cared. She peered in the final cell, and found Reena. Olivia quickly brought the lock-picks back out and fumbled with the lock, getting the door open.

“Reena?” she whispered. “I’m here to rescue you.”

Reena groaned a little, but didn’t move. Olivia knelt down next to her, and noticed why. All four of her limbs hung at odd angles. They were all broken. “Oh Goddess, Reena…” Olivia whispered, tears coming to her eyes.

“Please… Olivia…” Reena said weakly.

“Oh Goddess,” Olivia replied. “Right, uh…”

She had no choice but to stick her gun back in its holster and pick up Reena in her arms. She hissed with the effort; but fortunately all that training paid off. While Reena’s weight was uncomfortable, even a little painful, she could still walk while carrying her. She would not, however, be able to fight. All that was left to do now was pray they made it out.

They started off back down the corridor. It was not, in fact, as slow going as it had been coming. It was slower. The farther Olivia went, the more Reena’s weight began to hurt her, and Reena’s soft cries of pain every time she was jostled by the movement made the panic rise up within her. If they were caught… no, she couldn’t think about that.

They made it to the stairs, and Olivia began the climb, when a deafening alarm began to sound. She almost dropped Reena in the urge to cover her ears. She began to run up the stairs as fast as she could, but with the added weight, she tripped, falling forward and landing on top of Reena, who couldn’t help but scream in agony. And at the top of the stairs now stood two Patel family guards. Olivia looked up at them, frightened.

---

The Duty of Daughters - Part 4

Rosemary had managed to get the two Patel women even more drunk, and they’d ended up chattering about what they’d do if they invaded Lauchenoiria. Rosemary was forcing herself to laugh at their jokes while being privately horrified.


“Okay, so if Jennifer… so if Jennifer wants Josephine then what if we, like, cut off ALL her fingers and…”


A loud alarm began to sound; and the two Patels jumped up, sobering up distressingly quickly.


“Report!” Nirmala shouted at a servant who’d immediately appeared.


“Is it the Lauchenoirians?” Yamunda worried. “Have they come for me?”


Okay, so perhaps one of them was still drunk, Rosemary thought, as she edged her way to the door. 


“There has been an alert triggered in the sub-basement, Councillor,” the servant said. “One of the prisoners’ tracking chips passed the line.”


“What!?” both Patels yelled in unison, and ran out of the room, followed by the servant, leaving Rosemary alone.


Okay, Rosemary, she thought to herself. Two options: you can leave, and they’ll probably get caught and tortured. Or you can try to help them. And probably get killed. Oh Goddess.


Councillor Rosemary Arnott of Kerlile picked up one of the empty glass bottles of wine and headed towards the back door in the same direction as the Patels.


*


Natasha Robinson watched, helpless, as a veritable crowd of guards appeared as if by magic and headed towards the basement. She did as instructed, and flew closer, only for her visual of the situation to vanish as a surface-to-air missile (just where had the Patel family got one of those!?) destroyed the drone.


*


Xia Chiu was alerted of the disturbance by a flashing red light above the gates to the Patel Estate. She got out of the car, and tried to open the gate, but it had locked itself firmly shut. Thankfully for Xia, she was on the outside. The others, though, would not easily escape.


*


“Well, what do we have here?” one of the Patel guards taunted the pair lying collapsed on the staircase from above, rifles pointed at their heads. “The Patel family traitor, and the Pierre family’s traitor too! Are you all in on this, you reformists?”


Reena, unable to move, merely bowed her head in defeat, allowing tears to run down her cheeks. Olivia, deciding she’d rather die than rot down here, went for one of her guns in spite of the rifles. The guard fired. But not to kill. Olivia screamed, grabbing her hand that had a second ago been pulling the gun out of its holster. She began to shake, crying in pain and fear. And then, behind the guards, appeared Nirmala and Yamunda Patel.


*


When Rosemary saw how many guards there were, she halted. She didn’t even have a gun. There was no way she could do anything. She dropped the bottle, and it smashed before her. A couple of the guards looked around, but seeing a Councillor, they ignored her. With nothing else to do, she turned around and began to run down the driveway to where Xia waited.


*


Xia saw Rosemary running down the path and jumped up, searching to see if she was being chased. She wasn’t. Rosemary crashed into the gate, her momentum suddenly halted.


“Get it open,” Rosemary said, her face white with fear.


“I can’t, it auto-locked when the alarms sounded.”


“Open the boot of the car, pull up the bottom, there are tools,” Rosemary instructed. Xia quickly did as she was told, pulling out some kind of metal saw.


“Uh, does this need to be plugged in?” Xia asked.


“There’s a giant battery,” Rosemary said impatiently. “Hurry!”


Xia found the giant - heavy - battery and attached the saw to it, then rushed back over to the gate and began to cut through part of it. It was loud; and the sparks were burning her hands: she hadn’t thought to look for gloves.


*


“Well, Olivia,” Nirmala shook her head. “Your mother will be very disappointed to hear of your fate. Because, of course, you cannot be allowed to leave here.”


Olivia was crying too much to respond now. She was terrified; for all her mother’s cruelties, Pauline Pierre had never held a candle to the Patels.


“I’m sorry,” whispered Reena to Olivia, through her own grunts of pain. “I’m so sorry.”

[Lauchenoiria]

The Duty of Daughters - Part 5

Xia finished cutting through one of the bars, and Rosemary lifted a leg to kick part of it away. The resulting gap was barely enough for her to fit through, but with Xia pulling, she managed. Then leaving the saw and battery on the ground, they both hurried into the car. And then stopped. 


“Is there any chance?” Xia asked, before turning on the engine.


“I…” Rosemary began, when there was a loud bang.


*


The bang, and the bright light that accompanied it, disoriented Olivia and Reena a little, but it disoriented the Patels and their guards far more. Olivia and Reena, after all, had their eyes closed as they cried. And suddenly, they were both being picked up and carried up the stairs with their ears ringing.


Then they were on top of something moving fast, the wind cold against them. Olivia managed to open her eyes. They were on the back of a truck zooming past the Patel Mansion and towards the driveway. Behind them, Patel guards were picking themselves up from the chaos of the stun grenade and beginning to point weapons at the fleeing truck. Olivia ducked. She had already been shot once tonight. Oh Goddess she had… she became dizzy.


*


It couldn’t have been longer than thirty seconds between the bang and when Rosemary and Xia saw the truck barreling at full force towards the gate. Xia had the presence of mind to immediately switch on the engine and reverse out of the way. The truck burst through the gates; and would have kept going but for the size of the things. Instead, it began to spin around and crashed into some trees by the road.


Xia and Rosemary quickly got out, leaving the engine running, and ran over to the truck. In the back was a now-unconscious Reena Patel and Olivia Pierre. In the front was… Carolyn Greenwood. 


“Uh…” Rosemary said, staring.


“Later!” Carolyn, who was conscious but now had a bright red gash across her forehead from where she’d hit it in the crash.


The three quickly lifted Reena and Olivia into the other car, and they all got in. Xia slammed the door and drove off at the absolute maximum speed the vehicle was capable of, as the sound of engines beginning to follow from the mansion were heard.


“Carolyn, what, why, how?” Rosemary babbled.


“Did you think I was so stupid I didn’t know what you were up to three years ago? And I’m hurt you didn’t trust me, but no matter,” Carolyn said, turning around from where she sat next to the unconscious pair to watch for a tail. “Head for the Hale estate.”


“We’re heading for the Goddessdamn Zongongian border,” Xia said as she continued to press on the accelerator.


“No, they’ll be watching and the mountains will slow us down,” Carolyn said.


“She’s right,” Rosemary pointed out. “But, Carolyn, how the hell did you get the two of them out of there?”


“I tricked Mother’s spies,” Carolyn said. “She has spies on the staffs of all the other Families. I convinced them she approved of this. They helped me and then I drove off.”


“They’ll be killed!” Rosemary said, shocked.


“Well of course they will!” Carolyn replied, confused. “That was always a given.”


“Goddess, you… how did you even find out about this?”


“Natasha had me wait as a backup plan. She was annoyed that you left her out last time.”


“She was fourteen!”


“Again, that doesn’t really matter right now!” Carolyn said as they skidded around a bend.


“The Hale Estate is in the Virtus Region, to the north-east!” Xia said, returning to the matter of where, exactly, they were fleeing to. “There’s no way we’ll make it.”


“It’s as far as the Zongongian border!” Carolyn pointed out.


“The Lauchenoirian border is nearer,” Rosemary said.


“The last time Olivia and I went to Lauchenoiria we got kidnapped by treasonous communists!” Xia shouted as she had to swerve around an oncoming vehicle.


“Uh, guys, the fuel…” Rosemary pointed.


“Fine! We go to… oh shit,” Xia said as ahead of them loomed what looked like a complete roadblock. Complete with armed Kerlian soldiers. And she had no choice but to brake.

---

The Duty of Daughters - Part 6

“Get them to the hospital immediately!” Councillor Natalia Hart ordered as the car skidded to a halt at the blockade. The Councillor was standing behind a group of armed guards. Some paramedics appeared and opened the back doors of the car, deftly lifting out both Olivia and Reena. The other three, still in a state of shock, just stared.


“Oh come off it,” Hart said irritably. “You know I disapprove of torture. Now, hurry, get across the line before they catch up!”


The three Daughters looked around. They were on the boundary of Primrose and Hartwood Regions. They looked at each other, and quickly left the vehicle to cross the line into Hart’s territory. Or well, Hart territory circa 1924 to 1934. What difference this would make in 2023, none of them quite understood.


The Patel vehicles chasing them saw the roadblock and skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding collision with the abandoned Arnott car. Yamunda Patel got out of one of the cars and stormed towards Councillor Hart.


“I demand to know the meaning of this!” she shouted.


“I outrank you,” Hart replied calmly. “You will not speak to me with such disrespect.”


“Give me my traitor daughter back!” she hissed.


“You are no longer on your private land,” Hart pointed out. “And you are not the police.”


“I will sta-”


“Enough, Yamunda!” Councillor Nirmala Patel ran up, placing a hand on her sister’s arm. “We are sorry to have bothered you, Natalia,” she said to Councillor Hart.


Hart nodded and turned around, as Nirmala dragged a protesting Yamunda away. Hart walked over to where Rosemary, Carolyn and Xia sat, the three staring wide-eyed.


“What… just happened?” Rosemary asked.


“I prevented you from beginning a civil war,” Hart replied. “That would not have ended well for anyone. But Nirmala is sensible. She would not snatch you on public land with witnesses around. But, Councillor Arnott, you should be more careful.”


“Why me, and not the others?”


“Ah, you do not know,” Hart sighed. “That is regrettable. It is probably what led to your actions today. Well, it is not my place to say. Ask your mother. But, for now, I shall have my people take you to Zongongia. You ought to let things calm before you return.”


“I don’t…” Rosemary trailed off upon realising that Hart was already gliding away, and she was much too exhausted and shaken to follow. So the three of them allowed themselves to be guided into yet another car and driven to the Zongongian border.

[Lauchenoiria]

Councillor Rosemary Arnott sat in a hospital waiting room alongside Carolyn Greenwood and Xia Chiu. When they arrived at the border, they’d made it past the Kerlian checkpoint without incident; all she’d had to do was show her face. The Zongongians took a little more convincing, but when they saw the state of Olivia and Reena, they’d acquiesced, at least for the time being. Rosemary couldn’t help but notice that the guards at the entrance to the waiting room were reluctant to allow any of them leave, however.

Ping. She picked up her phone. Mum: WHAT are you doing???? Get back here now!

Patel will kill me, she replied.

