A Rose Point Holiday Read online

  “Well, if that’s all you’re worried about, I’m sure we can interest you in some investment opportunities,” Reese said, grinning.

  “Or there’s always charitable donations!” Irine added. “We are doing that, aren’t we?”

  “I’m not sure we can do tax deduction without taxes,” Reese said dryly.

  “Investment,” Liral murmured. “So I earn my money and then….”

  “I put in front of you a selection of projects that need money,” Reese said. “You choose one to help fund, and then you get a portion of its profits.”

  “If it is profitable,” Hirianthial said. “If it is not, then we will arrange some other benefit, I am certain.”

  “Founders’ Stones for Eldritch!” Irine crowed.

  “Would work,” Hirianthial said. “We are a people who value symbols.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Reese said. “So… if you’re interested in making the gift of a financial partnership between us, Liral-alet, I’m happy to accept.”

  “Oh, yes! I am ready to have choices,” Liral said. “Thank you, my lady. I assume I am to arrive tomorrow, like Sela and Talthien and Shoran?”

  “You and everyone else who wants a job, or wants to learn to do a new one,” Reese said. “I’ve got plenty of opportunities, if there are people willing to throw their shoulders into them.”

  “Then perhaps you should send the charabancs back for us tomorrow,” Liral said. “I suspect you will need them.”

  “If it’s going to be that big a group, we might as well put a Pad down there,” Taylor said. “Reese?”

  “Pads don’t grow on trees,” Reese said. “We’ll talk about it later.” She looked at her tenants. “Is that everyone? Because if so, the New Year’s Feast is waiting for us….”

  She was hoping that Talthien’s mother would say something, but it was obvious no such speech was forthcoming. That would have been a little too much to ask for, apparently. Reese smiled a little and said, “Then let’s go eat!”

  The Pelted cheered and began to stream up the stairs to the great hall. Reese stood out of their way, watching her Eldritch hires from Ontine follow at a more sedate pace. Her tenants moved up the steps last, but they went as a single body, and there was discussion there—some of it agitated, but a lot of it excited, so she guessed that worked out about as well as she could have hoped.

  Talthien’s mother was lagging behind the group. Watching her, Reese remembered how often people had had to approach her before she let them in. How many times had her crew been rebuffed before their efforts started to knock enough holes in her walls to let the light in? As the woman climbed the stairs past her, Reese said, “Alet. Thanks.”

  The woman stopped, revealing nothing: just that smooth Eldritch mask, and nothing but a chill formality in her eyes and bearing. “I beg your pardon, lady. I don’t know what for.”

  “For coming,” Reese said. “And for letting them come. I know they look to you for leadership.”

  “I had nothing to do with this,” the woman said. “Your gratitude belongs elsewhere.” She curtseyed and vanished with the rest of the tenants into the great hall, leaving the courtyard emptied of everyone but Reese, the twins, Araelis, Hirianthial, and the Queen.

  “Wow,” Irine said, brows arched. “Did she just dismiss herself? I didn’t think Eldritch were allowed to do that from their ladies.”

  “Eldritch,” Liolesa said, “can do whatever they please, Irine. Whether other Eldritch find their behavior pardonable… that is a different matter.”

  Reese winced and turned to face the Queen. “I’m not going to punish a woman for not liking me.”

  “That would be premature,” Liolesa agreed. “She’s hardly had any time to get to know you, after all!”

  “With my sunny personality,” Reese muttered.

  Irine hugged her, purring. “It’s a lot better now that you’re not closed up like a…”

  “This metaphor had better end well.”

  “Like a seed in need of flowering?” Irine offered.

  Reese covered her face with a hand. “Ugh, Irine! I am not a plant.”

  “Fine,” Irine said. “Like a fort in need of opening.”

  “I’m not sure that’s an improvement,” Reese said. Looking at the courtyard and the distant walls, she finished, “But then, maybe it works.”

