His face was neither old nor young, neither quite male nor female, as was the case with those who’d taken many endowments of glamour from persons of both sexes. Yet he was beautiful, so cruelly beautiful that Iome’s heart ached to look into his black eyes. His was a face to worship, a face to die for. His head weaved from side to side, minutely, as will happen with those who have many endowments of metabolism.

“Sylvarresta,” he said from his horse, omitting any title, “is it not customary to bow to your lord?”

The power of Raj Ahten’s Voice was so great that Iome felt almost as if her legs had been kicked out from under her. She could not control herself, and fell down to give her oblations, though a voice in the back of her head whispered, Kill him, before he kills you.

Iome’s father fell to one knee, too, and cried out. “Pardon me, my lord. Welcome, to Castle Sylvarresta.”

“It is now called Castle Ahten,” Raj Ahten corrected.

Behind Iome, there was a clanking of metal as the keep’s guards brought a gleaming lantern from the guardroom.

Raj Ahten stared at them a moment, firelight reflecting from his eyes, then dismounted his horse, jumping lightly to the ground. He walked up to Sylvarresta.

He was a tall man, this Wolf Lord, half a head taller than Iome’s father, and she had always thought her father to be a big man.

In that moment, Iome felt terrified. She didn’t know what to expect. Raj Ahten could sweep out his short sword in a blur, decapitate them both. She wouldn’t even have time to flinch.

One could not anticipate this man. He’d conquered all the Southern kingdoms around Indhopal in the past few years, growing in power at a tremendous speed. He could be magnanimous in his kindness, inhuman in his cruelty.

It was said that when the Sultan of Aven got cornered in his winter palace at Shemnarvalla, Raj Ahten responded by capturing his wives and children at their summer home, and threatened to catapult the Sultan’s sons over the palace walls. The Sultan responded by standing on the castle walls, grasping his groin, and calling out, “Go ahead, I have a hammer and anvils to make better sons!” The Sultan had many sons, and it was said that on that night, as each was set aflame, the cries were horrifying, for Raj Ahten waited until the child’s cries died before he sent the flaming body over the castle walls. Though the Sultan would not surrender, his own guards could not bear to hear the cries, and so his men opened the gates. When Raj Ahten entered, he took the Sultan, determined to make an example of him. What happened next, Iome could not say. Such things were never discussed in civilized countries.