Mum: Not on my watch. Call me.

Rosemary sighed, and stood, aiming to head outside to make the call. The Zongongian guards had other ideas however; when she asked them, they firmly denied her permission to exit and blocked her way. She sighed once more, sitting back down. So, they were being detained here. Great. She dialled the President of Kerlile.

“Rosemary, listen to me, you need to come back to Kerlile right now,” her mother said upon picking up the phone.

“That wouldn’t be…” she glanced at the Zongongians, and switched to speaking French. “That would be dangerous; the Patels will seek vengeance against us for the rescue of Reena, and the others will likely be arrested for their roles in the affair.”

“No, they won’t,” her mother replied, in English. “A quirk of our laws; the Private Property Act meant Nirmala could detain Reena, but it also means once you left their property they no longer have any right to do anything about it. The Act makes the Family estates basically their own de facto jurisdictions.”

“That’s… this is why I didn’t want to be on the Council, you’re all insane,” Rosemary grumbled in French. The Zongongians could, of course, translate it from the recording they were undoubtedly making. It was better, however, to delay that.

“Return, please,” Rebecca Arnott said through the phone. “I guarantee you things will be worse otherwise. Firstly, we will be down another vote on the Council. Secondly, the Women’s Party will become hostile to Zongongia: and I don’t need to remind you how much we need the access they grant us to trade routes. Thirdly, and most importantly; if we do not find a way to pretend this incident never happened, it could force the Patels into starting a civil war.”

“Mum, I can’t,” Rosemary whispered. “I don’t think they’re gonna let us.”

“Ah. That explains the French. You’re being detained?”

“We’re at the hospital where they took Reena and Olivia, in a waiting room. They wouldn’t let me leave to make a call though. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Okay, let me contact the Zongongians on my end. Reassure them about our intentions. Which, in case you still don’t believe me, are merely to resolve this peacefully and quickly. After all: Pierre, Greenwood and Chiu are also motivated to do so. With Georgiou, Hart and Hale we have the votes regardless of the others. Rosemary, what you did was foolish, but it is not too late to resolve it.”

*

Prime Minister Ivan Kristensen of Zongongia felt the colour drain out of his face at the report from his intelligence services.

“There are how many Kerlians?” he asked.

“One Councillor, four Daughters, and a number of medical personnel that accompanied the two injured Daughters to the nearest hospital to the border. Though the medical personnel are not requesting to remain.”

The Prime Minister wiped the sweat that had begun to collect on his brow. He tapped nervously on his desk, in tune to something he couldn’t quite remember. “Taking in the Robinsons was always going to be a mistake,” he sighed. “I tried to warn King Osvald of it, but he wouldn’t hear anything. He sees this as a chance to resolve his family issues, and win points against the republicans that accuse the royals of racism.”

“I would counsel against allowing them to remain, especially the Councillor,” the spy advised. “We do not know how the Matriarchy will react, and with all those new Xiomeran missiles, the situation could quickly become… problematic.”

“Don’t worry,” Kristensen replied, “I have no intention of hosting some kind of Kerlian government-in-exile. How high up are the four Daughters?”

“Two are first-in-line, one is second, and the last is eighth or ninth, we are uncertain. That latter is Reena Patel, the one in critical condition in the hospital. The other injured one, with the single gunshot wound, is Olivia Pierre, whom I’m sure you’ve heard of.”

“Great, Olivia Pierre is all we need. Is her mother still attempting to assassinate her?”

“No, we believe they have reconciled.”

“That’s something, at least. But they can’t stay here. Reena Patel, perhaps. She’s that far down, and clearly seriously injured. Not the others though.”

“A wise choice,” the spy nodded. “How would you like us to handle it?”

“Wait until Olivia is ready to be discharged from hospital, then give them 24 hours to work out where they want to go. This is the last thing we need. After the postal workers, people are demanding a response. This will only add fuel to that fire. What they fail to understand is that we are in no position to respond. Especially with those missiles, but even before. Forces of Balance, our military hardware hasn’t been updated since the 90s!”

Knock, knock. One of his aides stuck his head around the door. “Sir, the President of Kerlile is calling you.”

“Rocks, that’s all I need!” he groaned. “Fine, best not keep her waiting.”

*

Meanwhile, back in Kerlile, the Patels had been busy. They knew they would not have any legal recourse to go after the perpetrators of the raid once they got away the first time. And that their families would shield them, even if they punished them privately themselves. So, they took matters into their own hands.

A Kerlian male of Haesanite descent was found dead in New Fanshe Region. He had been severely tortured before his death, and then his body was hung from a lamppost in the middle of the city. An investigation led to the discovery that he was one of Xia Chiu's lovers, and the most likely father of the baby she presently carried.

Two twenty-one-year-old women, students at the University of Grapevale and close friends of Carolyn Greenwood were discovered missing their heads in the university dorm kitchen they'd shared with Carolyn.

A firefight broke out at the entrance to the Pierre family estate after masked figures attempted to kidnap 13-year-old Camille, Olivia's favourite sister. Twenty-seven people died. Camille remained safe. Councillor Pauline Pierre was not, however, pleased.

A gas leak, an unfortunate accident, blew up a town hall during a Reform Party meeting of the branch members Rosemary Arnott personally met weekly. If she had been there, she would have been among the dead.

And on the boundary of Primrose and Hartwood regions, a number of security personnel gathered on the northern side. And that number was large enough that, if one really thought about it, one might prefer to use the word "army".

[Lauchenoiria]

Eastern Rocks Hospital, Zongongia
PRESENT DAY

“I never had any intention of living in exile in a patriarchal country!” Carolyn Greenwood shouted at Councillor Rosemary Arnott. “I told you to go to the Hale Estate, not Goddessdamn Zongongia! If you’re going back, I am too!”

“Carolyn, it’s not safe,” Rosemary argued.

Her mother had managed to convince the Zongongians that Kerlile was still treating this as an internal matter; that nobody was going to attack them, and that the Daughters they had under guard in a hospital could safely go back to Kerlile. Evidently, though, Rosemary didn’t really believe it.

“I am a Councillor, there are certain protections…”

“Rosemary, I am not a fool. I understand the risks,” Carolyn interrupted. “But I acted out of personal loyalty, not out of support for your political ideals. I cannot live in a land where men are still allowed control over women – and do not give me that spiel about democracy and equality. I am returning to Kerlile with you, and that is final.”

Rosemary groaned, shaking her head. She didn’t understand Carolyn. The girl – woman now, actually, how time passes – seemed to change her factional loyalties every five minutes. One day she’s sneaking around behind her mother’s (and grandmother’s) back, and risking her life for reformists. And the next she’s talking of her disdain for democracy, and shrugging off the knowledge that she was likely responsible for the torture and death of several people as part of her plan.

“Fine!” Rosemary shouted, louder than she’d intended. A pair of Zongongians, still watching them if no longer restricting their movement, glanced towards her. “Then get in the car, we’re leaving now.”

Carolyn silently got into the waiting vehicle, leaving Rosemary to turn back to Xia Chiu who was waiting at the side. “I still don’t trust her,” Xia said, nodding towards Carolyn once she’d shut the car door.

“I don’t understand her,” Rosemary said in a low voice. “But why would she help us at great risk to herself if she’s…? Oh, I don’t think we’ll ever understand her. The Greenwoods have always been…”

“Insane,” Xia filled in, though Rosemary was aiming for something more diplomatic. “Look, I’ll stay here and look out for Olivia and Reena. Maybe visit Natasha, if they let me. You remember the code to let me know if it’s actually safe?”

Rosemary nodded.

“Then good luck,” Xia said, hugging the Councillor. Then Rosemary got into the car with Carolyn and they drove off in the direction of the Kerlian border. Xia exhaled as she watched after them, praying they would be safe.

*

Council Chambers, Grapevale

“Why are we meeting on a Sunday?” Jennifer Hale complained. “We already talked about this on Friday.”

“Because my daughter and Councillor Arnott have returned to Kerlile,” Councillor Letitia Greenwood replied. “And it is imperative that we ensure that there are no further acts that could be deemed indicative of a civil conflict.”

“This would not be happening if the rest of you had control over your daughters!” Councillor Nirmala Patel replied, a cold anger in her voice. “They attacked us.”

“Because you had Reena in a creepy torture dungeon!” Hale reminded her.

“I admit, my sister and I could have handled the situation with my niece better,” Nirmala conceded. “However, one of you in this room had my mother murdered. And you expect me to just sit here and do nothing?”

“You are not the first person who has had to sit here next to someone who had their mother murdered,” Pierre pointed out. “Sarah Robinson managed to sit next to my grandmother for years.”

“Have we maybe considered, I dunno, not trying to kill each other!?” Hale shouted, banging her hands on the table. “The rest of the world is right! The Council of Kerlile is completely insane!”

“All of you, be silent!” Councillor Lia Chiu commanded from her seat as Chair. The other Councillors fell silent as their Chair stood, glancing over at all of them, including the vacant Arnott seat and the gap where once upon a time a Robinson would have been. She allowed the silence to permeate for a few moments, until she was able to begin quietly.

“While I disagree with Councillor Hale’s phrasing, her sentiment is not entirely incorrect. We are the Council of Kerlile. We are not a children’s playground. So, we will each state our point – uninterrupted – and discuss this in a civilised manner. As Rosemary Arnott is absent, and I have little to say about this conflict, we will begin with Georgiou.”

“I also have little to say,” Georgiou replied. “Except that we must, Councillors, attempt to resolve this peacefully. We are still at threat from the patriarchal countries; if we are seen as unstable and volatile, they are likely to take advantage. I am sure nobody on any side of this conflict wishes an invasion.”

The other Councillors all looked away, ashamed. Chiu nodded to Greenwood.

“Councillors, I do not know why my firstborn daughter participated in what appears to have been an attack on the Patel Estate,” Letitia began. “She did not consult me before carrying out this act, and she most certainly would not have been granted permission had she. The Greenwood family unreservedly apologises to the Patel family for Carolyn’s actions; and the Patels can rest assured that she will be punished for it.”

“Councillor Hale?” Chiu prompted.

“Okay, I didn’t know anything about this. Xia just asked me to watch her kids. But, like, it’s 2023. Why are we playing at feudalism? Seriously! Torture dungeons? The whole Private Property law to begin with is insane. Maybe if we didn’t allow each other to, I dunno, torture our kids and send assassins after each other, we wouldn’t have to have boring meetings seven days a week that everyone brings at least three guns to.”

Chiu had to glare at several of the others for attempting to interrupt Hale. She then gestured for Hart to take the floor.

“For once, Councillor Hale is correct. My own actions in the affair were merely to prevent a conflict. Should the Patel family have apprehended those involved in the assault upon public land, and taken them back to their estate, it would have been a breach of Kerlian law. I recognised that in such situations, emotions and tensions run high, and someone had to ensure that the law was upheld. Also, my positions on torture are well-known.”

“Patel?”

“It is clear that my family is under attack. My mother was murdered. Our home has been assaulted. I concede that Reena probably was not involved in the plot. We have also ascertained that it was not the Robinsons; they had no opportunity. No, it is someone else. We intend to find out. As for the assault: our family will refrain from acts of vengeance if – and only if – we have proof that those involved are punished. That means by the state, not by their own families.”

“That won’t be…” Chiu began. “Like hell you think…” Pierre said at the same time. “I find it unacceptable that…” Greenwood overlapped.

“Okay,” Chiu said, louder. “We can debate this at the end. Pierre?”

