5. Personal Guard

The next time Enra searched Chonib’s lonely light in the night, he wore a medaillon for saving Otto’s life. And he received a slap in the face.

“What in Somnia’s name were you thinking?” yelled Chonib.

“I saved your life,” Enra said with his paws raised.

“After endangering it first! Do you realize for how long I had to talk to Otto, to convince him that you were actually there to save us all along?”

In her frustration, Chonib added thick black strokes to her painting. Her moon painting had failed tonight and she didn’t feel like trying again.

“Without Otto I am nothing,” she said. “He protects me, feeds me. All other palace members think him insane for listening to the advice of a female bear! If you’d killed him that night …”

Enra’s back leaned against the wall and slid down.

“I am sorry.”

Chonib sighed. She put her painting away and sat down next to him, looking out over a faintly pink moon.

“What if you succeeded?” she whispered. “The Devirma would have taken over the empire, with you at their head?”

“Back home. Back to my family, if they still live. Let this empire fall apart.”

She placed her head on his shoulder. “There is really no reason that would make you want to stay?”

Enra wanted to snuggle against Chonib. Stroke her whiskers and fall asleep in her arms—but instead he forced himself upright, stiff and emotionless. All eyes on revenge.

“You see what happens. Thanks to me, many Devirma are dead or captured. Otto has become more strict and abuses the new Devirma even more.”

He’d learned that the army was far bigger than he thought. The Devirma that joined in his revolution were only one percent at most. Otto’s system wasn’t useless after all, for the majority were loyal to Ottojon now and nothing else. The only rebels that kept their desire for their real home had now been crushed, thanks to him.

Enra shook his head.

“No. I’m better off alone.”

“You were not made for that,” Chonib replied immediately.

“You barely know me,” said Enra, sharped than intended. He glowed again, almost as if he had a candle inside him, which only ever happened with her.

“I know you better than yourself,” she said with a crooked smile. Her warm head left his shoulder and she sat down before him. “You never wondered what your magic is? You being the child of a demigoddess and another person with a magical walking cane?”

“Be maximally unfortunate? Have a terrible life? Is that a magical power?”

Chonib glowed herself as she told him the truth.

“You, Enra, must be the Demigod of the Sun.”

“What?” He studied his paws. They glowed even more brightly and lit up the entire room. Chonib snuggled up against him and enjoyed the immense warmth he radiated now. “What … and what then?”

“I found you!” she said. “That was my duty, always has been. The Moon and the Sun need each other. We belong together.”

“You mean to say—”

Enra grabbed her paws. She glowed too, but with a colder blue-purple light, just like the moon. She almost seemed to draw warmth away from him, as if she couldn’t keep herself warm and truly … needed him.

Everything fell in place. How Chonib could read the Moon and actually predict futures, which was completely illogical and impossible otherwise. Why she wanted to make a beautiful painting of the Moon every night. Why she put designs of a crescent moon in everything she made or bought.

And then Ottojon’s prowess on the oceans! The gravity of the moon was partially responsible for eb and flood—something she could read and control. That’s why their ships could navigate through storms, and at night, without fault.

Chonib nodded as if she could read his thoughts and confirmed them all.

“I am the Demigod of the Moon.”

“You … you’re the reason the Empire of Otto is able to conquer almost the entire world,” Enra said breathlessly. “Why? Why help such a tyrant?”

“You really don’t understand?”

She bit her lip and leaned forward.

Enra received his very first kiss.

He enjoyed it for as long as he permitted himself. Until the moment he felt like he betrayed home, like he should not be distracted from his revenge quest. Then he stood up and ran out of the room, mumbling excuses.

As Otto’s personal guard, Enra was now required to attend most meetings. Otto knew he had nothing to fear from his own folk—but everything to fear from his family and army—which meant the meetings took place outside. No, his folk only saw a great leader that had brought them riches, food and peace for centuries now.

And so the royal delegation walked one of the main streets winding through the capital. Surrounded by busy merchants and playing children, they discussed plans for further expansion of the empire.