  It was very quiet now, with all the people gone inside. Eerily so: Reese hadn’t understood the ubiquity of the bustle until now. While the sun was up, there were people working in the courtyard, helping to erect the new buildings or repair and update the old ones, or in the garden, weeding, cutting, dragging away detritus. That was Rose Point to her: that industry.

  But this… this was Rose Point too. She appreciated the ability to see the bones of it, feel the history of it seeping into her with the cold. If this fusion was to be sustained, that was exactly what it had to be: a fusion. And behind her, that group now in the hall amid the mounded trays and platters, the decorations, the heated floor tiles alongside the lit hearth… they were the ones who were going to help her make it happen.

  Reese inhaled and let it go. “I guess it can’t all go exactly right on the first try.”

  “You are doing good work,” Liolesa said. “Your senior seal servant is a sign of it.”

  “How’s that?” Reese asked, eyeing her.

  The Queen was playing with the sliding puzzle the crew had given her during the Vigil, her fingers moving with an absent, lazy grace. Reese hadn’t noticed that she’d hung it like an ornament from her skirts, probably because the silver metal reflected the dark blue fabric. “A woman who stands for her principles will always have opponents. It’s how you know you’re doing it right.”

  The informality startled a laugh out of Reese. “So, as long as I’m offending someone I’m good?”

  “It would be a kind world if we could proceed through it without distressing or agitating anyone,” Liolesa said. “A beautiful world, and I know many well-meaning folk who bring much evil into the world by believing we already live in it. But we don’t. And so to survive, we must bear a sword as well as the lily of peace. Which brings me to one last bit of business, and here you all are to receive it.”

  “Oh?” Hirianthial asked. “What are you about, cousin?”

  “The worlds need names, as I recall.”

  “Oh, good,” Araelis said. “I am saved from colonizing Planet Buttercup, or That Other World. Do tell, Liolesa.”

  “Your Planet Buttercup shall be known as Chalice,” Liolesa said. “I expect it to overflow with the Goddess’s gifts, Araelis, so work hard to live up to the name, ah?”

  Araelis snorted. “Ensuring that bounty will be the duty of your appointed viceroy but… yes.” She rested a hand on her belly. “Chalice. That is an auspicious name.”

  “But what about this world?” Sascha said. “The one under our feet.”

  “This world,” Liolesa said, her voice hard as warship battlesteel, “is Escutcheon. Let our enemies brave it if they dare, for they will find a strong arm beneath it.”

  “Ah,” Araelis said, profoundly satisfied. “Perfect.”

  “It is perfect,” Hirianthial murmured. “But I will always think of it as home.”

  “That’s as it should be,” Liolesa said. “It is yours also,” she added to Reese.

  “Yes,” Reese said, feeling it. “But… a good home is a shield, isn’t it? From the harsh world you were talking about, the one we wish we didn’t have to deal with.”

  “It should be, yes,” Liolesa said. “And ours shall be, if I have any say in the matter.”

  “That should take care of it entire, then,” Araelis said. “For if this moment now is not proof that you have a sure hand on the reins, Liolesa, then no proof will suffice. And that means I am for that feast, because all is in good hands. With permission.” She curtseyed and headed up the stairs, heels clicking on the stone.

  “Food does sound good,” Sascha murmured.

 
“Go!” Reese said. “I’ll be there in a few.” She waited until the twins made it to the doors before folding her arms and turning to the Queen. “One more thing, my lady, as long as I have you here.”

  “It’s Liolesa, Theresa.”

  “No,” Reese said firmly. “Right now, it’s ‘my lady.’ Because Felith tells me that this man here,” pointing with a thumb over her shoulder at Hirianthial, “is now your heir. When I met him he said he wasn’t in the direct line for the throne.”

  “That was before I lost Bethsaida,” Liolesa said mildly. “The other choices right now are less than palatable, so for now he must serve.”

  “Can you make that ‘for now’ over really quickly?” Reese said. “I do not want your problems. No offense.”

  Liolesa laughed. “Never fear, my vassal. I already have a new heir selected. I need only groom her for the position first.”