“The report I received from Zongongia is that a member of the Patel household shot my firstborn daughter, Olivia. Granted, she should not have been there. I still find that unacceptable. As for vengeance, you have already had some! Or have we not seen the pictures of Xia Chiu’s lover? Carolyn Greenwood’s flatmates? Rosemary Arnott’s political activists? And the attempt at kidnapping my youngest, Olivia! So how dare you, Nirmala, come in here acting all sanctimonious.”

“No, responses at the end,” Chiu said, preventing Patel from replying. “Viallamando?”

“I do not even understand what is happening,” Lucia Viallamando shrugged.

“Right. Very well,” Chiu began, looking down at the notes she had taken. “The main points for discussion appear to be as follows: the existence of the Council Family Private Property Act and consequences thereof; the assassination of Anita Patel; the punishment of offenders in the assault on the Patel estate; and the use of torture as punishment. Are there any other primary points we ought to discuss?”

“The threat of patriarchal invasion if this is not resolved peacefully,” Georgiou said.

“Added. Right, let us begin with Anita Patel. Would anyone like to confess?” Chiu asked.

There was, unsurprisingly, a silence.

“Then I see little else we can do here today on the matter,” Chiu said. “I understand the Patel family will continue their own investigation. Excepting any discussion of detention or interrogation methods – we will come to that – is this acceptable to everyone?”

The gathered Councillors all begrudgingly nodded.

“Onto the threat of invasion. Are we all agreed that we wish to avoid this situation, and therefore we will all – from this moment on – refrain from any acts against each other’s families and acquaintances that are not approved by this Council? Knowing the risks if we continue to appear unstable?”

“If they come to my family’s land and…” Patel began.

“Which brings us nicely onto the Private Property Act. Now, this matter can quite easily be resolved, given we are a legislative body. Councillor Hale, as the individual with the most objections to the law, would you like to submit a request to repeal?”

Jennifer Hale froze like a rabbit caught in headlights. In truth, as much as the Patel’s basement-dungeon horrified her, she needed the law herself for her own purposes. It was all that protected her when she did things to provoke the others. And, she suspected, Chiu understood that fine well. She had no choice but to shake her head.

“Anyone else? No? Then the Act is still in force, and what happens on the private property of a Council Family remains under that family’s jurisdiction. We will, however, agree not to carry out any acts against each other on public land?”

The compromise was one none of the Councillors liked; but that none could object to.

“I expect the matter of torture is too large to tackle in this session,” Chiu said. “So, let us table a discussion for next week and move on to punishment of those involved in Thursday evening’s affair. Patel, state your desire.”

“If this act had been carried out by those who are not associated with the Council, the perpetrators would have been sentenced to at least twenty-five years in prison. That is unrealistic to get you to accept, I acknowledge, given the temporal constraints. So, I suggest, as an equivalent, a single week each, but in the Restricted Region.”

“Are you insane?” “Over my dead body!” “You’re obsessed with torture!” “That place is sacrilegious!” “I will not accept that!”

Georgiou and Viallamando shared an expression that could only be described as wishing to be anywhere else but here. The pair listened to the other six of them yell at each other for a while until they got it out of their system. Chiu composed herself and began.

“Nirmala, we are simply not going to permit you to have our daughters tortured,” she said, taking deep breaths to retain her composure.

“My other option is that they are each sent to an Alternative Education Centre. They clearly do not accept or understand our laws or culture. I would argue that it is of the utmost importance that this is corrected.”

It was an unreasonable suggestion. Nobody in their right mind would send Daughters of the Council to Alt-Ed! Except, well. It was far less extreme than Nirmala’s other suggestions. And they had to keep the Patels from starting a civil war. So, nobody spoke. The silence stretched. Minutes passed. Nobody could work out an argument. And then enough time passed that Nirmala smirked.

“I do not hear any objections. So, I must assume you accept the compromise. Of course, Rosemary Arnott is exempted; I would not like to start that precedent. Xia Chiu, Carolyn Greenwood and Olivia Pierre, however. And my niece Reena if she is foolish enough to return to Kerlile.”

Councillors Chiu, Greenwood and Pierre each shared a desperate look with each other, seeking better options. They were not fast enough.

“Then that’s decided,” Nirmala Patel said, crossing her arms, sitting back, and looking around the room like the cat that got the cream.

*

Later, Unknown Location

A door opened, and a woman slipped inside. She looked around, her eyes locking onto a man smoking a cigarette.

“Ah, you have returned. Was the mission successful?” he asked.

“Very.”

“Good. And did they buy it?”

“Hook, line, and sinker.”

He chuckled, exhaling, blowing a ring of smoke into the air.

[Lauchenoiria]

Greenwood Household, Kerlile
PRESENT DAY

“You cannot be serious!” Carolyn Greenwood shouted at her mother. “You’re really going to send me to alt-ed?”

“Carolyn, the Council agreed it was the most appropriate response to your incursion on the Patel Estate. It is out of my hands,” Councillor Letitia replied.

“I could’ve stayed in Zongongia and instead you tell me to come back and say it’s fine and I’ll be safe? You lied to me!”

“Come on, Carolyn, you would have hated living in Zongongia, even for a few months,” Letitia chuckled. “And a couple of months is all it will take for you to pass the examination for release, if you are speaking the truth on your allegiances.”

“That’s not the point! I don’t want to spend even a day locked up with dissidents,” she wrinkled her nose. “I’d have rather you let them torture me!”

“You would not say that, I expect, if you had ever been tortured,” Letitia pointed out. “Come on, Carolyn. Do this the easy way. I will drive you there, you turn yourself in, and we can avoid any unpleasantness with the police.”

“Mother, please,” Carolyn begged.

“As I say, it is out of my hands. Now, are you going to cooperate?”

Carolyn turned away to hide the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Once she was sure they would not fall, she nodded once. She allowed her mother to take her to the cars, and drive her to the South Grapevale Young Adult Alternative Education Facility.

*

Councillor Lia Chiu had assured Jennifer Hale that should she hand Jia and Cheung over to her care, that they would be safe and well-cared-for while Xia was in Zongongia. Hale, knowing how much the Chiu valued family, had no reason to disbelieve her.

She should have.

“Jia, can you come in here a moment?” called her great-grandmother while she was playing with some of her cousins outside. The eight-year-old ran inside to where her the Councillor was standing with a pair of police officers. Jia stopped and stood, waiting, oblivious to what was about to happen.

“Yes, great-grandma?” she asked. In response, the Councillor turned to the police officers, one of whom produced an extra-small pair of handcuffs and stepped towards Jia.

“Jia Chiu, you are under arrest for anti-matriarchal activity,” she said, grabbing one of Jia’s arms.

“I’m… what!?” Jia said, growing pale. “Great-grandma?”

“I must say,” the Councillor said, sighing as she looked down at her great-granddaughter, “that I am very disappointed in your mother for involving you in her rebellious activities while you are so young. You are old enough, however, to know better. Really, this is for your own good.”

Jia’s eyes went wide in panic as the police officer pulled her hands behind her back and handcuffed her. “Great-grandma, please! I didn’t do anything!”

“Now, don’t lie, Jia,” Councillor Chiu tutted. “It will not make anything better. Time in an Alternative Education Centre will be good for you.”

“No!” Jia said, struggling to get away. The Maytown Academy for Girls, where future Councillors were educated, did not hold back on informing the young Daughters of what happened in such places. “Please!”

Her great-grandmother gestured for the police to take Jia away. The eight-year-old screamed and began to cry, but it had no effect. She was carried out of the Chiu household and into a waiting police van, where she was deposited unceremoniously in the back. She tried to get control of herself; the Maytown Academy also taught that a Daughter of the Council should always keep her composure. It was much more difficult in practice than in theory. “Mama, help,” she sobbed to herself.

*

Camille Pierre was undertaking a rite of passage for young Reformist Daughters. She was at a Teenagers Against Torture meeting. The fact that reformist Daughters had been attending Teenagers Against Torture meetings for decades without success did not occur to the young girls sitting around a table making placards for their protest. It would be legal; Councillor Hale would sign their permit every time these days. Not that ‘legal’ meant much in Kerlile; it was always qualified by a bunch of other things that could be used against them at any given moment. Camille wasn’t that worried, though. She was Councillor Pierre’s (fourth) daughter.

Thirteen-year-old Camille was passing a tube of glue to one of the older teens when suddenly the door to the community room they were using burst open to reveal an entire squad of riot police.

“Down on the ground! All of you!” one of them yelled.

The older teens, used to this, complied with only a few sighs. Camille and the younger members were much more shocked. Camille began to pull out her ID card, opening her mouth to explain, “my name is Ca…”

One of them grabbed her and shoved her roughly into the wall, causing her to gasp and drop the card. They yanked her arms behind her back and handcuffed her, pressing her against the wall so it was difficult to breathe. One of them picked up the card and looked at it. Surely, they’d see who she was and go away? No such luck. The woman smirked. “Guess we’ve found who we’re looking for. Camille Pierre, you are under arrest for anti-matriarchal activity.”

“Oh,” Camille said. It was all she could manage in her shock. Olivia had warned her of the possibility when she decided to join the group. She hadn’t really believed it might happen. “Are you… are you going to send me to prison?” she asked. The woman only smirked again as she motioned for her colleagues to drag Camille out to a waiting van.

[Lauchenoiria]

South Grapevale Young Adult Alternative Education Facility

Carolyn Greenwood sat primly on the bed that Leonie Bennett had once slept in. If Leonie had been shocked and horrified to end up here, her reaction paled in comparison to that of Carolyn. Carolyn was shocked also, but the emotion that defined her present experience could only be described as outrage. She was utterly furious with her mother for allowing this.

The cell door opened and another young woman was shoved roughly inside. The other woman had numerous bruises and turned around to growl at the door as it was slammed shut and locked. Then the woman stood up straight, stuck her tongue out at the door and folded her arms, leaning back against the wall. She noticed Carolyn and nodded at her. “First time?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your first time in Alt-Ed?” she asked. “Only, you look terrified, and you’re clasping your hands together like you’re about to start praying.”

Carolyn looked down at where her hands were indeed clasped together. “One should not ever need to attend alternative education more than once,” Carolyn responded, to which the woman burst out laughing.

“Yeah, definitely your first time. How’d you even end up here with an attitude like that? Anyway, I’m Cass. This is my third time; the first two were in the Juvenile ones though. When I was eight, and again when I was fourteen. I’m eighteen now, so here I am!”

“Your third time!?” Carolyn was horrified.

“Yup, so when I was eight I used to like pretending to be a boy and sneaking around; and then when I was fourteen I went to an anti-torture protest. This time all I did was go on Lauchenoirian social media site. What’s your name?”

“Carolyn,” she said primly. “Why would you wish to go on there?”

“I suspect you would not understand,” Cass said, mocking Carolyn’s upper-class accent. Her own accent was that of a working-class eastern Kerlian who lived near the Kvaskm border. “Anyway, when I was eight I was there thirteen months, and then when I was fourteen it was two-and-a-half years, and now I expect I’ll be here the whole five. You, on the other hand… well. You seem like you’re gonna cooperate with them.”

“Of course I will,” Carolyn replied, turning away slightly. “Why would one wish to remain a secret servant of patriarchy? I do not understand.”

Cass laughed again, rolling her eyes. “Goddess, you’re gonna be fun. I bet three months, personally, before you’re out.”

“Three months!?” Carolyn looked over, horrified.

“Well, yeah. The minimum.”

“The minimum is three months!?”

“Oh girl,” Cass laughed, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor and grinning in Carolyn’s direction. “You’ve got a lot of things to learn.”

