Hard to be sure...

They say that women age like fine wine, a white lie I had even told Shirya from time to time. I mean, who am I to disparage anyone? And yet this specimen had aged with all of the grace of milk. Crackled skin, repugnant hairs protruding from various blemishes and moles, eyes that had long-since disappeared beneath the craggy cascade of eye bags and crows feet. Though despite the obscurity of age, there was something familiar about the lady. "Tovarich, the King in slumber calls upon the Hand to grasp his Sword."

'Tovarich,' she had known the proper address for a member of the royal guard, "comrade." I had kept my true name a secret for years, for the safety of all involved, simply going by the name "Tovar." I was the former hand of the King, and considering that a singular hand was all that I had left, the title was more or less apt than it had ever been, and with the King slumbering six feet beneath the earth of home, I was hand to no one, and no one had a right to call upon my crippled ass. "Who are you, and what right do you have to call upon my services?" I asked, almost desperately, **** for news of anything, not to disparage the occasional pampering, and **** coitus, but it couldn't compare to the thrills of knighthood.

"My name is Katerina Petrovna, great Aunt of the former Maharani, last and only of a once great bloodline, and one to whom your allegiance is owed." Shirya seemed to shrink into the corner as this declaration was made, realizing that the significance of her ward had been greatly undersold, there was a look of betrayal in her face. A twinge of guilt passed through me, it wasn't a new feeling. I knew who Katerina was, or at least I knew who her niece was, the former (now deceased) crown-princess of my old regime. To make matters worse, she was also correct, if there were any remnants of the old bloodlines, I was beholden to them by oath. I cleared my throat, "Tzarina Petrovna. I am no doubt graced by your presence, and humbled by your worthy visage perceiving all that which is unworthy of the devotion supposed by the crown. But (there is always a but) am I not a broken vessel? I could no further swing a sword than your brother could rise from the dead and command me to heft it. An outer town such as this has undoubtedly seen its fair share of strife from war," I said, casting a meaningful glance to Shirya."But have they not escaped the brunt of new tyranny? Why bring meaningless quests to a dead man in a broken home? Is it your cause to stir the ire of Khalitas in even the outskirts of dwindling civilization?" My tirade was pedantic, but not unwarranted. I felt (and rightly so) helpless, and was scared for the people I had come to care about, not the least of which was my own life, half a life such as it was.

She responded slowly, and methodically, as if she had rehearsed her lines many times before. "You took an oath, tovarich. And to these crown jewels and my blood your oath is bound, by the power of the line of Xander, and Pioter, and Petrova, you shall be beholden to your oath." As she spoke, reverberations rattled the ground and air, striking my chest and emphasizing her words. In them, I discerned the voice of King Xander, and his fathers before him. Echoes of a dead era, and a dying lineage. Though in the midst of the remnants of decay, a fire stirred within me, blossoming from sternum to non-existent limb..._purpose. _Shirya and the woman brought me to the town smithy, who was given a large sum of gold, as well as the jewels from the crown of Katerina's brother. Day and night for seven cycles of the sun and moon, the elder stood and chanted. The smithy, as if guided by otherworldly powers, struck hammer to molten metal. Lifeless limbs of coal and iron were pressed, searing into unwilling flesh. A gem for each, glowing, and pressed into my bewildered personage. As my torment grew to a close, I drifted once more into the dream of the lady with the green and violet eyes.