“We must raise the taxes on trade again,” he said.

“Unwise,” said his accountant. “All neighbor empires already complain that we ask too much money for every ship that sails through our waters.”

Otto’s face darkened. “Hmm. Then let’s see how they like it if they can’t sail our oceans at all.”

The accountant lost his glasses. “Is that a formal order, my supreme sultan? Is that not—”

“We’ve been too kind. Each day, endless columns of camels arrive from Kina to carry goods through our empire. They even call this lucrative trade The Silk Road. And if they can’t get their goods that way, they’ll try it overseas, near Floria. But we own all those territories.”

Otto slowed his step before a beautiful mosque. He smiled contently, staring into the sun.

“So cut them off. Forbid all foreign trade through our territories. Within a year, they’ll be starving and without weapons—and we will conquer them all with ease.”

“They’ll attack our borders in rage,” his highest commander spoke harshly. “They have nothing to lose.”

He was accompanied by the rhino from Enra’s Devirma group, who, in a stroke of luck, had also given them the impression he was Enra’s best friend and also tried to save Otto that evening. They weren’t best friends then—now they were.

“And they also have nothing to win against superiority,” Otto responded curtly.

The accountant sighed and wrote down the order.

The mosque had white walls and a shining blue dome. All windows and doors were decorated with pretty patterns of interlocking circles, squares, diamonds. It was an invitation, taller than a Giant tree, to enjoy life.

The streets were filled with a variety of trees and shrubs, carefully curated to stay colorful all year. In their shadow, a singer, poet or acrobat often stood. They gave their performances a new impulse whenever Otto passed by; he thanked them with a smile and some coins in their basket.

Several playing lambs nearly bumped into their sultan. Shortly after, they jumped into a shared fountain and splashed the entire group wet. Their parents were terrified, but Otto let it happen and mumbled he was thirsty anyway.

He looked at Chonib.

“Even in this, my little moon, you were right. Is this not what civilization is supposed to be? Is Ottojon not the most beautiful empire in the world?”

“Yes, my sultan.”

She meant it. Enra knew her well enough to know when her smile was genuine.

They had everything they could ever want. Crime was negligible. New animals wanted to migrate to the empire? Otto would pay for five new cities, containing architecture to rival the work of the old Bearchitects and the most modern science applied to sewers and construction.

These days, Enra didn’t wish he could return to his family—he wished he could bring his parents here. Maybe they already shared in the empire’s wealth, for Ottojon now held two entire continents.

The Tamli kings, though, remained undefeated.

Enra slowly discovered his powers. He could stare into the sun for hours without pain or going blind, for example. Not very useful, but still a power.

At sunset they returned to the palace. Otto’s snake face hissed a bit more seriously.

“I know one of you relays our plans to the princes. Stop it. If I discover that you knew who wanted me dead all this time, but never told me, you won’t be telling anyone anything much longer.”

“With all due respect,” said his shivering accountant. “Since you removed all … usual laws, they’re not princes anymore but simply your sons. They have no power now. We are still waiting for your declaration about who will be the next sultan when you die.”

Enra was less optimistic. Nearly every month, a new threat on Otto’s life was caught just in time by the army—to Enra’s frustration. And each time, the perpetrator was an angry son or daughter who now suddenly saw their future dripping down the drain. Now they’d have to work for their own money! And they didn’t automatically get their father’s lands!

With the question of Otto’s successor in everyone’s minds, they went their own way.

Enra and Chonib stayed behind in the final sunray, which shone, not so accidentally, precisely on them.

“Otto has given me a crucial task,” she said. “I ask you to travel with me.”

Enra made the sunray disappear.

“All the other countries depended on Otto’s ships and the trade he allowed for centuries,” he said. “Because they thought collaboration was good … Otto is now able to cut them all off and let those animals starve to death. He’s still a monster that must be stopped. So no, Demigoddess of the Moon, I am better off alone.”

“And what if I gave you the chance to flee back to your family?”