*

Jia Chiu and Camille Pierre had seen each other in the processing room of Iletina Girls’ Juvenile Alternative Education Centre. Jia was crying her eyes out in the queue when Camille was dragged in, looking more bemused than frightened. The two exchanged a glance and Camille gave Jia a reassuring look. Neither dared to speak, not with all the signs threatening punishment for talking.

Upon seeing Jia, Camille started to understand what was going on. Olivia and Xia were hiding in Zongongia; she was already aware of their flight there. It was obvious, then, that she and Jia were either hostages or bait. It didn’t bother her as much as it should have; Olivia had taught her well as a child to trust nobody, always look over her shoulder, and assume the worst of every situation. How to Survive as a Reformist in the Pierre Family.

In turn, the pair were both taken into a room, ordered to change into a scratchy uniform, handed a pack containing a towel and a toothbrush, and each was given a wristband on which was printed a letter and number. Jia’s was K-08. Camille’s was X-12. They were then marched in two separate directions to the residential areas (aka large dorm-like cells). Jia was taken to the east of the building, housing the 8 to 11-year-olds; while Camille was taken west with some other 12 to 15-year-olds.

The eastern wing of the building was brighter. Despite the purpose of the building, clearly someone had decided that it was beneficial to try and put the younger girls at a bit of ease, and thus decorated the place in the colours of a primary school. Except instead of poor-quality art projects and posters about basic arithmetic, the walls were covered in pro-matriarchy propaganda. And there were bars across all the windows. It was, Jia noted with interest, much brighter than the Maytown Academy.

She was taken up a set of stairs to a door with a large “K” on it. One of the women escorting her took a set of keys, unlocked the door, and then pushed Jia inside. “Bed eight,” she said to Jia, then slammed the door and locked it. Jia slowly turned around, wiping the tears from her eyes as she glanced around the room. There were six sets of bunk-beds, twelve in total, each numbered on the end. Jia slowly made her way to number eight as seven other girls watched her silently.

Meanwhile, Camille’s half of the building was much drearier, and the guards were better-armed. There was no such reassurance granted to the young teenagers as there was the children. There was propaganda on the walls here, too, but interspersed with warnings about how disobedience would be punished. As Camille was marched up a set of stairs – a mirror image of those on the other half of the building, she heard someone scream, and jumped. In response, the guard escorting her grabbed her arm tighter, making her wince.

She was held in place as another woman unlocked the door with the giant X. “Bed twelve,” the woman holding her said, and then she shoved Camille inside, hard enough to cause her to stumble and drop her bundle as the door was slammed and locked behind her. All the other beds were already taken in this room, and two girls were standing in the middle of the room having an argument.

“You think because you’ve been here before that you’re better than us!” one of the girls was saying. She looked about Camille’s age. Her partner in the argument looked older.

“If you reach the age of ten without being arrested, that makes you complacent,” the older girl declared, folding her arms. “This is my seventh time. They say if there’s an eighth they’ll send me to adult prison. I hope they do. Prison is the only place in Kerlile you can find good people!”

“New kid,” someone sitting on one of the upper bunks said, pointing at Camille. The two arguing stopped and turned around.

“Hey, what’d you do?” the younger girl said.

“I…” Camille began. Don’t tell them who you are. It won’t end well, she thought to herself. “I was at a Teenagers Against Torture meeting that got raided.”

“How many times have you been arrested?” the older one demanded.

“Three,” Camille replied, half-lying. It was true… if you counted the two times her mother had locked her in their family’s private cells (which, at least, were not decorated in the fashion of a medieval dungeon).

“How old were you the first time?” the girl demanded.

“Dana, stop,” the younger one groaned, rolling her eyes. “You’re acting worse than the intake interrogators. Hey, I’m Melody.”

“Camille,” she whispered in response. The older girl, Dana, rolled her eyes and stomped off to bunk six, lying down and staring at the bottom of the mattress above her.

“Ignore her,” the girl who’d spoken from the bunk said, swinging her legs around and dropping down, ignoring the ladder fastened to the side. “I’m June; short for Juniper Lee, because my mum was insane. Here, we’ll show you how to make your bunk properly; otherwise you’ll get punished.”

While June and Melody assisted Camille – who’d spent her whole life with servants and knew nothing of making a bed, to strict specifications or otherwise – with ensuring that she didn’t get punished for a lack of order and discipline, the girls of Jia’s cell were all sitting silent and wide eyed, still afraid they weren’t allowed to talk. Until, that is, the ninth girl arrived.

The door opened and two guards walked in, holding a girl of about eleven, who was kicking out and using language that was not appropriate for an eleven-year-old. They took her all the way to bed nine, lifted her up onto the bunk, and handcuffed one of her wrists to the edge of it. She swore at them. The other girls’ eyes widened even further. “You will be restrained until you stop attempting to escape,” one of the adults informed the new girl, before they left.

The new girl continued to swear after the adults until the key turned in the lock. Then she groaned and lay back, yanking the handcuff so it clanked. Then she turned her head to look at the girl sitting on number seven, above Jia. “So, what’s your deal then?” The other girls all looked at each other. “Oh, come on,” number nine said. “They’re not gonna do anything to us for talking.”

“My mother is a reformist and wrote a thing for the newspaper which called Councillor Patel rude things,” the girl on bed five offered.

“My dad called my mum a rude word during an argument,” said number two, “now he’s in prison and I’m here so they can check he didn’t make me evil.”

“I don’t understand what I did!” said number six. “I got arrested for ‘anti-matriarchal activity’ when I went to school this morning. But they didn’t tell me what I actually did!”

“I don’t understand what I did either,” Jia said softly. Number six smiled a little at her.

“What’s your name?” the girl on bed six said to Jia. “I’m Isabelle.”

“Jia,” she offered.

“How old are you?”

“I’m eight,” Jia said.

“Figured you must be, they don’t put younger girls in here. But you’re so tiny you look about six. No offence,” Isabelle said. “I’m ten.”

Jia just shrugged. During the five months she lived in Lauchenoiria while her mother gave birth to her brother Cheung, she’d been used to the kids at the school there commenting on her small size. And bullying her for being a Kerlian. At least that wouldn’t happen here.

The door opened again, and number nine began to yell insults at the door again as three more girls were led inside. They each looked around ten. One of them had been crying, and the other two looked frightened as well. They were sent over to beds ten, eleven and twelve, and then the door was locked on the assorted girls once again. The new trio, upon being left alone, all clutched each other.

“What did you three do, then?” number nine called out to them.

“We were…” the crying one started, sniffing. “We were…”

“We tried to run away to Lauchenoiria,” one of the others said. “We all go to school near the border and we thought that we should try and escape together. But, well. We got caught.”

Jia had calmed down now that she had an opportunity to talk to others in the same situation. She wasn’t alone, and that made her feel a little better. It transpired over the course of the conversation that followed, however, that she was the youngest of the group by a year-and-a-half. Apparently, just-turned-eight was an oddity in the alt-ed system. The others, upon learning how young she was, all reassured her that they wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. She doubted they would be able to stop it, but she appreciated the sentiment.

At quarter-to-nine, an announcement came over a tannoy instructing them that lights-out was in fifteen minutes, and to prepare for bed. They hurriedly took turns brushing their teeth at the pair of sinks on the side, and using the toilet in a little cubicle off to the side. All except Suzie (number nine), who was still handcuffed to her bed, and not happy about it. Neither was number ten, below her, worried she’d wet herself in the night. But no adult came to do anything about it.

In the other wing of the building, Camille’s group was also getting ready for bed. They, it turned out, had a much stricter routine. Fortunately for Camille, some of the others had been there a couple of days, and had already learned the rules. She managed to follow instructions without getting in any trouble, and when the lights obediently switched off automatically at nine o’clock, she closed her eyes and tried her best to sleep, knowing that whatever happened tomorrow, she was going to need it.

[Lauchenoiria]

Carolyn Greenwood was diligently taking notes in the classroom. They were being lectured on the importance of restricting male rights in order to prevent patriarchal re-assertion, after having been shown a film on the matter. Carolyn had covered the topic in school when she was fourteen, but perhaps at twenty, she would have new insights into the matter for the essay she would have to write on it.

Her cellmate Cass was sat next to her, pretending to be asleep. Unlike Carolyn, who had sat down when told, Cass had needed to be dragged into the room and restrained to the chair at her ankles and waist. Then, she’d needed to be gagged as she continually interrupted the lecture. And after she threw her notepad at the teacher, she’d had her wrists restrained as well. Carolyn did not expect Cass to get high marks on her essay.

After the class was over, they were taken to lunch where they were given their bland gruel. Carolyn and the others who had obeyed in class unprompted were given apples as well. Carolyn savoured the apple, finding the gruel barely edible as someone accustomed to fancy meals prepared by the family servants. Cass made several jokes to that effect, but Carolyn did not even realise she was being teased: it was merely a fact for her.

They were given what passed for leisure time after lunch, which is to say, they could talk to each other in the same canteen room as they ate, on the hard metal benches, with the hard metal tables, and the armed guards watching them from the walkway above. Alternatively, they were allowed to return to their cells if they wished. Cass, naturally, sat with another group of loud, traitorous dissidents. Carolyn asked to return to her cell, and sat on the floor, beginning work on her essay. She intended to get the highest marks. Three months? No, not if she could help it. She would pass that exam in three weeks.

*

Camille’s group were split up depending on their school year, and taken to classrooms where girls from other cells already sat. Camille was among the older group, rather than with her own age – she had begun her education early, and was already on the verge of graduating from the Maytown Academy. That was not uncommon in Maytown, but far less common elsewhere. The fifteen-year-olds started at her a little when she was placed in their group.

The morning passed uneventfully. They were taken to standard school lessons; although starting much earlier than a standard Kerlian school. After continuous, exhausting lessons from an early 6:30am right through to 1pm, they were given a brief half-hour lunch consisting of basic food, and then taken right back to the classrooms. Except, instead of algebra and biology, this time they were shown the same propaganda film that Carolyn was watching on the other side of the country.

Camille didn’t pay nearly as much attention. For her, it had been mere months since she’d covered this topic at the Academy. She knew what they’d expect her to write in her essay. Nonsense propaganda that agreed with everything they said. Her essay at the Academy had been critical of the idea, but she suspected that wouldn’t fly here. Regardless, writing a propaganda essay was easier than writing a critical one, so she trusted her memory and let herself daydream through the film.

*

Jia’s class also had normal school lessons in the morning. She was with her own age group, thankfully, as she wouldn’t have known how to explain a difference. They were given a whole extra half hour before they began, and another half-hour break at 10am. It was still a long, long period for an eight-year-old. There were only six of them in her class, five other girls from different cell groups. They’d all been here longer and looked… broken down. None of them questioned anything; they followed orders like automatons and there was no emotion in their eyes. They scared Jia.

After lunch, they were also shown a propaganda film, though this one was aimed at a younger audience. It was a cartoon, showing members of the Council of Kerlile battling against evil foreign males using superpowers. Jia couldn’t help but laugh when she saw a cartoon version of her eighty-one-year-old great-grandmother punch a caricature of President Brown of LOM through a wall. In fact, she laughed hard enough that the teacher-cum-prison-guard walked over with a ruler and demanded Jia hold out her hands.

Corporal punishment was used in Kerlian schools, even the normal kinds. And the Maytown Academy was one of the strictest schools out there. Jia was used to this, as much as she wished she wasn’t. It did stop her laughing, however. She complied, expecting the slight pain of her teacher at Maytown. The Alt-Ed teacher, however, hit much harder. Jia couldn’t help but gasp, and would’ve screamed if she hadn’t stopped herself at the very last minute.

“I will not tolerate another outburst,” the teacher warned her. “If you continue to disrespect the Council, I will have you sent to the solitary cells.”

