It was sometime in spring, and our patrol was close to the western border of the forest, investigating a natural disaster. It was not as exciting as it sounds: a storm had swept through the area and knocked down a few trees. By the time we got there, there was a couple of new logs on the forest floor and a small gap in the leaves above them, through which you could see the stars if you stood in the right place. It almost looked more like something had fallen through the canopy than a windstorm, but few of us had the experience with either such thing to remark on it.

Then there was Sus'syri.

Though she seemed an akor’mar to us at first scent, she was a stranger, and so we were not kind to her. She was clapped in a slave’s shackles and warned she would be slain if she attempted escape.

She was compliant enough, if disdainful. As we traveled through the forest back to our base camp, each evening a different officer would come and interrogate her. She stuck to the same story each time, so I recall, about being part of some other patrol that got waylaid by wild nekru. Finally, the security loosened, and she was free to wander among as she would.

Yet she was still a female. The officers were worried and for good reason.

As their suspicions fell away, the others began to yearn after her. Though she could be imperious when she wanted to be, there was something just a bit off in her scent and tone; she clearly wasn’t an Althrasian, and so effectively was for the taking of whatever Seeker could win her. The others would fight over her—people who got along perfectly well for years were suddenly at each others’ throats with knives. You’d have thought we were all a bunch of bucks during mating season by the way we acted.

Yet Sus'syri was aloof to it all. The rule was that only one soldier could enter her tent at a time, ensuring her safety, though no one could remember any officer ever giving that order. It was just as well for her, as I’m sure you can imagine. Those who went in stumbled out within hours, and suddenly so disinterested in the pursuit that I suspect they were enchanted. When I spoke to them about it, they said she had only asked them about boring things, like how old they were or what their lineage was. Then, without fail, she would turn each of them out, with such abruptness many of the stronger Seekers took offense, and yet, none of them ever acted upon their bruised pride.

By and by, it was my turn to be invited into her tent. I was wary of her, though I was surely as fascinated by her as any of the others. As the others had claimed, she only wanted to talk. She asked me about the forest, everything I had seen and heard -- and I saw and heard a lot, so this took some time. She was also interested in Vuzsdin, but not in anything practical like where all the good taverns were or who you could pay for a good time. She was more interested in the politics. What was Tymalt’aste doing? How many followers did each god claim? Were either of our rulers set up to start making moves? And what did I think of it all? It never passed through my mind at the time, but it should’ve occurred to me that this was odd. Shouldn’t she know these things herself, if she had been part of a Seeker patrol?

I believe now that the rabid attraction wasn’t all natural, nor the ease I felt in speaking to her. I could have been executed for treason for some of the things I told her, and her, for asking after them. No woman was worth that, even to a Seeker who had yet to earn himself a steady mate. Though most of us were oblivious to it as long as we were within her presence, more of us began to notice the strange holes in her story and the way she behaved. One of my comrades even suggested she was Althra’aste herself, spying on us, and though I doubted that, I did consider if she might be related. She wasn’t just imperious, she was entitled. It was as if she was used to having a royal entourage following her about everywhere she went. She certainly had a measure of Althra’aste’s arrogance. We were Seekers, the elite of the elite, and yet, for all our posing and strutting, she never cared a whit about us or our exploits. We could have been prime livestock for all she cared, and that was just like an Althrasian, even before all the trouble.

Then, on the eve of the day we would return to Vuzsdin, her charm fell away as abruptly as she had appeared, about the same time she stopped asking us questions. When we parted ways at Oldgate -- the ancient entrance into the Reaches above Vuzsdin, now only rubble -- no one was very sorry to see her go. Few even remembered her presence, or the strange way she simply walked out of our custody, back towards the forest instead of into the city.
It wouldn’t be the last time I would ever see her, however.