  “And tell her she’s in it?” Hirianthial asked, amused. “I know how you work, cousin.”

  “If she hasn’t realized what I’m doing, she’s not the right woman for the job,” Liolesa said. “Never fear, Hiran. I know what I’m about.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he murmured.

  “Sooner rather than later,” Reese added.

  “As you say,” Liolesa said, eyes gleaming. “I would hardly want to saddle my cousin with an unwanted crown, no matter how attractive it would look on his head. And now I shall flee before I suffer the inevitable reprimand.” She grinned, a dazzling expression that lit her eyes, and then left them to head for the top of the steps.

  “She’s crazy,” Reese muttered. “And brilliant.”

  “And funny,” Hirianthial offered, which was such an absurd observation—and true—that Reese started laughing. That laugh lasted until she realized that her eyes had been following the motion at Liolesa’s side: her fingers… which were solving the little sliding puzzle and shaking it back into disorder, and then solving it again.

  …had she been doing that the entire time they’d been chatting?

  “Blood and Freedom,” Reese said softly, wide-eyed.

  Hirianthial nodded. “You understand now, my Courage.”

  “Not even the littlest bit,” Reese said. “But hell. In for a penny….”

  Hirianthial laughed and ran a hand up her sleeve to rest lightly on her upper arm. “Your New Year’s Feast awaits, lady.”

  “Happy New Year?” she offered, hoping for Kiss Number… “Wait, did we reset the counter?”

  He paused as he bent toward her to compose himself, but even then she could tell he was smiling when she got Kiss Number Six. Or Number Fifty-six. Or… well, whatever it was, it was glorious and when it was over she was shivering and it had nothing to do with the cold. So when he parted just enough to add, “And to think, all of this has been wondrous practice for organizing our wedding,” she didn’t hear the words for a moment.

  Then: “Hirianthial!”

  He laughed. “Come, my Courage. You need wine.”

  “I didn’t a minute ago, but I do now!”

  Together they went up the steps and into the warm golden hall, and behind them the first flakes of snow began to fall.

  Dear Readers:

  Did I expect to write a holiday novel? Particularly one set in the middle of the epilogue of a completed trilogy? No, no, I did not. I planned to write a holiday short story about Reese, because Christmas is my favorite time of year and I love holiday stories. So I embarked on this enterprise, and it got longer, and longer, and this is when I realized I was at work on a bridge between Her Instruments and the series that will follow Princes’ Game, the series describing the Chatcaavan War that begins with Even the Wingless.

  There is no extricating the future of the Eldritch from the cast of characters on the stage now. Lisinthir and his dragons from Princes’ Game, Jahir and Vasiht’h from Dreamhealers, and Reese and her people in Her Instruments are all building What Comes Next for this sector of the Pelted Alliance, and inevitably the seeds seem small when they’re planted. Like a couple of telepathic dogs, or the gift of a single patch of meander to a new—human—liegelady.

  That only partially explains A Rose Point Holiday, though. The rest of the explanation is that I started serializing this story online when I thought it would be a few thousand words long for the delight of the readers following me on social media. I thought it was an indulgent piece of fluff, but every time I posted, everyone piled in to talk about it. Scenes I thought would interest only me turned out to be just as meaningful to those readers, and I loved watching old hands explain some of the in-jokes from the series to new people just starting. The entire experience was a reminder that we’d taken this journey together, and we all felt we deserved a little indulgence at its end.

  The truth about A Rose Point Holiday is that I wrote it as a gift. For you all, who’ve made this series my most successful. And for future-us, because it gives us so many storylines to follow in the future.

  Happy Holidays, ariisen.

  -M

  Do you want to read more set in the Peltedverse?