Jia did not want to find out what that entailed. She spent the rest of the film watching closely, silently, showing no emotions. Her hand still stung in pain, and she tried to ignore it. Acknowledging pain led to more pain. Once the film was over, the teacher made them sit in a circle and talk about what they thought. The other five girls all recited about how great the Council was, how they were kept safe from the big scary patriarchal countries. Then came Jia’s turn.

“Uh, I like it because,” she paused. She thought it was nonsense, but she was wise enough not to say so. “Uh because the bad men need to be stopped.”

“Is that all, Jia?” the teacher said.

“Uh, and the Council protects us from the bad men. Oh, and the bad women too who let men control them.”

“Good, Jia. We will, however, need to work on your understanding of the benefits of Kerlile. That is a rather basic analysis, even for one your age. Now, you will all go to dinner. The five of you will be given activity tokens. Jia, given your outburst earlier, you are denied the opportunity to participate in activities. After dinner you will report to room seven for your punishment.”

Punishment? Jia thought with fear. She didn’t say anything else, but all through dinner she was frightened. What were they going to do to her?

She reported as told to room seven. A queue of glum-looking girls was lined up outside, some of whom were handcuffed. The queue included Suzie, who had a cut on her lip that wasn’t there yesterday, and who looked rather smug about it. She nodded to Jia as she joined the queue.

“Hey Jia! Glad to see at least one of our cell isn’t a coward. I managed to make that smug woman with the green scarf slap me hard enough that, well,” she pointed at her cut with her tongue. “It takes so much to make them hurt our age group, so I had to really try!”

“Why…?” Jia couldn’t even formulate the question.

“Oh, my sister and I have a bet. She’s thirteen and we both got arrested together. I bet her that I could get more scars than her. They’re not as careful with the teenagers though, so I’ve really got my work cut out for me!”

Jia leaned against the wall, dizzy. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

“Line up!” a voice demanded, and Jia quickly jumped into line. Suzie and some of the others had to be grabbed and dragged into it. They were marched into a room with a big 7 on the door and sat on hard wooden benches in lines. Don’t panic, Jia.

They were handed out sheets of lined paper.

“You will write out ‘Long Live the Matriarchy’ precisely one hundred times. You will not speak. You will not move until you are finished. If you do not comply, you will be kept here until you do. You will not be given food until you are finished. You will not be permitted to use the bathroom. You will not be permitted to sleep. I strongly suggest you comply.”

“How am I meant to write lines in handcuffs?” Suzie asked, holding up her restrained hands.

“You should have thought of that before you attempted escape,” the woman smirked. “Now, be silent and begin!”

Jia was relieved. It could have been much worse. She got to work, tuning out the world around her as some of the others got yelled at for talking and other such things. Her hand, still sore from earlier, began to hurt even more, but she ignored it. They made them do this at the Academy if they were late or talked out of turn. It was fine, nothing Jia couldn’t handle. She finished and raised her hand, keeping her eyes on her desk, as she would have done if she was at the Academy. One of the teacher-prison-guards came over, checked her work, and ordered her to return to her cell. After she got up, she realised she was the first to finish.

When she returned to her cell, she was the only one there. The others were clearly still at whatever activities they were awarded with if they were sufficiently obedient during the day. Jia swore to herself she’d be more careful tomorrow. She ran her sore hand under the cold tap for a while, then she washed her face so it didn’t look quite like she’d spent all the previous night crying. She took a deep breath, brushed her teeth, and crawled into bed. She would be better prepared tomorrow, she thought. And before the others were back, she was fast asleep.

[Lauchenoiria]

Lauchenoiria-Kerlile Border
APRIL 1934

“The Lauchenoirians are retreating,” the Kerlian soldier informed Councillor Martina Viallamando.

“Curious,” the Councillor mused. “Given we have not engaged them even once. Is there any indication as to why?”

“We have received word that a terrible storm is approaching,” the solider replied.

“Perhaps,” the Councillor looked her in the eye. “You should have led with that.”

“Ah. Yes.”

The Councillor looked up at the sky, and in the distance there did indeed seem to be clouds gathering – clouds that were so dark they almost looked black. She smirked at the sky. Good; they were unlikely to attack. Her spies had seen their camp. There would be far too much damage after a bad storm for them to press on. She nodded confidently, and then ordered the woman to signal the others to get to shelter.

“Um, excuse me? Are you Martina Viallamando?” came a male voice. She scowled and glared down from her horse where a small man stood holding an envelope towards her. He was dressed like a Lauchenoirian mailman.

“That would depend on who is asking,” she replied, sticking her nose up at him. Upon seeing her face more clearly, he breathed a sigh of relief… and whipped off his hat and fake moustache, revealing ‘himself’ to be a woman of clear Aelurian origin. Martina exhaled, and then got off her horse. “What do you have for me?”

“Iekika did not send that letter,” the woman informed her. “It is a trap; the Lauchenoirians wish you to attempt a rescue to provide them a reason to invade.”

“Typical,” Martina hissed. “Get on, there’s a storm coming,” she said, gesturing for the other woman to join her in mounting the horse once more. Then she set off north at a gallop, ahead of the fast-approaching storm clouds. She did not go in the same direction as her troops, but rather took a left at a side track and made her way to what appeared to be the ruin of a castle, that looked like it had crumbled before the partition of Fleura.

Amongst the rubble, however, a modern building had been hidden in the middle, around which several women were rushing back and forth. Martina handed the horse to one of them, who began leading it to a set of stables also half-hidden on the edge of a thick group of trees; likely one of the northern edges of the Fleurian Forest that was mostly in Lauchenoiria.

Martina led the Aelurian into the modern building, and down into a basement. Inside was a map of both Kerlile and Lauchenoiria; and on the wall was a Kerlian flag alongside an Aelurian one. A pre-Unification Aelurian flag. The Aelurian woman smiled at the sight of that. “Gods and Goddesses,” she chuckled. “I have missed that sight. It is, alas, banned in Lauchenoiria now.”

“The rest of the Council would not have approved such a plan in any case,” Martina sighed, ignoring the comment and responding to the statement from twenty minutes earlier. “They also refuse to fund a campaign to free Aeluria. All of this is from my personal funds, and they will not last much longer if I continue to do this. I’m so sorry that I can’t do more.”

“It’s fine,” the woman said, sitting down, and suddenly looking much older than she was. “The others have, well. Assimilated. I don’t expect we will see our beloved Aeluria free for another century.”

Viallamando sighed, and went to the door to the room, locking it. They were the only two inside. Then she sat down next to the other woman and kissed her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, stroking her cheek.

“So am I,” the other woman said, tears welling in her eyes. Then, the Councillor and her Aelurian lover embraced; hidden from the world.

[Lauchenoiria]

Iletina Girls Juvenile Alternative Education Centre
PRESENT DAY

The more Jia thought about it, the less different this was to the Maytown Academy. They were not allowed to leave, kept on a strict routine, and punished for the slightest disobedience. In fact, with each passing day, Jia became more confident and less afraid. The same could not be said of the others. There was more crying at night than there had been in the first days now, with people missing their parents and their freedom.

Jia was used to being forcibly parted from her immediate family. Her grandmother did so when she locked Xia up for those ridiculous letters. And she was used to being locked up, after the whole Fleming cult fiasco. Plus, she was used to attending boarding school and this was hardly that different, except for the locks. She just had to remember to act like a normal Kerlian instead of a Daughter. Which was fine too; she’d done that at her Lauchenoirian school.

Once she’d adjusted to what was expected of her, she found it remarkably easy to pull it off. She knew what to say; and she’d been taught how to say it. No task they were given was too difficult for her, and aside from that first day, she’d managed to avoid punishment. Indeed, she’d been given an activity pass each other day. The activities, it turned out, were a choice of three things one could do after dinner, which changed based on the day of the week.

There was usually a sport, something creative, and something more relaxing. Today, for example, the options were: badminton, singing, or a movie that wasn’t just blatant propaganda. Jia, wanting the opportunity to run around instead of walking at a designated pace in her designated place in her designated line, chose badminton. The girl she played against first was a full head taller than her, but they were surprisingly evenly matched.

Okay, I’ll be fine, Jia thought as she lay down to sleep that night. I can pass their silly little exam easily. If this is about politics – Mum says this is always about politics – then I can cope with this until whenever the Council changes their mind. It’s not so bad. I’m fine.

*

Camille’s class were waiting for their grades on their propaganda essays. They all sat, fidgeting nervously. Each of them seemed to want a different outcome, according to conversations at lunch. Some of them wished for high marks so they could sit their exit exams soon, or for the rewards. One girl wanted a middling grade so she could “avoid going home for as long as possible”. The most rebellious of them wished to fail deliberately. Apparently being sent to the punishment cells was a status symbol.

“Stand up,” the teacher-guard said as she walked in, a pile of essays under her arm. She handed them out as she walked around the room. When she reached Camille, she passed her the paper which had a big red C at the top. Camille frowned at it. She was sure she’d regurgitated all the main propaganda points.

“All those who received an A, and have been here for over three months, line up at the door. You will be taken to sit exit examinations,” the teacher said and paused to allow the three girls to go and be led away by another woman. They did not give the inmates their names; they were expected to address everyone by “ma’am”.

“All those who received a B, or an A and have been here less than three months, line up next to column A. You will be taken for reward activities momentarily. All those who received a C, line up next to column B. You will be taken for dinner and then straight to your cells without activities,” Camille moved to desk column B (they were labelled), still confused and slightly upset.

“Those with a D, line up by the door. You will be taken to your cells without dinner,” she sneered at the group, one of whom had begun crying.

“Those with an E, report to room fourteen for punishment. Those with an F, you will be taken to the punishment cells for three days.”

Camille shuddered as six girls were led off to the punishment cells. They were, apparently, empty cells where one was kept in solitary, with only a bucket to pee in, and denied food. She did not want to see them in person. Room 14 was less bad; it was where they sent people to write lines, or recite things.

Her group was taken for dinner; more bland food, but at least they were given some. Those whose grades had been lower would be hungry tonight. Camille shuddered again. It was a reminder that this wasn’t just a boarding school or some propaganda-filled holiday club.

“I don’t understand, my essay contained all the points in the film collection,” Camille complained to another girl once she was seated.

“Yes, it did,” the teacher said from behind the pair. They both jumped. “And yet, I could tell you were merely reciting the points. You did not believe them. You are not here to memorise the role of the Matriarchy. You are here to understand and accept the role of the Matriarchy. Should you wish to be rewarded, and should you wish to leave here before your five years are finished, you must open your mind.”

Then she walked away, leaving Camille and the other girl staring after her. “She means let them brainwash you,” the other girl said.

“I got that, thanks,” Camille grumbled, sticking a chunk of some flavourless meat into her mouth and beginning to chew. This would not be as easy as she had imagined.

*

Carolyn Greenwood got an A on her essay. She was excited, thinking she would get to sit the exam. Imagine her disappointment when she was told she would have to wait three months! She sat in the rewards room, where they had pool tables, table tennis, and a bunch of old arcade games that couldn’t connect to anything, without doing anything. She didn’t want to socialise with these people! She wanted to go home.

Cass had gotten an F and been dragged away to solitary. According to some of the other women, she’d probably get a beating. That was, according to rumour, the difference between the Young Adult and Juvenile centres. Carolyn didn’t care. Cass, frankly, deserved it. No, staring at these dissidents, these traitors, getting to play games just because they wrote a good essay? Carolyn vowed that when she was Councillor Greenwood, she would have these places shut down. And turned into real prisons.

She had meant it when she told her mother that she would have rather spent a week being tortured in the Restricted Region. At least then it would be over by now. And she wouldn’t have to look at this nonsense! In fact, if she thought about it enough, she realised that her actions had been wrong and did deserve to be punished. But surely for breaking into the Patel Family torture dungeon, the RR was a more fitting punishment? She went over to a table where people were drawing in the activity room, and took it back to her seat with a pencil.

“Dear Councillor Patel,

I wish to humbly and sincerely apologise for my unacceptable actions last week…”

[Lauchenoiria]

Iletina Girls Juvenile Alternative Education Centre
PRESENT DAY

Camille Pierre had arrived in faint bemusement, and now she was on the verge of tears. Ironically, this was nothing to do with being punished, or locked up. It wasn’t even to do with the propaganda. No, Camille was almost crying because she was being bullied by the other inmates. They had figured out who she is.

It was the whole “being two years ahead in her schooling” thing that screwed her over. It transpired, after she was questioned on it, that common Kerlians were not permitted to skip school years, and were merely given extra advanced classes. That was how they worked out she was a Daughter, and that was why they all scorned her now. The people who still wanted to be rebellious hated her for her family. The people who wanted out were frightened at hanging out with someone who was clearly in here for politics.

One of them stuck her toothbrush in the toilet. Another tied her ankles together with a rolled-up pillowcase in her sleep so she tripped upon waking. They stole her stupid, scratchy uniform so she got in trouble in the morning. One of them stole a pen from class and wrote an insulting word (an illegal insulting word) on her forehead in the night. At least on that last one the perpetrator got sent to the punishment cells. But the night after, they really had it in for her, tripping her up and pushing her into the metal edge of the bunks.

The following day, Camille wanted nothing more than to be away from them. So, she began yelling a bunch of treasonous slogans in class until she got dragged off to the punishment cells herself. Once she was in solitary confinement – in an empty cell containing nothing but bare floor and a metal bucket – she actually felt more relaxed than she had for the past week. Whatever came next would be unpleasant, sure, but at least it would be at the hands of her captors and not the people who were supposed to be in the same situation as her.

*

Jia had also been sent for punishment. She was still a little shocked as she was shoved into the bare cage-like structure. It hadn’t been something she’d expected to end up here for. Not deliberate disobedience; not even telling a lie. No, Jia was being punished for telling a little too much truth.

20 mins ago

"You," the woman pointed at Jia. "Recite the names of the Founders of Kerlile."

"Nancy Arnott, Yijun Chiu, uh," she paused slightly to get her breath, and the woman slammed a ruler down on the desk in front of her.

"No hesitations. Stand up and come to the front."

Jia jumped, but complied.

"Recite the names of the Founders of Kerlile. Quickly!"

"Nancy Arnott, Yijun Chiu, Phoebe Georgiou, Wilma Greenwood, Camila Letitia Hale, Edith Hart, Sunita Patel, Marilène Pierre, Margaret Robinson and Martina Viallamando."

Jia jumped once more as the woman slammed the ruler into the teacher's desk next to her, and then pointed it in her face. She was openly sobbing now.

"We do not speak of traitors. There are nine Council Families. Nine."

"But the Robinsons were on the Council until…"

"Are you talking back to me?" She hissed at Jia, who hadn't been able to help herself.

Jia remained silent, afraid that speaking again would be seen as yet more disobedience. The teacher stood and walked over until she was towering over Jia. “Repeat after me: there are nine Council Families.”

“There are nine Council Families,” Jia complied quietly.

“You should know better than to speak things which must remain unspoken,” the teacher had said. “Take her to the punishment cells.”

And then she’d been dragged off by two women, still shocked at the whole thing. She hadn’t even known that they were trying to, what? Erase the Robinsons from history? It seemed like the sort of thing they’d do, though. Why hadn’t she been told she wasn’t allowed to mention them. The others probably got taught all that in their normal schools with their normal rules. It wasn’t fair.

Fortunately for Jia, they did not deprive the under-12s of food. They did, however, give her the absolute bare-minimum bowl of porridge, without even so much as a spoon. She had to stick her face in the bowl and eat the tiny amount. It was undignified and got on her nose. She supposed that was the point. Then she was expected to curl up on the hard-concrete floor without a blanket. Well, she supposed, so had Fleming’s cult. But then she’d had her mother to cling to for heat.

And she’d probably be kept here for three days, that seemed standard. The fear she’d managed to shove away came creeping back now, making her shiver alongside the cold. She curled up into a ball, clutching her legs as she tried to control her breathing. Don’t panic, Jia.

She jumped as there was a loud noise, the sounds of a struggle further down the corridor. She couldn’t see. They appeared to be dragging another girl in here, one who was screaming and pleading with them. “This is your third infraction!” one of the guards was yelling. “You will be here for two weeks this time, girl. Stop shouting!”

Don’t panic, Jia. Don’t… panic… okay I’m panicking.

*

Carolyn hated Cass. She hated having to share a cell with her. But, well. Now Cass was in solitary confinement and Carolyn had to admit that she’d had less time alone with her own thoughts when Cass was there trying to convince her to join some rebellion. Now, it was just Carolyn, and Carolyn’s brain. Her brain was running at a million miles an hour, recalling every moment that had led up to this one.

The plane home from Shuell. When she told her mother about the group of Daughters discussing political strategy.

“… just who have you been speaking to, Carolyn? This is not like you. You have always been far more interested in military matters than politics.”

“When I was younger, I believed that joining the military was the best way to serve my country and its mission. I still believe in serving my country and its mission… but I’m starting to realise that there are better ways to do that. Yes, there have been a group of us Daughters, who have been discussing these things together.”

“I am intrigued to know who is part of this group,” said Letitia.

The time she’d met the other conspirators in a park in the middle of the night, when they were plotting to rescue Xia from her grandmother, and then later decided not to let her help.

“It’s freezing!” hissed Carolyn Greenwood as she stepped out of the darkness towards them. The group all relaxed. “Why are we meeting here!?”

“I need to ask you some questions, Carolyn,” Olivia said calmly. Rosemary stepped closer to Reena, who had moved away slightly, watching. “What do you think of your grandmother?”

“Her policies were ill-conceived. She did damage to this country that will take us many years to repair, perhaps even decades,” Carolyn replied, frowning. “But why do you want to know about her?”

And now this. The whole ill-conceived Reena Patel rescue. And then her decision to return from Zongongia, because her mother assured her it would be fine. Had her mother betrayed her? Or… had she betrayed her mother? Did her mother interpret her statement as pro-reform rather than about strategy? Was she becoming pro-reform, hanging out with the others? Maybe she did need alt-ed!

Carolyn groaned, putting her hands in her head and moving to the other side. She didn’t have a clock, but she would have guessed it was around 3am. Please, Goddess, please let this be over soon. Please.

[Lauchenoiria]

Office of the President of Kerlile
Present Day

“Thank you for coming, Claire,” President Rebecca Arnott of Kerlile said to her sister, gesturing for her to take a seat.

“How may I assist you, Madam President?” asked General Claire Arnott, one of the highest-ranking members of the Kerlian military, who had earned her position without asking a single favour from her family.

“Please, Claire, we don’t need to be so formal. This isn’t military business.”

Claire relaxed a little. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk about the succession. Given she has no daughters, you are currently Rosemary’s heir. I am sure you’ve heard what happened at the Patel Estate?”

Claire nodded. “But surely she will produce an heir before it becomes necessary? She is only twenty-three. Or has she discovered a fertility issue?”

“No, no, as far as I know she’s never even been tested. She has, however, informed me that she doesn’t intend to consider having children until she is in her thirties. And, well, if her conduct continues as it has been, I fear she will not reach that age.”

The President’s words were blunt for one speaking of the death of her young only daughter. But Rebecca was a pragmatist, and she understood Kerlian politics – both the risks and the rewards. If Rosemary continued as she was, she would face the wrong end of an assassin one of these days. Indeed, the President wasn’t quite sure that Rosemary hadn’t already incurred sufficient wrath.

“I don’t wish to be blunt, Rebecca, but I do not want to become a Councillor, and my daughters are unlikely to be keen on the idea either. Didn’t you have eggs frozen a while ago? Could you have another child?”

“Trust me, I’m already looking into the idea,” Rebecca said. “But I expect that I am also a target of certain people with proclivities for the hiring of assassins. If something should happen before – or, indeed, before any such baby reaches the age of fourteen – then I do hope that you will continue my policies? Also, remind me, which of your daughters is eldest again?”

Claire had a set of fifteen-year-old identical triplets. The girls were still students at the Maytown Academy, and not one of them had yet been arrested at an anti-torture demonstration. Rebecca suspected that meant none of them was particularly interested in politics.

“That would be Annabelle,” Claire replied. “Though she did once tell me that she would rather die than sit on the Council, so I would rather avoid such a scenario. She wants to become – please don’t yell at me – a ballet dancer.”

“Oh my Goddess, please tell me you rescinded her OMCP?”

“She didn’t have one in the first place! I have no idea where she got the idea from!”

The pair of very powerful sisters both continued performing exaggerated horror for a minute before they collapsed into laughter. Rebecca pulled out a bottle of Xiomeran wine and poured both of them a glass. They relaxed, updating each other on matters lighter than the possible assassination(s) of members of their family. There was, however, few light matters to discuss in the Matriarchy, and the conversation veered darker again quicker than either would have liked.

“Okay, so, please tell me truthfully – was it you who had Anita Patel killed?” Claire asked.

“Goddess no!” Rebecca snorted. “I’m not that stupid.”

“Really? Because Natalia Hart is convinced it was you. She told me as such when I had to go tell her little private army to get the hell away from the boundary with Primrose Region before she started a civil war,” Claire eyed her sister.

“Wait, what?” Rebecca said, sitting up straighter. “Are you having me on?”

“She even said she told Rosemary to ask you after the Patel Estate affair. I mean, come on Rebecca, it’s hardly the most unlikely thing. After all, she killed our father,” Claire counted out one finger. “And she made our brothers disappear,” she added a second. “And Hale keeps saying you only became a reformist because you thought Patel would kill you,” she added a third. “Oh, and the whole coup you attempted before the Haven talks.”

“Claire, I didn’t kill her,” Rebecca said seriously. “But if Hart is making those connections, and you are making them, then the Patels probably are as well. I didn’t kill her, but neither did Robinson and they already murdered a bunch of random Zongongian postal workers. I didn’t kill her, but if the Patels think I did, then Rosemary and I are in even more danger than I thought we were.”

“Who else knows everything? The coup, the murders, the disappearances?” Claire asked.

“Everyone knows about the disappearances. I doubt many know about our father; I killed the priestess who told the Patels about our brothers in the first place. The coup? Well, the only Patel in the room was Anita but she probably told Nirmala.”

“What do we do?” Claire asked, all business now. “You can’t leave the country; neither can Rosemary. The Council Chamber will not be safe. We cannot ask for assistance from anywhere else; everyone either hates Kerlile now or would side against reform.”

“Claire, I need you to take Rosemary somewhere they won’t find her until we clear this up. We have to find out who actually killed Anita Patel. That’s the only way we can stay safe. I can’t go anywhere; it would look suspicious. But Rosemary hiding will just make people think that she’s afraid after the Estate matter.”

“Within or outside of Kerlile?” Claire asked.

“Within; we can’t risk this spreading. We must do something about this image of the Council as capricious and obsessed with killing each other. True or not, it is a bad look. And, of course, assassinations in democracies are seen as one-off matters even when they happen ten times; but we have two deaths and suddenly we’re an assassin’s paradise! Anyway, Claire, be quick. We don’t know when the Patels will work things out.”