  As I mentioned in the afterword, there are several series and interlocking storylines set in the universe of the Pelted. Most of these involve the long lead-up to the conflict with the Chatcaava, which Reese and Hirianthial were—believe it or not!—only indirectly involved in. Many other Eldritch are also involved with the Pelted; one of them, referenced in this series as the "heir to the Seni who made one of the Glaseah family," is the star of another, more pastoral series, the Dreamhealers saga, which begins on the campus of a Pelted university with the novel Mindtouch. If coming-of-age college novels that flirt with asexual romance/eternal friendship themes are your speed, you'll enjoy Jahir and Vasiht'h. Or, if you prefer short fiction, you can take a side-tour and pick up my collection of Pelted short fiction, Claws and Starships.

  For those of you who want darker fare, Even the Wingless goes straight into the Chatcaavan Empire itself to show us the iniquity that the Alliance will be facing, and pits Lisinthir Nase Galare, an Eldritch ambassador, against an entire court of torturers and sociopaths. It is a tense, bloody, and violent book, and sets up the events that will affect the course of intergalactic history. It is, however, full of triggers; readers, beware! Even the Wingless is only the first in the Princes' Game series, which will intertwine many of the plotlines from disparate novels as we discover what's in store for the Alliance, the Eldritch, and all their allies, new and old.

  I also write other novels; if you want to try some fantasy, romance, or military science fiction, please drop by my website and have a look at what I have to offer! Or if you prefer, sign up for my newsletter to be alerted when new books arrive!

  -M

  The Alliance is mostly composed of the Pelted, a group of races that segregated and colonized worlds based (more or less) on their visual characteristics. Having been engineered from a mélange of uplifted animals, it’s not technically correct to refer to any of them as “cats” or “wolves,” since any one individual might have as many as six or seven genetic contributors: thus the monikers like “foxine” and “tigraine” rather than “vulpine” or “tiger.” However, even the Pelted think of themselves in groupings of general animal characteristics, so for the ease of imagining them, I’ve separated them that way.

  The Pelted

  The Quasi-Felids: The Karaka’An, Asanii, and Harat-Shar comprise the most cat-like of the Pelted, with the Karaka’An being the shortest and digitigrade, the Asanii being taller and plantigrade, and the Harat-Shar including either sort but being based on the great cats rather than the domesticated variants.

  The Quasi-Canids: The Seersa, Tam-illee, and Hinichi are the most doggish of the Pelted, with the Seersa being short and digitigrade and foxish, the Tam-illee taller, plantigrade and also foxish, and the Hinichi being wolflike.

  Others: Less easily categorized are the Aera, with long, hare-like ears, winged feet and foxish faces, the felid Malarai with their feathered wings, and the
Phoenix, tall bipedal avians.

  The Centauroids: Of the Pelted, two species are centauroid in configuration, the short Glaseah, furred and with lower bodies like lions but coloration like skunks and leathery wings on their lower backs, and the tall Ciracaana, who have foxish faces but long-legged cat-like bodies.

  Aquatics: One Pelted race was engineered for aquatic environments: the Naysha, who look like mermaids would if mermaids had sleek, hairless, slightly rodent-like faces and the lower bodies of dolphins.

  Other Species

  Humanoids: Humanity fills this niche, along with their estranged cousins, the esper-race Eldritch.

  True Aliens: Of the true aliens, four are known: the shapeshifting Chatcaava, whose natural form is draconic (though they are mammals); the gentle heavyworlder Faulfenza, who are furred and generally regarded to be attractive; the aquatic Platies, who look like colorful flatworms and can communicate reliably only with the Naysha, and the enigmatic Flitzbe, who are quasi-vegetative and resemble softly furred volleyballs that change color depending on their mood.

  Daughter of two Cuban political exiles, M.C.A. Hogarth was born a foreigner in the American melting pot and has had a fascination for the gaps in cultures and the bridges that span them ever since. She has been many things—web database architect, product manager, technical writer and massage therapist—but is currently a full-time parent, artist, writer and anthropologist to aliens, both human and otherwise. She is the author of over 50 titles in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, humor and romance.

  The Her Instruments series is only one of the many stories set in the Paradox Pelted universe; more information is available on the author’s website. You can also sign up for the author’s quarterly newsletter to be notified of new releases.

  If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review… or telling a friend!