Claire nodded and left, getting in her car and heading for Hazelton where Rosemary tended to spend weekends. Hazelton was, of course, in Primrose Region. The Patel region. She had to hope she wouldn’t be too late. And that Rebecca was telling the truth: Claire was not entirely sure she hadn’t been behind Patel’s death.

---

PREVIOUSLY…
 
"No, nobody else is coming," sighed Arnott.

"Your sister..." the minister began.

"Is off at war. And my biological brothers have disappeared. Patel's doing, no doubt."
 (Have I Got Coups for You, 25 Aug 2018)
 
*
 
Anita Patel stood up swiftly, her pace matched by Rebecca Arnott. Before anyone else could blink, the pair were pointing pistols at each other.

"So, this is how you want to play it, Arnott?"

"Tell me where my family is and I will not kill you."

"Your sister is off at war, your mother is dead, your daughter is in school."

"You know who I mean."

"They are not your family, Arnott. And if you think you will get out of this room alive, you are sorely mistaken." (Have I Got Coups for You, 28 Aug 2018)
 
*
 
“Anita Patel will kill me, the way she’s killed so many of my family. You want honesty, Jennifer? I do this out of my own self-interest. But you, you want the same things. Sure, you want them out of ‘morality’ and doing the ‘right thing’, but at the end of the day, if we work together, we can both get what we want.” (Have I Got Coups for You, 3 Oct 2018)
 
*
 
Two men were arrested on suspicion of being Rebecca Arnott’s biological brothers, although it is not clear what they will be charged with. The men, aged 47 and 50, were found on land owned by the Patel family. They are being held in an undisclosed location. (Kerlian News Service, 25 Jul 2019)

[Lauchenoiria]

Jia had spent a few hours sobbing, and finally calmed down enough to really think about her situation. She didn’t understand why she was here; but she figured that if she thought about it enough, she might be able to work it out.

What had happened before her arrest? She’d left the Hale household with her brother after great-grandma came by and offered to look after them. Jennifer had asked her three times if she was sure she wanted to, and she had nodded happily – great-grandma had promised ice cream. In hindsight, even an eight-year-old could see that this had been a trap. She felt foolish for falling for it.

Why had she been at the Hale household? Her mother had asked her to stage a tantrum after Amelia Hale’s birthday party so that Jennifer let Cheung and her stay. Okay, so clearly her mother was up to something. She’d known it at the time. It had felt like a big honour to be included in one of her mother’s plots. So, clearly, whatever her mother did had angered the Council.

So, where was her mother? Not in Kerlile. That was obvious; she’d have come to rescue Jia, or at least kick up a fuss. If they had her mother locked up, they’d have taken her to her aunt like last time. So, her mother was probably somewhere else, where they couldn’t punish her for whatever.

Therefore, why had they arrested her? To force her mother to come back.

This was exactly what they’d been taught at the Maytown Academy. Classes on politics began at the age of five for a Daughter. This sort of thing was how the Council made people turn themselves in. Except, Jia knew her mother was pregnant, and she knew that her mother would never, ever come back while it would endanger the baby. And with Cheung, her mother had spent two years clinging to him, unable to be apart.

It was unlikely that Xia would return to Kerlile for at least two and a half years. Which meant that, in all likelihood, Jia would be stuck in here for two and a half years.

After she worked that out, she cried some more. She’d thought she had resigned herself to what might happen, but she’d still been convinced things would be solved fairly quickly. Now she felt a cold hopelessness wash over her. But no, she couldn’t think like that. Her mother had taught her that if anything happened, she couldn’t think like that. She had to grin and bear it; never let them see you cry, Jia. Never let them break you. If anything happens to me, run. If they catch you, I…

Her mother’s breath had caught then, and she’d had to take deep breaths before continuing. When Xia first got involved in that conspiracy of hers, she’d sat Jia down and warned her about these things. She had to remember. She had to. But it was far harder in practice than in theory.

*

Camille found it difficult to focus. She was hungry after three days of starvation, and the others kept smirking at her. It had been worse than she thought, the empty silence. She’d begun begging to be let out before the first day was over. Naturally, she was ignored. Now she just felt defeated and hopeless. Olivia had warned her that her position would not necessarily always protect her. She wished now that she’d listened.

Unbeknownst to her, the Kerlians had recorded her sobbing and begging, and sent the recording to Olivia. Once upon a time, a video of a captive Olivia had angered the Council. Now the Council would use a captive Camille to anger Olivia.

It worked. Olivia immediately contacted the Council and offered herself up if they could guarantee Camille’s release. She wanted them to meet at the border, and allow Camille to enter Zongongia and stay with the Robinsons until she was out. To ensure they kept their word. The Council was reluctant; they claimed it would attract too much scrutiny from the Zongongian authorities. So, Olivia tried her Plan B.

*
Following two sections written jointly with Xiomera

After Olivia got off the phone with the Council, she headed to the Xiomeran Embassy, tailed by at least three separate Zongongian agents. They’d been following her around since her discharge from the hospital, though they hadn’t done anything. She walked up to the embassy and then hesitated. How, exactly, was she going to explain what she wanted?

The guards at the gate looked at her curiously. Finally, one of them asked her if she required assistance in a tone of voice that clearly said "either come inside or go away".

“Uh, yes, yes I need to speak to your ambassador. I am Olivia Pierre of Kerlile,” she said, as if that was a satisfactory explanation for everyone.

The two guards looked at each other, before the one who had spoken gestured to Olivia to wait. A phone call was made, after which the guards became remarkably more efficient. Within minutes, Olivia found herself in the office of Ambassador Ayulía. "Welcome, Ms. Pierre. I must admit I was not expecting a visit today, but our Kerlian friends are always welcome. What can I do for you?"

“This is going to sound weird, but I would like to request Xiomeran assistance in facilitating a, uh, exchange of sorts, with my, uh, mother. And the rest of the Council.”

"What sort of exchange?" Ayulía asked, curious. She wasn't quite sure why Olivia couldn't arrange it herself, but the story promised to be interesting.

“I would like them to release my sister Camille from an alternative education centre. In exchange I will return to Kerlile and they can do as they wish with me. I do not, however, trust them to release Camille if I return and they will not allow Zongongia to provide a guarantee as they do not trust them with any further information on this affair.”

Ayulía was silent for a moment. "I would probably need more details about the situation, and to speak with my superiors. But this could be something Xiomera can assist you with."

“There was an internal dispute within the Patel family,” Olivia said. “It escalated. The Council wishes for myself and Xia Chiu to return, and in order to encourage us, they have imprisoned my sister and her daughter. My sister is rather sensitive; this is the fastest method.”

The ambassador nodded. "Give me just a moment, please." Ayulía walked into the private portion of her office and made a phone call to the Ministry of State. The call eventually made its way to the one person who could make a decision of this magnitude. The ambassador soon walked back into the room. "I have good news. In her wisdom, the Empress has decided to provide you with her assistance. She will reach out to the Council with your request. It was decided that she is
the only one who might be, er, convincing enough."

“Thank you,” Olivia replied. She was oddly calm, given her intention was to hand herself over to the mercy of the Kerlian government. It may, however, have been down to the strong painkillers she’d been given at the hospital before discharge. She did, after all, have a gunshot wound in her hand below the bandages.

*

An hour later, Empress Calhualyana patiently waited as her call was transferred to the Council chambers. She found herself musing with slight amusement at her task. Her amusement gave way to a businesslike demeanor as the call was connected. "Good morning, esteemed Councillors. I hope that I am not interrupting anything important."

The assembled Councillors attempted to hide the fact that they had very clearly been yelling at each other only a few minutes earlier. Pauline Pierre surreptitiously turned over a piece of paper that had NATIONAL SERVICE LOYALTY TEST stamped across the top of it.

“Not at all, Empress,” Lia Chiu answered. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

"I was approached with a request to convey to you, from Olivia Pierre." The Empress briefly paused to gauge their reactions before continuing. "She has requested our help in conducting an exchange of sorts. She is offering to return to Kerlile in exchange for the release of her sister Camille from your alternative education program. As a side note, I find your alt-ed program fascinating. I am thinking of implementing something similar in Xiomera. Promoting good Imperial values, loyalty, and all that. In any event, Olivia's request is the reason for my call today."

Pauline Pierre was startled. Nirmala Patel was eager. Everyone else was confused. So it was Patel who responded.

“I see she received my email,” Patel said, unable to keep from sounding sinister. “If she would like to return to Kerlile, we can see Camille safely released. As for alt-ed, we would be happy to send you materials, or even advisors on the program!”

"I would be pleased with any information or advisors you can provide. While my goal would not be to copy your program, your extensive experience would undoubtedly be of great educational value to our Ministry of Loyalty and Ministry of Information. As to Camille, I am curious. Would she be free to travel outside Kerlile if she wished?"

“Camille is thirteen,” Pauline Pierre replied. “She must complete her education in Maytown.”

"There is….a concern there. Olivia has indicated that she would not be willing to turn herself in unless Camille is allowed to essentially trade places with her in Zongongia. She seems to feel that would be safest for Camille." The Empress let the question hang in the air as to why Olivia felt that way.

“Zongongia? Why…” Pauline began, and then groaned. “Carmen. Of course.”

“Like hell are we going to allow a Daughter of the Council to go off to live with a nine-fingered traitor and…” Letitia Greenwood began, when she was interrupted by Hale.

“No, listen,” Hale said, keeping her voice calm. On her lap was, as usual, perched a sleeping four-year-old. Jennifer appeared incapable of letting Amelia out of her sight. “Listen, Carmen Robinson owes Pauline her life, right? So, surely, Pauline’s daughter should be more than safe there. It is the logical option.”

Jennifer, of course, would have preferred that neither Camille nor Olivia were in alt-ed, but that was not an option on the table. She knew both girls, and Camille was not going to last very long in such a place. If Olivia wished to do this, that ought to be her choice.

“Councillor Pierre,” Chiu said, turning to Pauline. “This is your decision alone, as Camille’s mother. We can agree to release her, certainly; but only you can agree to this Zongongian business.”

Pauline had been sitting, staring into space as she considered all the options. She had finally made up with Olivia, and she did not want to jeopardize that. In truth, she hardly spoke to her youngest. She’d sent her off to the Maytown Academy at the age of three… actually, Camille had probably already met the EUDCA requirement. If this is what Olivia wanted, then it would become a neater solution to the Patel problem.

“Very well, Camille is permitted to reside in Zongongia in the care of Natasha Robinson - not Carmen; but her elder daughter who I believe is significantly more stable than the mother - for the duration of Olivia’s punishment for the Patel Estate affair.”

"Excellent. Our embassy staff in Zongongia will arrange for her transportation back to Kerlile. I am pleased that we were able to work this out." Calhualyana smiled more broadly. "And I am looking forward to the reading material Councillor Patel is sending me."

“I feel like I missed something,” Rosemary Arnott said, still confused.

[Lauchenoiria]

Unknown Location, Kerlile
Monday

“Where are we going?” whispered Councillor Rosemary Arnott as she followed her aunt Claire through the woods.

“It’s better you don’t know,” Claire replied.

“Do you really think the Patels are trying to kill me? Are they going to try to kill my mother? If they do, what will happen?” Rosemary couldn’t help asking questions.

“If they kill Rebecca, I expect the Women’s Party will choose the next President; then they will round up reformists and execute them all, and clamp down firmly on dissent. They will probably murder Hale, send assassins to Zongongia for the Robinsons and hunt us down until they find us and torture us to death.”

Rosemary was shocked, and remained silent.

“Stop asking questions,” Claire said.

She did. What else was she supposed to do after that? The worst part was that it was probably all true. Rosemary desperately wanted to flee the country; but Claire had said no. Technically, Rosemary outranked her as a Councillor, but Rosemary still hadn’t learned how to give orders to people older than her.

They emerged to find a tiny wooden cabin. It had clearly been built by hand, by people for whom the construction of buildings was not their primary profession.

“You had two uncles,” Claire said.

“Yeah, I know, the Patels had them executed in 2019,” Rosemary replied.

“Well, this was where we hid them growing up during the inspections.”

“Inspections?”

“Goddess, you’re just a kid,” Claire shook her head. “Before the amendments to Private Property Act, the Council used to enforce EUDCA requirements by inspecting our properties once a year. It was an exception to the Act, but they closed the loophole in 2002.”

“I didn’t know that,” Rosemary said, looking at the makeshift cabin.

“We keep erasing history, and not even teaching it to Councillors,” Claire said, taking out a set of keys and unlocking a rusty padlock on the door. “That way, it dies alongside the people they execute. Of course, with the internet and all, it’s harder now. Their attempt to erase the Robinsons will fail.”

They went inside. It was a single room, sparsely furnished, with no indoor plumbing. “We’re going to be hiding here?” Rosemary asked.

“If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to go beg the Patels for mercy. Of course, you’ve seen what they prefer to do to prisoners, so I wouldn’t bet on them granting it,” Claire said, slinging off her backpack and sitting down on a wooden chair.

Rosemary walked over to one of the two twin beds. She hesitantly touched one. No bugs crawled out, but she wasn’t entirely convinced they weren’t there. She shook her head, backing away from it. “No way,” she said. “No way.”

“It’s this or being tortured to death by Yamunda,” Claire said, opening a packet and holding something out. “Biscuit?”

Rosemary looked at her aunt for a minute, and then bolted out of the door, running into the woods. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. Was this all some kind of prank her family was playing on her?

She stopped when she reached a stream, uncertain. No, of course it wasn’t. That’s what that Lauchenoirian, the one the Xiomerans kidnapped, had said. She followed him on social media; she had a morbid fascination with foreign conspiracy theorists. To find people to follow she literally just searched “secret Aurora” and there were plenty. Anyway, this was in all likelihood real.

“Hey,” Claire said, having approached her from behind. “Look, I’m probably being too blunt. I’m sorry, okay? I forget some of you have had it too easy… no, that’s rude. Some people have had… different life experiences.”

“You’ve fought in, what? Three actual wars?” Rosemary asked. “I don’t know how to do this, I just want to run away. Please can we just run?”

“I only caught the tail end of the Civil War,” Claire replied, taking Rosemary’s arm and guiding her back to the cabin. “But by that point, DKS had become more extreme in their tactics. You might be tempted to believe that the whole thing about them being terrorists was just propaganda, and at first it was. But as time went on, their commanders became increasingly desperate… here, sit down.”

They’d made it back to the cabin, and Claire took off Rosemary’s backpack, guiding her into the wooden chair. Claire then sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

“Where was I? Ah yes, the civil war. By 1997, when I joined the military as a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old, everyone in DKS knew what happened if they got taken prisoner, and so most of them would fight to the death. They also stopped taking prisoners themselves; they’d shoot people who tried to surrender.”

“I thought that was just propaganda,” Rosemary said.

“I witnessed it. I’d be dead myself, but I was lucky,” Claire said. “Now, that’s not to say that DKS’s aims weren’t noble; they were. But some of their tactics were just as bad as the other side. By the end of the war, they cared even less about civilian casualties than the government’s side. The way they saw it was that either you were with them, or against them, and if you were against them you deserved death. Even if you were a small kid.”

“I know there were some DKS attacks where kids died, but surely that was just an accident?” Rosemary asked.

“Your grandmother was due to visit a school; she had to change her plans last minute. DKS put a bomb in the school; on a timer. They didn’t disarm it or warn anyone when the plans changed. And they used child soldiers, of course: some went to them of their own accord, which is not great, but not quite as bad. But there were absolutely kids who were forced as well: I saw some myself.”

“What…” Rosemary didn’t finish her question. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“What happened to them? Depends how old they were. Anyone over fourteen ended up the same as the adults, though not the whole finger thing. Boys over, what was it? Eight, I think, suffered the same fate. Girls between eight and thirteen got assessed, like the alt-ed test. The under eights were let go.”

“So, they locked up and tortured eight-year-old boys, yet you expect me to see DKS as the villains?” Rosemary said.

“I expect you to see both sides as the villains,” Claire replied. “I expect you to look at war as something to be avoided where possible. Oh, I know, you wouldn’t expect this coming from me. But trust me, I have seen three wars, and I do not want to see any more.”

“What was worse, Lauchenoiria or Xiomera?” Rosemary asked.

“Lauchenoiria, by far. By the time of the Xiomeran civil war, the reformists were in power and we were behaving ourselves. In Lauchenoiria, things were bad. I’ve never tolerated war crimes under my direct command, but our forces were split, and…” Claire sighed. “Here’s the thing. Every time I would say something like ‘don’t torture prisoners’ people thought I was just ensuring plausible deniability, and that I never meant it. Also, Anita Patel liked to overrule me. It was not an easy position to be in.”

The pair remained silent for a while, contemplating how messed up Kerlian society was.

*
Patel Household
Today

They’d been in the cabin for several days by the time the Patels put the pieces together. The whole affair with the brothers had slipped their mind, until they started going through the records of every order given by a Patel pertaining to the Arnott family. There they’d found the one about the execution of two males suspected of being the biological brothers of then-Councillor Rebecca Arnott. And suddenly, it all clicked.

Nirmala Patel had noted at that point that Rosemary hadn’t been seen for several days. And they grew even more suspicious. Yamunda had stormed down to her dungeon, murdered a few people, and then managed to calm down slightly. The two people she murdered were, in fact, relieved. The alternative to death, for them, was worse.

“What do we do?” Yamunda growled.

“We find Rosemary,” Nirmala replied.

“And then we kill her, slowly and painfully. What about Rebecca?”

“We can’t outright kill her. We will just have to ensure she is removed from power. I have several ideas; I need to develop them, though.”

“Are there any other Arnotts we can go after?” Yamunda said. She didn’t know where Rosemary was, and she wanted someone she could torture now.

“Uh, there’s the sister in the military, and I think she’s got some daughters, but I honestly don’t remember,” Nirmala shook her head.

“We need to deal with these reformist families,” Yamunda sighed. “The Robinsons should not be alive. Nor should Hale. Nor should the Arnotts. I’ll forgive Georgiou, because she’s only pro-reform so she can buy stupid foreign art.”

“We can’t just wipe out three whole families.”

“Oh really?” Yamunda raised an eyebrow. “Time was when we could wipe out six, and nobody would even remember.”

“Yeah, in 1934, before the internet, and CCTV cameras, and foreign journalists on the streets of Grapevale,” Nirmala pointed out.

“Okay, we can’t do it openly,” Yamunda conceded. “Doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

The pair looked at each other for a few moments. Then Nirmala shook her head. “Fantasies. Focus on finding Rosemary for now.”

Yamunda eyed her sister for a minute, then sighed and left the room. Nirmala spent too much time ensuring her conduct was respectable. She did not have the guts to do what needed to be done. Of course, that’s why they were the perfect pair. Nirmala was the face, who would go to Council meetings and sound reasonable. And Yamunda would be in the shadows, disposing of their enemies.

[Lauchenoiria]

Royal Palace, Zongongia

When Camille Pierre was handed to Natasha Robinson, she burst into tears with relief, and then immediately asked for food. She’d been deprived of it for days. The eighteen-year-old Natasha took her back to the Robinsons’ suite of the Palace where Camille ate everything in the room and then went with 11-year-old Imogen to the kitchens where, according to reports, they ate everything in a whole cupboard.

Xia Chiu hid in her own room when Camille arrived, feeling too guilty about her own failure to protect her own daughter. Her pregnancy meant she couldn’t afford the cruelties of Kerlian prisons, however. The adult facility for women aged 25+ was not a kind place. Olivia had known that when she’d agreed to give herself up, but Olivia wasn’t pregnant – she’d checked before she went. Negative, again.

*

Grapevale Adult Alternative Education Centre, Kerlile

Olivia made the mistake of attempting to joke with her new jailors. They beat her for it; and when she arrived she was covered in bruises as well as having her hand still bandaged for the bullet wound from a few weeks ago.

The mood was dreary, with most of the other women looking half dead. It was like a scene from a zombie movie. Olivia had been prepared for this, however. The only people over the age of twenty-five in Kerlile who got sent to Alt-Ed rather than regular prison were those who seemed ‘sufficiently remorseful’.

This was a collection of women who were already extremely broken. Most of them had been dissidents once upon a time; now so hopeless that they walked through the world like ghosts. It wasn’t even that the Centre itself was particularly cruel; the beatings were only for those who did not cooperate. But most people sent to adult Alt-Ed had been somewhere else beforehand. Somewhere much worse.

Olivia shivered. Still, better her than Camille.

*

Grapevale Young Adult Alternative Education Facility
(aka: the building next door)

Carolyn Greenwood had a new cellmate. Cass had apparently bitten a guard and been transferred to a regular prison… for 20 years. Good, thought Carolyn. The new girl was much more remorseful for her treason. She was a sixteen-year-old whose mother had been involved in a banned democracy group on the red list (association with a known member is a crime), and who had failed to report her mother to the police.

“I know what she did was wrong,” the girl told Carolyn. “When the police came by the house, I told them everything – I just didn’t, well, I didn’t want to be the one to report her! So, they sent me here – the others all got life sentences.”

“Regretting your crimes is the first step to becoming a renewed loyal Kerlian,” Carolyn replied. “That’s why we’re here.”

She, Carolyn, had decided that she did indeed deserve to be here. Who was she to question Councillor Patel on whether or not her niece should be tortured in the basement? The Council always knows best; and she had apparently forgotten that. Given this was the place one sent Kerlians who had forgotten such things, it was evidently the correct place for her. Her distaste for being around these people was merely part of the punishment. Suffering deters further treason.

*

Iletina Girls Junior Alternative Education Centre

After Jia Chiu worked out that she was probably doomed to be here for at least a couple of years, she resigned herself to that fact and settled into the daily routine. The dead-inside eight-year-olds had all been released, and had been replaced with a livelier bunch, who had been taken from one of the ‘democracy cults’ that hid in the woods and lived off-grid. They were constantly being punished, and seemed to enjoy winding up the teachers, which gave Jia the place of star pupil without any effort on her part.

She’d also taken to sitting at lunch with the other girls who believed they were here due to the actions of their parents. One of them had figured out who she was after she mentioned the Robinsons, but fortunately unlike the teenagers, the younger girls thought it was ‘cool’ and she became a bit of a celebrity. Her presence here had convinced several of them that if the Council would send one of their own, nothing they possibly did could have prevented this, and the inevitability made it a little easier to bear.

The kids from the ‘democracy cult’ (or ‘cooperative commune’ as the kids themselves called it) really distracted the staff from everyone else. One of the girls in Jia’s class told her that when their parents were being dragged off they’d instructed the kids to ‘raise hell’ and that was what they were determined to do. Jia made friends with them too and ended up being given the belt or sent to write lines far more often than she’d have liked.

She didn’t care that much any longer, though. This was much more entertaining than the Maytown Academy, the other girls were actually interesting and cool, rather than a stuck-up set of her own upper-class cousins with a few other Council families’ daughters thrown in there as well. At the Academy, over half her class was named Chiu, and 90% of her class were no fun to be around. All she had to do was survive a couple years.